Saturday:
Yesterday I had been looking forward to a square of chocolate after dinner but then found I didn't have the calories for it, so didn't have it and I was ok with that. But later I realised that with about 20 calories to spend I could have several chocolate chips. I weighed out seven tiny little dots. I laid them in a pretty circle on a nice little plate and took them to the bath with me. With candles (although that has more to the with the fact that the bathroom light is broken). My husband went out for an evening with some friends and I luxuriated.
And ended up eating three chocolate chips, worth about ten calories. Seriously, they could have comfortably fit on my little fingernail. But it was enough. I wasn't interested in eating the rest, so I didn't.
I'm giving myself a lot of credit for this. I didn't eat out of my plan. I worked out a way I could have a taste of what I wanted without going over my limit. I stopped when I had had enough, even when the rest of the chocolate was sitting right there beside me.
Amazing, though, that 2 grams of chocolate has the same number of calories as a whole Lebanese cucumber of about 100 grams.
Today's exercise, in the Beck book, is practising leaving food on your plate so that was serendipitous. Tick!
Today for lunch I tried making cauliflower fried rice. Jasmine had specially asked for ravioli today so the rest of the family had that but I am trying to keep my carbs low-ish. I am not a fan of cauliflower - in fact when I make cauliflower cheese I use half broccoli and I only have the broccoli (I love broccoli) - so I don't even know why I tried this. Other people said that it's nice even if you don't like cauliflower much so I thought I would give it a go.
I pulsed half a raw head of cauliflower, not too much stalk, in the food processor until it was about the size of grains of rice. Actually ten seconds was a bit too long and it turned out a bit smaller than that. I finely chopped and stir fried some mushroom, capsicum, baby corn, shallots and lean bacon in a little olive oil, then added the cauliflower grains, a dash of soy and a splash of chicken stock, some celery salt and some onion powder; and stir fried a little longer. Half of what this created was a filling lunch for only about 116 calories and 3.8 grams of carbohydrate! And it was really nice. I couldn't taste the cauliflower, only the other stuff I put in, and it looked pretty much like fried rice. I feel this is a bit low in calories for lunch and it's not my intention to starve myself, but with a cup of tea I was satisfied so decided to wait until afternoon tea time before having anything else. Why eat when you are not hungry?
I also like quinoa "fried rice" but that takes longer because you have to cook the quinoa first, and no one else in this house likes quinoa so it's a fair bit of work just for me and usually I can't be bothered.
We went out for a family walk in the afternoon, 30 minutes, which is more exercise than I've done for a while. I walked briskly and steadily while Tim and the kids raced ahead or lagged behind to climb on something or blow a dandelion clock. I was pretty tired by the end and for half an hour afterwards, then I was ok. It's the third Chase the Stars 5k weekend, can I do it half today and half tomorrow? Anyway, it was good to get moving. My infected eye is a lot better today and overall I feel so much healthier than the past three weeks.
Dinner was yummy and I put perhaps a little too much on my plate. As I neared the end I was full but it tasted nice so I wanted to keep eating. Then I remembered that I was supposed to practice leaving food on my plate if I was full, so I left the last little bit. It was hard though, I wanted to eat that last piece of saucy chicken. But I have leftovers of that to go with the other half of my cauliflower rice to have on Monday lunch, so I can look forward to eating it then.
Three successful days in a row!
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