How's THIS For Re-Commitment!! (Video)

First of all, one thousand THANK-YOUs to all of you beautiful people for stepping up and leaving me a comment on my last post when I needed it ;-) This is not the first time I have reached out in need of some support and you never cease to be there for me. With your support, I have something to tell yas!

Lynn and I are MORE than a little excited. We have been hinting a little bit that we had "details" about how we have planned to throw ourselves into the much needed accountability plan that we have felt we were lacking. At one point in time, we felt that our blogs were enough to keep us accountable, but since then I think we have gotten used to supporting each other no matter what, which is incredible because we have developed some pretty special REAL friendships through this process and through these blogs over the last FOUR years (almost 4!) and that is something that is definitely going to push us to the finish line! But we felt that we need a little extra "official" push to renew our focus, our motivation and to keep it fresh:



We were both pretty nervous! It was kind of silly considering how far we have come together online over these past few years, but we walked into our meeting as newbies, unsure of what the meetings would bring for us. I made a decision before walking in there that I was going to keep an open mind, get what I needed out of it and just plain be positive and supportive to everyone else too!



And it is official!


What a better day than on Halloween?! I don't exactly know what the significance of that is, but it's exciting anyway! I suppose I can always think of Halloween as a day of strength and not a day of worrying about Halloween candy ;-)



And this was not the fun part. I know that this is not my "real" weight, because I have felt like a helium balloon the past few days, but that is what the scale said and that is what it is! Actually, she recorded me at 190.6 because it kept flip flopping back and forth. Ugh! I CANNOT believe I am seeing that number! Buh Bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





And then Lynn and I took a seat and waited for the meeting to begin. There was way more people than we expected and from what they have told us there was 60 people at the earlier meeting too!

Immediately we noticed the people chatting about food and processed treats etc. I wasn't sure how things were going to go, but I decided I wasn't going to judge the meetings based on the other members, but I would decide on how well I related to the leader and the messages that they gave us. I have never really had anyone lead ME before. I've always been the one that people turned TO for advice. I love this shift in focus!



Ultimately, I was supremely impressed with our leader and she did an excellent job at listening to the other members, regardless of where they were in their progress and regardless of what they said and her underlying message continued to be:



She pushed the idea of focusing your POINTS on good whole foods and drinking water as much as possible rather than diet drinks and other forms of liquid that are now considered acceptable under the plan to "count" as your water. One person piped up about how much Crystal Light has helped her drink her water and while she accepted her input and encouraged it, she followed it with reiterating the importance of just water! I liked her a lot and I think this is going to work out really well!

Then Lynn and I ate our late breakfast at Starbucks and fueled ourselves for a little Santa Shuffle run training and we hit the trails in Clayton Park for a light run which was a little less than 5 kms. We each had an apple, piece of cheese, half of an Amazing Grass Whole Food Bar and I had some homemade greek yogurt with some raspberries. Perfect.

We hit the trails, gabbed and chatted as we explored some of the trails around Clayton Park and packed it in! It's Halloween night and I had to get the treats for the kiddies! I NEVER buy them before Halloween because, well, you know why ;-)

On my way home, I had forgotten all about the number of my first WI and I feel GREAT!! I feel motivated, focused and EXCITED!!!

So my challenge to YOU is that if you were "thinking" about maybe joining the WW Meetings and haven't, you should JOIN WITH US!! Even if you don't live here, if you join in your area, we can keep up with each other online and post about our meetings. I never actually read much about meetings around here, so you'll be hearing lots from me!

Weight Loss Efforts Catch 22

I stopped counting.

I stopped weighing.

And now my clothes are tight.

I put on my favourite red cardi-coat from last year and my arms feel tight in it.

Ya see, here’s where we’re all “stuck” in the Catch 22 of all things weight loss.

To lose weight there is something that is universal: calories in vs. calories out.  Now I don’t want to hear the whole “calorie counting debate” because this part is science and it’s universal regardless if you count them or how you count them.   Of course there are other factors and I’m not saying things don’t factor in, but that is the basic principle.

Some people get along just fine not having to count calories.  Apparently I am not one of those people. 

Apparently if you listen to your body 24/7 it should tell you when and how much and what to eat.  With all the high speed of life zooming around at all times, I don’t know how people manage to stop and listen.  I can listen for about 10 seconds and I get distracted by how good the damn thing tastes.

Here’s the Catch 22: to ensure you are achieving  a calorie deficit to achieve weight loss, counting is required (read: it is for ME).  In doing so, you (read: I) drive yourself crazy trying to control all the factors that could muck it up.  I mean after all, you ARE putting all of this mental time and energy into the planning and preparation to achieve this “holy calorie deficit” after all, so the last thing you need is for some simple little rookie mistake like not measuring to muck it up if you can at all help it.  You know it’s true.

So then all of this mental preparation then leads to feelings of deprivation which in my case is always theoretical because I always can have whatever I damn well want and all I have to do is count it.  But it’s all in the “idea” that you “shouldn’t.”  I’ve never deprived myself of anything that I truly wanted.  But even still, you feel it just the same.  This all made so much sense when I read Intuitive Eating.  Never could “get there,” but I agree and identified with most things in the book along the way.

So there in lies the “catch” for me.  I need to count, but I’ve been at this for so bloody long that I just plain don’t want to for long, then I get the deprivation bug or whatever it is, stop and hence my clothes are tight.  For at least the last year (two?) I end up backed into a corner feeling desperate to have to start counting again in order to “ensure” that I’m going to get the results and I always get tired of it and then stop. 

This never happened when I lost 130 lbs and was in the “zone.”  There WAS no stopping me.  My eye was on the prize and that was it. Period.  No excuse or opportunity to cheat on myself was ever accepted.  I reached my original goal of 170 lbs and hot ding – wow!  The biggest most amazing accomplishment of my entire life and while I still have many years of wonderful accomplishments of other kinds to enjoy in my life, this one by far almost identifies who I am to myself.  I then decided to lower my goal.  Now I’m in the 180’s “somewhere” (to afraid to look) and I’ve realized that I’d be happy to stay at 170 just fine.  Yeah I’m 5’4” and the charts say this and all that crap, but I don’t really care about that.  I know where I feel that I can live happily and that’s where it is.

Now a lot of major life events have occurred in our family over the last few years and I am only human.  Maybe I wasn’t quite human during the bulk of my weight loss, but I am now ;-)

Thankfully I made a promise to myself many years ago and a good friend is holding me to it.  Details to come ;-)

Thank you for your continued support.  I love you all.  More than you know.

Slow Cooked Apple Sauce & Amazing Grass Surprise

After baking the apple pies from my gigantic bag of apples, there were still many many leftover apples all peeled and sliced, but a girl can only have so many apple pies lying around, right?  I decided to freeze then and figure out what to do with them later.  Then Lynn posted about how she made applesauce in her slow cooker.  Perfect!  So last night, I decided I would take advantage of the two compartments that go along with my slow cooker and make one half of the batch sweetened (with agave nectar) and the other half unsweetened.  All I added to the apples was a very generous amount of cinnamon, splash of vanilla and splash of water (and the agave to one half), stirred it all around and set it on low overnight and voila:

    

I cannot believe I haven’t made my own apple sauce before now!  I have a ton of mason jars, so I’m going to sterilize a few and save a few jars of this stuff for later!

It was a wonderful Monday over all.  I’ve been doing really well getting back into exercise with my Nubody’s membership AND the fact that I went out and RAN outside yesterday and loved every minute.  I did two laps around the loop around my house.  The loop is around 2.4kms, so I did one loop with Lucy, dropped her off and ran the second one by myself.  The second lap went MUCH more smoothly when you’re not trying to control a very curious and vocal pup!  All in all it felt great to be out running again and I was actually still feeling the positive effect for most of the day today too.  I got home from work, geared up Lucy and off we went.  But OMG the wind was so COLD!  I felt like after just one lap I couldn’t do another one because I felt like I caught a “chill.”  I’m tellin’ ya the wind was COLD!

So I decided to call upon my Steeped tea friends and enjoyed a hot steamy mug of Creme Carmello with a piece of dark chocolate:

OH and how excited was I today when a big ol’ tub of Amazing Grass Pom Mango Infusion Amazing Meal was delivered (with a few extra little Amazing Grass goodies) compliments of Amazing Grass?!  They were good enough to make up for the mix up that I had in paying the importing fees when I received the free samples for the blog to review.  I was really happy because I absolutely love their products.

(Although I have to admit I am not a fan of the Regular or the Berry energy bars, but the Chocolate and the Chocolate Peanut Butter ones aren’t too bad)

I told Lucy that I could beat her in a race and here’s what she said:

 

What? Is there something on my face??

 

         

hehehe  Aren’t they adorable!   My Dad’s Kitty had kittens.  She was a stray kitty that he took in a while ago and is going to be fixed, but in the meantime we’ve got these lovely cutie pies looking for a good home,  so if there is anyone in the New Glasgow area or even in the Truro and Halifax area who is interested in adopting  an adorable kitty (there are 4), please don’t hesitate to contact me :-)

So I went to my hometown this weekend with the purpose of cooking for my mom.  She is trying to get herself on a healthier path and she needs help doing it.   Her weight is where I was when I started nearing 300 lbs and she faces many more challenges in her life than I did.  I would have been lucky to have anyone in my life who even had a clue where to start, so I wanted to try to get my Mom situated with some pre-made healthy meals that she can have available to her in the freezer.  I knew that chili was a definite. 

And I thought it would be important for myself to remember that I have come a long way in the taste preference department from when I was standing in her shoes and today.  I tried to think back to what things I loved to eat “back then” and the Eat, Shrink and Be Merry Cookbook immediately came to mind.  One of my favourite recipes from that book is the Smackaroni & Cheese (although I always add a TON more zucchini than the recipe calls for added bulk).  I used to LOVE having frozen leftovers.  So it was settled – a turkey chili and the Smackaroni.

I figured since I was going to be driving to New Glasgow, grocery shopping AND cooking, I’d make sure that the chili recipe was super easy and wouldn’t hog up the stove!  Sure enough I found the perfect recipe on Roni’s Green Lite Bite site, “Slow Cooked Mild Turkey Chili” which was incredibly easy and incredibly healthy!

I made two modifications: since I didn’t have time to raid my pantry before heading down, I didn’t bring any ingredients with me and I wasn’t going to buy a whole container of molasses for one tablespoon, so instead I bought a small can of “beans & molasses” to give the slight sweet flavour and I also added mushrooms.  I HAVE to have mushrooms in my chili!  I also browned the turkey WITH the onions and mushrooms and then tossed everything else in the slow cooker.

I’ll be making this recipe again for sure.  Thanks Roni!

I Rocked Pumpkin Oats

FINALLY!!!

I had meant to tell you guys about this all week! (ummm…did I just say that?? ;-P) While the girls were here for Thanksgiving, the beautiful and wise Amy left behind some canned pumpkin in the fridge. Now I have tried pumpkin oats before, but I have never had any luck ever liking pumpkin! I like pumpkin spice, just never pumpkin.

But let me just say that you should never give up on any food that is good for you that you don’t like. I must have tried oatmeal at least 15 times before I finally got it right and now I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Your tastes DO change over time and I have been abundantly aware of that more so over the past year. I never even used to like pumpkin pie but this Thanksgiving, I DID.

So Miss Amy sent me an email with a recipe to try for pumpkin "dip" to use up the pumpkin that was left behind (isn’t that thoughtful?) and I was still of the mind that I didn’t “like” it. But then I decided that “since it was there” I would give pumpkin oats another shot:

BINGO. I loved it. It rocked and if I had more time in the mornings I would have eaten it for breakfast all week!

The Mix:

• 1/3c of oats (closer to 1/2c to use up the last of it)
• 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, 1/2c water
• 1/2 banana chunked up
• cooked in the pot over medium
• added 1 tbsp sprouted chia, splash of vanilla, pinch of salt and TONS of pumpkin spice, 1/3c canned pumpkin right when it was almost to the right consistency and let
• Toppings: toasted sliced almonds, unsweetened coconut, chopped dates, cashew-almond butta

Yes I just wrote an entire post about how I have conquered pumpkin. *shakes head*!

When Life Gives You Apples…

 

You make apple pie!!!

Okay okay, so it’s straight up badness, but OMG soooo goood!  It was my FIRST ever attempt at homemade pie from scratch.  I googled for a recipe and it turned out beautifully!  I’m not even going to bother sharing it because it’s the exact opposite of healthy ;-) 

I never knew I could make pie!!!  Now that I have, the next time I will try a much healthier crust of an oatmeal variety methinks.

Thank goodness I gave one away ;-)

Definitely making it again in 28 years when I can allow myself to eat LARD again! lol ;-)

Salmon Cake Sammie & POM Salad

It rocked and I had to show you.

I picked up a couple of salmon cakes at Planet Organic yesterday and since I was home late, it made a perfect quick supper along side my beloved Pom seed & goat cheese salad!

The sammie was on the higher calorie side, but also in the high Omega 3 side too!  With the salmon, avocado and EVOO mayo, it was super Omega rich.  Although I probably should have laid off the mayo to keep the calories lower since I didn’t exercise.  Regardless, I think the pics speak for themselves!

  

I just LOOOOOVE Pom seeds with goat cheese!  I also threw in some red onion and Fig Balsamic dressing a top a bed of organic salad greens.  Heaven I tell you, HEAVEN!!!

Pomegranates are my close second favourite thing about the Fall (along side the Honeycrisp of course!)

My Buns <----- Ready to Shuffle & Accident Soup

So you may have gotten wind around here that I’ll be participating in the Santa Shuffle in December! Boooooyah!!! I’m super excited! Truth be told, I have been completely off my exercise wagon for a few months now and I don’t like it! I have only ran two or three times since the Bluenose in May. I feel like I’m starting from scratch. The best part about this run, is that aside from being a fund raiser for The Salvation Army, it’s a fun run and most of the other Halibloggers are newbie runners!

The Halibloggers have formed a team and we plan to have lots of fun! (Word has it that Amy is attempting to organize an Ottawa “rival” team, (I added the “rival” part for fun ;-) ) so any Ottawa area runners who want to join here, GO and show us your stuff!).

In other exercise news, have decided to join Nubody’s because currently I’m not even a member of a gym! I love that Nubody’s has tons of classes and you can attend at any location (including Goodlife), and best of all Lesley, Jaime are members, so we’ll be able to get together to do classes and change it up! Variety definitely is KEY for me for exercise. It has to feel fun!

Oh and I discovered a fabulous soup kind of by accident!

At the same time that I made my Southwestern Sweet Potato, I also made a pot of sweet potato soup (recipe below). I wanted to use up the sweet potatoes I had on hand.

The soup was very simple and delicious (especially the next day):

But it was missing “something.” You know, that “protein” part that you want to make it a balanced meal. Plus since it was a pureed soup, I was trying to decide how to add some texture. Then it hit me…of COURSE – ding ding ding! I just blogged about loving the sweet potato + southwestern flavour combo duh!

The recipe I made (below) for the southwestern sweet potato had lots of leftover salsa-bean-corn-cilantro-greens mixture left!

Perfect!

It was fab!

Sweet Potato Soup

(from memory)

• 1 1/2c chopped onion
• 3 tbsp EVOO
• 1 box of fat free low sodium chicken broth (can use veggie broth)
• 4 medium sweet potatoes
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• canned jalapeno (to your desired hotness)
• salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Heat the EVOO in a soup pot over medium heat and saute the onions until they are translucent. Meanwhile, grate the sweet potatoes (I used my food processor with the grating blade and it worked like a charm). Add the sweet potatoes and mix well with the onions & EVOO. Add cinnamon, jalapeno, chicken stock and simmer until the potatoes are cooked. Season with salt & pepper and puree to your desired consistency with a hand blender (or remove to blend in batches in a counter top blender.

Enjoy!

Southwestern Sweet Potato Love

This has become of my my favourite flavour combinations ever since I tried this recipe here and I got it here.  There is something absolutely wonderful about the flavour of sweet potato in south western flavours!  Yes there is actually a half of a sweet potato underneath all of that goodness on top!

My favourite topping for this dish is an avocado mash, but I was all out of avocados!  I improvised by grating up a 60 calorie Cracker Barrel  Medium Cheddar cheese portion and a few heaping tablespoons of fat free cottage cheese.  I am all about the cottage cheese lately!

The bean mixture:

• 1 medium onion chopped and sautéed in a deep non-stick pan with a little EVOO and 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1 can of organic black beans added with all the liquid with
• 1 small can of corn niblets and let simmer on med-low
• 1c of organic medium salsa (to finish off the jar) plus about 1/3c of water shaken in the jar to clean it out and add more liquid to the pan
• ~ 2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 large handful of fresh cilantro chopped and thrown in the pot
• 1/2 bag of Cut n Clean Greens Euro Greens (bag was on sale for $0.99) stirred around, covered to let wilt. (‘member when the people who own this company approached me in the grocery store when they were visiting from California?  Random.) P.S. Baby spinach works wonderfully in this and you don’t get the “chew” you do from tougher collards if you’re not used to it.
• Let the whole thing simmer to wilt the greens and until it’s the right consistency for topping over the half of a sweet potato

I cut a sweet potato in half, poked it with a fork and cooked it in the microwave.  (There is enough bean mixture to serve 4 people.) Place it in the bottom of the bowl and topped it with lots of spoonula’s full of the bean mixture; topped that with my grated cheese and side of cottage cheese!

I let the cheese melt on its own while I finished cleaning up the kitchen etc:

   

It rocked.  It’s super easy.  It makes perfect LEFTOVERS.  It’s super HEALTHY.  It’s vegetarian too ;-)

I love it.  Try it.  You will too!

Sustainable Perfection

The one thing I did not plan on when planning our big GTG weekend was the aftermath.  By aftermath I mean the toll my body feels because of the supreme poopiness that goes along with:

1. Minimal sleep for days in a row
2. Being completely off of my usual schedule which totally threw my body for a loop
3. Consuming lots and lots of unfavourable foods and beverages causing my digestive system to screech to a hault and consequently making my stomach expand into a Santa Claus-like fashion
4. My head spinning in keeping up with so many wonderful people, wanting to get the most of every single minute there was
5. The “low” that goes along with being “high” for 5 days from all of the excitement and laughter and bloggie buddy withdrawal

You would sort of think that when 9 healthy living/weight loss bloggers get together it would produce the opposite, but nope, we let loose and had a frikkin ball doing it!  At first I didn’t know how I felt about letting all the “rules” go out the window, but ya know what???  So friggin what?! 

I was worried about what all of you guys would think of us for acting like teenagers and not being “good” examples for you when push came to shove, but in retrospect, I think there is so much more to be learned here other than “how to act perfect.”

I do accept my social “responsibility” to those of you who look to me as a weight loss inspiration.  I take that very seriously.  In fact, sometimes I take that more seriously than I do being a role model for myself ;-) But if there’s one thing that has truly solidified during the last year of my weight loss struggles is that you don’t have to be perfect!  I’m not perfect!  You don’t have to be perfect to succeed either!  All you have to do is get back on and never give up!

I had quite possibly the best weekend of my entire life partying it up with those fine ladies and their significant others and I wouldn’t trade it in for the 5-10lbs (I haven’t weighed myself to find out) that I’ll have to work my butt off to fight from sticking around.

We agonize during 90% of the year in keeping with a goal of healthy living and weight loss and even though the consequences of letting loose and eating many unhealthy foods and drinks have put me into a place where my clothes are uncomfortable, “for now”, I now realize that this is all par for the course and now an occasional (stress very occasional) welcomed part of my life.  The world is not over because I let loose and overindulged!  If nothing else, it proves to me that I am no longer capable of sustaining that kind of a life! 

THAT IS NO LONGER ME, but it was FUN though!!!! :-)

Healthy Living Party Animals Do Thanksgiving!

Okay bloggies it’s been wayyy too long since I’ve posted and updated you all on our crazy and amazing whirlwind of a blogger GTG thanksgiving weekend.  I have never in my life experienced anything quite like it.  Not even when I was a student!

In order to try to recap ya’ll the best I can, I am going to cut up some of the events into smaller posts because the marathon posts are killin me! lol

So I left ya'll hangin’ with the recap of Wednesday’s Lobster boil and Thursday’s Keith’s Brewery Tour & down town good times.  Friday was our big group thanksgiving!

Most of the group spent the day preparing dinner at my house (while I was at work) and they skipped off to Peggy’s Cove where they all had a great time and took some magnificent pictures of our province’s picturesque coastline.  (I may just have to photoshop myself in them!). 

I walked in the door when I got home from work to the glorious aroma of what ended up being the absolutely BEST thanksgiving dinner I had EVER tasted! The lobster from the day before was the best I ever tasted too! 

Every family has something that is their “must have” signature side and what do you get when you combine them all together????

Supreme perfection!

What have I got here?

• Free range organic turkey
• Lynn’s sausage stuffing
• Lesley’s potato stuffing
• Cat & Jen’s roasted garlic mashed potatoes
• Lynn’s sweet potato casserole
• Jaime’s maple-dijon brussels sprouts
• Somebody’s turnip/carrot mash
• Cat’s? amazing gravy?
• Jen’s homemade cranberry sauce from fresh a local farmer’s market
• Amy’s twice baked sweet potatoes

 

If you can picture 18 people in one place trying to find a place to sit and dive in, here’s a few shots:

Tasha and Tim had to share a chair!

Then there were some drinki-poos, some guitar hero and some serious celebrating because it was then officially the long weekend for me and my bloggie BFFs and the Hubby-bloggers were AT MY HOUSE!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

I got a few up close and personal shots of my ladies:

Les:

Amy:                                                     Jen:

    

Lex:

And well, okay there was some craziness, some singing, some dancing and some late night trampoline olympics:

Whoops and down she goes!  Les I hate to break it to ya but I don’t think you’re going to make the Bloggie Olympic Trampoline Team! :-P

 

Seriously you guys, it was quite possibly the FUNNEST night I have EVER had!

So that about does it for Friday night!  I’ll spare you the really bad pics that incriminate us all in the healthy living blogosphere! ;-)