Sunshiney day

Hi friends!

I am in an unusually good mood today. I believe is a combinations of reasons:

1. It's absolutely gorgeous outside. Sunny, blue skies, crisp and chilly!
2. I'm wearing my new Ray-Ban geek-chic glasses I got yesterday at LensCrafters (only took an hour!?!) and I absolutely LOVE them.
3. Also wearing my new City Chic skinny jeans that I picked up for a DOLLAR, and they make my ass look fantastic!
4. My boyfriend is coming over tonight for a romantic homecooked meal and a movie - we both crush on Leo DiCaprio so we're going to see J. Edgar!
5. I lost this week, so after a little Thanksgiving gain I'm only 1 pound away from where I was.  Also, only 1.4lbs away from reaching my first big goal - 10% body weight lost!

Last week's weight: 206.6

This week's weight: 205.2

-1.4lbs for 21.2 total

I made some really tasty recipes this week, supplemented with some good frozen stuff from Trader Joe's those days I didn't have a premade lunch.

First up: this is a tweaked version of Skinnytaste's Cilantro Chicken Salad. First of all, I had an entire rotisserie chicken sitting in the fridge so I used that instead of cooking fresh breasts. I'm not a huge fan of cilantro so I subbed in dill, and I also didn't have light mayo so I used less regular and left out the chicken broth. I like my deli salads on the drier side so it worked out perfectly for me. I LOVE this chicken salad, and I'm usually very picky with mine! To take it up even a notch further, I'm planning to add some celery next time to give it some fantastic crunch! My tweaked recipe is below - click here for the original.

14oz rotisserie chicken, shredded/chopped

3 Tbsp mayo

3 scallions, chopped

Juice of half a lemon

4 Tbsp chopped dill, more or less to taste

salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and chile powder to taste

Makes 4 servings, 6 Points Plus each.

Next is another spin on a Skinnytaste recipe. Her beet salad also called for cilantro, and more mayo than I'd like. I halved the mayo, replaced the cilantro with dill again, and added a sprinkle of sugar to sweeten the beets and vinegar for some tanginess.

2 cans of sliced beets
1 Tbsp mayo
1 Tbsp fat free sour cream

3 Tbsp dill
1/2 small onion, sliced thin
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
3 servings, 1 Point Plus each

Both recipes can be lightened further - just use low fat or fat free mayo, and poach chicken breasts instead of using rotisserie chicken for the chicken salad :)

One lunch I had two servings (so 4 pieces) of Spicy Shrimp Bao from Trader Joes, they're only 3 points for 2 and quite delicious!

Another night's dinner was Trader Joe's Pork Gyoza Pot Stickers - 1 Point each, with a crap load of steamed broccoli with a little soy and ponzu sauces :)

The Thanksgiving bloat

Well. It has definitely been a tough week or so. I know I'm not the only Weight Watcher who stepped on the scale this week a bit heftier.

Friday morning after Thanksgiving I stepped on the scale and saw a gain of 2.4lbs. Not at all surprised of course. I wish I could say that after that I behaved myself foodwise for the rest of the weekend, but of course that wasn't the case. Crap food and alcohol prevailed, and I'm sure I must have put on another 2 pounds at least. Monday morning rolled around and I went back on track - until night time that is.

I've been realizing in the last few days that I've started to revert back to old habits of nighttime munching, a habit I thought I broke once I really got into the WW groove. But the last few nights I've found myself heading downstairs for a snack late at night. I know it's bad, but I can't stop myself! I feel like I'm lacking the motivation and self control that I had for a few months there, and its something I desperately need and want back. I feel like I've been subconsciously giving up a bit over the holiday season so far, I'm sort of in the mentality that gaining is inevitable and it's hard to be strict with food in that mindset. I'm trying really hard to get back to my better eating habits! Any tips for curbing those urges?

I am happy that I managed to get back to the gym for the first time in a few weeks on Monday. I did three miles on the elliptical and felt really good. I'm going to try to do another 3 miles after work today, and then bashfully show my face in back in Body Pump on Thursday. Hopefully I won't have gained anymore than I already did by weigh in on Friday.

How have you been doing with food over the holidays?

Woops

Woops, behind schedule once again!

Long story short, I gained .2lbs last week. Not a big deal, I'll just have to be more careful this week.

Unfortunately, this week also means THANKSGIVING.

Is it possibly to stay the same/lose weight over the week of Thanksgiving do you think? I am bringing a few dishes I'll be cooking from Skinnytaste to try to keep it low fat, but I'm not very optimistic.

Wish me luck this week! And good luck to you all as well!

Relief!

Another good week for me! I have to say I let out a sigh of relief this morning when I stepped on the scale. It's that time of the month and I was feeling super crampy and bloated, and I thought for sure it was going to be a repeat of last month. Not so!

Last week's weight: 206.6 lbs

This week's weight: 204 lbs

-2.6 lbs for a total loss of 22.4 lbs

I feel a bit guilty because I haven't been working out at all lately. I go through phases of working out 4-5 times a week to not working out at all. I know I'll pick up again eventually but for now I'm savoring this break from the gym, and really thankful that the scale is still moving downwards. 

I was explaining to my boyfriend the other day just how much my eating habits have changed over the last few months of being on Weight Watchers. The difference between what I used to eat, and how much, and what I eat now is like night and day. For example:

Before:
Breakfast: Coffee and a toasted everything bagel with low-fat cream cheese from Dunkin' Donuts
Lunch: A sandwhich of some sort, usually turkey, cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, cranberry mayo on foccacia, with either a bag of chips or pickles, or a cookie; or chinese take out, or some other fatty food.
Dinner: A hefty helping of whatever my parents made.
Plus after work snacks/dessert - whatever was in the house/vending machine really.

Now:

Breakfast: A breakfast sandwhich of some sort; either an egg with WW cheese, or egg whites, or some sort of small veggie omelette on low carb TJ's bread. Coffee from Dunkin' with Splenda and milk.

Snacks for the day: Some fruit, today I have a banana, two clementines and some blackberries. Also some savory snacks, today I have wasabi roasted seaweed from TJ (freakin delish, btw), a container of cherry tomatoes and two light Babybel cheeses.

Lunch: Usually, leftovers from last night's Skinnytaste dinner. Today it's Skinnytaste Turkey Chili with a tbsp of light sour cream and 1/4 cup light shredded cheese from TJ's.

Afterwork: more fruit or veggies or a babybel cheese - basically, something light and low in points

Dinner: Whatever I decide to make off Skinnytaste that night. My parents rarely cook anymore!

Dessert: more fruit, maybe an apple with a tbsp of peanut butter, or maybe a Weight watchers fudgebar

What I've found is that I acutally eat more now that I'm Weight Watchers, but the quality of what I'm eating is eight million times better than before. I used to have my bagel in the morning and by the time lunch rolled around I was starving, and wouldn't think twice about that very large (and delicious) sandwich. Now my snacks hold me over so a small lunch is just fine by me.

Have you drastically changed your diet trying to lose weight? Or do you eat the same but just in a lesser amount?

Back on track

I've not been doing to well updating on Fridays on weigh in day, have I? Gotta work on that...

Despite the temptation of Halloween candy lying around (I won't say I didn't snag a few snack sized Snickers!), I did pretty well this week!

Last week's weight: 208 lbs
This week's weight: 206.6 lbs

So I'm pretty much back on track. Last week was a mess with no power and no way to cook my dinners or prepare my lunches. This week is a fresh start, and I'm going to take the opportunity to try out my new crock pot! I'm thinking this recipe, or maybe this one...

My boyfriend has been super supportive of my weightloss journey thus far and is so obliging and understanding about my fanaticism of cooking from Skinnytaste (the recipes are so good that he hardly has reason to complain!), and making sure he measures all the ingredients according to the recipe when we cook together or when he cooks for me (which he usually will do every Friday while I drive out to see him after work - what a peach!). I spent the whole weekend with him in Brooklyn and we tried out two new recipes from Skinnytaste with delicious results -  Friday night we had Carne Bistec over multigrain rice, and Saturday we whipped up some Bruschetta Chicken with a side of my favorite Sauteed Brussel Sprouts.

Delicious! It was his first time trying brussel sprouts since childhood and they were a hit!

Quickie

Just wanted to pop in super quick and post my weigh in from Friday - I'm a little behind!

I'm having trouble getting back into the groove - I gained 2 lbs this week, going from 206 to 208. I know why of course, a night of heaving drinking followed by hangover munchies - and unfortunately the same happened again this past weekend. I can't even get to the gym as the power is out in my whole town because of this freak snow storm we had. I'm just going to have to do the best I can foodwise this week, and drinking is definitely a no no for me this weekend. If I gain again, it will suck, but at least I know why and I can work to get back into my better habits.

New recipe coming soon, stay tuned, and wish me luck this week :)

Mmm, curry...

I damn near died when I saw this super simple and quick recipe for a thai shrimp curry on Skinnytaste last week and I knew it needed to be made STAT. At a measly 3 points for a fourth of the recipe (a quarter pound of shrimp! Plus tons of curry sauce) there's no guilt for having a nice sized serving of rice to sop up that curry goodness :) The smell coming off your pan while you cook this will have you salivating til the first bite!

Thai Green Curry Coconut Shrimp with Basil
Skinnytaste.com
Servings: 4 • Size: 1/4th of shrimp + sauce • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 3 pts
Calories: 134.1 • Fat: 4.4 g • Protein: 18.5 g • Carb: 4.4 g • Fiber: 1 g • Sugar: 1.8
Sodium: 501.2 (without salt)

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp oil
• 4 small scallions, whites and greens separated, chopped
• 1 tbsp Thai green curry paste (or more to taste) (Thai Kitchen makes a great one)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined (from 1 1/4 lbs unpeeled)
• 6 oz light coconut milk
• 2 tsp Thai fish sauce 
• 2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• salt to taste

In a large nonstick skillet or wok, heat oil on medium-high flame. Add scallion whites and green curry paste; sauté one minute. Add shrimp and garlic, season with salt and cook about 2-3 minutes. Add coconut milk, fish sauce and mix well; simmer about 2-3 minutes, or until shrimp is cooked through. Remove from heat, mix in scallion greens and basil.

I served my curry over basmati rice (4 pp for a half cup), and made an extra batch of just the curry sauce (simply followed the directions but omitting the shrimp) to toss my green beans in (1 extra pp). A little bit of tomato, onion and basil salad rounded out a delicious meal :)