Eating the Rainbow: Because Boring Beige Food Was Never an Option

Our Weight Watchers topic for this week was Eat the Rainbow and of course that came with a joke from me about whether we were talking about Skittles. Then again, I think that is taste the rainbow — semantics.

I have been thinking about eating the rainbow since Jentz, the old guy from the swimming pool who rocked the Speedo every day back in California, told me how he ate and how beautiful his plate was each day. I miss Jentz — there wasn't a woman at the pool he didn't hit on. Anyway, he told me he would go to Costco and load up on the chicken breasts and then make this beautiful plate of veggies that had all the colors in it. He went on and on about it being gorgeous.

So, yesterday in our workshop we went through all the colors of fruits and vegetables and what nutrient values they brought with them. It was cool. I know greens are good for the heart. Yellow and orange are good for the eyes, and so on and so forth. It got me thinking about how I could get some rainbow action in before my ride in Pennsylvania.

I haven't meal prepped in a while. I had been eating the same thing most days and it had been working. Morning — 42g of protein from a protein shake. Lunch — 30g of protein from a different protein shake. Then dinner would be a protein pizza, a burger, or popcorn. Well, last week I got back on the fudge bars and sugar free popsicles — the ones I had to give up because they made my teeth hurt. I didn't have a great week on the scale even though everything else went according to plan. Now, it could have been coming off the medication from twin ear infections. It could have been the steroid. It simply could have been that my water intake skyrocketed last week because I felt good and started working out hardcore again. It doesn't really matter. Weight loss is a winding road, not a straight line. There are ups and downs, just like strikes and gutters.

So, as we talked, I looked up a WW fried rice recipe. Fried rice to me is a good way to get a lot of veggies in, a recipe came up, and I quasi followed it — but sometimes cooking is more fun when you just try new stuff with a little guidance, and that is what I did.

Here is my recipe that yielded 4 servings with 40g of protein and 10g of fiber. If you are going to eat a lot of protein, you must get your fiber in because the protein will stop you up and that is not a good time. Fiber rules!

4 cups of brown rice, cooked
1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil
3 tablespoons of coconut aminos — love this as a soy sauce replacement
Laura's Lean Beef, 96% FF, 1 pound
2 large eggs
2 egg whites
1 large red bell pepper, cut into small pieces but not diced
1 large green bell pepper, cut into small pieces but not diced
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into small pieces but not diced
½ large sweet onion, put through the apple corer
1 bunch of scallions
1 head of broccoli — I cut my broccoli pieces small

Now, I cooked the rice on Saturday afternoon so I could refrigerate it until Sunday. They tell you to do this — I am sure there is a reason why, but God knows I can't remember.

I steamed the broccoli on Sunday.

I took the diced up peppers, scallions, and onions and put them into a Ziploc bag, sprayed them with Pam, and then seasoned the hell out of them with no-sugar BBQ seasoning that I like. Then I cooked them for 35 minutes at 425° in the oven.

I scrambled my eggs and egg whites using Pam.

Using Pam again, I browned my ground beef, but I added 3 diced cloves of garlic because everything should have garlic in it.

Using the oil, I fried the rice for about 4 minutes on medium heat, added the aminos as well, and gave it a good stir.

Then I just combined everything and there you have Billy B's fried rice. You know, it is not half bad either. I will be adding some red pepper flakes or some chili sauce because my rice should have a kick. Photos below... only now at the end do I realize I loaded them backwards.... smh.....