I've been eating like crap lately.

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People generally consider me a "health nut".  I shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.  I eat whole grains, fruits and veggies, very little sugar, blah, blah, blah.

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Lately, I've been eating like a child.  I'm single, so I can.

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Mac and cheese for dinner!  Yay!

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Grilled cheese with Velveeta for dinner!  Yay!

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I don't want to eat my veggies, and no one's gonna make me!  Yay!

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I'm a blogger and I don't have time to cook!  It's cool (in a geeky sort of way) to glue myself to my computer and not have time to eat right because I'm eating, breathing, and sleeping my passion!  I'm resilient!  I can get away with it!

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YAY!!!!

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Guess again, sister.  You're not 25 anymore.

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And when you were 25, you were eating a hell of a lot better.

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In order to keep up with my crazy schedule, I'm going to need to adopt my old ways.

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I needed a nutritional road map to show me the way back home.

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Christy Jo provided me with one.  It's called The O2 Diet:  The cutting edge antioxidant-based program that will make you healthy, thin, and beautiful.

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Now, don't get any crazy ideas.  I am not using this as a <em>diet</em> diet.  Although it can be used that way.  Thank goodness for genetics -- I somehow remain a size 0 despite the madness.

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I'm using O2 as a plan to trick me into eating like I normally do.  It's kind of like a game:  you see how many ORAC points you can pack into a day until you look 20 and feel like the energizer bunny.

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What is ORAC, you ask?  <em>Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity</em>

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I'm sorry I asked.  What the hell does Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity mean?  <em>The higher the points, the higher the antioxidant value. </em>

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Oh.  Cool.  I want to look 20 and bounce around like the energizer bunny.  Where do I sign up?  <em>Here. </em>

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Please feel free to join me in feeling better.  I roped a bunch of the girls at work into doing this with me.  We're all going to be radiant by month's end.  The men in the building are going to be beside themselves.

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You go off on so many tangents.  Did the title of this post read "Accidental Top Chef"?  Surely you can't mean the Velveeta grilled cheese sandwiches.  <em>Right.  Let me get on with it.</em>

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For the first four days of O2, there is a shopping list of antioxidant powerhouses.  I purchased 99% of what was on that list in an effort to incorporate as many of those powerhouses as possible into meal and snack times.

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On night 1,  I looked blankly at the pile of health on my counter.  I had no recipe, but I've watched a lot of Top Chef over the years.  All of those hours prepared me for this moment.

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Michelle's Accidental Top Chef Mystery Dinner

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Ingredients:

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Whole Wheat Pasta

Skinless, boneless chicken breasts

red, yellow, and orange peppers

baby spinach

walnuts

olive oil

salt &amp; pepper

oregano

secret ingredient  (you'll see below)

meat tenderizer

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Multitask the following:

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Cook pasta to al dente.

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Rinse chicken.  Sprinkle with meat tenderizer and stab with fork.  Really work out any residual stress in this step.

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Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces and sauté in a small amount of olive oil.  Add water if you need to prevent burning.  Season with pepper and oregano.  (Meat tenderizer already has salt.)

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Optional:  Prepare a plain piece of chicken for the dog.  Set aside.

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Finely chop walnuts.   Set aside.

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Sauté peppers in small amount of olive oil.  Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste.  When peppers are cooked, add a lot of spinach.  (It will cook down to nothing, as we all know.)  Add walnuts.  Spinkle with a couple dashes of cinnamon.  (Trust me on this one.)  Remove from heat.

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Mix pasta, chicken, and veggie/walnut mixture together.  Add more olive oil.  It's really good for you.  Sprinkle with parmesan if you prefer.

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As Carla from Top Chef would say, cook all the above with love.

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Bon Appetit, you soon-to-be energizer bunnies, you!

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<div id="_mcePaste" class="mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 627px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;"><em>Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity</em><em>Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity</em></div>