Happy Birthday Kevin!

Today is Kevin's birthday. When I got home from work last night at midnight we did a mini celebration for his special day. We had a piece of the dark chocolate cake that I made yesterday. I have to admit is was amazing! I tried to get him to guess the secret ingredient. When I told him that it was sauerkraut. He could not believe that it had that sneaky veggie. I also let him open his presents. He was very excited to get his hard drives.

Food of the day....for breakfast I had a English muffin with peanut butter and SF jam. I also enjoyed a cup of winter blossom tea and a tangerine. It was all very good.

For lunch we are going out to Chinese for Kevin's birthday. Out of all of the choices he picked Chinese. It will be hard to find something healthy, but I will try my best. Probably some soup and some veggies.

For dinner I am going to have a Kashi meal, which I love! I am also going to have green beans and some yogurt.

As far as the Kashi chewy bar that I had yesterday...It was not my favorite. It was kind of gritty. I think that I am going to go to Whole Foods today to get some more nectar bars and some other staples.

I am not going on a walk or doing yoga today. I am allowing myself to have a day off. I think this cold is getting me down.

I'll be honest, today I am just plain tired!

The title pretty much sums up everything for me today. I am exhausted. Yesterday my throat and ear started hurting and today I think that it is trying to take over my body. I wish that I could just lay on the couch with a blanket over me. I mean essentially that is what my body is telling me that it needs and sadly I can not give into the need.

Last night when I got home Kevin had a little gift for me. He had the new Biggest Loser Yoga DVD with a bow and sticker on the package. That was so sweet of him to get it for me. I forced myself to do it today. I did the five minute warm up and then the 20 minute beginner. I will be on the beginner for awhile:) My arms and legs were shaking. As Bob says they were "cooking" Thanks, Bob!

I also made Kevin's birthday cake. Not that he would really mind, but it is a WW Dark chocolate cake that I found a recipe for. It was super easy. Well all except for the part where you have to puree the sauerkraut. I wonder how it will taste. I am going to serve it with some Cool Whip. I will post on it tomorrow or the next as his birthday is tomorrow.

Food for the day....I did not cook anything today. Oh well, I feel icky and that was that. For breakfast I had the usual oatmeal. And, as usual it was good! For lunch I had a cup of leftover turkey chili from the freezer and a peanut butter and jelly on an English muffin. I have not had peanut butter in a long time and it just sounded so good to me. I did however just measure out a Tb instead of eating it straight from the jar. Tonight I am going to just give in and have a frozen meal and some veggies. Today I have labeled as a wash.

The Clif nectar bar yesterday, the chocolate and raspberry, was great. I really do like those a lot. This afternoon I am going to have 1/2 of a kashi chewy bar I think peanut butter and chocolate. I am not having the whole bar because it is 6pts. I cut it in half for a more reasonable 3pts.

So that it is in a nutshell. I am hoping that I feel better tomorrow. This is going to be a long night at work.

Day two!

I am trying to figure out this two photo post thing. It may take me awhile to get it all under control. I posted yesterday about my Clif bar that I was going to enjoy and enjoy it I did. Although, I flavored it incorrectly. It was actually a cherry pomegranate bar as you may be able to see in the photo. Today I am having a chocolate raspberry. These are very delicious, especially for the 3 pts. For breakfast I did the good old standby of oatmeal, flax, milk, etc and followed it up with an apple.

For lunch as you can see I had a grilled chicken breast and some seasoned brussel sprouts. I love brussel sprouts. I just drizzle them with olive oil and some sea salt and crushed pepper. Cook them for 5 minutes in a hot pan and then stir. Give them about another 5 minutes and there you have it. I topped them with some Parmesan cheese that we had left over.

Dinner will be some of the leftover spa meatloaf and smashed potatoes. I will also enjoy some more brussel sprouts.

It is colder here today than yesterday, but I am proud of myself. Molly and I again went for a walk. It was a little colder than I would have liked as I couldn't feel my legs by the time we got back. But, I was happy that we did it none the less.

Tomorrow I will be baking a low fat chocolate cake for Kevin's birthday. we shall see how it turns out. It is a WW recipe that I fount.

Ok, off to work! Have a good afternoon! Oh day one back at work wasn't as bad as I thought. It was a lot harder to get up today though.

First day back!

Today will be the first day back at work in 17 glorious days! I can't say that I am really looking forward to going back, but it is something that just has to be done. I can say though that I have really enjoyed the time off. I don't feel like I wasted it and I do feel quite rejuvenated. So I suppose that means it is time to get back at it! I work 2nd shift or 3-11:30 so getting back in the swing of things might be a challenge. I started my day off with a bowl of oatmeal as I was out of bagels. My oat mix comes from Whole Foods and is old fashioned oats, steel cut, and oat bran. When it was done I added of Tb of flaxseed, a splash of milk, splenda, cinnamon, and some SF blueberry jam on top. I also treated myself to a lovely latte. This picture does not really do it justice as Kevin has been the picture taker thus far as it is his fancy camera. None the less you get the idea.

The rest of the day is going to a be a double leftover day. For lunch I am having the sweet and sour chicken stir fry and dinner will be the hamburger stroganoff from last night. Our goal is to have one fresh cooked meal and one leftover meal per day. I think this will work since we have opposite schedules and don't get to eat together.

It is a chilly but beautiful day here. I threw all the front blinds open to soak up the sunshine. It was even nice enough outside to take Molly (our Boston terrier) for a 1/2 hour walk. All in all this is a great start to my week. Let's hope that work goes well for me!

Oh and for my afternoon snack I am going to try a Cliff bar that is pomegranate and dark chocolate. It is a 3pt bar, but really it sounds delicious. I will report back later:)

Success on the Scale!

Today was a Monday. My normal day off from work and my WW weigh in day. I was very happy to see the number on the scale drop 2.2 lbs. Yeah me! So today is officially the day that I have met my goal of losing 100 lb! It feels weird to type that as there was not any confetti exploding when I got on the scale or anything. I guess that only happens on the Biggest Loser. Also, I feel like it isn't "true" because the scale at home and the scale at WW are different. But, I started the journey on my home scale. Thus, it tells me that I have lost 100 pounds. That is crazy to me! I have lost the equivalent of a small person or a child.

So, now what? My next goal is not too far off. It is in like 6lbs. I am waiting to see the scale have a 1 in front of it. So there. I have outed one of my biggest fears. Just saying the weight that I started at. Yes, I suppose anyone could be reading this including people from work etc. but the truth is that I am loving the person that I am becoming. The person that I started as is not the person that I am today. When I began this process I started at roughly 305 pounds. So with this weight loss I have effectively lost 33% of my starting weight. My next big goal is to see a "1" at the beginning of my weight. Honestly, I think that if I stayed at 199 for the remainder of my life I would be happy. I don't want that to be my stopping point I just can't wait to see that number. When that happens I think that a celebration will be in order!

Today's meal rundown~ breakfast was a carb check bagel, WW cream cheese, SF jam, and apple
Lunch~leftover chicken stir fry from yesterday
Snack~ yogurt and Kashi Go lean crunchy bar ( very yummy by the way for a 3 pt value!)
Dinner~ Whole wheat pasta topped with hamburger stroganoff a recipe from Cooking Light and a veggie mix.

Overall, it was a splendid last day of vacation! I can't believe that I have to go back to work tomorrow. That will be a big change, but I am looking forward to be back on a routine. Well somewhat:) It was also nice to meet Kevin at the gym for some treadmill time after he got off of work.

Lazy Sunday

Today was a perfect Sunday in my opinion. Since it rained/iced yesterday we just stayed up late and watched movies all night. Thus, it led us to sleep in really late today. I think I woke up the first time at 9 then rolled over and fell back asleep. I finally pulled myself out of bed just shy of 11. It was a glorious sleep in morning. I then ate a Carb check bagel with WW cream cheese and my new SF blueberry Smucker's jam. It was fantastic. I also had a clementine and made a latte with my new espresso maker that I got for Christmas. I loved using the Breville espresso machine. It worked a lot better than I thought it would for an at home machine.

For lunch I enjoyed leftover meatloaf and smashed potatoes. It was just as good if no better than it was last night. I have to say that I will be making that meatloaf several times more this year! For an afternoon snack I had a bowl of airpopped popcorn. One of my all time favorite snacks.

The meal that I cooked today was from the Diet 2009 magazine. The sweet and sour chicken was another success. I used the base recipe from the magazine but I bought a prepacked pound of mixed vegetables from Whole Foods when we went on our grocery shopping date on Friday. It had broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peppers, snow peas, and onions. I added a little bit more onion, celery, and sweet peppers. I then also used 2Tb of sesame oil to saute the chicken in. The sauce that you make turned out pretty good. I wouldn't have called this dish sweet and sour at all, but more just like a brown sauce stir-fry. I plated the stir fry with 1/2 c of brown rice and some toasted sesame seeds. Kevin said that the meal turned out all right, but he preferred the meat loaf. He just doesn't like big chunks of veggies. Oh well, I thought that it was pretty good and went from stove top to table in less than 30 minutes. Thanks Whole Foods for the tasty veggie blend!

Tomorrow is the WW weigh in day. According to our scale this will not be a losing week. Our scale is a bit different than the one at WW. We shall see.

I'll give you a resolution!

I keep joking with my husband that since it is a new year we can finally begin the fine in 09' program. We get a good laugh out of it. So, did I make a resolution like my other fellow Americans? Yes, I did. My husband and I make a list of goals that we have for the year and then review them throughout the year and then again at year end. We achieved quite a few for 2008 including me finding a new job and booking our next international vacation. The goals for this new year are very much of the same type. A very personal goal is to get down to the weight that my doctor has set as an acceptable number for me. I am 29 pounds away from that number. While that seems like a lot, because of course it is, I am very happy with the results that I have had lately. I am 1 pound away from a very important milestone for myself. In one pound I will have lost a total of 100 pounds. Kevin and I were talking yesterday about weight loss, about how far I have come, and how far I have yet to go. But, the one thing that really stood out for me is the distance that I have come in this journey. I would have never thought that I was a person who could come this far. The only thing I can think about is just putting one foot in front of the other. There is no magic pill that will cure obesity, overeating, or lack of motivation. If there was I would have signed up long ago. The truth is that if I would have been able to fix this problem in one pill I would not have the same respect for myself that I do now.

As far as the weigh in goes (cause I have not updated that in a long time) I am down 16lb from going back to WW in November. Yeah!

The other thing that I wanted to write about is the idea of eating more healthfully. I can stay within my points with a normal amount of effort. This is made much easier if I eat things that are prepared, ie frozen meals and the like. This is made much harder when I have to actually cook a meal from tip to tail and add up all of those delicious points. So a personal mini goal will be for me to cook more often and then freeze portions for leftovers instead of so heavily relying on prepacked items. Keep in mind that at no point will I stop to eat these time saving items. Plus, let's be honest often times these items taste really down right good:)

I will try to upload some photos from tonight's meal. We had meatloaf, smashed potatoes, veggies, and a chocolate zucchini muffin. We made then all and I must add that this meal will be one that I will do over and over. The meatloaf is not for someone looking to have a quick meal though. It takes nearly an hour to simmer the brown lentils and prep all the veggies that go into it. I found the recipe in the 09 Jan issue of Shape. Good work Shape!