Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Christmas update

Well hello there, I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas festivities with family and friends. I know I did. I ate what I loved and if I was feeling full I tried to stop eating. I'm proud to say that I have maintained my weight through Christmas! Usually you know how it goes, you eat like crazy and vow to diet as your New Year's resolution. I'm so happy those days are behind me.

It feels great to know that I don't have to put myself on a crash diet come the New Year. I can just do exactly what I'm doing now. I will try to honor my body the best I can. I did slack on exercise this past week, only 1 or 2 days, but I'm ok with it. I know that next week I will be back on track. The reason I say next week is because I'm going away tonight to my in laws until sunday. We always spend about a week there and have a big New Year's party. It's always a blast, with a lot of eating and drinking going on. This year I hope it will be different since I have a different mentality about it. I want to come back and feel good!

I hope you all have a Happy and Healthy New Year! Here are some photos from Christmas.












Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Random thoughts

I have been missing for a while. I got hit with a stomach bug...ugh! It wasn't pretty. I did notice the scale down to 167, a number I haven't seen in quite sometime. I will admit that it got me a bit excited. I realized that once I resumed normal eating that the scale we go up a bit, of course it did : )

I was just thinking today about when I weighed 145lbs 5 years ago. I remember how great and confident I felt, but on the inside I was suffering. I knew deep down I could not maintain the eating style I had adpoted at that time. I wasn't starving myself, but I wasn't truly using my own hunger and fullness queues either.

I ate my daily points for the day no matter what, I would never eat more if I was still hungry after a meal. I would tell myself I had to wait until the next scheduled meal time. I would make deals with myself constantly, like if you are hungry you can only eat carrots or drink water and you have to wait until 12 to eat again. It seems like a pretty sad life when I look back on it.

Fast forward to the present day. I have learned to eat when I'm hungry no matter what time my last meal was. I'm nowhere near perfect, and I have my moments where old thoughts or habits creep back, but I'm better at warding them off now.

Today I had a moment where I thought about eating a cocunut macaroon, and then I said no, no, you can't have one now. I realized that the moment that I first tell myself I CAN'T have something means that the old voice is creeping in. Now I have decided if I want a cookie that is just what I'm going to have! I can't keep battling myself. If I want something I have to have it because if I don't it will lead to 5 cookies and maybe followed up with chips or whatever else I can use to beat myself up for "messing up".

My final conculsion for today is that I often think that I might get back to that weight of 145lbs, and I also wonder why I have been about the same weight for a year now, but the truth is maybe this is my happy weight. Maybe this is where my body is truly comfortable and if that's the case, I think it's becoming easier each day to accept that.


I hope you have a great day!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Chocolate for breakfast

Normally I definately crave a savory breakfast over a sweet one. Today I wasn't that hungry. After working out I had a tall glass of chocolate milk thanks to Anette @ http://enjoyyourhealthylife.com for that!

After the milk I was full for a couple of hours. I started to get hungry around 10 and decided to try a breakfast that I had been thinking about trying. I made some plain oats and added a teaspoon of PB and two tablespoons of dark chocolate rasinettes. I thought I would love it, but unfortunately it's just so so. I'm glad I decided to try this when I wasn't so hungry. I didn't finish the bowl, but I did enjoy an apple on the side.

This is the beauty of listening to my body. I used to eat just because it was a certain time and I had to. Now I eat when I'm hungry and I eat exactly what my body is asking for. Otherwise this always leads to a feeling of being deprived for me. I can remember back in the Weight Watcher days I would eat something even if I wasn't hungry because God forbid I waste my points : )  Ahhh...so glad those days are behind me.

I'm getting better everyday at listening to my body and trying to break old habits of emotional eating. I'm feeling great with my progress these days. I even saw the scale drop. Of course this is not my only means of measuring my progress but I do use it to check in with myself. The scale and I haven't always been great friends, but I'm trying to work on that too.

On another note, I'm debating on going a little darker with my hair. I want a more natural look with suttle highlights. I'm wondering what you all think? I'm also debating on cutting it as well.

First here is the color I have now

I'm in the front..purple shirt

Here is a darker color I had in the past, not crazy about this.


Now my question is what would you think about more of a light brown with subtle highlights?

Something like this...maybe a touch more highlighted.


I'm also tempted to chop my hair, but maybe I should work out my color first!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Pushing through and a recipe

Boy did I have to give myself a huge push to workout this morning! I was fighting tooth and and nail, but I'm so glad that I gave in. I feel great. Why is it always so hard to get started? I told myself that I'm commiting to 3 days of exercise a week for this month so I have to do this!

My plan with setting this challenge is to hopefully get myself to form an execise habit. Once that is in place I can move on to more time or more days per week.

I have been doing my normal dvd that I have talked about before ...Bob Green total body makeover. I was pretty bored with it, but I decided to up my weight. The workout is more intence now and I'm liking it : )

I wanted to share a recipe that I made the other day. Sorry no photos, my camera is broken.

Spaghetti w/ ground chicken

Cut up 2 cloves garlic and 1/2 a large onion and saute in 2 tbsp of oil
Add ground chicken and cook until brown
Season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder
Add 28ounce can on tomato sauce + 1 can tomato paste  (add 3/4 can of water and add to sauce)
season with basil, black pepper, a little oregano and some pecorino romano cheese. (sorry I eyeball measurements)

Bring to a boil and then put on low for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Stirring every 1/2 hour.

Add this to any type of pasta. We really enjoyed this. I always tried this with ground turkey but never thought it would be good with chicken. It's yummy and even less fat and calorie than turkey!

ENJOY!

Monday, December 5, 2011

New Week

Well it's a new week and that means it's another chance for me to be more in tune with my hunger and fullness. I don't know what it is with weekends, but I think I just loose touch of my hunger for some reason. I guess it's a habit that I had while dieting, I would do well all week and just blow it on the weekend. I guess it is still ingrained in me. Habits do take a long time to break when you have had them for years.

The one thing that HAS changed is I no longer look at Monday morning as a day to start a new diet. I'm so relieved about that! I'm taking things one day at a time. I'm trying my best to tune into my hunger and fullness and to try my best to stop emotional eating.

My son is sick today so today is going to be a crazy day. Here is to a good Monday and and a great week!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Birthday Celebration

Today is my Husbands Birthday. I'm spending my day preparing for us to celebrate tonight. I love getting ready for ocassions like this. I'm making some of his favorite foods tonight. Although they aren't too health conscious I think that birthday's are one of those times when you can indulge a bit. I'm making some empanadas and some spanish rice.

For those of you that don't know what empanadas are, they a pastry filled with seasoned ground beef and deep fried ...yeah I know but it's his birthday right?

You can also bake this in the oven, but I haven't tried it that way and I think they are best fried at least for today. I might give that a try another time. I will post the recipe later on as I don't have exact measurements just yet.


I also baked a marble cake. That is one of his favs.




I'm looking forward to celebrating my best friend, the one that makes me laugh everyday, my positive support system and the best father to our son. Not just because he is my husband, but he truly is my better half. He really puts a smile on everyone's face that knows him. I'm blessed to have him in my life!