Tag Archives: weight watchers

Soft Tortilla Bowl

11 Feb

I’m a bit delayed with this one but I finally got around to trying the Soft Tortilla bowls by Old El Paso. I’ve been wanting to try them for a while now but I don’t really make tacos so couldn’t justify randomly buying them.

I figured now was as good a time as any to buy the fixings for tacos soooooo I bought the bowls. I however have yet to buy the meat…so I still haven’t made tacos. *rolls eyes*

What I did do though was re-purpose them for breakfast, cause who doesn’t like a fun breakfast?

egg-taco-bowl

Because it is me I bought the whole grain bowls, hey, it lets me pretend I am making healthier choices. Don’t judge, that’s just mean. 😉

I scrambled an egg and two egg whites, tossed in some dill because, well…because I was making the eggs for me and I like dill in my eggs…that’s about how deep I get when making choices in the kitchen lol

The bowl is supposed to go in the microwave for 10 seconds according to the package, so obviously I did that. No reason not to, right?

Once it was done in the microwave I put some shredded cheese along the bottom, put the scrambled eggs in, topped with the rest of the cheese (I used 20 grams total of cheese, and yes, I weighed it out) then just for fun topped with 1 tablespoon of salsa.

Gotta say, I was quite happy with the results. Tasty. Protein and carb and dairy and I guess even veg since I had salsa on there…all good things! And better than it being all good things, it was all tasty things. Mmm!

Only thing is those bowls are small. They are mini sized so not like I couldn’t tell from the packaging they are small lol That’ll probably be okay when I actually make them as tacos because I’ll eat two but no way I am eating enough scrambled egg to fill two of those bowls, that is just too much egg. I have an egg limit and that would take me past it lol

If I hadn’t put some cheese on the bottom of the bowl I am fairly certain the heat and moisture from the scrambled eggs would have destroyed the structural integrity of the bowl and it would have been quite the messy meal. So whatever you fill yours with, I suggest putting something as a barrier along the bottom, whether it is cheese, or lettuce, or whatever your little taste buds desire. Unless of course you want it to fall apart when you pick it up and have all your fillings spill all over your plate, and your hand, and possibly your shirt…sure hope that isn’t your favourite shirt you are wearing! 😉

I am hoping to make some bbq shredded chicken in the next day or so and try that in the bowls. Or just buy some ground meat and make taco meat, then eat taco bowls like how they are meant to be used. Ya know, like normal people…

I can’t remember how long the package said they are good for once they are opened, I do remember that they need to be put in to a container of some sort (mine are currently in a Disney tupperware – in case you were wondering) and do not need to be refrigerated which if you think about it is a bit um…concerning? I mean yeah ok, they are sorta like bread, and bread doesn’t have to be refrigerated, but these aren’t really bread, and they last longer than bread would, so what is in them that has them lasting so long? I figure I don’t reeeeeally want to know so I am ignoring that little quirk. 😉

I’d classify the tortilla bowls as a good buy. They can be used for a lot of different things, you get 8 in a package, they aren’t freakishly expensive, and they taste good. Well ok, to be fair they themselves don’t have much of a taste, they are more the vessel for your other, tastier foods, but they are perfect little vessels and do a good job, which is all I ask of them.

Oh, and just an fyi, if you are on WW, one bowl is 2 SP, so yay! for a new, point friendly food. 🙂

 

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Cat vs Cookie

9 Feb

So there I was, sitting on my living room chair with two coveted Maple Shortbread Cookies. They cost me a whopping 6SP in Weight Watchers land so a definite treat.

The cat comes to sniff the first cookie. I’m ok with this because he likes to smell all my food but never tastes it. I am torn between he is sniffing for poison and if he ever smelled some he would save me by swiping the food out of my hand OR my food is so unappealing to anyone who isn’t me even a cat won’t eat it…

Anyways!

He comes to sniff the cookie. He sniffs for longer than normal. Weird, but alright. Then all of a sudden he decides to switch from sniffing to gnawing on the cookie! Doesn’t even try licking it first! Oh no, not him, just starts gnawing on it, like he could somehow fit the whole thing in his mouth. *rolls eyes*

So, being the supportive of personal growth person that I am I broke off the section of cookie that is now quite obviously never going in to my mouth and offered it to him. He nibbled it a bit then proceeded to ignore it in favour of giving himself a bath.

Seriously? He gave up a delicious Maple Shortbread Cookie to lick his own tummy. I think we can all agree he doesn’t make the best life choices.  😉

The travesty is that I lost about 1/4 of my cookie. My planned for, points already tracked, can not replace, cookie. 😦

Such a cruel world. *big epic sigh*

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Don’t let the innocent look fool you!

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Pulled Chicken

17 Nov

I cooked and it didn’t suck! Yay!

I saw a recipe on YouTube I wanted to try but couldn’t find one of the main ingredients when I was in the store today so I randomly decided to try making pulled sweet & smoky chicken in my slow cooker.

I’ve had my slow cooker for a while but never quite got around to using it. My intention was to try out slow cooker desserts, of which I have heard many a good thing! but well, yeah, didn’t happen, shrug.

But hey, why not try cooking in it today, right?

The inspiration for this meal was this…

Sorry for the ripped package, I forgot to take a picture before I oh so delicately opened it lol This is Club House brand seasoning mix for sweet & smoky pulled chicken. Mmm!

The recipe on the back made it seem super easy. Boneless skinless chicken breast, mixed with ketchup, water, brown sugar, and the seasoning mix. Pop it all in the slow cooker for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low. Remove it from the slow cooker and tear the chicken with two forks, put it back in the slow cooker to fully coat the chicken and bring it back up to a hot temperature, then serve on a bun.

I did everything the recipe said to, except I halved it. I own a small slow cooker, and I’m cooking for one person over here, an 8 portion dish is a tad much for me!

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See? Tiny slow cooker!

Oh! I lied! I also kinda changed the meat, but not really. It is supposed to be 2 pounds of chicken breast, I used 1 pound of chicken breast fillets. Same bird, same section of the bird, just cut a bit, and cheaper. I thought the thinner cut might be the better choice because of the size of my slow cooker, also, it came in packages closer to the size I needed where as the chicken breasts were all packaged in larger amounts and I didn’t want a bunch of extra raw chicken lying around, what the hell would I do with that?

Since the original recipe makes 8 portions and I made half the recipe even I can do the math that means what I made would equal to 4 portions. Lemme tell ya, it made 4 reeeeally big portions!

I put the entire contents of the meat and sauce in a measuring cup to see how much it made, it was 2.5 ounces or 2 1/4 cups which I attempted to then measure out, on my kitchen scale, so I’d properly divide the meat and sauce but um yeah, that so didn’t work…sooooo I guesstimated *rolls eyes*

So here is how much ended up on my sandwich…

pulled-chicken-sandwich

And here is how much ended up in my tupperware container…

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I suppose if you don’t care for meat, or pulled meat, or meat in sauces, the above pictures won’t look good to you but to me, they look delicious. Mmm!

The dish turned out quite good.  🙂 Easy enough even I could make it, and a tasty end result, yay!

For all you Weight Watcher people out there, one serving is 7 SP. For those of you not on Weight Watchers, I have not calculated the nutritional information, sorry! 😉

I didn’t do anything fancy with it, just put it on some toast and made a toasted sandwich. I know in restaurants they usually put coleslaw on pulled meat sandwiches, and it is crazy delish, but I didn’t think to get any and lets get real here, I didn’t need to add even more to this sandwich, making it even more unhealthy lol

I’ll probably eat one more serving of it tomorrow then freeze the rest. I may really like this sauce but that doesn’t mean I want to eat it 4 days in a row, seems a tad excessive.

The ease of making this meal, and how good it made my apartment smell makes me think I should use the slow cooker way more often. I just might have to try some experimenting over here! 😀

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Weight Watchers Thursdays an Stuff

8 Sep

So today was interesting but boring all at once…at least for me, shrug.

I had my WW meeting, which is at 12:30pm. The reason I am telling you the time of the meeting is because I sleep in Thursday mornings and get up when I will have juuuust enough time to make myself look partially presentable (this means hair styled but no make-up) and get to the meeting. I do this because (1) I’m lazy and don’t want to get up any earlier than absolutely necessary and (2) if I don’t get up until right when I need to then I don’t have time to eat (or get hungry) prior to the meeting and I am weighing in on an empty stomach.

Hey, don’t judge! We all have our quirks! 😛

So yeah, slept in, went to my meeting, found out I am the exact same weight as last week, realized I am not upset about it and continued on with my day.

In case you are wondering why I am not upset, when normally I would be, it is because…

  1. I had three days where I wasn’t feeling well, one of those days I under ate my points, all three of those days I was as lazy as humanly possibly while still going to work.
  2. Today is the beginning of shark week so kinda bloated over here (sorry for the tmi)
  3. I had a huge (for me) loss last week and after a huge loss it is normal for the following week to either not lose or lose a small amount.

So there ya have it, all reasons I knew would affect my weigh-in, and they did. At least I am assuming they did since all but that one day that I under ate I followed the plan and ate my points (ate my points using healthy food I might add, yay me! lol) so theoretically I should have lost at least a little bit, except for those reasons not to…I’m gonna stop rambling, I am making this sound more complicated than it is lol 😛

After the meeting I rushed home, normally I would have eaten something but nope, today I rushed home to put on makeup and make sure my hair was still ok then I skeedaddled off to get passport photos taken. Always a lovely way to ensure you feel bad about how you look, take a close up picture of you where you can’t smile or have any facial expression *rolls eyes* Some weirdo walked by right when my picture was going to be taken and made a “make sure you don’t smile” comment like he was making some great joke. Then he said he would tickle me just to make me laugh to mess up the picture…uh…okaaaaaay…*cringe* Some people shouldn’t be allowed outside without supervision.

The lady working at the store was a chatty-cathy and kept stopping work to talk to me about her hair and how she styles it, wth? All the while I am practically willing her hands to finish trimming the picture and stamp the back and ring the charges through because the passport office is downtown and isn’t open forever ya know and I was hoping to grab something to eat on my way there and every time this lady stops working to talk is less time I have to maybe get lunch aaaaaaand she kept talking, so I ended up going right to the passport office sans any food.

Hell, at that point I would have been happy with a bottle of water, a mint, something! Anything to trick my stomach lol

When I got to the passport office I was so happy, there was no line, all the cues were open, this was gonna be a breeze!

Ha! How silly and naive I can be at times, sigh.

passport

I stood there, at the front of a non-existent line, just little ‘ol me, 4 people behind the desk at their stations who are theoretically there to serve people standing in the line and they just keep talking amongst themselves. It was kinda awkward. I was debating between just picking one and forcing them to help me by going up to them or continuing to stand there like the last teen at a school dance left on the sidelines, trying to look like they don’t care but in reality desperately wanting someone to call them over. Finally one of them motioned me forward and life seemed good again.

Can’t say that she was all that friendly but she did her job and really, if she wants to be grumpy while working that is her deal, shrug. She did some stuff with the paperwork then gave me a number and told me to go wait over in the waiting area for my number to be called. I looked over at the waiting area and couldn’t decide if I should be distraught or tentatively optimistic…there didn’t seem to be thaaaat many people there but the ones that were there looked like they had been there a while…oh boy…

While waiting for my number to be called I got to eyewitness a lady decide her perfectly content baby was hungry and thrust him under her shirt to nurse. The child obviously had other ideas about this decision of hers and started screaming something fierce, even when being pushed against her breast, under a shirt, the screaming was still loud. Of course no one can say anything cause duh, so not socially acceptable to comment on how a woman is breastfeeding her child but to my untrained eye it seemed like she might have waited till, I dunno, the kid was making some sort of movement indicating hunger…but what do I know? Oddly enough the kids grandma apologized to everyone in the vicinity for the screaming baby, kinda confusing. Babies cry, no need to apologize for that. shrug.

Eventually, right when I thought I was going to have to risk losing my spot in line and duck outside in the hopes of spotting somewhere that sold food my number got called. Yay! I got a slightly nicer lady this time, she finished processing the paperwork, got my signature on some stuff, took $120 of my hard earned money (why oh why does a passport cost so much?) and informed me if I have the passport mailed to me there are no additional charges, if I want to pick it up I have to pay an additional $25 which makes no sense to me. Maybe they charge you to pick it up because they are trying to discourage people coming in and crowding the place?

money

I opted to have it mailed to me, got my receipt and was out of there!

Now that I was free you’d think I’d beeline somewhere for food but I’d just spent $120 on a passport, the last thing I wanted was to spend more money so I just went back to the car and started driving home. You wouldn’t believe how many times I contemplated calling in a sushi order for pick-up or debated hitting up a Subway on the way home but in the end I waited and cooked at home. Not only did I cook but I made a decently healthy meal, WW approved. I had my first meal of the day around 5pm and it tasted soooooo good! I then had a second meal around 9:30pm…eating so close together, and two meals I classified as dinner reminded me of Hobbits with their second breakfasts lol

So there ya have it, not exactly a riveting day but some random things in there to keep it kinda interesting…sorta…ok, maybe not, but oh well, shrug. Not every day can have something awesome happen in it 😛

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Weight Watchers Thursdays

1 Sep

Ok so I have given up on Weight Watchers Wednesdays and changed it to Thursdays because even though I prefer how Wednesday sounds I never make it to that meeting. *rolls eyes* Might as well just admit that Thursdays are my WW day and adjust the blog accordingly, shrug.

So I have some happy news, the scale was most definitely my friend this week! 🙂 Not just my friend, my bestest friend! lol

My body is reluctant to lose weight so every week I stand on that stupid scale and consider myself lucky if I have managed to lose 0.8lbs. I had already done the math and figured how long it would take to get to goal if I continued on at that rate and oh man was that depressing math, sigh.

This week though, oh wow! I stepped on the scale and kinda freaked out because it showed I had gone down by 3.6lbs! Three point six pounds! Oh. My. Gawd! How is that even a possibility?

I am crediting the crazy awesome loss to three things:

  1. two weeks ago I had a super active week and apparently it can sometimes take a week for the results of extra work outs to show on the scale
  2. I cut out peanut butter…it almost killed me to do it but I realized I kept lying to myself about how much of it I was eating and it was burning through my weekly points like crazy so I cut it out completely and will sloooowly work it back in, when I can trust myself to measure and track it honestly
  3. Magic, and unicorns, and fairy dust…obviously it is mostly these that did it! 😉

The loss of 3.6 pounds resulted in my surpassing my first 10 pounds lost (I am at a grand total of 11.8 pounds lost right now) aaaaaaaand it resulted in my losing 5% of my body weight. Boom!

In the land of Weight Watchers this means I earned me some bling! 🙂

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The charm with the WW I got at 4 weeks as a celebration of sticking with the program for a month.

The charm that says 5% is celebrating my having lost 5% of my body weight, yay!

The charm of the running person is for a Try-A-Thon challenge that has been going on for the last 9 weeks. The challenge is to try something new every week, something that falls under the category of Fun, Food, or Fitness. I managed to try (and track) at least one new thing every week.

Oh, I also got a sticker for having lost another 5lbs, you get one with every 5lbs lost, but I didn’t take a picture of that lol

The WW app gave me this lovely message after I input my weigh-in weight…

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The team leader gave me a high five, I did a girly happy scream in my car, all in all, a good day. 😀

Things we talked about in the meeting today:

Hydration!

This week is all about hydration. Apparently most people don’t drink enough fluids in a day, I don’t really have that problem thanks to my tea addiction, but doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep an eye on how much I am drinking just to make sure I don’t start cutting back without realizing it.

An average person should be drinking six 8oz glasses of fluid a day, that is 1 1/2 Litres each and every day.

That’s a hella lot of fluids! Are you drinking enough?

There is a myth that you should be drinking all that fluid as water but that is not true. Any unsweetened, non-alcoholic drink counts. So tea, milk, diet pops, basically any 0 SP drinks. You can also get some of your fluids from certain foods, like watermelon, celery and the like.

Drink up my friends! 🙂

Fun fact I learned about water, it has been shown to help women regulate body temperature so if you are going through menopause drinking lots of water might help control the hot flashes.

Something else we talked about was the truth of the scale. The scale never lies, it will always tell the truth but it is only the truth in that moment, it is a snapshot. The scale will tell a certain truth, it doesn’t give the big picture of how a person is doing. If you do everything right and you step on the scale and it doesn’t show the result you are expecting think back to the last 24 hours. Did you eat something high in sodium and are retaining water? Is it super humid? Are you taking a new medication? There are a lot of things that could affect your weigh-in so sure, the scale never lies, but maybe in that moment the scale is showing the effects of that salty popcorn you ate the night before. Take that number with a grain of salt…heh, salt, get it? 😉

Lastly we talked about treats and tips for dealing with parties. One lady said before she goes to a party she thinks about what she wants to get out of that event, does she want to lose, maintain, or gain. She says she never wants to gain but may be ok with gaining because of what she ate at that party due to circumstances.

The other tip was about keeping treats out of easy reach. One lady has so much trouble not eating allllll the treats allllll the time that she keeps them in a box in her trunk in her underground parking. That way, if she is craving something she can’t just go to the cupboard in her kitchen but would have to go down 3 floors and get them from the car and that extra effort just to get a cookie (or whatever her treats are) is usually all she needs to get her aiming for some fruit. She goes the extra step by giving herself rules about the circumstances in which she is allowed to eat those treats. She must eat them in her apartment, so she can’t just grab something from the trunk when she is about to get in to her car. I figure she must be very good at following her own rules to resist just grabbing one when on the go…but hey, whatever works for her! 🙂

My treat to myself for losing my first ten pounds (technically 11.8lbs, not that I’m counting or anything…) is to buy a new book, Chapters here I come!

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Try It Tuesday: Butternut Squash & Quinoa Pilaf

23 Aug

Oh Jamie Oliver,  how you tempt me!

It seems every time I go grocery shopping and am in the frozen aisle I see a Jamie Oliver product I want to try, dangerous not only to my eating plan but also to my budget lol Lucky for me I seem to spot his items when they are on sale, or maybe they are always on sale…nah, that can’t be it!

Once again I bought the item thinking it was a meal on its own and it turned out it is actually meant to be a side dish. I figured I’d try eating is as such which meant I had to cook an entire meal -the horrors!

Here is what I started with…

Sorry it isn’t in focus, I would have sworn it was when I took the picture and the box is in the recycling now so too late to try again, oops.

Like the box says, this is a butternut squash & quinoa pilaf with mixed rice, pumpkin seeds and cranberries. The box makes a point of saying how it is made with whole grains and contains no preservatives or artificial flavours, so ya know, if that matters to you, there ya go. 😉

When frozen it looks like this…

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Pretty decent huh? I chose to microwave it because (1) the box says I can do that and it’ll be fine and (2) my oven was busy cooking other things and coordinating multiple food items in the oven is not a strong skill of mine…something always ends up either burned or not fully cooked, ugh.

So yeah, this sucker got microwaved and turned out great! I paired it with some chicken from M&M Meat Shops and McCain’s Super Fries. Random? Yes. Tasty? Also yes. 🙂

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A portion is 1/3 of the package, or 125 grams. I weighed my portion out then portioned out the remainder of the package so it would be ready for when I wanted the leftovers and there is actually more in the package than three full servings. Not a big deal, just a large spoonful over but if you are really strict about portions you’ll end up having a bit left over. I may have eaten the random spoonful and pretended it didn’t count but ya know, that is me, you do you! If you follow Weight Watchers the Smart Points are 6 per serving.

It isn’t some flavour packed dish, not that I was expecting that, I mean c’mon, it is butternut squash, quinoa and rice…none of those are particularly flavourful items. Having said that, it tasted good. It isn’t covered in some sauce or trying to pretend it is anything other than what it is, which is a nice change for packaged, microwavable food lol. I did put a spoonful of salsa on the left over serving I had the next day at lunch and it took it from good to yum, but you have to keep in mind I love salsa so I’m biased. 😛

I’d put this on my buy again list, as long as it is on sale! 😉

 

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A Lazy Connector

22 Aug

Weight Watchers has an app, as does everything else in the world lol. Part of that app is called Connect and it is sort of like a simplified, members only, Facebook. You make a profile, you post stuff, you like and comment on other people’s posts. I find myself going on there a lot! It is great for motivation, and ideas, and just to see and message people who are going through the same thing as you.

Something I learned from Connect is that I have got to be one of the laziest people following the WW program ever! Not including the people who sign up and don’t actually follow the program of course. 😛

These people blow my mind with how much daily activity they get. Long walks. Jogs. Training for marathons. Hiking. Swimming. Wall climbing. Gym time. Name it, they do it, and they do it often.

Because WW is partnered with Fitbit a lot of people on the program have a Fitbit, the apps sync with each other so you do the activity and the apps do the math to calculate how many fit points you earn, which is lovely cause I haaaate math lol. But yeah, these people are earning mad high fit points and I’m over here having afternoon naps and cuddle sessions with the cat. *rolls eyes*

I take part in Fitbit challenges but generally don’t push to try to win them, I get about three days in to the challenge and kind of forget about it and inevitably I don’t win. It doesn’t generally bother me because most of the people I engage in Fitbit challenges with are people I don’t see often, basically nobody who I get super competitive with.

That my friends has changed! A friend of mine at work got a Fitbit, the new one that I want sooooo bad lol, and I stupidly invited her to one of the Fitbit challenges. Turns out she is super competitive and is kicking my butt!…and it is driving me nuts! She walks at work more than I do, not too much I can do about that, but do you know what she did on her break? She went up and down 11 flights of stairs! Who does that?? Crazy competitive people, that’s who!

Then she did who knows what in the evening after work but she sure racked up those steps. I held the lead for a very short time and I gotta admit, I thought maaaaaybe I’d keep it since it was getting to be evening but nope, she went and started moving again and squashed me.

So now I really want to win, or at least beat her cause ya know, I may be a tad competitive at times… 😉

By 6:30pm I had worked 8 hours, walked for an hour and 15 minutes, done 80 squats, showered, cooked, and eaten. Who am I? What dimension have I walked in to? Normally by 6:30pm I have worked 8 hours, maybe run an errand or two, and would be having a nap with the cat or watching tv.

Insanity. I have obviously reached new levels of insanity.

competitive

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The Weight Watchers Plunge

15 Jun

Last Sunday on my lunch break I said “screw it” and I signed up for Weight Watchers. And not in the I’m-doing-it-on-my-own kind of way but in the for real, paid money, am officially a member of Weight Watchers kind of way. It kinda feels like I’ve joined a cult…but full of nice people and so far none of them have asked me to drink anything suspicious or pledge allegiance to anything weird…or anything at all lol 😛

I chose to attend meetings as well as use the online resources, might as well utilize everything they have to offer, right? Right! Since I signed up online on Sunday that is my official start date even though I wasn’t able to attend a meeting until today, Wednesday. At first I was going to wait to start tracking my food and figuring out the system until my first meeting but changed my mind and started using the app and the website on the Sunday when I clued in to the fact that I was already paying for the services so I shouldn’t waste four days of access to the WW  info. This stuff ain’t cheap!

When you first sign in to the website you get asked a bunch of questions, the answers are apparently used to personalize not only the program to me but also the information that will be sent to me. So like, recipes, exercise ideas, food tips, and other such things. I’m thinking the more personalized the program is the better it will work for people…I hope!

I’ve gotta say, so far I have been kind of sucking at the whole Weight Watchers lifestyle, sigh. Which was not what I was expecting! Although, I did cook a healthy dinner yesterday instead of just eating some toast and a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter after I looked at my points tally for the day and realized I couldn’t just eat willy-nilly and not go over my daily points. So I guess that is something…a teeny tiny baby step towards progress perhaps? 😉

Today at my meeting I got given 4 different booklets:

  • a mini journal, I take it each week to meetings and use it to track my official weigh ins. It also has a section for you to write your reasons why you are starting this journey, what your final weight goal is and even a section to write down ideas on how I can be good to myself.
  • the next booklet is the Pocket Guide, this booklet has a food list with corresponding points, a portion estimate guide and FitPoints charts. Oh, there is also a note section at the back.
  • the third, and I think most important booklet is the “Your Plan Guide” which has everything in it. It is basically the how-to book for the entire program, it explains how the program works, how the points work, suggestions for how to distribute your points throughout the day, goal setting, fitness, and being kind to yourself. There are also recipes, meal plans, no-count option list, different fitness / exercise ideas meant to fit in to different increments of time (1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes) and a bunch of other stuff – I’ll go in to more detail another day, after I’ve had a chance to read the whole thing.
  • the fourth and final booklet is a weekly booklet, I guess I get a new one each week. From what I can tell each week covers a new topic and the leader has a more in-depth version that she uses to direct the meeting. This weeks topic was about self-talk, how we think of ourselves and others and how it can affect your weight loss. A stat shared this evening said that a study showed that people experience 75% more weight loss when they have improved self-image, partly because they tend to treat themselves better and make better choices.

So I wanted to show you what the books look like but as soon as I put them down the cat decided he haaaaad to check them out lol I eventually managed to convince him to move – by plucking him up and holding him in a death grip while rearranging the books and taking the picture lol

The overall theme to this weeks meeting was: Be Positive!

Some ways to do that are to remember to give myself credit for putting effort in to changing. Be positive about how I think about myself. Remember that no matter how slow the progress or how many times I stumble I am ahead of those who are not trying.

Some ways to work on being more successful are to really question myself when I feel hungry. I might actually be bored, or thirsty, or emotional, or who knows what. By questioning myself before heading in to the kitchen I should be able to decrease my mindless eating which can only lead to good things. 🙂

Even though I am keeping track of everything using the app I bought the tracking journal when at the meeting this evening. I really like writing things down, something about being able to flip through the pages of the book to see what I did a week ago vs hitting the previous page button on my phone, I dunno, it is a tactile thing, shrug, just go with it, ok? The book cost me $12 and is good for three months. It is an unfortunate brown colour, ugh, but otherwise I like it.

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The actual tracking page (on the left) is pretty simplistic, you put the date at the top, write down your foods and their corresponding point values, then tally everything at the bottom. There is a line for putting how many of your weekly points you used, in case you went over your daily points. There is also a section for writing down your exercise and corresponding FitPoints earned. At the end of each week there is a 20:20 Hindsight page (on the right), where you can write down all kinds of things. Then there are a couple of pages for notes. Each week is the same, the only thing that changes is the weekly quote, this weeks is:

Some days you just have to create your own sunshine.

At the end of the book are a bunch of pages for notes. I am using one page to remember how many daily and weekly points I get as well as my weight. I know I have the little booklet to keep track of my weight loss but I figure I’ll write it in this book also since this book is only for three months and the little one I take to meetings goes for 16 weeks and well, I dunno, I figure one day the two books will get separated but I’ll probably keep the journal so if I check it out one day a long time from now it might be nice to see the progress I made…or depressing, depending on how this goes… 😉

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Another New Plan

9 May

I feel like I am always coming up with new plans that never work out. New plans to eat healthier, work out more, lose weight, get stronger, blah blah blah.

I know I am not alone with this, this random stage where ideas are hatched, plans are formed and possibly even followed through for a while but then discarded for all sorts of “reasons” only to leave room for regret because follow through was once again not your thing. I read other peoples’ blogs, I’ve read this story many times over. And each time I feel for that person, because it is a sucky stage. Every time I start the cycle over again, and then fail, I get more demoralized and convinced I will never lose this weight…I’m pretty sure others feel the same.

Plus, it must be super boring to come here to see what I wrote about only to read about yet another Great Plan but a couple weeks later realize I haven’t commented on my new Great Plan in a while.

I firmly believe to be successful at any weight loss plan you have to hit your breaking point, or as a friend calls it, have your “a-ha!” moment. I had that back when I initially lost all my weight but this time around, with all these different plans, and ideas, and attempts I hadn’t had it. I don’t know why I hadn’t had it, it’s not like I didn’t want to succeed, shrug, but for whatever reason it just hadn’t happened.

Yesterday though, it happened.

Gotta say, it was pretty awesome. 🙂

I’d been toying with actually signing up for Weight Watchers, starting next month, cause I can’t afford it this month, if only to get me started. But for some reason that idea wasn’t inspiring me.

I toyed with trying to find the money to get a personal trainer for however many sessions to get me in to a routine and force me to be less lazy. But the cost of a trainer didn’t appeal to me and again, something about it didn’t feel right.

Then out of nowhere I thought about the old meal plan I used to follow, the high protein, high healthy fat, low carb meal plan combined with daily exercise. It was hard core, hard to maintain even when I was super dedicated, and kind of miserable at times because I was eating almost the exact same thing every day. Plus, the plan has you tracking your micro-nutrients and the amount of carbs I was allowed was soooooo low and I love carbs soooooo much, it was kinda sucky at times lol.

But…it worked!

When I started that plan I had already lost over 30 pounds, I was trying to get that last 5-10 pounds and tighten up. This means I was already in the mind set of watching what I ate, and working out often, and was used to following a healthy life routine. Plus, I was starting all that exercise when I was in better shape than I am now so while it was a challenge it was do-able.

This time I am starting farther away from my goal and I am trying to be realistic about what I can handle so I don’t end up quitting.

I don’t want to eat the exact same foods, in the same order, 7 days a week. I don’t want to never splurge. I don’t want to order salad with no dressing topped with a grilled chicken breast every single time I eat out because that is the only “safe” meal I can find on a menu.

I know to hit my goal I will need to make sacrifices and I am ok with that. I won’t get where I want to be without stopping habits I have formed and routinely doing things I haven’t been doing.

But I can’t just half-ass this. I need a plan, a detailed, written out plan that I can refer back to when my brain blanks on day 2 and I can’t remember what the hell I am supposed to be doing for breakfast lol

So I wrote down all the foods I ate on that plan, then I tweaked a bit. Instead of only eating chicken and tuna for my protein I added lean beef burger patties, fish steaks, hard boiled eggs, maybe quinoa (I’m currently researching to decide if the protein I’ll get from quinoa is worth the carbs).

I decided that I’d be allowed 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of dressing on my salads. I might even let myself have cheese every now and then…crazy huh? 😉

Then, after thinking of little tweaks I wrote down what I will eat and where (at work or at home) on the different days of the week. This might seem strange but I did it because three days of the week I have no structure decided by work. Two days of the week I work 3p-9p and 2 days of the week I work 7a-3p. When I started this job the transition to my odd work schedule threw me off, because this meal plan was not only food specific but very structured for how far apart the different meals were eaten and where in the day you exercised in relation to your meals. I couldn’t make every day the same anymore and I quickly spiraled in to not following a plan because I couldn’t follow my plan perfectly.

I’m hoping by being a bit more relaxed with the timing, and being willing to switch things up a bit, I can make it work.

For instance, I am supposed to start my day with 1/2 an apple and a simple protein shake. Then a half hour to 45 minutes later have one egg, 2 slices of turkey bacon and the other half of the apple. Well sure, that is fine on my days off and my days where I start work at 3pm but the days I work at 7am? Uh yeah, not gonna happen. So, the days I start at 7am I will have 1/2 cup of oatmeal for breakfast when I am at work.

Does it follow the rules of the plan exactly? No. Is it something I can actually do, that is relatively healthy, and maintainable? Yup.

I have to be ok with these little changes. And sure, maybe I’ll get more hard core as I really get in to things and revert back to how it was last time I followed this plan but I have to ease in to that level of dedication, re-drink the kool-aid so to speak lol

keep-calm-and-drink-the-kool-aid-8

I am so psyched to start this new plan but I won’t be following it properly until Saturday because I have to wait for Friday to be able to buy groceries so until then I will make do with what foods I already have. I can increase my protein since I already have protein rich foods. I can work on the timing of my meals, so I get used to that structure again. I can start to cut out unnecessary carbs (sadness 😦 ) and I’ve already got my grocery list written and ready to be filled.

Maybe this lull before I can start this plan full time is a good thing, it will allow me to prep and plan and psych myself up even more. 🙂

meal plan

This is an example of my meal plans for the different types of days I have. It isn’t exact or set in stone. The proteins can be swapped out and moved from one day to the next. For ease of making the document I put in mostly chicken but I have another page written up with other meal ideas that are high protein, low carb, high healthy fat. Plus, I’ll have to work on the timing, figure out where my exercise fits in to each day and maneuver some meals around that – my large protein shake for instance will best benefit me if I have it after I exercise. So I will probably end up moving that to when I am home after my 3p-9p shift because I tend to work out after that shift rather than prior. But it is a framework for me to move within, which is what I know I need to succeed.

So ok, sorry to bore you with the food portion of my “Great Plan”. But writing this and putting it out in to the world helps me, it helps me stay committed to the plan (theoretically) and helps me believe I can make it work.

I feel I should warn you my next post will probably be about the exercising portion of my new plan, especially since I’ve already started the workouts lol

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Three Yoghurts and a Soup…and Pie

13 Aug

Sorta fell off the wagon with my writing on here, sorry!

So since my last post I have eaten three more of the American yoghurts and one soup.

I’ll just write about these in the order I ate them, ok? 🙂

Harvest Peach

Harvest Peach

The first of the three is Harvest Peach, it is one of the Weight Watchers yoghurts so it was 2 points and does not contain aspartame…not that I actually care about that, I mean c’mon, I drink so much diet coke half my blood is probably aspartame lol 😉

Anyways…it was good, not oh-my-god-amazing or anything but good. It tasted like peaches, which is the point of the flavour so points to them for that lol

I think the reason I am not raving about it is because it was my night time snack waaaay back on Monday after I had some totally delicious banana cream pie for dinner.

Yes you read that right lol I’m trying to feel guilty or ashamed by the fact that I had pie for dinner but I don’t, shrug. A friend at work made me a personal sized banana cream pie when she found out it is my favourite type of pie, how awesome is that!

Home made banana cream pie

Home made banana cream pie

I don’t know if you can tell the size of the pie from that picture, the blue dish it is resting on is a dinner plate, the medium sized one that comes in a set, so it wasn’t a full size pie at all. It was pretty much perfect for one person. 🙂

I’m pretty sure anything I ate after the pie would have gotten a review of “ok” cause how do you beat banana cream pie? The answer is you don’t! lol

The next yoghurt was…

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie! Because apparently I was on a pie kick lol Actually I pick them randomly from the fridge so I never know what flavour I am getting next.

Not gonna lie, I had high hopes for this one since Boston Cream Pie is my favourite doughnut. I’ve never actually had a slice of Boston Cream Pie so the only thing I had to compare the yoghurt to was the doughnut and well, no, just no. The yoghurt tasted so fake, it wasn’t at all like the doughnut, just spoonful after spoonful of artificial taste. It is like when you buy a cheap advent calendar at Christmas and the chocolate is the super cheap gross kind and it doesn’t even taste like chocolate even an itty bitty bit, it just tastes like chemicals. This yoghurt was like that. Yuch.

I guess the only way it can redeem itself an itsy bitsy bit is that it is one of the Weight Watcher yoghurts so it is only 2 points.

Things got better though, don’t despair!

Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable Soup

Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable Soup

I had a soup, Mmm! I love soup!

This is a Progresso Light Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable soup and so far it has been the best of all of them. It lived up to the “zesty” without being overwhelmingly spicy and the vegetables were cut in to these nice big chunks. It was pretty much awesome and if this soup was sold where I live I would buy it frequently. It is Weight Watcher endorsed and is 2 points a serving, there are 2 servings in a can.

Close Up!

Close Up!

Look at those vegetable! There are kidney beans in there too. 🙂

Then I had the happiness of having a yoghurt that was delish and not overshadowed by a home made pie lol

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie yoghurt, whoever made this was a smart smart person lol I’ve never had Key Lime Pie so I have no idea if this lives up to the actual thing but I really enjoyed it. I find the Yoplait yoghurts taste best when they are citrus flavours. This is a Weight Watchers yoghurt so it is 2 points and definitely worth it! I was sad when I was done this one because it is the only one of its kind in my fridge, sigh. Why oh why didn’t I buy two of them? sigh. Guess I know for next time! 😛

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