Tamale Pie – Weight Loss Diet Solutions

Breakfast this morning was a serving of leftover tamale pie from last night’s dinner. I’ve been eating leftovers for breakfast for as long as I can remember. Food is food, right? This recipe is so easy to put together: prepared polenta, black beans, diced tomatoes, monterey jack cheese, cumin, garlic and salt. Bake and eat.

Lunch was pretty uneventful, a grilled cheese sandwich. I always feel like I could eat like five more. So instead, I eat pineapple.

Pineapple will forever remind me of our family trip to Hawaii when I was 12. My mom was on a pineapple kick after that trip and so now they remind me of her. Mom, remember your pineapple rug?

I’m already feeling hunger pangs for dinner, what are you guys having?

Oh! I was interviewed for Fitbie (an MSN sister site) recently of an article, 10 Weight Loss Bloggers You Should Follow:

I have to admit feeling a little sheepish when these sorts of things come as a result of my blog and no doubt my search engine results. Not that I don’t appreciate them, because it’s kind of cool to show it to my mom and makes me feel validated on some weird level, but I’m aware of my lack of actual consistent weight loss.

I will say that there seems to be two types of weight loss bloggers, those who lose weight, and those that don’t and stop blogging. And while I’ve been tempted to be the latter on more than one occasion, I feel good about my decision to continue sharing my life. Like I said in the interview, “I want other women to know that you can have a loving husband, awesome career, and amazing outfits right now. If someone leaves my blog with hope, that’s really it for me. I want people to see somebody who hasn’t given up.” That is very true, I’m not giving up.

Today starts Lent, are you giving up anything? I’m going to try giving up TV again (I only made it to week five last year!) and continuing with eating only when I’m hungry rule. I slipped a little this weekend (I’m looking at you, smores), so I like the idea of making it through this stretch of time eating only out of true hunger.

I’ve been on the couch since Thursday afternoon nursing a sprained knee. Picture me tripping over and ON a dog. Who does that? I laugh because it’s pretty ridiculous. Thursday was the worst of the pain, Friday was better and today, while it still hurts a lot to bend my knee, I can move much better. Luckily, I’ve had these two to keep me company:

I’ve been keeping a food journal these past couple of days and would like to move that documentation on the blog. I always say that though so we’ll see what happens!

Yesterday mid-morning I was starving and needed something quick, easy and filling to make. My friend Courtney’s Tamale Pie came to the rescue! Oh my, this was glorious and so darn easy…

To make this all you need is a roll of prepared polenta, diced tomatoes, salsa (optional), black beans (one can), salt, cumin, garlic, green onions and cheese. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Crumble warm polenta in the bottom of a medium to small casserole dish. Top with black beans. Sprinkle with salt, cumin, and garlic. Add a layer of diced tomatoes (I used 3/4 of a very large can), then sprinkle with seasoning again. Finish with green onions and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

I ate two plates of this and another serving a few hours later with a turkey sandwich. Snacks included three clementines, a bite of turkey, and a little feta. I drank tons of water. I’m drinking about 12 oz. every hour which I believe is helping with the injury swelling. I like to think so at least.

And then later on in the evening I made vegetable fried rice and ate about a cup.

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This morning I gave myself a little spa treatment. I was feeling gross and restless and desperately needed to shave my legs. The miracles of a hot shower!

I had a banana in the early morning and then made this plate before noon:

A slice of oatmeal bread with butter, three slices of local/nitrate-free bacon, and scrambled eggs with feta, green pepper and green onion. And more water!

I’m working really hard on not eating out of hunger. Some days are better than others and I’m finding comfort and control in a daily food diary and weekly weigh-ins. Yesterday was a hard day. I wanted to snack on everything, and I just had to sit with it. I remind myself every day that it will get easier. Admitting that it’s not going to always be effortless is important to me. At some point yesterday I wanted to eat so bad that I was literally biting down on my hard plastic straw and I knew then, that these are the hard days of breaking a habit.

I think before I would have thought that my desire to eat more was caused by being bored, lonely, sad or deserving. I would have believe it was because I wasn’t getting enough of one type of food or another. And the more I do it and the more I practice, the more I realize that I’m beating a bad habit and nothing more than that. I’m breaking a 20+ year habit of eating despite of hunger.

Today is much better, I am getting restless though. I’m making sure to move every hour and to stretch my legs to prevent them from getting stiff. Do you guys have any recommended exercises that I can do for the next week or so while I’m on the mend? Something that I can do at home with my upper body and good leg without impact on the bad knee? I’d love to hear!

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