Sunday, all over again

Yesterday's splurge was a little bit disappointing, I'm sorry to say.  I work at the library every other Saturday, and it was my work Saturday yesterday.  We ordered out for Chinese food from a place that is relatively new to us, called China 1.  My husband and I have been very disappointed in the quality of Chinese food nearby, but this one has fairly good reviews on Yelp.  We gave them a try a couple times, and while it didn't wow us, it was still better than anything else we've had outside the District.  So several of us at work ordered lunch to be delivered.  It took almost twice as long to come as they said it would (55 minutes instead of 30, which left me with 10 minutes to choke down my lunch - on the one day I can eat what I want! - before I had to run out to the reference desk.

Plus it just wasn't very good.  I ordered the chicken w/cashew nuts lunch special, and the food was so bland and blah.  The vegetable fried rice was mushy.  The cashews were soggy.  It was pretty depressing.

But anyway, whine whine whine.  I did start out the day with a Krispy Kreme doughnut, so all was not lost!

I'm going to plan better next time, that's for sure!

So, back to eggs for breakfast.  And turkey bacon.  I also heated up some of the soup that I made last Friday.  Still not appetizing so soon after I wake up, but what can you do?

For lunch I made a salad with tuna, cucumber, pinto beans, shredded carrots and red onions in a balsamic vinaigrette.  Plus more soup.

For dinner we made tacos, but I did mine like lettuce wraps, and they were delicious.  I did miss the cheese, but still, I had guacamole on there, and it was good!  There were black beans, diced chicken breast, red onions, cilantro, guacamole, and tomatoes.  They weren't quite as filling as tacos with tortillas, so I had three.  Oink.

Tuesday

Well, I've been on the diet for a week now, and so far, so good.  Despite today's minor setback, I'm still sticking to it faithfully.  Breakfast was a bit of a struggle this morning - it's hard to fit in breakfast on school mornings, but if I wait till I get back from dropping the girls off at school, too much time has passed for me to eat within an hour of waking up.

  

I had eggs again today - even though I was so craving a big bowl of oatmeal!  I made them with turkey bacon, red onions and spinach mixed in, and I had some of the black bean soup from the other night.  I tried, but I was only able to eat about half of the eggs, and a little bit of the soup.  It's so hard that early in the morning!  I will keep at it, and maybe the mornings will get easier.  I noticed it wasn't bad on Sunday, when I was able to sleep in a bit.  But so early in the morning, it is a bit rough.

I met a friend for lunch at Clyde's in Georgetown.  It was the most challenging time I've had finding something from the menu that worked.  We ended up splitting the "crab tower" appetizer, which is one of my favorite things on their menu.  It has lump crabmeat with avocado, seaweed salad and roe on a very tasty rice cake.  I left the cake and the crispy wonton garnish and just had the crab, avocado and seaweed.  It was delicious, as always.  I didn't miss the rice all that much, surprisingly.  I didn't think to take a picture till after we'd split it in two, but it looked even better before we got our hands on it.

For my entree I chose the grilled chicken salad.  I suspect the candied walnuts aren't optimal for the diet, but I ate them because I had told them not to put any goat cheese on the salad, so I felt entitled to a few nuts. 

I was rushed getting to work this evening, and I forgot to snap a picture of the small bowl of last night's leftover lentil soup I had before I left.  Plus I took a salad to eat at work - baby greens, leftover salmon, red onions and diced tomato.  I was pretty hungry when I got back from work, so I helped myself to a small bowl of wasabi peas.  They are spicy and tasty!  Sometimes I just need some salty crunch.

Tuesday: lunch and dinner

I went out to lunch, and again, it wasn't too difficult to find acceptable things.  We went to Panera, and I ordered a small Thai chicken salad (without the wonton strips), a cup of vegetarian black bean soup (no potatoes, pasta, or rice in it), and some unsweetened ice tea.  It was pretty good.  I was really hungry, though, and I realized that although skipping beans at breakfast might have been more palatable, the meal did not stick with me as it has been doing, so I will try some kind of beans tomorrow.  Blah.

For dinner I made more soup again.  I think everyone's starting to get a little tired of the soup, but that's okay - more leftovers for me to have at lunch!  Today I diced up some of that delicious turkey bacon from Whole Foods and sauteed it with some onions, carrots, and garlic, and then I poured in a box of organic chicken stock, added some cumin and salt and pepper, and after a bit I drained some canned lentils and threw them in.  Just before serving I added some minced parsley, and it was pretty good, with a nice smoky flavor.

My husband cooked up the salmon while I put together a salad.  Oh, and I roasted some cauliflower, too.  Usually I toss it in some freshly grated Parmesan cheese just before I serve it, but I served the cheese on the side, since I'm not eating any for the next few days.   

I had seconds on the soup.

One thing I am enjoying immensely about this diet is that I actually eat until I'm full, and I feel totally satisfied for the rest of the evening.  Usually I try to cut back on portions, which leaves me feeling peckish for the rest of the night, constantly thinking about food.  Not any more, and that is a nice change.

Friday Meals

This diet is getting easier by the day.  I actually had a little appetite for my breakfast in the morning, and I managed to eat most of it.  I should have heated up the black beans  - but I was in a hurry to get the kids to school, and so I just rinsed them off from the can and put them on my plate.  That Cholula hot sauce is pretty good on the black beans.  It's more flavorful than spicy - my 10-year-old had some beans and hot sauce too.

It's amazing how long the breakfast stays with me.  I was so busy running errands - we're leaving for a 2-week vacation in a couple of weeks - that I didn't even think about eating until 2 pm!  When normally I am starving by 11 o'clock.  I reheated the soup I'd made the night before, and I ate this entire bowl of it.

I still felt a little hungry, so I filled up another bowl (see below), but in the end I only ate about half of it.  I was stuffed!

Then I had my first restaurant experience while following the diet.  We went to Busboys and Poets in the District, the one on 14th Street, and there was actually quite a bit for me to choose from (some with a few minor modifications).  It worked out pretty well!  I totally forgot to take a picture of my appetizer, though.  I ordered mussels in a lemongrass sauce.  They were good, but it looked like the sauce had a ton of cream in it, so I just kind of shook it off the mussels and ate them.  It came with some garlic toast that looked delicious, and I would have loved to dip it in that sauce!  But I gave it to my friends instead, and thought about my splurge Saturday, which was the very next day, and it wasn't too hard.  The results I've had so far really inspire me to stick to the diet rules.

I also ordered the Cobb Salad, and I did remember to take a photo of it: 

It came with some pita bread, which I just set to the side and ignored.  I ordered it without the crumbled blue cheese and bacon (I don't really eat pork) it was still delicious.  But what was a little disappointing - and this is one of my pet peeves - is that I had to cut everything before I could eat it.  Sure, the plating is lovely, and would look super in a food magazine.  But if I wanted to cut stuff up to make a salad, I'd have stayed home and done it.  They give you a dull dinner knife and a couple whole chicken breasts.  Really?  It took me so long to hack everything up into tasty bite-sized pieces that I had to eat so quickly and could hardly enjoy it, because we had a show to catch (imusical at WIT - if you live in the area, you should check it out.  It is hysterical!  And I think there are only a couple shows left this season). 

I love that this diet is so doable, and that there is no counting calories.  I can't stand that.

Lunch on Tuesday: food pictures - the last hurrah

So I started reading about the 4-Hour Body diet yesterday morning.  I had plans to meet a friend for lunch that afternoon, at our favorite upscale lunch spot.  I hadn't actually committed to starting the diet at that point, but I was thinking about it.  So I started taking photos of what I ate. 

Restaurant Eve is in Old Town Alexandria, and it's a great place to eat.  It is totally overpriced, though, and is definitely the kind of place you'd go for dinner as a special occasion.  But they have this great lunch deal, called the "lickety split" menu.  It's served in the bar area, and you get to choose two things from the menu for $13.50 - any two things - wine and dessert, soup and a salad, etc.  And the food is really, really good.

So here is what I ate:

The soup of the day was lobster bisque, which really wasn't thick and creamy like you'd expect.  It was flavorful and brothy, and those croutons on top?  They're tiny little puff-pastry circles - off the charts on this carbslut's scale!  It was delicious.

One thing I love about the 4-Hour Body Diet is that you get to drink up to two glasses of wine (preferably red) every day during the week!  That's more than I drink - I usually have a glass of red wine with dinner several times a week.  I love the food/wine combo, and there are some dishes that just aren't as good without a glass of wine. 

The bread?  Well, it was pre-diet commitment.  And wow, was it good.  Warm and softly dense on the inside, chewably crusty on the outside.  Mmmmm.  I ate one and a half pieces, as shown.  I could have eaten the whole loaf.  It has just occurred to me that if I came to this restaurant on a splurge Saturday, I wouldn't be able to afford to eat whatever and as much as I wanted!

My friend and I couldn't decide between the ahi rolls and the salad of the day, which was some kind of fish, can't remember exactly what (I love them all, so I'm not picky.  Snapper, maybe) and salad greens with strips of beets in a delicious vinaigrette dressing.  So we ordered both and split them.  (There were 9 little ahi rolls - notice that we cut one in half.  Fair's fair, after all!)  We didn't have dessert.  But we wanted it.

Not bad for a last hurrah, eh?  But really, it wouldn't have been that hard to follow the diet and still eat here - the fish and salad part would have been allowed.  The wine, too.  The bread, nope.  But I could have picked something else and still it would have worked.  I just wish I were more fond of protein and less a total and complete carb slut.