Monday, January 31, 2011

Weigh Me Monday

1/24/11: 271.0

drum roll please....

1/31/11: 269.6

Total Loss: 1.4 pounds

I'm digging this! I'm doing much better nutrition wise, with the occasional splurge. Working it out with Jillian and The Biggest Loser. I CAN DO THIS!!!!! My goal for this week is to get some more workout's in. Three is nice in one week, with all of the laundry, dishes and chasing of the children. But I'm getting into my Jillian time. <3

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes



I'm a twice baked tater lover...fat loaded, full of cheese and sour cream tater lover. Unfortunately there's no room for that in my life anymore. So suffice to say I've found a reputable replacement. I like the uniqueness the beef brings to it. I also like that you're getting a serving of veggies between the potato and the broccoli. It was lacking that yummy extra cheesy flavor, but that's okay it totally rocked as is.

 
I give it four out of five apples. 



Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Tortellini Primavera



Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. I don't think I can say yum enough. I'm a meat and taters kind of girl, it's how I was raised. I never thought a non-meat meal could be so yummy. For the tortellini I grabbed some Buitoni Cheese & Roasted Garlic Tortelloni, because I couldn't find frozen tortellini at the store and it was late, well that's another story. I also used a bag of frozen Broccoli Normandy for the veggies. I think the only thing I will change next time is adding more garlic, but I am a garlic lover. Even Baby Girl & Baby Boy chowed down on the tortellini, so you know it's good.


I give it five out of five apples. 



30 Day Shred ~ Day 2

So yesterday should have been day two but I wussed out. Wah, Wah cry baby, right? When I said Jillian literally kicked my butt, I meant it. I am.so.freaking.sore. So tonight my friend in NC, Alison, ran out and bought the DVD since we recommended it. She was super impressed and said she loves it. That was all it took to kick my butt in gear. I broke out the DVD, which arrived today, and took another butt whooping from Jillian. Eight more days and I'll evaluate if I need to move forward to level two.

And I still cannot find my hand weights, ugh.

 

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Balsamic-Glazed Roasted Chicken



My oh my, where to start? First off this recipe gives you an entire piece of chicken for a serving...that's a LOT of protein. I personally wasn't too hip to the smell of the red currant jelly or the balsamic vinegar. But I must say, OMG, when you put the two together for a glaze, watch out because there will be a taste explosion in your mouth. I couldn't believe the herb taste, courtesy of the thyme, yet a burst of sweet fruitiness. I also paired it with Green Giant's Healthy Colors Valley Blend veggies. We'll definitely be making this yummo dish again.

I'm also going to start including the nutrition facts for the recipes to give you an up front look and then you can decide if you want to access the recipe from the link provided below the meal picture.
  
^1 serving = 1 breast^

I give it five out of five apples.



Monday, January 24, 2011

30 Day Shred

Uh, yeah. So my friend Katie said that she uses Jillian's 30 Day Shred. Cool, I can do that! So today I bought the DVD, but it won't be here until Wednesday, BUT I received the video on demand through Amazon for free. I of course took advantage of this tonight. Let's just say, this fat girl had a hell of a time keeping, but I managed. Jillian literally just kicked my butt. Woot!

Day one of the 30 Day Shred is in the bag and I'm feeling great, whooped but great. I kind of want to chronicle my journey using the shred. So:

1) Holy cow my endurance is in the crapper.
2) My knees pop worse than a 100 year old.
3) I can't do a jumping jack to save my life.
4) My thighs are so fat my feet can't kick my butt.
5) I can pretty much manage and work through the modified versions of the circuits, but I'll be glad when I have more strength and endurance
6) I cannot for the life of me find my hand weights so I may have to see about getting another set.

Off to hit the shower and hopefully catch some zzz's!

Snacks and Ramblings


Athenos Roasted Garlic Hummus and Stacy's Simply Naked "Nothing but Sea Salt" Pita Chips
First off I have to say that I used to think hummus was nasty. I couldn't get past the grit. In my defense I was pregnant when I tried it. Now I think it's scrumptious. Which leads to my next problem, I eat too much of it in one sitting. Usually I just bring the bowl with me, snag pita chips out of the bag and eat until I *think* I've eating one serving. BIG MISTAKE. I'm pretty sure I've been eating a quarter of the hummus container and most likely a half a bag of pita chips.

Secondly the hubby and I buy in bulk at Sam's, meats included. We usually buy around ten pounds of ground beef and six or eight pounds of ground turkey. In this past we used this dinky 2 cup food scale to measure out two pounds of beef at a time to be put in freezer bags. That took forever.

So between our need for a quicker method of measuring our meat and the necessity to ensure I'm only truly eating one serving of snacks/foods I snagged a fabulous new tool. A manual food scale! I picked it up at Target for $5 and it weighs up to 11 pounds, SCORE! I have been drooling over digital food scales, but I cannot justify spending $50 bucks on one. Sure the manual takes up a little more space, but for the price I had to buy it. I do not regret it at all.



So instead of my normal half a bag of pita chips and quarter container of hummus, I measured out 2 tablespoons of hummus and weighed out 2oz of pita chips. Yeah, it was very obvious I had been over doing it. Which leads me to the whole "you don't need to count calories" method of weight loss. I truly beg to differ. I'm sure it's different for every person, but I've already proved to myself that if I'm not keeping a food diary and I'm not measuring out what a serving is, I cannot do this. When I do squeeze in time to eat on the no counting method, I overeat terribly. This weekend was absolute proof of it.

We ate out at SONIC, I love that place, but it did not like my new healthy habits. While I agree it's okay to splurge every now and then, what I did this weekend was probably more of a cardinal sin. My hubby surprised me with a box of Girl Scout's Thin Mints (absolute heaven), I'm sure you can guess the entire box is gone. So, yes, I NEED measurements to be my friend, if only for now. I'm still in the baby stages of my life long healthy habits change and I cannot afford to "think" that I'm eating the appropriate amounts if I'm not.

I also must make a mental note to myself, apple juice is an "okay" substitute for orange juice when you're out of o.j. and in dire need of a fruit smoothie. It's just not as sweet, so start buying a gallon versus the tiny individual bottles of orange juice, mmmkay?

Weigh Me Monday

1/17/11: 273.0

drum roll please....

1/24/11: 271.0

Total Loss: 2 pounds

For having a crappy nutrition week, it still turned okay I suppose. I did get some "exercise" in which included cleaning the house and playing with Baby Girl in the snow. Man were my glutes ever sore, and still are. I also ordered a couple of workout DVD's today that some friends recommended. As a bonus, I can view one of them online for free, so I'll be doing some "real" exercise this afternoon/evening! Keeping my head up!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Beef & Bean Chile Verde


I'm a bit of a chili connoisseur. I've made my dad's secret chili recipe for many years now. It's the type of chili that burns your butt hairs off, and I love every bite of it. So I wasn't sure how I would take trying another chili recipe, after all I've tried tons of other's recipes and blah, they just don't do it for me. I was skeptical to say the least.

It only took me a half hour to prepare dinner. This is primarily because I had already chopped the veggies and frozen them ahead of time, so when I was ready to make the chili I just had to pull them out. That saved me about 20 minutes of prep time, 45 minutes if you take into consideration I was dealing with both children at the same time. After browning the meat and adding the seasonings, wow, that was one fragrant pot of chili. Very delightful to the nose. I was curious how I would handle bell peppers in my chili. I was pleasantly surprised that it added just a bit of sweetness to it. And I'm not sure if it was a combination of the spices or the green salsa, but it had a bit of an after kick with eat bite. I believe I'm going to have to try this recipe out on my dad and see what he thinks of it.

I give it five out of five apples.



 

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Macaroni & Cheese


There really is no way to screw up mac & cheese is there? There is however ways to make it bland and tasteless. I will give it to this recipe, it is healthy, it is light, but it is also needing a bit more umpf. I am accustomed to Kraft outta the box mac & cheese, so I was missing that fatty cheesy flavor. But, for the sake of our health I will take this delightful change. Since I used fat-free cheese, I may up the the cheese factor by another half cup or so. Otherwise this one was a hit!

I give it four out of five apples.



Chicken Salad Wraps


Let's start off by saying, this recipe sounded good in theory. I was pumped, until I realized that the recipe calls for Fish Sauce. Okay, we'll try it anyways. I was slaving over the stove, cooking the chicken, and fixing the "dressing." I opened the bottle of fish sauce, and obviously sniffed it like any sane person would do. Ummmm, have you ever smelled really, really bad body odor mixed with butt scent? Yeah, that's how I would describe Fish Sauce. Of course the recipe states that it is a pungent smell, but that's not my word for it.

The next step is to add lemon juice to the sauce, so then you end up with lemon scented butt smell. Hehe. I was seriously starting to doubt my decision. I got all of the ingredients mixed up and ready to go, minus the tomato because my husband is a weenie and refuses to eat them raw. Don't worry, this tomato loving gal still put them in her wrap. I took out two wraps, served up the mix, tossed on some tomatoes and voila, dinner!

I must also note that I totally love the smell of fresh mint!
Isn't the mix pretty?

Now for the taste test...tastes pretty good. I can't describe the dressing's taste, but I do know that the mint totally counters it. It really tasted good, BUT I could still smell lemony butt with every bite. So, going forward if I had to make the dish again, I would do it sans Fish Sauce. It's hard to swallow bite after bite, knowing that every time you put the wrap to your mouth you'll smell lemony butt. Otherwise I liked it...I'm still waiting on the verdict from my hubby. We'll see what he says after he tries it.

In the end I give it three out of five apples, only because the smell is powerful and makes it difficult to continue eating.




Monday, January 17, 2011

Weigh Me Monday

1/10/11: 272.4

drum roll please....

1/17/11: 273.0

Total Loss Gain: +0.6 pounds

Sigh. It was a bad week. We ate out too much, I didn't eat enough, nor did I get any exercise in. I'm bummed, but I'll move forward and work for a better week. I'm also lacking in the sleep department. I can do this...I can do this...I can do this...

Banana-Berry Smoothie



I have never in my life had a smoothie, let alone one that contains tofu. I always thought..ewwww tofu is gross. I'll be honest I had my reservations and every possible "taste" ran through my mind while I was making it. So Baby Girl woke up from a nap and wanted a snack which happened to coincide with my snack time. So I busted out the blender, the o.j., a banana and some frozen blueberries (I did not add the optional sugar). Baby Girl helped me with the blender, and nearly had a fit. She wanted to push the buttons so bad and once she did she freaked out because she thought she did something bad. It was pretty funny. Any who, I have one word for you: YUUUUUUMMY! I will be making smoothies a part of my normal routine. I didn't taste one bit of tofu, simply banana's and blueberries. SWEET! After Baby Girl downed a glass and my two glass serving, it left a smidgen over which I stuck in the freezer and will unthaw for a snack tomorrow. I'm so happy I decided to give it a try.



Even baby girl agrees..."smoovies good."
In the end I give it five out of five apples.



Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Eating Well Taco

In a quest to get healthy, I came across the website Eating Well. I have fallen in love. There are so many healthy recipes (nutrition info included) and you can take your pick from Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Sides and Desserts. The posibilities are endless.

So I rounded up 15 dinner recipes, and a handful of breakfast recipes to try over the next month. Since we only shop for groceries once a month, it seemed like it was going to blow our budget out of the water. Boy was I ever wrong. I mean we spent the same amount that we normally would on processed/boxed foods in the past, but we walked away with two cart fulls of healthy, fresh produced as well as healthy alternatives to our old menu items. SCORE! It's a big undertaking, and I was a bit frazzled in the store because I was unsure where a lot of the items are, but I'm becoming more friendly with my grocery store these days.

You're probably wondering, how I'm going to handle the fresh produce if we are going to be using it for the next month. Well, I prepared the items according to their respective recipe, placed it in a vacuum freezer bag, and voila! The items are already chopped, sliced, and diced for each recipe. I have to merely, pull it out of the freezer and toss it in the pan. Genius!

Anyways, back to my initial point. I plan on writing a review of these yummy recipes and being 100% honest whether I liked it or not. I will also include any tweaks to the recipes that I may do. I also plan on including a picture of the final product, because frankly I'm short handed when it comes to cooking meals, with Adam sleeping during the day, so doing pictures of the prep will be hard. Sit back and enjoy!


You can get the recipe to this dish by clicking on the link above. Let me start off by saying, OMG...definitely a positive spin on the normal taco. Secondly, I honestly think that two of these yummy tacos is too much food for one sitting. However, I am trying to acclimate myself to eating what I need to. I've always eaten too little food, so your wondering how I got fat? Well, when I would eat so little, it would leave me hungry later, so I would chow down on bad food, therefore creating a vicious cycle. But now that I have my proportions in order, I'm doing much better at staying satisfied longer.

Let's get to it shall we? The meat is amazing. Half lean beef, half turkey burger. The spices come together and give it a nice aroma. I opted to use ground chipotle chili rather than chili powder, and I used a tablespoon...way too much spice that was for certain. Although the hubby thought it tasted great with that much spice. Baby girl decided it was too spicy and refused to eat it. We've always eaten shredded iceburg on our tacos, but it calls for romaine. I personally liked the change. Baby girl, hated the romaine. She loves eating iceburg raw, so that was a draw back. But it isn't going to stop me from making it again. It also calls to be topped with diced tomatoes, and chopped red onion. I personally cannot stand onion, if it isn't cooked in with the food. The recipe calls for onion to be cooked with the Lean & Spicy taco meat, which I did, so I didn't put any on top. As for the tomatoes, I put Rotel in the meat, so I didn't want "extra" tomatoes on top either. So it sort of lowered my calorie intake there.

The shell...nom nom nom. I have NEVER in my life eaten a Multi-grain flour tortilla, until today. I will never go back. The recipe calls for plain flour tortillas, but because we buy in bulk, we picked up some sweet healthy alternatives. Let me just say, this picture doesn't depict how huge these shells are. They are sitting on a ten inch plate if that tells you anything. I think in the future I will NOT be putting chili powder or salt on the shells. It was wayyyyyy tooooooo spicy. I will stick to my plain Multi-grain tortillas. I really like putting them in the oven to crisp them up. It's a little tricky, but well worth it. They are much easier to fill than the tiny fried shells. Adam also suggested laying them flat on the oven racks and then breaking them up like chips. Sounds like something we'll have to try.

In the end I give it four out of five apples.



 

Monday, January 10, 2011

Weigh Me Monday

1/3/11: 277.6

drum roll please....

1/10/11: 272.4

Total Loss: 5.2 pounds


I feel amazing...still sickly...but amazing!!!! And I only managed to squeeze one crappy work out in this past week. But I'll take the 5 pound loss.

I must admit, I don't mind eating so much fruit, but giving up the pop has been difficult. I was seriously addicted, 4-5 cans a day if not more. I've been off the pop for 3 or 4 days now and I honestly miss it. I miss the sweetness, but I don't miss the caffeine or the excess bloat from all that sodium and empty calories. I've also found a healthy replacement, water. I've always loved water, but cutting out all the excess sodium seems to have made me more thirsty for water. I also discovered the joys of Justin's Organic Chocolate Peanut Butter this week...can you say yummo for a quick snack or treat?

In today's food news, it's shaping up to be a pretty decent day. I have planned for some leftover Super Easy Chicken, mashed taters and green beans accompanied by my skim milk. My snacks mainly revolve around my fruits and grains. I'll be dining on a banana with peanut butter and later some Kashi Go Lean Crunch with skim milk and fresh strawberries. That still leaves me with 293 calories for the day...most likely I'll fill it with an orange. Sadly I'm out of hummus and paid day isn't until Friday, but I'll do my best with what we've got. I'm also going to trying out some new recipes I found on EatingWell.com next week. Of course that means I need to do the leg work now so we have a grocery list ready come Friday. Wish me luck!




Sunday, January 9, 2011

YES!!!!

I am so freaking proud of myself you guys!!!! Tomorrow is my official first "weigh in" with my support group (aka Dec Mamas) and I'm pumped. Just by cutting out the junk food and pop, I've already dropped 4-5 pounds. Now I'm sure somehow that can be attributed to water weight, but weight is weight. But, just so I don't get discouraged in the future, after my weigh in, my hubby will be taking my measurements. Not sure when I'll be up to sharing that info with the world, but at least I will be able to tell if I'm losing inches when I'm not necessarily losing weight.

Here's why I am the most proud:

Today's meal schedule includes some Kashi w/ strawberries, some awesome leftovers of slow cooker Chicken & Herbs, and for dinner tonight some wonderful Super Easy Chicken. And of course a lot of veggies and fruits thrown in which makes for an awesome pick of foods from each food group as you can see below. This is the BEST day, food wise, so far. The only group I'm lacking seems to be grains. I've been thinking of ways to get that extra ounce of grains, yet keep my calories in the range they are now. None the less, I will take it!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

First Work Out of The Year

I feel amazing right now! I was SITTING on the couch watching The Biggest Loser I recorded when I realized that I am heavier than the majority of the females on the show...how the hell is that possible? Oh yeah, I'm sitting on my butt watching t.v. So it motivated me to get my sorry butt down stairs and row WHILE I watched The Biggest Loser. I feel so much better now.
Now that I have a little fire under me going, I've just gotta keep building that flame. Tonight I did a 5x4 which equates to 20 minutes of work. I think I'm going to try to do some rowing in the morning, just for fun or maybe I'll try out one of the games on the erg. Then I plan on doing another 5x4 tomorrow evening after the kids are down. I'm trying to make up for lost time here and I have a weigh in on Monday to do. Crossing my fingers for at least one pound to drop. 

As for nutrition you can see I went over my 2,000 budget, but I earned 293 for exercising. I still however want to get my calories down. I'm tempted to drop to 1,800 but I'm not sure if that's advisable considering I'm still nursing? Either way I'm going to focus on eating more healthy and sticking to working out at least 3 days a week. I really hope to get more than that in, but I'm aiming low for now. I also need to work on that sodium content...ouch.

Friday, January 7, 2011

ONE Manageable program


All I want is ONE freaking system that can do what I want it to. I currently use My Fitness Pal to track my calories, which is great, but I also am using MyPyramid in order to track that I'm meeting my daily food group requirements. WHY can there not be one software that does both? Most program only allow you to track/view your calories and a gives you a graph of carbs vs fat vs protein. Don't get me wrong, that's useful information, but I need to be able to see that I'm meeting my requirement and plugging info into two programs is getting old really fast.

Now I'm sure you're going, okay, so why don't you do it old school? One - because I'm lazy like that and want a quick fix. Two - because there's the issue of human error in the paper and pencil method. Three - I'm a dreamer.

I guess I'll just do whatever it takes to my ducks in a row. These past two days have been great food wise.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

1.3.11

Today was a decent food day. And considering I upchucked once, due to the excess phlegm in my throat, all is fair. I definitely did better at getting more veggies and grains in.  The sodium levels were a little high, but in my defense I needed to tenderize the deer. Anywho, the exercise was still a no go; vomit, dizziness, coughing until I pee my pants - you know the routine. So here's looking forward. I definitely took a step forward with my meals, especially breakfast. Now I'm on the hunt for "what works for me." I'm looking into weight watchers, but will have to do a boot legged version because I'm too poor to pay to participate. It's the method that counts right? LOL. I just suck at meal planning because I always want to do what's "easy" because I have to wrangle two kids while cooking dinner if I have to cook it...decisions, decisions. So if anyone has some great meal planning tips/software/suggestions, hook me up. I'm a girl in need!

Also here's a list of my nutritional goals set by my Fitness Pal. They guide you through your physical profile and determine the best way for you to lose the weight in a healthy manner based on your profile, BMI and whatever other factors you may choose if you don't use the recommended weight loss per week goal. I've found it to be mostly accurate and I really like seeing where I'm going overboard and where I'm lacking.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...