Seconds (but not thirds)

This weekend brought an end to my 500 calorie a day portion of the diet (also known as Phase 2) and the begnning of my 1500ish calorie a day for 3 weeks portion (Phase 3).

To say this weekend was an emotional food rollercoaster is an understatement.

Entering into Phase 3 is odd. I really miss being in the strict guidelines of Phase 2, honestly. At least there I knew what I was getting, and I knew what I was doing, and I knew I would be losing. Of course I've read enough about Phase 3 to know and expect a gain in weight intially since I was re-introducing so many foods at once at the picnic I had with my friends. I didn't imagine it to be so hard to accept, though. It's only 1lb, but after all the work I've done in the past month to lose 30lbs... it's odd. And hard. But I'm determined to stabalize my weight in this range for a bit until I can go back to Phase 2 and lose lose lose again, and finally reach my goal :)

So here's a recap of my weekend in cronological order... despite all the stuff I had going on about transitioning between P2 and P3, it was one of the most relaxing, fun weekends I've had in a while.

Saturday I went shopping, real grocery shopping, for the first time since I lived alone in Chicago about 3-4 years ago. The only difference was that this time I went to health food stores! I really wanted to make some yummy, P3 friendly, healthy food for a picnic my friends and I went on Sunday afternoon. It's a new tradition we're starting (I named it the "The Bi-annual Classy Classic Company Picnic Brunch) and the idea was for everyone to bring something to share. I planned on bringing a few somethings, to ensure that I would have some food present that I could eat since on P3 I'm not allowed sugar or starch. I have this great Trader Joe's cookbook I picked up from Barnes&Nobel a few weeks ago, so I took a few things from that and decided to start my cooking career there.

Trader Joes and Henry's are my new BFF's, I swear. I'm not very good at grocery shopping yet. I wander around aimlessly and have to ask for things like dates (not with the cute bag boys, sillies. I literally had never known what a date was until the nice TJ lady took me to the fruit section and handed me a box of them).

But, after a trip to TJ's, a trip to Henry's, then a return trip to TJ's for things I forgot, I was ready to go.

I think I'm going to buy one of those reusable Trader Joe bags. They are only $1.99, they are pretty, and they are not made of layers of paper like these beauties. The only thing about that is that my Kitten loved playing in these bags after they were empty... but we can figure that one out.

One of the things I've been eager to re-acquaint myself with in P3 is cheese. I love cheese. Almost every single kind. It was the only thing I struggled with missing, and part of this whole picnic plan was having wine & cheese as a main course... so I was excited about that. But I may have gone a bit overboard:

Haha... ok. So this wasn't all for me, or for the wine & cheese protion of the picnic. I used most of it in the things I made. The feta is my own personal stash, though. I love feta on salad.

After I put all of the new goods away I made myself my last P2 dinner for a while. I did a simple 3oz piece of chicken with some cooked asparagus. I topped it all off with some italian vinagarette (P2 friendly, of course) that I'd made a few days prior. The Vinagarette is so good, I will make it for the rest of my life!

It's sad looking, but it's so good and meals like this have reshaped my life (not to mention me!) so it's close to my heart :) Excuse the Little Mermaid plate. I'm still a child sometimes, haha.

After dinner I dove into cooking for the picnic. All in all everything turned out awesome. I'm so excited to know I can cook. My friend's reactions to everything I made were so nice and encouraging. Even though nothing I made was too difficult, it did feel good to know I can cook, and that this basic female-esque skill is something I can provide for people I love and hopefully someday a hubby of my own.

These are cream cheese clouds that I found on the forums I go on for support on this diet. They are a nice little frozen treat, and were pretty good, but a bit too sweet. The original recipe used Splenda but for a year now I've been using Stevia pretty exclusively (an all natural sweetner) so I stuck with that. Only problem is, oops, Stevia is pretty dang strong and provided a little too much sweetness on these guys. Next time I make them I'll probably cut the portion in 1/2. Later on I put sugar free chocolate syrup on the top of them. I think that the few I have left will at least be appreciated by my parents. These little guys will be good in summer, I think.

These are bacon wrapped dates from the TJ cookbook. My guys friends lovingly renamed them cooked cockroaches, because they sort of do look like that, especially when you whip a bunch of them out at a picnic in the woods. I was skeptical of these, I'm not going to lie. Only because I'm a picky eater and I'd never had dates before. These went fast, though, and I grabbed one to try before they were gone. And oh my yum! I do love them. I think I'll pull these out for parties and Christmas and stuff. They aren't the best for you because of the bacon, but I got uncured (read: sugarless) bacon from TJ's so it's not so bad. Also, dates are huge anti-oxidant fruits. So it's a good alternative to cupcakes or cookies or whatnot.

Next we have stuffed mushrooms, also from the TJ cookbook. These are by far my favorite. The mushrooms are stuffed with garlic&herb cheese and spinach. I love them. So much. Also another thing I will be returning to for parties and any general gathering. You can see the spot at the top of the pan where one is missing - that's the one I tried. That's the one that changed my life, haha.

Lastly I made this warm brie cinnamon pear baked pie thingy, another from the TJ cookbook. It seemed to go over well with my friends. I'm not a huge brie fan so I didn't have any, but it smelled good. I brought about 1/2 of it home and it will go to the parentals as well. I hear it's good on crackers. I'm not sure if I'll make it again or not, but it was fun to make something I normally wouldn't even think of putting together.

All in all it was so much fun, and such a success. I had good food to eat at the picnic that I had a great time making, and I also munched on other fine cheeses, fruits, and meats that my friends provided. One of the other ladies made a lovely basil, motzerella, tomatoe salad with balsamic dressing that I ended up taking home with me. It was so refreshing and totally P3 friendly... how could I resist? I don't normally like tomatoes at all, but I'm trying to overcome our differences and repair our relationship. I think it could be good for me.

I also had some mimosa and wine yesterday (plum wine & chardonnay) which all no doubt had sugar in it. I was a bad girl on that side of things, but I decided to suck it up and face the consequences this time.

So, for today I'm concentrating on the weight gain I had from yesterday, and trying to stick to protiens and veggies to see if that at least helps me avoid another gain. I'm going to hot yoga tonight for the first time in a while, so that will be challenging but very good. Hopefully it will clear out some of the crap (read: sugar) I put in yesterday with the alcohol I consumed.

Mostly I really, really cannot wait for the next Bi-annual Classic Classy Company Picnic Brunch to happen in August. We really had a classy, good time.

The fellas

Us ladies