No more "happy plate"

Have you ever thought about the damage we have done to our kids by making them eat everything on their plate!! ( or the damage our parents did to us!). I know you are thinking but its wasteful to not make a clean plate (or as my kids were told "a happy plate"). There are two lessons I have learned by reading "In Defense of Food" one, put smaller amounts of food on your plate, and two stop eating when you are full!!! I am thinking maybe that's what half of us fat girls of America's problem. We put to much food on our plate to start with and then we feel we must finish it. Or if you are like me you finish your plate and your kids plates cause you don't want them to waste either (especially if you are at someone's house for dinner).  So you would think this habit would be easy to break but it isn't. I noticed tonight I was only a quarter of the way done with my food and I had to take a deep breath before I took another bite, that should have been my sign to stop eating but instead I kept eating and then I was like, OH no I am getting really full so I stopped before I was done. So I did get a little over full but not stuffed, thank goodness.

Well today my eating habits were so bad. (side note, I have lost 1.5 pounds in 5 days;o)I had a breakfast bar (Kashi Apple and Cinnamon) and coffee not to bad but the bar has more then 5 ingredients!! Then when I got to my Grandma's she had made biscuits and asked me to cook some eggs and turkey sausage. So I did. I opted out on the egg but I did have a sausage biscuit with homemade dew berry jelly, a cup of coffee and a banana. The banana was good right!!? I had to take my G-ma to the doctor today and we thought we would be out of there by lunch but we didn't leave there till 1 and didn't have lunch till almost 2! My blood sugar was low so I ate a peach on the way home. So for lunch I cut up some iceberg lettuce, threw an ounce of diced cheddar cheese on it with some baco's and ranch dressing plus I had some "wheat crackers", that was a completely processed lunch I am sure, except the lettuce. Even the wheat crackers were full of junk. Then we had 4 o'clock coffee!!! When  Tito picked me up we went and got sno-balls (oh heaven help me, I am just completely got off track!!)

I did redeem myself for dinner. We had pork chops (free of all the icky stuff) that I seasoned with some salt, pepper and oregano, garlic and onion powder. I pan seared them in olive oil (not to much) then put them in my deep dish stone and threw them in the oven with the oven roasted sweet potatoes.

I added a little more oil in the pan that I seared the pork chops in and added some shallots. Those started to caramelize and I added some fresh garlic for a few min then threw in some zucchini and about a tablespoon of soy sauce (that's free of sugar). Once the zucchini started to brown I pulled the pork chops out of the oven and put them on top of the zucchini mixture and covered it and turned the heat off. I wanted to let the steam finish cooking the veggies.

Something that amazed me about this meal is there is no grain! That is just totally A-MAZING for me, because I love bread and Tito loves rice, but we survived without it:O)  So we had a completely healthy meal free of refined or processed anything. Yay. By the way if ever you make oven sweet potatoes, salt, pepper, olive oil, that's all you need and those ingredients compliment the sweetness of the potato well! Have a great night!
Loves Angela