New Foods in Old Places

So I've moved out of my own apartment and into my parent's house for the summer, which means that I'm wayyy out of my comfort zone of living on my own. The first full day here, I was baffled as to what to eat for breakfast or dinner or a snack. I don't mean to imply that my parents don't have food in the fridge or a pantry full of edibles.

The problem is that it's not what I'm used to. There isn't a bowl full of apples on the counter or carrot sticks in the fridge. Despite my long standing gig with Diabetes, my parents don't quite understand that I've gotta watch what I eat. Food is their thing. They play with it and buy strange new things at the grocery store. They cook up odd combinations and insist I try it. They love putting things on my plate and watching like hawks til I swallow. When I come home for a weekend, I usually let it slide and play the food games. Whatever lands on my plate ends up with lots of SWAGed (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) dual wave boluses and lots of crossing my fingers.

Since I'm going to be staying with them for at least 2 months, I can't let that cycle continue. My recent strike against the extra few pounds and lack of breath while I exercise means that I'm looking for healthier ways to eat. In May when I saw my nutritionist, she recommended I add more protein to my diet. I know I have to cut back on the junk food and the carbs, so to encourage myself to at least snack right, I went out on a vegetable binge.

I picked up some multi-colored sweet bell peppers, cucumbers, celery, and red cabbage. As soon as I got home from the grocery store, I washed all the vegetables. After that I proceeded to cut them all up in snack sized morsels, which led to my new found love of fresh pepper chips. Just good old fashioned fresh bell peppers cut into little triangles. The celery and the cucumbers were sliced into sticks. All of them made it into serving-ready tupperware containers in the fridge.

The cabbage is for during the week to replace bread on my sandwiches and burgers. I tried hot dogs in romaine lettuce a few months ago and it came out splendidly so I'm crossing my fingers on the red cabbage. All the colorful vegetables are supposed to add more vitamins into my day!

For the sake of protein, I picked up greek yogurt and low fat cottage cheese. I managed to eat a half a cup of cottage cheese while sitting on the the couch watching movies on this cold NH day. May need a way to make it more tasty, because it was awfully salty. Will have to experiment with spices and get back to you. Cinnamon may be the key...

Hopefully this revamping along with my pledge to drink nothing but water, milk, and juice instead of diet coke will speed my body's metabolism up. The 1.5 miles of biking should help too. Progress is key. Day 1 down.