Monday

Food
Typical breakfast. Lunch was part of my eat all the remaining dairy that Carly doesn't like mission. I had a Smart Ones 3 cheese ziti with a Gardein chick'n scallopini, half a cucumber and a peach. Dinner was homemade cherry tomato focaccia bread (recipe to follow) with a big salad. Snacks were a mini Luna bar, watermelon, a Perfectly Simple Peanut Crunch bar, and oatmeal with blueberries.

Delicious dinner!

Exercise
I had planned on going to the gym for cardio but I was feeling sore and tired all day. I did 30 minutes of my favorite yoga/Pilates blend with some extra stretching at the end. I stuck to my listen to my body concept and it paid off. The deep stretching was exactly what I needed and it'll make today's cardio easier!

Learning
Still not reading any health related things right now, and there hasn't been anything worth sharing from the blogs I follow.

Observations
My lunch was not satisfying at all. I grabbed the cucumber as a last minute thought because I realized that my frozen entree had zero vegetables! I can't believe I used to just eat one of those by itself for lunch. Now I realize why I used to feel hungry most of the time. It was such an interesting contrast to my dinner, in which I ate a relatively small piece of focaccia with a huge salad. I felt satisfied for the rest of the night and pleasantly full. I'm excited to get through one more day of dairy and then start a new phase of my eating.

I downloaded an app a few days ago called SuperBetter that has quests that ask you to do things to build up personal resilience, which they define as "the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult challenges". Yesterday I had to develop a personal motto, and I chose "Be mindful and make it count". To me this encompasses everything I do for myself. I try to be more mindful of how I treat myself, how I treat others, and how I process information. Being mindful while I eat helps me feel more satisfied, and being mindful while I exercise helps me stay motivated. Make it count helps remind me that if I'm going to do something I might as well give it my best effort so that it makes an impact. I've read a lot of articles and tidbits that say that visualizing exercise beforehand and positive self talk during a workout can actually improve the results of that workout. This is something I try to do every day.

Here is the recipe as it appears in Vegetarian Times, see below for my modifications:

Cherry Tomato Focaccia
Serves 8

This bread is hearty enough to be served with a salad for a light lunch or supper.

TOPPING

¼ cup shelled roasted pistachios
¼ cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced (1 tsp.)
½ tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 cups heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved

FOCACCIA

3½ cups bread flour
1 Tbs. sugar
2½ tsp. instant yeast
2 tsp. salt Olive oil, for greasing baking sheet

1 | To make Topping: Pulse pistachios in food processor until ground, but with some larger pieces. Transfer to bowl, and stir in olive oil, garlic, and rosemary.

2 | To make Focaccia: Stir together flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and 1¼ cups water in bowl. Knead dough in bowl 5 minutes. Cover bowl with towel, and let rise 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

3 | Generously grease rimmed baking sheet with olive oil. Stretch dough into 12- x 11-inch rectangle in sheet pan. Let dough rise 1 hour.

4 | Preheat oven to 450°F. Dimple dough with fingers. Whisk 2 Tbs. water into pistachio mixture, and brush onto dough. Press tomato halves cut-side up into dough. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown on top and bottom.

PER SLICE 329 cal; 9 g prot; 11 g total fat (2 g sat fat); 48 g carb; 0 mg chol; 589 mg sod; 3 g fiber; 3 g sugars

My modifications: I made the dough with 2 C bread flour, 1 C spelt flour & 1/2 C whole wheat flour. I also added garlic powder and oregano to the dough. I made the dough using steps 2 & 3 but refrigerated it overnight. Instead of using their topping I brushed the dough with sundried tomato pesto we made a few weeks ago, and I sprinkled chopped almonds over the top of the whole focaccia.