Thursday, January 7, 2010

Alright, so it's been a while since I've written anything. A whole semester, in fact. And despite me having grandiose plans on updating this while at school, reality set in and that didn't happen. Ditching my meal plan was supposed to foster in healthy eating for me and let me cook what I want, and it did, to a point. However, I learned that I needed a bigger kick in the ass than that, so now I'm on Weight Watchers. This requires me to write down everything I eat (called "tracking") and measure practically everything by the teaspoon so it can be translated into points. You only get so many points for each day, and you HAVE to stay within this range to lose weight. In other words, it's all a huge pain in the ass.

I may not be a huge person, (this causes people to ask me why I'm doing this program and my cousins to berate me for thinking I need to) but WW is still necessary. College did a number on me, and I'm uncomfortable with the size I am. I can't shop for clothes or anything without feeling like shit, and remembering how I used to look makes me feel worse. So I'm taking a stand. All you naysayers out there, don't judge. Whenever someone's uncomfortable with their weight, they have a right to become healthier while they're still young and unmarried. I don't want to run into someone from high school that I haven't talked to in a while and have them think, yikes, they remind me of that blueberry from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I have no idea whether it's working yet, but I'll find out next Monday when I go to weigh in. You get an extra 35 points a week to eat whatever you wish, and I knew right away that those would go to alcohol. If I can't eat my stress away, I better damn well be able to drink it away on the weekends.

Anyway, this new found pain in the ass is forcing me to find nonfat or low fat ways to make the amount of food I CAN eat ten times better so I'm satisfied with less. I've been wimping out with just eating oatmeal and tea for breakfast for the past two days, but today I wanted more. So I took 1/2 a cup of Egg Beaters and made scrambled eggs (2 points). Nothing special, right? However, I remembered that we have some Herbes De Provence (the best blend of herbs EVER) and sprinkled a small amount of that on top (0 pts) with 1 tbsp of reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese ( 1/4 pt). This was kind of amazing. The small amount of HDP (yes, I'm going Rachel Ray style with the acronyms) added a lot of flavor with no calories and I was pleased.

For Christmas, I received (with great happiness) both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Yes, I know that someone's already blogged about it and yes, there's a movie with a small cult following of newly inspired foodies, but I was very excited to have these recipes in my possession and as this blog will involve me talking a lot about food, I will mention my results with her recipes from time to time. Almost as notorious with her frivolous use of butter as Paula Deen, my main challenge while cooking her delectable Ratatouille and Boeuf Bourguignon will be eliminating any excess calories and making them a ton more healthier so that I'll actually be able to eat them and not have my dream of weight loss unfairly snatched from my grasp.

Also, following a friend's advice, I decided to make my own hummus the other day. It definitely is a whole lot better than store bought, and a lot cheaper to make once you have the basics of tahini, lemon juice and cumin. The chickpeas were 89 cents a can, so budget win there. Just remember to add the cumin, which I forgot until the last minute when I couldn't figure out why it tasted so bland.

I shall conclude this post with a quote from Mr. Spock, because I can:

Spock: They like you very much, but they are not the hell "your" whales.
Dr. Taylor: I suppose they told you that.
Spock: The hell they did.