Feeling smaller...

I woke up yesterday morning and felt smaller.....especially in the whole abdominal area. I put on a pair of pants and a shirt that I had not worn at all last year--and they weren't tight! So I walked around all yesterday and today feeling smaller. I can tell I'm not carrying around as much weight. I sleep so much better and that feels wonderful.

I'm not a slave to weighing myself. In fact, I'm actually afraid to. Losing only 1-2 pounds a week means that if I weigh daily then I don't feel like I'm making any progress because some days you haven't lost anything. But I feel smaller and I'm wearing clothes I haven't worn in a year or more, so that's ok with me. I think big changes will happen in a few weeks when I get my first band fill (Oct. 16) and I start going to Curves. In the meantime, I'm focusing on having a healthy eating schedule.

This is what my daily menu looks like:

Breakfast: 6 oz. drink made with Whey Gourmet and skim milk. The peanut butter chocolate flavor is super yummy! On Saturday mornings I fix myself an egg beaters omelet with sauted mushrooms and Canadian bacon.

Lunch: A half sandwich on wheat bread with turkey. Sometimes I add a piece of no-fat swiss cheese and/or a squirt of salad spritzer.....or I have a cup of soup. This past week I had the Italian Tomato Soup.

Supper: Baked fish (almost always salmon) with sliced tomato and another vegetable or a baked potato with Butter Buds and a chopped piece of sandwich ham (I only have this once a week), or soup.

Snacks: Water, string cheese, watermelon, jello & cottage cheese, or rice crackers. Sometimes I have have the rice crackers with picante sauce or the bean dip that I made. I usually take the string cheese and the jello/cottage cheese to school with me. Once in a while I have some sugar-free jello pudding.

That's about it. Not a lot of variety at this point, but I'm not suffering because of it. It has simplified my life a lot.

These are the 2 recipes I'm going to try this weekend:

Roasted Tilapia With Green Chile Crema (97 calories)

4 5-6 oz. talapia fillets
1 t. olive oil
kosher salt and black pepper
1 4 oz. can roasted mild green chiles, well drained, or 1/2 c. roasted salsa verde
1/2 c. reduced-fat sour cream
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime, 1 1/2 - 2 T.

Preheat oven to 425 F. Rub fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 6-8 min., until opaque throughout. Pulse the chiles, sour cream, cilantro and lime juice in a food processor, and season with salt and pepper (I might add a bit of garlic, too.) Transfer the fish to plates and spoon on the green chile crema.

Mexican Meatball Soup (79 calories--makes 6 cups)

1 T. olive oil
1 lg. sweet onion, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
1 qt. chicken stock or broth
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 c. medium-hot tomato salsa
3/4 c. chopped cilantro
1/2 lb. ground turkey breast
2 T minced red onion
2 T. yellow cornmeal
3 T. skim milk
1 lg. egg
1/4 t. cumin
kosher salt and pepper
Tabasco sauce , optional

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add, onion, half of garlic, and bay leaf and saute until very soft and golden brown, about 8 min. Add the stock, tomates with juice, salsa, and about 1/3 of the cilantro. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 min.

Combine the turkey, red onion, cornmeal, milk, egg, cumin, 1/2 t. salt, a few grinds of black pepper, the remaining garlic, and another 1/3 of the cilantro, blending well. Shape the meat by rolling generous tablespoons into 1-inch balls. Add the meatballs to the soup and bring to a low boil, stirring occasionally. Cover the soup, reduce the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and Tabasco; stir in the remaining cilantro. Discard the bay leaf before serving.

Note: I couldn't stand the idea of adding raw meat to the soup, so I browned my meatballs in olive oil first. Also, since the tube of turkey is 16 oz. I went ahead and just doubled the recipe for the meatballs, cooked all of them, then put half in the soup and froze the other half. This is really delicious soup! You can serve a bit of chopped avocado in your bowl with the soup, too.