This is a new dish I invented during my half-hearted SBD attempt last week. The recipe itself is nothing new, but it is the unusual combination that turned out to be a surprise, a good surprise. One of the most popular recipes on this site is the Lemony Kale and Chickpea stir fry. This one is very similar, only difference is that the chickpeas were replaced with white beans and the kale with asparagus. So, is it worth an entire post if it is just the same recipe? Probably not, …

Recently there was an article on Bon Appétit called 3 Reasons You Should be Cooking Lamb. The reasons listed were Nutrition, Flavor and Versatility. Those who like lamb already know about the last two points, but I’ve never paid much attention to the nutrition part before. The article says: 
Lamb is an excellent source of protein (one serving provides 50 percent of your daily value), vitamin B12 (45 percent of your daily value), and zinc (30 percent of your daily value), and the leaner cuts of lamb have only around 72 …

I have been totally ignoring the SBD principles since our Italy trip in November and slowly a few pounds have managed to creep back in. To reset my system to get rid of those carb cravings, I am planning to get back into South Beach Diet Phase1 starting next Monday. I’ve been planning this for a while, but something always comes up and I have dropped the ball at the last minute so many times. So this time, to make sure that I will stick to my plan, I went …

I am struggling  to keep my new year resolution to try and be a more “regular blogger”; without much success.  It is really hard to maintain one hobby, then I had to go and take another one on. A bunch of us are doing a project called Project 365 from the beginning of this year. The idea is to take and post a picture every day for the whole year, to journal our lives one picture at a time. I didn’t think I’d last this long, but it has become …

So, how are you all doing on those New Year Resolutions? Broken any yet? I don’t mean to gloat, but I’ve been doing an awesome job on mine. What? It’s only been four days since the year started? Oh well, let’s see how this week turns out before I go get myself a medal.
I heard on the radio today that the two most popular resolutions this year are Eat Healthy and Save Money. Big surprise! Aren’t those the most popular resolutions every new year? Anyway, those two are …

I made this eons ago, but never posted the recipe as the picture didn’t look all that appetizing. Today while hunting through the drafts for my next post I realized that I only had chicken dishes in there. I am sure you guys have had a chicken overload by now, so I had to get this one out to give you a break from all that cluck cluck. Don’t let the lackluster picture and those burned edges deceive you, this is a great way to have pizza on South Beach …

It is not yet soup weather here in Seattle, but then again I am not really one of those by-the-season eaters anyway. I can have a nice hearty bowl of soup even when it is 100F outside, provided there is air conditioning inside. This soup was invented out of necessity last week as a quick fix lunch by throwing a bunch of ingredients together from the pantry and the fridge, aren’t all good dishes invented that way? I didn’t have any chicken or vegetable stock in hand, so I used …

Looks like I have been starting every other blog post with an apology. This time I have a genuine excuse for my tardiness. Over the past three months I have spent a good amount of time at the chiropractor’s office and with a physical therapist due to a constant pain in the neck. (And no, I am not figuratively speaking about Siv or my boss) I don’t want to bore you with all the details but I have been doing a lot of exercises as part of the Physical therapy …

Phew! I got through the first two days of the second round of SBD Phase 1 successfully. Today was considerably better than yesterday both on energy level and on the cravings front. It is just going to get easier from here. I don’t think I’ll be able to post day-by-day menu and recap on the blog this time, but I’ll try my best to update as frequently as I can. Today it’s going to be a quick post on a brand new discovery which I feel is going to be …

It’s been almost 5 months since I got off South Beach Diet. It was early March. I had reached my target weight; I was happy with the way I looked and the way my clothes fitted; I had learned all the basics of a good healthy diet which was sustainable; my body was well-conditioned to not crave for bad carbs; my metabolism was at its best. Then came summer, it got really warm around here and my one and only true weakness started popping up everywhere – BEER! There was …

Yay, I did it! I have finished phase 1 successfully, with only very minor slips! Seattle got the biggest snow storm in more than a decade and we have been stuck at home since last Wednesday. I have to say this really helped me stay on my diet. As I mentioned before, South Beach Diet is easy to follow if you are preparing all the meals yourself, and this forced house arrest made sure that I got enough time to make all my meals. Also, I just realized that if …

I stopped doing the day-by-day posts, since it is is way too much work, who was I kidding anyway? I’ve been weighing in daily, and the weight has been coming down slowly but steadily.
First week went by relatively easily. It is definitely not a hard diet to keep up, if you are preparing all your meals. If you are eating out, it is kind of hard to find healthy choices. I started the week with preparing all the meals myself, but towards the end of the first …

Today the morning weigh-in showed only a 1/2 lb loss compared to a a whole pound each on the previous days.  But still it is going down, which is great news!  Today I had lunch and dinner outside, due to previous commitments. I was a really good girl, stuck with the program!
Lunch was at a Mexican restaurant. I ordered the chicken fajitas naked. Didn’t touch any of the sides except for a bit of guacamole and some lettuce salad. Most of the salad was under the refried beans, so …

This morning weigh in showed another lb drop! This is pretty good motivation to keep up with it! Now that I am having coffee, headaches have completely disappeared. I missed the morning snack today, since I was in back-to-back meetings till noon. So after breakfast, I directly went to lunch, but I had two snacks before lunch and dinner which makes it still 5 meals. Hope that is okay!
I was craving something spicy for dinner, so I made the Chicken Chili Fry using chicken breast instead of thighs as …

I woke up and weighed myself and I lost 1 lb in a day!! I know, I know, that is just normal fluctuations, but I sure was glad that it was fluctuating in the right direction. I started the day with a decaf like yesterday, but the headache started from the morning itself. After a particularly painful meeting after lunch, the headache got so bad, I was craving caffeine!
After I did a bit of research online, a lot of websites mentioned that two cups of coffee/tea a day …

After a day of pigging out, I started the day 1 of the diet. It started fine, but got really worse as the day went by. I had no idea first day was going to be like this! It wasn’t the diet that bothered me, food-wise it was pretty good! I was full the whole day, didn’t feel hungry at all. In fact I ate more than what I eat on a normal day, but divided into 5 meals. Normally I just have 2 meals per day.
It was the …