The Road to Awesome is Paved With Success AND Failure

Well, here is a just a bit of transparency for your Wednesday.  


Being a fifty-two year old mom of toddlers has been a wake up call for me in a lot of ways, but especially in the area of my health.

I mean, I've always planned to live a good long time, but I don't think I ever felt the PRESSURE to live to a ripe old age.  But I have young children now.  They need me to be around, you know?

So in December of 2012, I started a journey to good health.  I changed a lot of my bad eating habits. (Not all of them, clearly judging from this, and this, and this.)  But as a general rule, 

• I eat much cleaner, healthier foods  
• I get more exercise, typically working out 4-6 times a week
• I take a Sabbath
• I stress less about the small stuff

I'm still not as good as I should be about resting, relaxing, or de-stressing, but I'm working on it. :)

Anyway, as part of my journey to good health, I had to take a look at myself in the mirror and realize I had a lot of weight to lose.  The avatars you see at the top are my starting weight (on the left), and my goal weight (on the right).  Keep in mind, these avatars are like a 25 year old version of me. (Meaning, I'm not nearly this smooth skinned or firm . . . like I said, a bit of transparency here today).

To be a healthy weight for my age and height I was shocked to learn I needed to lose 51 pounds! So I set myself a goal to lose the weight in one year (an average of 1 pound a week). I didn't gain all that weight overnight, and I wasn't going to lose it overnight.

                  As of TODAY, I have lost 26 pounds.  

              Halfway to my goal!

At my heaviest (I still look okay,
but looks can be deceiving, as I
was 51 pounds overweight here!) 

And today, 2 sizes smaller and 26 pounds lighter!

I feel successful, even though I have definitely had some rough weeks in there (I gained 4 pounds one week from ONE MEAL!  And at a pound a week, that took a month to get rid of! Then I plateaued for 6 weeks, desperately wanting to give up . . . but I didn't)

But I also feel successful because I'm not stressed out about the ups and downs I experience on the scale.  My goal is in the distance, and the successes and failures along the way are just part of the process.  

I think that's true of everything in life.

The journey of our lives include successes and failures. They are just part of the process.  

All that to say, I'm on the path that leads to awesome (notice I didn't say skinny! . . . but if skinny is involved, I guess I'm okay with that too!)

Cleanish Sweet and Sour Chicken

Like the rest of us on Pinterest, I often pin things and never go back to them.  But this recipe kept popping up and everyone was commenting how awesome it was.

Awesome and easy.  My two favorite things when it comes to cooking.   And it looks so beautiful and succulent in this photo.

Don't you think?  Admit it, that's why you pinned it in the first place!

Funny thing is, I don't even like Sweet and Sour Chicken.  But, I'm trying to be open to new things, new experiences, etc., so I decided to try it.

I loved it.  (Which is critically important, because if I don't love it, no one else will get to even try it! I have straight up thrown a whole meal in the trash if it didn't taste right to me!)  The girls loved it.  My husband, Mike, . . . not so much.  In fairness to him, he told me in advance he didn't like sweet and sour chicken, but it was already on my menu for the day, so it's what got cooked.  He "said" he tasted a bite of Nikki's and didn't like it.  I did not see "said bite" and therefore doubt him.

But everyone else loved it.  You decide for yourselves.

I modified the recipe to be clean, or cleanish.  My ketchup (HUNTS) did not contain high fructose corn syrup.  Just tomatoes, water, sugar and salt.  Since my recipe only had 2 tablespoons of ketchup in it, I decided I'd risk that unclean sugar. :)

Here's the recipe.

The Chicken:

3-4 boneless chicken breasts

salt + pepper

1 cup cornstarch

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup canola oil

The Sauce:

1/2 cup honey

4 tbs ketchup (I used Hunts)

1/2 cup (minus 4 tbsp) distilled white vinegar

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. 

Mix all of your sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a bowl with a whisk and set aside. 

Cut chicken into cubes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Dip chicken into the eggs to coat then dip into the cornstarch.  Heat your 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet and cook your chicken until browned but not cooked through. Place the chicken in a 9x13 greased baking dish. 

Pour sweet and sour sauce over the chicken. 

Bake for one hour, turning the chicken every 15 minutes.  (Now, if you're like me at all, you're wondering why you have to turn the chicken so often.  AND you're going to panic about how liquidy this junk looks.  RELAX, the liquid thickens, and the chicken does not get overdone!  You have to bake it for an hour so the liquid thickens.)

A note about the sauce:  It originally called for 3/4 of a cup of sugar.  So when I converted it to honey, I had to remove about 6 tbsp. of liquid from somewhere.  I chose the vinegar.  If you use sugar, then use a full 1/2 cup of vinegar.

 Fried Rice                                                                                             

3 cups cooked brown rice

3 tbs sesame oil (evoo works fine, that's what I used)

¼ cup finely grated carrots

½  small onion, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/4 cup soy sauce

 On medium high heat, heat the oil in a large skillet or wok.  Add the carrots, onion and garlic. Stir fry until tender. Lower the heat to medium low and push the mixture off to one side, then pour your eggs on the other side of skillet and stir fry until scrambled. Now add the rice and soy sauce and blend all together well. Stir fry until thoroughly heated!   

Note: I changed this recipe considerably.  It called for peas and carrots, which I do not like in my fried rice.  It called for white rice, I used brown.  It called for 1 whole small onion which I thought was too much.  And it called for 2 tsp of minced garlic.  I used 2 and it was TOO MUCH garlic IMHO, so I reduced it to 1 tsp.

I served it with stir fried zucchini and onions and broccoli.  Yummy.

Also, since there are SOOOOOOO many opinions about what is clean or not clean, feel free to modify to your particular clean standards and not judge mine!

And be sure to go by this girl's blog, to check out the original recipe.  It's the unedited version. She calls it "baked" but I couldn't really do that because you actually FRY the chicken before you put it in the oven. :)  But I'm okay if she wants to call it baked.  It's her recipe after all.

All that to say, a couple points to remember when eating "clean."  Clean eating is not calorie free eating.  Clearly, this dish is not calorie free.  If you are working on losing weight, eat an appropriate amount of this food.  It was delicious, so you will want to overeat.  Just saying.

Once you make it and are telling all your friends about how awesome it is, come back and tell me what you think!  I'd love to hear if you make any modifications too!  Change is good.  Make it yours!