Oven “Fried” Chicken Drumsticks with a side of HOPE!

Last Friday started with waking up and heading to the coffee maker for some of the best coffee I ever randomly found on a sale rack at Marshalls!

I enjoyed this as I was taking my kids to school. On a side note, my daughter Charlotte loves to blast disco music in the morning on the way to school. There’s nothing quite like singing “I Love The Night Life” at 7:45 AM!

Did I tell you all that Charlotte has started middle school this year?!! And she’s doing awesome. A/B Honor Roll and she had a part in the Legally Blonde Musical this year.

When I got back home, I had a little bit of time so I decided to begin preparing a new recipe from the Skinny Taste Cookbook.

When I was losing a lot of weight, I was listening to hunger. I did not eat a lot during the day but I did focus on one meal in the evening. This isn’t a straight “One meal a day” type of eating but when I am in tune with my true physical hunger I amazingly don’t need to eat a lot during the day. This allows me to plan one main meal (dinner). When I lost weight before I had a rotation of about 5 healthy meals with little variety. Now I realize that was a mistake. I needed to learn how to make healthy meals. I have often tried but found it too complicated. I don’t know the things a person my age should know. What is the difference between a green onion and a scallion? What is an English cucumber? Is it British!? How do you mince, crush or dice garlic? These are the things I have been working on learning the past few years. The problem is that I haven’t been consistent with it. I tend to give up and just go back to the few healthy recipes that I do know.

This lack of real effort is no longer acceptable. My children want to eat something other than baked chicken. They need themselves to learn how to include food in their life in a healthy way without fear or lack of knowledge. If you don’t learn these things you WILL grow tired of eating the same things again and again and then you’ll fall prey to Pizza Hut.

That’s when you lose weight simply to gain it back. I know because I’ve done that!

So as much as I hate to say it– the slogan is true.

It has to be a lifestyle change. An entire overhaul. And a real long term commitment.

My fear of food and lack of knowledge in preparing healthier versions of meals made our options too limited. So I am choosing now to try this again. For me there is less fear in eating this meal in the evening when I know I have not been constantly eating ALL DAY LONG. Instead of fearing it, I am able to look forward to it.

I have to admit I really miss looking forward to food. It is a double edged sword for me wondering if it is ‘ok’ for me to feel that way about food. But Friday was a truly great day. And I did look forward to the meal. I had fun trying to prepare something new because I didn’t find the recipe so cumbersome and involved. I actually recognized most of the ingredients on the list and that was certainly a relief! I knew after a strong day of listening to hunger signals and NOT eating outside of hunger that I could feel good about eating dinner knowing I had already been in control all day and that I was truly hungry when eating it. I’m not sure yet if this is a good or bad thing for me though. ‘Feeling good about eating dinner’ based on how I “BEHAVED” with food during the day. I don’t want my self esteem to get wrapped up in how I behaved with food on any given day. And yet it is all so helplessly intertwined isn’t it? Moving on….

The recipe was for Buttermilk Oven Fried Chicken

And this is something I had to overcome fear to cook. I have a fear of many types of foods that I believe may trigger me. A lot of dairy for example has sugar in it which is why I shy away from yogurt and milk. This recipe included bread crumbs, cornflakes and buttermilk. Things I might fear would cause me issues but they did not include much sugar and I believe that is my primary problem when it comes to a biochemical reaction that causes cravings. I am choosing to try things and then pay very close attention (as I used to) in how I react. Should it cause me to have an unnatural increase in hunger cravings then I will know to eliminate it. And if that happens I must be brutally honest with myself and totally eradicate that ingredient from my allowed food list.

Aside from that, I will try to walk in freedom without so much fear.

Here are my chicken drumsticks prepared according to the recipe and ready to go into the refrigerator for 6-8 hours.

While I was preparing them, I filled up a mason jar with water and lemon. I put it in the freezer and when I was done preparing the chicken (which took me about 30 minutes) I then got out my water and was on my way!!

By this time I was still NOT hungry. So I just continued to drink water.

On a sidenote, I had 4 left over chicken drumsticks that did not fit in the pan. So I decided to cook them immediately as an experiment in the oven. I just put them in the oven plain without taking the skin off and without doing anything special other than throwing some salt and pepper on them. I cooked them for 40 minutes at 400 degrees flipping them one time 20 minutes in. To my complete shock, they came out great!!

I have to admit that I am 44 years old and I have NEVER cooked chicken drumsticks in my life. I buy rotisserie chicken and then my children fight over the two drumsticks. But here I had bought a HUGE pack of chicken drumsticks for a little over FIVE DOLLARS. Not only did it make more than enough for my entire family’s dinner BUT I had 4 drumsticks left over which I baked and then had earlier in the day when I was hungry. I am actually kind of horrified that I have never done this before as it was so easy and so cheap.

Around the time these were done cooking, I did begin to feel truly hungry. I did not pay attention to what time it was. I want to say it may have been close to 11 am and I decided to eat two of these drumsticks. Of course I took a bite before I remembered to take a picture!!! As seen below….haha I also chose to dip them in Ranch

The rest of the day I continued to drink water and coffee. I was not feeling hungry again until 2 pm. And at that time, I decided to make an omelette with turkey bacon. This is also something I’ve been doing lately. Making omelets with spinach, cheese and mushrooms along with turkey bacon. I have NEVER made my own bacon before. I always buy it precooked and then microwave it.For the first time ever I decided to make my own. Guess what?? It isn’t hard!

I used coconut oil (also new to me) and cooked it in the pan. I have also baked it in the oven. I prefer it from the pan but both are good. I had never tried turkey bacon before and I love it. I hesitate to say I looove turkey bacon because it’s food. And I don’t want to LOVE food.

I want to love my kids. I want to love God. I want to love my friends. But I don’t want to LOVE food.

And yet I do kind of love bacon.

I will continue to struggle with that I suppose for awhile. But as long as I can love it within the confines of true hunger and fullness respecting that and not feeling out of control—then I think I’m ok.

I am really thrilled with the fact that I am finally learning to do some things I should have learned A LONG TIME AGO. I’m keeping it simple and I think that is important.

I did buy a Quest Bar at the store just in case I became very tempted to eat something sweet at some point in the day. I normally stay far away from “bars” of any kind. Even those that deem themselves healthy. They have in the past triggered me to go eat a Snickers. Eventually leading to the real deal. But Quest bars are the only bars I have not experienced that with. I stopped eating Quest bars around the same time I stopped drinking my Atkins shakes or doing basically anything that worked for me!! So I haven’t eaten any in several years. When I started out in 2011, I would have to order them off the internet. Now they actually are selling them in the grocery store individually so they must have become popular over the last few years. The only one I would usually eat in the past was Vanilla Almond because I was if I ate a chocolate one it could lead to problems.

Problems being Reeses and Kit Kats.

But as I seek my freedom from the oppressive forces that haunt me with food, I may branch out and test the waters.

As it turned out, I never needed to eat this Quest Bar. I do like, though, that I was prepared for the possible temptation that might come my way in case I was craving something sweet. Putting those safeguards in place and preparing ahead is another thing I have NOT been doing. This is like leaving your front door unlocked. Or better yet wide open with a sign that says “Come on in!! Take whatever you want!”

Because the moment will come where you feel weak and you want something. If you don’t have a ‘safe’ something then you will find a ‘dangerous’ something. At least I will!!

So there it still sits for when I have an emergency!

I continued to drink water through the day and I was never hungry again until we ate dinner around 7 pm.

This was the final product of our attempt to make “Fried” Chicken

All my kids loved it. Especially my son! And they were totally impressed!

(I also attempted to make Cauliflower “mashed faux” potatoes. Fail! I’ll try that another time)

Later in the evening I had another cup of coffee mixed with half of a Vanilla Atkins shake and I felt very satisfied.

I did not stress about food at all. I did not feel out of control. I did not log food or count anything. I trusted myself and for the first time in a long time it paid off.

I plan to continue on this path. It feels right. And not much has felt right in so long.

One last thing—I’m reading a book by Geneen Roth called “Women, Food And God”. The first time I picked up a Geneen Roth book was probably in college. I must not have been ready to hear what she had to say. Since then I have heard many people talk about her books and how it helped them. So I’m going to give it another try.