Cheater, Cheater EVERYTHING Eater

How do you handle cheat days? The research that I've read suggest having 1 cheat day after 30 days of diet to prevent your body from going into starvation mode from low calories. Basically, eating a low calorie diet causes your body to think it is starving and save everything as fat. After thirty days, it is suggested to allow yourself one cheat day a week.

My first cheat day was on Super Bowl Sunday. It was glorious...on Sunday. I've regretted my decisions all week. It is Wednesday and I finally feel normal/semi-healthy again.

Curious to know how others handle cheat days. Does the guilt go away? After your first cheat day, are the rest not so outrageous? Does it make you more strict during the week? Do you ever skip a cheat day?

Anyway, here is my cheat day summary:

1. Woke up hung over so didn't have a breakfast (whoops!). I started the day at lunch with Sweet Tea and Homemade Shrimp Alfredo:

I love pasta; especially, creamy, bad for you pasta. This is a simple, bad, delicious recipe:

• Boil your pasta of choice. I prefer, thin spaghetti or angel hair noodles.
• While that is boiling, saute onions, tomatoes and shrimp covered in blackening seasoning in a skillet with butter on med-low heat. I start with the onions since they take a little longer. While they're cooking, I chop the other ingredients and cover the shrimp in Old Bay blackening seasoning. Shrimp and tomatoes do not take long at all.
• After the shrimp are cooked and the onions are translucent, I add in equal parts of the cream sauce ingredients: cream cheese and sour cream. DON'T JUDGE. I turn the skillet to low and allow for everything to melt.
• At this time, your noodles should be done. I drain them and add them to the skillet to guarantee everything is mixed well together.

After lunch, we headed to a Super Bowl party. For the party, I made a delicious, FAT, shrimp dip:

This recipe is also super easy and bad, but delicious!:

• I soaked 1lb of shrimp in hot sauce and Old Bay's blackening seasoning. I cooked them in a skillet with butter.
• After the shrimp were cooked, I diced all except for two in really small pieces. These two would later be used as decoration. (See photo above.)
• I mixed the chopped shrimp with 1/2 a thing of cream cheese, 1 cup of shredded, mozzarella cheese, 3/4 cup of Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin' Sauce and 3/4 cups of Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch Dressing.
• Once it is all mixed, bake it in the oven for 20 minutes.
• Top with chives and two shrimp as decoration. Serve with Frito Scoops.

For the rest of the party, I enjoyed a few adult beverages, some Reece Cups and some bean and cheese burrito bites.  Next Saturday/Sunday, my cheat day will involve a lot less alcohol and bad decisions....hopefully.

Making a Brunch of Mistakes

If I'm going to eat bad, I usually like to do it early in the morning. Think breakfast tacos, migas, mimosas, etc. This weekend, my family got together to celebrate my deceased aunt's birthday. I told the family I wanted to make everyone brunch. It turned out amazing! Here's what we had:

First, I preheated the oven to 350. I sliced two whole tomatoes and put them in the oven to roast. Next, I halfed all of the English muffins and placed them in the oven too. Keep an eye on the bread so that it does not burn.

While those cooked, I made the home made crab cakes (with fresh crab meat from Louisiana!). All I did was mix the following:

• 1 lb of Crab (Claw Meat)
• 1 bunch of chives/green onions
• 1/2 White Onion
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper
• 2 Eggs
• A few dabs Tobasco Sauce
• 2 dabs Worcestshire Sauce
• Tony's
• Black Pepper

I mixed it all together then formed patties and rolled them in Italian bread crumbs. I heated a skillet to medium high with canola oil layering it. Then I cooked the patties on medium-low till they were golden brown (approx. 4-6 minutes on each side).

After the patties were all down in the skillet, I removed the English muffins and began plating. I put two halves, face up on each plate. I diced 1.5 avocados and added avocado slices to all 6 plates on the smaller half of the English muffin.

I then took the tomatoes out of the oven and added them to the other half of the English muffin (the larger half).

While my crab cakes were finishing up, I started frying eggs. (If your crab cakes are already done, just turn the skillet off so that they stay warm, but don't over cook.)

I sprayed pam on another, large skillet and heated it to medium high. I cooked three eggs at once. Once they turned white, I turned off the skillet and flipped them to let them finish cooking. Be careful not to bust the yolk.

Plate the crab cake on top of the tomatoes and then add your fried egg. It's best served with a knife, fork and mimosa! I served these three and quickly fried up three more eggs for the remaining plates. This recipe made enough for six and had two crab cakes left over that did not last long!

Everyone loved it and I hope that you do too!:)