WTG! Monday & a Yummy Recipe

Wow, was week nine of my diet a total blow-out or what! This week was the first week to gain since I started. I happy about that but a little bummed too since I messed up an alright record.

To tell you the truth this was a really bad diet week. Mondays are date nights and because of a busy day we out it off till Tuesday but my body decided to celebrate by eating about 800 calories more that day. Then Tuesday when we finally went on date night we tried a new restaurant only to find out my grilled chicken and oven potatoes was actually grilled chicken in a white pine nut sauce and the oven potatoes were fried.  "Did you eat it", you ask. Oh yeah, I ate it all and the complimentary veal kidney pâté with the little breads. Yes I did! Oh that was Monday and Tuesday just wait till I tell you about Friday. Friday we baked for a get-to-get her at church and we made m&m sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies and snicker doodles. So I had all the intentions in the world not to let one of those cookies pass my lips but out of habit I accidentally licked a little of the batter off my finger and the beast was unleashed!!!! Counting Friday and Saturday (I'm being honest here) I probably put away 10  cookies no 15 cookies oh okay 20 cookies! 20 cookies and 5 of those were jumbo. I don't know what went wrong, something just clicked or unclicked in my mind and I was a beast.

So after trying to make up for it a little yesterday I managed to only gain .2 of a pound so even though that's a step backwards and a precious week lost I'm still okay with it. It could have been so much worse. I have only 4 weeks left till we fly to the states and I still need to lose 10 more pounds so GAME IS ON!!!

My goal this week is to workout Monday-Friday and really watch my sugar intake. We'll see on Monday how much of a impact it has on my weigh-in.

How'd you do?

Spicy chicken casserole

  with a healthy superfood side dish of protein-rich quinoa

INGREDIENTS 

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion , sliced

2 red peppers , deseeded and chopped into largish chunks

3 tbsp chipotle paste

2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes

4 skinless chicken breasts

140g quinoa

2 chicken stock cubes

1 x 400g can pinto beans , drained

small bunch coriander , most chopped, a few leaves left whole

juice 1 lime

1 tbsp sugar

natural yogurt , to serve

INSTRUCTIONS 

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan and fry the onions and peppers for a few mins until softened. Stir in the chipotle paste for a minute, followed by the tomatoes. Add up to a tomato can-full of water to cover the chicken and bring to a gentle simmer. Add the chicken breasts and gently simmer, turning the chicken occasionally, for 20 mins until the chicken is cooked through.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil with the stock cubes. Add the quinoa and cook for 15 mins until tender, adding the beans for the final min. Drain well and stir in the coriander and lime juice, then check for seasoning before covering to keep warm.

Lift the chicken out onto a board and shred each breast using two forks. Stir back into the tomato sauce with the sugar and season. Serve with the quinoa, scattering the stew with some coriander leaves just before dishing up and eating with a dollop of yogurt on the side.

PER SERVING (5)

336 kcalories, protein 33.4g, carbohydrate 34.7g, fat 6 g, saturated fat 0.9g, fibre 4.1g, sugar 15.8g, salt 2.1 g

Swing by and check out BBC Good Food! It's a great website and there are tons of yummy recipes. It's also a lot more familiar for those of us who live in Europe. The above images are from BBC Good Food.