November 25

One more pound down. I enjoyed my 5 pound lost reward. Trying to think of what I can reward myself with for the next 5. Not much has changed this week I have been slacking a little but sort of getting in a habit eating bigger nutritious meals and less processed snacks. If I do go out I do end up not eating the whole thing for example taco's eat half the shell, or pizza half the crust etc. This seems to work I get what I want but save on calories.  Today was use up all the veggies in my fridge day. I made black bean and veggie soup, a sauce, kale chips, and the sweet potatoes are cooking right now. That should keep me full for the next few days.

I started out making a hot sauce from Chatelaine magazine but then threw in some more things that needed to be used up. It ended up being a tasty sauce.

Sauce

1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
2 serrano peppers
1 carrot
1 red onion
1 bunch cilantro
10 cherry tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

Boil all the ingredients together. Puree with hand blender.

I like to cook soups in the rice cooker as it keeps all the flavour in. My intention wasn't to puree the soup I was testing out the hand blender and it worked pretty fast.

November 20, 2012

4 pounds down and as long as the scale keeps dropping I am happy. I am starting to see a big change in inches. Although 4 pounds may not seem like a lot I have been going to the gym at least 2 times a week for the past year and a half and this is the lowest weight I have been so far. I expect to see the scale go down more.

The big changes this week are I kept with the 1000 calorie extra day per week. It happened that I had someone to go out for lunch with every weekend for the past few weeks. Although I went all out during those meals a lot of pasta with cream sauce, bread, maybe dessert maybe a mocha or a hot chocolate. What I didn't do or feel like doing was having bad snacks outside of the meals.

The rest of the week I tried to stick with eating more fruit and veg. Did I cheat? of course but being aware of it made a difference helped to cut back on portion sizes.

My go to dessert is now the magic bullet frozen banana dessert recipe I posted earlier but it has been enhanced, the food prep center made such a difference in texture. I now add less soy milk and more fruit. So far have had it with mandarin orange and strawberries. Same recipe just added additional fruit.

Kale chips are another favorite I have discovered recently. Fresh Kale seems to last a couple of weeks so I make this as I feel like eating it.

Kale Chips

Wash and dry a few Kale leaves
Tear into pieces
add spices of choice (I add curry spices) - note Kale is naturally salty limit the salt
Bake in toaster oven for  approximately 10 minutes at 350
stir and remove cooked pieces occasionally

Once cooked sprinkle with vinegar for a salt and vinegar chip

I will get some pictures and recipes up when I have some more time. I just want to get the post for the week done. This week started out last sunday ended up eating out twice in one day so decided my cheat day would be sunday's.

During the week I got into using my new rice cooker to make soups and experimenting with the new "prep" center I have only used the handchopper part so far I was pleasantly suprised. I ended up trying out the carb cycling for lunch and dinner because I ended up eating the same thing two times in one day. I think its working so I am going to continue with it and try for less cheating. I was down 1 pound mid week. I have a feeling its more my stomach is getting smaller. I tried to eat the extra 1000 calories on sunday but its actually difficult if you don't get a lot of junk food. I think I will cheat less during the week and do what is intended save everything for that one day just to see what happens. I have been cooking sweet potatoes for my afternoon snack and it has been working great to help me not eat junk food. I have also made two batches of Kale chips in the last two days and really enjoying this snack.

The calorie app has been great it really makes me think twice about what I am eating. Really helps to cut back on those addictive Starbucks drinks. I just earned a new badge for logging in everyday for two weeks.

I caught Tommy Europe's seminar at the Health Show on Sunday. The only thing that he said that was inspiring was remember there are a million people in the world that would trade places with you. They would love to have the opportunity to exercise or eat well. 

Today's Dessert creation.

Recipe Banana Nut Soft serve

1    frozen banana
1    tablespoon nut butter
1    lindtt chocolate mini with sea salt
1/2 cup soy milk (omit to get a more frozen texture)

Mix in a blender of your choice. The magic bullet is great its the only blender I own.

I tend to make things up based on what I have in the house. This was really tasty and a good healthy dessert that only takes a couple minutes to make.

November 2, 2012

Half a pound down since last week and considering there were two dinner events and Halloween this week its pretty good results. One of the main tools this week has been the lose it app. It does involve calorie counting but actually seeing how many calories things are is motivating me to limit snacks. I have used the app in the past mostly as just a weight tracker but I hadn’t updated it. There are some new features which I like one is a scanner to scan bar codes to get the calories. The other is badges for doing tasks it would be more fun if there was a reward at the end. It is still motivational when you get an e-mail saying congratulations you did this. 

My Starbucks addiction

I used to drink starbucks daily. Lately mainly the price has been motivating me to start making my own coffee. I have a Tassimo and a really good travel mug now. I am slowly making my coffee more and more but am still not at the point where I can go an entire week without going to starbucks. The Christmas drinks are back ahhh those are so addictive. Today I thought its Friday I will have one, had a tall gingerbread latte with soymilk. I had to look up pumpkin spice as the gingerbread didn’t show. 230 calories in the app wow better not drink those everyday. When I looked it up on the starbucks Canada app its 160 calories. I wonder if this is the reason I always put on weight in the States such a big difference for a very similar drink. I didn’t enjoy the latte as much as I remember it, but I did note they now have skinny peppermint mocha’s only 100 calories. I will try that next time.

Carb Cycling

An episode of Dr. OZ came out this week with Chris Powell talking about carb cycling. Essentially you always eat 5 meals a day. You always eat carbs for breakfast then one day carbs one day no carbs. The high carb days still involve healthy carbs whole grain pasta, granola, oats. The low carb days involve things like lettuce wraps. There is also a binge day where you can eat 1000 more calories a day so save the eating out for these days. I liked his rules for this day you have to eat at a table and no leftovers kept in the house.

I have seen a diet like this before but the reason I won’t try it is my body doesn’t enjoy binging.  I also find it difficult to organize my schedule so you only need to go out on cheat days. I do like to only eat out once a week if I can help it.

I eat the same breakfast Monday to Friday which has been working for me. A tortilla with an apple and nut butter. What I am going to try from this is alternating between a carb lunch to a non-carb lunch. I like this idea.

October 27, 2012

This is my weight loss blog. I was always skinny growing up was a very picky eater. Something changed when I got older after 25 I just consistently put on weight. I had always been told by family that I would become big at 21 I was always happy I lasted until 25.  I am not athletic but do enjoy walking everywhere I always walk around town and at minimum will walk for 30 mins everyday.  Now at 35 I have been going to the gym at least twice a week, own and love Shaun T fitness DVD’s (hip hop abs and rockin body) and hopefully one day I will comfortable enough to try insanity.

So after a year of no weight loss but with a job change and getting the DVD’s I lost 7 pounds. Then I went to Vegas and put on about 10. It took me a couple of months to lose that weight again and decided I don’t want to put that weight on again. Decided instead of flying anywhere I will  just go across the border to Tulalip for a couple of days. Well I just put on 5 pounds on that trip so here’s my problem. I love to travel but if I do I am going to put on weight.

This is the challenge I want to go to Vegas to eat at the new Caesar’s buffet. The only way I will be happy to go is if I lose 20 pounds. I have a bunch of girls ready to come on an eating tour with me if I can do this. There is no deadline on my goal but realistically I will want to go to somewhere in February and if I can’t do it by then for sure in April for my birthday.

This blog is part of the plan to help make me feel more accountable. I will try to blog more frequently but will commit to at least once per week. I will post things related to my weight loss journey and hopefully will be able to see results.

I am vegetarian and believe in only natural methods. I have a co-worker friend who has last 50 pounds strictly calorie counting so I have some inspiration but I don’t think calorie counting is the method for me.

Since people I know will be reading this I will not post my weight so let's go with goal's lose 20 pounds and be a size 8.