Day 11

I know I have been MIA for a few days. I'm a back (in my Super Mario voice). Today was weigh-in today at the gym at work as part of the Biggest Loser competition. I am proud to announce I am down 8 pounds, woo hoo! No meat, no dairy, no sweets DOES work. I have 10 more days. I really want to make it to 20 pounds or in the double digits at least. This has been a great start to my continued weight loss journey.

Week #2 / Day 8

I have made it one whole week on the daniel fast. I'm still have dreams about fried chicken and now chocolate has made an appearance. I need to curb the cravings and then I will be good to go.

Since I am still recovering from this cold, I took it slow and easy on Sunday. I didn't eat until about lunch time. Lunch was leftover bean and rice casserole with the most healthiest salad I have ever made in my LIFE. You take a look and tell me what you think.

For dinner I had leftover stir-fry veggies and brown rice. Since I knew I would be ready for a snack not long after, I made my fav roasted potatoes and green bell peppers. I think I have that down back. Cut the potatoes thick and EVOO is the way to go.

Day 7

Woo hoo I made it through an entire week of no meat, dairy, McDonald's sweet tea, Chick-fil-A lemonade or my all-time favorite beverage of choice, ice cold Coca-Cola. Nope I haven't had any of that. Right about now I sure could use a large sweet tea from Mickey D's. That's the craving talking. :-)

Day 7 is almost at an end. Let's see what did we do. I was working today from the house. For breakfast I had the last of the potato and green onion fritata. I will miss that dish. Delicious to eat but holey moley it takes forever to make. Lunch was leftover bean and rice casserole. I've had 3 servings out of that pot and it looks like I haven't made a dent :-)

On to the main event, dinner. I had an inkling for stir-fry vegetables. I picked up a green bell pepper, which is DELISH when it is stir-fried and mushrooms. I must ask my mom if she ate these when she was pregnant with me because i love them in all forms. I will eventually try portabella but they are $$$. I used a recipe from the website for stir-fry veggies with brown rice. My experience with brown rice, start it going before everything else because it takes 45-50 minutes to cook. You start the recipe with sauteeing onions and ginger. This was my first time working with ginger and I've discovered it has a KICK. After the onions are going for about 5 minutes, I add the carrots, green beans, broccoli, mushrooms and bell peppers. The wok is so full it's about to burst. The colors look so good. Like my co-worker told me the other day, I might find my inner chef on the fast. I had pulled out about 2 cups of kale and turnips to go with the rest of the veggies but i could barely get them to cook down so I left them out. Right now I am happy and full.

Day 6

I've been batting with a cold all week. For the last 2 days I've been home sick. Thursday meals were leftovers. Today I decided to make the bean and rice casserole recipe from the Daniel fast website. The preparation was short and sweet. LOVE it! It only required that onions be chopped, no mincing garlic HALLEJUAH!! Cooking from scratch requires you have a patient appetite because it will be awhile before you can eat the final product. The recipe claims it yields 4 servings but you judge for yourself by the picture how may it does. I would double or triple that number. It turned out to be very tasty.

Day 4 dinner

I was inspired by fello faster Tamiko Watts-Brown to sautéed vegetables. Then I realized I do own a wok why don't I stir-fry them. Dinner was stir-fry vegetables, see below

The veggies came out so good. Since I'm hooked on oven baked fries, I made them again, delicious again. I planned to have whole grain angel hair pasta but the water took too long to boil so ate without.

Of course after the other items are done, the pasta is finally ready. Now on to round 2 of dinner with everything. Here is the pic I promised, i almost forgot about it.

Day 3 and the middle of Day 4

Day 3 has come and gone. I totally thought about blogging but never got around to it. It was my comp day from working this upcoming weekend and to add to it I was homesick with the cold. Happy Happy joy joy. when I eventually woke up which was around 10ish I had an hankering for grits. Since I couldn't have them my usual, butter and cheese. I made them plain with only salt. Ironically I was full. A few hours later I decided I wanted to make the corn chips I kept reading about on the daniel fast blog. They turned out pretty good. I will have to post the picture later since it's not showing up on Google +

Later on after I woke up from my afternoon siesta, I had another helping of the red beans and brown rice. I may be "officially" burnt out on that particular dish, 3 days and counting.

After I came home from FPU preview, I decided to stop by Harris Teeter and get a green bell pepper to cook along with the red potatoes. This has to be NEW fav dish. Oven baked vegetables, umm mmm good. The key is to let them cook after you flip them about 2-3 minutes longer, crispy like they were fried.

Day 4 dawned on me. I contemplated calling out but dragged me and my cold into work. As I went about my morning ritual, I packed more red beans and a side salad. The salad I must say was delicious. I wish I had taken a picture. spinach leaves, chopped green bell pepper, chopped carrots, whole almonds and CRAISAINS. Who ever came up with them deserves a raise. I used Paul Newman's oil and vinegar salad dressing, which is very nice and light. Breakfast was leftover potato and green onion fritata, that is quickly becoming another fav but holey moley is takes a lot of preparation.

It's the middle of Day 4. I am not exactly missing meat but I keep having dreams about biting into a fresh piece of fried chicken. I wonder what that it about LOL

Day 2 comes to an end

I came home and made oven baked French fries and green bell peppers. They were delicious. Check out my before and after pictures.

Day 2 is done and I made it through, woo hoo!!

Day 2

It's almost quitting time at work and I am HUNGRY. Note to self, I need to bring more snacks with me to work. I have the ingredients to make corn chips and hummus. That is so what I am going to make when I get home. I just need to pick up some lemons for the hummus. Let me break down my day thus far:

Breakfast: Leftover potato and green onion fritata (tastes great the next day)

Snack: pear (the best I have ever EATEN)

Lunch: Leftover red bean soup and brown ricer (OMG it was so good I almost licked the bowl)

Snack: almonds and red/white grapes

Dinner will probably be a repeat of lunch just because I don't have it in me to cook a meal completely from scratch tonight outside of the corn chips and hummus. Stay tuned.

P.S. I totally forgot to mention I have been living in the restroom. I am on water bottle #4, the bottle holds 24 ounces.

P.S.S. My co-worker almost lost his life when he tempted with bringing in some hot french fries from McDonald's. I decided to spare his life and go home and make some homemade oven fries

Day 1 Meal #2

I've been off and on sleeping all day due to being under weather. I ended up having my lunch as my dinner. Tonight's dinner was red bean soup with brown rice. Once again the prep work took some time. Good thing is it only required 1 tablespoon of minced garlic, woo hoo. Who knew that after putting all the ingredients together it would still be another 90 minutes before I ate because the recipe called for the soup to cook for 1 1/2 hours. It was so worth it. It was delicious. I also made brown rice to eat the soup with. I almost didn't realize I didn't eat any meat today. Day 1 done.

Day 1 Meal 1

I made my first meal on the Daniel Fast, potato and green onion fritata. The prep work was the longest part. The recipe called for 4 cloves of garlic, minced. Dealing with garlic is so time consuming. That really has to be a better way to mince garlic. It took about 10 minutes to mince garlic clove #1. 1 down and 3 to go. I get going on clove #2 and I have decided I am going to only use 2 cloves instead of 4. Chopping onions I have down pact, so that was easy. The fun part was using 2 lb of tofu. I've heard of tofu. I know it's a meat subsitute. I have never eaten or used it in a recipe before. Opening the package was the beginning of this adventure. Once I get the package open I put it in the blender. Initially the blender acted as if it was not feeling the tofu. I started mashing it up and the blender started working much better. Tofu mixture is done. 45 minutes later, the meal is done and I try my first serving. It wasn't half bad. Good taste and all I could taste was the garlic.

 

 

Daniel Fast prepping

My church announced that it will be doing the Daniel Fast back in late November/early December. With my continued weight loss journey, I figured this would be a great way to kick off my new year weight loss goals. Yesterday I headed to my local Wally World with my shopping list in tow to stock my fridge and pantry with the necessary ingredients to make the first few days worth of meals. 60 minutes and $125 later I have finished my shopping and headed home unload and unpack my groceries & household items. You can see the haul below.