My Eats for Week One of the Back to Basics Challenge

I wanted to post daily about what I ate, but it was a busy week. I tend to stick to the same foods most of the week anyway, so it isn't a big deal.

Breakfasts (around 5:30ish): This is one of my two big downfalls this week. I prepped my health Eeg McMuffins, but still craved (and gave into) the real Egg McMuffin as a meal with a Diet Coke. Who needs pop for breakfast? I know most people drink coffee and it is basically the same idea with caffeine to get your day started. Either way, this is one of the things I'll be working on for week two- no McDonald's breakfasts on weekdays before work.

First a.m. snack (7:30ish): I don't have a ton of time once I get to work to get prepped for the day and eat a snack, so I keep it simple and already prepared. Usually some kind of protein or granola bar.

Second a.m. snack (10:00): My staple for this snack is baby carrots and a piece of light string cheese.

Lunch (11:30): This is something that I change week to week, but usually eat the same thing at least all five days of the work week. This week I had a simple chicken recipe (baked chicken breasts with salsa and tortilla chips), rice, and broccoli.

First p.m. snack (2:30-3:00ish): I made some peanut butter protein cookies from a recipe I have on Pinterest. I had them on some days and some days I ate big sugar cookies. I have been craving the frosted cookies that they sell at Family Express. I remember getting them on the drive between college and my parent's house on weekends. The one difference is that now I am overweight and then I was 120 lbs. My goal is to try to avoid the frosted cookies all together, but if the cravings get bad I will get one instead of a six pack to keep around.

Healthy

Not healthy

Dinner (anywhere from 5:00-7:00 depending if I am on my own or my hubby is cooking): My husband made three meals this week and I kept the leftovers for other nights. He made chicken kebabs on the grill, rosemary chicken and broccoli, and campfire chicken packets on the grill.

I can't find my pics of the meals from when I ate them, but these are my leftovers.

Second p.m. snack: (I don't eat this everyday, just when I'm still hungry): Some days I had cookies like I discussed above, some days I had nothing, and some days I had the WW chocolates like I planned.

Since I gained weight back, I haven't bought too much in the way of clothing. I borrowed back some of my old clothes that I gave to my sister and find items on clearance once in a while to help have more choices than the same few outfits. Very little of my clothes make me feel great at the moment, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money on clothes that I hope will be big for me sometime soon. Here are a couple of outfits I wore to work in which I did feel good wearing:

My Recent Healthy Eats - June 2013

I know that I haven't been the best about talking about my weight loss recently which, by the way, is the whole point of this blog. I am also glad I have a place to share my DIY and crafty projects too, but I figure I'm overdue for some healthy food ideas.

Breakfasts

This is a healthier version of an Egg McMuffin which I got off of Pinterest. I added a Meijer brand organic fruit stripe to round out this breakfast.

I don't think you need a recipe for this one! Whole wheat Eggos with sugar free syrup (Mrs. Butterworth's and Hungry Jack's are the best).

Another recipe off of Pinterest (Vegan/Gluten-Free Carrot Cake and Zucchini Bread Oatmeal) to try out my new $4 garage sale crock pot. It is yummy! And my crock pot works great, so I'll be spraying its ugliness with some high heat spray paint to make it look more acceptable and less early '90's in a bad pastel pink way.

Lunches/Dinners

Whole wheat spaghetti with sauce. Another easy meal!

Easy turkey lasagna that I got from a Weight Watchers cookbook I scored for $0.50 at a garage sale. This is a yummy one too!

 

Another easy and good meal - turkey burger on whole wheat bun.

Snacks

Greek yogurt covered frozen strawberries - good for a hot day!

The usual cake mix + diet dew cupcakes. All you need is one box of cake mix (my favorite is the funfetti from Aldi) and one 12 oz. can of diet pop.

 

I'll be doing a weigh in a few days to see how much weight I lost this June. I'm sure I won't be super thrilled with the number, because I was sick at the beginning of the month and didn't eat the best. As long as I'm down a little though, I'll not be too hard on myself.

Easter 2013

I know, an actual real post. It is finally spring break at work, so I'm not panicking about getting ready for the week right now. I plan on having a very productive break with lots of homework for grad school, some concert prep for work, and getting a few things done around the house.

My family had Easter dinner yesterday, so today doesn't feel much like Easter to me. The warm weather is nice and I took the dog for a walk and then went back out on a second walk just for myself. I hope that the warmer weather is here to stay!

For Easter I didn't take a bunch of pictures like I usually do, but just focused on having a good time. My mom made a ton of food with the main dish being chicken stir fry. I also had some salad, cheesy noodles, potatoes, and a roll. For dessert I had some homemade apple pie and these very addictive cookies that my sister made. My niece loved looking for eggs and I do regret not having pictures of that. She is so cute! I had some small Easter presents for my family and they did for me as well. Here is a picture of all the gifts I got:

My mom gave me the tank tops and glasses case. My sister gave me the candy, cookies, and lip gloss. My aunt gave me the cool pot with a flower from her garden that I can later put in my garden.

In the evening, the hubs and I had some of friends over. Two of them are from out of town, so it was nice to get a chance to see them. There ended up being five of us total and we went to Don Pablo's for dinner. The hubs and I split an order of chicken fajitas and I filled up on salsa and chips. I love salsa and probably would've been happy with just eating that for dinner. The rest of the evening was spent at our house catching up. I ended up wimping out a little after nine. The sleep schedule of a teacher!

I hope to get some posts up later this week about the workout I've been doing at the gym and my goals for the rest of this school year as related to weight loss. I figure spring break is a good time to take some time for blogging.

Post Christmas Party and Meal Planning

I'm feeling pretty good about things overall right now. I've lost close to four pounds this week! Friday was a great eating day and I made it to the gym for a good workout.

Saturday I meal planned and went shopping in the morning. I also made some food for a post Christmas party that I went to with my college friends. I made a veggie tray and some pumpkin muffins.

Recycled picture alert! I used the same veggies this time too.

Another recycled picture. I used yellow cake mix and pumpkin this time. These are chocolate cake mix and pumpkin.

My plan of attack once I saw all of the food was to try a little bit of everything that I wanted. I had a turkey sandwich with some cheese, some veggies off of my tray, cheesy mashed potatoes, some kind of salad (don't know what it is called), and some green beans. For dessert I had a couple of rice crispy squares, a muffin, and a gluten free brownie. I stuck to Dt. Mountain Dew for my drink of choice.

After eating we played a white elephant game. We randomly handed out the gifts and the host read a story where we had to follow the directional words in the story (right, left, across). Two of my friends that live together ended up with each other's gifts, so they went home with the same "crap" that they found in the garage. I thought that was pretty funny. I ended up with the first gift that was handed to me. It was a small box that rattled, so I assumed it was jewelry and was right. I got this bracelet that I'm sure I'll end up wearing to work many times.

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing games on the Wii and talking. It was the perfect bit of fun and relaxation I needed before school starts next week.

Sunday has so far been spent getting chores/errands done. After my usual breakfast (which I'll be eating again this week), I made my food for the week. For lunches I'm having pizza and applesauce.

For dinner I'm having sloppy joes with sweet potato puffs (basically the sweet potato version of tater tots).

I'm also having the same snacks as last week. I know that sounds boring, but I don't mind eating the same things for breakfasts and snacks for a long time before switching. I was still craving strawberry "pumpkin" muffins, so I made some again.

Here is what my meal and snack boards say for this week's meal/snack plan.

I have even been organizing sections of the fridge with my different meals/snacks for the day, so all I have to do is grab from the right part of the fridge and enjoy.

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Snacks

I also found these today, and they are pretty good. I love Skinny Cow candy!

 

I'm off to do some cleaning around the house, get stuff ready for work and class tomorrow, and spend some time with the hubs.

Planning Ahead for Free Pizza

Just a quick pop in to discuss my eating for Thursday...

I ate most of what I had planned earlier this week to eat. I finally tried my new recipe of chicken al a pot pie and it was good.

I also knew that there was going to be free Papa John's Pizza for the teachers today at work. We teachers look forward to our free food and goodies in the lounge! I planned ahead and brought a big salad and applesauce with me to help fill me up, so I wouldn't eat as much pizza. I was hoping to get by with one bigger slice, but ended up eating one bigger slice and one smaller slice. I also think I did kinda okay making up for it by just having a small serving of chicken al a pot pie for dinner with no sides.

Other than that little adventure for lunch, everything else is the same old stuff. I also really don't have any news to share, so I'm off to get ready for work tomorrow and hopefully relax a little bit.

Grad School, Gym, and Food for the Week

This week has been going pretty well overall. Monday I ran some errands after work and Tuesday I went to orientation for graduate students. The whole grad school thing is still semi-real, but next week I start classes and it will finally be real. It feels a little more real with orientation done, ordering my books online (much cheaper online and the hubs is an expert at finding cheaper books after being in school for a long time), and getting a student ID. My picture looks horrible and it has nothing to do with double chins this time. They took the picture with a web cam like a foot in front of your face, so I have a huge shiny spot on my forehead.

I don't mind that this turned out blurry, so you can't really see how bad the picture really is.

Wednesday I went to do my first workout at the gym after work. I was able to get in and out in about an hour. Also, everyone is working at that time, so there is no one there to see me working out. I am slightly sore tonight, but we'll see how bad I feel tomorrow. Hopefully my abs won't hurt for four days afterwards, because I would like to go back in on Friday.

I also cooked myself dinners for this week which I failed to do on Monday. It is from a Hungry Girl cookbook I have with 300 meals under 300 calories. I made "Chicken al a Pot Pie," but I made enough for four meals instead of one. I changed up the recipe a bit and used chicken, 98% fat free cream of chicken soup (instead of 98% fat free cream of mushroom), and more peas than the recipe called for. Unfortunately it was really late by the time it was done cooking, so I had some sweet potato fries, 2 pieces of string cheese, and a pumpkin muffin for dinner instead. I'll have to tell you how it tastes tomorrow, but here is a picture of it straight out of the oven.

I posted a food plan earlier this week, but here are the pictures of what I am eating this week.

Breakfast

I had fruit bites instead of yogurt.

Snack

Snack

Lunch

Snack

Dinner

I'll let you know if it tastes good or not.

Snack

This week I got daring and tried strawberry cake mix with pumpkin. It was a little odd to me at first, but now I'm liking it.

My First Week of Trying in a While

My first week of actually trying to eat well and workout in a long while went pretty well overall. Earlier this week I got lunch with my retired teacher friend Chris and we exchanged our Christmas presents. I ate pretty well with getting a grilled chicken breast dieter's plate, but I did have a couple of rolls. It is hard to go a meal without carbs!

My healthy meal that I tainted with dinner rolls.

My present from Chris

The rest of the week I've been eating food that I've cooked myself. I cooked a week's worth of food and finished it all up on Saturday. For those of you who know me, I'm not much for cooking. I don't particularly enjoy it, so I usually don't try too hard. I was actually making dinner and some of those pumpkin muffins all at the same time. It made me at least look like I knew how to cook, although it was pretty simple.

Cooking up a storm

This kit was pretty good. It has lower sodium seasoning and 100% whole wheat tortillas.

The tacos were yummy. I had fat free refried beans, taco meat, cheese, taco sauce, and onions on mine.

Baked up the easiest snack to help with a sweet tooth. It is just a box of cake mix with a can of pumpkin.

Turkey burger on whole wheat bread with sweet potato waffle fries. I love sweet potato fries!

I had 1/3 cup egg whites and a piece of 40 calorie cheese on a 100% whole wheat bagel thin with either yogurt or fruit bites for breakfast all this week.

I had this for lunch on Saturday since I ran out of turkey burgers.

Snacking has been a huge part of why I gained so much weight back. This week I worked on transitioning myself off of the sugary, junk food snacks and more towards what I should be eating. I think that once I get this part under control, I will lose the weight quicker. Anyway, for snacks I've been having anything from a doughnut or cinnamon roll to carrots or apples with string cheese.

Red velvet doughnut with cream cheese frosting. Evil!

This was my meal and snack plan for last week.

As for exercise, I went to the gym and did my first workout with a trainer to show me how to do everything. From now on I get to pull out my card and do the exercises on my own (and ask one of the workers there if I have a question). My workout started with five minutes on the treadmill and five minutes on the stair climber along with some stretches to warm-up. Then I used a bunch of different machines to work my legs, arms, shoulders, and back. For the abs, I did some bicycle crunches, crunches on a ball, and three planks. The planks were the one thing I really struggled with. After that I stuck around and did 20 minutes on the treadmill. I felt pretty good when I left the gym, but I woke up the next day feeling sore all over. The second day after the workout my arms and legs were better, but my abs hurt really badly. It hurt to bend, sit up straight, sneeze, cough, and laugh!

Me getting ready for my first workout. Who knew that I'd feel like my face looks the next day and the day after that?

I also went on two long walks around my neighborhood. I prefer to be outside instead of inside on a treadmill. It has been warm and pretty much snow free for winter so far, so I thought I would try to get outside while I can. I have asthma and the cold air bothers me. I wore a scarf one time and that helped me to breathe a little easier. One walk I took a dog with me and the other one I just listed to music while I walked up and down every street in my little section of town.

I used to be pretty good about blogging every day when I'm eating on track and showing pictures of everything I ate. Since I will be working and going back to school, I won't have the time to do that again. I will try to post my meal plan once a week along with a post about what I actually ate with pictures. It will take a little bit of time to figure out what I will be able to do, but my goal is to be more regular with my posts.