Hitting the wall of weight loss

Ok. So I admit it. I have not been perfect in my weight loss journey. Luckily however, no one is perfect.
I think sometimes when you are emotional, you are allowed to be bad, provided you are not an emotional wreak every single day. 
This week has been rough- my mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital last Wednesday night, suffering a stroke. She is only 49. Her recovery since then has been slow, and not going as quickly has the doctor's hoped. She is responding, but not as quickly, nor in the ways they want. So I think having a bowl of spaghetti with giant meatballs from the hospital cafeteria is fine, or the giant coffee coollata to keep me awake after spending all day either in the hospital or babysitting my rambunctious nephews. We all are allowed sometimes- so the fact that I didn't gain anything this week is kind of a minor miracle.

I did however start to do some dance work out. I'm finding that I really need to get some muscle on my body, so I'm not just all jiggly. haha. Luckily the Dance Central games have work out modes that tell you how many calories you burned and how long you worked out for. So far I seem to be able to handle 50 minutes of dancing before I feel really tired. I hope to keep up with it. A friend of mine also recently got certified as a Zumba instructor, so once she gets classes going, I'm going to start that.

 (Co-worker brought in cookies leftover from her daughter's Alice in Wonderland party.)

Also, since last I blogged on food and weight loss, we had out 80s Prom Birthday party. I think I rocked my dress, though I'm sure by the end of the night I looked twice my size, after all the sweets I had that night. haha

 (The food spread)

 I did eat some healthy meals though:

But also had the not-so healthy meals out-and-about:

 (In my defense of this one, I only ate half- and had the other half for lunch the next day)

I also had these super tasty, but super bad for you, Irish potatoes my hubs made for St. Patrick's Day, which you can find the recipe here:

 Well, hopefully I can get out of this funk of weight loss and get back into being in shape.
Also, prayers for my mother-in-law would be much appreciated all!
-M

Big surprise: having the flu and losing weight

Ok. Just a quick pop in check in.
So yeah. I had the flu earlier this week. And you know what? I lost 3 pounds on my weigh in on Wednesday. haha.
I had the Flu mostly on Monday/Tuesday- but by Wednesday was on the upswing in the sickness department. Just in case, since I still was kinda crummy, but not nearly as bad as M/T, I went to the doctor on Friday- She confirmed. Yep, I had the flu. But not anymore. Now I have an ear infection. Lovely. (NOT!). So now I'm on antibiotics and I'm sniffling due to the drainage.

 Anti-bacterial hand gel- the ONLY thing I could actually smell when I was sick.

 Being sick sucks!

Oh Peanut M&M's. How you make my day.

But in not-sickness related news, I did lose 3 pounds this week. Amazing, since I basically ate "comfort" foods while sick.
 Luckily I could enjoy the SuperBowl at a friends house the day before laying in bed feeling like death. lol

Who knew, that in less than 24 hrs from this photo, I'd be feeling like death- bed ridden?

 Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing- made by the hubs too.

 What do you see- Duck or Rabbit?

 We had DD's homemade chili at the party!

 Hubs made this super awesome White Zinfidel fruity cake with Moscato icing!

 Anyways, hopefully next week's weigh in is good- and not just the sickness taking over.

 (Kitchen wall art!)

 (Our cute crockpot)

 (My dinner tonight at work)

Happy weight loss!
-M

I am so loving "Hungry Girl" recipes

Ok. So in case so of you haven't seen them, I just want to give a shout out to Hungry Girl. Her books are AMAZING! A friend of mine's mother lent me hers, and I've been hooked ever since.
Check out her books. Especially these two (below). They has such great stuff!





The 200 under 200 is PERFECT for those of us on Weight Watchers, and on her website she even posts the weight watchers points! How cool is that?
Anyways, Check them out!
Happy weight loss!
-M

Girl scout cookies are the bane of my existence

Curse you Girl Scout cookies and your tasty-ness! You are the reason I GAINED a pound this week! Curse you!!!!
Ok. Now that I got that out of the way, I will admit that I did gain a pound this past week (weighing in on Wed.). However, when I stepped on the scale this morning (Friday) I already dropped about 2 lbs of that, so maybe it was just the wrong day to weight in. haha (Though I have been good these past 3 days).

Other than being bad and having a boat-load of Girl Scout cookies and wine, not a lot new to report.
It is kind of funny to see how many of my co-workers at the moment are on Weight Watchers, so we now all compare recipes and frozen dinner flavors. haha

 We also finished up our Breakfast nook and I've been enjoying have quick meals while sitting in these cute green seats. Check out my post of the decor and stool redo over at my madcapfrenzy site.

Anyways, hopefully I can stick to being "good" the rest of the week, and have a fab. weigh in on next Wednesday.

 Happy weight loss!
-M

Down another two pounds!

So I know I'm really late posting, but this past week I'm down another 2 lbs, making me 0.2 lbs away from the 150 lb mark. Now, since that Wednesday, the rest of my week has been a rollercoaster of good and bad food, so who knows how the scale will react next week.

 Turkey panini from La Villa, down the street. I only could eat half, so it was good to have for dinner later.

This place is my favorite!


Also, it is the dreaded Girl Scout Cookie time. ugh.
I love girl scout cookies, but the points...eek. I actually figured out how many Weight watchers points plus per cookie, and it is quite depressing. Check out this post I did a while back on the breakdown.

 Basically 1 points plus per thin mint. ugh

 My hubs made the BEST cupcakes ever- Moscato cupcakes with moscato cream cheese icing. So bad, yet so good. When he gets around to posting the recipe, I'll post it up too.

So the hubs and I went to Chili's after a long day of working on the house. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they now have a low-cal/healthy menu. They had skinny margaritas (below) and lots of other great choices for low calories (and low points!). I was sooooo happy!

 To be honest, this skinny margarita was one of the best margarita's I've had in a long time

 Margarita chicken with rice and beans. So good and filling, and not that bad point wise!

My hubs saw a ham and egg breakfast "muffin" so he thought he'd give it a shot for the first breakfast we had in our new breakfast nook (see my madcapfrenzy blog post on how that turned out). It was tasty, but we realized probably 2 slices of ham per "muffin" would hold together better.

Anyways, we showed off a new breakfast nook and dining room/bar with friends coming over, so my meals and eatting habits were terrible this weekend. Today wasn't very good either, as I just down right was hungry and felt icky...sadly after eatting more than I should, I feel even worse. blah.
I need to get back to exercising to make up.

*fingers crossed for a better rest of the week*
Happy weight loss.
-M

The final countdown... being 0.2 lbs from my goal weight

Ok. Firstly, I am happy to announce I lost another 1.6 lbs this week (and 1 lb last week, forgot to report). This means I am down 61.8 lbs total since October (it is now August) and 0.2 lbs from my goal weight of 150. Once I hit that, I will continue to keep up the losses, but if I bounce up and down around 150 lbs weight, I will be extremely happy, and not be as crazy about the weight loss as I have been.
I was surprised I lost as much as I did, considering that I ate horribly the final days of our theater production (which is now done), and ate a decent amount over my points the day before my weigh in.
Here are the current numbers:

My biggest boost over the week was on Monday I did a lot of stuff around town. First had a dentist appointment (where the dental hygienist comment how thin I was since last I was there in February.) I then had time to pick up a quick bit of lunch. I got me the super healthy 8 points plus meal at Panera Bread: standard turkey sandwich (no cheese) -half with a half- chicken noodle soup, apple and water. I was proud of how healthy I was, considering I'm in love with their breads, I resisted from the high point valued ones.

I then however was tempted by the frozen yogurt place that was 2 doors down, Bliss Yogurt Bar. I've never been to any of these yogurt bars, but decided to try it, but load up on the fruit. I got 1/3 dulche de leche frozen yogurt, 2/3 of the low-fat original creamy frozen yogurt with lots of mangoes and a few marshmallows for a tiny sweetness on top. I asked for the nutritional info, but since they were newly opened, they didn't really have it except the calories for the yogurts. They said the dulche de leche frozen yogurt was 35 calories per oz and 3.5 g of fat. The low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt was 23 calories per oz.

After all of this I was super full, but had to go to my final dress fitting for my bridesmaid dress for a friend's wedding. It fit nicely after she shortened it and my new strapless bra worked great with it- no need for the corset in this dress!

Then I wandered around the one mall till my friend (the bride) was done with work and I stopped by NY & Co. I was in desperate need of a new belt- since that's the only real way to show off I have a thinner waist now without buying an entirely new wardrobe. I headed straight to the sales rack and a pair of white Capri caught my eye. They only had a size 10, so I thought, what the heck, lets see if they fit. Up to this point, recently I've been wearing 12s. When I first started my weight loss journey back in October I was a since 18 (sometimes 16). I tried them on and tada! They fit nicely! They had to come home with me.
I mentioned to the one worker at the store if those on the rack were the only belts they had. She pointed me in the direction of a large jar at the counter of more belts (70% off too). I started chatting with her and divulged that I was in need of a new belt to show off my recent weight loss. After talking about weight watchers and losing 60+ lbs she said "I think we have more belts in the back. Let me get them and see if we can't find you a dream belt". She brings out this huge box of 70% off belts. I found 3 that I really liked- 1 gray, 1 red, and 1 black. They all have that elastics back, so the size really stretches nicely to whatever size you are. I also ended up getting a skirt besides the Capri and belts, but overall it made me super confident in my weight loss.

After my friend, I, and her sister-in-law enjoyed massages, we ate at this lovely place, Pandini's, where I had a chicken pesto labretti, (below) which was amazing. I've been in this pesto kick for some reason!

Another thing I found out, Saltwater Taffy.... Yeah- this kind (below)...

is 1 points plus per piece... I LOVE taffy, and being we are only an hour or 2 away from the jersey shore, my co-workers have been bringing it back to the office in loads. So after researching the nutrition on the back of the one box, For the most part, saltwater taffy is 1 points plus per taffy piece. Crazy! (could be worse though)

This week I've also been having a lot of soup at work. I cleared out our pantries this weekend and decided to try and pack a meal for work only from items we already have in the pantry- which means lots of soup and rice. So many of the Progressive soups are super boring and all broth, that by adding some brown rice, it kicked it up and made a hearty dinner at work. However after 3 days in a row of soup and rice, I was glad to get to the grocery store. lol

Lastly the hubs picked me up some Weight Watchers ice cream sandwiches and he found some new lean cuisines I've never tried before- who knew sending your husband to pick up your "essentials" would mean trying new things. So here is the cherry cheesecake weight watchers ice cream sandwich. Only 2 points plus!

Anyways, I can't believe I'm so close to my goal. I'll have to do a side by side if I make it next week, which to be honest, not sure if that will happen or not- had a crummy day yesterday and tomorrow is my wedding anniversary (wine certainly), but who knows... I do tend to lose weight when I have wine. lol
Happy losses!
M