Lettuce Wrapping!

Sunday lunch is a great time when the family takes turns cooking lunch. Sunday morning we went off to HEB and bought the ingredients for lettuce wraps. Lettuce, cheese, diced onions, guacamole, mild salsa and tomatoes.

After much rinsing, chopping and cooking, we were finally ready to eat. Having the family over is great!

 These beauties were ready to be filled.

 Yummy goodness. Topped with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and mango salsa.

 Great recipe without the filling tortilla!!! yum-yum.

Today my water intake has been great. I have even managed to get in 2 cups of green tea and a handful of nuts for a snack.

Tony's Salmon

Today was a better Medifast day! On the plus side, I made a great lean and green meal of salmon and a few veggies pan sauteed with a little italian dressing.  This was my first time using the Tony seasoning. I loved the fact that it was salt free. Eating healthier for me, has translated into a very salt-less and sugar less way of clean eating. Sometimes I find seasonings too salty!!

 Half of the salmon went into the oven at 425 for around 20 minutes.

In the meantime, washed a few veggies and threw them all together with a tablespoon or two of italian salad dressing. I have yet to find a good veggie seasoning..=(.

 The salmon was measured to the ounce. Time to keep track of it all!!!

On the con side, my water intake has not been that great today. I have yet to make a cup of green tea, I am trying to get in at least one cup per day.  Also, no exercise today, well not real exercise. I did take the stroller out around the neighborhood yesterday. And today we finished cleaning up the garage. There are tons of boxes we cut up and are stuffed into the recycling bin. And a huge stack yet to be cut up. We were able to put up all the christmas and baby clothes and toys into the attic. We did a quick sweep and have stackes ready to donate and trash. There was sweating involved so lets just count it as exercise!!!  Further, tomorrow is our day to cook for the family. Meaning....clean the house LIKE CRAZY people. Its so much easier to spread the cleaning out throughout the week. But somehow we slacked off. So we did everything within 2 hours. Sweeping, dusting blinds and all tops of the mantle, counters, tables, fans, light fixtures...and on and on!!! Restocked the guest restroom, cleaned up all the mail from the entrance table, clear the formal dining table from all the pending crafts! Teamwork really helped. And just a tip, glass switch covers do go with the whole hollywood glam style but add that to the cleaning list!!! why?!?!?!?!?? Nobody told me that!!! lol!!!

Its interesting that I leave some items up on the counters because I just dont know where they should really go or dont have time to put them in the right place, but let me know that company is coming and everything goes to their proper "home" in no time!!! Note to self, host more parties!!!

I did go by the Medifast office today. Apparently I have 52 weeks left on my plan. The small goal was to get these last 13 pounds off in the next 5 weeks. Then we would start the transition phase and then the stabilization phase.  Wow, close! On a bittersweet note, a great counselor Tiffany who has practically been on this journey with me from the start is taking off on me....what the.....?!?!?!?!? I wish her the best, but I am going to MISS her sooo much!! She was such a great person to talk to and so positive all the time, she helped me get back on track in the sweetest of ways!!! sniff-sniff!!!

Hello.....Is anyone out there?!

Wow, just realized my last post was in September...WOW!! Where have I been...well here, really..lol!! Crazy life just got the best of me, the holidays, buying a new home, moving into such home, decorating, painting, and on and on and on and on....!
But I am back!!!! hehehehehehe! To summarize, here I sit overall completely happy with the Medifast journey I am still on. I am only 15 pounds away from my goal weight of 175. Which would put me into a comfortable size of a medium. I am currently stuck at 180-189lbs!!!! Grrr! I have not been able to break free from this weight for a few months. But of course, confession time, I have not been COMPLETELY on the plan. Let me explain. I miss regular food!! I dont miss the fruits, the breads, and the high carb veggies like potatoes. Don't get me wrong just thinking of a freshly oven baked potatoes make my mouth water! But all of these things have not tempted me enought to go "of the plan". The other stuff is getting to me, the slice of pizza at parties, a glass of wine here and there at family get togethers. A bite here and there of the kiddie grilled cheese sandwich that my daughter left on her plate, a chicken strip here and there. Soooo in all fairness I have not gone to a fast food restaurant in such a loooong time that I don't even get tempted at the fact of driving through a fast food place. But its the other little stuff, when I just dont have enough time to prepare a decent healthy meal!! And there it is the problem of all problems!! Not enough time. Everytime I pre-cook a nice piece of salmon and precut my veggies for my salads, I seem to be able to stay on plan more easily. But of course, I have not been doing that. Coupled with the fact that I have not been blogging or keeping a food journal is really allowing me to hide away all these bad eating habits. So today's resolution....get back on it!!! Record it all, pretty and not so pretty!!!!

I have come so far. For me, I started at a 3x, which for me translated to 253lbs!!! Now I am fitting into size 14 pants and size L shirts. Its crazy good right?? At least for me it is, from 253 to 185ish. I am very happy with these results. But for me, it has been a day to day, almost meal by meal, struggle...at least that is how it feels like in the last few weeks. I am SOOOO close to my goal, I can almost envision what it would feel like to buy a size medium ANYTHING!!!!

I have come this far, I know the I have so little to go, yet it stretches before me as a long winding road.

Oh well, nowhere to go but forward towards my goal. Please wish me luck!!!

So tonight was night where I split my lean and green. For lunch we went to Luby's where I picked up a blackened tilapia with side of spinach.  Yummy!!

For the second lean and green, hubby ordered oven roasted wings, without sauce from our favorite pizza place. In preparation I chopped up veggies and rinse some salad greens.

 Ready and stored for next time.

 Salad, water, green tea and a few wings.

Really good dinner as we saw Planet of the Apes. I loved it! Such a good movie, thank you redbox, I cant believe I never saw the previews for this movie!!! It would have been great to see this movie at the theather!!!

Beautiful Weather!

The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL. From 100+ to cool low 80's!!!! Love it!  We went for a great walk yesterday evening. We even saw a bunny! I stumbled upon Dailymile.com and registered. Hopefully a great way to track my walking miles.

It's official (almost), the decision has been made its now time to pay up! I am walking the Susan G Komen - Race for the Cure on October 1st! Fully inspired by some of my blog favs, I mentioned to my friend I wanted to work up to running a 5K. She is registering with her job, invitedd me, and I am in!!! We are going with the walking group until we work our way up to running one! I am beyond excited! i am nervous, wish me luck!

What goes better with this cool weather than yummy creamy chicken noodle soup!?! Nothing! I measured 8 ounces from the extremely, can literally cause 3rd degree burns,  hot water that comes out of the coffee maker and then placed it in the microwave for less than a minute. It came out super creamy! Love the texture!!!

Can't say the same for the styrofoam but it helped out!

Ever feel like you just don't have enough energy in the morning?!? Of course you do! Of course, I did, this morning! And like magic, a skinny vanilla latte with soy milk found its way to my office! yay!!! I ordered a tall, yet still have problems getting through it! Is there a kiddie size, for next time? LOL

And lunchtime wouldn't be complete without catching up with my fav bloggers. I heart them! They are so inspirational and give me that extra push to make healthier choices every.single.day!

Complexity Salad!

Say hello to my new friends! Todays salad had, romaine hearts, veggie shreds, sunflower seeds, artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes. The combination of them is AMAZING! New to the mix is the bag of “fake cheese” as everyone in my family calls them, artichoke hearts and Tuscany Italian Dressing.  I love my fake cheese so much, its a keeper!

 

Layered them all to make this beautiful salad.

 

Added my lean amount of chicken on the side, and dinner was complete. Lately I have been getting full really fast! I take a few bites of my medifast bar and before I realize it, its half an hour later with half a bar remaining. Same goes for the lean and green, I couldn’t even finish the entire salad of my green a few nights back! Hopefully, things can settle down and everything gets back on track!

Regarding exercise, we had been getting into a pretty solid walking routine. Unfortunately, my daughter got a very mild case of the flu/cold virus, no fever, but she was very uncomfortable.  The first attempt at a walk was a success, the second was a complete disaster. She cried in the stroller and I had to walk the 7 blocks home with her in one arm while pushing the stroller with the other. I kept switching her weight from left to right after just half a block towards the end, yet both of my arms were so sore. So no more exercise for the rest of last week. Good news is that I lost 2.5lbs this week.

I bought these great beautifully sliced portabello mushrooms. I love the taste! Sautéed them with a little olive oil and half the can of diced tomatoes. I love my usual salads but I didn’t want these to go to waste.

No salt! They did great with the mushrooms, but they were still salty tasting to me! Go figure! I guess, I got un-used to canned food taste...? 

Overall they turned out great. The tomatoes gave them just a slight layer of flavor until the yummy mushroom taste came through. Paired with ground buffalo meat seasoned with a little black pepper. Very yummy.

 Shortly after dinner, we loaded the stroller, set the water sprinkler and off for a walk we went.  Can you believe with 100+ day temperatures, there was actually a breeze! A breeze, I almost forgot they existed in this humid heat!!!

Since my goal was to follow the Mayo Clinic 5K training schedule, today was the “running” day. 15 seconds of jogging with 45 seconds of walking. I am not a runner, jogger or even a fast walker for that matter.  I am almost ashamed to admit I don’t even know how to properly jog! I gathered some tips on the internet, run within the frame of your body, have a snack after the jog, etc. But I am pre-pre-novice here!  Nevertheless, we took off and found a really nice trail that extended the width of our neighborhood. We reached the park in no time. Such a nice shortcut. Also, it sits back at the end of the neighborhood, making it a super quiet walk. Only a few people walking, playing outside or watering their garden and nicely shaded! Our new route.

After getting back, I had one hefty scoop of Almond butter. My counselor had advised to save just a small portion of my lean and green and have it after the jog. Unfortunately, with this hot weather, I had not planned on going out, so I was unprepared! We are officially out of peanut butter, so I “borrowed” a scoop from my daughter’s almond butter.

Just showered and put the baby to bed. Time for some mindless tv!!! What is on tonight?

Lunch with the Family!

One of the highlights of my weekends is spending lunch with the family.  It's the time that we are all gathered together and have a great time. This was my sisters week to cook. On the menu was vodka sauce over spaghetti.

I pulled a BYOSalad, I washed and cut up Romaine hearts, cucumber, tomatoes and packed some sunflower seeds. Assembled it while there.  I added a sliced chicken breast, not pictured here.

 The smell from the sauce was sooo delish!!! Unfortunately, half and half was added right at the end, so it was off limits. How I wish I would have grabbed some sauce before!!

 They were hard at work in the kitchen for a few hours, but it really paid off! Everyone thought the food was delicious. Next weekend is our weekend to cook, mmmm, I have to start thinking of a healthy menu that everyone can be happy with.

 My last weigh in was this past Friday. Four more pounds lost, for a total of 44. Love it! I was worried going in since I had gone to my daughter's two year check up without my medifast meal!!! After a moment of panic, and knowing I had less than 10 minutes to eat, I ate my daughter's snack, a mozarella cheese stick. YIKES!!!! I figured the cheese stick although not optimal was definately better than not eating anything at all.

Gladly, it didn't seem to affect my weight loss for the week. VERY NICE.

I love the results of this plan. I like the ease and convenience. I don't like thinking I am on a fad diet that once I get off of it I will see the weight come back on.  I kept thinking that Medifast was more of a lifestyle change. To utilize is as the tool to get me from unhealthy weight to a normal range weight and then dedicate time to eating healthy. Kind of like a way to get me back to square one and let me take it from there.

I read wonderfully great blogs on other people's sucess at weight loss whether on Medifast, Weight Watchers and other such tools and get inspired. Yet sometimes I see the blogs where they advocate losing weight just by excercising and eathing healthy and rejecting the entire idea of the fad diets. The whole diets dont work mentality. Where does the truth lie?  Is the whole "diets dont work" mentality stem from the fact that once we are off the diet plan we can no longer be trusted to make the right choices for our bodies or is it deeper than that?

I want to believe that 44 pounds off and learning how to eat every 2-3 hours plus what to eat, plus the added bonus of excercise, would be support enough to guide me in making me make good food choices. Will it not? I don't expect it to be a miracle mental cure, where I will have no more temptations over unhealthy food choices. But at the same time, how can it not help!? Interesting....