TBT - Take a look at what you've accomplished!

I've yet to join the #TBT band wagon, but it seems like a great way to reminisce and relive the good memories. It's also a wonderful time to look back to see how far you've come in your journey; whether that is growing up, moving away, starting life as an adult, finding Jesus and renewing your faith, or taking the leap to become a healthier person.

My road has been rocky, I've struggled at times, and I've also had major victories. I've lost weight, gained it only to lose it again, find it again and then lose it! I've had the most amazing family and friends that have supported me through my travels and I am so very thankful that they are still on board this crazy train to help me as I continue to walk the road I've chosen.

Each day is a new day and a fresh start to hit the ground running. We all fall and there will always be people there to pick us back up, cheer us on, and maybe start a new day in their lives with you. If you have someone in your life that doesn't support the changes you've made, take a step back and start to surround yourself with people that will. True family and friends that love you unconditionally will never abandon you. Eventually that person will see how happy you are, how healthy you've become in spirit and body, and will come around to re-establish themselves in your life.

Below you will see some pictures that I feel I needed to post. Not to brag about myself, but as a reminder to me that I've come a long way and while I still have more to go, I can do it. Look at what I've accomplished so far! So bring it on Throw Back Thursday (TBT because I know my mom will ask what it means)!

Then:

Now:

A visual feast, I know.

Now on to last nights food. I essentially just threw chicken, peppers, and zucchini in a pan with EVOO and gave them a little sauté action, topped it with Colby Jack cheese, and some pepperoni. Delish, nutrish and gone in 60 seconds ;) If you add a little low carb spaghetti sauce you would have an altered version of chicken parm, do give it a whirl!

Weigh In Wednesday

I'm down four pounds since Monday. I'm trying a new low carb lifestyle change called Keto. Essentially you are only supposed to eat up to 20 carbs a day. Based off the research information, your body doesn't need the sugars and complex carbs that we as a nation consume. This plan is designed to allow your body to get to a place where it starts to burn fat vs. burning the sugars/carbs that we take in (my opinion should not be taken seriously as I sometimes have a hard time correctly regurgitating things I've read). It hasn't been super difficult only because I already don't eat a lot of bread or grain products.

The hardest part for me has been doing the math to make sure I'm keeping my net carbs under 20 for the day. As you're well aware, I love peppers and onions, zucchini, squash, broccoli, carrots... just about any vegetable. I've never been a fan of fruit though, that's why I think this plan isn't so hard for me. Fruit and bread are not my biggest meal ticket items. Instead, I struggle with knowing that 1/2 cup of onion is over 4 grams of carbs, not cool!

In the past two days, I have the urge to gorge on my milk chocolate chips that are nestled into my cupboard. Cravings kill me, I have no ability to stop myself. Last night I went on the hunt to find something that would satisfy my sweet tooth and wouldn't kill me in carbs. Very difficult... until you see a tweet from a friend that calls out Quest Protein Bars and the fact that some of the options only have 4 net carbs! Whhhhha????

You can find these little suckers online or you can go to GNC (right now they are B2G1 free). I bought two strawberry cheesecake (by mistake), one lemon cream pie, one chocolate chip cookie dough (absolutely delish when heated in the microwave for 10 seconds), and two others that I can't remember. I definitely recommend these for anyone, even if you aren't watching your carb intake!

 

 

One last thing before we part for the day. Here is a link to photos of examples of how NOT to work out. Quite entertaining!

 



Two for Tuesday!

I was just thinking about how Tuesday never gets any credit for itself. Monday is the most dreaded day of the week, Wednesday got it's own special name of Humpday, Thursday is almost Friday and Friday is just awesome. Of course, I had to ruminate out loud in the ICC café, making myself appear even more scatter-brained than normal. Luckily, the only other person in the café was Erik and he went with it.

This is when I learned that Tuesday does in fact have something going for it! "Two for Tuesday" and thus, I no longer need to worry over Tuesday's feelings as I do believe it has the best name ever, because you know that Friday doesn't offer two for one deals...

But I digress, Tuesday for me is also a two-fer as I didn't bother making two different snacks for the day, I just split the same thing into two. Chicken and broccoli. There ya have it kids, the beautiful and exciting picture of my culinary escapades for yesterday.

My first challenge for saying no happened yesterday at lunch. Qdoba catering was brought in for a meeting that I was attending. I knew ahead of time this was happening and packed myself my iceberg lettuce followed by the thought of, "never pass up free food", and incorporated the steak as my protein :)

Now on to dinner... I tried out a recipe that had floated its way by me during one of my Pinterest excursions. Very similar to this recipe without the cream and I used 8 ounces of cream cheese and 2 eggs. http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Low-Carb-Pizza-Recipezaar?columns=3&position=6/36

Any way, maybe my impatience with waiting for the cream cheese to become room temperature threw off the formation of the crust, or maybe I didn't bake it long enough... either way, it was not a meal that satisfied me at all. The crust was surprisingly more crust-like than I anticipated, however, not enough substance to fill my tummy. Now I'm stuck with 5 more portions to eat and know that I'll still feel hungry.

Only three days in and we have killed a recipe :)

It's getting serious...

Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that it's getting serious... when it comes to sticking to the diet!

I have 4 weeks left of my work fitness challenge and that means I need to kick it into high gear, dedicate myself to eating a low carb diet and working out no matter what!

This morning I've had my lovely egg muffins shown below. I know they're rough on the eyes, that's what egg substitutes do vs. using real egg whites. They're definitely flatter than other batches I've made.

For the rest of the day I've packed tuna salad made with reduced fat mayo with olive oil and sugar free relish. I also have a turkey burger, grilled chicken and a salad. For dinner I'll probably have more chicken, some zucchini and romaine.

Jealous right? ;) I think the only struggle I'm going to have is sweets and alcohol. I have a lot of celebrations in the pipeline that involve these two things, but I've learned some new tips and tricks to make it easier and to keep myself from getting into trouble.

Good news is, I woke up to do Insanity this morning and it was totally worth it :) Especially since it's raining cats and dogs.

 

Also, one of my coworkers lost his mom this weekend very unexpectedly. If you are someone who prays, please send a prayer his way as their family could really use all the love and support the Lord can lay on them. I can't imagine losing my mom at this point in my life, my hearts aches for his loss.

Becky is gonna kill me...

It's been over a month since my last post. Stupid life always getting in the way of my words!

I've slacked off this past month and haven't lost any weight do to my inability to follow my diet, nor work out regularly.

That needs to change and in an effort to hold myself accountable, I've challenged my friend Tracey to a cook off. There are no prizes other than the cooking of healthy meals followed by the sharing of said healthy meals.

You can follow Tracey's nightly adventures here at http://trehops.com/. Now prepare yourself for her ability to actually cook hardcore vs. my ability to throw things in a pan, add heat and be satisfied :)

Let the cooking begin!

Take that WIW!

This post was supposed to happen last week... oops! Better late than never.

Lost the 2 pounds I gained in the past couple weeks and lost another as well. Down 3 since last week. Whew. I feel a teeny bit better now.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, being home for Memorial weekend then driving back to Columbus, then driving to Chicago to help a friend move. Lots of driving, so it's good that I was able to squeeze in enough activity to generate a downward slope.

I've been trying to get to the gym four mornings a week for my weight training and then taking Colbie for an hour walk (at least 4 miles) every week night. Even over my four day weekend I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30AM and 7:00AM to go to the gym with my parents, now that is dedication my friends.

I've been obsessed with the idea of keeping my fat intake low, so recently I've started experimenting with Greek Yogurt.

This is my zucchini pasta tossed in "alfredo" sauce. It wasn't as full of flavor as the heavy cream and cheese labeled versions, but it totally hit the spot and I can learn to adapt!

Greek Yogurt Alfredo Sauce (Serves 1-2)

1.5 TBSP of Flour (use brown or rice if you have it, white is fine as well)
4-6 oz of Low Sodium Chicken Broth
1 tsp of Minced Garlic
1.5 TBSP of Plain Greek Yogurt
1 TBSP Parsley (I used dried)

Stir the flour, garlic, and chicken stock over medium heat until the mixture starts to lightly boil and thicken. Remove from heat, stir in greek yogurt and parsley, and pour over pasta. Voila! Again, depending on your preference, you can add more broth to thin out the mixture to make it cover more.

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Greek yogurt subbed into deviled eggs... not so good. It had a weird slimy texture and aftertaste.
Sad face. However, hummus deviled eggs are delish!

Greek yogurt in cupcakes turned out to be delish and awesome. It was so moist. I made brownies with the greek yogurt as well (no worries, took these all into work).

It's Tuesday, so another regularly planned update will hopefully arrive tomorrow for WIW.

Weigh In Wednesday

Well, the best/worst day of the week has arrived, weigh in Wednesday. I definitely feel as if I've stepped up my game in the activity area, however, I've not been so strict in my diet... and since we all know it's more important about what goes in your body, we shouldn't be surprised that I've not lost anything since last week.

Disappointing and upsetting but because I only have myself to blame. Hopefully, despite this weekend being a long, holiday weekend, I'll have made all the right choices and gotten in more time spent running around and being active.

Good news, Baxter is back to commenting, wahoo, nice to see ya Becks! Thanks for the pump up, it's time to get serious.

I just came across a Beta program (www.jeremyreidfitness.com) that Jeremy Reid, an online personal trainer, is running for his fitness business. It's a free trial and might just be a new way for me to learn to eat food as fuel versus food as fun. He needs full body pictures though, and that's ALWAYS a hard thing for an overweight person to commit to, but if the Biggest Loser contestants can be that brave, so can I!

Let's do a weekend recap from earlier this week. I helped watch one of my best friend's children this weekend while she was recovering from not feeling well. A 2 year old and an almost 6 month old, it was fun and tiring, don't know how she does it because she still has a 10 year old to add to the mix, I just didn't need to watch him :)

I changed poopy diapers, I did the bottle feeding, and the wearing of spit up. I rocked it out, but was very happy to take my fur child home where I could just sit on the couch and veg. I'm definitely not mom material yet.

Sunday is where the fun comes in... I went to see Star Trek with my friend Dana. We were just sitting, enjoying our popcorn (reason 1 for not losing weight) and watching Chris Pine kick butt when this tiny old man caned his way up the stairs, very, very slowly. It wasn't until he passed us on his way up that we realized that he'd had a serious accident in his pants. I feel bad sharing this story, but it was THE WORST thing I've ever smelled in my life and I have never been more grateful for semi wet hair that smells divinely like shampoo and conditioner. It lingered for at least 10 minutes... and then I realized he was on his way back down the stairs...

Why, oh why, did this man climb the stairs to the top of this very tall theater only to come back down? I do not know, but my theory is that he came into the wrong theater :( Poor little man.

After that wonderful experience, we went to target to try on hats and creep out strangers that were shopping for deodorant (I was just doing my womanly duty to tell this lady that there was better deodorant on clearance right around the corner because I didn't want her to miss it!). My weekend was pretty fun, hope yours was too and that the holiday coming up is spent with family and friends, thanking God for the time we have with them!