Beautiful Weather!

The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL. From 100+ to cool low 80's!!!! Love it!  We went for a great walk yesterday evening. We even saw a bunny! I stumbled upon Dailymile.com and registered. Hopefully a great way to track my walking miles.

It's official (almost), the decision has been made its now time to pay up! I am walking the Susan G Komen - Race for the Cure on October 1st! Fully inspired by some of my blog favs, I mentioned to my friend I wanted to work up to running a 5K. She is registering with her job, invitedd me, and I am in!!! We are going with the walking group until we work our way up to running one! I am beyond excited! i am nervous, wish me luck!

What goes better with this cool weather than yummy creamy chicken noodle soup!?! Nothing! I measured 8 ounces from the extremely, can literally cause 3rd degree burns,  hot water that comes out of the coffee maker and then placed it in the microwave for less than a minute. It came out super creamy! Love the texture!!!

Can't say the same for the styrofoam but it helped out!

Ever feel like you just don't have enough energy in the morning?!? Of course you do! Of course, I did, this morning! And like magic, a skinny vanilla latte with soy milk found its way to my office! yay!!! I ordered a tall, yet still have problems getting through it! Is there a kiddie size, for next time? LOL

And lunchtime wouldn't be complete without catching up with my fav bloggers. I heart them! They are so inspirational and give me that extra push to make healthier choices every.single.day!

Complexity Salad!

Say hello to my new friends! Todays salad had, romaine hearts, veggie shreds, sunflower seeds, artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes. The combination of them is AMAZING! New to the mix is the bag of “fake cheese” as everyone in my family calls them, artichoke hearts and Tuscany Italian Dressing.  I love my fake cheese so much, its a keeper!

 

Layered them all to make this beautiful salad.

 

Added my lean amount of chicken on the side, and dinner was complete. Lately I have been getting full really fast! I take a few bites of my medifast bar and before I realize it, its half an hour later with half a bar remaining. Same goes for the lean and green, I couldn’t even finish the entire salad of my green a few nights back! Hopefully, things can settle down and everything gets back on track!

Regarding exercise, we had been getting into a pretty solid walking routine. Unfortunately, my daughter got a very mild case of the flu/cold virus, no fever, but she was very uncomfortable.  The first attempt at a walk was a success, the second was a complete disaster. She cried in the stroller and I had to walk the 7 blocks home with her in one arm while pushing the stroller with the other. I kept switching her weight from left to right after just half a block towards the end, yet both of my arms were so sore. So no more exercise for the rest of last week. Good news is that I lost 2.5lbs this week.

I bought these great beautifully sliced portabello mushrooms. I love the taste! Sautéed them with a little olive oil and half the can of diced tomatoes. I love my usual salads but I didn’t want these to go to waste.

No salt! They did great with the mushrooms, but they were still salty tasting to me! Go figure! I guess, I got un-used to canned food taste...? 

Overall they turned out great. The tomatoes gave them just a slight layer of flavor until the yummy mushroom taste came through. Paired with ground buffalo meat seasoned with a little black pepper. Very yummy.

 Shortly after dinner, we loaded the stroller, set the water sprinkler and off for a walk we went.  Can you believe with 100+ day temperatures, there was actually a breeze! A breeze, I almost forgot they existed in this humid heat!!!

Since my goal was to follow the Mayo Clinic 5K training schedule, today was the “running” day. 15 seconds of jogging with 45 seconds of walking. I am not a runner, jogger or even a fast walker for that matter.  I am almost ashamed to admit I don’t even know how to properly jog! I gathered some tips on the internet, run within the frame of your body, have a snack after the jog, etc. But I am pre-pre-novice here!  Nevertheless, we took off and found a really nice trail that extended the width of our neighborhood. We reached the park in no time. Such a nice shortcut. Also, it sits back at the end of the neighborhood, making it a super quiet walk. Only a few people walking, playing outside or watering their garden and nicely shaded! Our new route.

After getting back, I had one hefty scoop of Almond butter. My counselor had advised to save just a small portion of my lean and green and have it after the jog. Unfortunately, with this hot weather, I had not planned on going out, so I was unprepared! We are officially out of peanut butter, so I “borrowed” a scoop from my daughter’s almond butter.

Just showered and put the baby to bed. Time for some mindless tv!!! What is on tonight?

Lunch with the Family!

One of the highlights of my weekends is spending lunch with the family.  It's the time that we are all gathered together and have a great time. This was my sisters week to cook. On the menu was vodka sauce over spaghetti.

I pulled a BYOSalad, I washed and cut up Romaine hearts, cucumber, tomatoes and packed some sunflower seeds. Assembled it while there.  I added a sliced chicken breast, not pictured here.

 The smell from the sauce was sooo delish!!! Unfortunately, half and half was added right at the end, so it was off limits. How I wish I would have grabbed some sauce before!!

 They were hard at work in the kitchen for a few hours, but it really paid off! Everyone thought the food was delicious. Next weekend is our weekend to cook, mmmm, I have to start thinking of a healthy menu that everyone can be happy with.

 My last weigh in was this past Friday. Four more pounds lost, for a total of 44. Love it! I was worried going in since I had gone to my daughter's two year check up without my medifast meal!!! After a moment of panic, and knowing I had less than 10 minutes to eat, I ate my daughter's snack, a mozarella cheese stick. YIKES!!!! I figured the cheese stick although not optimal was definately better than not eating anything at all.

Gladly, it didn't seem to affect my weight loss for the week. VERY NICE.

I love the results of this plan. I like the ease and convenience. I don't like thinking I am on a fad diet that once I get off of it I will see the weight come back on.  I kept thinking that Medifast was more of a lifestyle change. To utilize is as the tool to get me from unhealthy weight to a normal range weight and then dedicate time to eating healthy. Kind of like a way to get me back to square one and let me take it from there.

I read wonderfully great blogs on other people's sucess at weight loss whether on Medifast, Weight Watchers and other such tools and get inspired. Yet sometimes I see the blogs where they advocate losing weight just by excercising and eathing healthy and rejecting the entire idea of the fad diets. The whole diets dont work mentality. Where does the truth lie?  Is the whole "diets dont work" mentality stem from the fact that once we are off the diet plan we can no longer be trusted to make the right choices for our bodies or is it deeper than that?

I want to believe that 44 pounds off and learning how to eat every 2-3 hours plus what to eat, plus the added bonus of excercise, would be support enough to guide me in making me make good food choices. Will it not? I don't expect it to be a miracle mental cure, where I will have no more temptations over unhealthy food choices. But at the same time, how can it not help!? Interesting....

Beware of pickers!!!

I was starting to get a little bored with my lean and green meals. Vacation cooking + catching up from vacay + running after my two year old = little time or energy to focus on menu planning.  

On the plus side, having salads as my green, is working out great. I don't remember ever looking forward to having a salad. But now I can't wait to get in there and start experimenting with them.  I love that salads are so versatile, just add what you are in the mood for, or as in my case whatever is available in the fridge! They have great volume on the plate, more so now that I am actually weighing the lettuce.

So I went back to basics and opened up the Medifast recipe book.  Since I already had ground turkey defrosted, I re-tried the Italian Sausage Patties.  I added red pepper flakes for an extra kick! Served them over a salad...and dinner was ready!! This salad has grape tomatoes, broccoli, seeds, mini yellow and red peppers, topped with champagne vinagrette. It was delish!!

While searching for the best lighting, a small hand almost made away with one of my patties!!! Too cute!

Shopping!!!

After a week's vacation, there was no food in the fridge.  I get inspired by a fully stocked fridge, so off to the grocery store we went! We loaded up on a few basics to get us through the next few days. Not pictures is the rotisserie chicken. A quick salad was on the menu!

 I love the Thousand Island dressing, but am trying the Raspberry and the Champagne.  My friend made the best salad that had me craving for more seeds!

 After dinner, I watched the Rocco's Dinner Party show on Bravo. I went back into the kitchen, and started prepping the grapes for my daughter. It makes it so much easier to have them all cut up and saved rather than trying to cut them the day we are packing them! Washed, sliced, stored and in the fridge!!!

 I put together my Medifast Meals for tomorrow. This is the last bar!!! I had a repair man coming out at 5, so there was no way I could stop at the Medifast Office.  I HAVE to go tomorrow, no bars??? I can't handle that! =)

 After washing the dishes, I still felt the cleaning bug! I took everything out of the fridge, wiped down walls and shelves. Ha! I feel so organized now! The first shelf usually hold all of my daughters snacks. The eggs are just visiting! The second shelf has ground turkey defrosting, rotisserie chicken and left over beans.

And the third shelf is all mine!! Its the mini salad bar. Everything cubed and prepped, cut up mini peppers, cut up broccoli and cut up scallions. I ran out of containers, so I borrowed one of my daughters, shhh!!!

 Sorry for the sideways picture, could not get it to cooperate!

Tonight I prepared a huge salad with chicken breast. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of it!
But I do have a picture of yesterday's dinner. Little patties of ground buffalo with steamed broccoli and a side of sugar free green tea.

Beef Stew Repeat!

Yesterday's lunch was bowl of Medifast Beef Stew! I love this hearty soup, so filling!

 I am running low on food, so Beef Stew it was again for today's lunch! H2O on the side, of course!

I have yet to get on the scale since the vacation. Little scared. I hope they don't put me on today when I pick up food! Off to make the weekly menu plan!

Front Beach Road, PCB!

Sadly vacation is over!!! Waking up to this view for a week really spoiled us all! The constant crashing of the waves onto white sand has such a calming and soothing effect!!! 

It was the one week that it rained in Panama City Beach! Lucky us (sarcastic tone). We waited until the sky semi-cleared and went out again!

 I enjoyed two packages of the Via Cinnamon Spice instant coffees. When I used sugar, these held no flavor for me! Now, sans sugar, they are the packages with the most taste to them for me! Go figure!!! Made me think about the common denominator in most of the foods I used to eat, sugar....umm...not good.

 I knew the lunch menu for the week, nachos, spagetti with meatballs, burgers, arroz con leche. I gathered my bag and almost ran out of the house in search for healthy foods! I knew that I was not going to spend my vacation stuck in the kitchen cooking elaborate meals for myself. So I searched in hopes of ready to eat healthy alternatives to go with salads (my green for the week.)  I was surprised to find a healthy section at WinnDixie. 

Buffalo Burgers- can never go wrong with this meat! Tofurky - first time trying them. The flavor was surprisingly really good! The texture, not so much, a little to mushy for my taste! The portabella mushroom burgers were the BEST. Super good taste and great texture!! I used the grassfed beef over a salad, really good!!!

 Of course, after a long drive and still having to follow a two year old around, I bought starbucks! Yikes!!! I choose the best thing I saw on the menu, a Skinny sugar free vanilla latte, 120 calories.

Overall, I think the heatlhy section of food, really helped! It was very tempting to see the other people around me eat all the goodies that I would have loved to be tasting and sit there and pretend that my salad and lean matched up to it!

But in the end, I am happy to have controlled the impulses to reach across and take just one bite of the sweet smelling arroz con leche or a just a small bite of the hamburger with toasted bun and melted cheese!! I resisted, and I am grateful.

One of my biggest food goals was to be able to resist, take in the moment and move past the food temptations. Seeing the pictures of the vacation I took with my daughter, yes i am only half way there, but the double chin was almost non existant as where before it would have been ever present!!! That made it worth it! No thanks cheeseburger!!!

Goodbye 39! Hello Panama City Beach!!

So here I am, with 39 pounds lost to date! 39! Yay! I am about half way towards my goal, only 39 more left to go.   I feel happy that I am half way there and that it looks so promising. 

This week I am on vacation!! A "real one" finally! We have taken a few mini vacations to Galveston and even stayed there over an entire week. But there is something about actually driving to another state, to a place I have not been to before that makes it feel like a real vacation!

I started off with packing my meals in little plastic bags. So things would not be scattered throughout! It looked something like this:

Then I started getting super nervous about running low or out of food. Not because I wasn't taking enough, but for the what if's that could come up! So back to the Medifast office, I went to get two more little boxes! The just in case boxes!!! That brought me to this:

I was also able to include the fish oil and B-6 pills, can of peanut butter (not mine, for my daughter), and the scale.

And here are these beauties waiting for snack time. Not all of these are for me, I am sharing with everyone going on the trip, 12 of us....maybe I need more bags!

The goal is to continue staying on plan, of course. Specifically, my goal is to keep track of my meal and set my cell phone alarm for my next meal time. And to take the time out to eat. Don't rush through it. I feel mastering this skill while on vacation we help me make it a priority in the long run.

Copy Cat Hummus!!

I love Hummus! More than I can explain! The texture, the taste, how is goes with everything!! So, to say that I miss it, is an understatement.
I wanted to spice things up and stop eating fish! But when I went into the fridge I had three Tilapia fillets defrosted...=(. So I cooked them stove top with Olive oil and Ms. Dash No Salt Lemon Pepper.

But the memory of Hummus haunted me......what to do? Make a copy cat!! I had these veggies that needed to be used. So I cooked them stovetop with olive oil and italian seasonings for a few minutes. Then added water, covered and let them get nice and soft.

 Lots of veggie goodness.

 Pulsed them in the processor, until I got this! Thick enough like hummus! Love it, the texture is great and the flavor of veggies is great!

 This is 3 ounces of Tilapia with salad and my copy cat veg hummus! So good.

I received this great chart from the office, that lists the ounce equivalence of measuring cups for all sorts of veggies. Everytime I measured out my salad greens I noticed some where larger or smaller, just depending on the type of lettuce or measuring cup. This chart is fantastic!! Now there will be no question as to how much is a cup of lettuce! The above has half the portion of the Lean with close to one serving of the lettuce (half a cup equals 2 ounces). The above has roughly once ounce of lettuce to allow for the cherry tomatoes. And spoonful of the veggie puree!

Spiced Up Fish!

Loving tilapia right now!!! Last week I prepared it with three different spices and had myself a taste test! I used Mrs. Dash, Salt-Free Lemon Pepper & Tomato Basil Garlic and McCormick's Perfect Pinch Cajun.

Prepared stove top with a little olive oil. Dinner was served. A little piece of each spiced up fish.  Overall, they were all pretty good! The Cajun was the best, just enough spice without making it spicy! This is a half portion of the daily Lean and Green.

The Lemon Pepper spice made a second appearance during the week. This portion is the full Lean and Green for the day. My healthy fats included olive oil and the Walden Farms Thousand Island dressing. Paired with baby green salad with tomatoes,broccoli and chopped white mushrooms.

 

Yesterday's weigh in was a little dissapointing. I lost only one pound during the last week. Its good to hear that at least there was a loss. But not meeting my two average was a let down.

Week 9 - Goodbye 31!

This morning started off with some basic meal planning for the week. Its great to have a fridge stocked up with meats, so mostly veggies this week! Easy grocery store run....hopefully!

 Before the grocery store run, I had a weigh in at 11:30. I went in a little nervous and excited. I had missed last week's meeting. I had no idea how much I had lost or where I was at.  The scale did not dissapoint! Six pounds lost in the the last two weeks! For a grand total of 31 for the entire 9 weeks I have been on the plan! Wow! Its really nice to know! I was running really low on food. So I bought 18 boxes worth of food. I love these collapsable containers that make carrying the goodies home so much easier than plastic after plastic bag!

Here is what the majority of my food looks like.  There are 6 boxes of the chocolate crunch bars. I love these bars, not only love, they are the only ones from all the ones I have tasted that I like. The others are too much on the sweet side for me!

 The Essential 1 meals are my new favorite. They taste so much better than the regular meals. The Dark chocolate Antiodidants Shake is DELISH!!! The new one for this purchase is the Cherry Pomegranate flavor, I love cherries and love the POM drink...so I hope this turns out good.  Another new one is the banana pudding. I hope that turns out good!

 Back during the first week of the plan, I placed all of the Medifast Meals on the first shelf. As I brought on more food and supplies, I am now giving the plan the entire three shelves.  Its good for me to have lots of options in regards to the food that I want to eat on a particular day. I have stocked this up with all of my favorites and the newbies. When I began, I would place the entire 5 medifast meals in one bag, so I could just grab and go. That really worked great...until...it didn't. I started taking things out of one day, I didn't feel like eating, until I ended up with a mess of opened and incomplete bags. So here is the new system. Have all the likes together and pick and chose the day or night before.
The first shelves has all the supplies. Medicine, measuring spoons and cups, flavor insfusers and blender and drink cups.
The food begins on the second shelf. I found these great white magazine organizers that are just the right size for the width of the meal packages. I have one for the Essential shakes, one for soups and the other for the calorie burn cappuccinos.  The basket next to it holds all the bars, next to which is the recipe book. And the top shelf has a plastic shoe box filled with cheese puffs and pretzels. There are two boxes of puddings with some extra brownie and soft serve packages behind them.

Today's half of the lean and green is Salmon, prepared stove top with salt free Mr. Dash and half cup of green beans.

I am waiting for my daughter to wake up and then its off to do some grocery shopping!