Clean Eating magazine

John picked up a new (to us) magazine this week called Clean Eating. It has a bunch of good articles about health, kitchen stuff, eating non-processed foods and lots of recipes. Tonight we tried out one of their recipes for pasta alfredo with shrimp & veggies. It was really good, and healthy too. I've added it to my rotation of recipes. I'll also be making one of the desserts this weekend for Thanksgiving, a layered lemon cream tart. I'll post about that after we try it.

Here's the recipe for the Alfredo Cream Sauce

1 cup 2% milk
2 1/2 tsp arrowroot (we didn't have any so we used tapioca instead, you can also use cornstarch)
2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk & arrowroot. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, until mixture comes to a simmer and thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add cheese, whisking until melted. Whisk in yogurt, nutmeg, salt, pepper. Cover and set side. If necessary, re-warm over low heat before serving.

This recipe was tasty, really easy, and fast to make. I prepped my veggies first, then started making the sauce. While I was making the sauce, I started to boil the water for pasta. By the time the water was boiling the sauce was done.Then I started sautéeing my veggies and shrimp and started the pasta. By the time the pasta was done, the veggies & shrimp were done too.

For the veggie/shrimp mixture, I sautéed 2 shallots, 1 package (thawed) frozen cooked shrimp, snap peas (lots), and asparagus (lots) for about 7 minutes while the pasta was cooking.

This made enough for 3 dinners tonight (Holden eats adult portions when he likes what I've made and this recipe had 2 thumbs up from him!) and 2 leftover lunches tomorrow.

Weigh-In Wednesday

It's another weigh-in day, and I'm happy to announce that I have lost 1 lb. OK, it's not perfect, but it's a loss and I'll take it!!

Last week: 168.4
This week: 167.4

McDonald's: 1 — Stephanie: 1

*sigh* I was lazy this morning. I went to McDonald's to get a Bacon 'n Egg McMuffin sandwich and a coffee (both my true McDonald's weaknesses). I actually tricked myself into thinking that sandwich wasn't so bad... I mean, it's just an egg, a bit of bacon, english muffin and 1 slice of (crappy) cheese. Turns out that sandwich is horrible (but delicious)!

Here's the breakdown on the Bacon 'n Egg McMuffin sandwich:
310 calories
14g fat (5g saturated)
30g carbs
2g fibre
2g sugar
16g protein

I think the only good thing in this is the protein.

Otherwise the weekend has gone really well. I haven't pigged out, my choices have been decent. I could definitely do better, but overall I'm happy.

McDonald's: 0 — Stephanie: 1

We've had a stressful busy week at work this week, and I managed to make good choices with food*, which many people know is super hard to do when you're stressed and busy. So for that I'm really happy.

Today was the real showdown though. John just couldn't take it and wanted McDonald's for lunch. He wanted it bad. So, ya know, I encouraged him not to, but there's only so much I can do. I'm his wife, not his mom. So John had McDonald's and I had a big salad. I turned down McDonald's when I had a super easy out on it. I'm really proud of myself! AND it was a delicious salad. I've had this salad everyday this week. It's so damn good.

Here's the recipe to my oh-so-delicious salad:

Vinaigrette (this makes enough for a week's worth of salads)

• 1 small shallot finely chopped or minced
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tsp dijon mustard

Mix those 3 ingredients together.
Whisk in slowly:

• 10 tbsp olive oil

These are the veggies I put in my salad:
Lettuce (d-uh)
Grape tomatoes
Cucumber
Green beans (I use LOTS, so good... steam for 3 minutes, submerge in cold water, add to salad)
Goat cheese (the secret delicious ingredient)

Tomorrow is Saturday. The weekend. I really hope I can pull it off and make healthy food choices!

*I had a take-out coffee every morning with sugar and cream. This was my "bad thing" of the week.

Weigh-In Wednesday

It's completely psychological, but John and I decided to change our weigh-in day to Wednesday. Besides giving me a catchy alliteration title for my weigh-in days, it also gives John and I a couple of days to recover from a potentially bad eating weekend. Which hopefully won't happen every weekend anyway, but you never know. Did I mention how depressed I was from my Monday weigh-in this week? I want to avoid that happening again at all cost.

So here is my Wednesday weigh-in: 168.4 (down .06)

The fight continues

I hate it when I'm doing so well, then the weekend comes along and you have date night (lots of wine), then dinner with family (including dessert), twice, and then it's Monday and you feel like crap.

That happened to me this week.

I was doing sooooo great last week, then Friday rolled around. It was fun, the food was great, but when Monday morning weigh-in happened I had gained back 3 lbs that I had lost. So now I'm still at 169.

On top of that, I'm having a hard time getting back into it. I'm back to drinking coffee with sugar/cream & my lunch is whatever I can scrounge up. Dinner is still good, but I'm also back to snacking after Holden goes down.

I really need to learn to keep my motivation UP and carry it through the weekend. The weekends really do me in. I have such a hard time turning down delicious treats :(

Do you have any tricks for staying motivated? Especially when faced (literally) with a dessert offered to you, under your nose? I'd love to hear any tips you have!

I'm doing good!

Since the last post, I've really been watching what I eat, and it's been paying off already. I'm down 3.5 lbs!! OK, for the sake of full disclosure, I fibbed in my last post... I said I was 169 (which I thought I was) only to weigh myself and see it be 172.5 *ugh ugh ugh*. So now I'm 169 for real *ha*, and that's just in a bit over a week, by only watching what I eat, no exercise!

Next step: get a swim membership. I think it's pretty much the only exercise I enjoy, not to mention it's no impact so good for my knees. I'll be buying myself a 6 month pass to Nepean Sportsplex, which is just down the street from us. I'm sure the first week will be 2 laps and done *ha*, I'm so out of shape, but hopefully it'll pick up with regular visits.

I'm back

I'm back on this journey. It's so hard. I sabotage myself at every turn. It's a horrible feeling. I'm up to 169 pounds the heaviest I have ever ever been. I'm not chubby, I'm not plump, I'm fat.

John and I were eating pretty well for 3 days, then John thought we deserved a treat and bought me a chocolate bar. I can't resist once it's in my hands. I'm totally weak. I'm one of those people that needs to have zero temptation in the house for this to work for me.

So I ate my chocolate bar. Now I'm back to feeling like crap, but today is a new day. Onward we go.

Knee pain :(

I've had bad knees for a long time (about a decade!) but it was never so bad that it stopped me from doing anything. Over the past 6 months to a year (give or take, I can't remember exactly) it has gotten really really bad when I do exercise of any kind.

Remember that post last week about how I went on a one hour walk with Jasmine? That was last Wednesday. My left knee has been in excruciating pain ever since. I coincidentally had my physical yesterday, and she believes it's some form of Patella Femoral Syndrome... which is kind of a catch phrase to say something is wrong with your knee! It could be anything! LOL. Anyway, she recommended I try physiotherapy. Since I'm not covered for physio, she recommended I look up some exercises online and if they don't end up working to then go to physio. So that's what I'll be doing.

Here's the video I will be starting with. Thanks YouTube!

Week #1: Losing 1 lb at a time

The blog challenge Losing 1 lb at a time started May 1. My exercise level has been pretty low. I took a nice brisk 1 hr walk yesterday with my friend Jasmine (and her yummaliscious daughter Sophie, she's so cute!), but other than that, not much at all.

I've cut back on sweets quite a bit, and for that I'm pretty happy. We've also been doing a better job at meal planning, which helps us tenfold, we really need to keep doing this. When we meal plan, we eat healthier, we save money, and we don't waste food. It really is a great thing to do.

So with those small changes, I did manage to lose 2 lbs!!

Doing better, but much more work to do

My quest in changing my eating habits is a slow going process. It's so hard to break months, years, geez... a decade's worth of bad habits. I will eat for any reason. I don't even have to be hungry, and it's not usually a healthy choice.

This past week I've made some steps in the right direction. I still have a long way to go, but I'm on the right track. I've cut out desserts almost completely. I used to have dessert every single night, and usually with lunch and dinner (that's right, 2 per day). I've only had dessert 2 times in the past 10 days. Huge improvement for me!! I've also been eating more vegetables and eating better sized portions.

On top of that, I haven't started exercise. Today, I begin the Wii Active 30 day challenge. Weeee!

So with those small changes, I've already lost 2 lbs. I'm down to 171 lbs. Imagine how much I'll lose once I really buckle down!!!!

Eggplant Parmesan

Yesterday was only an OK day for food. While everything I ate was healthy, I'm pretty sure it was too high in fat in calories. However, I'm still OK with this, since there was no sugar and no processed foods involved at all.

Breakfast was an egg with whwh toast and a bit of butter.

Lunch was leftover blackbean burrito (So good. Seriously. Try it! Recipe below!)

Dinner was eggplant parmesan. I made this for the first time ever, and it was pretty good! I think there's too much cheese in it for it to be deemed totally healthy, and I think my serving was much too big.

Eggplant parmesan is a very weird dish. You do everything you can to the eggplant to take out it's bitter taste and it ends up tasting like nothing. You sweat it (slice eggplant thinly, sprinkle sea salt on it and let it stand for 30 minutes, rinse, pat dry), then bread it, then bake it, then layer it with cheese and marinara sauce. It's delicious, but you can't really taste eggplant. You taste cheese, breadcrumbs, and marinara sauce.

We all loved it though, including Holden, and my dad who came by for dinner.

Motivation is here!

So today's post of my confession of my weight and sugar addiction got some encouraging emails and feedback on Facebook. It made me feel good and not quite so disgusting. I hate that I feel disgusting. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and encouragement.

I ended up going for an impromptu 20 minute power walk after dinner. I asked Holden if he wanted to go for a walk, he said he wanted to go to the park (as usual *ha*) so I took the long way, which is totally out of the way, but I got a tiny bit of exercise in, so that's good.

Today's food was only OK.

Breakfast was 2 slice whwh toast with no-sugar added jam (although it's jam, so it's still sweet, so not really a great choice).

Lunch was 2 hard boiled eggs, half of a sliced yellow pepper, and a few cucumber slices. Much better!!

Dinner was a homemade blackbean burrito. It was fan-frickin'-tastic. I added more veggies (chopped tomato, more peppers), but I found it was too much cream cheese. Next time I'll cut it in half. John and Holden loved it too!! I served it with salsa.

Here's the recipe:

Blackbean Burritos

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil ( I used waaaaaay less than this, maybe 1 tbsp)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (I used 1 large can for the 3 of us)
• 2 teaspoons minced jalapeno peppers (skipped this, added fajita seasoning instead)
• 6 ounces cream cheese (this was too much for the 3 of us)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Wrap tortillas in foil and place in oven heated to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through.
2. Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Place onion, bell pepper, garlic and jalapenos in skillet, cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour beans into skillet, cook 3 minutes stirring.
3. Cut cream cheese into cubes and add to skillet with salt. Cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir cilantro into mixture.
4. Spoon mixture evenly down center of warmed tortilla and roll tortillas up. Serve immediately.

*sigh*

I'm finally starting up again. It's getting ridiculous. I'm officially at the heaviest I have ever been (except when pregnant). I am now a whopping 173 lbs. It's very depressing.

Here's the vicious circle I got myself into:
Eating refined sugar (lots, daily), energy crash, too lazy to get active, mood crash, which makes me crave & eat more sugar... lather rinse repeat.

I've cut back on sugar big time in the last 2 days and it's made me realize something: I am a sugar addict. I'm not saying that lightly. I quit smoking cold turkey about 4 yrs ago, and I feel the exact same way now as I did those first few weeks without nicotine. I want sugar all the time, I think about it a lot, I get jittery, being around it is stressful.

So I need to treat it as an addiction.

And this is going to sound crazy, but just 2 days with (much) less sugar, and I already feel better. My energy is still pretty lame, but my mood has hugely improved.

Exercise plan:
Get back on the Wii Active and do the 30 day challenge
Joined the blog challenge Losing 1 lb at a time
Joined my mommy group's sister "get fit" group (join us if you're in Ottawa!)
Bought a bike!

My goal is to lose 30 lbs by January 2011 (8 months), so that's just under 1 lb per week. Woooooo! I can do it!!