Calorie Reduction, more artichokes, and tasty chicken

I have sad news.  I have been gaining weight.  I put on one of my favorite suits for a work meeting earlier this week and could barely get the pants zipped!  This is partly frustrating, and mostly my own fault.  I have been a busy bee lately and have been eating out with friends and family, drinking wine, and not going to the gym as regularly as I should.

The happy news is that a small weight gain can easily be turned around on a carb controlled diet through calorie reduction and exercise.  I know that reducing calories is a pain and kind of sucks, but sometimes you just have to do it.  I'm going to start with some small tweaks and hope that I see some progress within a two week period.

For work breakfast yesterday I skipped the bacon and cut down to one fried egg instead of two.  I also had 1/2 of 1 flax pita with 2 Tbsp of cream cheese, and a cup of coffee with a little heavy cream.  

I went across the street to Applebee's for lunch and was very pleasantly surprised to find new weight watchers entrees and new entrees under 550 calories.  This Napa Chicken and Portobellos is a fantastic dish that I will be eating again.  The chicken comes topped with a red wine sauce and Parmesan cheese and is served alongside a mountain of vegetables.  The menu actually calls for potatoes, but you can leave those off and get double veggies instead.  The picture below is the chicken with one portion of vegetables.  They brought the second portion out on a side plate.  I boxed half of the chicken plus the second portion of vegetables to eat later.  I also asked for some of the sauce to go and used it when I reheated the leftovers.  

When I got home I practiced some more calorie reduction by measuring my snack out on a little plate.  Normally if I'm hungry after work I will just take the whole bag of almonds, or whatever, and sit out on the porch with a magazine.  This leads to overeating and so I'm going to be measuring snacks for the time being.  I had two tablespoons of onion dip, 10 baby carrots, and 3 slices of brie, and it was enough to hold me over until dinner.    

The awesome boyfriend went to the gym after work so I ate dinner without him.  I heated up the leftovers from the Applebee's chicken and prepared a Garlic Roasted Artichoke to finish off the meal.  This dinner is low calorie and very low in carbs.  

After the awesome boyfriend got home from dinner he fixed himself a corned beef sandwich on a flax pita from Joseph's Bakery.  He is a banana pepper addict, the spicier the better.  Sometimes I catch him eating them straight out of the jar.  

I know that I am always singing the praises of these bread substitutes, but in case you haven't heard I'll tell you again.  These pitas only have 4 net carbs a piece.  They are tasty and don't get moldy in a couple of days like some of the other low carb bread substitutes.  I keep them regularly stocked in my fridge quick meals like this one.