New start

Planning to be fit really does take effort. I've been just limping along here for awhile, but I think I'll just get a new start. Keep it simple.

Birthday cake

I made an ice cream cake for Christy yesterday. Today for her birthday it was quite yummy and I had two pieces. Oops! Maybe I can take comfort in the fact that it was light ice cream? Oh well, I sent her home with the rest and I won't be trying to sneak more over the next few days!

Three weeks

This is the end of the 3rd week since I started this blog. I have lost four and a half pounds so far. I feel better and I'm starting to get myself organized so that I have a daily menu. Dinner time is not such a hastle now. I started out last week by writing out a main dish for each day for dinner; not a new recipe,but something that my family has eaten. There are a few meals that we will have the same thing more than once a month, because we like them more often, but in general I was able to come up with at least 30 different main courses. That took me a few hours to do. I was only going to do a week but once I got started it wasn't so hard. As for breakfest and lunch I alternate between three to four different meals. I also have a snack at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I try to keep on hand 2-3 different kinds of fruits, and a variety of fresh vegetables and greens. I've also gotten back to regular exercise which is usually a 2-3 mile walk followed by stretching. I'm starting to incorporate some exercise programs on TV as well. This morning I did yoga to a program I recorded from BYU TV. It was good but I could only do about 10 minutes. I'll have to build up to the full 30 minutes.
My appetite is more under control, but I still have to watch it. I love homebaked food, so this week when I made homemade pizza, I couldn't resist having 4 pieces. But with whole wheat crust its not so ditrimental. I also made an ice cream birthday cake for my son, and that was hard to resist as well. Actually I didn't resist it. I had a piece for his birthday, then a bit more for two days. But right now food isn't calling to me every minute like before. Yea!

Yummy, Fast and GOOD for you!

This is my favorite in a flash recipe and it's very good for you! My trainer shared it with me. I usually add sliced grilled chicken in and mix it to make it a meal. Whenever I can't think of something to make, I make this because I always have the ingredients on hand, it's SO fast and my family LOVES it! Happy Healthy Cooking!

10-Minute Lemon Basil Pasta
8 oz. linguine, whole wheat
2 T. Melted butter substitute
1 T. Lemon Juice
1 1/2 t. Dried Basil Leaves (I use Italian Seasoning, it's cheaper!)
3/4 t. Garlic Salt
1/4 t. Black Pepper
1/4 C. grated Parmesan Cheese (I don't put this on anymore, hubby is alergic to cheese and it really cuts on calories.)
Cook pasta according to package directions, without salt. Drain and return to pan. In a small bowl, combine all other ingredients, EXCEPT cheese. Toss with cooked pasta. Then sprinkle cheese over pasta and serve immediately. Can add cooked chicken. Serve with a salad or steamed veggies. Serves 4.

Christy's Banana Pancakes

Well I just had to try the banana pancakes. They were yummy! But I should caution here, don't make them in the bullet! The recipe is too large and as I was opening the bullet after mixing (this is before I got the bananas in) the mix just squirted out onto the counter up to the window. I have very fast acting baking powder (Rumford) I was able to recover most of what had pooled around the container though, and added the bananas. I should have made them in the big blender. The recipe made about nine 6 inch pancakes. They were so yummy I didn't stop till I had eaten 4 pancakes. Two pancakes with a bit of butter on top and two with peanut butter. Actually they were good by themselves. The lesson here is to make them only when you know there will be someone to help you eat them, because it is hard to stop at one or two! I wondered about cutting the recipe in half and just using one egg. I might try that next time. Thanks for sharing Christy!

Whats on the menu?

What to eat? This is what I'm always thinking. Well, kind of. It's more of a see-food diet. I see it. I eat it. This is what gets me in trouble, and then makes me frustrated. From past experience I’ve found when I plan ahead, it helps me stay more on track. It would be so nice if I only had one meal to plan each day. But that would also lead me to binging and then feeling disgusted with my self.
Actually it's not hard to concentrate on a whole days worth of what to eat if I plan it out ahead of time and write it down. It just gets annoying when I start thinking "oh that's fattening", "that's full of carbs", "that won't last long in my stomach", or a few other thoughts. I do know about nutrition. If you put the right things in your body, it will respond.
Over the years I have invested in a number of Health and weight loss books such as the” The South Beach Diet”, “The Swartzbein Principle,” “Crack the Fat-Loss Code”, and the regular cookbooks like ”Better Homes and Gardens” cookbook, etc. I can count at least 20 cookbooks in my cupboard. I’ve made at a few recipes from every cookbook, and other recipes off the internet. But now my thought is where is that recipe? I think I’m getting the cogs to move. For now I think I’ll concentrate on the meals that my family has liked and spend a few minutes to plan out a day or two days worth of meals. To be continued…..

Healthy Drinks for any mood...

Ever just want something to kill the hunger or give you that comfort feeling?
These are my favorite drinks brought to my memory recently by making myself track meals again! Most of these require a blender, my favorite being the bullet for making my own serving size of the drink. If you want to make more just double or triple in another blender. I’ve only included ingredients because they’re really simple… blend or stir! Enjoy!

Fruit Shake
(Very filling and yummy!)
4 frozen Strawberries (or other fruit)
1 ¼ c. milk
2 T. sugar free pudding

Wassail
(great hot drink – I love this for an alternate to Hot Chocolate when I’m cold)
2 c. Hot Water
1 pkt. Orange Sunrise Crystal Light
1-2 t. cinnamon

Strawberry Daiquiri
4-5 Frozen Strawberries
1 ½ c. Water
1-2 T. Lime Juice (depends on how sour you like it)
1-2 T. Splenda or other sweetner

Banana Shake
(no sugar or substitute needed!)
1 overripe frozen banana (in quarters)
1 ½ c. milk

100 OUNCES OF WATER!

Okay, one more post. One of my goals for this year is to drink 100 ounces of water a day. I've already done it for a few weeks before Christmas break because I was having a low production of milk for my baby. I looked around on some web sites to see how I could produce more milk and what do you know, drink more water... so simple and it makes sense when my baby drinks 20+ ounces a day. I should be drinking at least that! So I tried it (I was also remembering to eat breakfast and lunch then too).

It was hard at first, water has no taste except the plastic bottle it sits in (YUCK). I still have my 32 ounce mug from the hospital so I would fill it and push myself to drink 3 mugs a day (1 mug full by a certain time). I would sip through the straw (a lot easier than drinking it in my opinion). I decided to drink half of the mug each time I would feed Riley, I had nothing better to do anyway. At first I had to push myself, but each day I met my goal, it was very exciting and so much easier. After a while I loved it and it kind of became an addiction. Every time I sat down to feed Riley, I would be looking for that mug and it would always be empty. I even started making more milk, more than enough that I froze a few bags.

I was afraid my mug would get taken if I took it on the plane ride to Seattle, so I left it at home and then that was the end of that...

So, I'm home now and I'm going to "JUST DO IT" like Nike says and I CHALLENGE EVERYONE ELSE TO DO IT TO!!!

Start with 8 ounces a day and see where it goes.

Get yourself a big mug.

Good Luck!

hmmm... journaling

Okay... SOMEONE please hold me to it!! I didn't journal and I ate a TON today. Why did I fall so far off the wagon!?!?!?!? Hoping the rest of you are doing better. :) So, other than the journaling/eating too much I really did have an enjoyable day. Currently pulling out my WW food journal and plan to put it on the counter... or would the fridge be better?

Banana Pancakes... YUM!

Last night I was thumbing through my children's cook books...

First of all, I use the children's cookbooks because they're easy to make, they usually take less than 30 minutes to cook, and they're FUN!

Okay, okay... the truth is that I'm no chef.

Anyway, I found a recipe for B-A-N-A-N-A, Banana Pancakes (that was fun! You know the song...) from my Family Fun recipe book by Disney.

So second, you need to know that come 2 o'clock, I ask my self "Did I eat anything this morning? Oops! I forgot!" Maybe that's why my baby's starving from milk failure.

In any case, I decided that I need to schedule breakfast and lunch so I can produce more milk, so I thought it would be a tasty Sunday breakfast... well, I kind of napped through breakfast, so I had it for lunch.

It was a little harder than I had planned because to start with, I'm so impatient I don't follow recipes very well. I just want to get it made NOW!!!

I didn't have self rising flour and I thought I could make it with regular flour (that's what I usually do, improvise), but that word rising seemed important, so I decided there had to be a basic pancake recipe somewhere in my kitchen that would make my pancakes rise and I found one in my Better Homes Bridal Edition Cookbook... of course it was a buttermilk recipe, so that was no good because I didn't have "buttermilk"/sourmilk, etc. Finally, I found directions below for a regular recipe. So the point I'm getting to is this... it called for SUGAR!

Not a lot of sugar, but I decided that I could "improvise" something that would be healthier than sugar. That took me to my "Cookin' with Home Storage" recipe book. In the back it has a substitution list and I found that honey substitutes very well (Hmmm, just like in herbal tea!). So I made the substitution, used whole wheat AND olive oil, and added 3 mashed B-A-N-A-N-A-S, BANANAS!

So, I had some healthy pancakes, burned some energy running around looking for this, that, and the other. WOW, I felt great!

Then I added syrup and butter...OOPS!

Here is the final recipe from 3 different cookbooks and my own imagination, THEY REALLY ARE GREAT! I asked my husband what he thought as he look at them and was about to take a bite...

"These are Whole Wheat, arn't they (with sour face)?"

"JUST TRY THEM!"

(BITE)

"Hmmm, they're okay."

S-U-C-C-E-S-S!


BANANA PANCAKES
1 C. WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR
2 T. HONEY (MORE THAN REALLY IS NECESSAR, BUT I LOVE IT!)
2 t. BAKING POWDER
1/4 t. SALT (COULDN'T FIND A SUB, PROBABLY DIDN'T NEED IT ANYWAY)
1 BEATEN EGG
1 C. MILK
2 T. COOKING OIL (I USED OLIVE)
3 SMALL MASHED B-A-N-A-N-A-S, BANANAS


TRY IT!!!

AMEN... to journaling!

Amen, momma! Well, who wants to right down that you ate that huge sundae or large shake? And that my friends, is why journaling works. I don't think anyone is about to commit to writing any number of huge indulgences down. So, as long as you journal you choose not to eat those things that would haunt you later on paper. Whereas the sundae or shake would only be momentarily pleasing and totally forgotten without the objects of pen and paper! Ahh... the food journal. Why is it so hard to do!?!?!?!?!? I think because I just like to EAT! And there are many like me... why do you think Weight Watchers has made millions off of teaching poor souls like me to journal?! Alright, I'll do it again... tomorrow, right? :)

Did I eat that?

This week I have been making an effort to write down what I eat, because I've read and heard that a food journal helps you to be more aware of what you are eating. I firmly believe that. I have done it before and it works quite well; except when I’m lazy, which I tend to be, and when I indulge in something that’s good and gooey, full of calories and no nutrition. I don't like to tell on myself. But I guess if I want to succeed, which I do, I'm going to have to be truthful with myself.

Three days this week I started to write down the foods I eat, on the back of my half-page recycled papers. Every day though, I misplaced the paper by the end of the day. Was I trying to sabotage myself? Two of those days I had even taken the precaution of preparing the paper the night before, so I wouldn’t lose it. The interesting thing is that yesterday while I was sorting through a pile of "stuff", I found a red steno book, that I had clearly written, "Did I eat that?" I haven't used that book for at least a couple of years although it has surfaced a few times. There were no entries. But I know that I had written in it at one time. It was probably before I discovered the true value of a food journal. I must have pulled out the used pages thinking I would use it for something else. Well I’m going to put it to good use now and with that red cover, hopefully I can keep track of it as well.
Although the food journal pages didn't surface, probably thrown away as trash , using them did have an effect on me. I was more aware of what I was eating, and reminded to eat something that was nutritious…and I weighed in a couple pounds lighter!

Can't wait to RUN off this weight!

I'm glad you started this mom... very fun. Last year... well I guess it's not last year anymore, 2009 was so fun being so much lighter and running. A 10 mile run became easy for me. I can't wait to feel like that again!! Made me feel much younger. My dimpled little Aiden really added the years to me! Well, that and all the other health issues. Anyhow, looking forward to loosing a few "Real Age" years. :)
So... anyone want to plan to run a race together? I just got a post-op cast for my broken foot and may... be at least walking and exercising by the end of the month. Yay! Anyhow, I want to do the Bolder Boulder for sure and hopefully (fingers crossed) a half or full marathon in Sept./Oct.

Getting Started

Looking for some help in getting fit and staying there, I joined a blog with some friends (my daughter-in-law Nikole invited me on her family's sight, "The McWeightloss Project")for weightloss. Just making my resolution and goal to lose a certain amount of weight and knowing that others would know, gave me an added amount of strength to feel like I could dig in and work off the 7 lbs I gained during December, plus the 5 lbs. I gained during November and the pounds before that.

I thought it might be good to surround myself with smart, knowledgable, encouraging people who had ideas that we could share back and forth so I asked my daughters, sisters and anyone else who finds it hard to stay fit on a long term basis to join me on this blog journey. You see, I have lost this weight several times before and it always comes back to haunt me. What I need to do is plan to follow through even after the weight comes off. So, although I weighed in a few days ago, my goal is to lose a pound a week and hope to meet my goal to lose 20 pounds by mid-May.

Meanwhile I will be looking for ideas to not only lose weight but be healthy while trying. You are welcome to join me and share your thoughts, even if you don't plan to lose weight, after all just losing the weight doesn't actually make you healthy. But it would be fun if you shared your goal in trying to get fit and update with your progress too!