Dinner : Low carb special! Chris cooked Cauliflower "rice" from @traderjoes, chourico, onions and peas. It is SO GOOD I had to share. #nutrition #lowcarb #diet #weightloss #balancediet #chourico

For dinner tonight I had a baked pork chop coated in bread crumbs with olive oil roasted broccoli and carrots. Only ate half the chop, that thing was huge! I'm not dieting and I'm not going to be counting calories anytime soon... I'm just trying to be very conscious of what I eat. I am a sugar addict so the only nutrient I'm trying to cut back on is sugar and carbohydrates. Again, not a diet; I simply want to work towards eating a more normal quantity of carbohydrates that is better for my health. My blood sugar is great according to my most recent routine lab work... But my grandmother is a type 2 diabetic so I really need to be careful. I just want my body to be balanced so badly; but that will come with time. For now it's me, myself, and I. My ultimate is goal is loving myself unconditionally. Once I achieve this goal, I am confident that the rest will start to fall in place. Thank you to my amazing boyfriend, Christopher, for cooking this beautiful meal.

Food intake for the day. Not amazing but not horrible either. I had way too much cholesterol and went over my sugar allotment, but I am getting better with overall calories and carbohydrates. Take into consideration... for the last year I’ve been eating probably close to 2500 calories a day, god knows how many carbs and added sugar.... Right now I am working on baby steps. Relearning how to live a balanced lifestyle. Portion control. And I’m improving. Its only been a few weeks but I feel proud of myself because this is a vast improvement.

Dinner:

6oz boneless skinless chicken breast 2 tbsp BBQ sauce ¼ cup cheddar cheese 2 slices of bacon

¼ cup cooked brown rice

A shit ton of asparagus

This dinner is fairly calorie dense and especially high in fat, but right now I’m working on getting my portion control under control and cutting back on my carbohydrate intake. I only had a half a portion of rice (because before I would have had more than quadruple that amount ). This meal has approximately 40 carbs. I realized a few weeks ago I was eating on average 100 carbs per meal! Yikes!

We need to go grocery shopping for dinner ingredients so this was just like “what do we have in the house that we can make for dinner”? It was really freaking good too.

Here’s a picture of a beautiful fruit smoothie in a cute mason jar because mine looks like crap! Lol

Made the BEST berry “green” smoothie for “lunch” today. I woke up pretty late and had oatmeal with peanut butter for a late breakfast at 11 and wasn’t really hungry until now. And i didn’t want to eat a big lunch because then I wouldn’t be hungry for dinner until like, 9. Lol. So this smoothie was my compromise!  Every winter I try to get back into smoothie-ing because I am reallllllly picky when it comes to fruit. On top of that I have weird food allergies so I can’t eat a lot of raw fruit like apples, bananas, pears, peaches...etc. So I try and drink smoothies with frozen fruit in them because they are picked and frozen while they are in season so they still taste great!  This smoothie is technically a green smoothie, but its just not green! The fruit color overpowers the green spinach. In this is about 1 cup of fruit (pineapple, strawberries, and blueberries), 1/2 cup of greek yogurt, 1/4 cup of naked “blue machine” juice, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup spinach, and a few ice cubes. Seriously it was so delicious I can’t wait to start making smoothies again and experimenting more! I’m going to slowly up the intake of spinach in each smoothie with time also.

Here is a bleak picture of my DELICIOUS dinner. I cooked pan seared haddock with broccoli and a baked potato.  I breaded the haddock with some panko and just seared it for a few minutes and finished in the oven.  Seriously one of the best things I’ve eaten in weeks. :-) And its nice and healthy! :D

Made one of my favorite recipes tonight! It's called "Peanut Butter Collards" The original recipe is just for collards in a peanut butter sauce, but I like to make it a meal by adding rice and beans. It's absolutely delicious and sooooo good for you. The collards are great around this time a year because they are in season and you find them at peak freshness and the cheapest price at local farmers markets. The collards are organic from a local farm. 

They are packed full with Vitamin A, K, C.. fiber calcium iron. The beans are a good source of protein, iron, folate, fiber.. and the Jasmine rice has lots of manganese, selenium, and Vitman B3. Its very simple to make and cooks up in less than an hour. Its just a bunch of sauteed onions and garlic with some salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, ginger, and peanut butter. Add chicken or vegetable stock and let simmer a whole ton till it reduces a little. Add collards in bit by bit till they wilt. Squeeze a little lime juice on top with some roughly chopped peanuts, and BAM. Add beans and serve over rice. :-)

Day 1 of Clean Eating No Processed Foods Challenge:

BREAKFAST:

Plain greek yogurt with honey and strawberries

Homemade cranberry orange muffin with all natural teddy peanut butter.

+Cup of tea (not pictured)

Thinking about doing a 7 day “Clean Eating” Challenge

Meaning... eating almost entirely non-processed foods for an entire week. That means... pretty much nothing from a box or container. That means extreme meal prep.... Lots of fruits and vegetables, lean meats/fish, beans, rice, whole wheat products... only raw/natural sugars... This IS NOT about/for weight loss...its about self control. That is my biggest problem.. I have trouble saying no to sweets and other processed foods. There is nothing wrong with sweets and some processed foods occasionally.. but I just can’t say no. :P  I just want to see if I can do it. Can I? Will I?  I’ll have to do lots of meal prep... find a recipe for some “clean” chocolate snacks... make some homemade granola/oatmeal for snacks... It will be hard but I really want to do it. I am also hoping it will help me with my sugar addiction. You know? What do you guys think?!