Regression and progress

I'm ashamed to say that I hit a bit of a snag recently. I hurt my feet--damn you, plantar fasciitis--and found myself snacking on chocolate chips when I couldn't find anything else to assuage my chocolate cravings. Sigh. I took some time off the cardio but kept on doing some yoga and Self Challenge workouts just to keep from becoming solid blubber.

I did try a brand new recipe from Self, though, and it was a winner! The chicken confetti pasta salad from CookingLight was not so great and I will not be posting that. But the shrimp, pea and potato gnocchi from Self truly is fabulous. I think it's the simplicity of it, plus how the rosemary smells when you throw everything into the oil.

From Self via Scott Conant's New Italian Cooking
Makes 4 servings.
3/4 lb large shrimp (about 30 pieces), peeled and deveined
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (I used dried)
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley (again, dried)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
3 cups frozen potato gnocchi (I used a box, all I could find)
1/4 cup fresh peas
1 tbsp thinly sliced green onion (forgot this but didn't make a difference)

Toss shrimp with 1 tbsp oil, rosemary, parsley, red pepper flakes, and garlic and refrigerate 3 hours (or if you're scatterbrained like me, 30 minutes)
Bring 8 cups well-salted water to a boil; add gnocchi. Drain when gnocchi float (about 5 minutes), reserving 1/4 cup liquid.
Combine remaining 1 tbsp oil with shrimp, peas and green onion in a large sauté pan over high heat; season with salt and pepper. Add gnocchi and pasta liquid and cook until shrimp are pink and just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Serve warm.

Nutritional analysis per serving 332 calories, 8.7 g fat (1.2 g saturated fat), 39.9 g carbohydrates, 23.8 g protein, 4.2 g fiber

I'm reading The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever currently. It's too soon to write a real review, but I like the basic ideas. They're not telling me to eat a percentage of this or a percentage of that, which is GREAT. Basically, it seems to be about awareness, which is the heart of creating healthy habits.

Habit-breaking, habit-forming

One of my goals this year is to become a morning exerciser. This quarter, this has been made more challenging with 9am classes. If I want to work out, shower, eat breakfast, and catch the bus in time to make it to the law school with a bit of breathing room, I either have to do a short workout (i.e., 20-minute yoga DVD) or get up REALLY early. This is made more complicated when my roommate, who gets up after me, is already using the shower when I get back from my workout.

But the real problem isn't the shower: I have the hardest time getting out of bed at 6am! I've been slowly trying to push back my wake-up time, but I have this unfortunate tendency of falling back asleep. Even putting my alarm across the room hasn't nipped this habit in the bud.

On the habit-forming side, I am having some success resurrecting an old, kind of weird habit: Pulling off pieces of food--like cheese from pizza or a quarter of a cookie--and throwing them in the trash before I can eat them. I know it's weird. But when I hit my first plateau two years ago, I started doing this at work and the scale started to budge again. It is best to do this only with snacks and treats.

At first, I was horrified at myself for "wasting" food by not finishing what I started to eat. We're all taught to clean our plates as children. (By the way, I think this is the worst thing that you can do as a parent. By all means, withhold dessert, but making your child eat past satiation sends the wrong signal. They learn not to listen to their bodies saying, "Hey, I'm full, you can stop eating now.) But then I realized that eating something I didn't need or want wasn't a waste--it was just another step towards a healthier, fitter body. So I'm going to continue to pick pieces of granola bar off of my snack and throw it away, pull cheese off of entrees at restaurants, and leave things on my dinner plate.

Oh, Vegas.

Oh, indeed. Vegas is all hustle and bustle, bright lights and spectacle. And it is also about eye-popping amounts and quality of food. I couldn't resist...at least not all the time.

Despite that, I feel much more relaxed and able to take on things now. Like so many other women, I turn to food when life feels difficult (or boring). It's a shame that, unlike men, women get fat when they're not content. Of course, I find it difficult to believe that all the very overweight and obese men I saw in Vegas this weekend are living deliriously happy lives.

I did manage to walk a lot, avoided mindless snacking, and shared my dessert. Sadly, sharing a piece of the creamiest NY-style cheesecake I've EVER had is still pretty bad...My post-vacation weigh-in tomorrow morning is likely not going to inspire smiles.

But things are looking up: I have new workout DVDs to try, courtesy of the library; the weather is slowly improving, making outside workouts compelling again; and I am ready to spend the rest of my vacation scouring my CookingLight cookbooks for tasty new recipes to try!

Apple Harvest Oatmeal (tweaked)

1/2 cup quick-cooking oatmeal (NOT those packets of instant)
3/4 cup water
1/4-1/2 Tbs. butter
One medium apple, cored and diced
1/2 Tbs brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Dried cranberries, golden raisins, whatever is on hand

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Add the diced apple and cook until soft, about 2 minutes.
Add the cinnamon and brown sugar; cook until dissolved.
Add the water and cranberries/golden raisins; bring to light boil.
Add the oatmeal and cook for two minutes.
Remove from heat.

For extra protein, you can add almonds. I usually add a little bit of nonfat milk.