Long MIA, But Good News!

Sorry for the long MIA everyone, I went back to school and work on the same day and its just been craziness!!!

I promise to be better about updating, especially since I have some good news to share.

I am officially in ONDERLAND!!! I weighed in at 198.7 on Saturday and I am NEVER going back to the 200s!  I am swimming in my old work clothes, so it looks like a shopping trip is in order.  To date I’ve lost about 25lbs and over 8 inches (5 of those from my waist!).

I’m so happy 🙂

Hope your week is going well!

The Last Supper

Tonight marked the last dinner that my boyfriend and I might be able to eat together for the next 12 weeks (he’s doing a weight loss challenge at his gym and his trainer has him on a super strict diet) so I decided to make the fish that I was going to make last week (when I accidentally thawed the chicken instead).

Its a favorite in our house, super yummy and healthy (its from the Cooking Light, Fresh Food Fast cookbook)

Just pre-heat your oven to 425F

Line a baking sheet with some aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

Place your fish on the baking sheet (I use 2 4oz filets) this week I used cod, but I’ve used tilapia and halibut before (any firm white fish will do)

Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Place in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and add sprigs of fresh dill (stems removed) to the top of the fish, return to the oven for another 5 minutes or so or until it flakes easily with a fork.

Mix together a couple tablespoons of reduced fat sour cream, lemon juice (just a squirt, about the amount from 2 lemon wedges) and capers.
The amount that you make of this sauce is really up to your personal taste and preference.

This is the final product.

This is my boyfriend’s plate, I only eat one filet.

Enjoy!

What are some of your family’s favorite dishes?

OMG!

So as you guys know I typically weigh in on Wednesdays…but I’m seriously starting to wonder if Wednesday is a bad day for me?  I weighed in Wednesday and I was down 0.8lbs and 1.5 inches…I’ve been having a pretty good last couple of days diet and exercise wise so out of curiosity I decided to weigh in this morning.  O….M….G!!!

As of this morning I weighed in at 200lbs exactly.  I was 202.4 on Wednesday, so that means I’ve lost a total of 3.2lbs this week!  I also decided to redo my measurements and I lost another 2 inches off my waist and another 1.5 inches off my bust!

What a great way to start my day!!!!

I seriously think that logging everything I put in my mouth on My Fitness Pal is helping.  It’s also giving me a visual tracker for my water.

I am seriously just 1 pound away from ONEDERLAND!!! Which puts me just 55lbs away from my goal of 145lbs!  That means that I’m already a third of the way through my weight loss journey 🙂

Most importantly I FEEL the difference, I wake up more energetic, I don’t feel lethargic throughout the day, I don’t get bloated anymore (other than when it’s that TOM) I feel healthier.  I went out to dinner with friends last night and I can be a hundred percent honest when I say that the heavily breaded, fried items that I used to love didn’t even get a glance from me 🙂

This is definitely a lifestyle change and not a “diet,” remember diet is a four letter word 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Strength Exercises

So I’ve been slowly trying to add new strength exercises to the routine that my physical therapist has me on.

So far today I worked in push-ups, two sets of 10, I attempted a plank (I lasted 30 seconds…but I have to say my form was PERFECT) and I found a website that shows different strength exercises to do with your balance ball (YAY!)

I did this one:

I did 3 sets of 10.

And I plan on doing this one after I’m done with this blog (the plan is 3 sets of 10)

I tried to do this:

and almost DIED!  This move is way beyond my current fitness level…I’ll have to try again later…

What are some of your favorite strength moves to do at home?

Weigh Ins

Question for you guys about weigh ins.  Do you have a specific day that you weigh in or are you a weigh in everyday type of person?

Several books I’ve read recommend getting a digital scale that measures weight including decimal points (which I have) and weighing in everyday.  As you guys know I’ve been weighing in every Wednesday with only so so results, well out of curiosity I weighed in Tuesday as well as Wednesday.  On Tuesday I had lost 2lbs, but when I did my normal weigh in on Wednesday I had only lost 0.8lbs…so I’m wondering what’s going on?  My diet hasn’t changed, I haven’t cheated, so what’s going wrong?

I’m thinking of switching my weigh ins to another day, either Friday or Monday, I’m also going to watch my carb intake more closely and my sodium in case its some sort of bloat effect.

Any ideas?

Yesterday

Yesterday was kind of a boring day…I wish it hadn’t been, since my boyfriend was off, but he hung out in his “man cave” and played on the computer and watched tv until he went to the gym.  I asked to go with him to try out his gym, since he HAD gotten me a 7 day guest pass, but he adamantly said no.  I think he was kinda embarrassed to take me with, last night was his second appointment with his personal trainer and apparently during the first session he spent a lot of it dry heaving and almost puking.  But seriously, I didn’t want to go watch HIM workout, I wanted to check out the facilities and get MY workout on 🙂

Didn’t happen, bummer.

I did about 15 minutes worth of my physical therapy exercises (which include a lot of work with resistance bands and my balance ball) and then my mom called and asked if I wanted to go for a walk and a light dinner with her (after we swung by the mall real quick).  Well we never left the mall, its what usually happens, but I wore my pedometer anyways and according to it and MyFitnessPal.com my four hours of “walking at a slow pace” burned over 900 calories for someone my weight…hmmm…don’t know if that’s 100% right but it made me feel better.

Being on a limited calorie diet I’m used to eating 5-6 times per day, usually 3 meals and some snacks, however when I met up with my mom yesterday, thinking that it was just going to be a “quick mall run” I hadn’t eaten my afternoon snack and was only sitting around 400ish calories consumed since I’d had a light breakfast and lunch (I haven’t been hungry at all lately and its really bothering me…).  So needless to say, after several hours of wandering the mall with my mom and watching her try on clothes my blood sugar was running pretty low and I was starting to not feel so well (light headed, irritable…) so I kinda snapped (sorry mom) and said I needed to eat something now and that she could keep eating but I had to eat.

Well, she felt bad about it and for the sake of the diet we skipped the food court and headed to one of the restaurants attached to the mall called McCarthy’s.  I was a little worried about going an Irish Pub style place (bar food..eep?) but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of healthy options they had available.  I was set on getting a salad until I saw a burger that they’re apparently “famous” for, their Iri-Shroom burger (a burger with mushrooms sautéed in Guinness, havarti dill cheese and a herb garlic spread) so my mom and I decided to split the burger and the salad so we could try it and be healthy at the same time 🙂

It was perfect, and unlike a lot of restaurants, their portions weren’t HUGE so I was just the right amount of full without feeling bloated.  I stayed within my calorie count so that’s a plus 🙂

I also got my mom to sign up for MyFitnessPal.com!  It’s a great tool if you’re trying to lose weight, or just want a way to track your food and exercise.  Yesterday I used the message board on the site to join a June weight loss group where everyone has to set their weight loss goals for June.  Even though I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks I decided to be ambitious and set a goal of 8lbs for June.  This will put me well under 200lb (w00t) and is an average of 2lbs per week which is totally attainable.  Everyone who set a “mini” goal set up a corresponding reward, mine is a spa pedicure, I haven’t had one in so long!

Do you use goals to motivate yourself?

My BMR

So I’ve been playing around on My Fitness Pal (www.myfitnesspal.com), which is the site I use for my weight loss ticker, and for the first time I noticed that they have a BMR Calculator.  For those of you who are not familiar with what BMR is, it stands for basal metabolic rate and it is essentially the amount of calories your body would burn on its own even if you were just lying in bed all day.  For someone like me who is recovering from major surgery and can only undertake a limited number of activities I was quite curious to see what mine was.  Apparently for someone of my height and weight, my body burns about 1686 calories per day!  Thats pretty sweet, especially considering that I’ve been eating around 1000-1200 calories per day (I’ve consumed just shy of 1000 calories today) so I’ve burned more than I’ve consumed 🙂

I know that my calorie count may seem pretty low, but I assure you that I have eaten TONS of food today, 3 meals and 3 snacks to be exact 🙂

Here’s my daily food diary from My Fitness Pal.  The site recommends that I consume 1200 calories, 165g carbs, 40g fat and 45g of protein daily.  As you can see I’m way below my carb count (which is good because I’m trying to limit my carb intake due to my PCOS) and have exceeded my protein by 28g.  I also kept under my fat and calorie goals for the day and I’m totally fine with that 🙂

Breakfast	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein
Eas – Advantedge – Carb Control Protein Shake – Chocolate Fudge, 11 oz	100	4	3	17
Add Food | Remember Meal	100	4	3	17
Lunch
Homemade – Turkey Sandwich (4 Thin Slices) on Earthgrains Thin Buns With Light Mayo, 1 sandwich	185	23	8	14
Add Food | Remember Meal	185	23	8	14
Dinner
Chicken Breast No Skin (Baked) – Baked Chicken Tenders No Skin, 1 oz	59	0	3	12
Chicken Breast No Skin (Baked) – Baked Chicken Tenders No Skin, 1 oz	59	0	3	12
Tomatoes – Red, ripe, raw, year round average, 2 slice, thin/small	5	1	0	0
Alouette – Crumbled Goat Cheese, 1/8 cup	40	1	4	3
Fresh Express – Heart of Romaine Lettuce, 2 cups	15	3	0	1
Apples – Raw, with skin, 0.5 cup slices	29	8	0	0
Cranberries – Dried, sweetened, 0.17 cup	62	16	0	0
Generic – Slivered Almonds , 1 Tablespoon	40	1	4	2
Pork – Cured, bacon, cooked, broiled, pan-fried or roasted, 0.5 slice cooked	22	0	2	1
Trader Joes – Sesame Soy Ginger Vinaigrette, 2 tbs	35	9	0	0
Beverage – Red Wine (House Glass 300ml), 150 ml	111	0	0	0
Add Food | Remember Meal	477	39	16	31
Snacks
Dannon – Yogurt – Light & Fit Nonfat Vanilla, 6 oz	80	15	0	5
Nuts – Almonds, dry roasted, without salt added, 0.3 oz (22 whole kernels)	51	2	4	2
Earthgrain – Multigrain Whole Wheat Bread – Double Fiber, 1 slices	100	14	2	4
Add Food | Remember Meal	231	31	6	11
Totals	993	97	33	73
Your Daily Goal	1,200	165	40	45
Remaining	207	68	7	-28
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein

Perfect Summer Dinner

Soooo YUM!  I made the PERFECT SUMMER DINNER tonight!!! My boyfriend rated it a perfect 10 and asked me to make more for him to take for lunch this week.  It all started with a bit of a debacle…I THOUGHT I was thawing fish for dinner, but when it was done thawing and I reached in the freezer bag to pull out the filet’s I found CHICKEN instead of fish.  I was upset for about a minute but then I remembered that I had a chicken recipe that I had been DYING to try!

The recipe is actually from Devin Alexander’s book I Can’t Believe it’s Not Fattening! Devin Alexander is actually the mind behind The Biggest Loser Cookbook and also has several other cookbooks published under her own name.  The recipe is SUPER simple and takes about 15 minutes TOTAL to prepare!!!

Preheat your oven to 350F

Take a skillet at drizzle a little EVOO on the bottom and turn to medium heat.

Take your trimmed, boneless chicken breasts and season with a little salt and pepper.

Sear the chicken in the pan for a few minutes on each side (a few minutes on each side).

Remove from the heat and top with either tomato slices or canned diced tomatoes (her recipe calls for the canned, I didn’t have any so I used fresh) and crumbled goat cheese.

Put the skillet in the oven for 5-9 minutes until the cheese is melted and the chicken is no longer pink.

Top with chopped herbs (optional…I forgot this step)

Here’s what it looks like fresh out of the oven!

To compliment the chicken I decided to try and replicate a yummy salad that I had recently at Champps, with a few changes.

The salad that I had was their Chopped Salad Americana and it was chopped lettuce, dried cranberries, sliced apples, candied pecans, bacon, chicken and blue cheese tossed in honey mustard dressing.

Well I was missing the dressing, the blue cheese and the candied pecans (and omitted the chicken since we were having it as the main course) but I made it work and I actually liked mine better!!!

In the mix:

romaine lettuce, torn not chopped

dried cranberries

slivered almonds

thinly sliced Pink Lady apple (about half the apple)

1 and a half pieces of well done bacon, crumbled

goat cheese

all tossed with….

Let me tell you, this salad was OUT. OF.  THIS..WORLD!!!!!!!!!

Check it out

Close up!

And the finished plate

Another close up!

So yes..the perfect summer dinner 🙂

You’ll notice that the quality of my pictures have improved (hopefully) right?  I busted out my DSLR…I figured I should start taking my food photography a little more seriously 🙂

For those of you that are curious the nutritional info for the chicken (courtesy of I Can’t Believe it’s Not Fatting!)

171 calories, 29 g protein, 2 g carbohydrates, 4 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 72 mg cholesterol, trace fiber, 198 mg sodium

Not bad!!!

If you want to check out her book you can order it here

Oh by the way, since it’s WEIGH IN WEDNESDAY, my boyfriend weighed in and he lost 2 POUNDS!  I’m so proud of him, he’s thinking of starting a blog too, I’ll make sure that I link it when he does.

What are some of your favorite summer dishes?

Another Weigh In Wednesday!

Wow look I’m actually weighing in on time!  I stepped on the scale and looked down…..and I lost 0.8lbs.  Almost a pound, I’ll take it.  Measurements were next.  My “natural waist” came in at 36.5, down half an inch and my “middle” (aka the fatty pooch area) came in at 41, down 1 inch since last week for a total loss of 1.5 inches!

I notice small differences in the way my clothes are fitting, but my friends and family have been commenting a lot lately about how great I look.  Its been a nice boost to my self esteem 🙂

I noticed that today the people over at Fit Sugar added to the list that I posted last week.  In last week’s post I talked about how many veggies you can eat for 100 calories or less, and now they updated the list to add fruits!  Fruits and veggies are my favorite summertime (or anytime) snack, they are super tasty and refreshing and are chock full of vitamins and nutrients.

Fruit	Amount	Calories
Apples	2 extra small	105
Apricots	6 whole	101
Bananas	1 medium	105
Blackberries	100 berries (or 1 1/2 cups)	100 (93)
Blueberries	125 berries (or 1 1/4 cup)	97 (103)
Cantaloupe	2 cups, diced	106
Cherries	20	103
Clementines	3 whole	104
Cranberries, raw	2 1/4 cups	98
Dates, medjool	1 1/2 whole	100

Fruit	Amount	Calories
Grapes, red or green	30	101
Grapefruit, pink or white	1 1/4 whole	95
Honeydew	1 3/4 cups, diced; about 35 pieces	98
Kiwi	2 whole	93
Mango	1 cup, sliced (or 3/4 whole fruit)	107 (101)
Nectarine	1 1/2 medium	94
Orange	2 small	90
Papaya	2 cups, cubed	109
Peach	2 1/2 medium	96
Pear	1 medium	96
Plum	3 whole	91
Pluot	2 1/2 medium	100
Pineapple	1 1/4 cups, chunks	103
Pomegranate	1/2 whole	117
Raspberries	100 berries (or 1 1/2 cups)	99 (96)
Strawberries	25 medium	96
Tangerine	2 medium	100
Watermelon	30 balls (or 2 cups, diced)	110 (91)

Thats a lot of fruit for not a lot of calories (but make sure you check the sugars) so eat up!!

What’s your favorite fruit? I like pretty much everything, but I haven’t really been a fan of some of the melons (I LOVE watermelon though).

B.E.A.C.H

Its June!  Which in my book means that Summer is OFFICIALLY here 🙂

I enjoyed some great weather this weekend with some nice walks and swimming, but I had to make sure to slather on my super strong SPF since I unfortunately never tan, I only burn.

Since today might be the last day before I return to work, I decided to make an omlette for breakfast-YUM!  I kept it simple and just did three egg whites and in the center I mashed up a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese and topped with a some ketchup.

I also paired it with a Pink Lady apple, sliced extra thin, using the Iowa Girl Eats method.

See?

I love slicing apples that thin, its great for dipping and it makes it seem like you’re eating a lot more than you actually are.  I also LOVE pink lady apples by the way, those and honeycrips are my absolute FAVE!

So I’m not addicted to Oprah by any means, but I kinda like Dr. Oz.  I’m currently reading his book “YOU on a Diet” but I’m not really into it yet, its kinda a slow read.  I read an article today about Dr. Oz’s B.E.A.C.H diet for summer, apparently some housewives tested out this diet and over the course of 4 months each of them lost between 30-60lbs.  The full article is here but I can sum it up for you:

His plan uses some pretty basic concepts (if you’ve looked into healthy eating habits at all)

The B stands for breakfast, and he emphasizes how important it is that you have a nutritious one and not skip this meal (as so many people do).  Make sure that you choose a breakfast that is high in protein and fiber (like my breakfast 🙂 ).

The E stands for eliminate simple carbs (i.e. white rice, white potatoes, anything made with white flour and sugar, alcohol, etc…).

The E stands for exercise ALMOST everyday.  The women testing out this diet exercised six days per week doing a variety of activities from walking, dancing, kickboxing, etc…(apparently its BEEACH lol)

The A stands for add antioxidants to your plate.  Fruits and veggies are not only so low in calories that you can eat almost as much as you want to fill up, but most of them are full of antioxidants which can help reduce inflammation in the body which is directly linked to weight loss.

The C stands for indulge in dark chocolate.  Eat chocolate and lose weight? SCORE!!! However, you need to remember that moderation is key and look for dark chocolate that is at least 70% cacoa.  This will help keep your sugar cravings in check and is also full of antioxidants.

The H stands for hydrate yourself.  We all know how important water is not only for weight loss, but for over all health.  Stick to water especially if you’re trying to lose weight, the other stuff is just empty calories.

Pretty straight forward.  I was already doing everything on that list already (however, I’m not fully healed from my surgery yet so my workouts are pretty basic).

What are some of your favorite tips for weight loss?