Rain & Impromptu Thai Feast

It has been raining since Friday. I’m ready for it to stop, but the forecast is saying more rain for the next couple of days.

I was sitting in my chair after work, with my fuzzy blanket, thinking I should really get up and do some exercise. But I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. I thought maybe after supper.

However, by the time supper was ready to eat, it was 8 PM. It was one of those nights when Husband was in the mood to play in the kitchen. He’s been slightly obsessed with a new cookbook.

We ended up with a Thai feast…

Green Curry Chicken, Tofu & Mushrooms, Broccoli with Oyster sauce. I didn’t eat the mushrooms because mushrooms are yucky (oh yes they are) but the rest of it was excellent.

And I have lunch for tomorrow.

But that’s it. Two days in a row of wallowing is enough. Tomorrow there will be a workout of some sort.

Really.

I mean it.

Mid-Week Check In

Here we are half way through the week already! I have to say, for being the first week back to work after two weeks of holidays, it’s gone by pretty fast.

So far I am 3/3 with my workouts for the week and I’m feeling good.

The weather has been warm – relatively speaking – hovering around 0 – 2 degrees Celsius most days. I’m loving it!

And I’ve managed to fit in some piano time every day.

I call that a successful week so far.

Tonight was weights, followed by Steady State Cardio. Supper was in the Slow Cooker, so I told Husband he could eat whenever he wanted and came downstairs to do my thing.

Since it was the first time doing the weight workout, it took me a little while to get situated, and then I was having such a good time walking on the treadmill, singing along to my tunes (very badly), I decided to walk for 15 minutes longer than I had planned.

Then I realized I had forgotten that I still had Abs to do. I decided I’d better leave that for tomorrow.

When I went upstairs, sure enough, Husband had not eaten and he was starving. Don’t know why he does that when the food is sitting there, all ready to be eaten. It’s not like he even sat down and ate with me – he was online playing a game and had to rush back to his computer. Silly Husband.

Anyway, dinner was our recently discovered favorite: Chicken & Lentils. We had some Naan on the side.

I added a little dollop of sour cream on top, since we have some in the fridge. So yummy!

And now it is piano time, so I leave you with today’s thought from Happy Bunny (Sister gave me a calendar for Christmas)…

What can I say? It makes me chuckle.

Putting 2 and 2 together…

I was hit with a realization this week. I’ve been whining for a while now about how the scale has been going up. I used to try and try to lose weight and get nowhere, but at least I was maintaining where I was. Over the past couple of years, it seems like there have been random jumps where I put on a few pounds. These are not fluctuations where my weight goes up and comes back down; it goes up and stays up and becomes my new weight range. It sucks.

Anyway, this week it occurred to me that these jumps seem to correlate with periods where I’ve been restricting my calories, trying (but not succeeding) to lose a few pounds. When I stop restricting, bam! Some new pounds show up and take permanent residence.

And yes, I know. I’ve heard about how on-again, off-again dieting can mess up your metabolism and all that. I’ve just never experienced it. I’m not one of these people who has been dieting on and off since I was 12 years old. I started gaining weight in my late 20’s when I moved to a new province all by myself and started working my first full time job. I think I was 29 when I first seriously tried to lose weight. I managed to drop about 5 lb, and that’s about as far as I got.

After that I put on 10 pounds over the course of a couple of years – during which time I got married, moved and then bought a house and moved again.

Then I joined a gym and my on-again-off-again exercise habit became a regular exercise habit. I didn’t lose weight, but it stayed stable for a long time. During most of that time, I think I probably was counting calories (though I don’t remember for sure).

Anyway, it’s only been the past couple of years when it seems like I have suddenly started gaining again. I don’t know if it’s age. I don’t know if my eating habits have really gone that badly down the drain. It seems to me that we do keep more treats around the house that we used to. But honestly, I’m not even really sure of that.

Anyway, it just hit me that recently this is what has been happening. I will try to lose weight. I will get nowhere. I will go back to normal eating. I gain a few pounds right away and then it levels off again and I pretty much stay put.

So this makes me kind of depressed and also kind of scared to try losing weight again. Maybe I should learn to love being chubby, but I really don’t want to.

And I could be wrong about the whole thing…but it does seem to add up.

Anyway…On to today.

I started to take out my ear plugs and get out of bed this morning and Husband told me it was a work from home day because the radio was saying freezing rain and snow. So I put my ear plugs back in and snoozed for another half hour – I will always take the opportunity to sleep in a bit. But, eventually I had to get up.

It didn’t look that bad out…

But our road definitely looked snowy and messy and I was quite happy to have a day at home.

I had actual breakfast! I tried a new hot cereal.

The directions said to mix with hot water or milk so I heated up some Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze and mixed that in to my packet of cereal. As soon as the hot Almond Milk hit the cereal I could smell the spices – smelled so good. I tasted it and it was kind of salty tasting (no sugar added) so I added a little bit of maple syrup and then it was just right.

I started out sitting in the living room with my laptop, but then I decided to move to the table because I wanted to be able to make notes. Zappa kept jumping up on the table and trying to walk on my laptop, so I put a towel on the table thinking he’d curl up and go to sleep.

This is what I got.

That would be my notepad he is sitting on. Sigh.

I may have had a couple of shortbread cookies this morning as well…they didn’t make it to the camera somehow…

For lunch I felt like having a few things to nibble on, so I had half of a huge Pomegranate (the other half went in the fridge for later), some Balderson Double Smoked Cheddar and some Triscuits. Hit the spot.

A little while later I did have a Super-Charge Me cookie. Just because they are so good.

Eventually Zappa did settle down on his towel. Then a short while later Frank came along wondering where his was. That was the end of that.

I don’t know if it was just being home, sitting in the kitchen, but I just wanted to nibble all day today.

There were these:

And also some dark chocolate covered almonds. For a while there I thought I was getting the sugar thing under control, but it seems like I’ve lost it again.

I worked away, with breaks for Fabulous Feline cuddles and chats with Husband. It got chilly in the afternoon, my feet were cold – had to dig out some big fuzzy slippers. By the time the end of the day rolled around I really didn’t want to exercise. Seems to happen a lot – I get cold, I don’t want to exercise. Makes no sense when you consider that exercise will warm you up.

I briefly considered skipping it, but knowing that workouts will be sparse towards the end of the month, I feel like I should be exercising while I can. So I just did it.

Some days you don’t really feel like exercising, but once you start you get into it and have a great workout. This was not one of those days. All I can really say about it is that I made myself push through and get it done.

Dinner was leftovers – Broccoli Slaw, Focaccia bread and Chicken & Lentils.

It was all good – especially the lovely soft focaccia bread dipped into the Chicken & Lentils sauce. Mmmm! I was full after, though not too full.

I did think about having a cookie, but decided I’d had enough already today.

And that’s Tuesday down. Three more days ‘til vacation!

Chicken and Lentils, Take 2

I have a confession to make. Last weekend when I made the Super-Charge Me Cookies, I sort of had in mind that I would eat them for breakfast. Then it turned out that I was enjoying them so much in the evening with a cup of tea that I was starting and ending my day with cookies and I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea – even if they are healthy cookies.

So, when I made another batch this weekend, I had every intention to save the cookies for dessert and eat real breakfast this week.

Then this morning we had to leave the house early because Husband was taking it in for maintenance and to have the winter tires put on. I was trying to get dinner in the slow cooker. I was rushing around. I didn’t even take the time to put on makeup. So breakfast?

I’m sure you can guess…

For lunch I had some cucumber and Bean Balls with Marinara Sauce. Also a couple of chocolates for dessert.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon, so I didn’t get around to having a snack and I was fine without one.

Husband picked me up around 5 pm and I came home to dinner in the slow cooker. I threw in a load of laundry, then hit the basement for a Circuit Workout. I have to tell you – I did not have a lot of energy to throw into it today; it was a bit half-hearted. I blame the dentist appointment; the stress just wears me right out.

Dinner was Chicken & Lentils again, but I changed it up a bit from last week.

I had chopped up an onion and a stalk of celery the night before. This morning I rinsed a cup of green lentils & put them in the slow cooker with the onion and celery. Instead of measuring out spices I went with 3 tablespoons of Madras Curry Paste:

I added 1 can of chicken broth + equal amount of water,  and a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes and stirred it all around. Two chicken breasts went in on top of everything else. On went the lid, the slow cooker was turned on to low, and off we went.

By the end of the day the chicken was ready to fall apart and was easily shredded and mixed in with everything else.

Husband had been to the store a picked up a fresh loaf of focaccia bread. A little broccoli slaw on the side and we had dinner.

We both thought this was better than what we made last week. It had more flavor and the tomatoes gave it a hint of sweetness. It was very tasty and I look forward to the leftovers tomorrow night.

Dessert – Twice Baked Shortbread and Peppermint Tea.

And that’s Monday – 4 more days to vacation!

Thai Green Curry Soup

I can’t say for sure what inspired this soup. All I can say with certainty is that I wanted to make something different from my usual bean & lentil concoctions. Add to that the fact that I had just read something on the importance of eating green vegetables which reminded me that while I do make an effort to eat vegetables, I don’t necessarily eat a lot of green ones. Red, orange, yellow, white – check! Green? Not often enough.

Perhaps this line of thought led me to one of my favorite things – Green Thai Curry. The Green Curry that we get at our favorite restaurant is not a soup of course. It is a dish of chicken and Green Thai Eggplant cooked in a Green Curry Sauce. It will often have either fresh basil or cilantro – whatever is available I suspect, either one fitting with the green theme.

When Husband and I make Green Thai Curry at home, we are not as particular about making sure that all of the ingredients that go in are green – but it winds up being a tasty meal just the same.

Authentic Thai ingredients not being the easiest thing to come by when you live in a small city on the  east coast of Canada, we buy our curry paste. Our preferred brand is Thai Kitchen – available in all the colors of the curry rainbow – Red, Yellow and Green.

We keep them on hand in our kitchen so that we’re always ready to whip up a pot of Thai Curry for dinner.

As for the vegetable ingredients – I made it colorful.

Before starting on the curry, I got a pot going on the stove to cook 1 cup of long grain brown rice. On to the curry!

First in the pot, some coconut oil and green curry paste. I gave the curry paste a few seconds to get fragrant, then threw in diced celery and sweet potato. I let that saute, giving it a stir every now and then, while I chopped a red bell pepper and a small zucchini. Once it was chopped, it went into the pot.

 

I can’t claim that I actually like spinach. I don’t think I care for any green that is cooked before serving. But, the nice thing about spinach is that you can hide it. Which is what I do.

I wanted a package of frozen chopped spinach, but apparently so did everyone else. If there was any left in the freezer at the grocery store, it was too far back on the shelf for me to reach. On a side note: The advantage of grocery shopping without Husband is that I don’t end up with giant bags of M&M’s in the cart; the down side is I can’t reach things on high shelves.

So I was stuck with whole leaf spinach. Plus, I was planning to work in a can of chickpeas which do not exactly scream “Thai food!” Solution?

Out came the food processor. I poured a little vegetable broth in with the thawed spinach & chickpeas and ground it into an nice little paste.

Into the pot it went, along with the rest of the vegetable broth, some Thai Fish Sauce, Agave Nectar and some Roasted Red Chili Paste (also Thai Kitchen Brand) because I saw it in the fridge and I really love the stuff.

I let that simmer for a while to make sure the sweet potato was nice and soft (I do not like crunchy/firm sweet potato in my soup or curry). In the meantime, my rice had finished cooking so when I decided the soup was pretty much done cooking, I added the rice and a can of light coconut milk.

I wound up with 8 containers of soup to go in the freezer for lunches. Not a bad hour’s work.

New FitChickExpress Challenge

I mentioned a few days back that I was starting a new fitness plan/challenge to count down to the Holidays. Officially I the start of the challenge was yesterday but it was the middle of the day before I realized that so I'm starting today.

Some info about the challenge:
Basically here is the deal. Our "Lose 10lbs for the Holidays" will provide you with all the following.

*A New Workout for each month... Oct, Nov, Dec.
*Quick Metabolism boosting Video workouts for you to follow at home.
*4 weeks of Meal Plans that virtually guarantee to burn fat fast.

What YOU are required to do:

*Post weekly updates on your progress, meals and workouts
*Take before and after measurements. Photos are optional, but for your benefit, at least take them for you.
*Help support and motivate others in the challenge.

I, of course, am most interested in the workout plans. Meal plans and I do not really get along. Plus, I had already done my meal planning and grocery shopping for the week by the time I saw the meal plans posted for the first 4 weeks. I also did not take a photo or record measurements. Honestly, it was a really busy weekend, and I just didn't get to it.

I don't actually expect to lose 10 lbs (though that would be lovely), but I will try to do measurements and a before photo next weekend. And I will look at the meal plans to see what I can incorporate.

So, today...

Breakfast & lunch are already posted.

After work, it was first things first...taking my baby out for his walk.



I keep thinking that we aren't going to be able to keep this up much longer and he's just going to have to get used to it...



But look at that face!



I guess it will happen soon enough. I'm certainly not trying to hurry winter.

Then I got in my first workout for the challenge. Today was a strength circuit. It went really quick - not sure how long it took because I was watching a demonstration video. It was a superset workout, so I would watch two moves, pause the video to complete the exercises, then watch the next two...and so on. There were 6 exercises in total, so I'm going to guess about 15 minutes to complete without any breaks?

Then I decided to go upstairs and get supper. I was thinking I might, for a change, get some pictures while we still had light, but it didn't happen.

First a simple salad of cucumber, red bell pepper and tangerine (I had a spinach & arugala mix but it had gone slimy. Yuck).





And for the main course, leftover Indian Chicken Curry. One of these days I am going to do a post on curry. I've been thinking about it for a while, even started writing it once...But somehow I just never have the time to do it justice.

Anyway, made curry Saturday night (after my exploits in the garden and washing all those carrots, so it was late and I was tired). I did take a photo of what I think is the fun part - mixing the spices:





I heated up the leftover curry and basmati rice in the same pot because the best part is eating the rice that has soaked up the curry sauce (I think) and I didn't want to waste a bit of it. With that, and the bad lighting, it doesn't necessarily look all that great, but trust me it was excellent!





I watched a bit of TV (anyone watching FlashForward? really interesting so far) and cleaned up the kitchen. Then came down and did a 30 min walk on the treadmill.

And now I have a cat demanding his good night treats and I'm pretty much ready to turn in. Good night!