Yummy Recipe - Tropical Chicken Fingers

I came up with this recipe on the fly tonight and it was so good I wanted to share.  It's nothing new or even creative but it was really good.  The mango coconut sauce is pre-made in a bottle.  It is made by Tropical Pepper Company.  I get it at Earth Fare but I know you can find it in a lot of grocery stores.  I had the chicken and sauce with some grilled asparagus and it totaled under 400 calories but I had only 3 chicken fingers instead of a full serving of 4.  If you have 4 chicken fingers and 3 tablespoons of sauce it is a total of 431 calories per serving.  Enjoy.

Tropical Chicken Fingers with Mango Coconut Sauce

• 1 lb Chicken Breast (boneless,skinless)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup Panko Japanese Style Bread Crumb
• Non stick Cooking Spray
• 1 whole lemon, cut in half
• 6 tbsp Mango Coconut Pepper Sauce
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder

Directions

Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium high heat. Use pre-cut chicken strips or trim chicken into 8 strips. Break egg into a flat bottomed dish and add salt and garlic. Mix well with a wisk. Dip chicken strips into egg and then roll in panko crumbs, coating the chicken well. Place the chicken in the heated skillet and spray with a little more cooking spray. Turn chicken once browned. Cook thoroughly. Squeeze lemon juice on chicken and place on plate. Serving is 4 chicken fingers with 3 tablespoons of sauce on the side.

This Too Will Pass

It’s been a tough week.   I never really thought I was an emotional eater until now.  In the past, I did not react to stress by going to food.  At least not that I was aware.  I tended to not really think about food when stress came around.  I don’t really have a lot of stress in my life on a regular basis so maybe I just didn’t know.

This week was stressful.  And I wanted to eat all kinds of things that were bad for me.  I wanted a McDonald’s hamburger and fries.  I don’t really even like McDonald’s except for their french fries.  I wanted pizza.  I wanted a foot long hot dog from a local drive-in in a combo with krinkle cut fries with lots of salt and ketchup.  And a milk shake.  And I ate it all over the course of the week.

I don’t really even like fast food.  I have not really missed it at all during the last 8 months.  But in a reaction to the stress, I wanted all that stuff.  I wrote it all down too in my on-line tracker, every day and all of it.  It was a lot of calories every day and I didn’t burn much more than what I took in each day but I did burn more.  The tracking and the lack of calories burned gave me a wake up call.  It had to stop.  And hi, my name is Tere and I am an Emotional Eater.

It made me look at what I was doing and made me realize it has to stop.  I have lost a lot of weight and gained so much more over the last 8 months.  It really has not been hard until this week.  I ate more than one serving of everything.  I ate things I didn’t really love.  All because I was stressed. 

The stress will go away but the weight gained (or not lost) will be here to remind me that I cannot do that.  The trips I have made to the bathroom have also reminded me!  Ugh!

Like I said, this was a tough week but I will not self-destruct.  I have done some self-reflection and learned something.  The stress will pass on by eventually and it is not in my control.  But what I put in my mouth is in my control. 

Favorite Recipe – Szechuan Shrimp

I love recipes from Cooking Light.  You can go to Cooking Light’s website and my favorite section 5 Ingredient Recipes.  I have found so many healthy, easy and quick recipes that have helped me lose weight.  I also own several of their cookbooks.  I love that they include all the nutritional information with every recipe.

Please enjoy one of my favorites then visit their site and find more.  And NO, I do not work for Cooking Light nor do I receive anything for endorsing them.  I just like them people!

By the way, I usually add Chinese pea pods to this when I add the shrimp.  It adds very few calories but gets some green veggies in and tastes great.

Szechuan Shrimp

Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 7 minutes
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup)

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 1/2  pounds  peeled and deveined large shrimp
• 3/4  teaspoon  crushed red pepper
• 1/2  cup  light sesame-ginger dressing (such as Newman's Own)
• 4  green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2  tablespoons  lightly salted toasted soy nuts, coarsely chopped

Preparation

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; coat with cooking spray. Coat shrimp with cooking spray; add shrimp and red pepper to pan. Stir-fry 2 minutes. Add dressing and onions. Cook 3 minutes or until shrimp are done, stirring constantly. Sprinkle evenly with soy nuts; serve immediately.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 190 (18% from fat)

Fat: 4g (sat 0.6g,mono 0.3g,poly 0.6g)

Protein: 29.5g

Carbohydrate: 7.9g

Fiber: 1.4g

Cholesterol: 252mg

Iron: 4.4mg

Sodium: 708mg

Calcium: 72mg

From Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast, Oxmoor House, APRIL 2009

Meal Tracking 3/16/2010

Today was a busy day and I love being back to tracking my food.  I had enough calories left over for dinner to have some yummy Swedish Meatballs with sauce over egg noodles.  I love that I can have just about anything I want as long as I have just one serving.  And I still have 288 calories left today.

March 16th, 2010

Meal

Item Brand

Item Name

Your Servings

Calories

breakfast breakfast

Laughing Cow Thomas

Light Swiss Cheese Bagel Thins

1.00  1.00

35 110

breakfast

Oscar Mayer

Pre-cooked Bacon Slices

1.00

70

breakfast

Raw Spinach

1.00

7

breakfast

Starbucks

Venti Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte

1.00

160

lunch

Kashi

Mayan Harvest Bake

1.00

340

lunch

Jello

Mousse Temptations - Dark Chocolate Decadence

1.00

60

lunch

Navel Orange

1.00

64

afternoon snack

Back to Nature

Cranberry Pecan Granola

0.50

100

afternoon snack

Chobani

Nonfat Plain Yogurt

1.00

100

afternoon snack

Truvia

1.00

0

dinner

Prepared Ikea Cream Sauce

0.25

64

dinner

IKEA

Swedish Meatballs

1.00

210

dinner

Great Value

Wide Egg Noodles

1.00

220

Totals

Calories

1,539.50

Back To The Real World

I have been on vacation.  It was a vacation from life, vacation from work and a vacation from my diet.  My daughter and her friends were on spring break from their various colleges so we planned a girls trip to the beach with moms and daughters.  Now I am back from my very relaxing week and headed back to the the real world. 

For the most part I was careful on my vacation when it came to eating.  I was thoughtful about what I ate but I did not restrict myself.  I was at the beach so it was easy to do seafood.  I was the cook all week so I was able to control what I ate and how it was prepared.  I used a lot of Cooking Light recipes that everyone could enjoy and they all loved the food I made.  The few times we ate out, I passed up the Cheeseburger in Paradise and went for the grilled fish with steamed veggies.  I ate steamed shrimp but also enjoyed baked oysters.  I stepped out of bounds on occasion but it was a conscious choice.  I ate dessert and I drank some pina coladas and had a few beers and enjoyed some chips and dip.  

But the difference during this trip was I made the dessert and only made enough for one day rather than every day.  I had a few chips and some dip rather than a bag of chips and a container of dip.  I had one pina colada instead of the whole blender full.  I shared an order of fries rather than getting my own.  I brought my hula hoops and hooped on the beach.  We went for a walk.  I made an effort to stay moving rather than just sitting in a beach chair or on the couch.

But I will not be getting on the scales for a couple of weeks.  I don’t feel like I gained, more likely I maintained.  But because I reached a milestone of 50 pounds the week before I left for vacation, I don’t want to get wrapped up in the number on the scale or the inevitable guilt that might result.  I don’t do guilt and I don’t need it affecting my progress.  The next time I weigh, it will be a lower number than the last time.

Tomorrow I will be back to food tracking and wearing the bodybugg and attending dance classes and moving my butt more.  I am excited to be back to my routine.  I am thankful for the time I had with my daughter and her friends and my friends.  But I love my routine of healthy choices and focused effort to make changes in my life.  I really don’t want go back to my old way of living.  I like things the way they are now.  I have learned so much and have come so far.  And I have a really long way to go so I know I can take a vacation and come right back and stay on track.

It was a good week.

Score!

I don’t do regular weigh-ins.  As far as I’m concerned, the scale is just a tool to measure my progress.  Some people get so wrapped up in what the the number is on the scale and they must get on it every day, obsessively.  If the number goes up, which it inevitably will if you weigh daily, they are devastated.  And I can’t take those teeny losses that come with weighing daily.  I want progress.  I want positive losses.  I need to lose a total of 130 – 140 pounds and if I measured that in ounces, I would have given up long ago.

I weigh when I can tell I have lost.  Or when I am close to a milestone.   And last week, I realized I was close to one of those milestones.  I could tell I had lost more weight over the last few weeks so I got on the scales and, oh my goodness, I was at 48 pounds lost, just 2 pounds away from the 50 pound mark. 

I knew I had been staying within my calories really well and dancing my butt off, literally.  So this morning, I got on the scales again and those 2 pounds were GONE!

So it’s photo time!  I have been measuring my progress with photos at various points.  Now I have a new “Along the Way” picture.  You can see the “Before” as well as more “Along the Way” pictures by clicking on the link at the top of the page, just under the blog header.

So it’s 50 down and about 80 more to go.