Will You Be My #DinnerDate?

On my twitter feed, I try very hard to tweet out a new or different dinner recipe for everyone to try on a daily basis. It so important when you are trying to lose weight to keep your meals fresh. If you don't, chances are you are going to fall off the wagon for one simple reason; YOU'RE BORED! So I thought I would share some of the different ways I keep my meals exciting.

Meat- Let's face it. Chicken every night is boring. Fish every night is boring too, as well as beef, pork, or whatever other protien source you are using. To switch it up, I focus on the marinade. I use Lawry's 30 Minute Marinades a lot. They have a HUGE variety of flavors, and they aren't too bad for you either. I can now eat chicken 7 days a week (if I want to) and not get bored. One night I'll have Lemon Pepper, the next Hawaiian, the night after that Szechuan BBQ, the list goes on!

Produce- Spice it up. I keep fruits and veggies tasting new by changing the way I prepare them. I steam, grill, boil, and bake most of the time. But I also season the fruits and veggies, I prefer to get spices freshly ground whenever I can (I have a local place that I like to buy from). Fruit I mainly use cinnamon or nutmeg, but for veggies, anything goes pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, cumin, they are all good! But I do try to go light on the salt.

Whole Grains- I buy a couple different kinds of high fiber cereal and cycle through those. And for bread, to switch it up, I top it with different things. Low sugar or sugar free jam and PB2 peanut butter are two of my favs. But I also have been known to use spray butter on my toast.

Water- Water is one of the things I get most bored with. So I change it up by adding a lemon, lime, or orange slice or two for a citrus kick, A slice or two of cucumber to give a fresh cool taste, Green tea for some added antioxidants, or if I'm really craving some juice, I'll use some Crystal Light.

I hope these ideas help prevent you from becoming bored with eating healthy. Also if you would like to join in the dinner conversation, just use the hashtag #dinnerdate on Twitter to share what you are having for dinner! The hope is that it will encourage healthy eating and help us avoid dinner sabotage! Because for most people, dinner is often the largest meal of the day, let's make it healthy!

My Homemade Asian-Style "Lean Cuisine" Dinner!

Here's your healthy recipe for the day! I made this the other night and I must say, it's delicious!

Ingredients:
2 6 oz Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
2 cups rice, you can use either white or brown
5 green onions
2T Sesame Seeds
Lawry's Sweet and Sour BBQ marinade

Prep:
Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes
Once cut up, marinade in the Lawry's Sweet and Sour BBQ marinade for 30 mins.
Chop up green onions, I just cut mine with kitchen shears, and set aside.

Cook:
Cook rice according to package directions, or in your rice cooker.
While rice is cooking, cook chicken until cooked through, or 165 degrees farenheit for food safety.
When rice is done cooking, add in the chopped green onions and sesame seeds, and mix throughout. Let sit about 10 mins for flavors to infuse.

This recipe makes approximately four servings, 3 oz of chicken and 1 cup of rice per person. You may end up with more than enough rice though. I had about one serving extra. I haven't quite figured out the calories, but it is 9 Weight Watchers Points Plus. I usually eat mine with a little fresh fruit, tonight is cantaloupe, so the meal is extra filling and satisfies my sweet tooth (so I'm not running for chocolate and hour later) and the BEST part is the the fruit is FREE on WWP+

Enjoy!

Sigh of Relief!

This week was a tough one. I was really bad, as shown by my last post. However, I burried my "bad week" last night. I had some healthy Jimmy John's for dinner--didn't get my favorite -- The Vito. But my NEW favorite, Tom Turkey. And I made a decision that tomorrow was the day that I was getting out of this rut.

For those of you that don't already know this. Sundays are my weigh in day at Weight Watchers. I weighed in this morning and didn't gain! I'm counting that as a success after last week! But it's definitely NOT an excuse to quit getting closer to my weight loss goals!

This Weight Watchers meeting also couldn't have come at a better time. I figured out that one of my main problems is that I'm bored with eating healthy. And that was the theme of this week. My leader gave us all kinds of ideas for new and different foods to change it up a bit. I remembered that I LOVE these veggie burgers that I get as Costco, so after my meeting I went and picked some up.

This past week and the coming weeks, I'm going to heed Leah's advice. She posted a Facebook post about lifting weights and how much easier it was to lose weight after she did. So I'm restarting ChaLEAN Extreme. AND I'm excited about it! Some of you might already know that she's my FAVORITE trainer EVER! And lifting weights is giving me an outlet for my stress, instead of eating my stress. (If you want to see what ChaLEAN Extreme is all about here's a video: http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/TurboGirl23?bctid=25219364001)

That said. I am officially back on the wagon. I'm taking the time tonight to go through my cookbooks and find some new healthy recipes. And update on the family: Aunt-doing okay, for as sick as she is. My cousin is in remission. My grandpa is home from the hospital. My grandma's shoulder is much "better" than originally thought, she'll heal just fine, and will just need physical therapy. And my good friend just had a traumatic brain injury, which is quite possibly the best case scenario for him and he's recovering well.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for all of us! Thanks for all of the support Sistas!

Disappointed and It's Starting to Show.

On Valentine's Day I ate an entire small deep dish pizza. And that was bad news. Then a ton of horrific things happened the next day (familywise), all at once. Here's a breakdown.

It was my dad's birthday.
Grandpa ends up in the hospital with pneumonia.
Aunt starts getting 3 hr long chemo treatments for terminal lung cancer.
Cousin finds out she has Hepatitis A.
Found out one of my good friend's Humvee hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
Bad day don't you think. This time I didn't have the will power to fight the emotional eating.

But after that I got back on track. And I worked out. A LOT. To try and counter the binging I had embarked on.

So I weighed Sunday. And I gained .8lbs. I was pretty upset. I had been doing so well.

Then the next part of my life came crashing in. My grandma fell and shattered her shoulder. The woman who helped raise me and became my mother when my mother died. At 90, can only imagine what this can mean...my mind just keeps coming back to the bad. I'm praying prefusely that she comes out of this alright.

All that upset has led to a bad week this week. I've been trying so hard to get back on track, but I'm finding myself helpless when I have to pass a tray of cookies (I've even eaten an entire box of Tagalongs, I'm ashamed to say). I don't know what to do to re-find my motivation. HELP!

(Sorry this is so late, our internet died at home--we can just add that to the list)

Mamavation Monday- I win! I win!

This week has be riddled with setbacks and victories. The week started with the Superbowl. And I ate. I deserved a treat. So I had some Motzarella sticks and some pizza and some chicken wings. They were really good. However, my tummy didn't feel too good after eating them. So that was the end of that. I was mortified that I had consumed a derailing amount of calories though.

Monday, my son was sick. Hence not posting last week until Tuesday. And then this week, he successfully passed the torch to me! I had one horrific cold for the past 4 days, but I'm finally on the mend! Thank god too, because these little illnesses are feeling more and more severe as I get older!

All that said, as you can imagine. I didn't workout much this week. A little here, a little there. Breathing was quite taxing. But I lost 1.4 lbs this week taking me up to being down 11.6! AND I got my first weight watchers ribbon for a 10 lbs loss!

Next step, losing 10% and then 20 lbs! I can't wait!

Mamavation Monday-Busted My Kinda Sorta Plateau

This week I was BAD. I mean REALLY bad. At least according to myself. But I could have been way worse I suppose.

Because of my teeny tiny loss of 0.4 last week. I was discouraged this week--yet I was also determined to figure out what the heck was going on with my body. So I changed things up a bit.

This past week started with a piece of cake. As previously written about, that wiped out more than 1/2 of my weekly overflow points. Then I did well most of the week with a serious break in the chain on Friday. On Friday we had a staff in-service, which typically means lots of junky food.

The day started with good intentions. The night before, I packed my lunch for the next day. I ate my typical breakfast of oatmeal, diced apple, and cinnamon. All was going good, or so I thought.

Upon walking into the meeting room, I am smacked in the face with a wonderfull smell. A smell, I have not smelt in a VERY long time. DONUTS. Knowing that I was not going to be able to be satisfied with my Fiber Plus bar while staring down the barrel of the donut gun, I gave in. I ate 4 Munchkin donuts. 1 of each flavor. Down went a glazed, then a chocolate, then a powdered sugar, and finally the spiced. Portion control, I thought to myself. 4 little donuts are better than one big donut right? However, I was satisfied, and did not go back up to the table.

Then lunch time came. The Cookie Lady catered (if you can't tell trouble is coming just based on her name). I took my lunch that I had packed out of the fridge and started to get strange looks from my co-workers. To avoid looking like a freak, I decided that I would eat what they were having. We had a choice of meat or veg lasagna. I chose the veg and it was in tomato not cream sauce, so I felt like I scored a little. Ceasar Salad, tossed in dressing--I only ate about 1 cup. And then came the cookie. I only took one. A small one. And that was my lunch--and I felt like less of a freak.

But then the Pièce de résistance of my diet failure came in the afternoon. One of our board members owns Vicki's ice cream. So it was only natural that we have a make your own sundae bar. And who can resist homemade ice cream? Well, I couldn't at that moment. I took a pre-apportioned vanilla cup (had about 1c or 2 scoops in it) and topped it with Reese's peanut butter cups. I'm not going to lie. It was really good. Despite all of the guilt I was feeling.

And that was that. I left work, went home, and got back on track and stayed on track for the rest of the week. To my suprise when I weighed in yesterday, I had LOST 1.4 lbs! How the heck did that happen? I don't know, I just hope that it doesn't catch back up to me at the coming weeks weigh in!

As for excercise this week. I decided that I wouldn't do anything too intense this week, because I didn't think I was eating enough on WW for TurboFire, hence my crappy loss last week. So I only worked out 2 days this week. I took my son to the mall and mall walked with him in the stroller for an hour on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Until next week! Best of Loss to the Sistahood!

1 Week Down and Still Going Strong!

Yay!!! I can finally share a victory with you guys! This week I lost 2.2lbs! Yahoo! Sorry, I'm really excited!

Anyway, I stayed on target all week this week. I even declined going to a party this past weekend, because I knew there would be heavy drinking going on there, and you know you can't be around sloshed people without being a little sloshed yourself! Hehe!

But the important part is that I did it. This week I'm working on scheduling my excersize. I bought a Groupon, DM me on twitter @LisaVFitness if you want to know what that is, for Jazzercise. 2 Months unlimited classes for $39! A steal! And I have a friend who is going to go with me! Support and Accountability!

So it looks like things are on the up and up on the weight loss front with me. Wishing everyone health, motivation and happiness in the next week!