Fish dishes you can really enjoy 3 times a week! I'm in!

There are days when I feel like eating fish, and days that I don't. This picture inspires a little creativity to do a SB version. It's a poached halibut fillet in lemon herb broth (I imagine the base is chicken broth)- Now what if you added some freshly ground horseradish and a couple tablespoons of Low fat (like 1%) sour cream after reducing the broth substantially so it becomes much stronger? I think you'd have a more luxurious sauce / broth and feel more satiated by it. How about roasting some baby carrots and beets with olive oil and winter savory, sea salt and pepper as a side? Ummm... Now that I can take a bite out of! (I'm not sure Beets are allowed in Phase One, but I absolutely adore roasted beets, they're so sweet and so good for your liver amongst other things), I have served many people roasted beets who swore they didn't do beets, and they're all converts now! Throw in some spring onions and some caper berries too for some added zing.

Brent and I do a salmon dish that is to die for, and it ends up being SB friendly! Here it goes, and if you do it, let me know what you think.

For two:

2 Good size salmon fillets, boneless, skinless

4 Large vine ripened tomatoes

1 Large sweet onion

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Tarragon

White wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons calorie reduced margarine

Prepare the salmon fillets by coating with Olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper, place in a roasting pan. "Large dice"- (very large) all tomatoes and onion, toss with olive oil and S/P in a bowl, pour over salmon in roasting pan (use a pan that doesn't leave empty space around the goods), your salmon should be showing about 50%. Put in the oven to roast until the tomatoes and onions look nicely done (onions should be translucent and soft- both veggies a little crispy on the very outer edges) this will produce lots of juice (oh yeah, salmon should be done too). The nice thing about all the juices the veggies produce is the salmon doesn't dry-out, so you can actually roast it a little longer than normal.

In a small saucepan; add margarine and an equal amount of olive oil as well as white wine vinegar. Add tarragon and salt and pepper to taste, warm on low until fragrant, whisk and cool in the fridge, whisk again once cold. Place a couple of spoonfuls on each fillet once on the plate surrounded by tomatoes and onions with some of the juice produced during cooking. A side of sugar snap peas or asparagus and you're set. It's truly amazing, the tomatoes and onions become so sweet in the roasting process and the tangy tarragon sauce just hits the spot while the salmon becomes as sweet as the veggies.

Enjoy!

Ooops!!

I guess you can't celebrate being good by being bad. 2/3rds a bottle of red wine- Ooh the calories that must have!!! I have a plan to counteract that tomorrow, involves a ball and a stick no thicker than my thumb. Must be legal when it's self administered right? I was down 5lbs this morning from Wednesday night... I'll see the damage of this in the next day or so... *kicks herself*

Put your "BIG GIRL" panties on and suck it up!

Today was my first day at Hot Yoga. HOT. YOGA. The last thing a menopausal woman wants at 6:15am is a room full of young, fit, tight, MEN and women when you're wearing as little as you possibly can, while you're  impossibly overweight, because the room is hovering around 110 degrees!!!! The instructor is probably younger than my sons and mumbles the directions for the positions into a "Madonna headset thingy". She's impossible to understand- so I'm forced to look into the VERY LARGE mirror and compare myself to, and mimic my neighboring yogis- "hey, can you reach over here and pass me my foot while you're standing on your head executing that pose perfectly like you were born in that position?" I have to force myself to believe that everyone in the room was as overweight as I am six weeks earlier, and this is what will happen to MY body if I just stick with it. I go back on Monday to pursue my dream- one 90 minute session at a time... Small goals, it's really about the small goals.

"Post the last post"

I'm still not very adept at this blogging thing- I can't manage to "edit" a previous blog to insert something I've done or forgotten to add- I've also lost an entire blog because I couldn't get it out of the damned "drafts" folder - anyways.... What I wanted to say was-

SCREW THE DAMN CELERY / CHEESE STICKS!!!!

I decided I just didn't feel like celery for my morning snack, but, um, I did feel like MUSHROOM CAPS!!! This is the bonus of always buying healthy and good stuff- Your fridge is stocked with endless possibilities if you give your mind a chance to wander the shelves...

Alternate snack: SB uncooked mushroom caps. If you don't mind raw mushrooms- this took about 5
minutes to make.

4 fresh medium to large mushroom caps (take out the stem- if you want to spend the extra minute, you could actually cut the stem up finely to go into your caps)
2 triangles of Laughing Cow Lite Cheese (2.5 g of fat per 2 pieces, 4g of protein!)
1 Green onion finely chopped
1 Rounded teaspoon finely grated Horseradish (Must be fresh horseradish!!! There's nothing like the taste, use a Microplane Rasp
1 Nuked and cooled prawn chopped finely (yes I nuked 1 prawn)

Dash of salt and mixed seasoning as long as there's no sugar in it. Mix cheese with horseradish, green onion, chopped stems, chopped prawn and seasoning, scoop into the caps and you're done! Was it EVER GOOD!!! I made my lunch while I was at it and stuck it in the fridge, I haven't accomplished much as I've been googling plumbing solutions for my son, I think I hear my lunch calling me now...

Can I start again?

So much for day one... Urgh! (depression and moving by yourself doesn't make for good friends). I've started again today, just because today was the day I woke up and decided to start. How did I come to that conclusion? I opened my fridge at 8am and made breakfast while on the phone. Started.

My biggest problem is putting food into my mouth so early in the morning. "Pre" dinner eating seems to be the biggest hurdle I have, once I've overcome that particular hurdle I'm usually not too bad at staying with the program (so to speak- staring at my knees while sitting in my chair or curling up into a ball in bed when I'm overwhelmed gets in the way a tad too). I have a pretty amazing pantry being a foodie, so there's always  something to "mock up" a SB (South Beach- diet plan of choice) meal in a pinch until I make it to the store to fill in the gaps. I never buy fast food so my fridge is always a plenty with veggies and lean meats, fish, nuts, eggs and egg whites, good oils and there's usually an avocado hanging in there screaming at me to make something with it before it becomes way too overripe to eat (only discovered once I've succumbed to the screaming and decide to do something with it, cut it open and it's dark brown inside). So breakfast this morning was an egg-white omelette with a couple of good size stalks of asparagus, need the V8 and some back bacon (on my list), I'm about to have a snack- low fat cheese spread into a stick or two of celery, and I think I'll make a parsley salad with cukes, tomatoes, red onion and throw in a tin of solid "packed in water" white tuna for my protein, drizzle some whisked olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, dijon dressing on it- voila! Lunch is history. I'll throw some nuts into myself for an afternoon snack and then the next hurdle will be dinner.

Dinner will look something like this- (remember, I'm not prepared) I bought a whole pork loin on sale the other day, very lean, and I was craving schnitzel ( I make an amazing schnitzel with panko bread crumbs!!!) But I need to SB it. I'll pound the pork, dunk it in a little whisked skim milk and egg, lightly bread it with ground nuts and do a quick pan fry with an olive oil spray. For the gravy- I'll pan fry a few thinly sliced mushrooms (again with olive oil spray), once nicely toasted, I'll turn the heat down and add some (2 tablespoons?) low fat sour cream and some veggie broth and simmer until reduced a bit, I figure that should do it. Some steamed veggies on the side and I'm set!! Now that the food is taken care of I can move on to my mental health exercises for the day.... Harder than the eating right.

I'll pack-
Goals for today-
Finish the livingroom (3/4 done already)
Attack bedroom closet (pack all small and medium clothes)

Other things-
Comb my "molting" dog
Pay some bills
Make my list for groceries tomorrow

Doesn't sound like a whole lot, but for me it's a mountain. The depression is not getting any better, I've decided it's mostly situational. I've moved twice in less than a year, overcome some massive heart aches and seen way too many bad things happen. The newest and biggest worry I have now is how to survive and not lose our land on the pay we're now getting. Brent has had to sign a contract with the company he's with in order to save his job. Unfortunately, this contract doesn't allow him any overtime which was really saving our ass- Even with the move to a less expensive place, it only allows for our mortgage (on our land), rent (on the place we'll be in until we can afford to build), one vehicle payment and insurance (we've already gotten rid of the other vehicle)... not much else. It's going to be impossible and I find myself waking up at night worrying and wringing my hands most of the day.

Keeping my fingers crossed there will be a day "two"......

Day 1

I suppose I've decided to start day 1 on December 30th to avoid the cliche of this being an "impulse" New Year's resolution. It. Is. Not. I assure you this has been a long time coming.

3 years of severe depression, and at least 60lbs later I need a plan- this is it. I will blog my way to physical health and mental fitness, that is to say; I will blog as I change my life. Daily.

Last night I watched "Julie & Julia", a heartwarming quirky movie and although it wasn't my first time seeing the movie, something struck me- I need short term goals, very short term- like hourly. Depression for me is being in a state of "sticky stuckness", I know my choice of wording isn't coming up on the spell-checker, but it IS how I feel so I'm just going to let it be. 

I have help- I have a vast knowledge of nutrition and exercise as my husband was once a "natural bodybuilder", as well, I have spent the last 4-5-6? months getting myself into a program for depression and anxiety, a once a week group therapy session hosted by the local hospital on an outpatient basis (start date January 17th, 2011). I'm no looney tune, quite smart if I say so myself, have had my own business and ran my husbands, but a lot of bad things have happened and I have suffered 2 massive breaks in my mental wellness- I believe we refer to these events as nervous breakdowns.

Therapists have almost convinced me that once you suffer a nervous breakdown you can never be "as good" as you once were, a subsequent nervous breakdown and the diagnosis is the same- only, you're not as good as you were after you had the first one- not a good or acceptable prognosis in my mind. I'm going to leave room for belief in "being better" than I once was, maybe not as vulnerable as I once was, I'm more mature, wiser, seasoned and very tired of feeling broken.

Today's goals:

1) Throw out all the Christmas "crap food" leftover from the holidays (husband is gone back to work out of town, it's only me here)
2) Clean up the dishes
3) Clean up the mess my dog made destroying a Christmas wreath
4) Work on my complete profile tonight
5) Explore my goals

Success is my first goal, one small step at a time.