Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Nearing the End- Days 20 & 21

There is a light at the end of the tunnel!  We have finished up days 20 and 21 and some exciting news- I lost another pound!  The tally is now officially at 4 pounds lost.  Not super impressive by any means and certainly not as much as I was hoping to lose (at least 7) in these 24 days but I am happy to have lost something.

On day 20 I went out to lunch with a friend to a local Mexican restaurant and was very pleasantly surprised by how tasty my food was.  Per her suggestion, I got chicken soup, which was a good sized bowl of chicken broth based soup filled with avocado, pico, rice, and chicken breast.  It had some spice, but was filling and quite savory, plus it fit into my food allowance nicely.  I resisted my desire to eat all the chips and salsa I wanted and ate none and I'm glad I did because that is often where I get in trouble at Mexican places.  For dinner I made a favorite of Mark's and mine (notice I didn't say "family favorite" because the girls won't eat it)- lentil salad.  My lifelong childhood best friend introduced me to this recipe over the summer and it's a big hit in my house now, often requested by Mark, especially on hot summer evenings when no one wants to heat up the house with the oven.  We adapted this recipe at bit to fit our needs and to add even more flavors to the mix and it turned out great, as always.  We did not include feta and added a cut up cucumber and several diced mini sweet peppers, which made it nice and crunchy!  I did miss the feta a bit, but we will add it next time after the challenge is done.  We always try to have the lentils and bruscetta on hand so that we can make this simple, quick and filling dish in a pinch.  Yum!

Day 21 was a busy day that left me sipping on my breakfast shake until after noon.  Lunch was left over lentil salad (another bonus of that recipe is that it makes a very large amount and there are always left overs!) and in the afternoon I took a nap because the baby was up a lot the night before.  Instead of eating dinner around dinner time, I went to the Y to meet a friend to walk and talk so I took along a clementine for a snack.  We walked a little over a mile and chatted about schooling options (more on that another day) and then when I got home, I ate some lentil red pepper soup (easy on the lentils, Mandy! You'd think that's all I eat!).

Two days left after today!  I'm really excited to stop being so restrictive.  I will probably post once more about this whole challenge journey and then move on to something new (I know, inside you readers are rejoicing!)  Time to start my day long cleaning fest for house church tonight- getting my exercise in that way!  Happy Wednesday!

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