Asian Sesame Stir Fry

I made up this stir fry using veggies and protien I found in my fridge, but you can certainly swap the meats or the veggies for anything you’d like to use.  This version is low in fat, comes in at only 8 WW points per serving (with 1/2 cup brown rice), and is filling and full of flavor!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound(s) uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast(s), sliced into thin, bit-sized pieces   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked shrimp   (shell and tails removed)

1 medium uncooked onion(s), sliced into thin strips   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked asparagus, cut into bite sized pieces   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked zucchini, sliced into bite sized pieces  

 1 tsp minced garlic   

1 pinch ground ginger   

1/4 cup(s) soy sauce   

2 tsp sesame oil   

2 tsp rice wine vinegar   

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, 1 to 2 tsp for taste preference   

1 tsp sugar   

1/4 cup(s) fat-free chicken broth, Plus two TBSP

2 tsp cornstarch   

2 cup(s) cooked brown rice   

 

Cooking Instructions:

In a small measuring cup, combine 1/4 c chicken broth, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sugar and red pepper flakes, set aside. Cut up chicken, and marinate chicken and shrimp for short time in a small amount of extra soy sauce and a dash of rice wine vinegar. Set aside while preparing veggies. Heat skillet over medium heat while chopping vegetables. When ready to cook, turn skillet up to high heat. Add a coating of cooking spray, and brown meat in two batches over high heat, just until browned and cooked through. Set aside. Add a little more cooking spray to the pan, sauté onion a couple minutes until it starts to brown. Add garlic and ginger powder, stir, and then add veggies, starting with the veggie that will take longest to cook. Any veggies can be used. Sautee all veggies for a few minutes til browning but not soft. Add back in chicken, stir, and add sauce. Stir to coat and for about one minute. With two TBSP of chicken broth and 2 tsp cornstarch, mix together to make a slurry, and add to the pan. Stir just until thickened. Turn off heat and serve immediately over brown rice.

That Time of the Week Again!

It’s Monday yet again fellow fat busters!

We all know what this means…well ok, maybe none of you do!  But if you’ve been following along, that’s weigh in day here at Chesty Changes!  After last week, I was skeptical to jump on the scale.  I knew I had once again busted my butt working out, 5 days last week to be exact, but I also knew I had kicked it into gear the week before and saw only 1.2lbs fall off per my trusty scale.

Forever the optimist, I jumped on the scale hoping for the best.  It was hot and humid, I was worried I would be retaining major water, but to my surprise and delight, I was down 5lbs!  Yes that is 5lbs, not 4, not even 4.5, but a whole 5lbs!  After I jumped off the scale, I did my little naked morning dance of joy alone in the bathroom.  After being “plateaued” for a couple weeks, and off track for a while before that, I had forgotten the euphoria that a great loss gives you! 

Moving forward this week, my plan is to stick with the increased workouts.  I’ve weaned myself off white rice, and when I do carbs I’m doing brown rice or something else high in fiber.  I’ve left the potatoes alone for the most part, so I don’t know if that’s helping, but I think it’s just the discipline and continued hard work paying off.  I’ll end this post with a quote that I read last week.  I felt so bad about myself when I was off track and eating delicious crap…but any time I feel myself sliding, I remember this!  Hopefully it will motivate you all too!

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ~ Jim Rohn

Is This Thing On?

So, I sat there sleepily this morning…muttering to myself about how my thighs hurt from last night’s workout.  But I calmed myself down thinking, “Hey…it’s finally THAT TIME.” Weigh in day.  The one highlight of my Monday!  (Ok that, and Love and Hip Hop ATL, my guilty pleasure.) 

See any dieter who’s been there knows this feeling.  You know you have busted your butt all week, and you are dying to get on the scale and see that magic number go down, down, DOWN!  Well on I jumped…but instead of a great dive…my scale took a teeny skip.   1.2lbs….is this thing on CRACK?

Well, after drug testing, and even shaking my scale, it became obvious that the scale was NOT on drugs and apparently was in fine working order…who would have thunk it?  Now the first thing that I used to do when this happened was to get all down and discouraged, but this morning, a funny thing happened.  In my brain I heard “Well that’s still a great loss, and far better than a gain!”

I looked around the bathroom to make sure no one else was in there, and then had to pride myself on the fact that I, alone, had not for once beat myself up, and had instead given myself the kudos that I deserved.  I think we tend to be hardest on ourselves, not looking at outside factors such as humidity, bloat, or just simply blaming ourselves for the fact that our body didn’t drop as much as we should have. 

But not this morning…and I want you all to start doing the same.  Give yourself credit for the small victories.  Don’t let anything take you off track.  All this week’s minor weight loss did for me is push me that much harder to see a great loss next week.  It’s all about the small tweeks, and a tweeking is what I can do.  I’m taking an honest look back at least week, seeing any areas that I could have been doing better with, and making the adjustments today! 

Funny thing when you grow older, you realize that life is not always about coming in first…but more about making sure you stay in the race!  Keep truckin fellow fat fighters!  🙂