May 29th, 2009

Hello my faithful readers, whomever you may be! As you know, I don't post on Thursdays...but I usually post my weigh in. I went back and forth whether I would share how I did this week on the scale...and REALLY didn't want to, cause it was so bad. But, this blog, and weight loss in general, has the good, bad AND the ugly, so I will tell you. I was up 2.4 pounds from the holiday weekend. I know...terrible. But there is nothing I can do about it, besides work hard to get it off! Right? Here is a look at today!

Breakfast - Oatmeal w/peanut butter, and a VitaTop - 4 points

Lunch - 2 slices 2% cheese on an Arnold Thin grilled cheese sandwich, and 1 bag of the Smart Clusters Honey Multigrain - 4 points - and MAN...was that a good lunch! I will be having that again for sure!
Snack - 1 cup Jumbo Rice Krispies with 1/2 cup milk - 2 points
Dinner - Spinach Lasagna with 1 piece of bread w/spray butter - 11 points - this meal is so amazing...it tastes like you are just eating gobs and gobs of gooey, fattening cheese...you would never guess that it has fat free and reduced fat ingredients! YUM!
Then, my dear friends, I did FORTY...oh yes...I said FORTY MINUTES on the elliptical and burned 607 calories! Yeah for me! I had three points left...so I decided to have my newest delight....2 brownies with frosting for 3 points. Finished off the day quite perfectly I must say!
So...the next week is going to be VERY challenging for me. Let me break it down for you....

Tomorrow ( Saturday ) - My Brother-in-law's wedding/reception. Need I say more?

Sunday - Going out to dinner with friends and back to their house for ice cream

Monday - Going away for a night with my hubby to Cleveland to see a Yankees game...um lets see...hotel breakfasts....hot dogs at the game....eating while traveling there...not too pretty of a picture.

Tuesday - Still away with the hubby

Friday - Leaving for the weekend with my dad, brother and my girls for NYC for 3 days to see Yankees play at the new stadium ( YAY! ) and visit relatives. 3 more days of staying with someone and having my food prepared for me, instead of making my own and knowing the points values.

That brings me right up until next Monday. Do you agree I have a uphill battle ahead?????

May 27th, 2009

I had a good day yesterday. Of course, 1 good day, is not going to make up for 4 bad ones on the scale, but oh well. Here is a look at how my day went....

Breakfast - Strawberry jello dessert, and 2 banana muffins - 4 points ( oh yeah..that strawberry dessert? 1 point! I will share the recipe...maybe later! :-)
Snack - 1 bag popcorn - 1 point
Lunch - PB&J sandwich - 3 points
Then, I came home from work and did 22 minutes on the elliptical....and burned 400 calories! I don't know how accurate the calorie burning calculation is, but I know I was sweating and exhuasted when I was finished! :-) I'm going to try for 25 minutes today!

Snack after working out - Granola bar - 2 points

Dinner - Turkey burger with cheese and light barbecue sauce, green beans, and a pickle - 7 points
Dessert - 1 point bar - 1 point
Then we went to church, and I was in the nursery with the kids, so I had 2 points of animal crackers...those things are really good.
After church I came home and had a Vitalicious brownie, with 1 TB of the Reduced Sugar Frosting on top for 2 points. DELICIOUS.

Oh yeah, and I must admit, the Vitalicious muffin tops and brownies are really growing on me. I actually really like them now...and will order them again! I guess I needed to just give them time! ;-) That's all for today folks! I don't know if I'm going to weigh in tonight....I just don't even want to see it. I'll let you know what I decide to do! Have a great day!

Just kill me now

That explains how I feel about the past 4 days. Wow...it was bad. Really bad. I feel like I let all my blog readers down by doing so horrible. I'm so sorry everyone. I wish I could say that I had great self control, and made good choices, but I didn't, and I'm sure going to pay for it on the scale. I don't know what else to say, besides, tomorrow is a new day, and a great day to start again.
On a happy note...I bought an elliptical! I can't tell you how happy I am about this! I'm so excited to be able to start excercising! I haven't done it in so long for lack of time, so I'm really happy to have a machine at home now! I got an awesome deal too! Here is the one that I got :

It has video games, I-Fit ( where I can buy Jillian Micheals workouts and plug them in to hear her talk to me! COOL! ) and tons of different features. I'm so excited to start it tomorrow....along with my good eating habits again. Ya know, its funny, cause its so enjoyable to be bad and eat bad while you are doing it...but it is not worth it afterwards. :-( Next week I'm going out of town twice, so I need to do really well up until then to make up for it a little bit. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend...and did better than I did as far as eating goes! I'll start posting my daily food intake again also starting tomorrow! Have a great night!

Memorial Day Weekend

I KNOW this weekend is going to be bad. On top of going out to eat tonight, tomorrow, family picnic on Sunday, and a huge picnic again on Monday, I have a visit from a monthly not-so-friend. Ugh. I mean, I'm not going to blow the whole weekend on purpose, but exp this time of month, I feel like I have no will power.

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I know they always talk about "Mental Rehearsing" before going to a party/picnic. For those of you who don't know...that would be like, "Ok, I'm going to only have 1 hog dog with 1/2 a roll, and I will pick 1 dessert that looks the best and just have 1 piece of it." etc. That is great...and I do that part wonderfully! Seriously, I go to a party all prepared with what I am going to do...its just the executing part of the plan that I can't seem to go through with. For example, going out to eat with my husband tonight, I can think all I want that I'm just going to have a salad with grilled chicken...but as soon as I see the menu with a Friday Fish Fry, and Chicken French, I know that is what I will choose. After all, I'm out to dinner with my family, how often does that happen? The problem is...every weekend for this summer is crazy busy with events like this! I NEED HELP!!

What do you guys do? It just seems like I always have such good intentions, but by the end of the day, I'm always so mad at myself for the choices I ended up making.

May 18th, 2009

Ya know....I figure if the week only consisted of Monday-Friday and we got rid of the weekend, I probably would have been at my goal weight 6 months ago. Weekends are SO hard for me...for some reason I feel like I lose control. It's the combo of my husband being home and making good meals/desserts, going to people's houses, going out to eat with my hubby and girls seeing that it is the only time we are all home together, etc. Sigh....well, on to my day yesterday...

Breakfast - 1 cup Jumbo Rice Krispies, 1/2 cup milk, and an overflowing cup of strawberries - 3 points

Snack - 1 banana - 2 points
Lunch - Egg salad/mayo on a sandwich thin, Smart food caramel popcorn and a diet soda - 6 points
Snack - 1 Triple Chunk Vita Top - 1 point ( For some reason I liked the Vitatops better today...it tasted really yummy compared to last time I ate it! I think I figured out why. If I want CHOCOLATE, I won't go for a Vitatop. I would go for my 1 point brownies cause they fill that craving. But, for a afternoon snack, the Vitatops are pretty good. Make sense? :-)
Dinner - Spinach Lasanga with a Arnold Sandwich Thin w/spray butter - 9 points
Ok, this dinner was AMAZING!!! I wish I could remember whose blog I got it off of so I could give credit where credit is due, but I can't remember! I made it last night, and my non-ww sister was over and she loved it! I'm totally having it for dinner again tonight...cause I have leftovers! I will post the recipe.
Dessert - 2 brownies with 1 Tablespoon melted "Reduced Sugar Chocolate Frosting" on them - 3 points
Ok...so I came up with this brillant idea. I was making the single microwave cake w/frosting from WW Chick's blog, and I liked it, but I not a huge cake fan overall. I would rather have a brownie. But I realized why I loved that cake recipe is because I LOVED having the frosting. So, for 1 point less than the cake, I warmed up 2 brownies, then put the frosting in a little cup, warmed it up for 15 seconds and poured it over the brownies. Can you say HEAVEN????
So, that was my day. What did you think? LOL! I will now leave you with the Spinach Lasagna!

Spinach Lasagna

9 points for 4 servings

1 24 oz jar Classico Fire Roasted Tomato and Garlic Pasta Sauce
2 tsp minced garlic
pinch nutmeg ( i didn't use )
1.5 bags of fresh spinach leaves
1/2 cup fat free egg substitute
15 oz fat free ricotta cheese
garlic salt
little onion powder
italian seasonings
6 pieces lasagna noodles ( Now, I used whole wheat, so I have to think that lowered the points a little )
3 cups Weight Watchers Mozzarella cheese ( I used 2 cups of Fat Free Mozzarella cheese and the rest, 2% milk cheese. I know this dropped the points a bit too )
2 TBS reduced fat Parmesan cheese

Spray a pan with cooking spray and turn on medium heat. Put garlic and nutmeg in pan and when it starts to sizzle, add spinach leaves. Stir until the spinach leaves are wilted and then remove from heat.

In a bowl, combine egg substitute, ricotta, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasonings, 1.5 cups mozzarella, and spinach leaves.

Spray a 2 quart pan,( or 8x8 or whatever size you want to use) with cooking spray. Pour about 1/2 jar of sauce on bottom. Top with 3 noodles, then top with half of cheese/spinach mixture. Pour next 1/3 jar sauce on top. Repeat with reamaining noodles, cheese and sauce. Top with remaining mozzarella and the parmesan.

Cover with foil and place on a cookie sheet ( just in case of overflow ) and bake at 375 for 50-60 mintues. Uncover and bake 10-15 minutes longer. Let set for about 5 minutes after you remove it from the oven. ( Mine baked in 50 minutes TOTAL....fyi )

YUMMY! Let me know if you try this! You will LOVE it! Chow!

Ever have a day like this?

Today was just one of those days that I started off so well...then ended up NOT proud of myself at the end of the day. Here...I'll show you....

Breakfast - 1 1/2 cups of Kashi cereal with 1/2 cup of milk - 4 points

Ok, so then I had my niece's 4th birthday party to bring my girls to. Now, they were having egg salad sandwichs for lunch, so I even did so well as I made my own egg salad ( 1 egg, 2 egg whites with lite mayo) and had it on an Arnold Sandwich Thin. Great right? She had fruit skewers which was great! So lunch was - 6 points
This is where the day first went sour. I brought my own 1 point brownies for dessert, promising myself if they had cake, I would have my brownies instead. Sounds great...right? WELL, she had made yummy, soft, chewy sugar cookies for the kids to frost with her DELICIOUS whipped frosting. Oh my gosh. Some other person took over my body...and I had 2 1/2 cookies with frosting. Yup. I did. And at the moment, I didn't even care. I figured, well, I'll just eat very few points the rest of the day and I should be fine. Problem was...it was still 12:30 at the time.

Then I came home and made myself not eat anything until dinner time. Oh my gosh. I found the most AMAZING dinner. It's my new favorite...taped on my cupboard door...tastes like you are at "Taco Bell" recipe. You know I will share it...right? ;-)

Dinner - Chicken and Rice Burritos w/sour cream - 6 points
Well...if I told you my day ended there...it would have been perfect. But it didn't. I continued to have a big bowl of Captain Crunch, 3 one point brownies....I think that may be it. I did take a nice uphill walk though. I just don't know what it is, but I felt like I didn't have control last night. Ever have days like that? Most days, it's not a problem and I just tell myself "No." I don't know what it was last night...but it's over. Today is a new day, and I'm trying again! I will leave you with this AMAZING recipe! Go make it for dinner tonight...the family will love it!

Chicken and Rice Burritos

10 points for whole recipe

Serves 2 ( or 1 very hungry person! )

1 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 cup salsa
1/2 cup cooked, diced chicken ( 3 ounces )
1/4 cup 2% Cheddar cheese ( you could use regular and add one point, or FF and take away 1 point...I think! )
2 whole wheat flour tortillas ( I use the 1 point ones )
Reduced Fat or Fat Free Sour cream/salsa to dip

Microwave the chicken and salsa together in the microwave until hot. Stir in rice and cheese. Seperate mix into the 2 tortillas. For the entire recipe it is 10 points. So, one burrito would be 5 points! I'm telling you....dip it in some sour cream and you could swear you are at Taco Bell! They are so good that I am making them for dinner again tonight! YEAH!!

Also, a little tip. If you want to make this SUPER easy and fast to make, use the Minute Ready to Serve brown rice. Stick it in the microwave for 1 minute and it is ready. It is 1 cup, so it is exactly what you need for this recipe. No joke, I made this meal in less than 10 minutes! That's what I like!

May 13th, 2009

Hello Friends! Today is weigh in day...and I'm not confident in how I'm going to do. I really only had one off day...on Mother's Day...so the scale may or may not punish me for that. It's really tough losing these 5-6 pounds to get to goal weight...I've been trying to lose the same pounds for months! AHHH! Here was my day....

Breakfast - 1/2 cup egg substitute, tomatoes, spinach and 1 slice of 2% cheese on an Arnold Thin and 1/2 cup of V8 light juice - 3 points

Snack - Carrots and 2 TBSP Ranch dressing - 2 points ( no broccoli, but I forgot to take a pic and this is all I had! ;-)

Snack - Fiber Plus granola bar - 2 points

Lunch - Peanut and Jelly sandwich on an Arnold Thin - 3 points

Dinner - Chocolate Chip/Oat pancake recipe from the Hungry Girl cookbook: 4 pancakes and syrup - 4 points! Very delicious, and filling!
Snack after dinner - 1 point bar and a 1/2 cup of milk - 2 points
Dessert - Microwave cake - 4 points
This all added up is only 20 out of my 24 points...but I did have a couple of my daughter's animal crackers, and a Low Fat graham cracker....so I know it all evened out! Hopefully I do ok tonight...I know I'm doing what I can to the best of my ability, but I never know what the scale will say! Have a great one!