end of first official day

So I ended up having a good day, diet wise. I used about 4/5 of the points I was allowed for the day, but felt more or less full all day.

I also made a trip to the grocery store tonight to stock up for the first week of the challenge. For lazy cooking, I have been a big fan of the lean cuisine spa classics for some time (averaging 3-5 points each), and I found some low sodium versions of the progresso type canned soup which only have about 5 points per can. Though of course "low sodium" here means 20% dv per serving, with 2 servings in a can... so they'll have to be a "last resort before going out for fast food" kind of item. But it's good to know I have some options like that.


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One recipe (if it can be called that) that will likely get me through this period: my homemade slowcooker mexican beans.

I started with dried beans (slightly under two points per cup), soak them in the slowcooker overnight, then drain, rinse, and add fresh water. Then they are cooked along with an assortment of fresh peppers for three-three and a half hours on high. Then they are blended or mashed with some garlic, tobasco, balsemic vinegar, chilli powder, and cumin.

As best as I can figure out based on the ingredients I used, this works out to about 150 calories per half cup, with about 1g fat and 5g fiber. Though my next batch will have a good bit more fat in it, because I think it may have needed some olive oil.

I've been serving them over a bed of lettuce with chopped onions and chopped tomatoes (the tomatoes, like the peppers are from my garden), a sprinkling of light grated cheese, and a couple servings worth of salsa.

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I really like cooking with dried beans now that I have the slowcooker... canned and even frozen have so much sodium in them that it's ridiculous. I haven't quite gotten the knack of getting them cooked through but not falling apart, such that so far they end up as mexican beans. But I'm sure that's just a matter of practice.


All in all, a very promising start. 10 weeks and 6 days left to go.