Menu Plan for April 8-13

This is what we ate this past week.  It looks like I don't feel my hubby but he's a grown up and he's incredibly good at feeding himself.  

Monday

Breakfast: (S) banana & coffee, (Z) eats at school, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch: (S)omelet (onions, spinach and tomatoes) (Z) School, (J) out

Dinner: pot roast and steamed veggies (frozen veggies - broccoli, cauliflower, carrots) 

Tuesday

Breakfast: (S) breakfast hash and coffee, (Z) school, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch:  (S) leftovers (Z) School, (J) out

Dinner: Leftover - Roast and veggies 

Wednesday

Breakfast: (S) breakfast hash and coffee (Z) school, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch: (S)leftovers, (Z) School, (J) out

Dinner: *baked salmon and veggies (steamed broccoli and baked sweet potatoes) 

Thursday

Breakfast: (S) breakfast omelet (eggs, onion, broccoli, ground turkey and salt) and coffee, (Z) school, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch: (S)salad from Newk's, Black and Blue (Z) School, (J) out

Dinner: *Carnitas with Wholly Guacamole - crock pot recipe

Friday

Breakfast: (S) chopped fruit (cantaloupe, grapes and strawberries) and coffee, (Z) school, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch: (S)Mugshots with sister burger with veggies and no bun, sweet potato fries and water (Z) school (J) out

Dinner: leftover Carnitas with Wholly Guacamole

Saturday - grocery shopping day

Breakfast: (S) breakfast hash and coffee, (Z) waffle and fruit, (J) nothing - preference

Lunch: whatever needs to be eaten out of our leftovers, fruits and veggies in the fridge

Dinner: out - The Grill for an engagement party.  :) 

* recipes coming soon

** I always drink either water or unsweetened tea with my meals.  

Sara's No Egg Breakfast Hash

Ingredients: 
Sweet Potato, a handful, diced
Onion, a handful, diced
Zucchini, a handful, diced with peel
Ground Turkey, a handful that I break up while cooking
Salt, to taste
Cinnamon, 2 shakes
Nutmeg, 1 shake
Spinach, a handful
Coconut Oil, just enough to grease the bottom of the skillet

Directions:
Add coconut oil to skillet over medium heat.  Add sweet potato and onion, cook until soft.  Stir and flip the sweet potato pieces so they do not stick to the pan.  Add zucchini, ground turkey and salt.  Stir until turkey is cooked.  Add cinnamon, nutmeg and spinach.  Cook until spinach is wilted.

Yields: 1 serving
Cook time: ~10 minutes

Serve with drink and fruit of choice.  My usuals are black coffee or Constant Comment tea and strawberries or banana.

* I prep all my food on Sunday night.  I chop up my 3 veggies and store them in a 3 part meal container and I keep my ground turkey in its original packing within a gallon plastic bag.  Each morning I just drag them out and grab a handful to throw in the skillet.  

* I don't really measure anything so adjust your measurements to your own liking.

* I only cook enough to feed myself because my hubby is not really into cinnamon or ground turkey and especially not the two together.  My child is almost 2 and she refuses to eat most of the time right now so I piece together a breakfast of whatever I can convince to eat, usually fruit and something.

I'm a Liar and a BIG Lifestyle Change

I had every intention of starting to update regularly again.  I had every intention of logging and counting my calories again...really I did.  So now we're in the middle of April and here I am again.  I have been trying on a new lifestyle for the last 4 weeks and I LOVE IT!!  One of my bff's introduced me to the Whole 30 and challenged me to take it on for the full 30 days.  Since I NEVER do anything alone I drug my cousins Emily and Jack and two of my bff's Ashley and Michelle (who has already done this twice) with me.  The challenge is that for 30 days you remove anything from your diet that isn't a meat, fruit or vegetable.  If you can't grow it and it never had a mother then you don't eat it, with a few exceptions for Whole 30 because you don't consume grains, corn or white potatoes all of which you can totally grow.

Here's the link to the site if anyone is interested:
http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/

So the things that I drew me to this lifestyle change are that I still have 15 lbs to go toward my goal and I was S-T-U-C-K, I felt like crap most of the time, I was recently diagnosed with IBS (tmi, I know but that's important to my story), I recently had a lumpectomy (insanely scary), wasn't sleeping very well, was always hungry and snacking, out of control allergies (3 food allergies and I swear Mother Nature hates me) insanely jacked up stress levels, and a slew of other ailments that I just wanted to get rid of.  Michelle told me all about this diet that claims to "cure" all that and I thought about it for like 2 months.  I read a little about it and thought "what do I have to lose?"  The answer to that is 5 lbs over 4 weeks and I lost my insomnia, my newly acquired eczema, my stress levels dropped dramatically, my IBS feels "cured," and I'm not snacking all the time.

So what do I eat?

• Breakfast: an adapted recipe for a breakfast hash that I'll post later
• Lunch: leftovers from dinner
• Dinner: OMG..super yummy foods - will post these recipes later too.  
• Snacks: almost none because by the time I'm hungry again its time for a meal

What have I learned?

• I truly love food, shopping for food and preparing it. 
• Meal planning is a lot easier than it used to be
• My husband LOVES the new recipes as much as I do and he's been complementing my cooking skills.  GASP! If you know him then you know what a big deal this is.  I tell him all the time that he has missed his calling as a food critic.  
• I can live without processed sweets and I'm okay
• I eat enough quality food at each meal to not have to snack in between meals and I feel better for it.  
• I missed feeling "skinny."  I'm not bloated anymore and that takes the I feel "skinny" today feeling to a whole new level. 
• This so-called diet really works for me so its definitely been a real lifestyle change.  
• I truly feel the happiest I've felt in a long time.  

Accountability 2013

Tomorrow is the last day of February 2013.  I just happened to think I might need to go back to blogging about my weight loss since I've been on this journey FOREVER.  I'm down to the last 15 lbs and those are usually the hardest.  So here I am...again and I'm putting it all out there to give myself some accountability.  Here are a few answers to questions about has happened since my last post in October 2011.

I'm fluctuating between 119-117 which is in my "healthy" range but still not my goal weigh of 105.  I want to wear a bikini this summer and actually feel comfortable wearing shorts.

My health has scared the crap out of me twice in the last 3 months.  Seriously, I think I aged like 5 years during the process.  I've had a colonoscope that thankfully came back clean with a recommendation to have the next one at age 50.  Then within the same month my doctor found a lump in my right breast.  So I had a mammogram and and ultrasound both came back negative so we decided to just wait and follow-up in January.  I knew the lump was bigger before he even did the exam and confirmed it.  So we decided on a lumpectomy to get a tissue diagnosis.  Thank goodness the pathology report came back clean.  The surgeon declared that it was just a mass and that I need to keep up with my monthly breast exams and my yearly OB/GYN check-ups.  I'm completely on board with that and I've been telling all my friends and family to be sure they keep up with theirs too.  

My child is now 20 months old.  She's amazing and I still think becoming a mother is one of the best things that has and will ever happen to me.  I would like to do it again...soon. Hubby doesn't agree just yet so I'm just dropping hints (okay, they aren't exactly hints..more like vibrant neon signs) but he'll get on board eventually.  He LOVES being a Daddy.  

My New Year's resolution this year is to be nicer to myself.  Meaning that everyday I do SOMETHING for myself.  For example, last night after I put baby girl to bed I made myself ignore all the chores in my house so I could sit on the couch and relax for an hour.  Granted during that hour I played on my phone, read Facebook and Twitter, watched Big Bang Theory (my fave!), ate the last of my Girl Scout cookies (Samoas..yum) and drank a cup of milk.  Nutritionally...shame on me because that was a LOT of calories.  Stress relief...yay for sitting on the couch for an hour and relaxing because I really needed that time.  Gotta work on balance...high calorie snacks = no!, relaxing = yay!

The only "exercise" I'm making any time for right now is housework and chasing my toddler.  That's a goal for March.  I want to start running again because I miss it.  I have never been consistent with my running so my mileage and endurance suck but that's not why I run.  I run because it physically wears me out.  I run because I love to turn my music up really loud and push myself to do something that is uncomfortable and out of the scope of normal things I do during my day.  It also provides me the greatest amount of stress relief.  I really, really miss it.    

I'm still working full time and LOTS of overtime.  I've been in survival mode for weeks.  My menu planning consists of whatever recipes I can remember in the grocery store followed by our staples of pesto and pasta, grilled cheese and soup, baked meat and veggies..seriously I should be embarrassed.      

I am now completely obsessed with time management.  I even have a whole notebook completely dedicated to this task.  It has more chores list, menu planning, budget, bills, everything and I'm lost without it.    My daily goals are to cook dinner, clean up dinner, wash the dishes, wash the baby and get her to bed before 8 pm.  After she goes down then I complete any other chores that can't be put off and/or hang out with the hubby.  

I'll log my calories throughout today and start posting them again tomorrow.

Wednesday - October 5, 2011

I am 3 months into new motherhood and its fabulous.  My child refuses to sleep during the day (she is anti-nap) but she does sleep pretty well at night.  Even with her awesome nighttime sleeping skills I still find myself insanely tired which, of course, leaves me pointing fingers at my post-pregnancy trucker food diet.  I have a bit of an ice cream, snack cakes, soft drink, candy you know everything-I-couldn't-eat-with-gestational-diabetes kind of addiction going on.  It’s really a slippery slope for me as I consider myself a complete sugar addict.  If I can get the white stuff out of my diet I believe I would be an all-around better and happier person.  Getting sugar out of my diet is a long-term goal but I'm focused on my short-term goal at the moment, which is finding balance between motherhood, full-time work, healthy eating along with exercise and completely losing all of my baby weight.  I'm only 6 lbs away!!

One thing I feel I am one definitely doing right is breastfeeding.   I do not believe that you are killing your child by not breastfeeding, as I know PLENTY of perfectly healthy formula-fed children.  But I am still extremely proud of my choice and ability to exactly what my body is designed to do.  I stick my chest out like a peacock when people ask what kind of formula I use and I tell them "none, we are a breastfeeding family."  Anyhow one of the benefits, for mom, is that breastfeeding burns an obnoxious amount of calories.  Which also plants the idea in mom's head that she can eat whatever she wants and still lose weight.  So I bought into all that crap and ate like a trucker while I was watching the numbers wind down on my scale and now I'm at a plateau. I'm watching my weight fluctuate between a loss and a gain.  Apparently I've used up all my breastfeeding weight loss voodoo and its time to work on the diet...oh and I should probably exercise too.  Unfortunately rocking my baby and staring at her little sleeping face doesn't burn enough calories to cancel out all the junk food that I've been snacking on.  My final pregnancy weight was 159, my current weight is 130.8 and fluctuates between 129-132…mostly on the 132 side.  My goal is **106-100lbs. All that being said, I decided to give Weight Watchers Online a try.  I was drawn to their plan because it offers support for breastfeeding mothers, while other sites do not.  Losing baby weight is tricky as a breastfeeding mom because it can affect your supply.  I've been told that I need to keep an extra 6-10 lbs while I'm feeding. And every book/web site I've read says the same thing but what if I already had 20 I needed/wanted to lose?  Do I keep those too?  I'm not planning on it.  Another breastfeeding friend of mine has been following the Weight Watchers plan with any negative effects to her milk supply so it sounded perfect.  Weight Watchers accounts for the extra calories that I need to consume when they calculate my points.  That being said I get an OBNOXIOUS amount of points everyday.  I've only been on it for a week and haven't seen a consistent weight loss number yet.  I weigh myself on Monday (have to keep myself in check all weekend) and I log my food everyday.  So far I've managed to blow my points on quite a few days by eating like a trucker.  As I say I am and will always be a work in progress.  My goal for this week is to make a menu for the week and actually start planning.  So what's momma eating this week?  I don't know because I haven't bothered to plan anything out.  I just eat when I'm hungry and that's obviously not going to work.    


**Remember I am less than 5 feet tall so this is healthy for me…feel free to plug my numbers into any BMI calculator online that you can find.  I'm 4'10" and 32 years old. 117-86lbs (depending on which calculator you are using) is considered healthy for me…I'm aiming to be in the middle of that range.  

Friday, July 29, 2011

I'm officially a mom...a breastfeeding mom at that. My daughter, it still feels so weird to say that, is officially a month old today. I still have trouble believing its already been a whole month. She's absolutely the most precious person I've ever met. So back to the subject matter of this blog..what have I been eating? EVERYTHING that I should not. Cokes, root beer, sweet tea, candy, ice cream, anything sweet I can get my hands on. It's really pathetic. The final total on my pregnancy weight gain was 35lbs on top of 20 that I already need to lose. My first goal is drop the 35 lbs of baby weight and then work on the other 20. I'm already down 22 lbs thanks to breastfeeding. Starting this week, now that it's been a month, I have to focus on the next 13 lbs so I can get back into my old work clothes. I've accepted that my tops are probably not going to fit considering how large my breastfeeding equipment is so I've bought a few tops in a larger size recently. Tops are fine and the size of my breastfeeding equipment is fine but buying new 'fat' pants is not acceptable. That's what I'm trying to fit back into, my old 'fat' clothes. This will also be the week I start exercising again. I ended up having a cesarian delivery so I've been waiting for my body to heal enough so that exercising isn't more uncomfortable than it usually is when you start a new routine. I sincerely miss running and I haven't been allowed to running since last October when I found out I was pregnant. It was a precautionary measure since my first pregnancy didn't work out very well. I'm very much looking forward to pounding the pavement again. I love the way it helps me clear my head. Anyhow, I'll post as I can but as anyone with a newborn can tell you, time is awfully precious these days. Truth be told my posts will be sporadic until I return to work. I'll be spending the remainder of my maternity leave rocking ms snuggling with my sweet baby girl. I'm sadly all too well aware that I'll never get these days with her back.

Boredom

Almost everyone I know who is on a diet, attempting to diet, wanting to diet, etc becomes bored with their meals.  Boredom makes it so much easier to justify making bad nutritional choices and if you haven't noticed I'm a master of that mentality.  That's why mu hubby requested that I introduce a few new recipes a month so we don't become so bored with eating the same things week after week.  We've been together 8 years (married 2) this summer and when I think about all the times I've made our "staple meals" week after week its extremely easy to see how and where the boredom started. 

When I met my hubby I was 24 and could barely cook.  I didn't understand what flavors went together, why they were good together even really the concept of "good food."  At that point I was eating just because I was hungry without considering nutritional value or flavor quality.  Of course at my first real job right out of college I went up 2 pants sizes...talk about embarrassing.  Well I held onto those 2 pant sizes until I got pregnant.  Now I'm definitely above those 2 pants sizes and desperately wanting to go back to them as quickly as possible..that's goal #1.  Goal #2 is to eliminate those 2 pant sizes and get back to what I consider my "happy weight."  I'll consider myself at my "happy weight" when I'm not embaressed to wear shorts or just above the knee skirts and dresses out in public.  

Anyhow, I say all that to say that learning to cook for yourself is extremely important.  Everytime I hear anyone, male or female, announce proudly that they don't cook, it makes me very ill for them.  I turn into one of those ranting know-it-alls who lectures the youngin's on the value of cooking, and cleaning - this rant is for another day, for yourself.  Do yourself a favor and spend 5 minutes researching new recipes with flavors that you're curious about.  You have no one else to blame if you are bored with your diet...you have full control over everything you put into your body.  With millions of web sites, cooking blogs, cook books, magazines, tv shows, podcasts (you see where I'm going) there's no excuse not to feel free to experiment!  If you are using a small budget as your excuse then you should take some time to evaluate how much money are you spending on the foods that you don't enjoy and reallocate that money for foods that you do.  My opinion, if you enjoy it and it has nutritional value then its a much better investment since you won't be throwing food, or money away.  Just be reasonable and stay within your grocery budget.  

Some of my favorites:
www.foodnetwork.com
www.allrecipes.com
www.onceamonthmom.com
www.realsimple.com
www.tasteofhome.com