eeeeeegggggsellent

This week is shaping up to be awesome omelette week here at Chez Arnold. I kinda like when I have the house all to myself when my boy is traveling, because I can come and go as I please, I can clean as much (or, at times, as little) as I want to, and I can cook whatever I want to cook without worrying whether anyone else will enjoy the all-veggie approach. (Miss Ella isn't a big fan of too many green foods...yet!)


All week I've been focusing on omelettes, because I make them so they're low in fat but high in protein and epic yum. I guess I shouldn't really say omelette - it's more a scrambled mess of awesomeness than an actual folded, pretty creation. The above photo is (was) tonight's dinner: egg beaters with fresh spinach, broccoli, mushrooms and onions, and a small handful of gorgonzola crumbles. I paired it with homemade fresh potato crisps baked with a brush of olive oil and some sea salt and ground pepper.


Let me tell you - this shit was the kick. SO GOOD. Cook it with a few sprays of canola oil (for non-fat cooking™, kids) instead of butter, use all fresh ingredients, and you're in egg (beater) heaven. And the potato crisps are badass, too. They're super easy to make, and the only fat in them is a little bit of the good kind. I used to be terrified of even a gram or two of fat (ridiculous, but I think I allowed myself something like 5 grams a day, on a good day) - but the more I read, the more I think I need some olive oil in my world. I use it sparingly, but a little goes a long way.


Every day this week I've made a variation of the above, and every day I've been happy and full without feeling like I ate anything awful. If you're a dessert person (unfortunately, I have a wicked sweet tooth), I recommend something I think I invented - it's a twist on a recipe I found online for low-fat pumpkin pudding. Take some nonfat Greek yogurt (Chobani is great), mix it with some sweetened almond paste (the kind you use for pastries! seriously!), mix in 2 chopped dried apricots, and sprinkle with a little dash of cinnamon. It's filling, it's super sweet, it's low in fat (about 1.5 to 2.5 grams for a small bowl)...and it's totally fucking yumsville. No lie, dudes.


Now I'm going to sit on my butt and work on some music...because I swore I'd get back into that, too, and dammit, I AM.


As a completely unrelated post script, here's a picture I took last week of my husband's extremely high quality butt. You're welcome, guys.

look, ma, no quitting!

What does THIS little picture tell ya, kids??


It tells you I know how to pick up a weight and use PhotoBooth.


BUT...


It also means I really HAVE been exercising...and if you'll notice, there's nothing on my forehead...like, say, BANGS.


Foreals! I haven't lost that 20 pounds yet - I'm not even close, really - but I'm actually ON the proper path. And I haven't gone anywhere near my forehead with scissors, tempting as it may be on a regular basis.


Let's interject here - my hairline SUCKS. I've considered buying that creepy powder for people with seriously thinning hair...y'know, to make it LOOK like there's more hair there at the scalp. I'll bet THAT really fools 'em.


But let's focus on the important shit here, which is: I'm actually sticking to things the way I said I would. I've started getting into a food plan that uses lots of fresh produce and weird concoctions I never would have thought of on my own. It's been fun to cook this stuff, and what's crazy is that it actually TASTES GOOD. Amazing.


So that's going to help in the fight against "I'm getting older so now I have to eat horrible diet foods to maintain my weight" - like, REALLY help. I'm not able to "diet" anymore anyway. The drive for that went out the window after the eating disorders business - once you make it out of those waters, you tend to wonder how you ever had the energy for it in the first place. So no dieting is ever going to work for me again. If I'm getting back into better shape, it's going to be by cooking fresh foods and getting some exercise, and it's not going to be a quick fix.


The slow results don't make for an exciting blog or experience, but I think my methods are working. "My methods" also involve not turning down comfort foods when I really have a craving, but I think I'm much more okay with that than with a quick and severe drop in weight - life is just way too short to cut out the stuff that's just plain FUN to eat. Knowwhutimsayin?


Now that fall's almost here, it's getting easier for me to exercise a little more. Kinda backwards, isn't it? I think it's because it's not 400 fucking million degrees out...or maybe it's because I saw what I look like in swimwear. I'm not really questioning it, though - I'm just gonna go with it.