Happy with that!

It’s weigh in day – I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain either :-) I’m happy with that! I haven’t exercised all week  and last night I had way too many snacks, but the fact I didn’t gain any is enough to keep me smiling.

Last week I put up my treadmill in the guest room to make room for my craft table! I got lazy and didn’t even do any workout dvd’s! I DID find the dvd that goes with my stability ball (not that you knew I was looking for it, but I was) so this week I think I will use my Reebok bench and the ball and work on ‘toning up’ some.

On to some food. . . . have your tried these?  Tofu noodles! I’ve wanted to try them ever since I saw the Hungry Girl episode where she made cheesy alfredo and used these instead of the fettucine pasta!

I finally found them in that new Natural Grocers store. One word - ‘Blech’!!! Oh my goodness, it probably doesn’t help that I don’t like tofu, but for some reason I just thought these might taste like fettucine but not have all the calories in . . .  WRONG! It wasn’t so much the taste, but the texture. The only way I can describe it is, ‘gelatinous’. So weird, urghhh, I tried a few fork fulls, but it just got worse, I nearly gagged by the third try – so off in to the trash they went. Oh well!

   

Breakfast is my fav meal of the day now. Last week I tried a ‘skinny’ omelet. This was just 1 egg plus 1 eggwhite, I added a piece of laughing cow cheese (it’s like Dairylee Nenna) cut up and a few green onions, then flipped the omelet over. Really nice and tasty, very cheesy ;) served with 2 slices of Sara Lee light wholewheat bread – total 5pp

Confession – I don’t like Chobani yogurts!! This is the second time I’ve tried a fruit one. I prefer just plain greek yogurt, my fav brand is Stoneyfield ‘Oikos’ Apparently they have some that have chocolate on the bottom or caramel, but I have yet to find these in the store.  I don’t mind the Chobani plain greek yogurt, but these fruit ones…. they are 5pp per pot!!  I’d rather have my fresh fruit on the side! That’s just too many points in a yogurt for my liking. I couldn’t even eat all of this one. It was pomegranate and the seeds were very hard!

This is one of my favorite breakfasts, I had it this morning (not this plate but one similar) 2 Kellogs low fat wholewheat waffles (2pp each) and a tblsp of Better N Butter PB, (1pp) and fruit on the side. This morning I had a banana and 1/2 cup worth of blackberries and raspberries – it was perfect!

Last week I made Chicken Parmesan from the Eating for Life cookbook. A 4oz chicken breast, breadcrumbs, marinara sauce and low fat cheese (total 6pp), served with salad greens AND (a new find this week) Green Giant green beans w/almonds. This box is WW endorsed, only 1pp per serving (3 servings in a box, which I just halved for me and hubby). I really liked these, better than just plain frozen green beans. I bought more boxes when I went back to the store and had them again later in the week with another meal!

 

And finally, Gina’s Asian grilled chicken (leftovers) ended up on a salad for my lunch. Very Yummy (total 5pp, inc. lite dressing)

This is more like it . .

On my quest for a yummy Indian meal (well, it wasn’t really a quest, I just happened to stumble on this while in a new grocery store) I found this last week . . . .

Oh my goodness, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I tried this!!!  I love Indian food. Chicken Tikka Masala is my all time favorite dish, and second to that is Chicken Korma. My sister has a wonderful WW frozen meal she can get in England that I tried last year when I was home… this one (not the one above, but the one below) that I found in my local grocery store just didn’t come anywhere close to being as good….

 

Looked ok on the box, but it came out looking like this….

hardly any sauce at all!  Look at the ‘Tandoor Chef’ one below! The nice thing is the rice is in a separate compartment so it doesn’t soak up all the sauce.

 

Look at ALL that sauce on the plate – YUM! I think there’s only 4 pieces of chicken in this, but they were quite large, and were real ‘white’ pieces of chicken, it was a perfect portion size. I tell you, this meal did not taste like it had been frozen at all. I was in awe of how good it was.  Oh, and the pp, 10!  I thought that a bit high for a lunch (for me anyway), but I indulged in it last Friday cos I’d had such a good WI that day ;-)

Hubby loves Indian food too, so I had to rave to him about this. I wanted him to try it, so I went out on Saturday and bought two more boxes for dinner that night, AND I picked up the frozen box of Naan bread (same brand). The Naan was 5pp each. So for a total of 15pp we had an awesome ‘take-out’ at home. Hubby said this should be a our regular Saturday night ‘take-out’! Not that we have ever had take-out on a regular basis  . . . . but I think we will now!

The store I found this in btw, is Natural Grocers. It just opened up near us. I’ve never seen anything like this in my regular store.

This post is getting rather long, I’ll leave the rest of my photos for another day, but before I go, let me show you my new toy. . . . .  :-)

Doin the Happy Dance!

Weigh In day today, AND . . . .  I’m down 1.8lb :-)  Yay, super happy about that.  I stuck with eating well, but haven’t exercised since Monday!  Don’t know if it’s my allergies or if I’m starting to get a head cold, but I haven’t had much energy this week. I just didn’t feel like working out after Monday, so I didn’t force myself to.

Haven’t taken many pictures of food this week either! I did take a picture of these . . . . goodies from home!

 

My sister sent some chocolate for my daughter ( that we can’t buy over here) and with it she added in some WW stuff for me. Drinking chocolates, jello mixes and ‘pudding’ mixes, AND my favorite ‘Curly Wurly’ bar. These are long strips of thin caramel covered in chocolate, I used to love them as a kid and when my sis told me there are only 3pp each I begged her to send some :-) (well, I didn’t really have to beg, I just simply had to ask) She’s the best! Thank you Nenna.

I wish I could buy more WW products around here (and I’m not talking about Smart Ones or Progresso soup stuff). It’s all about the visual for me (I know I’m a marketers dream!) I want to see actuall Weight Watchers packages like this. . . 

and this . . . .

I really like the look of the new packaging for WW (it just really keeps me motivated when I have stuff like this in the house) but I haven’t seen much of it in my own stores. I’ve never seen their brand breads or wraps, and the only cheese we can get is grated four cheese or mexican, and mozarella string cheese. I’ve seen a package for smoked string cheese which I’d love to try, but again there isn’t any in our stores :( Of course I know it’s not all about the packaging. Most other brands are just the same in points if you look at the labels… still, I’m just sayin – I’m like a kid in a candy store… I want to see the pretty wrappers too ;-)

It’s that time of year . . .

for BLOOD Oranges :-)

I remember having these as a kid in England and being fascinated at the color of them. Kristen loves these! Well, when I say she loves them, what I mean is she loves to just squeeze the juice out between her teeth and leave most of the flesh in tact! She WILL NOT eat the flesh of an orange?!!! I shouldn’t complain, it took her years to even want to try an orange. She tried when she was little and I guess it was just too acidic for her! Finally she is liking the juice from the orange, just not the flesh…. I guess it’s a start!

We both love the Blood Orange, when you slice in to it and see how red it is, I think it looks amazing. I showed hubby tonight and he thought it looked rather ‘weird’, but he did eat some. I think these are only available a certain time of year (at least around here) so I will have to get more. They are super juicy and sweet.  I also got some Tangelos this week, which I’m discovering are very nice juicy oranges too.

I’m in the habit of watching Ellie Krieger’s cooking show again. Most of them seem to be repeats, but I still like watching. This week she made some super easy Spicy Tomato-Tortilla Soup. You can get the recipe HERE.  It looks so easy I had to try it.

It’s simply onions sautéed with garlic and a jalapeno, then add cumin and oregano, then chicken stock and diced tomatoes. I didn’t have a jalapeno pepper in so I just added a tin of Rotel tomatoes to give it that spice! OMGosh – SPICY!!!!  Well for me it was, but I have a very bland ‘wussy’ English palette ;-)  This soup though has got to be barely 1pt per cup and it is tasty. I think next time I will just use half the can of spicy tomatoes or none at all and just have it as a tomato soup. Would be rather nice with a small grilled cheese sandwich. 

Or if you want soup and a salad – how about this for a 1pt salad!! This is shredded butter lettuce, tomatoes AND my new fav this week coleslaw mix! I added 1 tblsp lite blue cheese dressing to the coleslaw and sprinkled it over the salad. You can add whatever protein you like.

Lunch today was this. . . .

 

1 bag is one serving – 7pp. It was really good, think I’ll be keeping a few of these in the freezer :-)

Pooey!

For want of a better word! Pooey, I gained 1lb this week.  I was wondering why/how? but then I looked back at my tracker and I used 17 of my WP’s this week. You’d think that shouldn’t matter but in my case I think it does. I still think 29 daily pts is too much for me if I want to still lose a few pounds.  Now the question is DO I need to still lose a few pounds? The answer is ‘probably not’! What I think I need to start focusing on is not so much weight but more about getting toned. There’s just something in my brain though that keeps telling me I need to get to a certain number on the scale before I’m satisfied with my efforts! 

I’ve started working out more, and am using weights. It could be the scale will go up once I start gaining muscle, so I will have to just accept that.

Anyway, moving on, let’s talk food! I tried a Hungry Girl Chili-rific Burger this week – oh my! This is a Boca Burger (that means it’s not real meat Nenna!) on a light whole wheat bun, ww cheese slice and 2 tblsp of turkey chili (onions and pickles underneath). The recipe says 6pp, but I’m sure it’s more, this might be the old points? The burger alone is 3 now, the bun 2, cheese 1 and chili 1 . So, I’m saying mine was 7pp!

Also made Gina’s Baked Seasoned Fries  A-Mazing!!! I usually just sprinkle salt and a little olive oil on my fries then bake them in the oven, these have chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram and paprika!  Whooo, they sure were tasty!

I only did one large potato instead of 2 medium (which served 2 for 5pp each) so I’m guessing my large potato was about 6pp and I halved it with hubby. I loved this meal for a total of 10pp.

Also on the menu this week was our usual spaghetti and meatballs. We often have this, the key when you’re counting points is to measure out the spaghetti and don’t go crazy with the meatballs. There was a time I would pile my plate with pasta and have at least 4, sometimes 5 meatballs! AND garlic bread.

This plate was 1 cup whole wheat spaghetti 4pp, 1/2 cup marinara sauce 2pp, and 2 meatballs 2pp each – total 11pp (added 1 tblsp of parmesan cheese). Served with a spinach salad with kiwi fruit and 1 tblsp of lite champagne vinaigrette 1pp.       

Total meal 11pp – LOVED IT!

Hump Day

It’s midweek already :-)  I  feel like I’m doing well this week, hoping I can keep it up until my Friday morning weigh-in. I am really trying to exercise a little each day but I realized I am not mentioning it here! I usually write on my Facebook status (otherwise I’d forget) what I did, but my sis doesn’t have a FB account (and I know she’s the one that read’s this blog the most) ;-)  So I should mention it here for her too. I do also track my exercise on my WW page but I can’t ‘recap’ what I’ve done unless I go back and look at each single day!

So, just to recap for this week, on Monday I did 30 minutes on the treadmill, a combination of walking and some jogging (but mainly walking!), then yesterday I did a 20 minute Walk Away The Pounds 1 mile walk. I had wanted to get on the treadmill again (I’d really like to improve and be able to jog a little better without getting so out of ‘puff’! but the tv we just hooked up in there, well I messed it up by pushing a button and I lost the picture and didn’t know how to get it back! So, I opted for the dvd workout instead. Today I hope to try the treadmill again.

A breakfast this week, 3/4 cup of CocoRoos! (the generic brand of Coco Puffs) cos my daughter wanted them, but they are only 2pp per 3/4 cup, served with 1 cup of ff milk, 2pp and 1 banana. I felt like a kid again ;-)

  At the weekend I tried Gina’s Skinny Chicken Waldorf Salad. My mil was coming over so I thought it would make a nice light lunch. Everyone enjoyed it. I had mine in two slices of lite bread, but yesterday I used the rest of it up and had it wrapped in lettuce leaves. The salad is 5pp per cup, served with 10 pop chips for an extra pt, and a Kosher Dill Pickle – yum.

I’m off to have coffee with a friend this morning, haven’t had breakfast yet. Hopefully she’ll have some Vitatop Muffins like last time ;-)

It’s slow going…..

I always feel great on Friday, but come Monday morning I sometimes feel like I’m back to square one?!  Not that I binged at the weekend, I did pretty good, but I did have wine, and a cocktail on Friday night. Plus, it’s that TOM this week (time of the month) and I just feel a bit bloated.

So, it’s slow going, but it’s going in the right direction, so no complaints really – right!

Something I had for breakfast one day last week….. my yummy baked beans on toast, plus a side of sauted mushrooms – just 3 pp!

A Saturday morning breakfast consisting of 1 English muffin (3), 1 egg (2) and 3 slices of extra lean turkey bacon (1) Plus I just had to have some orange juice, (3), for a hearty 9pp – it was a great way to start the weekend.

 I made Gina’s Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps last week too, LOVED THESE! 1 portion = 4pp

I didn’t even need to add cheese like her recipe suggests! They were super tasty for lunch, along with some cherry tomatoes and 10 Popchips for 1pp.

I did a 30 minute walk/jog on the treadmill today. I’m off to a good start to the week – how bout you?