Oven-Barbecued Pork Chops

Healthy and very tasty! I never thought I would like anything cooked with orange juice, but it gives the pork a nice zing while getting a dose Vitamin C. I handed this recipe to the boyfriend/chef and he has made it twice already in the past week.

From Eatingwell.com, click here to view the recipe, info, and picture.

Here are the variations we made:

• Boneless Pork chops
• Red Onion (no kind was specified in the recipe)
• Kraft Light Original - Reduced calorie barbecue sauce (Under 30 calories per serving!)
• Minute Maid 100% Orange Juice - Again, not specified but just mentioning what we used.
• Vegetable Oil - oil is oil, except I try to not use this because of the soy. I prefer Olive Oil.
• Chopped carrots in the sauce.
• He served it over white rice (or brown rice if you're avoiding the white stuff, like I need to be...)

The second time he wanted to make more sauce, so he doubled everything except for the pork chops. Needless to say, the orange juice stood out a little too much, so next time he is going to decrease the OJ.

Family reviews:
The Picky-Eater (the Boyfriend, not the kid!): He likes it, and it was his idea to add the carrots so he can get a bit of veggies in his diet (he hates vegetables).

The small child: He has mixed feelings about the sauce at the moment and hasn't been too happy to see it served, especially on his precious white rice. He has admitted to liking the pork chop with the sauce scraped off.

Me: I thought I would miss my side of veggies and whatnot, but it makes a pretty good meal with the rice alone. I find it very satisfying and it's flavor is terrific!

So even tho the child doesn't fully approve, we grown-ups like it so much that we are going to make it more often. Hooray for having something new for dinner!

1st Weigh-In for June.

www.my-calorie-counter.com/Weight-Loss-Ticker.asp

Not bad, I should say! And take in account that I went on TWO vacations and ate a lot of fast food. ...and The Boyfriend's super sweet, super tasty peanut butter fudge (ooOoOo yummlies).

I tried to keep it somewhat healthy where I could, but not much because I all over some tasties. Especially at Tim Horton's... because I will not be able to have treats from there for a while!! Ok, well, I grabbed Timmy Ho's almost everyday >.> lol

Needless to say, I could have done better. The weight is coming off very slowly, but hey.... I am losing and not gaining and I'm not complaining. And the fact that I managed to lose weight while on vacation makes me feel pretty good too. I did a LOT of walking on those trips: large malls, parks, airports, up and down the non-working A-kon escalators... yeah, I think I worked off some calories there.

So I hope I can try to pick back up where I left off before I went to Edmonton. The only problem is motivation to workout again. Ever since the plane landed back home, I have been depressed and don't seem to be enjoying the things I should be. Pretty much back to the way I was LOL not good. Being away made me really happy. As a matter of fact, I wasn't depressed not one single time when I was in Canada. I know it's because I reeeaallly hate my home town lol. I need to find ways to make the best of things, cuz I'm gonna be here a while.

I hope I can report the same good news in weeks to come!

Fat Girl: A True Story by Judith Moore (Book Review)

I picked this book up at the Goodwill store last year as something to put on my shelf for a spur-of-the-moment read. The title caught my attention for obvious reasons.

Fat Girl is Judith Moore's experience of what it's like to be fat. In the preface she immediately lays down her point of view: she is fat but not a fat advocate, nor does she have an eating disorder or explain how she conquered fat with diets and what not. Instead she recounts several stories from her childhood and adult life; some humorous, some painful. Few were embarrassing to tell if they were my own, like how she broke in to the homes of people she knew to hang out and eat their food, or the encounter with the pedophile in the dark movie theater. However one story that sticks in my mind is when her chubby Dachshund, Lily, attacked some random skinny chick's KFC dinner. Still embarrassing, but it was an amusing story.

She also details the people that affected her "fat" life. Her beautiful, slim mother was hateful and disgusted with her daughter, told her she was ugly, and eventually wanted be called by her name and not by "Mama." Her absent father, who was also fat, had an obsession with food which eventually lead to the divorce of her parents when Moore was only 4. She always dreamed of being the pretty skinny child so that her parents would love her and have the perfect family relationship.

Moore never wants the reader to feel sorry for her, however I couldn't help but feel sad for most of her past experiences. Mostly because I can relate to them myself (and I can be a walking self-pity-party RAH RAH RAH!). Although, thankfully, I have never had to endure monthly weigh-ins at school where my poundage was embarrassingly announced in front of all my classmates. NIGHTMARE! And thankfully my mother never beat me just because I put on 10 extra pounds either. But the anxiety attacks, the negative/non-existent attention from peers, and how she grew a hatred for people yet yearned for their love and attention hit really close to home.

I started and finished reading it right before I left for Edmonton. Overall, I liked it and will keep it in my permanent library. And it gave me inspiration to keep moving on my elliptical while I was reading.

"The child might threaten the adult she had become." --Anita Brooker, quoted in Fat Girl: A True Story.

Pyramid Collection refers to their "Plus Size" clothes as "Goddess" Sizes. HUZZAH!!

So now I'm a "Goddess?!" I love it! I got my latest Pyramid Collection catalog in the mail last week (*victory stance*) and as always, sooooo many pretty things! But what really caught my eye in this catalog was not an object. On every other page it says: "Goddess Sizes Available at No Extra Cost!"

O.O Eureka! I love it!
1.) Clothes were not referred to as "PLUS SIZES," they are referred to as GODDESS sizes.
2.) No extra cost for an XL or XXXXL! How AWESOME is that!!!

Just another reason why I love The Pyramid Collection. They won my affection and willingness to spend my entire paycheck by proclaiming my morbid deformity as divine beauty! (Someone call the NAAFA, we have a winner!)

Speaking of which, I think using the term "morbid" in that sense as a medical term is horrible, but I'm not getting on top of my soap box for that right now. My BMI is only one tick from being classified as clinically "Morbidly Obese." They can kiss my Goddess-sized left butt cheek.

Go shopping--> www.pyramidcollection.com. Right in the middle of the page is where they have a special section for "Goddess Plus Sizing." It does say "Plus," but I'm overlooking it now because they think I'm a Goddess!

I think I like this "me being a goddess" talk. Of course, the BF has referred to me as a Goddess too, that's how he got uber brownie points.