Week six was a big one for food — tomahawk steak in the oven, AI-lightened eggplant parmesan with goat cheese and cream cheese, a from-scratch green bean casserole (no cream of mushroom soup here), and lobster for Mother’s Day. Not exactly what you picture when someone says they’re on a diet.
The eggplant parm was an interesting experiment. My original recipe is, let’s say, calorie intense. I asked AI to clean it up and it came back with half the goat cheese, added cream cheese to help it spread (goat cheese is not ricotta — it does not cooperate), plus mushrooms and spinach to bulk it up. You could tell it was the lighter version, but it still had the flavor where it counted. Not bad at all.
The green bean casserole got the same treatment — four slices of bacon instead of half a pound, powdered milk swapped in for whipping cream. Little tweaks that add up without killing the dish.
But the moment that stuck with me most this week happened at a restaurant. We went out for burritos — a place we love. I’m halfway through and I thought, you know what, I don’t actually need the rest of this. So I stopped. Happy Healthy Daughter finished it later. Six weeks ago I eat the whole thing without thinking twice. Something is shifting.
One thing I’ll be honest about: calorie deficit diets mean you will be hungry sometimes. There’s no way around it. Some days are fine, some days the sheet pan dinner doesn’t fill you up the way you hoped. That’s just the reality. You learn to work with it.
Mother’s Day we skipped the restaurants — tried 3:30 and it was still packed — and made lobster at home instead. A little more calorific than a normal dinner, but we made the rest of the day lighter to balance it out. Worth it.
Next week: homemade pizza and hong shao chicken wings (红烧鸡). Stay tuned.
