147.8 – Right where I was 2 weeks ago!

I will take that, even if I was hoping for more. I’m down 2.8 this week, but then we ate at Peppi’s for lunch (home of meat on white bread covered in cheese, cooked in grease…. no, really, that’s all they have. You choose the meat.) So I’ll be diligent today and tomorrow and will eat well until Saturday afternoon, when we are going to my mom’s for dinner.

I worked out a lot this week: I did the Jillian Michael’s Shred once or twice, I did a couple of different yoga and pilates videos and I walked at least 14 miles. And I can see it in my self: my collarbone is more pronounced (one of my favorite weight-loss things) and my clothes feel & look better. I love that I can see results like this in just a week. Imagine how I’ll look next week and how I’ll look at Thanksgiving when I’m 3.2 pounds lighter than today (as part of my Healthy Holiday plan, see previous post.)

I made a crazy good smoothie this morning that sounds totally nasty. Very easy. Recipe below. It’s sweet and does not taste like kale or celery at all. It is pea green though which is a little off-putting, but the taste makes it worth it.

Kale-Celery Smoothie (Or Pear-Pineapple Smoothie, if you prefer)
3 giant kale leave, with the stems stripped out
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 pear, cored and sliced
1/2 c. pineapple (with some of the juice for swetness, if you like)
1 1/2 c. of water

Put it all in a blender and blend until completely smooth and frothy.

This post brought to you by parentheses.

I feel great today. — 150.4

So I was up a couple squajjans yesterday (or 2.4 squajjins to be precise). Bad but not terrible considering all of the drinking and eating that we did while we were in Columbus this past weekend. So I’ve walked about 10 miles this week and did a Jillian Michaels Shred 1 yesterday and some Cardioke today. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Cardioke, it makes my heart super happy for a few different reasons. One, Billy Blacks Jr is kind of hot. Two, I get to do karaoke and cardio, so yay. Three, it’s actually a great cardio workout. So here’s a link to the site: CARDIOKE! but I get mine free on Comcast Exercise TV On Demand. The Cardioke website is super awful (like a Myspace page) but you’ll get the gist.

So the plan for the week is too eat tons of veggies, workout a couple more times, walk as much as possible (weather permitting) and not drink. These are pretty easy things and should help me on my Holiday Plan. The holiday plan is pretty easy and low key: lose 6 pounds by Thanksgiving and keep it off through New Years. I think I can do that.

Another recipe:
Roasted Brussel Sprouts
1 1/2 pounds of fresh brussel sprouts
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Cut brown ends off of sprouts. Put sprouts in bowl drizzle with olive oil. Salt and pepper liberally. Toss. Put on baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes or until brown. Toss them every so often, so that they brown evenly.

Super delicious. Will make non-brussel sprout eaters stand up and cheer. 2 points for about 1 1/2c of sprouts.

The disappearing blogger

Wow. I’m getting worse at blogging by the month. Here’s where I’m at: I’m down to 148 pounds, I’ve been crazy busy with out-of-town guests and then I was an out of town guest last weekend (we went to Columbus), my daughter had H1N1, I got a great delivery of meat from our farm share (Thanks, Penn’s Corner!) and my husband may be getting a new job (that he will LOVE!)

That’s a lot in just a few weeks. And mostly good (except for that whole H1N1 business. She’s fine now, thank god.)

A recipe:

Homemade Applesauce
3 lbs of sour apples
1 c. of apple cider
1/2 c. sugar

Core, peel and slice apples. Add to large pot with cider and sugar. Bring to a boil. Add a tsp. of cinnamon, if you like. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer for about 15 mins or until apples have turned to mush. Stir with a wisk. Tada! Applesauce.

It’s completely simple and delicious and is only 2 points per cup. Also extremely cost-saving. You’ll make about 8 cups of applesauce for the price of buying a large jar at the store.

I’m determined to lose another pound or so this week. If I do, I’ll be down 5 pounds from the start of meetings here at my work. Wish me luck!

Interesting Book & Skinny Scoop

I’m reading a great book called The end of overeating. It is a tremendous, scientific approach to why we as Americans are so badly programmed and why we eat the junk that we do. It is awesome and has made me rethink my food. Actually, it has made me think about food in the way that Butch & I used to. We would spend hours at the grocery store reading labels, avoiding our favorites “Bad” foods: trans fat and high fructose corn syrup. We’ve been majorly slacking as of late and one look at our cabinets would tell you that. I was alos far more dedicated to cooking healthy meals, my time has become shorter to cook, nd when I feel rushed I don’t use as many fresh fruits & veggies. This book is pushing me back to a healthier lifestyle, and teaching me a lot about the (scary) food industry. So, read it. I got my copy from the library, if that’s your book-getting-place of choice.

In other news, I’m still weighing in at the same thing that I did last Friday. That’s great for me, as the weekend was tough what with going to Idlewild and being at my parent’s house. I hope to be down a pound on Thursday at my weigh in. I walked t work yesterday and will walk again today.

And now for major news. Check me out here. How awesome is that? Thanks, Skinny Scoopers! Leave a comment on the Scoopers page for me!

Weigh-in (151.6)

So I’m feeling pretty good: I was down at my weigh-in yesterday and the Leader thanked me and gave me a new cookbook for being awesome (no, really, it was: she was grateful to me for helping to get the new meeting started and for continuing to push for new members and for help from the building.) Plus, the guy that makes my coffee loves me and makes me feel special every day (he probably does this with all of his customers, but I don’t care!) A weight loss web site requested my story to use in one of their features (here is the site, I’ll update you when my story is there. In the meantime, you can check out my last interweb feature here.)

So, yeah, I’m feeling good and strong. And trying to get through the weeks. It’s tough being back “on” program. I think I destroyed my will-power and my metabolism in the last year: I’ve been gaining, so I crash diet and then gain again and crash again. Obviously not the way to go. So now I’m on program, and having a hard time. I’m journaling most days and trying to exercise a couple of times per week. I’m still walking 2.5 miles a couple of times per week, but not as much as I did when I had someone to walk with everyday. (Shout out to Sarah.) But I’m working hard and thinking hard and am finding my WW groove again. And it’s time.

Tough weekend – 153.6

So the weekend was a bit of a challenge: all that happiness and excitement over parties and fun has worn off when I see the 4 pound gain that I’m showing this morning. Things that didn’t work: sitting too close to food and chips and sitting with a friend that I know likes to eat, and when he’s not eating, likes to talk about food. I filled a lot of time playing Rock Band, which is good. Yesterday was also tough: rather than cookingo for the game, we ordered BBQ. Every side dish that come was covered in butter and fat. I ate like crazy and didn’t stop after dinner. I ate so much, I fell asleep in the post-turkey dinner type of stupor known usually only on Thanksgiving.

I’m getting on track for the rest of the week and will be attending a Wednesday evening meeting. Our regular Thursday lunch meeting is cancelled this week due to the G-20 being here in da Burgh. I can only hope to be back to where I was at my last meeting.

Changing track here. I made the most insane Spicy Roasted Red Pepper soup. It’s almost so hot, I can’t eat it. I may use it to marinate meat instead. It’s ridiculous. Delicious, but just way too hot. I bought a giant bag of peppers that were supposed to be a mix of hot and sweet. They apparently were all hot. Tonight I’m going to marinate steak in it and see what happens.

Anyway, positive thinking, positive eating to you all.

My heart is super happy

OK, for some reason, today feels like the greatest day. I feel really good and healthy. I lost 1.6 at my meeting yesterday. I walked to work in record time (I was 20 minutes early!) We’re going to the Casino for lunch (hope that doesn’t ruin my mood! haha!) Off to the Penguin game tonight with a cousin we haven’t seen in over a year. Party tomorrow. Party Sunday. Whatever. My life is so great today.

Now the hard part will be keeping my food intake in check while attending all of these fun things. I’m going at it with a plan, that I hope I can stick to. I will eat an apple or some other light snack before all functions. I will not sit anywhere near chips. I will not eat a single chip, period (that would lead to a downward spiral.) I will take small portions of the things that I really want. I will count everything.

Any other tips are much appreciated.

Major Victory

In my longtime fight against body fat, I have won some major vicories. None are as important as getting a Weight Watchers meeting started at my work. The meeting started last week, we had seven people show up (which I guess is pretty good for the first week!), and I’m very excited. Not having a meeting to attend regularly in the last year has been a major problem for me. I need to weigh-in with a group each week and feel a sense of comradarie and competition. That’s why blogging is so important to me.

So I began tracking again on Friday morning. Oh at my weigh-in, I was up 12 pounds from my WW goal (and the picture on he far right at the top of the page.) So I want to get those 12 pounds gone again and figure out a new way to maintain, because the old way wasn’t cutting it.

I’m glad to be back.

Doing the needful

I love the phrase “doing the needful” and use it often when referring to my health and well-being. The needful things these past couple of days include: tracking my food, stopping at GNC for a good multi-vitamin and something to help me with my almost constant low level anxiety, and shopping at Trader Joe’s for more healthful things. And I’m feeling good. Butch is also working to lose about 15 pounds so it’s nice that we can work together towards a common goal.

Two new Trader Joe’s faves: Caribbean Fruit Floes, a giant frozen fruit bar that is totally delicious, and Blueberry Greek Yogurt. The fruit floes have 80 calories but 0 fiber for 2 points. The yogurt is also 2 points, I mixed mine with a sliced fresh apricot, some blueberris and a few cherries for a 3 point breakfast.

The guy at GNC this morning was completely hilarious: I went in for an anxiety rememdy and after he looked up some on their computer, he recommended Women’s Menopausal Multi-Pack. HA. I knew not to be insulted, he was recommending it because it had a full multi vitamin complex plus some of the things that he found for anxiety. But I gave him a ahrd time about it anyway, leading him to flatter me non-stop for another 5 minutes about how I can’t be older than 22. Nice work, downtown GNC dude.

I also completed the WW challenge for this week: eat one new vegetable. We got Lemon Cucumbers in our CSA and they are awesome and delicious. And pretty. Yay me.

Went to a meeting

I went to a WW meeting today for the first time since February. The problem is, is that it is like I never left: they’re still talking about the same things. The real problem is that the people have changed. This whole new crop of people hasn’t heard it before. I try to be supportive, but it’s tough. I’m working on getting a meeting started at work in September, and I hope that a) we have a young leader that will fit with the group that will be using WW and b) that since this is a new meeting with a new leader, they will have new info and insight to share.

However, meetings or not, I’m getting back to my roots: counting points, weighing food, upping my veggie & fruit intake. All of the things that worked for me to begin with. Today I’m tracking my food. The obvvious things are what always worked for me, so that’s what I’ll do.

Today’s WW weight: 150.8

Today at my meeting I weighed exactly 5 pounds more than I did at my last weigh-in 5 months ago. Not a good record, gaining 1 pound per month is not something I want to continue to do. This also puts me 11 pounds above my goal weight that I was at, surprise, 11 months ago. So back to 139 I trudge. Let’s get started.

To Do List:
1. Track every day.
2. Eat veggies.
3. Put food journal into blog, at least for this first week.