Day 3 Breakfast, or the joys of a good spice blend

Today for breakfast I actually woke up at a decent hour, and prepared a chicken breast tenderloin. I'm allowed 2oz of protein at breakfast, so I was very pleased to discover that giant eagle boneless skinless breast tenderloins average out to just about 2oz. Considering it's a 48oz bag, the sheer cost effectivness of this diet is really starting to sink home. The chicken started out frozen, so I didn't add the spice until it had thawed on the grill. I used my Detroit Mexicantown Seasoning, which was a Christmas present from my parents. I served the chicken with a few small baby carrots.




The Mexicantown seasoning, not surprisingly, is a sort of general purpose fajita style spice blend. It's made with salt, spices, onion, garlic, and paprika; but what is most impressive is what it doesn't contain: sugar. A lot of spice blends include small amounts of sugar, which while unnoticeable to most people, and allowable in small amounts even to dieters, I can only use once per day as my "flavor enhancer." A big part of my strategy for cooking is too seek out interesting spices and blends, to keep things fresh. Chicken shouldn't get monotonous if you dress it properly, as it's essentially a neutral vector for other flavors.

The carrots represent a bit of confusion on my part. My handbook says I can have five baby carrots as a veggies, but these were so small I figure I can have 10, meaning I can have five now and five for a snack. I checked the label, and it says that an entire bar (about 25 of them) is still only 6 grams of carbs. As long as I keep the veggies under 10, I'm fine. I think I'm going to try to make sure my carbs stay low, and clearly only have one "serving" of carrots per day. a little troubling is that 1/2 cup of green beans, my other favorite veggies, is 4 grams of carbs. Again, I only get 10grams of veggie carbs per day. For comparisons, a single bagel is roughly 29 grams of carbs.

I was able to secure Keto-sticks, after many days of failure, and I tested myself this morning. I am firmly in "small" ketosis, which means that my body is burning fat now to stay alive. you're supposed to test yourself in the morning, so this is really only after 2 days of dieting. While it may not mean too much directly, it's good to see one clear impact of my efforts so far.

Finally, I find that I'm struggling with my salt intake. with such small portions, 1/4 teaspoons gets in the way, overpowering other spices. I have bouillon packets, one of which is 1000 mgs of sodium, so I can make one of those per day to reach my 1500mg. My roommate, whose been on a salt restricted diet for years, is highly unsympathetic to my quest for salt. If worse comes to worse, I can just take salt tablets.