My tale of turning this….

… Into this:

Damn FitBit… It’s a leash I’ve attached to my wrist that reminds me that I’m usually bad, (occasionally good), and scolds me constantly. It tracks my number of steps per day, my weight, my sleeping patterns and my horrible addiction to carbs. Awesome.

It allows you to setup a weight loss plan and so when I purchased it, last Sunday, I was all sorts of motivated. I opted for the ‘kind of difficult’ plan instead of the ‘I can still eat carbs but miraculously, I’ll still lose weight’ plan. Not quite sure what I was thinking.

Anyway, I’m strapped in, (literally) and I’m ready for a long, scary ride.

So cut screen to the usual ‘on-the-ride-home-from-work’ conversation with Stevo, tonight.

Me: What do you want to do for dinner (please say go out to eat, please say go out to eat)?
Stevo: I don’t know.
Me: (Stupid damn fitbit, reminds me I only have 300 calories left to eat today…. And that better include an alcoholic beverage)… ‘How about grilled chicken over a salad?’

At this very moment, I envisioned Stevo driving off the road and succumbing to a tragic car accident because those words don’t generally fall out of my mouth.

That didn’t happen (he too is wearing the leash). So now time to figure out how to do the following:

1.) Make chicken in a skillet that doesn’t resemble cardboard.
2.) Choose a type of lettuce that didn’t come in a bag and had a good crunch.
3.) Make it look pretty (an absolute must, if you’re going to make healthy food taste good…. In my opinion)
4.) Don’t get him too excited about rabbit food because I’m not doing this every night, for the next six weeks.

Simple…

OK, so for the salad, I chose butter lettuce. It’s pretty (check!), and has a good crunch (check!).

For veggies, I kept it simple with an awesome looking yellow bell pepper and red onions (pretty and crunchy! Check and check).

For the dressing, I went with a creamy balsamic vinaigrette. No, this was not homemade.

Lastly, the dreaded chicken in a skillet. A quick check of Mr. Google yielded me the answer to my prayers. This method can be applied to ANY chicken breast recipe, when you live in this God forsaken place where winter never ends (in other words, not even I’m cruel enough to send Stephen out in this weather to grill).

Ok, here we go…

Take a tablespoon of olive oil and a pat of butter…. Melt it in a skillet, over medium heat. While it melts, slightly pound the breasts to make sure they’re an even thickness.

I picked up 1.5 lbs of marinated chicken (knowing I’d de-kibble the hell out of it so in essence, it’s about a lb), from my butcher. It was a marinade of lemon, garlic, paprika, olive oil, etc.

Add the chicken to the pan and set the timer for exactly one minute.

After a minute, flip the chicken and quickly cover it with a tight lid. Reduce the heat to low and let it go for 10 minutes. Don’t open the lid… Just Don’t Do It.

After 10 minutes, shut off the heat and while it’s still covered, let it sit for another 10.

The chicken breasts were really thick so after the final 10 minutes, I had to actually fire up a low heat for an additional 5-7 and allow for a second 10 minute resting time. My bad. However, the end result was a ridiculously tender piece of chicken.

There you have it, friends. I was completely satisfied and it was ridiculously good.

I still went over my 1100 calorie daily limit by 100 but it could have had something to do with the tuna sandwich I ate for lunch…. Oh yeah, and that Starbucks croissant I had for breakfast. Baby steps.