On a quest for me

Sorry I missed the birthday/"was the goal reached?" post last week. The birthday weekend was hard on the diet.

Really the whole week was hard on the diet. After committing to get focused back on the SparkPeople meal plan I remembered why I had started to add other recipes and ideas into the mix: Its Boring! From a nutritional, pure fuel for you body stand point its fantastic. But from a food for the soul angle, its bland. And repetitive. And there are some things I just don't eat; eggplant, tofu & mushrooms. They kept showing up too many times as the "meat" of a meal. By the time I took those out of the rotation I'm left with about 12 dinner options, that's alot of bland repetition (especially for my non calorie tracking husband). So where am I know with the diet? Well I'm back to square 1 - the non diet. I am counting calories, still using the SparkPeople tool for that. And I am following some eating rules I've learned along the way. I will be eating breakfast every day, following the structure that SparkPeople showed me. I will be taking my lunch to work (and making it something homemade, even if its just a turkey sandwich - frozen quick diet meals are a cop-out because I don't actually think about what I'm eating, other than "This is low cal"), and including vegetables with dinner, and practicing portion control on all fronts!

I did a little better recently on the exercise front. The birthday weekend included some museum/park walking and lots of manual labor around the house, in addition to some gym time and lots of dog walks. I think it was the exercise that allowed me to hold steady on the weight loss.

Since the birthday I've only continued the exercise and have started with the new food program. The other big thing I'm working on is just "me" things: taking the time to garden, read a book or magazine, try to wrangle up some hobbies. Things that will be good for my well being and hopefully help find motivation to keep  on track with the other areas.

Vital Stats:
Weight: 180.2 (So close!!!)
Inches Lost: 3.5 (Since 1/23)

It's hard to title a weight loss blog after a while... I guess we'll call this one "Couscous"

Well starting today I am back to eating solely off of the sparkpeople.com meal plan. I'm still struggling for that downward momentum, and I had the best continuous movement when I was sticking to the meal plan. I'm hoping to be able to stick to the plan with the cushion of one dinner each week to either be out, or something from one of my healthy cookbooks. Tonight we had chicken with asparagus and couscous (off the meal plan). I grilled the asparagus and then cut it up, stirred it into the couscous and tossed it with this great fig balsamic vinegar (this amazing thing that was given to me with some basil olive oil from a local place called The Olive Bar). It was so good! This couscous thing is pretty new to me, so its fun when I figure out ways to make it interesting.

There's a 5k/10k race at Folsom Lake in May and I'm thinking about registering for that. I figure we can go camping for the weekend right there and maybe get some kayaking in too.

The weather has been getting better here and also starting today I will be walking my dogs in the morning and the evening. They'll appreciate it and it'll be just an added activity for me.

I'm hoping that these two things will help jumpstart me out of the low 180's and moving down.

Vital stats:
Weight 181.0 (basically even from two weeks ago)
Fruits and Veggies on my shopping list: 15 total!
Days left before I'm 30: 372

Smoke Free Update

I was reviewing my statistics on my little stop smoking phone app. Thought I would share the current standings.

83 days smoke free
1078 cigarettes not smoked
$339.71 saved

WooHoo!!!

Great night at the gym tonight. A great ride on the bike, I was pouring sweat and grooving to my pop music!

Had a comfort food dinner that I was planning on and had budgeted my calories for; meatloaf, tater tots and good old steamed broccoli (well it was fresh, but you know what I mean). Sometimes its just good to fill your comfort zone with that familiar something you crave.

I know today is Thursday, but the data I am reporting is from Monday, just think of me as a weight loss version of TEPCO. After last weeks flux (thank you for the word SB!) I am down and making progress towards the big goal again!

Weight: 180.8 (down 2.2 from the flux!!)
Workouts that weren't "workouts": 3 - speed cleaning (a thorough clean at speeds that produce sweat) & earthquake preparedness (6 hours constant movement) & junk day (loading/unloading sheets of plywood and other junk)
Weeks until Birthday goal: 2 1/2

Yuck!

I'll just start with the news: weight: 183....

Up a little. This past week did not turn out to be an easy one. Just one of those weeks where life catches up and I couldn't focus on the weight loss goal.

Refocused for this week. Thats all I can do to move forward in this goal. I still have my short term goal of a birthday weight of 173. Thats now tackling 10 pounds in 4 weeks!

Another quick one, on time this time.

Well after my last post I made a very determined effort with the food, however I NEVER made a workout this week! Things just kept happening that derailed plans and ideas that I had for it. That said there was progress this week!

As a new and added tool to this process I have joined a three week weight loss challenge on facebook. I have joined 12 other women (who I do not know) in completing daily challenges for the next three weeks. Each individual earns poins daily for completing a handful of items. We report the points (honor system) into our team captains who then report to the organizers. There is no prize, just an opportunity to connect with others sharing a healthy goal and a little challenge/competition never hurts. Here are the daily tasks:

* drink at least 4 bottles of water a day = 1 point

* having a food journal ( you eat it, you write it down) = 1 point

* taking a daily vitamin = 1 point

* staying TRUE to YOUR diet plan ( zone, atkins, 6 meals, whatever it will be etc) = 1 point

* doing 1 daily personal goal ( this can be taking the stairs instead of the elevator etc ) = 1 point

* 2 servings of fruits and or veggies = 1 point

* not having any JUNK food = 1 point

* at least 30 min of exercise = 1 point! for every 15min you do over the 30 min you will get half a point .5 ( so if

you do and 1 hour of exercise you would have 2 points!)

I think I can handle those!

Vital stats:
Weight: 181.6 (down again!!)

A Recipe to Share

Well the weight that I recently posted was from Monday, posted late, but I always do the weigh in on Mondays. Since then its been a tough week. I haven't weighed in, but I haven't been following the program very well either. Got sick on Tuesday and have had a hard time with energy for working out and cooking good food. So I have missed the gym and compromised on food choices.

Tonight I am trying to force myself to feel better. No gym, but I did make some dinner (and leftovers for lunch tomorrow). It was so good and so easy; I just want to share it here.


Shrimp and Corn Chowder
from Cooking Light

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 3 cups diced red potatoes
• 1 (16-ounce) package frozen white shoepeg corn, thawed
• 1 bunch chopped scallions
• 1/2 pound thawed shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/4 cup heavy cream or sour cream
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Preparation

In a medium saucepan, boil broth and potatoes 5 minutes. Add corn and white portion of scallion; simmer 8 minutes. Remove 2 cups; puree in a blender. Return to pot; stir in shrimp. Cook until bright pink; stir in cream, lemon juice, and scallion greens. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 259

Fat: 7g (sat 4g,mono 2g,poly 1g)

Cholesterol: 107mg

Protein: 18g

Carbohydrate: 29g

Fiber: 6g

Iron: 2mg

Sodium: 503mg

Calcium: 42mg

So yummy!!