Feeling groovy...

So I sucked it up and went back to WW on Saturday. Steped on the scale and saw a VERY VERY scary number...a number that I have never seen in my life actually.

I am now 6 pounds heavier than I was when I joined WW in 1999, and approaching 200lbs. If thats not enough to scare a person into recommitting, I don't know what is.

Today was a good day, made it to the gym, ate within my points.

Heres how it all went down

Daily Target - 25 points

Breakfast (4)
1 cup oatmeal with cinnamon, TBSP brown sugar splenda, 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce and TBSP raisins

Lunch (8)
1/2 portion of lemon ricotta chicken pasta
1 cup salad greens with boathouse farms honey dijon dressing
1 cup grapes

Dinner (10)
2 chicken and blackbean mole soft tacos
8 guiltless gourmet chips and salsa
TBSP lite sour cream
TBSP shredded nacho cheese

Snacks (5)
Oatmeal and cinnamon All Bran Bar
1/2 cup raspberries
1/2 cup vanilla yoptimal yogurt

Exercise: 20 minutes stationary bike
H20: 2L

Hopefully I can keep this up until weigh in on Saturday and see some progress :)

Grocery Day....again

Wow, it seems like all we do it groceries. But not really, its just because I haven't posted in a week.

Yesterday was grocery day again. Lots of healthy food, as G and I had a long talk on the weekend about how unhealthy/unfit we've become. We are talking about weddings in the future, and neither of us wants to look back on our engagement/wedding pictures and regret how we look. So back on track we go (seems like this is a revolving door syndrome, but hopefully this time it sticks for more than a few days).

As it was the first day of fall today, I thought it fitting that I reset my weight tracker to reflect the exact amount I have to lose (seems like such a huge number right now, very scary). I always view September as more of a clean slate/new start than even the new year. I don't know why it is, but it feels like I should be recommitting right now. I weighed in this morning and saw number that I've never seen in my life, even before I joined weight watchers back in 1999. Thats enough to scare me.

This week is going to be a real challenge for the two of us as a couple being healthy. We went out for an after dinner walk on Sunday which was nice, but won't happen again until next week. I work 8 am - 8 pm all week and G is working nights, 8 pm - 3 am. So really, we won't be seeing each other except between the hours of 3 and 6...when we are both sleeping!

As a result I have meals set and am planning to be a slow cooking fool this week (I hate cooking when I get home at 8). That means G can eat before he leaves and set some aside for me. Since this is a schedule that will be happening every second week until December, slow cooking leaves leftovers for freezing during busy weeks as well! Yay.

Supper plans for the week:
Tuesday: Braised beef and rosemary pasta sauce over rotini
Large Green salad with goat cheese

Wednesday: Black Beans and smoked sausage
steamed brocolli
crusty rolls


Thursday: BBQ pulled beef sandwiches on focaccia rolls
corn on the cob
Large green salad


Friday - Leftovers!

I leave you with Grocery pictures for the week :)

Non Produce: black beans, Knor boxed soup - Red and Orange, chili powder, canned tomatoes, lite chez whiz (for G) Source Exotic yogurt (for G), Yoptimal Yogurt (for me), egg whites, lite jam, lite chedder cheese, tzatiki, oatmeal, lara bars, green tea, crystal lite, fat free pudding mix, skim milk

Fresh stuff: head of brocolli, jalapano peppers, red peppers, bananas, corn, organic baby spinach, organic baby greens, red delicious apples, green peppers, crusty rolls and foccacia rolls, baby bagette, mini bagels, raspberries

Hope everyones having a healthy start to the week :) And a wonderful first day of fall

Grocery Day!

Alright, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, one that shows my true geekness to the blog world with just 4 words....I love grocery shopping.

Seriously I do. I could grocery shop everyday and be totally content. Which was really bad when I worked at a Goodlife Gym located inside an Atlantic Superstore -- I used to shop every day on my way home from work...so much money out the window from lack of planning on those trips!

My favorite thing to do is to go late at night or early in the morning when noone else is in the store, pop in my IPOD and grab a cart and wander around the store, looking at new foods and thinking up new cooking ideas. It truely is a calming experience for me (crazy I know)

That being said, I hate shopping with a list, I'd rather just pick things up that look good and that I'd like to try. However this kills our grocery budget, because I end up either
a) getting things we already have
b) getting to much andwe end up throwing tons of food out, which is one of G's biggest pet peeve.


Since we've been trying to keep our grocery budget down to 80-100.00 every week, I've started to shop with a list as a result. Which sucks! But is saving us tons of money, so I guess I can't complain TOO much. And I still pick up the occasional fun food that catches my fancy - so not all fun is gone.

We got back from PEI today and our fridge was empty. G was working the night shift, which meant I was left alone to grocery shop to my hearts content!

Here is our loot:



Produce etc: organic baby romaine, bananas, red and green pepper, green onions, celery, red onion, vine tomatos, high bush blueberries, onions, shallots, avacado, shelled edamame, golden delicious and red delicous apples, green seedless grapes, and one huge thing of peanut butter





Everything else: skim milk, reduced sodium chicken broth, goat cheese, lite sour cream, tomato paste, can of diced tomatoes, can of corn, can of black beans, can of frozen oj (for recipes), lemon juice, lite cream (for butter chicken), yoptimal yogurt, egg whites, fresh mint, whole wheat pitas, whole grain cinnamon raisin PC Bagels, Dempsters Honey Wheat Bread (on sale, so I bought some for the freezer), Litehouse Honey Dijon Yogurt dressing (a new find that looked interesting)


mmmm, I can't wait to start cooking. Tonight I'm making a chunky chicken salad with cranberries and orange and pecans. Dinners for this week include imitation butter chicken, bruchetta pasta, and greek chicken skewers.

Yay for healthy eating!

Throwing the plans out the window.

Lazy start to the day, I'm working from home today and am still in my PJs at 1:45 in the afternoon (how much do I love the flexiability my job offers me)

Usually working from home = fantastic eating, as I find it really easy to eat healthy food when I'm home. It helps that I can actually cook things, or BBQ and not just rely on my packed lunch when what I'm craving changes. I had great plans for today to eat healthy (salad mainly) because G (aka the boy) and I are headed to PEI tomorrow to visit his parents, and thats ALWAYS a recipe for disaster. I love his parents, but their idea of healthy eating is only having 1/2 pound of bacon for breakfast instead of a pound, or only having 4 different types of squares for desert instead of 10. However, I digress.

So plan for the day was lots of low cal stuff in order to save some calories for the weekend, however that plan got thrown out the window this morning when I woke up to find that when G was in the freezer last night, he didn't close it all the way! Everything thawed, or was partly thawed. So I'm eating some of the thawed meat and stuff today.

On the menu:
Breakfast/Lunch: cinnamon raisin bagel with TBSP peanut butter

Supper: two chicken burgers with one pita bun
red pepper slices and tzatziki

I work at my second job tonight, so my evening snack will be: yogurt and some blueberries

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

and I'm back in the game!

Today was a fantastic day! I dragged my butt out of bed (and in turn dragged the boy's butt out of bed) at 5:30 this morning and we hit the gym for some cardio. It was just 30 minutes, but it was a start.

I'm trying out the C25K program and this morning was supposed to be my first training day. However 12 minutes into my 25 minute program I started getting the usual, shooting pain in my shins. Me thinks its time for some new sneaks. I've had my Saucanys for over a year now (ops!) So next paycheck I'm going to take myself down to either the Running Room or Aerobics First and try out some new ones. Thats my favorite part of both stores, they let you try out the sneaks and if they don't work for you, you can bring them back and try out some other ones until you find the right shoe. Sweet!

That being said, C25k is on hold until the new shoes are bought, in the meantime I will be doing strength training and non running cardio -- but hey, its something right?

Eating today was awesome, totally on track, and I tracked all my food at http://www.sparkpeople.com/. I do WW (loosely!) however I wanted to start taking a closer look at WHAT I am actually putting in my mouth, how many carbs, protein, iron etc. I love that spark will track that for you...for free at that! Anyways, I tracked it all, 10 glasses of water and 1500 calories, which is right in my range. Yay!

Todays food (with food porn for your pleasure!) sorry the pictures aren't great. The lighting at work wasn't great today!

Breakfast

1/2 cup oatmeal with cinnamon, 20 raisins, 2tsp brown sugar splenda and 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

large glass of H20 with Crystal Lite

Cup of coffee with 1/2 package lite hot chocolate

and of course my multivitamin, flaxseed oil and fish oil capsules!

Morning snack

1 medium apple with 2 tsp almond butter

Lunch

pita bun with 4 oz chicken breast cooked in salsa, 1 oz lite chedder cheese and 2tsp southwest sauce

1 cup black beans, corn and salsa

Sorry this doesn't look as appetizing as it tasted! Notice the little airline sized utensils...can't tell I work at the airlines! I'm trying to use up the leftovers from our last conference, catered by airline catering!

Afternoon Snack

cup of sliced red peppers

2 TBSP tzatziki

500 ml water (one of 5 today)

I don't have a picture of supper - but it was a herbed chicken burger on a thin pita bun with southwest sauce, 1/2 baked potato (no skin because the boy forgot to wash them before putting them in the oven) and 2 TBSP lite sour cream

Finally, I leave you with my non scale victory for the day....

These were sitting beside my desk all day long (treats for the guys I share the offices with) and I didn't touch them at all! (please excuse my facilitator binders in the background)

Lazy Labour Day

I had a lazy, lazy day today. The gym wasn't open, the boy was working all day (no holidays in emergency services!) and I just didn't feel like doing ANYTHING.

I spent the day in my pjs with the cats watching 90210 reruns on TV. Part of me feels bad because there was SO much that could have been done around the house, the other part of me says, its a rare occurance that I actually spent ALL day alone and doing nothing, so I don't feel QUITE so bad.

And I did cook for dinner (even though I really didn't want to cook tonight, a rare occurance for me!) It was only pasta and sauce, but hey, a hot dinner was on the table for the evening, so noone can complain!

I leave you with a picture of the kitties being lazy (as per usual) they did nothing all day as well! :)

Stella - after a hard day of napping on the bedroom chair

Sullivan -- All he needs is a remote and a beer :)