My solution to this was two-fold: Take the party to a restaurant when you can -or- if you have to cook at home for guests, cook the good and healthy stuff! Roasted turkey instead of “fried,” baked sweet potatoes instead of that marshmallow brown sugar nightmare found on most holiday tables, low sugar, highly spiced fruit crisp with minimal crust, and so on… If you don’t present it as “healthy” foods, but instead present it as “gourmet” or “something different and yummy” people are not going to moan and groan about it. This year, we took the party outside. Restaurants were the answer. My kitchen was left in its’ immaculate state with twigs and barks intact and ready for me when I came home!

The restaurants were not a fail whale for me at all. You see, since I have been on this very low calorie diet based in high levels of nutrient intake, my appetite isn’t much to write home about. I was not at all tempted to order the banana split sundae. The thought of that made me think about hurling. It did!  I had salmon. I had vegetables. I had a bite of someone elses tiramisu.  I was satisfied, not tempted, not suffering, not in pain and best of all, I did not have to deal with the digestive consequences of breaking my diet.

This fatty did not take off the holidays. I trudged right on through. Ok, I did get drunk on pear-in-the-bottle brandy. lol. The rest of the time I stuck with vodka and grapefruit juice.

Quitting smoking was a similar situation. We’re both successfully quit for almost 6 months now using those electronic water vapor cigarette  — otherwise known as an e-cig. We both wanted this with the same passion and desperation. How much better we both feel since we stopped smoking!

But when it comes to food, dude can pack it away and when I bring out the barks and seaweeds, he can’t deal. He’s skinny, andl except for his little potbelly, which, for him is a non-issue that goes away if he runs around the block every day for a month. lol.

So today after an especially painful cuisine experience, I’ve decided that our kitchen is going to be transformed into a health center. He has no say in this. He can eat his food out if he wants to have anything that is not in the kitchen, and I’m chucking a whole truckload of food out, that doesn’t need to be here. But really, I don’t have much on hand that is necessarily “bad,” but for example, peanut butter… it’s just too damn easy to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you dig???!  This kitchen needs to be a restricted area, with barks and seaweeds, lentils and hempseed.

And that is what is going on tonight. The transformation of the kitchen from a feeding trough to a health center.

I haven’t told my husband yet.

Here’s the simple rule of getting through that rough period when you are just starting out: Be kind to yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Slowly reduce your calorie intake over the period of a week if that will help you.  I have failed more times than not setting myself up with a militant diet plan and then feeling sick all day, just to end up cheating bigtime. This time though, I let myself have a little wiggle room that first week. Now, a little wiggle room does not mean that you can down a half gallon of ice cream if you feel like it, what it means is that if your plan has sent you over the edge wanting to cheat, try something a few steps up.

For example. My first week was a planned shake diet. One thing I’ve done this time around is that I switch-a-roo my diet plans, I don’t stick to the same one all the time, although I do stick to the calorie limit as closely as possible. My first day on this diet was a living hell. 800 calories of living hell. So what did I do? Instead of ordering a pizza, I went into the fridge, took out a small piece of whole grain bread, slapped some fat-free pizza sauce on it and some grated parmesan cheese. For about 150 calories, I chased the pizza monster away. So instead of my first diet day being 800 calories, it ended up being 950. Whoopdedoo. You are NOT a fail whale if you do this! You have succeeded much more than if you broke down and ordered that pizza!

I went the entire day without cheating and by bedtime I was ready to order 10 pizzas. lol.  That one little snack for 150 calories filled my belly and I fell blissfully asleep. And guess what? The next day I woke up feeling much less bloated, not as hungry, and not as tired as the first day on my diet.

Remember to be kind to yourself.

These tofu kebabs have a great Asian flavor accomplished with raw red miso and loads of ginger. Chinese red peppers can make them hot if you like that, otherwise just don’t skimp on the ginger, and use fresh ginger, not the powdered stuff.

These kebabs are ment for the grill and they hold up well if you use extra or very firm tofu. Be sure to drain your tofu first.

Here is the recipe:

makes six big kebabs

1/4 cup of raw red miso

1/2 cup of grated ginger and a few cloves of garlic (yep, that’s a 1/2 cup. this recipe rides on the ginger all the way)

1 tsp of sesame oil

2 tbs of water or mirin

2 tbs of honey or sugar

optional addition of hot chinese pepper

mix into a nice little paste and set aside

select your favorite veggies and chop into large chunks, also chop the drained tofu into large chunks to fit securely on the kebab skewers – make enough to fill six big kebab skewers

put the tofu and chopped veggies in a bowl and add the miso marinade paste, mix and allow to set in marinade for at least an hour.

load up your skewers and save the marinade that is left on the bottom for brushing over the kebabs during the grilling process

grill until done, grill marks are nice and make this even tastier.

But you say… Ms. Fatty, stand mixers are for FAIL WHALES. Cakes, cookies, bread.. FAIL FAIL FAIL

Not so fast! For the Fatty that has sworn off boxed, canned, processed and fast foods, one of these stand mixers is an valuable tool for saving time in the kitchen. They have scads of different attachments that you can get for these things, like a food grinder, food processor, ice cream (ice yogurt) maker etc etc etc.  With the handy-dandy food grinder I can make low cal vegan burgers that will knock your socks off. With the mixer I can make perfect low-cal breads in just the right portion sizes, with no added “dough conditioners” or other crud they put in pre-packaged bread. Great for mixing the batter for those low-cal tamales, beating egg whites for almost no-cal meringue cookies. And angel food cake? You know angel food cake is the fatty’s friend!

I love these pink workhorses. I have pink and black granite counters in the kitchen, so this thing not only makes my weight loss easier, but it matches just perfectly.  They do come in an array of colors to match any decor, of course.  Let me know if you have one of these and what you think about it.