Eggplant Parmesan

Yesterday was only an OK day for food. While everything I ate was healthy, I'm pretty sure it was too high in fat in calories. However, I'm still OK with this, since there was no sugar and no processed foods involved at all.

Breakfast was an egg with whwh toast and a bit of butter.

Lunch was leftover blackbean burrito (So good. Seriously. Try it! Recipe below!)

Dinner was eggplant parmesan. I made this for the first time ever, and it was pretty good! I think there's too much cheese in it for it to be deemed totally healthy, and I think my serving was much too big.

Eggplant parmesan is a very weird dish. You do everything you can to the eggplant to take out it's bitter taste and it ends up tasting like nothing. You sweat it (slice eggplant thinly, sprinkle sea salt on it and let it stand for 30 minutes, rinse, pat dry), then bread it, then bake it, then layer it with cheese and marinara sauce. It's delicious, but you can't really taste eggplant. You taste cheese, breadcrumbs, and marinara sauce.

We all loved it though, including Holden, and my dad who came by for dinner.

Motivation is here!

So today's post of my confession of my weight and sugar addiction got some encouraging emails and feedback on Facebook. It made me feel good and not quite so disgusting. I hate that I feel disgusting. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and encouragement.

I ended up going for an impromptu 20 minute power walk after dinner. I asked Holden if he wanted to go for a walk, he said he wanted to go to the park (as usual *ha*) so I took the long way, which is totally out of the way, but I got a tiny bit of exercise in, so that's good.

Today's food was only OK.

Breakfast was 2 slice whwh toast with no-sugar added jam (although it's jam, so it's still sweet, so not really a great choice).

Lunch was 2 hard boiled eggs, half of a sliced yellow pepper, and a few cucumber slices. Much better!!

Dinner was a homemade blackbean burrito. It was fan-frickin'-tastic. I added more veggies (chopped tomato, more peppers), but I found it was too much cream cheese. Next time I'll cut it in half. John and Holden loved it too!! I served it with salsa.

Here's the recipe:

Blackbean Burritos

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil ( I used waaaaaay less than this, maybe 1 tbsp)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (I used 1 large can for the 3 of us)
• 2 teaspoons minced jalapeno peppers (skipped this, added fajita seasoning instead)
• 6 ounces cream cheese (this was too much for the 3 of us)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Wrap tortillas in foil and place in oven heated to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through.
2. Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Place onion, bell pepper, garlic and jalapenos in skillet, cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour beans into skillet, cook 3 minutes stirring.
3. Cut cream cheese into cubes and add to skillet with salt. Cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir cilantro into mixture.
4. Spoon mixture evenly down center of warmed tortilla and roll tortillas up. Serve immediately.

*sigh*

I'm finally starting up again. It's getting ridiculous. I'm officially at the heaviest I have ever been (except when pregnant). I am now a whopping 173 lbs. It's very depressing.

Here's the vicious circle I got myself into:
Eating refined sugar (lots, daily), energy crash, too lazy to get active, mood crash, which makes me crave & eat more sugar... lather rinse repeat.

I've cut back on sugar big time in the last 2 days and it's made me realize something: I am a sugar addict. I'm not saying that lightly. I quit smoking cold turkey about 4 yrs ago, and I feel the exact same way now as I did those first few weeks without nicotine. I want sugar all the time, I think about it a lot, I get jittery, being around it is stressful.

So I need to treat it as an addiction.

And this is going to sound crazy, but just 2 days with (much) less sugar, and I already feel better. My energy is still pretty lame, but my mood has hugely improved.

Exercise plan:
Get back on the Wii Active and do the 30 day challenge
Joined the blog challenge Losing 1 lb at a time
Joined my mommy group's sister "get fit" group (join us if you're in Ottawa!)
Bought a bike!

My goal is to lose 30 lbs by January 2011 (8 months), so that's just under 1 lb per week. Woooooo! I can do it!!