Vegan Chicken in a Biscuit

Once again, today's lunch ended up being a good use of leftovers from Sunday's big breakfast. I made some delicious vegan biscuits & gravy yesterday with all the fixin's and it was so delicious. Biscuits & gravy was one of my favorite foods when I was an omnivore and I am so thankful that there is a vegan version of it. I even added some homemade tempeh sausage crumbles to my gravy, so it was really, really good. I ended up with several biscuits left over though, and I hate to throw them away, so one of them ended up in my lunchbox today.

As an omnivore, I'm ashamed to say that I also ate a lot of chicken biscuits in my day, usually purchased from fast food places for breakfast. You can only imagine how unhealthy those were with biscuits full of milk & butter, and then a piece of deep fried chicken stuck in there. I looked it up once when I was into the Weight Watchers thing and it was unbelievable. Needless to say, I didn't eat any chicken biscuits while on Weight Watchers. The chicken biscuit that I brought today is considerably healthier since it's vegan, and I baked the Boca Chik'n Patty, but it's still no shining jewel of healthy eating. It does taste really good though.

I also had some fried potatoes & onions left over from breakfast which were just fried up in a skillet with a little bit of canola oil. I sliced the potatoes using a mandolin slicer and then cut those long "fries" into shorter pieces that were about the length of the onion pieces. I made some really good hash browns once upon a time by using the mandolin slicer to make fries and then painstakingly cutting all of those fries into teeny-tiny little cubes. It was a little bit of work, but it made really good hash browns, and I intend on using that method at some point in the future to make tiny little cubed potatoes that I can mix with some of that vegan chorizo that I enjoyed a while back and try making some type of vegan equivalent to corned beef hash. I just love trying to veganize things that are so completely NOT VEGAN.

I had a single slice of one of SusanV's Fatfree and Fabulous Fudgy Brownies left in the fridge, so I brought that for dessert.

And then, in an attempt to redeem myself a little bit for all of the unhealthiness in the lunchbox today, I filled the last container with some raw baby carrots.

Today's lunchbox is a perfect example of the major mistake that I made when I first went vegan. I assumed that just because something was vegan that meant that it was also healthy. Just a couple of months of thinking like that saw me gain weight until I weighed more than I ever had before and made my cholesterol skyrocket. I was so shocked because I thought my cholesterol would drop since I wasn't consuming any anymore. But all of that fat and all those simple carbs that I had been eating were fueling my body's own cholesterol producing machinery and had it working overtime.

I've gone through spells where I've tried to eat healthier, and then I seem to drift back to more "junk food" type vegan eats. Well, after looking at what I brought for lunch today, and after weighing myself this weekend, I have realized that something is going to have to give. I am back up to my maximum weight and Spring is practically around the corner. How am I going to be able to show myself around the pool?!?!?!

So, from now on, I am going to make an effort to make my lunches healthier and incorporate as many veggies as I can while cutting back on the simple carbs. I am also going to use this blog to make myself accountable for my weight and the upcoming weight loss. So, here it is. Here's how much I weigh for the whole world to see. When I weighed this weekend, I weighed 225 lbs. This is the highest weight I have ever been, and I've been here a couple of times in the past. All of the previous times, I used Weight Watchers Online to help me be accountable and lose some weight. The most I ever lost in one try was 30 lbs. This time, however, I am going to use my blog to make myself accountable for what I eat and how much I weigh each week.

Normally, when I've lost weight before, I lose pretty fast for the first week or two and then it levels off to a pound or two a week. In the past though, it has not been uncommon for me to lose 5-8 lbs. in the first week. So I guess we'll see what happens. I would really like to get back down to 185 lbs. (or less). Perhaps by documenting what I am eating and how much I weigh each week on here, I will be able to stick with this and get myself down to where I won't be terrified of being seen in swimming trunks this Summer.

I think I will even stick a little thing over there in the left hand column which will show my weight each week, maybe halfway down the page so it's not TOO obvious. I'll update it every Monday and that way it'll all be out there for me (and everybody) to see. If I feel accountable, and know that I have to post my weight on there every Monday for everybody to see, then I think that will help me stick with trying to eat better.

I'll try to keep my food as varied as possible, but I assume that vegetables will be showing up a whole lot more, plus this would be a good chance for me to experiment with some of the raw food recipes that I have been wanting to try. And even though today's lunch really doesn't fit into the "eating healthier" thing, it is what has finally made me realize that I have strayed way too far from eating stuff that is good for me. I won't throw it away, because compared to what some people eat, it actually IS healthier (I baked the Chik'n patty, and the brownies are virtually fat-free), but it's still not the type of food that I SHOULD be eating.

I realized all of this last night when I was uploading the picture of my lunch. So this morning, instead of eating another vegan chicken biscuit for breakfast (which is what I was planning on doing), I ate a Larabar instead. Raw fruits & veggies will be my new french fries & cookies. And hopefully putting my weight on here in public will make it easier for me to stick with it.

The only bad thing is, now I've got to come up with whole new ideas for the lunchbox this week. You wouldn't believe some of the crap that I had planned to bring this week. These four words should give you an idea of what kind of junk food I was planning: Vegan White Castle Burgers. WOW!

I still like vegan junk food, but I eat way too much of it. And if I want to lose some weight, then I'm going to have to severely limit it for a while. So sit back and enjoy watching me try to lose, let's see, what would it be... 40 pounds. It's embarrassing enough to put my actual weight on here, so don't expect any BEFORE picture. Hahahaha. I might post an AFTER picture just to prove that I did lose it.

Hey, this is kinda' scary now because I already feel a billion times more accountable. This may end up working better than Weight Watchers. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for coming by today.

I'll be back tomorrow with a considerably healthier vegan lunch.

See you then.