Day 1 down ... many more to go

Yes!  Day one is all but complete.  Overall a good experience with Medifast.  I started the say with the Oatmeal muffin...nice way to get my breakfast in while driving.  Moved on to a shake.  Wow, was it bad.  I think my strategy of pre-mixing a while before blending came back to haunt me.  There was a certain funk that was just gross.  I powered through it ... but I hope my next shake is not as bad.  There is A LOT of soy in these products...I suspect the funk was the soy that had been given an opportunity to bloom!

Dinner was a challenge.  I am not a cook, and well...I am not a good eater, so the Lean and Green bit was a bit daunting.  I had a Barber Chicken Cordon Bleu in my freezer ( non-breaded).  It was 5 oz, had 11 gr of fat and 3 carbs.  Delicious.  My veggie was a can (i know, i know) of green beans ...the no salt kind.  There was not enough Spike (my spice of choice) or spray butter to make them anything close to good.  My hope here is that it will drive me to experiment with actual real veggies. 

So, with that in mind tomorrow is going to be a new challenge.  Theater night means no coming home for dinner.  I am armed with a big salad that I will have before I leave for the show ... and I will have a MF meal during intermission that will tide me over.

Today's meals definitely got me all excited about my salad.  It will be a lettuce mix (2-3 cups), 4 oz of chicken, 1 hard boiled egg, 5 black olives, and 2 delicious tbs of Ken's light Italian dressing.  Eventually I hope to expand this to include more than just lettuce, meat, and olives but not tomorrow.

OOOOOH...big accomplishment today aside from staying 100% on plan was drinking about 120 oz of water ... not including my coffee and shake!  Very proud of myself.  I dread a busy day of calls while drinking this amount of water, but I will deal. 

All for now!
-a

Mmm Mmm Good!

Tonight I decided to make one of my favorite soups, Greek Lemon Chicken soup.  Soo good and soo filling!

It is a stupid easy recipe:

• Chicken Stock (i use natural low sodium)
• 1/3 cup of orzo
• chicken breast meat
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• season to taste

Very basic and  good.  Just boil the stock, add the orzo and cook for 7 minutes.  Add the chicken, boil for 5 mins until cooked.  Beat 2 eggs and lemon juice in a bowl, temper with the stock while continuing to beat.  Add the egg mixture slowly to the soup and mix very well.  I slowly bring it to a low boil, then reduce the temp and let cook for another 5 or so minutes, stirring frequently.

That is it. I calculated it to be 6 points per serving, making 4 servings per batch.  Probably 1.25 cups a serving.

Of course I had 2 bowls tonight and split the rest for meals tomorrow and this weekend. 

This has been a long work week and my face is physically tired.  Looking forward to my weekend and of course my next WI on Sunday!

Honeymoon

Loving this "new diet" honeymoon period! This has been a great few weeks and I am feeling hopeful about the next 3 weeks. I know, everyone stays on their New Year's diet for the first month...I plan on making mine a New Decade diet...longer lasting, right?

Starting to think about my next vacation. My BF and I are headed to Palm Springs the 3rd week of February. Why Palm Springs? It's Modernism Week! Should be a fun week of shopping, architecture, and retro 50's goodness. Probably a nerdy reason to go as most people go for golfing ...or to visit family...we are going to tour Frank Sinatra's Twin Palms home :)

For now, I am trying to do what I can before that trip. There isn't a lot of time for me to be making outrageous goals. My pants will be the same size ... the 5 hour airplane ride will still be uncomfortable...but it will be BETTER than it would have been otherwise!

Plane rides are always interesting. I have my own seat belt extender. Not afraid to ask for one, it doesn't bother me, but sometimes it's just handy to have my own. My paranoia that they will run out of them before I board the plane (I always seem to be one of the last) overrides any fear of embarrassment of asking. What amazes me is when I don't ask for one and the flight attendant doesn't seem to notice. I would think they would zero in on me ...but perhaps we live in such a PC society that its easier to ignore rather to offend. Oh, what makes flying interesting is that of course I am a big woman (barely getting the arms of the seats down) but my BF is freakishly tall! So, for various reasons we both do not do well on planes. I have a wonderful knack for "going to my happy place" aka taking lots of Xanax so I really don't care. His not having leg room and getting his knees crushed by the seat in front is probably more severe. Oh well, that is part of the adventure.

I love to travel ... I actually went to Irvine CA in November for work. Perhaps this time I will be slightly smaller and have a bit more room to breath. We will see! Either way, I will have my seat belt extender, Xanax, my iPad, and perhaps a bit of crochet to get me through. Oh, and ear plugs for when my BF complains about getting his knees crushed :)

That is all for now!

Oh, having a great diet day! Made a nice pork tenderloin for dinner. This is meal 2 of what I believe was a goal of 3 this week. Of course I will be eating on my chili and this pork for a while. Maybe I will get up in time (or gosh, do it tonight) and pack my lunch with some left overs! Would be nice to have something beyond tuna and crackers or a Lean Cuisine!

Ta Ta!
-a

Week Two Recap

Just weighed in for my 2nd week. Very pleased with my progress and my unwavering commitment to eating right! This week I lost 3.0 lbs, which is amazing. My secret in the very back of my mind goal for the week was to get out of the 280's and enter into the 270's. The 280's represent the heaviest I have ever been ... I am glad to take a few steps down and get back to something more familiar. Of course, lets be honest...270's are not a happy place either, but it is one small step closer to feeling like myself again.

Accomplishments for the week:

• Stayed on my points plan while being trapped in my house for a week
• Did not crack open a bottle of wine
• Water Water Water! Had a good amount of water each day
• Overcame a moment of Nutella driven temptation
• Everything I ate had nutritional value (protein, fiber, etc), nothing I would consider "junk"
• Relied more on cooking real food than eating all processed
  

Things I want to focus on for this upcoming week:

• Take lunch to work each and every day this week
• Drink Drink Drink my water while at work
• Take a little walk during lunch (hoping my knee stays in place)
• Continue to count my points and make better decisions on spending my points
• Cook 3 more dinners at home

I am sure there are many more things I can add to my list, but we will start with that. Hope you all have a great week also...What are some of your goals?

Snow Day 3 and Counting!

Here we go again ... another day "working" from home and another one on the way. I am starting to get a bit of cabin fever!

Today my BF walked to the grocery store. He came home with Coke Zero, 2 slices of cake, bag of Chips Ahoy (all for him). Something kind of funny about his grocery selection. Most people flocking to the store to find fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, bread...etc.. Nope, what do we get? Cake and cookies! The good news for all of you following me is that I really have no interest in any of those things. Woo!

This morning I made a simple yet very delicious breakfast:

Here we have a bagel thin, 2 over easy eggs, and 2 slices of cheese. 6 PointsPlus each!

What is interesting is this ... my instinct was to make 2 because the bagel has 2 halves. When I was finished and had them on my plate I realized that I had made 1 too many. Why did I do that? My eyes are getting bigger than my stomach, which is not a bad thing. Lesson learned!

I ate one ... and cooked the 2nd one a bit so the egg was no longer over easy and ate it a couple hours later for lunch.

Dinner was less creative, PB & J sandwiches (2 small) on sandwich thin's for bread. I weighed everything to the gram and counted every drop. They were a delicious 14 points, I am not going to lie.

What is in store for tomorrow? More of the same. We are stuck in this house for yet another day. My feeling is that it will actually be late Friday afternoon before things really start to melt. YIKES!

Oh, random thing ... my BF was watching hockey while having dinner and my cat seemed to be enjoying the game (please ignore the fact that my xmas tree is still not pulled apart, I will get to it when we can take it to the storage unit this weekend):



Enjoy!

-a

SNOWmageddon 2011 (that rhymes)

Wow is all I can say. After much back and forth with the forecast (what else is new) we got lots of snow! Fortunately we did not get ice in the trees, but the roads are ridiculous right now. I've seen several good snows in Atlanta ... this was a good one. We are all stuck in our homes for at least another day ... I suspect longer. Crazy!

Anyway, having this much time on my hands at home can be a dangerous thing. I've been doing a few things to pass the time and keep focused on the WW program. Yesterday I took the new Cuisinart Griddler for a spin and made some wonderful grilled chicken breasts. Chicken has always been hard for me to cook in a healthy way, mostly because I am terrible at grilling. The new toy made it really easy. My chicken was moist, which is awesome. I have a really hard time eating chicken, especially chicken that is dry, due to my lingering half a LapBand. Most of the time I don't know its still inside of me, but today I was reminded early in the day. Breakfast was going to be instant grits with a scrambled egg. The egg ended up dry from over-cooking in the microwave and overall my breakfast was pretty much like cement. I wouldn't have minded, but my LapBand objected. About 3 or 4 bites in, everything stopped going down my throat. It got stuck! This may not make sense for those who are not familiar with living with a LapBand (even a faulty non-functioning one like mine). Anyway, I wasn't able to eat my lunch but eventually was able to drink my coffee.

Lunch was easy, a portion of my left over chili (made with ground chicken breast) and brown rice. Now for dinner. The bored fat girl in me wanted to open a bottle of wine, finish the bottle of wine, then worry about dinner...but the "in progress" me managed to make a wonderful dinner!

I made "good enough to satisfy" pasta with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese (I love mac n cheese), green beans, and one of my chicken breasts. Notice it's cut up to make sure I chew it is small pieces ... stupid LapBand. The plate was full and all for about 10 points. Wooo! Pardon the oddly colored picture, my cell phone camera is not great.

Hmm...perhaps HMR Butterscotch flavored pudding for dessert.

It seems small to most but for me, a huge step in a new direction. I have made 3 or 4 more home cooked meals than I would have before, and that is awesome.

Tomorrow is more of the same. Working from home and filling my time trying to think about something other than eating my next meal. Perhaps curling up to my new "Half The Size " People magazine.

Dinner and a drink

Felt a bit better today...the fatigue was not as bad. Yay for that. Looking forward to my doctors appointment on Friday.

Today I drank my water and made a nice dinner for my boyfriend and myself. Seems small, but I have forgotten how to or lost all desire to cook real food lately. When I do cook, I cook the one or two things that are his favorite. Dinner was not anything exciting or exotic...just pork and baked potatoes, but really ... it was my first time cooking pork in memory. That is probably fairly sad ... but I just avoid cooking meat for some reason. Anyway ... it turned out pretty good. He has a very boring palate and yet is very hard to please, go figure! Not really parade time, but it is a small step to a bigger change. Not sure what tomorrow will bring in the kitchen, but I will give it some thought while not working at work :)

Anyone have any lunch or dinner ideas to share with me? I need inspiration!

That is all for tonight. I am hoping all this water I am drinking will help me stop retaining water. I know it is adding a few pounds and can be very discouraging. My starting weight was on a non-bloating day and now my feet and ankles are quite puffy. Naturally I cant keep off the scale and it is up! I know that it is really just the water and I am not discouraged in any way, I just hope that whatever is causing me to retain water is washed away by drinking more water!

-allison

Oh, Blogger is bugging out for me (and likely everyone) so I switched my settings to use the old editor and all is better. If you are unable to create a new post on your blog, I suggest you do the same!