The fun side of being sick!

I have a huge swollen eye thanks not taking my allergy medicine! So instead of going out, we stayed in today. Little S was with grandma. I woke up to the best thing on the beside table! Coffee!!!

Exactly the way I like it! Iced French Vanilla Americano, light ice and a splash of soy at the end! Perfection! 

We hung around and I tackled some laundry, while the hubs cleaned out the garage for me!  This is only about a week's worth of laundry! 

 To make our mornings easier, one hanger hold -shorts & shirts, pair of socks and underwear. I or she can just pull one of the rack and she is all set. No more hunting for matching items when I need coffee and she "is too sleepy" to look.

 I keep two extra outfits just tops and bottoms on the closet shelf just in case weather or mood does not work and we need a backup!

It was lunchtime by now. I had bought salmon which my husband dislikes, so I fixed it my way. 

 My seafood favorites!

 I have the Medifast guides right inside the cabinet doors, so as I reach for ingredients or meals, I can keep on track!

 I measure it just right to 5 oz!

 And then just add the veggies! Simple and filling lunch!

Some sweeping, a few dishes and some damp wipe down of doors, its time to watch Buying the Bayou on HGTV! First time watching it and its growing on me! 

Week One - Day 3 Weigh In this Friday!

I created this food journal so I can keep track of EVERYTHING!

 

I hope this helps me keep on track to losing weight!!!

Starting the Morning with H2O!

This is the center of my life right now. Water and my meal log.  Medifast has this cool colorful form that helps you records all your meals and activities. I love it! It comes two to a page.

The energy from yesterday's busy day stayed with me and helped me get going this morning. Tired and sore, but still energized!  Yesterday we were saddeling up the horse at 8:00 am for my daughter's lesson. The breeze was nice and cool, perfect weather!!

Grocery shopping, walked to the park, pulling weeds and dead bushes out, blowing and cleaning up leaves, cleaned return a/c grill in the kitchen (gross), wiped down island range, vacummed upstairs and rug downstairs, wiped down the fan blades, cut down branches from our back tree, put up laundry and even created a mermaid costume from scraps for my daughter to wear. Of course the dishes and kitchen cleaning was spread throughout the day.

This morning we made breakfast, cleaned up, swept, started laundry and finally, with Pocahontas help, was able to go through a whole ENTIRE Parents magazine! It was amazing!!

I hope this kicks me into being more active on a DAILY basis!! I need to lose this weight! The morning walk into my closet makes me sad. Half of my closet is lined with rows and rows of clothes that DONT FIT!! That fit just a few months ago!!! WHYYY!?!?! Well, I will tell you why, because of whataburger! Because of the convenience of fast food! What convenience huh? That few conveniences, and there were quite a few, were enough to make every morning an inconvenience!!! Seeing the scale linger and knowing its not going down, is FRUSTRATING and at the same time MOTIVATING!! That I am not working hard enough, that no matter what i record, my body is recording everything!!! It will not let me cheat, it will not let me get away with not putting in the hard work. Look, for me, being a single parent has been hard, managing the bills by myself has been hard, working part time and putting myself through school was hard, but they are getting done or have been done. So I know myself enough to KNOW that I can do this! I have the personality and dedication to get to where I need to be, to where I feel comfortable not having to wear shirts long enough to cover my stomach, to where I know I look great when I smile, to where my cheeks are gone down enough to not have to worry about straightening my hair and looking like I have an even ROUNDER face!! I need to stop being lazy, I need to plan it out, I need to remain focused and I need to want it even more than anything!!!

Whew, sorry, ranting...but this is where I am right now!! And I dont want to continue being here!! =) Wish me luck, say a little prayer for me!!!

How to get re-focused?

My life has been a chaotic mess in the past few months. And sadly, my waistline is showing it. Too many of those really low moments when regardless of how happy I was earlier in losing those pounds, I didn't care, and ordered pizza or fast food! =(. Lots of pizza, lots of fast food. Lots of sugar and carbs. No healthy blog reading, no digestive healths, no vitamin B12's, no fish oils and of course, NO WATER!

The WORST feeling in the world is having to face it by buying new bigger clothes!!! =( It's depressing....and I don't want this. This size of clothing, this section of shopping in the store, the style, I want better, at least where I was before and hoping for better.

	Monday
Date	5/20
Meal 1	7:30 PEACH TEA DH, B12, FO, ALLEG 16 OZ DRIVE IN
Meal 2	10:20 PEACH TEA
Meal 3	11:30 GRILLED BEEF TACO RICE BEANS
Meal 4	12OZ TAPIOCA TEA
Meal 5
Lean & Green

I didnt make the best choice for lunch again. I think its time to go back twice a week until I get my routine under control. I need the accountability factor to help me through this!!

Goodbye 5!

I have a horrible habit of not charging my phone! Sadly, no lunch pictures. But it was good.

Ground buffalo pattie style on a bagel thin with ketchup! Yummy goodness!

My day went something like this:

My chicken in Cajun tonight! Thanks to my friend Tony! 



Prepared stove top with a little olive oil then added the veggies at the end. Chopped tomatoes, spinach and portabello mushrooms.

 Good meal. I love mushrooms!

 It was raining the entire day, so we didn't get to go outside.

This morning, on the scale I went.....5 lbs down!!!!!!!!! YAY!!! Wow! That is such a good push, I almost could not believe it!!! On a sad note, I found a printout of my last inbody taken in March of this year....

Seems I weighed 7 pounds LESS then than today!!! =( bummer!!! Now it feels like I wasted the last few months!!! =(

Reset Button!!

Don't you ever wish your actions had an undo button! Just press and bam, back to where you want to be? If I had one, I would go back to when I was SUPER dedicated to Medifast. Weeks, really months, before I decided that going out to eat just "this once" was not going to hurt me. You know, because I would know that I just HAD to work it off with a pilates CD or a short run.

Well, that never quite worked.  So back to basics.

The basics for me are:

• Write down EVERYTHING I eat.
• Take pictures of all my lean and greens.
• Go onto mymedifast.com and write everything down.
• Go to Carrotsncake.com and katheats.com at LEAST once a day and get a fresh motivational push.

Yesterday worked out great.

For lunch I had two Morning Start Basil Pizza patties with  ketchup on a Thomas's Everything Bagel Thin.  My greens were canned green beans, sauteed with sliced portabello mushrooms and cubbed tomatoes. Filling and fast to prepare.

 Love these patties, they smell soo good!

Off to whole foods for Kale for .....KALE CHIPS!!! Love these!

Organic chicken thighs, sauteed spinach with pepper and Olive Oil, kale chips with ketchup!

yummy. Need to work on color. Too much green, but so good.

After dinner, on went the running shoes, packed the stroller with water, snacks and mosquito spray and off we went. The loop to the park is 2 miles total. Half jogged and fast walked the way there and tried jogging and running the last mile back. I am not at the level to be able to run a mile, not even half a mile straight, but I can always tell I am going just a little further! Love that!!!

I keep repeating to myself "tighten your core, your body is ready, its just mental now!"

Now I get why running is such a good stress relief! Its funny how just trying to  just breath and not pass out,  shifts everything to the back burner!!! Oh, is that just me?!! !=)

Lettuce Wrapping!

Sunday lunch is a great time when the family takes turns cooking lunch. Sunday morning we went off to HEB and bought the ingredients for lettuce wraps. Lettuce, cheese, diced onions, guacamole, mild salsa and tomatoes.

After much rinsing, chopping and cooking, we were finally ready to eat. Having the family over is great!

 These beauties were ready to be filled.

 Yummy goodness. Topped with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and mango salsa.

 Great recipe without the filling tortilla!!! yum-yum.

Today my water intake has been great. I have even managed to get in 2 cups of green tea and a handful of nuts for a snack.

Tony's Salmon

Today was a better Medifast day! On the plus side, I made a great lean and green meal of salmon and a few veggies pan sauteed with a little italian dressing.  This was my first time using the Tony seasoning. I loved the fact that it was salt free. Eating healthier for me, has translated into a very salt-less and sugar less way of clean eating. Sometimes I find seasonings too salty!!

 Half of the salmon went into the oven at 425 for around 20 minutes.

In the meantime, washed a few veggies and threw them all together with a tablespoon or two of italian salad dressing. I have yet to find a good veggie seasoning..=(.

 The salmon was measured to the ounce. Time to keep track of it all!!!

On the con side, my water intake has not been that great today. I have yet to make a cup of green tea, I am trying to get in at least one cup per day.  Also, no exercise today, well not real exercise. I did take the stroller out around the neighborhood yesterday. And today we finished cleaning up the garage. There are tons of boxes we cut up and are stuffed into the recycling bin. And a huge stack yet to be cut up. We were able to put up all the christmas and baby clothes and toys into the attic. We did a quick sweep and have stackes ready to donate and trash. There was sweating involved so lets just count it as exercise!!!  Further, tomorrow is our day to cook for the family. Meaning....clean the house LIKE CRAZY people. Its so much easier to spread the cleaning out throughout the week. But somehow we slacked off. So we did everything within 2 hours. Sweeping, dusting blinds and all tops of the mantle, counters, tables, fans, light fixtures...and on and on!!! Restocked the guest restroom, cleaned up all the mail from the entrance table, clear the formal dining table from all the pending crafts! Teamwork really helped. And just a tip, glass switch covers do go with the whole hollywood glam style but add that to the cleaning list!!! why?!?!?!?!?? Nobody told me that!!! lol!!!

Its interesting that I leave some items up on the counters because I just dont know where they should really go or dont have time to put them in the right place, but let me know that company is coming and everything goes to their proper "home" in no time!!! Note to self, host more parties!!!

I did go by the Medifast office today. Apparently I have 52 weeks left on my plan. The small goal was to get these last 13 pounds off in the next 5 weeks. Then we would start the transition phase and then the stabilization phase.  Wow, close! On a bittersweet note, a great counselor Tiffany who has practically been on this journey with me from the start is taking off on me....what the.....?!?!?!?!? I wish her the best, but I am going to MISS her sooo much!! She was such a great person to talk to and so positive all the time, she helped me get back on track in the sweetest of ways!!! sniff-sniff!!!

Hello.....Is anyone out there?!

Wow, just realized my last post was in September...WOW!! Where have I been...well here, really..lol!! Crazy life just got the best of me, the holidays, buying a new home, moving into such home, decorating, painting, and on and on and on and on....!
But I am back!!!! hehehehehehe! To summarize, here I sit overall completely happy with the Medifast journey I am still on. I am only 15 pounds away from my goal weight of 175. Which would put me into a comfortable size of a medium. I am currently stuck at 180-189lbs!!!! Grrr! I have not been able to break free from this weight for a few months. But of course, confession time, I have not been COMPLETELY on the plan. Let me explain. I miss regular food!! I dont miss the fruits, the breads, and the high carb veggies like potatoes. Don't get me wrong just thinking of a freshly oven baked potatoes make my mouth water! But all of these things have not tempted me enought to go "of the plan". The other stuff is getting to me, the slice of pizza at parties, a glass of wine here and there at family get togethers. A bite here and there of the kiddie grilled cheese sandwich that my daughter left on her plate, a chicken strip here and there. Soooo in all fairness I have not gone to a fast food restaurant in such a loooong time that I don't even get tempted at the fact of driving through a fast food place. But its the other little stuff, when I just dont have enough time to prepare a decent healthy meal!! And there it is the problem of all problems!! Not enough time. Everytime I pre-cook a nice piece of salmon and precut my veggies for my salads, I seem to be able to stay on plan more easily. But of course, I have not been doing that. Coupled with the fact that I have not been blogging or keeping a food journal is really allowing me to hide away all these bad eating habits. So today's resolution....get back on it!!! Record it all, pretty and not so pretty!!!!


I have come this far, I know the I have so little to go, yet it stretches before me as a long winding road.

Oh well, nowhere to go but forward towards my goal. Please wish me luck!!!

So tonight was night where I split my lean and green. For lunch we went to Luby's where I picked up a blackened tilapia with side of spinach.  Yummy!!

For the second lean and green, hubby ordered oven roasted wings, without sauce from our favorite pizza place. In preparation I chopped up veggies and rinse some salad greens.

 Ready and stored for next time.

 Salad, water, green tea and a few wings.

Really good dinner as we saw Planet of the Apes. I loved it! Such a good movie, thank you redbox, I cant believe I never saw the previews for this movie!!! It would have been great to see this movie at the theather!!!

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.