End of week 1

It's the end of my first week back to eating healthy and working out regularly. Decided to give myself off today working out, but feeling guilty and might head in anyway to give myself that much of a help for tomorrow's weigh-in, especially since I know I can't get a real workout in tomorrow. It's the first weigh-in at work where we'll see how much we've lost. I weighed myself this morning, and while I had lost weight, I know that I'm retaining some water from not eating very well the past few days. A loss is a loss though, so I am not worrying about it. This is a competition, but just like on Biggest Loser, this is about changing your life, not just losing weight for a competition. That is just motivation...not the end result.

I thank God that I have found some new things to add to my list of things I like that don't seem like "diet food". I have always loved blackened chicken or fish, and I don't know why I hadn't tried that before. I looked it up, and found that it's easy! The recipe I found was a cinch and the ingredients I found for this version "blackened" was just the following:

1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp black pepper
(I added another 1/4-1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper)
1 Tbsp olive oil

You get the spice mixed and spread on a plate, put the fish/chicken down on it, and let it sit for awhile. Get a skillet and pour the oil in it, and get it nice and hot. Then put the fish (spice side down) in the skillet and cook for about 3-4 mins. While that's cooking, I took the rest of the spices and put them on the unspiced side that's up. Then, flip the fish and cook another 3-4 mins. And you're done! I hate fishy tasting fish, so I prefer the tilapia's, mahi-mahi's, etc. Mahi is actually my favorite because it's more of a steak-like fish, with it usually being pretty thick and chewy.

Another thing that I've discovered is Hummus. I didn't realize that all hummus is, is squished up chick peas. Well I LOVE chick peas on my salad, and so I knew I "should" love hummus. I went to buy some in the deli section of my grocery store, and found that they had TONS of different kinds! I picked up two flavors..."Roasted Red Pepper", and "Spicy Southwestern". BOTH were amazing! The red pepper one was a little more bland tasting, but the southwestern one had AMAZING flavor! You can use hummus as dip for crackers, vegetables, as a mayo substitute, etc. Hummus is an AMAZING source of protein. You gotta be careful of the calories, so just keep an eye on that part.

Taking the above, I actually combined the two. I made some wheat toast and put the hummus on it, then made the blackened mahi. I ate it slow, and the flavors really complimented each other. Now, if only I could remember these types of things when I'm struggling to find something healthy. Usually my creativity is the hardest to find when it's dinner time. ;)