Brussels sprouts?

So...am I the only one who actually like brussels sprouts?  I do actually like them...seriously.  For proof, see my lunch from yesterday.

I was perusing the shelves at Walmart the other night and came across these little green beauties in the produce section.  Perfectly sealed in a steam-fresh bag and ready for microwaving.  Awesome - add those to the cart!  And when I was preparing my lunch I wanted to change it up.  No side salad today.  Hmmm..what to make?  I know, those brussels sprouts!  (To be honest, I never knew they were called brussels sprouts.  I always thought it was brussel sprouts.  The internet dictionary told me otherwise though as I wrote this post.)

The bag said to unzip and add desired seasoning to bag prior to microwaving.  Excellent idea!  I had the perfect blend to try.  Garlic Lemon.  Mmmm!  This is the first time I've tried the blend (also from Velata) even though I've owned it since February.  Let me tell you - it smelled amazing!  I sprinkled some in the bag and popped the bag in microwave.  Minutes later, dark green and softened, those seasoned bites of yum were ready to eat.  They truly were an awesome complement to my leftover pizza casserole.  Remember that recipe?  It was actually even better as leftovers since the flavors blended even more!

Total PointsPlus: 10

How to Be "Good" Dining Out

So I'm going to go ahead and give myself a pat on the back.  Good job.  I joined my sister and her family and one of my best friends for dinner out tonight.  And we went to the local Mexican place here in town, Cancun.  Delicious, by the way and probably my favorite of the choices in Eau Claire.  If I could eat anything I wanted without gaining weight my choice would be easy.  A scrumptious, cheese-covered, deep fried beef chimichanga.  Yummy!

Example of the cheese-covered goodness - Chimichanga

But with less than a week of healthier eating under my belt, I knew I needed to choose wisely.  Any logical person will tell you that Mexican food tends to be bad for you.  Lots of cheese, sour cream, beans on everything and with everything.  Margaritas (sweet, alcoholic goodness) and all-you-can-eat chips.  Glorious for those not watching their waistline.  But a major hurdle for those like me.  I did some research before leaving the house and took note of some excellent advice.  Beware the endless chips and salsa - pace yourself and set aside your allotment.  It's WAY too easy to go overboard before your meal even gets to the table.  Eat chips or drink a margarita (small, BTW).  Not both.  And the most popular "healthy" choice? Fajitas, no tortillas.  Hungry Girl has some great advice here too!

We got there.  Oooh.  Temptation.  Water, please.  (Good choice #1)  Chips came with salsa and an irresistible creamy and zesty ranch sauce.  No, I will not be swayed!  I set aside 15 chips, eating about 10 before the meal and using the remaining ones to dunk in my refried beans.  (Good choice #2)  Order time!  Single order chicken fajitas.  (Good choice #3)  My sides plate came and I choose not to eat the mexican rice or sour cream.  I did, however, opt to devour the refried beans.  Those things are delicious and sprinkled with cheese.  A small defeat, but honestly I couldn't resist.  I ate a little more than HALF the fajita mix (chicken, tomatoes, peppers, and onions); with a fork too, no tortillas for this girl! (Good choice #4)  I was full (satisfied) and now have lunch for tomorrow.  Score!  Since the local restaurant isn't on Weight Watchers (WW), I used another restaurant chain to estimate my points value.  I like to err on the high side of points, so I chose one of the higher items.  All in all, I estimated my dinner of chips, beans, and a good portion of fajitas at 23 PP.  Pretty good, I think.

And after eating a reasonably healthy lunch and a nutritious breakfast, I still have a few points leftover!  A single serve carton of ice cream is calling my name....and I can answer because I can "afford" it point-wise!  An excellent Friday night all around.

Pizza, Pizza!

Ooooh, recipe share time!  I love Pinterest.  A LOT.  Like almost to the verge of obsessed with.  As I said, I'm currently unemployed so I have a lot of free time.  And there's just something slightly more appealing about Pinteresting than cleaning, doing laundry, etc.  I mostly pin about food and decor.  I love both.  And one of the things I love most about Pinterest is that it saves your recipes in a convenient location so even though I found a recipe 6 months ago, I can still access it without digging through a drawer.  Awesome.  Unfortunately, a lot of recipes you find online are unhealthy.  Not just slightly unhealthy, but totally bad for you, ruin your Weight Watchers week unhealthy.  But, I've learned from the best (Thank you, Hungry Girl), I healthify them.

Last night I did this to a Pepperoni Pizza Casserole recipe.

Don't tell me this doesn't look absolutely delicious?  Well, it's probably super fattening too.  But a few minor fixes and we're on our way to delicious and nutritious!  

Always be on the lookout for lower fat substitutions.  I no longer buy anything except fat free or reduced fat for dairy, meats, and sauces/dressings.  And I only buy 90% or more lean hamburger/ground turkey.  Oh, and those meatless crumbles work great in recipes where you throw a lot of stuff together.  They seriously taste pretty good too.  Add veggies where you can!  Casseroles are perfect because everything gets mixed together and often an extra serving of vegetables goes completely unnoticed.

Here's what I did:

• Halved the pasta - I used 6 oz rather than 12 oz and substituted regular pasta for the veggie/grain blend kind.  I also like whole wheat pasta and it works great as a substitute.
• Omitted the sausage altogether - Even though the recipe called for turkey sausage, any "sausage" product tends to have a good amount of fat in it.  Plus, I didn't have any.  Laziness won out because I didn't want to trek to the store.
• Added meatless crumbles for bulk - Since I took out the sausage component, I wanted more "meat" in the dish.  I heated up 1/2 bag (1/2 lb) of meatless crumbles and added it.  Oh, and for the italian flavor, I cooked them with a good amount of italian seasoning (blend).
• Added more healthy veggies - Let's face it.  Black olives are pretty good, but can't really be called vegetables, can they? Dave doesn't like them so I decided to leave them out but add in green pepper and onions instead.  Both are what I consider healthy veggies and the perfect pizza toppings!  I softened them up by cooking them with the crumbles for about 8 minutes on the stove.  
• Reduced the sauce - I only had one can of pizza sauce (12 oz) so I went with that.  To add more tomatoey goodness, I threw in a can of diced tomatoes.  I'm sure even canned tomatoes are healthier than sauce so I think it was a good compromise.
• Subbed pepperoni - I never buy real pepperoni, only the turkey kind.  I know there's a taste difference, but I'm immune to it now and think the turkey version are pretty good.  Instead of 4 oz, I just counted out 2 servings or about 34 pepperoni.  I also halved them with a knife so that you got more 'roni in each bite!
• Cheese Substitutions - I used part-skim Ricotta, reduced fat Mozzarella, and reduced fat grated Parmesan in the recipe instead of their full fat counterparts.  Still perfectly cheesy.
• Revised the serving size - FOUR servings?  Really?  Even with my changes, the recipe makes a pan-sized amount.  I revised the servings to SIX.

Original Recipe - 22 PointsPlus per serving

Healthified Version - 10 PointsPlus per serving

This recipe was a total winner.  Super yummy, super cheesy, super satisfying.  For dinner, we added a small side salad with light dressing.  I ate 1 1/2 servings, but my entire dinner still clocked out at 17 PP.  Not bad at all!

Week 1, Day 3

I honestly believe the beginning of weight loss journey is the hardest.  You have no progress to motivate you.  The food changes are hard - eating veggies vs. eating Doritos, I know what I WANT to eat, but I also know what I SHOULD eat.  You are hungry more often and think you need more to eat.  You don't, you just think you do.  Luckily, there's a small window of inspiration.  The days when you are still excited about your life change and hopefully that window lasts long enough for you to see the positive changes so you can keep on keepin' on.  I'm in that window right now.  And that's why I took a picture of my lunch yesterday.

Main Event: Ranch Chicken Sandwich (leftover chicken, whole wheat Bagel Thin, 1 tbsp Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, 1 slice reduced fat Sargento Provolone cheese)

Sides: Banana, handful of Sugar Snap Peas, Peach Harvest light Yoplain yogurt

Total Weight Watchers (WW) PointsPlus (PP): 13

Isn't it just fun to see your food laid out in front of you and KNOW you made healthy choices?  Yay!  Read on to learn more about my featured protein and how I made it THREE ways.  No boring repeats here!

I made Ranch Chicken two nights before and had leftovers (recipe here).  BTW, I made the following changes to the recipe...I substituted Brummel & Brown's margarine for the butter (using 3 tbsp).  I used less Parmesan cheese and subbed the reduced fat version (used about 1/2 cup).  I used an entire bag of frozen chicken breasts, which ended up making about 7 servings (one breast per serving).  I rubbed the chicken with more spices before dipping/coating.  I love spices because they add flavor without the fat.  I used the Coriander Herb blend from Velata and your standard garlic powder (and S&P).

This chicken was awesome and I'd highly recommend it.  The first night we ate it as the main dish with mashed cauliflower*** and mixed veggies as sides.  Mashed cauliflower is an AMAZING alternative to mashed potatoes.  They pass the appearance test as Dave didn't even realize it was cauliflower by looking at it on his plate.  Ha, ha - got ya! And they taste pretty darn good too. 

Day 2, I cut up a breast and 1/2 and put it on a super veggie-fied salad (peppers, tomatoes, snap peas, cucumber, carrots).  I added reduced fat feta crumbles and a low fat Italian dressing.  I have a love/hate relationship with salads.  They're delicious and I love the nutrition I get, but they're one of those foods that fill me up for about 2 hours and then I'm hungry again.  Luckily, the massive salad (17 PP) kept me full through dinner time.  I know, 17 PointsPlus sounds like a lot for a salad.  I'm an aggressive WW tracker.  I try hard to input my recipes so that I get an accurate points value.  It's kind of annoying that if you entered all the veggies as separate items, they'd come up with 0 points, but as a recipe end up being 4-5 points.  However, I feel the higher number is more accurate so I go with it - that number is based off the combined nutritional stats and in the WW info, you'll see they find it more accurate too.  

Anyway, just goes to show you that making one healthy protein can last you several days and you don't have to keep eating it the same way either.  Thanks for visiting!

***Sidebar: Have you heard of Hungry Girl?  If not, check out her website and buy her cookbooks.  Her recipes are delicious and, for the most part, pretty easy to make.  The only ones I can't get on board with include the Tofu Shirataki noodles.  I tried them.  Too weird of texture.

Story of Me

So...welcome to my Blog.  This is the story about my journey back to being healthy.  I've always been a little on the chunky side...even as a kid, a teen, and young adult.

In 2009, after over a year as a auditor, traveling and eating out constantly for weeks at a time, I had gained a significant amount of weight.

Spring 2007

Winter 2008 (Dec08)

I was sick of being fat and having to shop in the plus-size section, so I started Weight Watchers online.  At 227 pounds, I started slow...walking once, sometimes twice daily for 30 minutes and trying new eating habits like relearning portion size and which foods were healthy.  I bought the exercise videos, Hip Hop Abs, and did them in the basement.  Trust me, they're actually pretty fun and reasonably easy to do!  Even for a beginner!  After just a month, I could see the difference in my body and my face. I just kept plugging along....week by week I got results.  Each Sunday when I weighed in, the scale moved - whether it was 1 pound or 3 pounds, I was getting healthy.  After about 2 years, I was finally at my goal weight of 135 pounds and I looked fantastic.

Summer 2010

Fall 2010

One thing I didn't realize, though, is that being skinny and fit wouldn't necessarily make me happy.  I hated my job and was anxious and stressed every day I went to work.  My marriage wasn't great either.  I came to find out a philandering husband definitely adds stress to your life.  In the fall of 2010, I quit my job with no new one in it's place and for about a month, I felt a sense of relief.  That was until I realized finding a new job would be more difficult than I had anticipated.

I was a bachelor's degree Accountant (CPA) with about 3 years experience.  Very few positions opened up that met my desired salary and qualifications.  And thus began my credit issues.  I had always used credit cards....responsibility.  Charge, pay it all off.  That was my process.  With no money coming in though, I had no choice but to pay bills and living expenses with my credit cards.  Whew, boy.  Money stress is like no other.  And did I mention I'm an emotional eater? And so the gaining of weight began.  It wasn't fast - just 1 or 2 pounds a week, but it snuck back on.  By the next spring, I'd gained back almost 30 pounds.  I was still in the range for my height of 5'4" and I still looked pretty good.

Fall 2011

But by now something terrible had happened...I'd stopped tracking my foods, stopped exercising regularly, stopped eating nutritious foods.  Life was stressful.  I had found a part-time job in January 2011 but it still didn't cover the bills so I was in debt.  By fall, I was offered a great position.  The only catch was a 50 minute commute each way, every day.  I loved the job and the people, but my personal life was still a mess.  I was disappointed in myself for gaining weight.  I couldn't get motivated to exercise.  I had some serious debt to deal with.  I suffered episodes of extreme depression which required time off work.  My marriage was bad.  And I kept gaining...and gaining.

Summer 2012

Winter 2013 (Jan13)

And more stress in my life...in April 2013, my husband decided he wanted a divorce.  I was devastated. That summer was super hard.  It was the first time I had lived on my own.  I had to deal with the courts for all the divorce paperwork.  And we had to figure out the housing situation since we owned a house together.  It was a nightmare.  I tried to concentrate on work, but my depression and anxiety flared again.  Taking days at a time off work wasn't uncommon and my health was not good - headaches, stomach issues, etc.  The only saving grace was my friend, Michelle.  She tried her best to keep me busy and motivated.  We went on walks once a week and she even got me to do a couple 5K races (walk/run).  I was still not back in my healthy routine though.  Luckily, over the summer, I pretty much plateaued on my gaining.

Then, something GREAT happened.  I met Dave.  We were both divorcees with no children looking for a stable, loving relationship.  I think we knew almost immediately things were going to work out.  I had never felt this way with my 1st husband and dove straight into the relationship.  The only bad part about dating and new love is that you spend A LOT of time together and a fair amount of that time is spent on dates, a.k.a. eating out.

Fall 2013

So, my gaining started again.  My divorce finalized in September 2013 and I had to move to an apartment (out of the house) in October.  Moving sucks.  A LOT.  And the whole housing situation became a fiasco.  I'd tell the whole story, but it just ticks me off too much.  Suffice it to say, for about 10 months (through now) no one has been living in the house and my ex is paying the mortgage until the sale closes at the end of this month.  And while selling the house was supposed to be my ex's problem, it became mine and now we have to pay to sell the house.  Not cool.  Obviously, this house stress weighed on me.  And I lost my job at the end of 2013.  Yep, more stress.  Did I mention I'm a stress eater? Gain, gain, gain.  Right now, I'm at my highest weight ever.  The number on the scale is just ridiculous...let's just say it's a good 50 pounds higher than my previous start weight in 2009.  But I did get engaged on Valentines' Day 2014 so the year hasn't been a total loss! :-)  

July 2014

Cue another move in June - into Dave's house.  Moving sucks.  And with the wedding coming up, I wanted to become motivated to get back on track.  Unfortunately, Dave hasn't been the most helpful in this regard because he thinks I'm beautiful always, loves to eat out, and has been living a mostly-unhealthy bachelor lifestyle for several years now.  But a couple weeks ago, a coworker of his convinced him to try my Fitness Pal (free app) and he's been at least trying.  And his trying motivated me to try again too.  I'd never stopped WW online - at only $17/month, I figured I'd keep it on standby.  So, this week I started tracking again.  So far, so good.  And did I mention that I'm finally feeling a little happy again?!  The only bummer is that I'm still without work so money is tight and my debt is hanging around.  But I'm getting married in August!  Yay!  And I'm ready to get healthy again!

Join me on this journey.  I'd appreciate any encouragement or stories of success.  I've got Dave on the Weight Watchers bandwagon too - I love their plan, I just have to remember to keep it up...always.  My hope is to post a photo a week and give you an update of my progress.  This will be my place to post my personal successes and shameful failures. I'll post some of my favorite recipes, snack ideas, and probably just stuff about me.