Thursday Sept. 3 - fish & HG 'Girlfredo'

The Gorton's grilled fish (with italian seasoning) is my favorite frozen fish. I make it every so often and this time I paired it up with Hungry Girl's "girlfredo" recipe. (I just 'tweaked' it a bit) 3 pieces of grilled fish is 7 points.

I used a package of Tofu Shirataki noodles for each of us. (0 points!) The secret to not eating a pile of slimy noodles is to drain the liquid, then cook the noodles in a dry pan on medium heat for about 10 - 12 minutes to cook off all the remaining moisture on/in the noodles. They're a bit chewier than regular noodles, but aside from the texture, they taste just fine. For the sauce I used 2 tbsp light sour cream, 2 wedges of light laughing cow swiss cheese, 1 tbsp of skim milk, and 2 tsp of reduced fat parmesan cheese for each of us. I made the sauce in a small saucepan. I used a whisk to break up the cheese and mix it well, but I didn't cook it for more than a few minutes because I didn't want it to burn. Then I just poured the sauce over the noodles. One 8 oz. package of noodles with the sauce (which was creamy & cheesy & delicious!) came to just 3 points.

Wednesday Sept 2 - Healthy Choice meal

Wednesdays have become my day 'off'. Frank goes to rehearsal straight from work, so I'm on my own for dinner. (I take advantage of that and take a break from cooking) I love chicken, red peppers & alfredo, so this seemed like a good choice.

There aren't many pieces of chicken in it, but the pieces are pretty big. I really liked the red pepper alfredo sauce. It was quite tasty! 5 points for one dinner, or 10 points for 2. (I had 2)

YUM!!!!

Tuesday Sept. 1 - Lentil Stew!

I made a pot of Lentil Stew On Tuesday. It's just 2 carrots chopped up, an onion, some fat free, low sodium beef broth, some water, a few chopped cloves of garlic, a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, and a bag of lentils. SUPER easy, delicious, and very good for you.

I served it along side a hummus wrap. I made the hummus myself from a Weight Watchers recipe. 1 point for 1/4 cup. I put it on a 1 point, whole wheat wrap with some salad.

The bowl of stew was 9 points for just about 2 cups. (I call it stew because although there's some broth in it, it's not a lot of broth, so it's not 'soupy' - if I'm going to eat lentils, I prefer them to be hearty) Served with the hummus wrap and a small side salad, it made a really tasty, filling, vegetarian meal.

Shrimp pasta salad

I love my new lunch. This is what I'll have every day until I 'discover' something else. It's a total yum-fest. I make a chocolate banana smoothie with a medium banana, a container of 1 point Light & Fit banana yogurt, 1/2 cup of Light Chocolate soy milk, and a scoop of chocolate protein powder. After it's all mixed, I add 1/2 a glass of ice to the blender then mix that up. I love my salad and Oats & Chocolate Fiber One Bar, but the smoothie makes me go weak in the knees. Fo' shizzle.

The salad we had with dinner. Same old ingredients, but I've started adding radishes. Kicks it up a notch.

Now this... this is my own invention. I made our salads seperately so the ingredients would be exactly the same. (no chance one of us would get more pasta or shrimp then the other this way) This is 1 cup of whole wheat penne, 7 oz. of medium cooked shrimp, 1/2 cup low fat mayo, celery, scallions, shredded carrots. quartered cherry tomatoes & fresh parsley, with a pinch of kosher salt, some ground black pepper, and about a tbsp of lemon juice. I made it this afternoon, then put it in the fridge so I could serve it cold. It was really good, but next time I'll use a little less mayo.

I'm back, baby!

I wasn't quite over my fibro flare-up when we went to a family party on Saturday, so when we came home, I just collapsed. Couldn't move for the rest of the night. I thought for sure I had set back my recovery, but I didn't - at least not by much. I was able to go grocery shopping Sunday afternoon (thank You, Lord!), but in the interest of taking things a bit easier, I didn't want to do too much for dinner Sunday night. Frank is a sweetie - he'll eat pretty much whatever I put in front of him without complaining. Have I mentioned lately how much I love that man? :D So... on to dinner...


I made a veggie omelet, toast & home fries. 'Shrooms, broccoli, shredded carrots, 1 oz. 75% reduced fat Cabot Cheddar Cheese, & egg beaters made up the omelet. The toast was light whole wheat bread buttered with Light Smart Balance. The home fries were so easy - we each had 1/2 of a large potato that I pre-baked, then fried up in a pan sprayed with non-stick spray and a couple tbsp of Light Smart Balance. I put a couple tbsp of chopped onion, chopped fresh parsley & a little dried rosemary in the potatoes. It was a pretty yummy, hearty, LOW FAT meal. :)


I decided we needed an actual dessert last night. We each put individual servings of Cookies and Cream Weight Watchers Ice Cream (2 points) on top of a Chocolate Chunk Vitamuffin Vita-top (1 point) then used 2 tbsp of sugar free Hershey's chocolate syrup (0 points) with 2 tbsp Cool Whip Free (also 0 points). So, a 3 point sundae. It wasn't bad! :)

And last, but certainly not least, a picture of the Black Eyed Susans Frank picked for me. But he didn't just pick them - he cut the stems (& cleaned up the mess!), put them in the can with water, and had them sitting on the table to surprise me when I went to start setting the table for supper. Such a sweetie. :D

Sorry for the non-posty-ness!

Monday & Tuesday this week were awesome - the rest of the week has been pretty crappy. I've stayed on program all week, but haven't exercised much at all due to a nasty Fibromyalgia flare-up. Yuck.

I haven't been taking pictures this week. Sorry. :( I totally forgot to when I was in Maine at the beginning of the week (went to Old Orchard Beach with a friend), and the rest of the week has been spent just trying to get through the day. So I'm making my hiatus official. I won't be doing picture posts again till Monday at the earliest. I need to just focus on recuperating over the next couple of days.

Have a great weekend!

Chicken Artichoke Pasta

I made this recipe tonight: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chicken-Artichoke-Pasta-2

I used Organic Whole Wheat Penne instead of Ziti or Fettucine noodles. And it looks a little orange-ish because Frank put Southwestern Chipotle Mrs. Dash seasoning on it. (I forgot to take a picture of mine, so I had to take one of his plate instead) He puts that stuff on everything, I swear. ;) Anyway, it was delicious. Definitely another one for our 'keeper' list.

Friday

We enjoyed my take on chimichangas so much that I had to make them again. This time we knew what to expect (they're VERY filling!) so we only had one each, plus a small side dish of black beans. (and salad) VERY yummy!

Frank posing with the baby. (just to add to the cuteness factor) :)

last night & tonight's pizza treat

Last night was Frank's rehearsal night, so I didn't cook. I was going to have spaghetti & veggie sauce leftovers, but it was just too freaking hot to eat something, well, hot. So I had a turkey breast sandwich on whole wheat with an ounce and a half of baked Lays potato chips instead. It worked out better that way anyway because I had to kind of hurry through dinner. I went to doggie obedience school with my friend Diane and one of her Akitas. I love watching the dogs in class. They all have their own personalities, so it's really interesting watching them interact with their owners and each other. And most of them are pretty cute. :)

Tonight, after seeing a pizza e-mail Weight Watchers sent out (yeah, I'm easily influenced), I started really craving pizza. Plus it's hot and I didn't feel like turning the oven on to make what I intended to make for dinner. So I called Frank right before he left work and he said I deserved a treat, so he'd stop at PG's on the way home. Of course it helped that he'd seen the same e-mail. (because I sent it to him - knowing he is as easily influenced by these things as I am - naughty Lauren!) Plus I know he loves pizza. I did manage to restict myself to only two slices though. Yay me! (only 9 points)

Papa Gino's cheese pizza... Mmmmmmm...

grilled chicken dinner

I realize this is probably getting boring to have to see all the time, but I grilled some chicken breast on my George Foreman grill tonight and it was... yup. You guessed it. Teriyaki. :) I had 1/2 cup of Long Grain & Wild Rice and some fresh, steamed green beans with it.

Oh, and salad - of course. (I was hungry tonight, so I had a big salad)

We each put a few squirts of Smart Balance Spray on our beans.

It was a very nummy 7.5 point dinner. I swear I feel healthier every day. :)

Veggie Spaghetti

In the interest of keeping dinner as low points as possible, I decided to bulk up some ULTRA low cal, low sodium, fat free (and still very good!) jar spag sauce with lots of veggies instead of meat.

We had this over some yumtastic- totally-good-for-you multi-grain spaghetti.

I dumped the sauce into my crockpot along with a medium zucchini (which I shredded in my food processor), and I sauteed 1/2 a chopped onion, a chopped green bell pepper, a large handful of shredded carrots, and an 8 oz. pkg of sliced 'shrooms in a pan sprayed with olive oil cooking spray. After they were cooked/browned most of the way, I tossed them in the crockpot with the sauce and zucchini. I cooked it on high for 2 hours and turned it down to low for the last hour. The sauce was already cooked, I know, but I wanted to infuse it with the flavor from the veggies.

It was VERY tasty! (and only 1 point for 1 whole cup of the sauce!)

Bonus shot of my adorable hubby, giving me his "thanks for a good dinner, babe!" grin.

Sunday

First I want to apologize for forgetting AGAIN to take pictures of last night's dinner. It was only green salad with some grilled Short Cuts (chicken breast) in it, but still... what's a food blog without pictures of food?

Anyway, on to the weigh-in. Remember I said I was positive I'd gained weight last week? Well I weighed in yesterday (Sunday) morning and I LOST 1.6 lbs! Totally shocked me, but naturally I'm pretty stoked. :) I still feel like eating a bunch of small meals and snacks throughout the day is the way to go though, so I'm going to try that this week and see how I do on the scale at next week's weigh-in.

I just walked for half an hour and I'm soaked with sweat (feels good though!), and the tummy is rumbling, so I'm going to make myself a banana smoothie with some chocolate protein powder in it. YUM! :) TTFN!

Saturday's numminess

I was HUNGRY this morning, so I had myself a 6 point breakfast. A light multi-grain english muffin with 1/3 less fat cream cheese, sugar free red raspberry preserves and a slice of oven roasted turkey breast on each half. OMG - Y-U-M. Seriously. You must try this. I stopped by the farmstand this morning for some corn on the cob and goat cheese, so naturally I had to grab a pint of plump, fresh blueberries too. They were calling my name. I stuffed 1/2 cup of the blueberries into a 1 point blueberry yogurt. Totally. Awesome.

Dinner was only 7 points. Yep, you heard me right. S-E-V-E-N. I had a pretty decent sized portion of fresh tilapia Frank grilled outside (on our charcoal grill - no propane grills over here!) and I had brushed on a little Mrs. Dash Garlic Lime Marinade. I put a little of it on the summer squash too, which he also grilled outside. We had this pile of numminess with a piece of freshly picked corn on the cob and a small side salad. I'm honestly surprised by how full I am. For only 7 points. Freaky!

Friday night's dinner & other misc thoughts

Oops! Sorry. I was so distracted last night (lots on my mind) that I forgot to take pics of dinner. We had a delicious Mexican meatloaf that I made with ground turkey breast, egg beaters, panko breadcrumbs & salsa. YUM! We had it with mashed potatoes (real ones, made with Light Smart Balance & Light Sour cream) and salad.

You know, I don't feel like I've lost any weight this week. In fact, I feel like I've GAINED 20 lbs! And I've stayed on program religiously. No slips. Yet if I see a loss on the scale tomorrow, it will be a shock. A pleasant shock, but still a shock. I just feel so bloated and 'icky' that I'm honestly expecting another gain. (I gained .4 lb last week) I know that hormones can still play a part in things like water retention every so often, even in women who have had hysterectomies. (I still have my ovaries) So I know that's a possibility, but even if that's the case, it's only a small part of it.

What I've been doing food wise has been working for me up till the last several weeks. I mean, I still lost some weight in the first couple of weeks after surgery at the end of June, but I think that my body was probably using a lot of calories to convert to energy to heal itself. (it makes some sort of weird sense, doesn't it?) How else do you explain a loss of over a pound and a half two weeks in a row when all I was doing was eating, sleeping, and lying around reading and watching TV?

So those two flukey weeks aside, (and one week with a small loss a couple of weeks ago) I seem to have hit a wall since June and what I'm doing isn't working anymore. So I've got to change things up. Since I have 31 points I need to eat every day, I think that instead of having a 12 point dinner most nights, I'm going to start cutting back there and spread those points around during the whole day more evenly. I'm actually exercising at least 5 days a week now (have been for a few weeks), so I think that maybe eating such a big dinner every night is slowing my metabolism down or something. I just don't know what else to think.

Last week when I had that .4 lb gain, even though I ate most of my activity points, I thought it was because I wasn't eating enough. (since I'm suddenly exercising regularly) So this week I ate all my activity points and dipped into my flex points too. But after really giving it some serious thought over the past couple of days, instinct is telling me that what I need to do is just worry about eating when I'm hungry. If I'm hungry I'll eat something. And while I will still track everything I'm eating, I won't worry about whether or not I have enough points to eat whatever it is. I'll eat it, count it, and that's it. I know I need to make sure I'm at least eating my daily points though, so if I need to use up some points at night I can have some whole wheat crackers, with some light laughing cow cheese or 1/3 less fat cream cheese. That, with a glass of skim milk is a substantial snack.

I just feel better having a plan, and I really hope changing things up a bit will be enough to jolt my body out of this rut I'm in. Because if I have a gain this week (I weigh in tomorrow morning) and then this new plan doesn't help for next week, I'm out of ideas.

Pork loin stir fry & the three S's

Wednesday night Frank had rehearsal, so I just made a stir fry out of leftover pork loin & brown rice. I added a tbsp of honey and a tbsp of Grey Poupon mustard to it. OMG - SO good! I had it with a side of oven roasted cabbage. I let it get partially burned because it tastes fantastic. Seriously. I love burnt veggies. Weird, I know.

Last night I had a problem posting for some reason. Don't know why. But Frank was deeply engrossed in the Pats game, so I waited to see if I'd have the same problem today. No problem, so yay! Anyway, last night's dinner was simple. The three S's: Sandwich, soup & salad. (& chips - not an "S", so I left that out of the title)

I had a can of Progresso Light Chicken Noodle Soup. I really like Progresso soups. For the sandwich I just used a can of solid white tuna with a couple tbsp of Hellmans Canola Oil Mayo, a splash of lemon juice, and lots of celery. Two slices of Light Wheat bread and one ounce of Baked Lays Potato Chips completed the sandwich plate.

YUM.

A three bowl dinner

This is my favorite chili. It's a "white" chili because you use white beans and there are no tomatoes or tomato sauce in it. It's got cannelini (white kidney) beans, black beans, corn, cilantro, cumin, oregano, chili powder, lime juice, fat free, low sodium chicken broth, as well as ground turkey breast, onions & garlic that were browned/sauteed in a frying pan sprayed with non-stick spray. I dump all of this in a crockpot around noon, cook it on high for a couple of hours, then turn it down to low till dinner time. (around 6:00 pm) Frank & I both love it.

We had some seasoned black beans on the side, and I spooned a little salsa and light sour cream into mine. They were delicious! We liked them so much, in fact, that we decided not to buy baked beans anymore. We're replacing them with these - a lower points, healthier, tastier bean side dish. :)

So, yeah. With the salad, we had a three bowl dinner tonight. And it was great!

Honey Mustard Pork Loin, brown rice & broccoli

Mmmmm... had some berries on my Quaker Crunchy Corn Bran this morning. What a treat! (had this with a camera shy light multigrain english muffin & 1 ounce of 1/3 less fat cream cheese)

Continuing with the berry theme I've had going on for a couple of days, I made myself a blueberry smoothie to go with my salad for lunch. I just mixed up a container of blueberry Light & Fit yogurt, 1/2 cup of skim milk, a cup of blueberries, a tsp of vanilla, then some ice. (only 3 points!) I'm really going to miss the berries when they're gone in a day or two.

Dinner was so easy I could've made it in my sleep. I mixed 2 tbsp of honey with 2 tbsp of Grey Poupon Mustard. After I put the lean boneless pork loin in the pan, I poked holes all over the top of it. I used a spoon to smooth the honey mustard glaze all over the top of the meat (so some of the glaze would go in the little holes), then I popped it in the oven for 40 minutes on 350*. I served it with 1 cup of brown rice and steamed broccoli. I put lemon juice on the broccoli. Of course we had this with a small salad.

I'm very impressionable sometimes. A friend posted on Facebook today about stopping on her way home for a thin mint blizzard, so I started craving mint chocolate chip ice cream. Fortunately we had some in the house for just such an occasion. (yay for planning ahead!) Topped with 2 generous tbsp of Cool Whip Free, dessert rang in at only 2 points. YUM! Good thing I walked for 40 minutes today! :)

And that's another day in my fascinating food life. ;)

My take on chimichangas

Frank described something he had at work this week for lunch, and since they were called 'chimichangas', that's what I'm calling this. (even though it's probably nowhere near a real chimi)

I took a package of ground turkey breast (I always use the 99% lean), and broke it up in a saute pan & browned it. Once it was cooked through, I added about half a cup of water and an envelope of taco seasoning. Then I tossed in about a tablespoon of chopped, canned jalapenos (just to kick it up half a notch or so). I also put in 1 cup of black beans (drained and rinsed) and 1 cup of no salt added canned corn. I stirred it up well and let it cook till all the liquid was gone. I divided the mixture up into 4 equal portions, put each portion (mixed with 1/4 cup of Weight Watchers shredded Mexican cheese) into a whole wheat tortilla, and baked it for 20 minutes in a pre-heated 350* oven.

I do my best to cut back on sodium wherever possible. McCormick has a 30% less sodium Taco Seasoning packet, but I prefer Old El Paso's 40% less sodium Taco Seasoning. You really can taste the difference between the regular seasoning packets and the ones with less sodium - the flavor is actually a lot better. And you're not left dying of thirst for the rest of the night. Win-win situation if you ask me.

With some salsa and a tablespoon and a half of light sour cream on each chimi, this was an ultra hearty meal & quite satisfying if you're craving Mexican inspired food. And I am almost always craving Mexican! :)

We were pretty full after dinner, but we wanted to have some berries on ice cream before they're gone. Plus, you know the saying - there's always room for ice cream! *groan* Barely. Anyway, you can't even see the ice cream under there, but on top of a single serving container of the Weight Watchers cookies and cream ice cream, there is a dollop of sugar free strawberry preserves, followed by about 2/3 of a cup of whipped cream, and topped off with some fresh blueberries, raspberries & blackberries. Still haven't found ultra-low calorie fudge topping, but even without it, this was a pretty darn good dessert! Well worth the extra few points. :)

BERRIES! And lunch!

Frank discovered that we have blackberries growing in our yard! Score! They are SO plump & sweet. Ah, man. Small blessings like this can be such a lift. :)

Those 'maters that Frank bought yesterday at the farm stand? This is what I did with mine. Taking my queue from a friend who does something very similar, I squirted 2 pieces of light whole wheat bread with olive oil from my Pampered Chef sprayer thingie (you add your own olive oil), used 2 slices of Weight Watchers American cheese, and a couple of tomato slices between the 2 pieces of cheese. I grilled it in the George Foreman grill. VERY yummy! (next time I think I'm going to try it with the 75% reduced fat cheddar)

I had the rest of the tomato slices on the side with a teensy bit of garlic salt sprinkled on them. I really like fresh tomato with a bit of garlic salt - I think it really brings out the flavor of the tomato. You can almost taste the sunshine. :)

Saturday's lunch & dinner

As you can plainly see, I am totally enamored with salad and smoothies. The smoothie is my now customary pineapple/banana concoction. Yum-o!

Dinner was boneless, skinless chicken breast marinated in a low cal, low sodium mesquite lime marinade that Frank cooked on the hibachi. We had it with (slightly overcooked) black beans & rice. It still tasted really good though - and only 3 points for 1 cup!

Deelish!

Saturday morning

Frank went to a farmstand down the street Saturday morning and came back with 2 pints of blueberries, a 1/2 pint of raspberries and a couple of big, juicy 'maters. (as you can see, we didn't waste any time digging into the berries!)

I made pancakes using Fiber One mix for breakfast. They were pretty good!

Frank picked these up accidentally when I asked him to get some veggie sausage. They weren't the ones I was asking for, but we kept them and decided to give them a try. They were higher in points than the others, but they were pretty good. Very satisfying.

This was my breakfast. It might look like I burned the sausage, but I didn't. They were very brown on the outside, but they didn't quite make it to the burned stage.

Absolutely delicious!

This breakfast was full of win.