I lost another 2 pounds! I am so happy with this. Also, I am so close to being in the “weight decade” / 10-pound range of my goal weight (e.g., 140s, 130s, etc.). AND I am now only four pounds away from that goal.
Updated countdown: 10, 9, 10, 8, 6, 8, 6, 4! This last 10 pounds has been tough, especially with end of summer vacations, birthdays, and family gatherings. But, now we are back to a normal routine, and so I think (hope) I can consistently lose every week. I think a lot of it is mental at this point – nothing can get in my way except me.
Recap
Water: I did great on this all week – glug, glug, and more glugs.
Fruits / Veggies: There were some meals without, especially when I was out of fresh fruit, but I got plenty overall every day.
Exercise: Basically none, so I focused on getting the food right this week.
Portions: On target all week long. I kept to serving sizes and kept desserts small. When I had garlic bread with my lasagna, I had half a slice. I had more of the pumpernickel bread with my soup, but kept it to one or one and a half slices. I may have been a little over on Points some days, but not by much, and added all together, not over my extra Flex Points for the week.
Planning: On Day 1, I could have had fast food with every one else, but instead I planned it so that everyone else could have fast food at our house while I had leftovers. On Day 2, I had a doughnut for breakfast, but I planned out the rest of the day’s food accordingly. On Day 3, I made lightened pumpkin muffins that I knew could last all week (or go in the freezer for later), and I made soup to use the rest of the pumpkin. On Day 4, I had a recipe and ingredients lined up: Rosemary-Garlic Flank Steak with Red Onion-Garlic Marmalade, mashed potatoes, and roasted green beans. On Day 5, I stayed on track even though I was out of fresh fruit (and veggies besides carrots) – having canned fruit in the cupboard helped. On Day 6, I made sure I got to the store so I could end the week strong with plenty of fruits and veggies (and I got ingredients for my next dinner – Lazy Lasagna). On Day 7, I had plenty of leftovers to choose from, and when it got too late for lunch, I had a healthy snack.
Ready to keep this countdown counting down.
No regrets.
*Note: I am using tools from the Weight Watchers® program circa 2007, because that’s what I have. So, the Points values that I am using may differ from the current program.
I got to have my pumpkin muffin bowl again! The muffins from Day 3 have been hanging out in the fridge, so I split one in half and heated it in the toaster oven (cut side down). This was perfect – the top and bottom of the muffin got a nice light crunch again, and any muffin is better warm. I broke it into pieces and mixed it with low-fat vanilla yogurt (1/2 cup) and sliced banana (half of a banana). I had the other half of the banana before picking the kids up from school – I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I needed a little something.
Muffin bowl
Lunch / Snack: Triscuits, Hummus, Orange, Water
Not sure if this was lunch or a snack, but I was hungry and it was not quite dinner, so I had around six Triscuits with some hummus and a mandarin orange.
Dinner: Soup, Bread, Water, Chocolate
Last of the soup (also from Day 3) with some pumpernickel bread and a square of dark chocolate for dessert. This soup got better every time we had it, so I was kind of sad to see the last of it.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Apple, Water
Again with this snack!
Exercise: 0 Minutes
Not this week, apparently.
How Did I Do?
A great day to end the week. On target for everything (water, fruits / veggies, portions, food choices), except exercise.
Same breakfast as yesterday: Kashi® Island Vanilla biscuits with 1% milk and no fruit (none in the house).
Lunch: Soup, Toast, Water, Tootsie Roll
One can of Campbell’s® Chunky® Savory Vegetable Soup and some soup toast (less than 1 Tbsp. of olive oil spread on whole wheat bread and toasted). I finished with a midgee tootsie roll.
I finally got to the store! I made Lazy Lasagna from the September 1997 issue of Cooking Light magazine and served it with garlic bread and salad, followed by a strawberry mochi.
Easy, cheesy dinner
The lasagna was simple, easy, and a hit with the kids. Here are my recipe notes:
The store was out of fat free cottage cheese, so I used 1%. I combined the cottage cheese with the Parmesan right in the container – one less bowl to wash.
I used a leaner ground beef than what the recipe called for (90/10), and may even try the extra lean next time
I didn’t use the whole package of precooked (oven ready / no boil) lasagna noodles – I used three noodles for each layer, which seemed like enough (four would have overlapped, which I don’t think you want with no boil noodles)
I used reduced-fat sharp cheddar instead of mild
I couldn’t find 26-oz. jars of pasta sauce, so I used 24 oz. When I added the sauce to the meat, I added some water to the jar, shook it up, and poured it into the mixture to get out even more sauce and add some liquid. I used Classico Roasted Garlic pasta sauce, which has 1 gram of fat per serving.
If I wasn’t making it for the kids (or when I’m up for some complaining), a good variation might be to add some sautéed veggies to the sauce mixture (onions, peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, tomato, eggplant…a lot of options) and maybe some spices to the cottage cheese mixture (pepper, parsley, basil, oregano, Italian seasoning, garlic powder…again, a lot of options). But, I’ll probably keep it simple for the kids.
Salad was just lettuce, shredded carrots, and grape tomatoes with light Ranch. Garlic bread was old brat buns that I had in the freezer that I spread with butter, sprinkled with garlic powder, and toasted in the oven while the lasagna was standing for 10 minutes (my younger daughter calls this “lasagna bread” and likes us to turn her hot dog buns into lasagna bread and eat the hot dog plain). I had half of a half of a bun.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Apple, Water
Guess I’m not changing this snack anytime soon – this time I had fresh fruit though.
Exercise: 0 Minutes
Nope.
How Did I Do?
I think it was another good day. Even though I didn’t have fruit with breakfast again, I had plenty of veggies in my soup for lunch and in my salad for dinner, plus apple with my snack. Lots of water, good portions and food choices (when I had garlic bread, I had a small piece; when I had desserts, they were also small). No exercise again, but hopefully I’m doing well enough on food this week that it won’t matter.
One. More. Day. Just so ready for weigh-in to see where I’m at and how close I am to being done!
Kashi® Island Vanilla biscuits with 1% milk – unfortunately, no fresh fruit in the house to add to it.
Lunch: Turkey Wrap, Water, Chocolate Granola Bar
Low on veggies, too, so just a basic turkey wrap: whole wheat tortilla, light mayo, country Dijon, reduced-fat cheese slice, turkey, shredded carrot. No fruits or veggies to have on the side, but I wanted something else (and a treat), so I had a Kashi® Chocolate Almond Sea Salt granola bar.
Wrap fixings
Dinner: Soup, Bread, Water, Tootsie Roll
Leftover soup from Day 3 (pumpkin, turkey sausage, onions, peppers, apple, garlic, ginger, curry, spinach), with some pumpernickel bread. This was even better than the first day, which I think is pretty common with most homemade soups – they just get better with time (you know, until they go bad).
I kept dessert small since I’ve had saltine toffee after dinner the last few days, and I had the chocolate granola bar earlier – just a midgee tootsie roll tonight.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Pears, Water
The snack that just won’t quit (or that I just won’t quit) – 6 reduced-fat Triscuits with salsa, a reduced-fat cheese stick, and fruit. Since there was no fresh fruit left in the house, we had canned pears (in 100% juice).
Exercise: 0 Minutes
I’m thinking about it, but not acting on it…yet.
How Did I Do?
Not bad for having almost no fresh fruit or veggies in the house. Luckily the soup had both (peppers, apple, spinach, pumpkin), so I was still on target for the day. Lots of water all day, good food choices and portions, but still no exercise.
I really need to get to the store if I’m going to make it through the next two days.
If there were still bananas in the house, I definitely would have had the same breakfast as yesterday (muffin pieces, vanilla yogurt, sliced banana), but I am running low on fresh fruit. So, I just had a muffin and an Activia® black cherry yogurt.
The muffins were definitely better the first day; they were a little soggy today (the sugar on top and the muffin bottom had no crunch left). If I have another one tomorrow, I’ll probably heat or toast it.
Lunch: Turkey Armour® LunchMakers®, Apple, Water
Just a quick lunch (turkey, crackers, cheese) while getting the marinade ready for dinner. I didn’t end up having the treat (mini Butterfinger), so I saved it for another time. Then I picked up the kids from school and had an apple while they played on the playground (when the weather is nice, this is preferable to waiting in a long line of cars to get out of the parking lot).
Finally, I made the steak recipe I’ve been meaning to make since sometime last week: Rosemary-Garlic Flank Steak with Red Onion-Garlic Marmalade (Cooking Light Sept. 1999). Just the name alone sounds amazing. The steak is marinated in red wine, fresh rosemary, and garlic, then grilled. The marmalade is a bunch of sliced red onion tossed with red wine vinegar, sautéed, and then cooked in red wine with herbes de Provence, a little sugar, and garlic cloves for over an hour. I decided to serve it with mashed potatoes and roasted green beans, and ended the meal with a saltine toffee.
Steak and potatoes…and veggies
I had high hopes for this recipe, and although it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it was still good, and I would definitely make the onion marmalade again. Here are my recipe notes:
I followed the steak recipe exactly, except I let it rest for a little longer than 5 minutes since I was waiting for the green beans to be done. The steak wasn’t as rare as I’d like it – not sure if I should have cooked it for less time, or if the extra resting was too much. Next time I would probably cook it for less time.
The steak wasn’t as flavorful as I was expecting, so if I make it again, I will probably increase the amount of rosemary, seasonings, and garlic, and maybe marinate it longer.
One serving of steak was about two slices from the middle for me (I weighed it).
I didn’t make any changes to the marmalade recipe either. It had great flavor – the best part of the meal, and it made the steak so much better. The only thing I would do differently next time is I might add the garlic with the onions when they sauté, or the cloves would be the first thing I add with the red wine. I added them last, and I don’t feel like there was enough liquid to cook them thoroughly, even though everything cooked for over an hour (they were never really submerged, and I had a little trouble keeping the wine at a simmer – I had to keep adjusting the temp). Or, I might cover it at first and then once I think the garlic is cooked enough, remove the lid and then let the liquid evaporate.
The Roasted Green Beans recipe was from the July 1999 issue of Cooking Light magazine – green beans and sliced almonds tossed with lemon, olive oil, garlic powder, basil, salt, and pepper. I usually make this recipe as-is and am happy with it; this time, I didn’t have fresh lemon juice so I used juice from the little plastic lemon in my fridge, and I omitted the almonds to try to keep the fat and calories even lower since I knew the steak and potatoes would add plenty to the meal (the almonds are really good with it though).
This was a lot of things to make. Normally, I try to only make one or two recipes and keep the rest simple; this was four different things to make. It turned out to be a great meal, and none of it was too difficult, but it was still a lot to make. Although I love the roasted green beans, I really only made them because they were in my fridge and I needed to use them up; otherwise, I probably would have done microwaved veggies.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Grapes, Water
Snack repeat – at least this time I had grapes instead of apple.
Exercise: 0 Minutes
[SIGH.]
How Did I Do?
Pretty good! No fruit with breakfast, but I think I got enough fruit / veggies overall for the day. Also good on water and portions. No exercise, but I think I’m doing okay.
Next muffin recipe from my Cooking Light Complete Cookbook: Pumpkin Muffins. Pretty basic recipe; no changes. It doesn’t say how full the muffin cups should be, but it ended up being almost to the top (maybe about 3/4 full). I only have one muffin pan, so I used that and some silicone muffin cups set on a small baking sheet.
The muffins were pretty low in Points, so I decided to have both vanilla low-fat yogurt and banana with it. I ended up breaking up the muffin and mixing them all together, which was great.
Pumpkin muffin bowl
Lunch: Chicken Salad Wrap, Water, Chocolate Cake
Same chicken salad wrap as Day 2 last week – light mayo, country Dijon, canned chicken, almonds, and dried cherries in a whole wheat wrap, this time with some spinach instead of spring mix. I had a piece of chocolate-banana snack cake for a treat; I thought this was going to help fuel me for a bike ride, but then I didn’t end up going.
Dinner: Soup, Bread, Water, Saltine Toffee
I’ve been meaning to make a steak recipe for at least a few days now, but it just hasn’t worked out yet. Today was supposed to be the day, but then we were possibly going to go downtown to see ArtPrize (a huge competition with lots of art on display for public viewing). So, I decided to make soup instead, and maybe keep it warm in the crockpot so it was ready when we got home. We didn’t end up going, but at least dinner was all ready.
This soup started with the fact that I knew I was going to have leftover pumpkin from making the muffins, so I had decided I was going to make soup with the rest. The store only had giant cans of pumpkin left, but that was fine – more for the soup. I decided on the other flavors I wanted: turkey sausage, onion, peppers, green apple, curry, a little heat, garlic, and ginger. I ended up adding some other things too, and it turned out pretty good!
When life gives you canned pumpkin…
Here’s how I made the soup:
Heat 1 – 2 Tbsp. olive oil over medium-high heat in Dutch oven (or large pot)
Add turkey sausage and cook until browned and any liquid is almost completely evaporated, stirring frequently and breaking up into small pieces. I used sweet Italian turkey sausage that was in casing (hot would also be good, but I don’t find it very often); I squeezed it out of the casing into the pan (this is always a very odd experience).
Add chopped onion (I used one whole yellow onion plus a shallot), chopped green pepper (1 whole – I did a small dice), chopped jalapeno (1 whole – I took out the seeds and ribs and minced), and chopped green apple (2 whole, peeled, cored and chopped). Cook until onions soften.
Add 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, 1 tsp. curry powder, and a dash of crushed red pepper; stir until thoroughly combined.
Add minced garlic (I did 4 cloves) and grated or minced fresh peeled ginger (I had some in the freezer; I did about 1 – 2 Tbsp.) and cook for 1 minute.
Add chicken broth (I had some homemade in the freezer, which was probably about 3.5 cups), canned pumpkin (I used a 29-oz. can minus 1 cup that I used for muffins), and water (if needed to cover everything / make it the thinness or thickness you like). This part can depend on what you have – if you have less chicken broth, use more water. If you have more chicken broth, you may not need any water. If you have less pumpkin, your soup just won’t be as thick. If you have more, it will be thicker. I don’t think you can go very wrong here – just make sure everything is covered by some combination of chicken broth, pumpkin, and water.
Bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for at least 20 – 30 minutes (I just simmered until we were ready to eat, which was longer than that).
While simmering, chop up some spinach (or other greens) and add to soup. I used not quite all of a 5-oz. package of baby spinach (I had already used some for mac & cheese and I saved some for my wrap).
Just before serving, add fresh parsley (1/4 – 1/3 cup) and lemon juice (from half of a lemon). I just happened to have parsley that I wanted to use up, but it’s not necessary. I do recommend the lemon juice or some other acid to brighten the flavors.
I served it with Zingerman’s pumpernickel bread from my freezer and had a piece of saltine toffee for dessert.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Apple, Water
Having this snack over and over again may be a little boring for anyone reading this, but it’s just so good.
Exercise: 0 Minutes
Almost went for a bike ride – so close.
How Did I Do?
I think I did okay. I might have been a little over on Points depending on how much the soup and bread was, but probably not much. Even though we didn’t end up going downtown, I planned ahead to make sure we had dinner waiting if we needed it. I almost got some exercise, but not quite. I think I was on target for everything else (water, fruits / veggies, portions, food choices); hopefully my treats here and there this week are fitting within my Points for the day / week.
If nothing else, it was definitely a delicious day.
No regrets.
*Note: I am using tools from the Weight Watchers® program circa 2007, because that’s what I have. So, the Points values that I am using may differ from the current program.
I was going to make pumpkin muffins (Cooking Light recipe), but my husband brought home doughnuts as a special surprise for the kids. I had a blueberry doughnut; I wish I could count the blueberries as fruit, but I think that would be stretching it a bit too far (were there even any real blueberries in it?).
Snack / Lunch: Banana, Granola Bar, Water
The doughnut was a late breakfast, and so here was the plan I came up with to stay on track and within my Points for the day:
Instead of having a banana with breakfast, I would space it out and have the banana a little later. We did a park scavenger hunt in the afternoon, so I figured having the banana right before we left would keep me from getting too hungry while we were going to six different parks.
I brought a granola bar in case I did get hungry (Nature Valley™ Fruit & Nut). I probably also could/should have brought an apple, but I didn’t.
I also brought water, but I probably didn’t drink quite enough of it.
Dinner: Mac & Cheese, Spinach, Grapes, Water, Saltine Toffee
We had leftover mac & cheese from Day 7. I mixed mine with torn up fresh spinach and served it with grapes. My mother-in-law had sent home some saltine toffee with my husband (he got the doughnuts on the way home from helping her with some projects around the house), and I really wanted one, so I had one. I definitely could have had many, many more pieces, but I only had one.
Snack: Triscuits, Salsa, Cheese, Apple, Water
Back to this snack again – 6 reduced-fat Triscuits with salsa, reduced-fat cheese stick, and half of a sliced apple.
Exercise: ??
We did walk around six parks this afternoon looking for clues, but honestly, it wasn’t for very far or very long. Basically, we would quickly find the clues, and then the kids would play on the playground for awhile. So, the kids got plenty of exercise; me? Not so much I don’t think.
How Did I Do?
I think it was a good day for weight loss, but not my healthiest day.
Donut for breakfast; no fruit with this, but had fruit later.
No real lunch, but I did have a granola bar.
Dinner and snack were balanced and on target.
Plenty of water when we were home, but I probably didn’t have enough when we were gone.
Activity, but not sure I would call it exercise.
Despite this, I did manage to get at least five fruits and veggies, so that’s good.
No regrets.
*Note: I am using tools from the Weight Watchers® program circa 2007, because that’s what I have. So, the Points values that I am using may differ from the current program.
Kashi GO® Original with strawberries and 1% milk. That’s right, I finally had something other than Kashi biscuits.
I’m definitely a serial cereal eater
Lunch: Turkey Sandwich, Orange, Water, Chocolate Granola Bar
Turkey sandwich with whole grain bread, reduced-fat cheese slice, turkey, and shredded carrot, but this time I skipped the light mayo and mustard and topped it with salsa instead (I feel like I did this a lot in the 90s. I also had half of an orange, and a Kashi® Chocolate Almond Sea Salt granola bar. I was going clothes shopping with my 10-year-old, so I figured I needed a little something extra to get me through.
My mom also joined us for clothes shopping, and my younger daughter was hanging out with grandpa. We got done shopping pretty late, and decided to all have dinner together. My dad was getting Arby’s, but I really just wanted to have leftovers, so we all met at our house. Everybody else had Arby’s, and I had leftover polenta, sausage, and peppers and onions mixed with spinach and the tiny bit of leftover roasted squash and cauliflower from Day 6. I also had grapes, and chocolate-banana snack cake for dessert.
Interestingly, I was completely satisfied with my meal; I didn’t feel deprived, even though I was the only one not having fast food. I was so hungry after shopping, and it would have been really easy to give in, but I’m glad I didn’t.
Snack: Water
Because dinner was so late, I didn’t feel like I needed a snack. Plus, I had already had a couple of extras (granola bar, cake).
Exercise: 0 Minutes
I did feel exhausted after clothes shopping, but I don’t think I can count it as exercise.
How Did I Do?
Feeling good about today. Got plenty of water and fruits / veggies, made good food choices, and kept portions reasonable. Even when dinner plans went differently than what I had in mind, I stayed on track.
Losin' It 