I just came across a really cool site that all foodies would absolutely love! It’s called KeyIngredient.com and it’s a digital Food Recipe database where you can find all of your favorite foods made many different ways. I signed up and posted the recipe that I’ve fallen in love with this week. It’s Gillian McKeith’s Shepherd’s Pie. With everyone you post you can pick up a really cool widget to publish it to your blog. I think I’m going to go through my arsenal of recipes and post them all through keyingredient.com so I can easily display them on this blog for all of you.

On a side note, I’d like to say thank you for all of the “Congrats” that I received from my previous post. I didn’t get many comments on the site but I did get quite a few emails asking the “How’d you do it?” question. Eating healthy and stepping up on the exercise are all you really need to do. Dieting is hard but it’s not as evil as everyone thinks it is.

I’ve learned to fall in love with the right foods, and fall out of love with the wrong ones. By cutting out all of the saturated fats, sugars and high carbohydrates - you can really make a difference in not only your physical appearance but how you feel on the inside as well.

I hope to be able to use keyingredient.com to get in touch with many other dieters and food-lovers in general so I can find the best recipes and learn to love the right foods even more.

I’ve only been a member for about a half hour or so (at the time of posting this) but in that time I was able to search for quite a few different tips, tricks and techniques that could really make anyone shine in a healthy kitchen with simple and tasty ingredients.

As I go through the database I’ll share a few more recipes as I try them. This could be a huge addition to the site with just these widgets alone. I’ll still continue to post my own recipes in the regular format though. I’m working on setting up a hack for the blog where you can convert my food related posts to a print-friendly format. That should work out pretty well too.

I don’t like to do a weigh-in every week because the overall progress isn’t too important to me.  I know right now that I’m doing very well on my diet, I’ve changed my life around and now I know that I can handle living this lifestyle.

I started on my diet a little over 1 year ago, since then there have been ups and downs and instances of falling off the wagon.  I’m happy to report that I’ve finally met my  second goal, it took me over a year but I’m now 60 pounds lighter than I was last year.  I’ve hit the 200LB mark and my third goal is to lose another 25 pounds and meet my overall goal-weight of 175.  Now, I know it seems strange to want to stop at a ‘high’ number but I’m not doing this to be super skinny.  I like being curvy - hence the domain name , duh?

I’m doing this to be healthy and I feel that I’ll be at my healthiest by getting down to 175.  Only 25 pounds to go, I figure by the end of the summer I’ll be able to enjoy my 24th birthday with amazing confidence in myself!

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been working so hard, or if it’s the fact that I haven’t really “cooked” in the past week.  I’ve been loading up on raw-veggies and nuts for the past week.  When you’re on your period you really don’t want to hang out in front of an oven - you know?

Tonight I was feeling pretty well - however - and I stepped up and made dinner for Sean and I.  Now he’s not on the diet so I tend to prepare meals two different ways.  The way I’ll eat and the way he’ll eat.  One thing that we both agree on - however - ROASTED SWEET POTATOES.  It’s like eating candy and when you’re menstruating it’s really the good kind of ’sugar’ to get.  I didn’t leave them in the oven long enough to caramelize but they did soften up enough to eat and that was really all that mattered to me.

I had some roasted chicken stuffed with a home-made pesto and I made a stuffed chicken for Sean as well but it was stuffed with broccoli and cheese, also rolled in some breadcrumbs to give an extra crunch.  Either way we both enjoyed dinner and I got my sugar-fix for the evening.

I have a lot of preparation to do for the weekend.  I don’t see myself having a lot of time to slice and dice my treats for the week so I’m really only popping online quick to post here (sorry for the slacking).  The diet is going very well.  I’ve switched to the detox diet which is basically a vegetarian diet with the addition of white-meat poultry.  I can’t do the Fish addition, it would kill me considering my allergy.  I have enjoyed the random instances of chicken to bulk up on protein but I’m getting almost all of my nutrients from the fruits, veggies and whole grains.

I’ve only been on this particular ‘detox diet’ for the past week and I don’t see it as a fad diet, I really am enjoying the food and the excess energy.  My skin is clearing up as well, it’s not as uneven as it’s been over the last couple of years.  I have to say that the 5LB weight loss this week wasn’t bad either.  I needed something to get me over the wall that I hit a few weeks ago and this certainly has done the trick.  With that wall I unfortunately gained a few pounds so the 5 pound weight loss is really only a 3pound considering the 2 I put back on but that’s OK.  I’m not concerned about a pound or two, I’m more concerned when it gets up to double digits - heh.