*We are oxygen

So I think I will try to do my daily calorie count on here and maybe some recipes. As most people who are reading this should know, I am on a ~1200 calorie a day diet. However, according to a very useful little app on my Ipod touch, I can consume 1400 calories a day to lose 1 and a 1/2 pounds a week. Not too bad! So if it is a rough day I will definitely be taking advantage of those extra calories. I also am a newly converted pescatarian (since September?) so that adds some challenges to the diet, but so far it actually has been a pretty fun challenge to create a good variety of low calorie healthy recipes I can enjoy!

Here is a summary of my progress:
I started at 182.5 pounds in September.
Starting October 1st I kept a journal of everything I ate on a daily basis and only broke my rules once every 2 weeks or so for the first 6 weeks. Around Thanksgiving this of course was not going so well, but other than a few occasions I kept up my diet until around December 9th I think. The grand total of weight loss was 15.5 pounds. I also did a lot of Wii Fit during that time frame. Once holiday happenings started into full swing the diet kind of disappeared. I actually didn't really watch what I was eating at all. That's how it goes when I am with my very southern minded parents. I also threw my vegetarian ways out of the window for the most part because my parents think it is silly and I would not have been able to survive at their house without consuming meat. Amazingly, when I weighed myself around January 3rd or 4th I had only gained about a pound back! So that encouraged me even more to start back up. On January 5th I started calorie counting again at a weight of 168 pounds.
I did not weigh myself today, but two days ago I was at 167.2 pounds.

Calories for the day:
Omelet (2 eggs, tomato, onion, cheese) 240 calories
Morning star farms "sausage" 80 calories
Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine 290 calories
Green tea lemonade from starbucks w/ 3 pumps of classic syrup 130 calories
Eggplant, Tofu, and Bok Choy "stir fry" ~320 calories
*recipe adapted from http://www.grouprecipes.com/64169/baby-bok-choy-with-eggplant-and-tofu.html
Vegetable Spring Rolls 200 calories
Total = 1260

My eggplant, tofu, and bok choy recipe was very similar however to make it for just one person, and to change it up a bit this is what I did:
-Dried the tofu first (a good tip I didn't know, this was actually my very first time cooking tofu myself!)
-Used 1 tbsp of olive oil instead of 2
-Used 1/5 of the package of tofu (70 cals)
-Used 1/3 of the eggplant- salted it generously and left it to sit for a while, while I was preparing other things to take some of the bitterness out!
-Used 3 "leaves" of the bok choy (mine was not baby bok choy, just the regular stuff)
-I added 2 large button mushrooms, sliced into thick pieces, and added them at the same step as the bok choy
-I used the same amount of garlic and ginger as the recipe called for because I like a lot of flavor!
-I added red pepper flakes to the eggplant, like what is recommended in the recipe
-I used 2 tbsp of soy sauce, and a little less water in the eggplant step

It turned out fabulous! I think next time I will serve it over some rice because the sauce was a little thin, but it tasted wonderful and rice would have soaked it all right up.

I also rode my bike to class and back home which totaled about 45 mins of bike riding.