Date Night
Last night hubby and I decided to take advantage of cheap Tuesday at the movie theatre and go see Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. I knew that it was going to be a somewhat cheesy movie, so I decided our night would get a theme and Cheesy Date Night was born!
I was so excited by this plan that I took to Pinterest to find cheesy recipes for our dinner. Now I know that Pinterest does not always have the best WW friendly recipes (and a quick look at my profile would indicate that most of those recipes catch my eye…) but I searched through my pins and found three recipes that I would use for our cheese filled night.
First up was Tomato Cheddar Basil Soup. It uses Greek yoghurt to make it super creamy and I used light cheddar so it actually worked out to be only 2 ppts per serving! That’s insane!!! Every great soup deserves a good biscuit, doesn’t it? So I found Low-Fat Cheddar Chive Biscuits. I needed green onion for another dinner I’m planning and I didn’t want to get chives as well (was so nice when my parents had chives in the front yard that we could pick) so I swapped them out green onion tops and they went just perfectly with the soup. Here’s a picture of the two together!
Soup: check. Biscuit: check. Cheese: everywhere!
Oh right, the biscuits were 4 ppts each so creamy tomato soup and cheddar biscuits together were 6 ppts! That’s what I call an awesome dinner deal.
We realised that it was getting close to movie time, so we headed over to the movie theatre. Once there we found out that unless we wanted to see the Imax (which I have issues with sometimes, but braved for The Hobbit just so that I could see the Star Trek trailer, another story) we had to see it in 3D AVX which added $5 to the cost of each ticket because of the better seats and assigned seating 😦 Luckily it was cheap Tuesday so we ended up paying what we would normally pay for a regular movie (and how many movies are general price these days? You almost always have to pay the extra for 3D, they shouldn’t even have a general admission IMO.) I also found a movie night out ticket it my wallet so we were able to get popcorn and drinks for $0.50 (upgrade to a large popcorn) and I brought along some White Cheddar popcorn seasoning to make it cheesy 🙂 This was by far the worst food I ate all night, and I wouldn’t normally eat popcorn at the theatre, but it was fun and date night should be fun!
Cheesy popcorn makings
We got to our seats just in time to watch the “pre-show” or as like to think of it, the product placement adds before the commercials. I went out for my usual pre-movie pee break and on the way back one of the ladies I had to pass got up so I had more room to pass. I said thanks, but that I was used to squeezing past people, and she made the comment that of course, I was skinny, I’d have no problems. I was secretly thrilled at this sudo compliment as I remember being as big as that lady was! I find it strange now that I was so thrilled to hear some stranger say that, but I am so bad at accepting compliments from people I know (something I really have to work on this year as I get to goal.)
After the movie, we came home and had some cheesy dessert: individual Cookies & Cream Cheesecakes. I found this recipe and pinned it for two reasons, 1. individual portions of things are SOOOO much easier to indulge in and 2. Hubby likes cookies and cream almost as much as I do 🙂 I debated taking the idea of the recipe, using a whole oreo as the bottom crust (which do fit perfectly in a muffin tin!) and then making a WW recipe for the cheesecake, but ricotta cheese was too expensive so I opted just to use light cream cheese and light sour cream instead so each cheesecake ended up being 6 ppts. I’m not sure that the WW modification would have saved me that much, considering 2 ppts of that was just for the oreo cookie, so I’m totally happy with the recipe as is.
Oreo cheesecake deliciousness!
All in all it was a fabulously fun and cheesy night AND in total the food damage was 25 ppts! Not too shabby for a date night, I mean if we’d gone out to dinner that total would have been much, much, much higher.
Hubby posing with the movie poster
Struggling
This past week as been surprisingly difficult. I’ve been struggling with hunger, even a few minutes/hours after eating what should have been a filling meal, chocolate cravings, emotional roller coastering (yay for that time of the month!), weird dreams and not enough sleep. It’s been really hard to stick with the program and I’m frustrated more so because I was so hoping that I’d be able to jump on the 2013 bandwagon and ride it to the finish line without any huge bumps. Not that I ever expect an easy ride, but with all my previous experience with this kind of stuff, I was hoping for a little bit of a smoother trip. Life does have a way of playing out differently than you plan.
I guess it all kind of started with last Monday, it had snowed overnight without warning so roads had not been salted. I had not slept well, but had decided to go to Bootcamp anyway, hoping that the workout would make me feel better (cuz yeah, I’m that far gone with the exercise bug!) Well halfway down the block my car was sliding so much I freaked out, pulled over to the side of the road and walked back home. The rest of the day I spent inside, inactive, although I did refrain from overeating, yay! This event did reinforce the incredible need to replace my tires, something about hearing recommendations from others vs. actually experiencing something personally.
Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty unremarkable, although Tuesday was a bit disappointing because SIL and I again had to postpone our snowshoe date, this time indefinitely until I get new tires. Well that and I seemed to always be hungry, nothing I ate helped. Ok, and my daily weigh-in on Wednesday was my lowest yet during this round.
Thursday was crap. I was looking forward to an awesome weigh-in due to Wednesday’s weight, but it’s like my body knew Thursday was weigh-in and so I unexpectedly had a 1lb gain. Then I was forced to forgo lunch because I had to visit my in-laws before I got the chance (and anybody who has ever done Weight Watchers will tell you that they have a food cut-off time on weigh-in day, it’s tradition.) By the time I got home from my meeting I was better (yay for Fiber One Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie snacks and an Awake Tea Latte from Starbucks) but not really caring about food choices. FYI, Thai food is really not a great option when you are hungry and trying to count points after the fact. Random happiness for the day was that I was chatting with a lady at WW before the meeting and she made a comment to the center coordinator (aka. my old leader) saying that I should be at the scales every week with encouragement and understanding 🙂 And the reply was that I would be behind the counter and in front of the meetings soon enough (if, of course, I was willing.)
Friday I was all set to start a fresh week keeping within my daily points, but somehow that took a turn. Maybe it was due to all the Thai food forcing me to go up in weight again. Or maybe it was because of all the cookies I was making to share with a couple from church and the baking was getting to me (cookies don’t usually tempt me these days) or maybe the lack of sleep, who knows? I did manage to go to bootcamp AND for a walk later with my SIL, so that made the day go better.
On the weekend I was actually pretty proud of myself. I went to a wine and food tasting/pairing with some girl friends and I didn’t totally overeat/drink (helps that I was driving) and then when I got home a realised how many points I did have left I made some soup, hooray! Sadly I followed it up with some chocolate peanut butter mug cake. Those things are sneaky, so easy to make, single serve, relatively ok points-wise (5-8 depending on additions) and great to curb cravings. Apparently it just wasn’t exactly what I was craving this weekend. And then Sunday we went out for lunch/brunch with BIL and SIL at a fantastic breakfast joint that specializes in “healthy” options so side dishes most often are gorgeous displays of fruit, and not just the cheap melon/orange/random grapes fruit, I’m talking kiwi, strawberry, banana, orange, apple, melon, awesome! Afterwards, we went for another walk (they have a dog, walking is good) for more activity points! Dinner was more of the low-point soup, so that I didn’t get tempted by pub food while bowling with more lovely ladies. I tried to satiate my chocolate craving again with some hot chocolate and cookies, but unfortunately it wasn’t working either, so I finally broke down after bowling and make chocolate fudge sauce to put on some ice cream and banana (this conquers all chocolate cravings and has a banana, so it’s healthy, yes? Please?)
So overall I guess it wasn’t a horrible fail this week. I had some tough spots and I had some small victories. This week I just need a small miracle, I hit that new low last Wednesday then shot up 3.5lbs since. I’d really love it to all melt away in the next 3 days so that I can have an overall loss at WW. Historically, once I’ve reached 188 I will go up significantly the following week and take many weeks (or months) to recover. Must get to the low 180’s. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Heck, I know I can, I know I can, I know I can!
Change is good. Right?
This week was a bit sad. On Tuesday my sister-in-law and I were going to go snowshoeing. I’ve been trying to get out to the mountains more and SIL hasn’t ever been before (and she’s trying to find new avenues of exercise,too.) Well, Monday night John came home telling me that the forecast called for heavy rain, therefore heavy snow on the mountains. Since I’m a rebel and don’t have snow tires, he didn’t really want me to be driving up there in slippery conditions. Doesn’t help that my tires are getting older and should soon be replaced. Anyways, we decided to postpone our snowshoe date, hopefully for next week sometime, but the weather will decide.
The really, really sad part of the week was my Weight Watchers meeting. Everything was going great, I was down (almost back to pre-wedding weight again!) and the meeting was about to start when our leader told us that she was no long able to lead our meetings! She is absolutely awesome and by far the best leader I’ve ever had on WW and I was looking forward to reaching Lifetime with her. To be fair, the reason she can’t be our leader anymore is not because she doesn’t want to or because she’s no longer with Weight Watchers, kind of the opposite, she’d love to continue leading us but as she’s the center coordinator, corporate doesn’t want to have to pay her overtime to stay til the end of our meeting 😦 So at least we’ll be able to see her if we go into the center any other time. Hopefully our newest leader will get better with time, she was very nervous, and read mostly from her notes 😦 Only time will tell. But life is change, we have to accept it, so I will be going back next week and every other week until I reach goal.
First Week
Well, first weight in of 2013 is done. Really proud of myself for getting back into the program so quickly, I was down 3.2lbs so lost everything that I gained the week of Christmas! Just another 3.7 to go to get back down to my lowest.
Since Friday I’ve had a heck of a time keeping with the program though. Friday I had a super tough workout, but more so I was feeling super lightheaded and weak and that usually leads to overeating to compensate and then eating sugar-filled foods as a pick-me-up. Saturday we were invited to a games night at my brother- and sister-in-law’s place. I knew that we’d be out late, I’d been up early and there would be bad food choices there, but somehow through the day I was also not making great choices and ended up getting there with only 5ppts left 😦 I think that I will blame the fact that I was baking goodies for my church leaders in preparation for Sunday morning (I volunteered to bring snacks for all the workers that were going to be there from 7:30am!) so I a. focused more on that then making actual meals and b. had to taste one of the scones (maple-oat, 3ppts each) and muffins (blueberry, low-fat, 4ppts each.) Anyways, I started the night well stocking my plate with veggies, a delicious jalapeno greek yoghurt dip and turkey meatballs, but only managed to stay awake to the end of the night by downing copious amounts of diet soda and chowing on chocolate cookies. Not my finest hour.
Sunday was decidedly better. Up early to do final snack prep then off to set-up at church. Finished my serving there then headed to our cousin’s baptism at his home church followed by pho noodle soup for lunch. Super awesome points-wise and cleared out my sinuses nicely! Then it was mostly lazy day from there. Dinner was a bit sketchy, but I ended up with a big pile of veggies covered in turkey, some cheese and some salsa, none of which was remotely appetizing (except maybe the cheese.) And then I derailed again and made chocolate mug cakes, with PB chips for dessert. For the record, I had 10ppts left in my day, but I don’t think cake was the best use for them.
At least today I maintained the weight at my daily weigh-in and my plans for the week involve bootcamp today (DONE!), snowshoeing with my SIL tomorrow and then bootcamp again on Wednesday and Friday. I also have high hopes for setting up a food schedule so that I can pre-plan some meals and have more protein and veggies in the house ready to eat. Time will tell if I follow through on that one.
2013 Already?
So I recently rediscovered this blog of mine and with it being the new year I thought I’d reintegrate myself into blogging. Also, I seem to get much better results with weight loss if I post to the blogosphere regularly (and it hits two of my New Years Resolutions; rekindle blogging romance by posting at least once a week and reach Lifetime with Weight Watchers before August 11, 2013.) To start off this year, I’ll nutshell the good and bad that has passed in the last 4 (omg, really?) years since my last post.
Sadly, I have not yet met my goal with Weight Watchers, even after putting in an amazing attempt while writing this blog. At 5lbs from the top of my healthy weight range I fell off the bandwagon, hard. Turmoil and unpredictability caused me to fly off the rails and I ended up gaining a lot of weight back. About a year after the derailment, I crawled back and fell off again not losing any significant amount of weight, but again gaining more back once I was free of tracking.
Then everything changed in August of 2011. I was recently unemployed (again) and I decided that with all my spare time, I was going to get healthy. I told myself that this time was it, I’d been doing a bootcamp-esque class 3 times a week and I was keeping it up even better now that I was able to go to morning classes (really, so nice to work out at 9:30am not try to squeeze in an hour after work when I had three other evening commitments or have to miss classes because I was going away for the weekend) so I knew I could keep up the exercise portion. Tracking was thing that I knew killed my drive. It was all those times were I would feel totally deprived and start binging on non-healthy foods and then feeling horrible and not tracking which would lead to not caring anymore. So I devised a plan, for every month that I tracked everything, I would reward myself with something; new earrings, new shoes, etc. Arguably not the best option while unemployed, but it was a start. I also told my boyfriend that I wanted him to help me by just reminding me to track, not asking me what the points were or trying to only suggest things that would be healthier (things which in the past made me want to rebel and therefore choose the worst option, just out of random spite.) And with that, on August 11, 2011, I walked into Weight Watchers and signed up for what I am hoping will be my last time. To make things even more serendipitous, the leader for my meeting of choice was the same leader as I’d started my first Weight Watcher journey with four years previously and at a different location!
That day I weighed in at a whopping 240.9! I hadn’t weighed that much since early 2007, but it was a place to start and I used it as motivation. In my first week I lost 6.7 lbs (I’m pretty sure I lost a daily point as well, which made me happy) and I created the most awesomest spreadsheet to track my progress. Not only does it show me my weight with WW in table and graph form, each week it takes my weight and calculates my BMI (that’s colour-coded to show obese/overweight/healthy), my weight loss for the week, my average weight loss over all weeks AND based on that average an estimate on when I’ll reach goal! I also made up a similar sheet that shows me weight, loss, average loss and BMI for my daily weigh-in (another key to my weight loss journey successes, daily scale time before breakfast.) It is my favouritest weight spreadsheet ever, and I still use it daily!
December of 2011, my life changed again. On our anniverary, my boyfriend proposed. So very cute, he was so nervous about it. The whole week leading up to the evening he kept talking about changing our relationship (enough that I eventually asked him if he wanted to break up with me, just to get him to realise that he wasn’t doing a great job of keeping it secret.) Then all through dinner he kept grabbing and playing with my hands, not wanting to do it during dinner because he knows I don’t like a whole lot of attention. Finally after dinner, just as we were about to head back down to our car, he brought out the ring and asked. Now I had even more motivation to lose weight and get healthy!
In January, I found out that the bootcamp I was going to cancelled the 9:30 class. Arguably there were three regulars in that class, so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep up. But that meant I was on the hunt for a new 9:30 am class to keep up my routine. After trying a few local gyms and having a few weeks of doing nothing, I stumbled upon a Groupon for a bootcamp that looked fabulous and was offering a deal on a month trial. Not only did they have a dedicated gym for the sole purpose of offering bootcamp style classes, they offered SEVEN class times every weekday and a Saturday class as well. The only “catch” was that for the Groupon deal you had to join the 8:30 class, something which didn’t bug me too much because it just gave me an extra hour in my day (I’d never do anything before bootcamp other than FB and breakfast, too much effort.) At the very end of January I started my month with The Bootcamp Effect and I was hooked after the first class. Exercise routine down!
The rest of 2012 was pretty much devoted to wedding planning although a few notable points must be shared. After 5 years of living in Metro Vancouver, my fiancé and I hiked the Grouse Grind, something I’d been wanting to do every summer since moving here. He has a birth “defect” which causes him to go slow with many breaks (which near killed me in the beginning when I had drive to keep going) but we made it too the top (I was really glad for those breaks in the upper half when I got super dizzy/nauseous and could only focus on what was right in front of me.) Once I felt human again, we celebrated by having pizza at the top, which I tracked of course, and I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.
My other awesome accomplishment came from my wedding dress. My mom and I purchased it at a Boxing Week Sale, it was the first dress I tried on with my mom and Maid of Honour, it was on the clearance rack, but every other dress that day was compared to it. It was sold as is, obviously, and was slightly small, but the corset back offered a lot of freedom and the sales lady told us we could fix that by using a larger modesty panel at the back. We didn’t even have a wedding date yet and the dress was ours! After a few months we had the first fitting with the seamstress. I put on the dress and the seamstress asked us what she was supposed to be doing, the dress fit PERFECTLY! Of course it helps that I’m tall and the dress didn’t need any hemming, but the corset back did up perfectly and it looked amazing. I was so proud that I’d kept up with my food and exercise that I’d been able to lose so much. There were a few small broken elements that needed fixing, so we booked a second appointment with the seamstress to check the dress once they were done. Another few months and we were back, I tried on the dress and … it was TOO BIG! Again, the corset back gives a lot of freedom, but the sales lady was concerned because the lacing was done up so tight it didn’t give the preferred “V” anymore. This gave me even more happiness because those months I had seen less movement on the scale, so bootcamp was applauded for getting me so toned! We ended up having to take in the dress by almost 3 inches! I’m still so proud of myself for buying a dress a tad too small and having to take it in so much. And I looked amazing on the big day.
September was wedding month. We didn’t really want a long engagement, and the world was supposed to end in December (actually, on what would have been our 5th anniversary) and I didn’t want to die unmarried! (More-so 12 is my favourite number and I was determined not to have a 13 in a significant date.) I kept up my weight loss and reached 50 pounds lost right before the wedding. I even made it a point of going to my meeting 2 days before my wedding and again the following week before we left for our honeymoon. The honeymoon has been my biggest set back since this journey began. We were taking a 12 day cruise to Hawaii and I decided that I wanted to enjoy the cruise, the place and my brand new HUSBAND, so I was going to take a break from tracking and apparently reason. First meeting back (four days after arriving home), I was up 14.6lbs! Not totally discouraged, I got right back on track and then just before Christmas arrived back at my pre-wedding weight (spot on it actually.)
Now it’s 2013, I’m a new wife, still going to bootcamp 3 times a week (at least), tracking everything (even with my 7lb hiccup over the 2 weeks of pre-Christmas and Christmas and then New Years Eve where I tracked but didn’t count points), and aiming to add more awesomeness (like more snowshoeing and more Grouse Grind hikes!) My biggest goal for 2013, weight-wise, is to reach my Lifetime so that I can start working for Weight Watchers and helping others reach their weight goals (I’ve already been sudo-recruited by my leader and store coordinator as well as one of our receptionists and even the regional director!)
So we’re all up to date, watch out for more posts and updates to the loss page!
Oh February
February is a fabulous month. It consists of two of my favourite days of the year, my birthday and Valentine’s. Definite cause for celebration, unfortunately celebrations that cause weight gain (usually) but also convenient because they are two days apart and so only affect weigh in once. Last night, Mom made a fantastic meal in honour of my birthday. First course was tomato and artichoke bruschetta on olive baguette. Following was a spinach salad with corn and lobster (I LOVE lobster, it is my favourite food and so is a staple in birthday or special dinners for me.) Main course was a bacon wrapped beef steak (not sure if Mom got the filet mignon or the tenderloin or something else), garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. For dessert, we had homemade turtle cheesecake. My dad was the genius behind dessert, Mom apparently doesn’t make cheesecake because she believed that since it was her favourite, Dad should learn to make the most wonderful cheesecake to impress her. And Dad did not disappoint with this one. Chocolate cookie and pecan crust, rich cheesecake with toffee bits, chocolate chips and pecans mixed in and topped with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and whole Turtle chocolates. So yummy! Good thing that weigh in is on Friday 🙂
Speaking of which, being sick last week really helped me melt pounds, check the loss page, I’m back down to 25lbs gone!
Day of Blah
Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by life. It’s dawned on me that I’m going to be done school in a little over 3 months and I don’t know what I want to do with myself. Sure I’ve got an offer for a permanent position with my current work, but the more I work there, the more I feel it’s not what I really want to be doing. Not that I really know what I want from life, I’m hoping that eventually I’ll get some kind of sign. If only it would come soon, or I’d have enough money to try a bunch of new things until I found my purpose.
Good Weekend, Hectic Week
This past weekend I went home, again, against my better judgement. I had already made plans to get my hair cut, help my bf get new glasses and go to a friend’s surprise party so I couldn’t just say no. Luckily this weekend I was totally able to stay on track (with of course a little piece of chocolate cake) and this morning I was down 0.4! I’m so happy because being back I tend to go out to eat a lot and it’s hard to know exactly how many points I’m eating. I’m just really happy I was able to stick to good choices and monitor my hunger.
Now that I’m home, it’s time to hit the ground running and get all my assignments and reports done. I’ve got something due in every class! Today I finished one assignment (due today) and just finished doing a last minute read of a report (due at midnight) so I’m glad that over with. Now it’s on to the report due Thursday and the assignment for Friday morning. I really hope my textbook comes in the mail in the next few days!
This weeks goals are to continue eating within my points and learning from my past time challenges by starting assignments as soon as they are posted. I guess I better get back to it then 🙂
Need for an update
I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted and much has happened, so here goes!
The last week and a bit I’ve been getting back into running with my best friend. Is it ever nice to have a running buddy! Last Tuesday was our first night out and it was POURING rain. We were absolutely soaked when we got home but we drove to Timmy’s and had nice steaming bowls of soup and a donut 🙂 We also decided to meet again on Thursday, rain or shine. Thursday was so cold (for the climate) and my legs were sore from lack of stretching (oops, we learned our lesson) but we went out for another hour. Tuesday I decided it’s about time I got some outdoor running pants, so I’m now the proud owner of reflective running tights! I feel like such a pro 😉 Since it was Tuesday, I even got to try them out and they are so comfy! It also seems that Tuesday is our Timmy’s night, cuz after our run we walked around the corner for another bowl of soup and donut. It feels so good to be out exercising and spending time with my best friend.
This week has been a little more challenging food wise. Friday night, we did movie night because my bf had bought my parents everything they needed, gift certificates for pizza and movies, beer, orange soda (for my sister), caramel popcorn and chocolates! I petitioned for beef taco thin crust pizza (3pts a slice) and got some low-fat kettle corn (3pts for 3.5 cups) but I still gained a pound the next day 😦 Saturday I hopped on the ferry home for a quick visit and got to have sushi lunch (yum) and then unexpectedly dim sum in the morning. Not the best meal to have on a diet, but I managed to get some gai lan for most of my meal and splurged on a sesame ball and a bbq pork steam bun (two of my fav chinese foods!) I was really good and had a salad for dinner while I waited for the ferry back to school. Monday I’d gained another pound, which I thought was good, but I really wanted to be down 2 lbs this week. Monday and Tuesday went well, I made turkey stroganoff (with whole wheat, yolk free egg noodles!!) and was back down to Friday’s weight but Mom decided to get fish and chips tonight. I told her that I would just have one piece of fish and some chips (15 pts, just what I had left!), but of course, she decided to get zucchini sticks for me (which I think are worse than chips sometimes!) I made myself some steamed broccoli and took one piece of fish, a small stack of chips and, because I have a weakness, an oyster. I was really happy to have the broccoli because it really filled out my plate, but I’m worried that I’m going back up tomorrow and won’t be able to work it off by WI Friday morning 😦 But I’m going to get right back on track tomorrow with my whole wheat banana bread and soy milk breakfast and fruit and veggie snacks throughout the day!
School is also getting crazy. I’ve got an assignment and two reports due next week! It’s been a challenge finding time to work on them at since my parents’ house is not well designed for multi-adult living. The living room is the only real work place and the only room with decent heat, the farther down the hall you go (towards my bedroom) the colder it gets. I feel like I’m living in a fridge sometimes! Luckily the school is decent to work at during the day and there are people that are able to help, yay!
So that’s me in a nutshell for the last week.
So Slowly…
I don’t know if it’s just me, but this week is going so slowly! I am constantly thinking that it’s Wednesday or Thursday but alas, it’s only Tuesday. How did Monday feel so long?? Am I crazy?
I’m feeling much better this week since getting back on track with counting my points. I’d like to feel great accomplishment with this thought, but I still think it’s Thursday and over half the week is gone, so I’ve only really been back on track for two days. But the last two days were great, I took over the kitchen last night and made greek food! Spanikopitas (the frozen ones from Costco), lamb patties (ground lamb with mint, paprika and oregano), greek rice risotto (it was supposed to be pilaf but I put in a bit too much stock to counter the carrot and onion I added) and greek salad. It was delish and only 10 points for the meal! Yay!
I’m also down 4lbs on the home scale since Sunday, so I’m really happy for that too. Got to keep up the motivation and I’ll be back down to the 180’s by WI Friday!
Goddess Undefined 