After a decadent 4th of July weekend (more like a week on my end) I was not feeling so great about myself and decided I needed to make some moves in the right direction. I got onto the library in my town’s website and put on reserve two books on “The South Beach Diet”. I had done this diet a few summers ago and got good results and I was feeling as If I needed something extreme to jump-start my post-college weight-loss/healthy eating lifestyle.
This diet is centered around a low-sugar/low-fat lifestyle…teaching you what carbohydrates are good for you and what the right amount of sugar is for your body on a daily basis. Basically there are three phases. Phase 1 includes only low-carb and low-sugar foods, mainly vegetables, low-fat dairy and lean meat, and artificial sugar-substitutes. Today is day 3 of the diet and I knew this phase was going to be hard and I knew not being able to eat bread would be a struggle but I think the harder part for me is giving up the fruit. I would kill for some berries, an apple, a grapefruit…cherries…I’m dying’ over here! But I am staying strong and sticking to the plan! I have confidence that I can make it two weeks! So to make this diet bearable and to get myself prepared, I spent this past Sunday making some S.B.D “safe” meals that were actually delicious and worth sharing!
This is a vegetable quiche that includes loads of vegetables, Spinach, Onion, Assorted bell peppers and low-fat mozzarella cheese as well as about seven eggs. I mixed all of those ingredients together to make one big quiche and then cut it up into individual portions and froze it for breakfast to enjoy like so….
Here is how you make it! 1.) Add one 12 oz. bag of frozen spinach.
2.) Add 2.5 cups part-skim Mozzarella Cheese, 3.) 1-1.5 cups of chopped bell peppers, 4.) 3/4 cup chopped white onion and finally 5.) 7-8 Eggs (you can use eggs as long as you don’t have cholesterol issues)
6.) Then you combine everything and bake it for almost 30 minutes at 350* F
and Voila! Delicious breakfast quiche that I am currently “enjoying” for breakfast!
As the quiche was baking, I started on the Turkey Meatloaf, which although meatloaf gets a bad-rap it wasn’t half bad! I used 2 lbs. of ground turkey, a 16 oz. can of garbanzo beans, sautéed mushrooms and onions and a glaze consisting of worcestershire and spicy mustard. I combined the meat…
with sautéed mushrooms, onions, paprika, cayenne pepper and Worcestershire.
and then formed it into two loads. One which I baked, the other I froze for later.
. You bake the loaf for 40 minutes and then glaze it with the mustard glaze I mentioned and bake it for another 10 minutes. It came out looking delicious!
It wasn’t “delicious” but I’ll give it “very good” and surprisingly filling, for a diet meat loaf, I would definitely make this again! Also, I composted all of the food remnants! It can go right in with your yard waste trash which is great and helps avoid having as much compost able trash!
For dinner on Sunday night, I kept it simple and made Burgers on the grill with lemon-pepper asparagus.
I had my dad help me with the grilling and the burgers came out great! I used to not be a big-red meat eater but I’ve been incorporating it back into my diet slowly and this was the first burger I had in awhile, since last fall I think! I had enough extra meat to make a few extras and took one for lunch the next day as well.
So that is what’s going on with me and hope you enjoyed the diet foods! I’m aiming to get a bit more creative and to tonight am thinking of trying “Mashed Potatoes” which is really mashed cauliflower with fake butter spray but I’m sure it is pretty good! This morning feels like a bit of a struggle but Im going to hit the gym and energize and hopefully make it through this first week, i just have to think about the results being worth it!!! Hope everyone is having a good week!
Abite of Life 