Greek lamb salad and setting short-term goals

Whenever I watch cooking shows where they are cooking Greek food, I always feel so inspired.
The flavours always looks so fresh and fabulous with garlic, lemon, salty olives and feta cheese and quite often include the aromatic herb, oregano.
Greek salad is one I really love, although I’m not a huge fan of lettuce. Now, I know when you are trying to eat healthy, you need to go easy on the salt. But I was complaining to my brother the other day about my distaste for the green, leafy veg and he suggested a light dusting of salt. Salt, on lettuce? I’m a huge fan of seasoning food, but salt on lettuce seemed a little weird … Until I tried it! Wow, it made all the difference and really brought out the flavour of the lettuce. Hardly surprising, as that’s what salt does – but I happily ate a whole plate of lettuce after that. Brilliant!
Normally when I make a Greek salad, I dish up olives, feta, tomatoes etc for myself, minus lettuce. But, with my new attitude to the green stuff, I was in the mood to do a Greek salad again.

We had my mum over for dinner, so I brought a few prices of lamb back strap and marinated it in a little olive oil, the zest and juice of a lemon and salt and pepper. Nothing could be simpler. I seared it for a few minutes on eat side, rested it and served it on top of a Greek salad.
The other thing that inspired me to make this is being around incredible fresh produce at my dad and brother’s shop, Anglesea Fruitz on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
I have done quite a few shifts since returning from our holiday in Adelaide and can’t help but grab some beautiful produce on my way out the door.
I used mixed lettuce, beautiful tomatoes they source locally in Geelong and also beautiful olives and feta. I drizzled it with a little balsamic reduction, topped it with the lamb and added a drizzle of tzatziki on top. It was perfect, especially considering the hot weather we’ve been having lately.
Now I certainly haven’t been eating only salad lately. Obviously Christmas and our holiday was always going to be challenging on my weight loss goals. And yes, I have to admit I put on just over half a kilo.
It was back to the gym this morning for a tough personal training session and I decided to step on the scales to see how I was tracking. I had gone from 107.5kgs when we got home from holidays, down to 105.7. I was thrilled because that means I have now reached my first goal of losing 5% of my body weight. It’s coming off slowly, but surely, with the only hiccup being over Christmas – which I expected. I couldn’t be more thrilled!!!!
So, for my next goal … To be under 100 kilograms by the time I get measured for my wedding dress at the end of February. I know I can do it!!