Week 18, Day 3 - mmm...mmm...good
I'm sitting here this morning pouring over my two newest cookbook finds. The first is Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World. I've loved Hungry Girl (no, not in THAT way 
) since I started getting her newsletter a couple of years ago. Honestly, when the book was first announced, I was skeptical. After a lot of thought, I decided to go ahead and get it. I'm glad I did! No, it's not a natural or whole-food focused book. There are lots of commercial ingredients. But there's no reason you can't make substitutes...I'm sure I will work on adapting the recipes to suit our house. IMO, a recipe is a starting place...not an absolute.
My second new love is The Most Decadent Diet Ever! from Devin Alexander (she also put together The Biggest Looser Cookbook). Again, it's a starting place and not meant (to me at least) to be an all-encompassing diet plan.
Has boredom with my Smart for Life program set in again? A little bit, but not enough to make me actually deviate from the plan. However, I know that my time with the program will end in the not-so-distant future. I can't live on such a restricted diet forever. It's not realistic, and I've already tortured myself for the last 4 months. It's just not gonna continue much longer.
So I'm setting myself up for success by getting ready to return to the real world of food. I have no desire to eat frozen dinners, so I won't. I have no desire to live on plain chicken and salad, so I won't. The plan? To prepare meals that taste good and won't kill me. 
Or make me fat again. That's it. NO particular diet. NO pills or potions. Just a huge selection of recipes to choose from and a daily calorie goal. You know...the way we should ALWAYS eat.
I've gotten away from working on my Beck plan. I cleaned off my desk at work and put the books in my drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. I'll be getting them out again. I need to get back with the program. I do still read my ARCs about once a day and still have my daily schedule beeping at me throughout the day from my cell phone (I still love all the features on that thing!). I'll probably "start over" at the beginning of the book & workbook as a refresher.
That's all for today. I'm going to spend a few hours in the basement playroom getting it cleaned up. The disaster is driving me nuts.