21-Day Challenge

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger, but the wedding is now less than one month away, and for the next 20ish, I'll be eating a lot of pre-prepared foods.

Mike and I just started the My Fit Foods 21-Day Challenge yesterday, inspired by a few people who are seeing great success. One of my childhood friends lost 22 pounds in 21 days. I'm not expecting such results, but I'll take 8 pounds. I'm willing to go to bed hungry every night for 8 pounds. (Have I mentioned my dress is snug?)


I'll post some pictures over the next few days of a few of our meals. Tonight, I get three small pieces - about three ounces - of beef tenderloin and about a cup of cooked mushrooms and red peppers and onions. They meals are all small, but healthy and surprisingly tasty. It's amazing to me after just two days (well, almost two days!), how much perspective I'm getting on the crazy-large portions of food I was eating over the last few months.

For example, the night before we started, we had a couple of friends over for dinner. We had a simple and fairly healthy dinner -- oven roasted kale chips, a kitchen-sink type of salad and flounder with a lemon and butter sauce. (And then we decided because we'd be hungry for the next three weeks straight to treat ourselves to some crepes with dulce de leche.) It was a delicious meal, and I don't recall going to bed "stuffed" or feeling that we'd overeaten. But really, we had. Entirely overeaten. We'd had about one and a half pieces of flounder apiece (cooked in lemon, butter and olive oil), a rich salad with some cheese, avocados and nuts swimming in a fatty dressing, kale chips slathered in olive oil and sea salt ... and (ahem!) two crepes each. Right now a meal like that sounds like so much food! (Right now, I'd kill for a meal like that! And I'd promise to shave off one crepe and that extra half-piece of flounder.)

I'm hoping three weeks from now to be 8-10 pounds lighter with a more realistic view of portion control. I will always be a food junkie, but I'm going to see if I can learn how to permanently alter the amount I'm taking in. I want to finally learn moderation. I want to stop eating before I'm full. I don't want to be this big for the rest of my life.

And I don't plan to be. So I'll keep you posted, while I continue to find that skinny bitch inside me!

(I woke up very hungry this morning, only on Day 2. I could not wait for my steel cut oatmeal breakfast. I weighed in 2.4 pounds lighter. It might just be water weight, but I'll take it!)

Sonoran hot dog

In Tucson, Arizona, there are at least two spots known 'round the land for producing a high-quality Sonoran hot dog.

Last year, we tried BK's. The hot dog was good, loaded with things I'd never had on a hot dog until then. But the taco I ordered to complement my dog was even better.

This time, we tried BK's competitor, El Guero Canelo.*

Since we popped in between lunch and dinner, we each got only one hot dog -- mine was once again fully loaded, wrapped in bacon and topped with beans, tomatoes, chopped white onion, cheese, mustard, sour cream and limes and salsa. Mike scaled his down a little, opting out of the onions and mustard. (I know, I don't get it, either!)

I didn't think there was a big distinction between BK's or Guero Canelo; they both make a mean Sonoran dog.

*Long before I met Mike or knew the restaurant existed, I was familiar with the Calexico song bearing the Guero Canelo name. If you've never heard it -- or if you're unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with Calexico in general - give it a listen. It's not about hot dogs, but it's just as good.