No Weigh May!

It’s almost May which is a very busy celebration month so I’d like to begin with a little housekeeping. 

Happy Anniversary to my Mom & Dad! Tomorrow, they will celebrate their 30^th wedding anniversary.  If you are married to anyone for 30 years, you deserve a medal so here’s a BIG congrats to them!

Also, this Thursday is my BFF Jordan’s birthday and I want to wish him a happy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I am so fortunate to have him in my life.  Here’s to a fantastic birthday and many, many more!

I have declared it officially ‘no weigh May’ starting tomorrow.  I get nervous when I do this but honestly, I think weighing during the month of May would be nothing but discouraging.  I weighed this weekend and after being perfect, the scale showed I was up 3 pounds.  I kicked the scale as hard as I could and then for good measure, I kicked it again.  I realized that it just wasn’t my week.  I reacted a little poorly though and ate far too much this weekend.  Over the next few weeks, it will be important for me to be as on point as possible on days that I’m not celebrating a birthday, graduation, anniversary or something else so that I don’t gain too much.  I will weigh again on June 2^nd to see what kind of damage was done.

If you are reading this and you see that I am not weighing in May and that I gained weight, you may think that I’m beginning to unravel but that’s not the case.  As you diet, you have good days and bad days.  The key is to never beat yourself up for too long and to always get back on board the next day.  Even though there is no hope that I will lose weight in May and I will most certainly have to work hard to lose the gained weight, I know that I am not giving up, just giving myself a break.  When a baby first learns to walk, they take small steps, and in many cases they take only one or two steps at a time and then fall down.  The important part is that they get back up and try again until they can walk smoothly the rest of their life.  Even when they learn to walk, they stumble and sometimes have to go back to crawling.  There is a reason people tell you to take “baby steps.’  Sometimes you may fall and need to be picked back up.  Hang in there!

  

I wanted to share a product with you this week.  A girl at work knows that I diet and showed me this dip which I am totally loving.  I got it at Winn-Dixie.  It’s Sabra’s (they make hummus, too) Greek Style Veggie Dip, Roasted Garlic Flavor.  There is only about 40 calories in a 2 tablespoon size serving and it’s low in fat.  Not only is it good to dip crackers in, I’ve been using it as a salad dressing.  It’s kind of thick so if that bothers you, you could put milk in it to thin it out.  You would have to count those calories, though.  Either way, it’s packed with garlic flavor and I’ve enjoyed having it around.

The recipe this week is more of a discovery.  I always thought I didn’t like sweet potatoes.  I’m not really a fan of sweet potato casserole because I find it a little too sweet and on holidays like Thanksgiving, I’m looking for savory only on my plate before it’s pie time.  However, in the past couple of years as I’ve tried more things, I’ve developed a liking for sweet potatoes in some forms.  I have discovered that I love sweet potato fries but since I can’t have those very much, I thought I’d try getting the kind you can microwave in the oven.  I took the single sweet potatoes wrapped in plastic wrap that you find at Wal-Mart, heated it up in the microwave for the appropriate time and then added the new flavor, Cinnamon Cream, Laughing Cow cheese to the top.  There are only 45 calories in a wedge of the laughing cow cheese and it melted nicely on top of the sweet potato.  Sweet potatoes are loaded with nutrients and it was filling so I have made it a couple times since.

I plan on having a great week and I think I’m going to Nashville AND Birmingham this weekend to be with good friends.  I should have a fun time!

I hope everyone has an amazing week! Bye!

“Tonight, we are young…” We Are Young-Fun.

Tofu Noodles...I should have known.

Greetings, y’all! It’s Monday again and not to sound too dramatic but it is definitely one of those days where it feels like you are just living in a vicious cycle, living for the weekend and dreading Monday. I spend 5 out 7 days wishing my life away but during the moments I’m not doing that, I’m praying for time to slow down so I can get everything I need to get done and for my brother to stop looking so old. Ugh. Anyway, that little rant isn’t really a reflection of my mood…more of an observation of something that everyone can pretty much relate to. I weighed this weekend (multiple times) and as I suspected, I lost too much the week before to make any grand strides. At the lowest weight I calculated this weekend, I was down about 3 ounces. I will certainly take that because I am still so grateful for the big boost I got last weekend. I would say I was a very loose interpretation of the word perfect this weekend. As you know, my goal was to have a flawless record for three weeks. I was indeed spotless the first week, weekend and second week. Starting Friday (the 21st), I was in weekend 2 of my 3 week goal. I wasn’t bad but I certainly took some liberties in finding loopholes to my own rules. I switched out cheat days and ate on Saturday but saved my bread for Sunday since I didn’t have any on Saturday and there were other little violations like that. All in all though, I was TECHNICALLY accurate…especially if I don’t think about it too hard. So, I will be good this week and weekend and then see again where I’m at. I would be most happy if I lost 1.9 which would allow me to deduct a point but I will take any loss I can get.






Ok y’all…you know I LOVE the Hungry Girl. So, when she recommended in her cookbook that pasta lovers try House Foods Tofu Shirataki Pasta, I didn’t think she would let me down. I had to find it at Manna which is our specialty foods (hippie) store in town. I bought 3 packs. I did this because the Hungry Girl claimed these “noodles” changed her life. I was surprised to see that they weren’t with the rest of the pasta but in the refrigerated section, wet in a bag. Most of the recipes in her book call for the fettuccini shape of this noodle. They had both fettuccini and angel hair so I got one angel hair and two fettuccini. I didn’t have the ingredients to make any of the recipes but I wanted to try the angel hair so I thought I’d just put marinara sauce on it. First of all, the whole bag is 40 calories so I was excited at the prospect of having a pasta substitute. I cut it open and noticed a smell that reminded me a lot of shrimp or old garbage. Reading the directions, I noticed that you had to rinse it, drain it and then either parboil or microwave it to remove the “natural odor.” I didn’t let that deter me. I followed the directions but could never quite get the angel hair to part from its square shape. The smell was gone but it didn’t resemble pasta in any way. I sat down to try and eat it and it was as if I had bitten into a sponge covered in pizza sauce. It took me forever to complete the bowl because no matter how much I chewed…I never seemed finished. I decided that the angel hair shape was the problem and that I would give the fettuccini a shot the next night. Again, I just covered it with marinara. I was much more hopeful this time after preparing the noodles in the microwave. They looked just like fettuccini noodles and moved around like normal pasta too. I sat down to eat them and wasn’t disgusted but it wasn’t a very pleasant experience, either. I will say that they don’t taste bad. Once the odor is gone, they have no flavor, really. They take on the flavor that you give them. However, the texture is something I really can’t explain. The noodles break apart like a Twizzler (which I hate) and by that I mean, you never feel like they’ve been chewed well enough and there are these tiny chunks of rubbery noodles in your mouth. Also, the texture is somewhere between Jello and what I would imagine squid or brains would be. I fooled myself enough to eat them all and was convinced they weren’t that bad. Last week, I realized I had one bag left and I forced myself to eat them because they were kind of expensive. Well, this did it. Half way through I realized that the texture was beginning to overwhelm me and I didn’t like them at all. The texture took on a flavor that I couldn’t shake. My belly bloated up with the fake noodles and all night I felt like I could throw them up. So, needless to say, I will never know how these noodles changed the Hungry Girl’s life. I won’t be able to bake them into a casserole or fix an alternative Italian meal with them because the thought of chewing them makes me nauseated. Feel free to judge for yourself though…especially now that I have provided such a rave review.











Only if this is your first time reading or you don’t know me at all will it come as a surprise to you that my baby brother is graduating from high school this year. It’s tearing me up and I know that in less than a month when I’m sitting there watching him, I will be a blubbering mess. In the meantime, I took some pictures of him last week that I’m calling “senior” pics and as you can see above, they turned out pretty well so I thought I’d share. I swear I think he grows an inch a day and his voice gets deeper every time I speak to him.

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for me this week. Just know that if you are in a plateau like I was (and I still possibly am, I just had a good week…it took me almost 8 months to lose 5 pounds), keep working at it. Don’t give up. Having a plateau, while frustrating, is perfectly normal. What really determines how well you get through it is complete dedication. You have to plow through and exercise and eat right, even if you aren’t seeing results. You will see them eventually…hang in there. I know it’s not easy.

Have a fantastic week/weekend!

Bye!

“You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you're confusing courage with wisdom.” The Wizard of Oz

I needed that boost!

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I’m not sure if my body started responding to all of my rigorous exercise, the bit of lactose intolerance I have seemed to have developed (it doesn’t matter what it does to my body…I won’t give up ice cream) or a combination of both but I somehow managed to drop the Vegas weight and another 2.2 pounds. This means that I’m down a total of 115.2 pounds! I even got to change my before and after picture…as you can see above and to the right. I was shocked and of course, excited. I am not sure why there was such a big jump and I always wonder if it will creep back…but for now…I am enjoying it. That means it’s taken me almost 7 months to lose 5 pounds. That’s a really long time. I had a flawless weekend and I plan to keep up my goal of being perfect until the May festivities begin. Hopefully, the this losing weight thing will become a trend.





As you may know, I am currently obsessed with Pinterest. I mostly look at food on the site and this week, I wanted to share a craze that is sweeping the Pinterest boards…different variations on the grilled cheese sandwich. Most of them aren’t healthy but there are a wide variety and I LOVE grilled cheese so I thought I’d create a couple that weren’t high in calories and fat and tasted yummy. On both sandwiches, I used the Light Honey Wheat bread from Nature’s Own. I also used one slice of fat free American cheese and one slice of the Reduced Fat Colby Jack cheese from Sargento to blend a decent cheese with the fat free. Plus…it made it that much cheesier. I used spray butter on the bread. On one of the grilled cheese sandwiches…I made it “pizza’ style with turkey pepperoni…and then I dipped it in pizza sauce. It was yummy! On the other one, I added one serving of the pre-made Curly’s pork bbq that I get at Wal-Mart. It was pretty tasty, too! Grilled cheeses don’t have to be loaded with butter and fattening cheese to be good…it helps…but you will be satisfied with these, too.



Jordan and I went to see Titanic yesterday and I loved it…again. I figured that between the first time it came out and yesterday that it made four times that I’ve seen it in theatres. I know people judge but I love that movie and it was fun to see Jordan and watch the movie with him.





David went to his senior prom on Saturday and I went and took pictures of him and Lisa after the A-Day festivities (Bama looked pretty good, RTR, but it’s always kind of hard to tell with the spring games…it made me miss football even more). They are on the right in the first picture. I can’t believe how grown up he is! Ugh…I can’t even talk about it. I am going to try and take some more senior pictures of him this week.

I don’t have much time today so that pretty much sums it up but my tip for the day is to NEVER LET YOURSELF GET HUNGRY. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but I want to reiterate it. Sometimes it’s OK if you are saving for something special but I have gotten this far because I eat several snacks/small meals a day so I’m eating every 1-2 hours. This sort of handles the food problems you have that are mental that make you think you need to be eating when you are idle, bored, watching TV or laying around. Have an orange at 4, a salad at 5, lean cuisine at 6, sandwich at 7 and a popsicle at 8 and then go to bed. See what I mean? Trust me…it helps.

Have a great weekend, y’all and I look forward to speaking with you next week!

“To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have, honey
If you could stay like that

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart
And no one will desert you
Just try to never grow up, never grow up…” Never Grow Up-Taylor Swift

Crunch Time

Hi Everyone! I’m going to jump right in today. I weighed this weekend with pretty much no change. I am still 1.4 away from my lowest weight. I was not only discouraged but also anticipating cheating for Easter so I ate far too much this weekend. I made myself sick actually. Of course, I’m on again today but the hopes of losing any weight this week aren’t great. I have a plan that I will outline below.









When you are on a diet, you eat a lot of salads. In fact, there have been moments when I have vowed to never eat a salad again. I adore the “bad” salads. The ones that you pile up yourself at a salad bar and the ones in restaurants that have fried chicken and mounds of fattening dressing. Obviously, these salads are out of the question when you decide to diet. They are far too high in fat to even consider them. No, you get the salads with fat free dressing on the side, no cheese, no croutons and no fun. These salads are fine at first and act as fillers but after a certain point, you’d rather chunk a bowl of lettuce across the room than eat one of these tasteless monsters.

The recipe this week is yet another reason why I love the Hungry Girl. She allows you to create a giant salad full of flavor that won’t leave you angry. As a side note, I have been using Dijonnaise as dressing lately because it packs a lot of flavor and a punch and it’s low in calories. I’ve been considering using low fat French onion dip or this new Garlic Greek yogurt dip I’ve discovered (I may share later). I have sworn off all fat free dressings and low fat dressings…I can’t take it anymore. Anyway, this salad is great because it has a ton of protein to go with the lettuce. I got the taste of Dijonnaise, lettuce, cucumber and either turkey, ham or roast beef in every bite. I highly recommend trying this.







This weekend was Easter. Easter is one of my favorite holidays because not only does it remind me that I am extremely blessed with family and friends, I also get to dye Easter eggs! I’m not great at it because I lack what some might call…patience…but I still love it. Jordan came over and we dyed eggs with my mom and Oma. It was a great time as always.

OK-so I was sitting at the dinner table last night staring at my plate. I couldn’t eat anymore. I had a little left and trust me when I tell you I NEVER, EVER leave plate on my food. Last night was different though because beginning Saturday night, I crammed everything in that I could. I ate huge meals and snacks in between. I was on the verge of vomiting. I don’t ever throw up. I can remember every time I’ve thrown up in my life because I’ve only done it 5 times. I remember each scenario. Anytime I’ve ever been nauseated, I sort of just will it away. There is nothing worse than throwing up but gosh, I felt close last night. Of course, whenever I do this, I melt down into a state of depression because I know that nobody caused this feeling but me. I haven’t been losing weight lately, no matter my actions and I think it’s caused me to lose my motivation. This however, is not an excuse. I think I’ve discovered how to maintain. Unfortunately, I’m not ready to maintain…I still want to lose. So, what am I going to do? Well, I have no reason to cheat over the next 3 weekends. It will be tough because I have things planned but nothing important enough to blow my diet. I need to practice this. I want my birthday week to be one where I indulge but before then, I want to lose a bit of weight. My test, over the next 3 weeks will be to be more than perfect during the week. I’m going to count points, measure ingredients and work my butt off (I’m going to up the exercise just a wee bit more). I’m also going to count points on the weekend, having only one cheat meal on Sunday night. My goal is to tell you that I have lost a total of 3.2 pounds on May 7th. That’s the 1.4 I’ve got left from Vegas plus 1.8 more. If for some reason I don’t reach that goal or I mess up, I am going to re-join Weight Watchers and start their new program. I am hoping that monthly charge will motivate me to do the right thing. I will re-set another short term goal right after that when my birthday week is over. I have to do something to ignite the spark again. I will not let myself go back. So, wish me luck because I’m going to need it.

This weekend will be emotional for me because my brother is going to his Senior Prom. I can’t believe he’s going to be graduating next month. I am going to need all kinds of nerve pills. It’s also the weekend for Alabama’s Spring Practice Game…A-Day. Roll Tide. I picked a bad weekend to get my stuff together but that’s OK. I deserve a little punishment. I need to test myself. I have been strong for around 3 years now. I found that strength from somewhere…I can find it again. Have a good week, y’all! Bye!

“The tricky thing
Is yesterday we were just children
Playing soldiers
Just pretending
Dreaming dreams with happy endings
In backyards, winning battles with our wooden swords
But now we've stepped into a cruel world
Where everybody stands and keeps score…” Eyes Open- Taylor Swift

EGGsited!

Happy Easter Week y’all! I am hoping the Easter bunny comes to see me this Sunday. Last week, when I weighed, I was up 3.4 pounds from Vegas. I managed to lose 2 pounds of that over the week which means I’m only 1.4 pounds away from my lowest weight (which has me at a 112.4 pound loss). I was happy to see the number go down a bit. I’m hoping to get rid of the other 1.4 soon. I’d like to get to 115 pounds down by May because I know May will be a hard month to maintain. If I work hard, I think I should be able to do it. My body is very stubborn right now but I am trying to show it who’s boss.







The recipe this week was from the Hungry Girl again. I love breakfast and even though the Egg McMuffin from McDonald’s is the healthiest option for breakfast sandwiches, it is still much better if you make it at home. Just buy the low fat, high in fiber Thomas English muffins to make the sandwich. While the muffin is toasting, cook up the egg whites (I use generic Egg Beaters) in the microwave or in a skillet. Take the muffin out (you could spray butter on the muffin if you want just make sure it’s calorie free), put eggs and deli ham on top and then add a piece of fat free cheese. It was only 4 Weight Watchers points, compared to the 7 points it costs you to eat an Egg McMuffin and it was a tasty and almost equal substitute. Plus, it’s loaded with fiber so it’s filling. I plan on making this a lot.













I was inspired yet again by Pinterest. This time, it was for Easter. I found a recipe that baked Cadbury Eggs INSIDE the cupcakes. Jordan loves them so I made him some but also made some with Reese’s Eggs and Cadbury Caramel Eggs. I made some plain ones that I put Robin Eggs on. I got cupcake crazy. Basically, you just make your fave cupcakes from a box, fill up the batter in the muffin tins and then place a FROZEN egg in the middle so it doesn’t bake away and then you’re done. You can decorate however you want but I used the egg that was inside as the top decoration so I would know what was what. They were yummy. I wish I was a better decorator, though.



Mom, David, Lisa & I saw the Hunger Games this week and I LOVED IT! If you haven’t read the books, I HIGHLY recommend it. If you aren’t typically much of a reader, this would be great for you because they are short, they are a fast read and they are full of action. I thought the movie was fantastic. Obviously, I think the book was better and had much more detail but overall, I was satisfied. It’s just such a great story!



Mom and I were in the Easter spirit with our T-shirts. Thanks for the shirt mom! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter! I plan on eating a lot of eggs and ham and maybe, while nobody is looking, treat myself with some Easter candy if I’ve been a good girl all week!

Talk to you soon!

If you are dieting, stay strong!!! Bye!

“Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound…” Safe & Sound-Taylor Swift-From The Hunger Games Soundtrack