meal plan for the week

Oops! Didn't really have time last night to update so here is my meal plan/ideas for the week.  And sorry in advance for this being a boring picture-less entry.

Breakfast

1 Starch + 1 Protein + 1 Fruit

- I got myself some Jimmy Dean Delights breakfast sandwiches at the Costco.  They are only 250 calories and pretty good actually! They have egg white and turkey sausage to make things lighter. I know it isn't good to eat processed food but I know these will help me out by being quick and getting rid of the craving for an Egg Mcmuffin.

- Oatmeal

- Small bowl of cereal with skim milk

- Eggs and Canadian Bacon

+ Apples or grapefruit

(Breakfast is definitely not my problem)


Lunch

Protein + Veggies + maybe 1 small starch

- Turkey and provolone roll ups

- Spinach salad

- Tuna melt

- Canned Soup

- I bought a few Lean Cuisines for if I'm in a bind or am craving pasta too much.

- This delicious looking mexican tostada thing


Dinner

Protein + Veggies

- Chicken Parmesan with no pasta, just veggies on the side (This is the BEST RECIPE by my favorite healthy eating website, Skinnytaste)

- Fish Tacos on corn tortillas

- Egg Salad Sandwiches on low calorie/carb bread

- "Yummy salad" (Just a salad with whatever good things we have on hand -- hard-boiled eggs, small amount of bacon, apples, toasted almonds, etc.)

- A lower calorie chicken pot pie with just a top crust

- Lettuce wraps with ground turkey

- Chicken and broccoli

- Chicken tikka masala with cauliflower rice


Snacks

Have to have 1 protein with each snack

- Pistachios

- Apples with peanut butter

- Tilamook cheddar snack (just little pre-portioned pieces of sharp cheddar)

- Kashi Trail Mix granola bars

- Carrots

- Popcorn


So there is my week! Or a little over a week probably.  It looks like I need to figure out some more snacks so I'll keep you posted.

Stay tuned this week to see some recipes/tutorials for some of our dinners!

back again!

Okay yikes yikes yikes.  I am sitting here eating a bowl of chocolate pudding and looking at before and after fitness inspiration.  Gross. True story.  So... I think I need to get moving again with this blog!

I have lost more weight, which is nice, but I want it to go faster.  I am at 165-168 right now so I made a mini-goal to be 159 by the end of March.  I think it'll be good to be accountable to this blog again because I am in the biggest rut EVER.  I have no motivation, I am pretty sure I'm addicted to food.

I have been doing a workout DVD (Jillian Michaels Shred) off and on, which is really great. I cannot WAIT until it is warm outside though because I was having a lot of success and fun doing Couch to 5K--it's an app that tells you when to run, when to walk, and it works you up to running a 5k.  I'll need to figure out a way to get more working out in.

I'll put up my meal plan for the week tomorrow.  I need to wean myself from eating so much sugar and carbs (my weakness) and supplement with more vegetables.  I can do this!

I am so depressed but I need to look at the positive... I once weighed 189, and now I am down to 168.  21 lbs is not too shabby--I can do it!

Right: August 2011 - probably about 189, Left: December 2012 - 163ish

See you tomorrow!

tuesday and wednesday

Tuesday

So on Tuesday, I knew we'd be eating out for dinner (Happy birthday Kimo, Lauren, and me!) so I tried to keep my breakfast really light to save a few calories.  I got this awesome mini-watermelon from Bountiful baskets as well as some mint, so:

Breakfast - Mini watermelon cubed with mint

Lunch - Cafe Rio Tostada Salad: Okay, this is a GREAT tip for eating out at Cafe Rio.  Get a tostada with a flour tortilla and take some of the crunchy chips off (or leave them off entirely).  It is the same thing as a salad but in a smaller portion and ends up being only 600 calories (Yes, I am saying "only" 600 calories. It's Cafe Rio, have you ever eaten a burrito there? Yeah.) Oh and also it's cheaper. :)

Dinner - Massaman Curry with some rice.  I scarfed it and this is when I remembered to take a pic:

I ate about 1300ish calories that day even with eating out and felt real proud of myself.


Wednesday


Breakfast - oatmeal

 Lunch - turkey sandwich from Subway

And dinner we ate out again and I forgot to take a pic.  And I'm really glad I didn't take a pic because it was a cheesy delicious plate of enchiladas from Mi Ranchito (we were invited out for another birthday dinner) and I for sure shouldn't have eaten it.

monday meals

I said I would and here I am, listing all of my foods! I ended up eating about 1350 calories today, so I did pretty good. :) 

Breakfast was oatmeal and a chunk of fresh pineapple (yum!!)

Lunch was a wheat bagel with cream cheese (okay, not so healthy but it's alright)

Dinner was my favorite... taco salad! Romaine lettuce, seasoned ground beef, a couple of crumbled chips, avocado, beans, corn, onions, tomato, a little cheese, and fresh key lime juice on top! Mmmmm

For snacks I had some of my mom's amazing guacamole with a couple of chips (I'll be better!), a rice cake, and a homemade low-fat key lime ice cream sandwich made with greek yogurt. (Cool, right? The recipe is here: http://www.hungry-girl.com/weighin/show/2071  I am going to work on modifying the recipe though because there is something a little weird about them... I think maybe crush the crackers for a coating or something? The texture is off but the flavor is yum! Anyway I'll do a blog post on them later!)

I have this weird feeling where I actually want to be active! That has never happened to me before... like hiking/biking/running actually sound FUN.  It is a good feeling and makes this easier. ;) More tomorrow!

moab and recommitment

Oh it's been a long long time with no update and I'm so sorry.  The truth is, I was too embarrassed to update.  When I first started this blog, I told you Luke said I should make this my "job". Okay well if this was my job last week, I would have been fired.  I sabotaged myself like crazy (aka going to In-N-Out and getting a double double??? Eating 2 candybars in one day??? Grabbing a "healthy" pita from Pita Pit which ends up being 805 calories? yep) and played the "It's my birthday! I get a treat!" card way too many times.  It feels crummy and I'm a little discouraged.  I think the reason I let everything get so crazy is that I felt so discouraged only having lost 1 pound with all of my hard work. That may seem ridiculous but usually I drop like 3 lbs the second I lift a finger to try to lose weight (and realize I am a very lucky girl for that).  Working so hard and losing like 0.8 of a pound made me so angry and grumpy that I sabotaged myself.  I really want this though and I need to recommit and make smaller goals so that I can feel accomplished when I make a tiny dent in this big health goal.

New mini goal: Lose 5 pounds by Camille's wedding (June 2nd)

So like I said, it was my birthday on the 1st (I'm 25!) and I am so grateful for all of the amazing wishes and gifts people gave me, it was lovely. I especially wanted to point out that a bunch of my gifts were health/fitness related and that made me so happy.  My mom and dad got me awesome Pearl Izumi biking shorts and a biking shirt (so I can look like the pro that I absolutely am not :), aunt Laura gave me an awesome lunch box with special little compartments so that I can take my lunch to work, and Luke gave me a trip to Moab which meant lots of lovely hiking and outdoorsiness! It was so fun.

I never thought I was a hiking person.  I've realized that thinking things like that does such a disservice to yourself because then you don't try things which can be really fun and beneficial to you.  Anyway, I never thought I was a hiking person so when Luke suggested we go to Moab for my birthday I was excited but a teensy nervous because I had visions of myself huffing and puffing up a cliff in the baking sun while Luke zoomed ahead of me.  Much to my delight... I am a hiker! I loved it! We hiked to Delicate Arch, a couple of other arches which I can't remember the name of, and my favorite Corona arch.  Corona arch is HUGE and it was such a fun hike because there were "obstacles"-- like you had to hike up an insanely steep cliff holding onto a chain and climb a ladder up one part of the hike.  It was so fun and it felt awesome to hike and be active all day.  It really was a big thing for me, I can't wait to go back!

So. much. fun.

Okay so I'm going to blog everything I eat this week. Daily. So stay tuned and let's hope I can drop a little weight.

ps. On the menu this week:

pps. This post is highly inspired by my awesome cousin Brennyn, who has her own weight-loss blog and is kicking butt.

yummy pork and exercise

I'm still stuck at 172.2--but at least I haven't gone up.  Things are happening pretty slow compared to times I've done this before. Or maybe I'm getting old. I don't know, but obviously I'm not going to be able to make my birthday goal so I am changing it to "Be under 170 by my birthday May 1st" :)

My dear husband made this yummy meal last week on our grill pan (I don't recommend it... they always use it on cooking shows like "Oh perfect! Now you don't need a grill" Uh, no. It makes your house all smoky and stinky for days. But it makes yummy food!)

The recipe is here: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pork-chops-with-carolina-rub-10000001185407/   I would go easy on the chili powder, that was the one flavor that was a little off for me

I've been exercising a bunch! We took this photo before we left and it turns out my front tire was completely flat. Haha. So I ended up riding Luke's bike and he rode his mountain bike. His frame was huge for me and I was a big baby the whole time because I felt so helpless on that big bike... so this picture is a little misleading. ;)

Then last night after a wonderful Haab family barbeque, Michelle, Chase, Luke and I went hiking on a little canyon trail behind our house. It was wonderful! Next time we need to bring water though, we got pretty parched.

I feel really proud of myself because I haven't sabotaged myself once since I've started this. Usually if I mess up and eat something high in calories or bad for me I'll go "Well, I screwed up. I might as well eat whatever I want the rest of today" but this time around I've had so much more self-control so hurray! I was even in line at Joann's Fabrics the other day FOREVER (How can people have so many fabric related problems at the register!?!?) and I was next to a wall of candybars for the duration of that long wait. I didn't buy one or look longingly at them at all! Hurray!

Love you guys! More tomorrow.

one pound down and cauliflower rice!

I lost a pound!! Party! Using Loseit is really really helping me (and no, I'm not a paid spokeswoman ;) ) It has been so tough! Luke uses Loseit too and he has to try to fill up his allotted amount of calories and I struggle to eat within mine, so I get kinda jealous sometimes. But I am doing well and it is so awesome to see results! Hurrah!

Luke and I have been riding bikes a little too (he got a new roadbike and I'm borrowing David's) It is such a fun way to exercise except that I am a real scaredy cat of all of the cars around me.

Yesterday I decided to make a lovely crockpot curry from none other than Martha Stewart. I put in all the ingredients, it stewed nicely all day and our house smelled of wonderful curry. We excitedly poured it into our bowls for dinner... it was gross. I HATE when I make dinners and they don't turn out! And Martha! She's usually got my back but she failed me this time. The curry had no flavor (you'd think something with like 8 cloves of garlic, 6 tsp of ginger and 2 cans of coconut milk would have flavor). Waaaaaaa. Luke took this photo of it with my iphone, and I'm glad we did because you get to see the cauliflower rice that we make with asian-y foods!

Cauliflower is some sort of magic low-carb-y vegetable that looks like it's packed full of starch but somehow isn't. Because we try to eat low-carb in this family, we use cauliflower rice as a substitute for the real stuff and it is so so easy!

Cauliflower Rice

1 head of cauliflower washed and cut into small florets - you can obviously use as much or as little cauliflower as you want, I'd say a whole head makes like 4 big servings of rice.

Put a bunch of the cauliflower florets into a blender or food processor. (I put in about a big handful at a time... if you put the entire cauliflower in at once, the bottom florets will get beaten to a pulp and you'll still have large ones up top, so it's good to do this in stages.)

Use the pulse feature on the lowest setting (ours is "stir") to chop up the cauliflower until it has the texture of rice. Pour it out into a tupperware and repeat with the rest of the florets.

Once all of your rice is processed, put a lid on the tupperware (I leave it cracked just a tiny) and microwave for about 6 minutes or until the cauliflower is soft/done.

That's it! It is a great great substitute for rice if you're trying to eat less calories or low-carb. Yum!

Here's our mealplan for this week: