Mukumame and Rice Vinegar

Today marks six weeks since I birthed the most adorable human I've ever met. And I've been rewarding myself ever since so it's time to go to work on the extra "lbs." I am confessing this on my blog so I can hold myself to sticking to my goal....at least for 10 days. Haha ;)

I'll have you know that I don't believe in dieting. In fact, the last paper I wrote in college was a persuasive research paper against dieting....about how only 4-5% of diets are maintained and successful long term.  (Don't ask me to site a source on that; I shan't do the research again.) Anyway, diets are unsuccessful usually because they're too extreme.

So you'll forgive me if I tell you I started a diet yesterday.

But hear me out. I just need to kick start my transition away from sedentary-hood back to exercising-ness. Plus I totally need to eat better than I have been. You've heard Brian Regan's stand-up about "well I walked on the moon" as the ultimate one-upper in a conversation? Well, in a similar way I considered having a baby as a close second, so whenever in the past six weeks I tried to talk myself out of my third dessert of the day, I promptly reminded myself that I delivered a baby and continued dunking my Oreos.

A friend of mine is a BeachBody Instructor and invited me to do a free 10-day challenge with free access to work outs accompanied by set meal plans. I was going to just do the exercise part because remember-I'm anti-diet,but my wise husband helped me see that doing this could expose me to new delicious healthy snacks/foods/recipes that we could incorporate into our permanent lifestyle.

Lifestyle. Not diet....because no way am I going to pretend that I plan to keep up this rigid meal plan devoid of popcorn and ice cream.

So with that attitude in mind I will welcome the set workouts and take advantage of these healthy recipes...but I won't take it all too seriously. I'll introduce myself to new ingredients, meals and snacks, make appropriate substitutions or alterations to fit my personal palate and budget, cheat a little when necessary, and in 10 days I'll hopefully have a few recipes to add to my repertoire and a few pounds less to lug around. We'll see about the second one....I'm easing my way back into the healthy life.

Yesterday morning I did T-25-a short cardio workout-and it felt great to officially be working out again, but I DEFINITELY felt it this morning. This morning I did pilates and had to modify the MODIFIED MOVES for half the workout. But that's okay....slowly but surely.

This blog needs some pictures, so I took pics of my food. Don't judge them; this is not a cooking blog so I left out the checkered table cloth and decorative garnish.

I bought a few firsts: flaxseed, lentils, rice vinegar, etc. I know, all this talk of food is making you salivate.

Breakfast on day one: mostly egg whites, tomatoes, and fresh basil. I think I'd make it again even though this picture makes it look like mostly barf.

The fact that this snack is all green should indicate to you that it is a nasty snack. Shelled edamame (called mukumame) and fresh cilantro are delish on their own, but mix those with rice vinegar and sesame seeds and that equals a snack I will never make again. Plus, it is definitely not a practical snack to throw in my purse on my way out the door.

Lunch was delicious: chicken, green apples, red grapes, cashews, and raspberry vinaigrette. The recipe calls for walnuts, but walnuts are for old people. So I dug some cashews out of my trail mix I already had at home. I'm so resourceful.

Worst meal of my life. I'm sorry...trying to be open minded but I gagged this down. Not only that, but the presentation came out as a total flop That pile of quinoa, bell peppers, and flaxseed is supposed to be in a patty laid nicely across the wilted spinach. Gross, I don't want to talk about this meal anymore. Texture ew. Flavor ew. Lesson learned.

Haha, you were all hoping for cute pictures of baby Grace and I posted crummy pictures of health food.