On the right track to weight loss

So this past week went better on the weight loss train- I lost 1.6 lbs. I'll take it. After so many weeks of no loss or gaining, ANY loss is a win in my book.

 Check out my Weight Watchers friendly (shown below) Riesling Grapefruit Mango Spritzer recipe here!

It's been tough- these last pounds I want to loose are a doosy! But I figured out that if I trick myself mentally by allowing myself 30 points plus a day, instead of my allotted 26, I tend to do better. I try my best to not use all 30 and actually only use 26, but I think that the mental psych-out of having the potential to have more points keeps me more on track.

 (got my free Lean Cuisine lunch bag!)

 (This was my bad day of the weight loss cycle)

 (Banana Pineapple Upside-down cake recipe coming to my blog soon- only 2.5 points plus for 1/8 of the entire cake!)

Now I did had one bad meal (bar food!), but thus far this week, I've been pretty darn good on my diet. I even figured out the points for peeps, so I could indulge a tiny bit on some good ol' Easter sugary goodness.

 Easter breakfast anyone?

We shall see what the scale says come Wednesday though.
 Happy Weight loss all!
-M

Gaining it back again

Ok. Now that I am over the Flu, I seem to have gained back all of what I lost while sick! Figures.
This week was Fat Tuesday, followed by Valentine's Day, so there was so many tempting foodies to be had, and I admit it- I caved. Some weeks you just can't do it. You are healthy for so long and all you want it the most unhealthy things you can find.

At least i was pretty good on Monday, when the hubs and I went out for sushi. I just love the tuna rolls at Concerto Fusion. The best ever!

The evening before Valentine's Day I baked these lemon sugar cookies for the hubs. There was so many we brought them to work (both of us). Luckily everyone loved them and devoured them, so there were no left over cookies in the house!

On Valentine's Day, the hubs made steak and homemade mac & cheese (something he likes and something I like. lol). He kinda made WAY more mac & cheese then he should have, so I have a feeling we are going to be having leftovers all weekend! lol

I also had the Lean Cuisine bagged tortellini one night, and remembered why I really enjoyed it the last time I got it. Such good flavor!

Other than that, been usual ups and downs of foodies.

Hopefully next week goes better.
Happy Weight loss!
-M

More pounds bite the dust

So this weekly weigh in I lost another 1.8 lbs, making my grand total loss at 42.4 lbs since October 2011. I still have a little under 20 lbs left till my goal, but it is nice to be under 170 now. I think I now can go down another weekly point, but I might wait till next week to drop it down to 28 weekly points from my 29. Here is a site that you can calculate out your weekly points plus: http://www.exercise4weightloss.com/points-plus-allowance.html
 (this is what I've been using since I can't afford the only weight watchers currently.)

This week I was fairly good all week, which made up for the fact that Sunday I didn't count my points- a friend had a get-together with theater friends, and everything was bitesized- so hard to figure it all out. I was good- had lots of fruits and vegs, and only splurged on one cookie and the smallest sliver of apple pie. Since I was pretty full on fruits and vegs, I didn't eat anything later that night, so I think even if I did go over by a few points, because I was so good the rest of the day, it worked out.
Now some of my friends and family have asked me to do a before and after. Even though I haven't hit my goal yet, I thought I'd take a "mid" point- at my current weight. Here is my before and after (I did two, since I couldn't decide which shots showed it better).

 As far as the week of good eating, I got to use my new Lean Cuisine lunch bag a lot- I find it is super cute, and I love it- especially because it was free!

Other than that, didn't try anything really new, just still enjoying skinny cow chocolate clusters as a splurge candy and finding diet cherry pepsi to be my only saving grace when I need some caffeine. I did get a lovely package from my weight loss secret sister, so that made my week too!

Oh, and I found out my previous post about Rita's was slightly off- turns out I was looking at the original weight watchers points, not points plus. But, since I love rita's, I found this great nutrition facts about all their sugar-free and slenderita products, so you can punch them into your calculator. I LOVE the sugar-free chocolate water ice, and I'm pretty sure a regular size is only 4 points plus!
Here is the site: http://www.ritasice.com/uploads/documents/Ritas_Light_Line_Nutrition_Facts_Information_12.30.08.pdf

Keep up the weight loss if you're trying, and if you're not, stay healthy!
-M

Another milestone

So today I lost another 1.4 lbs this week. That means I have lost 40.4 lbs since I started my weight loss plan in October. I am 1.25 lbs away from having lost 5 gallons of water worth of weight (hopefully will achieve that next week). Yeah, you read it right. See what I mean:

Crazy right?
Anyways, some weekly updates on the food front.
We had hot dogs and peanuts at work last Thursday to celebrate the start of baseball season. I decided to try one of the veggie dogs they had. Was only 2points plus for the dog and 3 points plus for the bun (they didn't have any wheat buns- poo). To be honest, I really thought the veggie dog tasted gross- bland, boring, and kind of rubbery. Not worth it. Luckily there was peanuts galore, and you can have 8 peanuts for single points plus.

 Didn't try any new frozen dinners this week. Sticking with my usual favorites that often have rice with them. :D

Our local Bottom Dollar had Banana twin pops! I haven't had these since I was a little kid. Always kind of reminded me of the banana runts but sweeter. I think if they banana Runts would of tasted like twin pops, I would of actually liked eatting them as a kid. haha. Anyways, these babies are only 1 points plus! Heck yeah, a bag went home with us. hehe

 The hubs tried out making what I call "Manly potatoes." Basically roasted potatoes, corn, and beef that was marinade in A1 sauce, with lots of spices. Certainly had a kick, and was pretty good tasting. One bowl (or 1/4 of a casserole dish that he made) was 11 points. Not horrible, and was quite filling with one bowl. Next time I'm going to suggest he uses slightly less salt (I can't handle salty things much anymore since I basically stopped putting it on things) and use more than just a 1 lb of meat in the whole casserole- needed a little something more than just potatoes. But overall it was tasty, and I'd have it again. To think, it all started because he wanted Shepard's Pie, and I wanted roasted potatoes.

Being Easter over the weeken, we decided to dye some hardboiled eggs.
I tried the rubber band method. Sadly, they didn't work nearly as nice, partially due to us not having vinegar to make the dye really nice.

But, the eggs are a good thing to snack on with some pepper on them. I like the egg whites, but don't like hard-boiled yokes. I can have 3 egg whites before I even dip into a single points plus!

So, I'll just have to keep on trucking along. This past week I didn't use any of my weekly points, but did use up some exercise points. I even splurged yesterday and had a Dorito Taco from Taco Bell (*gasp*) Surprisingly enough, hard tacos are only 4 points each, where soft are 5!
I also looked through a pile of photos I am looking to scrapbook this weekend while on a Scrapbook retreat/crop for Autism, and noticed for the first time since I started loosing weigh, how big I really was. I guess I never really noticed I had gotten that bad, but I look at photos of me during the summer and boy was it not pretty. Makes me cringe just looking at those photos. I guess I'm going to have to crop a bunch so they don't show my weight. haha
Anyways, *crossing fingers* for more losses!
-M

WooHoo- Down another 2.8!

So I had a wonderful weigh in yesterday- down another 2.8 lbs this week! hooray! I guess walking 5 days in a row for 35 minutes each day helped. :D

(here is my dry-erase board with my current figures)

So this past week I've tried a lot of new lean cuisines, and today I got my free lunchbox! Hooray! Here are a few I tried that are new to me.

The Asian pot stickers were surprisingly good. They were the perfect cooked and the rice was very good with the sauce. The Glazed chicken wasn't bad. My microwave at work kind of over cooked it a little on the edges, but overall not bad either. I really am liking any of the ones with rice and sauce these days.


I did some extra walking around town this past week, as the weather was BEAUTIFUL! Look at these amazing flowers in my neighborhood.

On St. Patrick's Day, I had to work, but found these delicious cookies at the store. Sadly however, a single one of these bad-boys is 4 weight watchers points plus! Holy Moly!

Over the weekend, the hubs and I went out for a late lunch/early dinner to TGIFridays. I remembered they had the parmesan crusted chicken, and got that with the spinach tortolini and a house salad with lowfat vinigrette. Was a great meal, and supposably is only 15 points plus for the whole thing (don't quote me on that though- as there was very little information on this dish at all in the internet world).

Yesterday my hubs made his fav. Chicken Enchilada lowfat soup, and tried out some new Chili powder he got from the guy who exterminates the bugs at his work. He made a huge batch of the soup to bring to work and to give to the exterminator to try out with is powder mixed in. Was pretty good- slightly more spicy than it normally is. He even gave us the chili powder in this cute little jar. :D

Lastly, today is Rita's Italian Ice day at work (every Wednesday in the Spring/Summer my co-workers get Rita's). After some research, I found that a regular Sugar-Free Cherry Gelati with Slenderita low-fat vanilla custard is only 6 weight watchers points plus! I HAD to get it. And let me tell you, it was SO worth the 6 points- perfectly filling and dealing with my Rita's craving. yay! It was on the fence of 5 or 6 points, so I just rounded up to be safe.

Anyways, I'm excited I lost another 2.8 lbs, and I hope next week goes as good- getting closer and closer to my goal! *crossing fingers* for another good week of weight loss and another great week in everything else in my life currently.
Happy weight loss all!
-M

Blargh!

Blargh! So this week I officially switched my points to 29 from 30 daily points. I guess my body didn't like that and I only lost 0.2 lbs! That by far has been my worst lost yet. It kind of made me what to cry and beat up my scale all at the same time. I did hit the 33 lbs down total mark, I just wished it was closer to 34 instead. Part of it was hard figuring out the points for my dinner at this one restaurant that we went out with some friends with over the weekend.

 (my Key-lime martini- my one splurge of the weekend)

Over the weekend I cleaned out my closet- purged a lot of clothes that either don't fit, I don't like anymore, etc. I separated my clothes into a few piles: Clothes too big, too small, donating to Goodwill, trying to sell on eBay, and then in the closet goes those that fit. :D Here's the cleaned up closet.

Another thing I have been testing out this past 2 weeks is to try some new dinners. I tried the Healthy Choice Beef Merlot steamer- SUPER AWESOME! I totally would suggest it.

I also tried the Chicken Basil in Cream Sauce with Tortellini by Lean Cuisine, also another fab. dinner. What a big change between the classic Lean Cuisine and these new Chef specials. I tried their Ranchero Beef with Sweet Potato mashed potatoes- wasn't bad tasting, just wasn't big enough to justify 6 points. I think I'll stick with the Chicken Basil.

I am only 4 lean cuisine's away from getting a free lunch box! yay! I love their rewards program. I just have to have them in by March 31st, and then I get a new lunch box. Hooray!

Today I also got my first package from my secret sister weight loss swap- super cute! I got a whole red themed package of crafting goodies and an adorable strawberry card and the most awesomeness of snacks- Skinny Cow chocolate caramel clusters- only 2 points plus a pack! Super amazing and so worth it!

Well, hopefully this week goes better. Already, it has been better with me exercising a bit more (beautiful weather and all) and so far sticking closer to my points. I'm looking forward to my dessert tonight of a Weight Watchers Ice Cream bar. Can't wait.

*crossing fingers* for a good weight loss week.
-M