Bye Pacey!

Hello everyone.  I have Tweeted, Facebooked, created photo albums and texted but here, on my blog, I will give one final tribute to my dog, Pacey Carter Wyatt.  He had a tumor removed a couple months ago which seemed to reveal a whole slew of issues he was having.  In the end, we think he did have hidden cancer and this weekend, he passed away.  Pacey was 9 years old. The death of a dog seems so trivial when people are going through so much this holiday season, specifically the victims of the shooting in Connecticut but Pacey was a true friend and dogs can provide comfort in the worst times.  I will miss him greatly and though I’m sad, I’m so happy I had him in my life.  Thanks again to my family and friends…especially my parents…they were his mommy and daddy too.  He lived with them and their home was his home.  I love you Pace! It’s weird because we also lost Dixie not that long ago so my parents now have no dogs.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a dog.  They sure to make a difference.  Also, here’s a link to a youtube video of him trying to bite bubbles…he liked to do that.  The quality isn’t great but oh well.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4T5uGnCNNg&feature=youtu.be

Now, onto only a slightly less depressing topic: my weight.  I actually did drop a couple from the heinous weight I saw last week but I surely gained them back and then some after this weekend.  I grieved with chocolate and I ate an abundance of cookies and basically anything I could get my hands on.  I’m going to try and stabilize myself this week but I won’t get on the scale again until January the 5^th.  I’m going to try not to go crazy but I don’t see a point in punishing myself.  The number is not great but I’m excited about the prospect of another fresh start at Weight Watchers on January the fifth.  The pictures above are of an egg wrap I made while on my food pyramid diet.  It’s not pretty but it tasted good.  I just scrambled one egg, spinach, onions and fat free cheese and put it in a wrap.  I was going to try to make an omelet but it’s hard to flip an omelet when it’s made with only one egg so I stuck it in a wrap.  It was tasty.  I am kind of excited about counting points again.  I think it’s the best system for me. I hope to have stories of success soon and that it doesn’t take me long to get back to that lowest weight so I can go even further and march towards a final goal weight.

I was able to go with my family last weekend for my grandmother’s birthday and I got to take a picture with my precious baby cousin, Alex.  I got to see my whole family so that was nice.  We also decorated the tree at my parent’s house so other than the lack of Pacey and the fact that we’re all broke, I think we are ready for Christmas.  I won’t be blogging again until December 31^st, the last day of 2012 (presuming the Mayans were wrong) to say goodbye to 2012 and hello to 2013. 

I will post in a couple weeks.

Happy football bowl season!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Bye!

 “Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever…” People Like Us-Kelly Clarkson

2013 Will Be The Year

Hi y’all! Whenever I skip a week it feels like I haven’t posted in years.  A lot has happened since my last post.  For one, I went to Las Vegas to see Shania Twain with Jordan and secondly, Alabama won the SEC championship game against Georgia in an epic battle and now they will face Notre Dame in the National Championship game!!! So, I think a ROLL TIDE is in order.  I weighed this weekend and the results were not good.  Between the Vegas trip and the holiday parties I had at work last week, I was up more than ever.  I was discouraged because it seems no matter how much exercise I do, if I’m not perfect, I put on at least 2 pounds a week.  While I was discouraged, I was not defeated.  I have been trying this food pyramid based diet and I think when I’m 100 percent dedicated, I do well but since that hasn’t been the case lately, I have seen the results of that on the scale.  I also feel like I am still eating too much on that diet.  I have decided to begin the new version of Weight Watchers again in the new year.  I know for a fact that Weight Watchers works.  Because I’m such a slippery slope, I need the accountability of a weekly weigh in and because the system has changed a bit, my metabolism will hopefully get the jumpstart it needs to get me to my ultimate goal weight.  It won’t be easy because I’ll have to put out the money and recalculate all the foods I’ve created cheat sheets for in the past but I’m hoping it’ll be worth it.  If nothing else, the food pyramid diet (which I will continue off and on until the end of the year) has shed some serious light on the lack of fruits and vegetables that I was getting.  I do know that when I start Weight Watchers this time, I will make sure to incorporate more veggies and less processed foods into my diet.  I’m excited at the prospect.  I am still dedicated to weight loss but this is by far the biggest bump in the road I’ve faced thus far.

Since I’ve been tackling the food pyramid, I’ve started eating way more Greek Yogurt.  I’m not the biggest yogurt fan but Greek yogurt is essentially a super food.  It’s got either low or no fat and it’s generally loaded with protein.  I have taken a liking to the sweeter ones but in the above pictures, I used it in a more savory way.  In the first picture, I mixed the plain yogurt with French Onion Soup Mix.  Normally, you’d mix this with sour cream and dip chips in but I mixed it with the yogurt and dipped veggies in it.  This is something that is a good substitute but not for long.  It starts developing an after taste so I’d recommend just having a couple tablespoons.  It’s got good flavor but the veggies are so filling that having a whole thing of yogurt and 3 cups of vegetables is a bit much at one time.  The second picture is of a chicken salad I made with Greek yogurt.  In this case, I used the yogurt instead of mayo.  I also added spinach in the mix.  I think I put too much.   Again, one or two tablespoons here will do the trick.  Other than that, it made a pretty good wrap. 

Well it’s Christmastime and I’m trying to get into the spirit.  I painted my toes green and red and I made a wreath that I saw on Pinterest.  The wreath turned out well though it’s got some blemishes I need to fix.  Time flies.  I can’t believe it’s this close to Christmas.

The pictures above are scenery, food, people met (including Shania's sister and designer) and other images from the Vegas trip Jordan and I took.  We had a great time.  The show was awesome and so were the sights.  I have been so blessed to get to go to Vegas 3 times in the past couple of years.  It’s a  neat city with a ton of things to do and  see.

I’d like to give a quick birthday shout out to my Grandma!  Today is her birthday.  Hope you have a great one!

I hope you all have a great week!

I don’t have any more parties until next week so hopefully the inflated number on the scale will go down a bit.  Wish me luck!

Bye! 

Ho! Ho! Ho! - Santa

Ka-Ching!

Hey y’all! I had to do an evening post tonight because I was crazy busy all day.  I will jump right in since it’s officially paper grading season and I am elbow deep in 5-6 page papers.  I will start by saying that I didn’t weigh this weekend.  I find that weighing after a food based holiday like Thanksgiving is not only a form a masochism, it’s just plain stupid.  Your body is at its worst at times like those and there is no reason in punishing yourself on the scale.  That’s just my opinion though, there are plenty of people that would weigh after eating a huge meal.  Me on the other hand…I didn’t weigh after Thanksgiving and I’m not going to weigh this Saturday, either.  I know my body won’t have recovered from the holiday and Iron Bowl festivities.  I’m also going to Vegas this weekend so I know I won’t be a picture of healthy eating while I’m there.  I will weigh in a couple weeks when I have a chance for things to settle a bit.  Hopefully it won’t be too bad.  I wanted to warn you now that there will be no blog next Monday.  I’m going to Vegas and won’t get back until late Sunday night so I’m planning ahead.  I will blog the Monday after that and I will show you lots of pictures from Vegas (Jordan and I are going to see Shania Twain…YAY!) and hopefully I’ll be celebrating an Alabama win after they play the SEC Championship. 

I’ll keep it short tonight.  I’ve been eating a lot of veggies and I’m compiling some different ideas for veggie recipes but tonight I wanted to quickly show you pictures of food that isn’t so good from you and pictures from my weekend.  The first is 2 pictures of the cheeseball my mom and I made.  I had an idea to make the cheeseball look like a turkey and my mom made it happen.  I thought it turned out really cute.  I also took a picture of the Deviled Eggs that I always make and they were delicious.  The other two pictures are of the table with all the yummy food and the delicious pies my mom made.  I ate too much but it was worth every calorie!  I also included a picture of myself and Brittany Howard, the lead singer of the Alabama Shakes.  I was privy to a secret concert they were doing and lucky enough to meet her through a friend.  It was an awesome time!  Dad and I also went to the Iron Bowl and that’s the last picture.  We DEMOLISHED Auburn!  Georgia is next!

That’s all I have for tonight!

Roll Tide!

Have a great week and try and remember to send good vibes Friday and Sunday because we will be flying.

Bye!

“If elephants could fly I’d be a little more optimistic

But I don’t see that happening anytime soon

I don’t mean to sound so pessimistic

But I don’t think that cow really jumped over the moon.” When-Shania Twain

We're BAAAAAAAACCKKKKKK!

Hey there, everyone.  I’d like to apologize again for my lack in posting last week.  I’m sure the tens of fans I have out there were devastated. I’m back today, though and I’d like to start by giving a giant ROLL TIDE!!!!!  If you had told me at this time last week that Alabama would be at number 2 and poised to be in the national championship game, I would say that you were living in a fantasy world. Obviously, Bama has to beat Auburn and then Georgia (which will be a much more difficult challenge) in the SEC championship game to get there but the point is…we are back in!  Jordan and I went to the beach this past weekend and I weighed before I left.  I was about the same, maybe up a few ounces.  I am exercising vigorously and dieting most of the time but between football season and now the holidays, it is becoming more and more difficult not to gain.  I have moments of discouragement but I am still committed.  I hope to maintain until the end of the year and then do a major re-charge when 2013 begins.  I like my new food pyramid based diet but at some point, I need to work on finding more diverse recipes to keep the variety going. 

Like I said above, I have been a good girl and eating my vegetables but I haven’t really made an effort to branch out in the WAY I eat my veggies.  I also eat the same ones over and over.  I have probably eaten my weight in green beans over the past few weeks.  While I love green beans, there are only so many ways you can have them.  The next few weeks of recipes will be examples of ways I’ve tried to spice up the standard ingredients I’m supposed to have.  I have noticed that I add most concoctions I make to potatoes.  The first picture is a combo of sautéed green beans with onions, spices, W sauce and topped with almonds.  That seems to be the most typical way I’ve been having my green veggies.  The next two pictures are parts of another green bean dish I made.  This time I used minute rice.  Typically, I find minute rice pretty gross.  However, when you mix it into a stir fry type dish, it’s not so bad.  I bought the multi-grain kind which included quinoa.  I had never tried it before but it pretty much just tastes like rice.  The best part about this diet is that you do get a ton of food.  Veggies are not just good for you, they digest better.  They treat your stomach with much more respect than processed foods do.  However, my mission is to now challenge myself to change it up some so I don’t get bored.  Boredom in the food you eat is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a diet.  Like I said, I’ll give this diet a fair shot and if it doesn’t work, I’m going back to Weight Watchers but it hasn’t had time to get a fair shot yet because of all the bumps…we will see what happens.

Jordan and I enjoyed a long weekend at the beach.  Thanks to my friend Nish for allowing us to stay at her beautiful home in Gulf Shores.  We did a whole lot of eating and relaxing.  I think my butt is permanently molded to the couch.  I watched football all day Saturday.  It was nice to have some down time.  We also went to Old Time Pottery on the way out.  I guess the last time I went there, I was a small child and I didn’t have appreciation for its wonder.  I was overwhelmed with the craft stuff, the kitchen gadgets and the holiday decorations.  I truly think I could’ve spent hours in that place.  I had to get out.  The picture of me with the giant martini glass is in there.  I was happy to see there’s one a bit closer to me near Birmingham so I’ll definitely have to make more visits. 

It is so important to change up your diet and workout routines to keep your body active and prepared to lose weight.  If all it took to lose weight was dedication to exercise, I’d be skinny as a rail but unfortunately, you have to have a combination of good diet and exercise.  In the spirit of muscle confusion, I have been trying to change things up again.  I seem to find the exercises that mix up cardio and muscle work the most effective.  I have tried a circuit that includes quick movements like jumping jacks and squat jumps but also has toning actions like pushups and crunches.  You do a series of exercises and once you complete the circuit, you do it twice more.  The best part about this is you can do it all from home.  I have also been doing the same workout that Jessica Simpson supposedly did when she was preparing to play the role of Daisy Duke in the Dukes of Hazard.  This workout also consists of short sessions of different cardio and toning exercises.  This one is a bit intense so I’ve only been doing it once a week and less crazy workouts on the other days.  It takes me about an hour and a half to complete but it’s pure and cleansing.  I feel great when I’m done.  I hate the process of exercise.  I hate getting up in the morning, I hate the motions as I’m doing them but I work out every day and so every day that goes by, I know I accomplished something that contributes to my well-being and that is a nice feeling.

That’s all I had for this week.  I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving.  I am so blessed and I am truly thankful.  I am most thankful for my friends and family.  There are so many people less fortunate than I am and I tend to take that for granted.  Enjoy the people you love the most in life!  We only get one shot at this! Talk to you next week and ROLL TIDE!

  

"We can load what we own in the back of a U-haul van.
Couple modern day Moses', searchin for the promised land.
We can go four hundred miles before we stop for gas. 
We can drive for a day, and then we'll take a look at the map.

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.” Heads Carolina, Tails California – Jo Dee Messina

Whoopsie!

Hey y'all.  Between work and school and the cranky mood I'm in because Alabama lost, I totally forgot to post today.  I don't have time to do a full blown post so I apologize but I will have things to share next week, for sure.  As I expected, I didn't lose any weight last week because of my trip to Baton Rouge.  I don't expect much change next week either because I had a little too much fun drowning my sorrows after the game this weekend and I'm leaving for the beach with Jordan Thursday night (yay).  As we all know, the holidays are a tricky time so I'm going to maintain as much as possible until I can get through football season, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.  I'm still exercising like mad and even tried a couple new things I'll share next week.  And, to update you, I am still eating a crazy amount of vegetables.

Have a good week and I promise to stop being a slacker soon.

Roll Tide Always!

Bye!

Reauxlllllll TIDE!

Roll Tide Y’all! I don’t remember which day I bought the ticket to the LSU game so I wasn’t sure if I shared the news that I was headed to Baton Rouge to watch Bama BARELY escape the wrath of Death Valley.  If you are a football fan, or even if you aren’t, I INSIST that at some point in your life, you go to Death Valley and see an important game in Tiger Stadium.  It’s THE loudest place I’ve ever been and I’m so happy I went.  I ended up going by myself.  I met friends in NOLA on Friday night and then stayed with them (that’s where I got the pictured Hurricane).  Saturday morning, I got up and drove to Baton Rouge.  I stayed with my friend Nichole (the girl in the picture) who now goes to LSU and has converted to an LSU fan.  I had the best time.  Well, I should amend that.  I had the best time before the game and then every second after the last 2 minutes of the game.  Not only is it loud, their traditions and dances and cheers are really cool, too.  They are an in your face bunch and quite honestly, they’re pretty scary.  The two pictures of my car show the aftermath of an angry, drunk LSU fan.  They ripped the flags off my car and then smeared the top of the hood with their hands and what I expect may be urine.  Luckily, that was all that happened.  Even though they were crazy, the people I had one on one conversations with were nice and very hospitable.  They fed me and liquored me up in true bayou style.  There was some friendly ribbing but that was it.  I got to try homemade Etouffe (last pic) which was DELICIOUS!

Admittedly, I kind of phoned it in this week in regards to recipe and blog material.  I have been making A LOT of stir fried type veggies but I went grocery shopping yesterday and I plan on branching out even further to try new things on my food pyramid based diet.  When I weighed on Friday, I was actually down a pound and a half from the previous week.  I ate until I wanted to be sick all weekend so I know I won’t see that kind of success this week but I was very pleased to know that not only can I still lose weight but that my new diet was showing a little progress.  It’s good to know that I can still do well.  I am back on the wagon again and I am going to try my best to follow my system during the weekend too.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  The pictured food isn’t really a recipe but something I put together at home.  With the new diet plan, I can have one serving of nuts, peanut butter or eggs as a protein.  These are foods that I never really ate before on Weight Watchers because they were too many points.  I put ham, egg & cheese on a wheat wrap and ate it.  I've eaten so many fake eggs/egg whites that I can't even stand to look at them so  I can’t tell you how much that real egg yolk meant to me.  I don’t mean to dramatic but it is certainly the little things in life that mean the most and that egg made me a very happy girl.  Also, and I don’t know the best way to say this, my new diet has made me more…"regular."  I feel like Jamie Lee Curtis right now.  I mean, on Weight Watchers, I only THOUGHT I was getting enough fiber.  The first week of my diet, I ate all of those veggies and my stomach looked like a basketball.  Well, week 2 brought some relief and things started happening for me on a daily basis.  This type of regularity hasn’t happened for me in years so it scared me at first because my initial thought was that I was eating too much but I lost weight so I’m thinking this is a good thing.  Who needs Activia when you have 5 cups of fruits/vegetables in a day?

Next week, I promise to try harder in the recipe/food area to give some ideas.

Alabama plays Texas A&M this Saturday with no break so I’m hoping they can rally all of their strength to beat them.

  

“ROLL TIDE!”

Halloweeeeeennnnn!

Hello All and Happy Monday.  I hope your weekend went by slower than mine did.  I’ll go ahead and jump right in.  I started my new food pyramid based diet last week and in terms of the amount of food I was able to have, it went well.  I was up a bit on the scale.  I wasn’t surprised by this because I didn’t have a good weekend prior to that and I’m currently retaining a bit more water than usual.  I am going to give this diet a real try until the first of the year which I think is a sufficient trial period.  If I don’t see positive results, I will go back to points.  I made some adjustments this week.  Last week I gave myself 2 servings of the “other” category which can be a serving of anything you want.  I changed that to only one “other” serving per day because I felt like I was eating too much.  Also, this upcoming weekend, I’m going to try the diet both days but give myself an opportunity to earn extra “other” servings with exercise.  We’ll see how it goes. I don’t expect change on the scale next week either because of all my Halloween behavior.  I am still steadfast with exercise.  Last week, I tried a boot camp that Cassandra goes to and I absolutely loved it.  It was challenging, they did things in short intervals, it was at a perfect time and it made me realize that I’m in pretty good shape.  The only problem is that it is outrageously expensive.  It’s $180 per month or you can pay over $2000 for the whole year.  If I were ever able to do it, I think I’d save the $2,000 and pay up front.  Oh well, it gave me some good tips and a good workout.

In the spirit of following the food pyramid, I ate WAY more fruits and vegetables than normal last week.  One thing that I’m most excited about is the ability to incorporate protein that I didn’t before because they were too many points.  The protein category includes nuts and eggs and peanut butter so I’ve been pumped to have servings of these foods I considered delicacies before.  You can eat them as long as you only have one serving.  I made a stir fry of sorts that I didn’t have to even cook on the stove.  First, I want to rave over the Oscar Mayer Carving Board Chicken Breast.  Y’all, this stuff is delicious.  It’s a bit over priced but it tastes great, it’s already cooked and it heats up nicely.  Plus, it splits into two servings quite nicely so you don’t have to weigh it.  To make this dish, I microwaved broccoli and green beans then I got out a cookie sheet, added aluminum foil and sprayed it with Pam.   After I did that, I poured the broccoli and green beans onto the pan, added salt, pepper, garlic, W sauce and some of the Carving Board Chicken.  Once it was all on the pan, I put it under the broiler for a few minutes.  I took it out, stirred it around, added more of the spices and then 1/3 cup of almonds.  I stuck it back in the broiler for a few minutes and BAM!  I had a huge plate of yummy green veggies and healthy protein.  I made this a couple times.

The next series of pictures are ridiculous and I wanted to warn you of that.  I only like carrots in certain situations.  If they are cooked in a soup or roast, I’m fine with them.  I will eat them raw but only if I have a dip.  I left the yogurt dip I bought at work one night and I still needed a serving of non-green vegetables and all I had was baby carrots.  I hate eating them alone like that.  It feels like it takes forever to eat and the way they break apart in your mouth disgusts me.  Even though I wasn’t happy about it, I ate them because I wanted to make sure to follow the rules I laid out for myself.  Next time, I will go so far as to drive to the store for a different vegetable.  Just as I suspected, it took me forever to eat them and I wasn’t happy so I took a series of silly pictures.  Sorry if some are gross, lol.

Ok, now that all that is over with, I figured I’d share all of my different Halloween costumes. 

I had so much fun dressing up this year.  Jordan looked great as Ursula and I want to give a HUGE THANK YOU to my mom for always working so hard to help me with Halloween.  She made those tentacles all by herself and they were a big hit at the party.  I hated my costume.  My wig was out of control and the cheap costume from Wal-Mart was sloppy but it was a fun concept with me as Little Mermaid and Jordan as Ursula.  Jordan and I already have the wheels turning for next year but we know we want no accessories.  We want to be creative, we want people to know who we are and we don’t want wigs or too many props.  I’m not sure if such a costume exists but we have a whole year to try.  I also went as a flapper and as Fred (Wilma is my roommate Cassandra). I may dress up one more time on Wednesday to hand out candy but we’ll see.

Alabama had an awesome win against Mississippi State this weekend so I was pleased.  They play LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday so I’m nervous about that one.

To any peeps I know or don’t know that read this leaving on the northern east coast, be careful out there! I’m praying for your safety!

That’s all I got for now!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Halloween Y’all!

“It’s just a jump to the left…” Let’s Do The Time Warp Again-The Rocky Horror Picture Show