Come on Over!

Moved the blog to my own domain. Thanks to Kevin for geeking out and taking care of this!

You can view the new blog at:

www.growingintorebecca.com

I am still around, just not blogging much.....

This week has been a long one. I am working 12 days in a row. Today is half way through. I am looking forward to next weekend already. But, trying to live in the moment and enjoy something each day. I am posting a lot of photos today because I have been eating a lot of good food this week. The first is the V8 Roasted Red Pepper soup. I loved this soup! It tasted like something that I would make myself. It wasn't thin like I had expected, but I really loved it. Why make it yourself when you can just open the carton and enjoy the home made taste immediately?

Ah, Lean Cuisine...how I love thee. I saw through Hungrygirl that LC was coming out with some new recipes. I was on the lookout for these and this is the first one that I found. It is the pest chicken with bow tie pasta. I had this the other night at work and it was almost like an escape to an Italian restaurant. The only thing that was a little bit off was that the chicken was a little tough. I don't think that it was due the meal, rather I think that it is the microwave at work. I think that LC has to be my favorite frozen meal company. My favorite meal ever is the butternut squash with vegetables. That is hands down a "bistro like" meal. I love frozen meals that fool me into thinking it is something that I could/would have made and that I didn't just nuke it.

I made steak fajitas on Thursday with some of the sweet peppers that we bought at Costco. Instead of using fajita seasoning I used some Chicago steak and Bar B Q 3000 (both from Penzy's spices). The sweet peppers gave it a whole new flavor instead of using green peppers. I turned this pan full of steak and veggies into several meals. I wrapped a few up in roll out flat breads and then today I made a salad from the greens I got at Whole Foods. I loved this salad and wish that I could have it again tomorrow. Too bad I am out of the fajita topping.

Like I said we went to Whole Foods today. Can you tell that the energy bars were on sale? Whole Foods is like my playground. I love to just look at everything, try their samples, and go home with something new each time. This will be about a month's worth of snacks.

That is the week in a nutshell. Not too much is going on besides work and making sure I fit in some type of work out each day. Tomorrow is weigh in day and I am hoping for a little bit more than last week. But, in all honestly I would take last weeks loss over a gain.

I love BLT's!

I love Biggest Loser Tuesdays! When I get home from work I just can hardly wait to get on the couch and fire up the DVR. I find it inspirational, just to see the transformations in the people. I know that it is not really realistic, but I still like to see it anyways. I mean who works out for 6-8 hours a day. Well besides those people on the Biggest Loser.

Yesterday I went to WW and I was down 0.6lb for the week. Not the best weigh in but certainly not the last. I just have to remember that it is important one day at a time. I can only live one day at a time, therefore I will have to take it a day at a time. I felt really good about my total loss thus far when I went to Gap. I tried on quite a few clothes, and they fit! It is so weird to me to go into a "regular" store and try on clothes off the rack. I ended up buying a pair of jeans (size 14) and a gray cardigan. That is the first time I have ever bought anything other than an accessory in that store. I then followed it up by going to Banana Republic and tried on a few outfits there too. I did not buy anything, but just to know that it fit, and that some of it was too big was amazing to me!

The first photo today is from breakfast. I had a carb check bagel with cream cheese and SF jam. I also made a smoothie with strawberries, amaretto cheesecake yogurt, flax, ice, and milk. But, the extra special treat is the coconut coffee that I made in the french press. The coffee had a great flavor and I really savored the overall experience of a leisure breakfast. I was really full after this meal. I ended up eating a sandwich on the way to work. I try not to eat while doing anything else, but I knew I would get too hungry if I waited for snack time at work without eating something for "lunch."

For my snack I had this Luna bar. YUM! I have to say that it was delicious. It was everything that I had hoped it would be. I told my friend that it kind of tasted like a crunchy Andes mint. This is one that I will be buying again. I really like trying new bars all of the time. It is a way to feel like I am having a treat while still filling an important role in my overall daily points.

Friday!

Yeah it is Friday. That means I only have to work today and tomorrow. Yeah, almost the end of the week! Things have been good for the most part here. Work has been stressful and yesterday I felt like I could not get full. I would eat something and then feel instantly hungry right away. This should not have been. I ate protein, carbs, and veggies. It just did not happen. Then last night we had a potluck dinner at work. I had a bowl of chili with a piece of corn bread topped with a few Frito's. Not the best dinner ever, but guess what I then ate a few bites of mocha gelato. It was crazy because I did not binge and go out of control, but I had the same feelings. It has been so long since I have ate a meal that large that it felt weird to have my stomach feel so stretched out. But, then about an hour later I felt empty again. I forced myself to take a hot shower and then go to bed when I got home. No snack or popcorn. I hope that it all works out in the end. I have been really busy at work, so it is like a workout in and of itself.

I am going to blue planet grill again today with some old coworkers. It should be fun. I may get the same thing, but I might change my mind. They wanted to go to California Taco. I decided that I was not going to go there. I know that I would want to get nachos and then I would feel awful after eating them. So that was a no go.

That is pretty much the end of the week wrap up in a nutshell. I just wish that it were Saturday so that I would be on my last day. Oh well, no such luck.

Another week bites the dust

First day back at work for the week. Tonight wasn't that bad of a night at work It was nice, the last several nights have not been as kind. This week will be super busy and I don't really want to think of how busy it will be, but I can only take it one night at a time. So the picture above is of what I have been eating for breakfast this last week. It is a carb check bagel with WW cream cheese and SF blackberry jam. The drink on the right is green tea. The drink on the left is a pineapple smoothie made with yogurt, pineapple, flax seeds, and water. The whole breakfast is like 5-6 points. It is really filling. Too bad I am out of bagels, so tomorrow I will be back to oatmeal.

Yesterday was my weigh in day and I was so happy. I was down 2.6 pounds. It was nice to see the scale move again as I had stayed the exact same last week. I am getting so close to my goal for before our anniversary trip to Kansas City.

Time for some honesty. Lately I have been really worried about gaining the weight back. There was this lady at WW yesterday that said she had lost 100lb and then gained it and then some back. The thought of it really scares me. I know that this is a complete lifestyle change, and I am in it. But, the thought of going back to where I was petrifies me. I have heard that it is easier to lose weight than it is to maintain it. I am thinking about this now because I know that I will be at goal weight sometime, maybe even this year and then what. It all boils down to taking it one day at a time, or one meal at a time. Whatever it takes. It is a lifestyle change, one that I have complete determination and support for.

Trust me, it is not will power!

Yeah it is Thursday! Does not mean only one more day of work for me. It just means I get to come home to lots of good shows on the DVR. I can not wait to watch the Office. It is another cold, freezing cold day here. At least the sun is out. That helps.

I have talked to quite a few people lately that say, "I do not know how you did it, you must have the best will power ever." Here is the most honest thing that I am ever going to say. It is not will power! If you open up a box of cereal or a bag of peanut butter cups and I do not have a eating plan for the day I will eat the items above without thought. But, if I have a plan I can allow myself some of the food if I feel it will fit into my plan. More than likely I will turn it down because I have everything planned that I will eat for the entire day. By having this relationship with food allows me to truly be free. I know that for most people this will not work. They may feel like this is too constraining. For me though this allows me to spend my time without thinking about food. I do not have to spend hours thinking about when I will eat next, what I will eat next. Now I know around what time I will eat and what I will eat. This allows me to say if I am full then that is all right, I do not have to finish everything on my plate. On the other hand if I am hungry then I can eat my snack if I am truly hungry. More likely I will wait until my normal snack time, because I know that the food will be there waiting for me.

Here is another honest thing, I am not perfect. More often than not this works for me, but there are days where I eat more or less. My mantra is that no one is perfect. I will take each day at a time and if the day is very difficult I will take it one hour at a time. The truth is you can not live more than one hour at a time anyways, so why rush it?

Food for the day: carb check bagel, cream cheese, and SF jam
Lunch: chicken stir fry pictured above. Instead of rice I used quinoa as the grain. (Same veggie blend from Whole Foods as last time) It was actually really good. I think that it is more of a texture thing rather than a taste thing.
Snack: new clif bar and cheese
Dinner: more stir fry, yogurt, and a cookie
Snack: orange

I am off to work. This is my mid-week hump. Wishing that it was the last day for me, oh well. Hopefully it will not be as cold when I leave work tonight. I can hope!

More food I love!

Let's be honest shall we? I love food. I love trying new flavors and textures. So, here are two new things that I ate today. The popcorn is amazing! It is caramel apple and it tastes so rich like an apple just dripping with chewy caramel. They are full sized bags and if I figured it out correctly, if you eat the whole bag it is 5 points. I hate figuring out caloric findings on popcorn. They set it up like if you would make 2Tb and the nutritional information is different pre and post popped. It is very confusing, but either way it is very delicious!

The other fun thing I ate today was this nectar bar. The flavor is lemon, vanilla, and cashew. This nectar bar is my favorite one that I have tried thus far. It had such a good texture and the flavors just exploded. I would pick this bar over just about any dessert on about any day. I love this Clif bars. One thing that I like so much about these bars is that they are made with less than five ingredients. So often, bars have millions of ingredients, lots of which I don't even know what they are. Good work Cliff bar makers!

The day was a long one and work was even longer. Very busy tonight and I am exhausted. I did not cook anything today. I ate leftover chicken fajitas and a frozen pizza for meals today. I think I am going to make stir fry tomorrow. It is so cold here. When I left work my dashboard said that it was -9 degrees out. I think that when it is this cold everyone should be able to stay home under a blanket. That is a deal I think everyone can agree on!