Brocco-tastic!

Good morning, all!

So, I know you've all been dying to know if I made it out of bed yesterday morning for a 5 am workout... I did!

My alarm went off at 4:45 (for some snooze time)... I reached my hand over to my nightstand where I'd left an apple to entice me out of bed and had a bite... and then finished it when I got up around 4:55. I knew I needed to use all sorts of tricks to psych myself up at that hour.

Then I proceeded to let Jillian kick my butt! To change things up, I did the 30 Day Shred Level 2. I hope my jumping jacks didn't wake up my basement neighbour...

The reason I decided to do a morning workout was not because I didn't have the time later in the day, but because I LOVE how great I feel afterwards. I'm much more alert and awake than usual. Plus, if I'd left it until I got home from work, I probably wouldn't have wanted to do it.

On Monday, I tried my third recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry! Another winner! I made the pad thai (Tongue Thai'd):

AND, last night, I actually invented my own recipe!! I never do this. And, well, to be honest, I did copy all of the delicious elements from another recipe.

I had a ton of broccoli left over in my fridge, and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Then, I remembered one of my FAVOURITE ways to cook chicken: This Indonesian Chicken recipe from the blog A Year of Slow Cooking. The reason I love it is the hot, gooey, peanut butter sauce.

I decided to try the same recipe, using broccoli instead of chicken! (Because in my opinion, whatever you throw in there is just a vehicle for the peanut butter).

Behold: Katie's Peanut Butter Broccoli!

• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (I'd run out of soy sauce, so I used a couple of packets I had leftover from Chinese food)
• 2 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
• a few dashes of hot sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon jarred ginger
• 4 cups broccoli
• some chicken broth that I threw in later (not sure how much)

I put everything except the chicken broth in my slow cooker on high and stirred it around as best I could. After maybe 20 minutes, it seemed to be really dry in there (I'm not really a pro... I don't think you're supposed to open your slow cooker often to stir things around/taste test/etc, but I definitely did) so I poured in some chicken broth every now and then.

I had it on high for maybe an hour and 20 minutes (my slow cooker is not very slow), and then I decided it was done. Voila:

It was so good! I ate it right away, so it had a high hotness/gooeyness factor that I really liked. It yielded 3 cups for me, and I calculated 1/4 cup to be 1 point. So, it's a bit pointy for a broccoli dish (I wanted to eat it all), but I liked it.

I really just wanted to share the original recipe with you, because I LOVE the sauce in it so much! And maybe next time I make this dish, I'll use more broccoli and chicken broth, and less peanut butter, to try and keep the points down.

What's your favourite way to eat broccoli? Do you leave apples (or other food) on your nightstand for morning?

Cookin' (and Lookin') Good!

I am a proud Weight Watcher! I wore my name tag from Saturday's meeting all the way home (under my jacket...):

Do you ever forget that you live alone and buy enough groceries throughout the week to feed a small army? I do. Often. So I've been doing some cooking & baking (which means I pick recipes that necessitate me picking up a few MORE groceries, and the cycle continues...). Here are some of my eats from the past couple of days:

Loaf Potion # 9 from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry! It has cranberries, walnuts, carrots, and zucchini in it. SO DELICIOUS!

I made it a double-loaf day with some banana bread.

(I know, I know... it doesn't really look like banana bread. It's a weird recipe, I think). The recipe is from The Duke Diet. I think the best part is the brown sugar and walnuts on top.

I brought some of each loaf to my parents & my sister and froze some more. As I mentioned above, I live alone (and as much as I'd like to, I probably shouldn't eat vast quantities of baked goods in short periods of time).

One of my impulse grocery buys was some fat-free ham. I hemmed and hawed over the high sodium content, but decided to treat myself (in small portions). And so the past couple of mornings I've been enjoying a healthified egg mcmuffin for breakie (with egg whites, light cheddar cheese, and a whole wheat english muffin! And the ham, of course).

And today's lunch creation:

My first time making cream of broccoli soup! It was pretty good. I got to use my immersion blender, which is always a good time. :)

I had it with some black beans, corn, and cheese on a tortilla (with greek yogourt)!

Tonight: pad thai! Seriously! More cooking!

I've also already gotten TWO workouts out of the way this week! Yesterday I went for an awesome treadmill run. I reached NEW SPEEDS (I think). I definitely had some (short) intervals that were around level 6.5. I covered 2.75 miles in 30 minutes. I don't think I've ever run that much before in that time period! It felt great!

This morning I started my day with the Intermediate workout from my Booty Camp dvd. Does anyone else find it easier than the Beginner workout, or am I just getting stronger? ;)

In other news, apparently I look great:

• Last week, one of my students from last semester noticed I'd lost weight.
• Today, I went to a coffee shop where I like to work sometimes, and the girl working there said I look really good and I should keep doing whatever I'm doing! I didn't even know she knew who I was!

I'm used to people who haven't seen me in a couple of years telling me I look different, but I'm not used to people who only know the "new me" noticing new changes (does that sentence make sense?).

I haven't lost much weight in the past couple of months, but I think my body composition has changed (thanks to Booty Camp!) and that must be what they're noticing. Yay! My clothes are fitting pretty well.

I have a cockeyed idea that I'm going to get up at 5 am tomorrow to squeeze a workout in before work... yeah, wish me luck with that. (Don't worry, if I can't do it, I'll work out sometime in the afternoon instead).

Have a nice night, all!

Weigh-In!

Happy Saturday, everyone!

So I had my wonderful Weight Watchers meeting today, with the wonderful Ashley. (Um, is it obvious how much I love my meetings?) Today's meeting was especially great - 2 members got their 10%'s, 2 members got to goal, and 2 members got LIFETIME! WOW! If that's not inspiring, I don't know what is!

I was a bit nervous about my weigh-in... I had trouble resisting food several times this week... and for some reason, decided it was a good idea to buy White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter a few days ago.

But I was down 1.8!! That means I've lost weight two weeks in a row! It has been forever since that's happened. Can I make it three??

True, I haven't lost the 4.2 I was up two weeks ago, but I don't even care. What's the rush, am I right?

What I accomplished last week:

• 3 "real" workouts and some extra walking. (I did the 30 Day Shred Level 3 twice, and I did the "Bring the Heat" Cardio workout from my Booty Camp dvd once.)
• Despite a few bouts of emotional eating, I kept persisting and did not throw my entire week down the toilet.

Goals for this week:

• at least 3 workouts.
• measuring and tracking my food accurately!
• drinking 4 water bottles' worth of water every day!

What are your goals for next week?

Adventures in the Kitchen

On Tuesday, I made not one, but two brand new recipes (simultaneously, no less)!

Firstly, I made the No Weigh, Jose! Mexican Lasagna from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry. It was AMAZING! It consists of layers of ground chicken and black beans, tomato-ey goodness, cheese, and tortillas. Here it is about to go into the oven:

While it was baking, I started mixing together the ingredients for Mini Shrimp Rolls from Green Lite Bites. In the bowl are shrimp, spinach, green onions, ginger, garlic, and shredded carrots.

Then, I attempted wrapping the won ton wrappers:

As you can see, they did not want to stay shut.

The recipe calls for 16 wrappers, but I used 18 and still had some filling leftover. I restuffed some of my early attempts, and this motley crew is what I ended up with:

Meanwhile, my lasagna was baking away (remember??)! Here it is, fresh out of the oven (note the won ton stuffing going on in the background):

The lasagna was TO DIE FOR!

The shrimp rolls turned out okay, too:

I discovered I liked them better cold... but the best part about them... I crunched the numbers... and one roll is ZERO points. 3 rolls = 1 point, 6 rolls = 3 points, and 9 (half the recipe the way I made it) = 4 points.

I've been a happy Katie with some yummy leftovers (the shrimp rolls did not last too long, though)!

The cooking extravaganza did claim some casualties, however:

The band-aids are because I "grated" two of my fingers while grating cheese (for the lasagna) and carrots (for the shrimp rolls)... and that poor plastic lid was sitting on the stove whilst it preheated to 375 degrees. (Actually, if you look at all the pictures of the lasagna from this post - you can see the lid sitting on the stove before the lasagna goes in the oven... then when the lasagna is out of the oven, you can see the remains on the burner. The poor lid never saw it coming!)

The things we go through for our health!

And this is what I just ate for dinner, along with some lentil curry:

That is a HUGE bowl, people. I'm not always a salad person, but I wanna be, I swear. I'm usually okay as long as I pile on enough avocado. Today, I had a stroke of genius and threw in some corn! It was amazing! I ate the whooooooole thing (yay for volume food)! Also, it took me like 30 minutes to conquer... good way to preoccupy myself from grabbing other, unhealthy treats!

What do you like in your salads? Have you ever gotten a bit overzealous with the cheese grater, like I did?

Quick Check-In

I wanted to write a quick post, mostly for myself to remember how proud I am at this moment.

Remember how easy everything was on Sunday? Oh my, how things can change. ;)

Somehow, on Monday, I ate 29 over my daily points (of 25). Eep! Luckily, I had the weekly points to account for it. I don't even know how it happened! Just some Doritos here, some toast there, and BAM. 29 points in the hole.

So, fine. No big deal. I'll just watch it for the rest of the week, right?

Well. I keep chocolates in my desk at work for days that I want to bribe my students. A very dumb place for them, because I open my drawer to get something out, and I see them. Today was not a high-willpower kind of day (I got very little sleep last night and I've got a few things on my mind - excuses, excuses!), so I ate 9 plain chocolates, and 3 peanut butter ones!

So why am I proud? Well, I kept track while I ate them, and counted up all the points when I got home. I was on the verge (and may have started) going nuts eating everything in my cupboard, but somehow I convinced myself to do the 30 Day Shred Level 3. (Because it's only 20 minutes, I usually can't excuse my way out of it).

So now I'm feeling shredded by Jillian, and no longer on the verge of a crazy binge. Working out made me crave some healthy food, rather than junk, and I am still feeling really good about this week.

It just goes to show that I can avoid going completely over the top after one (or two) small bouts of uncontrollable eating! The damage done was not that bad, and my week is NOT shot to hell!

Tonight I am trying my first recipe from Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry: Mexican lasagna. I will let you know how it goes!

Easy vs. Hard

I had my weigh-in yesterday morning.

Drumroll, please.......

Down 1.4! *sigh of relief*

I am SO GLAD that I went hardcore for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week (rather than give up because I'd already "ruined" it) because I couldn't have handled seeing another gain. I could focus on the fact that I haven't lost the 4.2 pounds I gained last week, or that I'm only down 1.8 pounds overall since late December, but I won't! I will focus on the fact that I am back on track and feeling really good. :)

Yesterday, I had my parents over for dinner and decided to try the chicken parmesan recipe from last month's Clean Eating magazine (my first--but not my last--time buying it!). I decided to recreate one of my favourite restaurant meals (from the grad pub at my university): a chicken parm wrap!

But, alas, my grocery store did not carry panko bread crumbs. So I grabbed some Fibre 1 cereal instead, remembering that Hungry Girl uses it to coat things all the time. I kind of combined her recipe with the Clean Eating one (but it was mostly hers), and ended up with this:

And then I grilled the wraps on my George Foreman (which I've never done before, but clearly will be doing ALL THE TIME now):

The verdict? They were... fine. I don't know if I love the Fibre 1 as a coating (it sure kept the Points low, though! I calculated half a wrap to be 4 points). The other problem was the tomato sauce (which was mainly from the Clean Eating recipe). It just wasn't exactly what I was hoping for.

Today though, I made a wrap from leftovers, and added in some sliced tomato, and it was pretty great.

To go with the wraps, I made some potato wedge fries (the wedge recipe is after the sushi recipe in the link) from Rose Reisman's The Complete Light Kitchen.

They turned out really well. The last time I made them (just for myself), I had planned on having leftovers... I ended up eating them ALL. So I am very pleased to say that last night's leftovers are still in a container in my fridge! I managed to keep myself from eating EVERY LAST WEDGE like I usually do!

The past few days have been "easy" days for me. I haven't had many food cravings, my willpower has been strong (although I haven't been faced with eating out), and I've been paying attention to my hunger signals.

For example: last night, I made these chocolate ricotta rolls for dessert.

I didn't love them (because of the ricotta... I'm not a huge fan of the texture), so even though I had planned for them, I didn't finish them. I still have a couple in my fridge. I decided it wasn't worth it to eat them. I wasn't hungry, and they didn't taste that good. Usually, I would eat them anyway (hey, I'd already made the decision to eat them, right?), but I re-evaluated while eating, and didn't want them anymore.

(I plan on using won ton wrappers a lot in my future though...)

Have you noticed that sometimes (er... often) eating well and exercising is the HARDEST THING IN THE WORLD and sometimes it's like "Um, why do I ever have a problem with this? Why did I get overweight? Eating healthy feels good and it's easy and I don't even NEED all of my points to get through the day!"

Luckily, today is an easy day... but the past little while, I've had a lot of hard days (and I know I will again). Such is life, I suppose. For now, I'll enjoy the easy days while they last. :)

What else is new?

I'm feeling like myself again, and I couldn't be happier about it. Whenever I have bad days, I have to have faith that everything will click back into place again.

But is it enough to just be feeling good now? Chezjulie made a very helpful comment after I posted about my poor habits of late:

So what was different this past week? Did you plan? Did you have some special events crop up? Did you stop tracking? Were you stressed?

There's got to be reasons why one week is so different from the next. Or do you think you're just getting bored with making the effort (honeymoon period's over?) or scared of getting to goal?

I definitely need to ask myself why I go so far off-track. I don't see a problem with having the occasional day where I go over points or skip a workout. But my recent trend of big gains followed by big losses just shows how erratic my eating has been (note: I'm never UNDER-eating, just over-eating like crazy, then eating healthfully).

I came up with some possible reasons that I have been self-sabotaging (many of chezjulie's points are right on the mark!):

• Afraid to lose more weight/get to goal. I've been in the same weight range (between 190-200 pounds--right now I'm in the mid to high 180's) for almost a year. I'm comfortable where I am, people keep complimenting me on how great I look, and I've accumulated some new clothes that fit me well. Maybe, deep down, I'm afraid of more change?

• Not always getting enough sleep. When I am tired, I get cranky and emotional. The littlest thing can have me in tears. In this state, I'm liable to eat anything and everything instead of just GOING TO BED. I have to wake up around 5:30 or 5:45 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays for work, which is really tough--especially because I don't wake up that early every morning, so my body is not used to it.

• Lack of routine. Last week, I was off from work, and I had friends visit over the weekend (one friend stayed all weekend). Obviously, it was wonderful seeing my friends, but it threw my usual routine out of whack. Now, the friend who stayed with me knows I am on Weight Watchers, and is extremely supportive. She always suggested we cook instead of going out, and even took the Points quiz for herself and half-considered tracking along with me (she is AWESOME). Of course, because I was so hellbent on self-sabotaging, I insisted on going out for meals/ordering pizza/not exercising way too often throughout the weekend.

• Giving myself permission to overeat for any reason I could think of. As you can see, when my friend was visiting, I had even MORE incentive to eat well. She did not pressure me to eat badly at all. But because I had a friend visiting and I put myself in FUN CELEBRATION MODE, I gave myself permission to go off-plan. And I did. And once I go off-plan, I always know I will be back on plan soon. This is good and bad: while I am "allowed" to, I eat as much junk as I can because I won't be able to eat it again soon. It's like a switch in my brain is flipped. Somehow I have to train myself to just do everything moderately all the time, instead of having these two extremes.

• Not enough me-time. I need to have some time to myself to regroup, look through recipe books, make grocery lists, and things like that. Despite being off of work last week, I did not have much time to myself. Sometimes, when I'm stressed out and have not planned any non-food treats or me-time, I get through the day by thinking of what delicious thing I can eat next. It goes something like this: I'm not having a very good day. I need something to look forward to. Hmmm, what can I eat? Then I think of all the delicious possibilities (that are not even really that delicious, to be honest) and cram as many of them in as possible. If my day is full of enough things that I enjoy (or healthy delicious food to look forward to), I won't fall into this trap.

These are all definitely things that I can work on. I know I also have some more soul-searching to do (and I will).

So, enough of the analysis! What have I been up to these past few days? How did I get back on plan? (I know you're all DYING to find out...)

Well, while my friend was visiting, we got haircuts!

Before (Ugh!):

After (Hott!):

Aside from the haircut, I also got some me-time in the form of shopping therapy. I picked up a couple of new books I've been hankering for: Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, and Eat, Shrink & Be Merry! by Janet & Greta Podleski:

Last night, I got some healthy groceries to get me through the rest of this week:

Since Wednesday morning (when I got back on track), I have been focusing on filling foods and drinking water like it's going out of style (I'm trying my best to salvage Saturday morning's weigh-in)!

Today I actually got my butt out the door for a run! I realized it was March Break and that the outdoor track at a high school near my house would be free of teenagers.

But when I got to the track, there was a man there... not running (which I could have dealt with)... but golfing! I had no desire to be struck by a golf ball, so I moved on to jog on the street. I tried a new route than usual, and found another high school with a track a few blocks away! It first appeared to be impenetrable, but I found an entrance off a parking lot. Success!

After running for 30 minutes, I walked home... and did 20 minutes of strength training! Wahoo!

Sweaty & disheveled, but still damn cute!

Now I'm drinking a green smoothie and basking in that self-righteous "I just exercised" feeling.

Aaaaaaah, it feels good to be back! :)

Weigh-In

Let's not talk about the fact that I gained 4.2 pounds at my weigh-in on Saturday, after going over my points (or not tracking at all) on most days last week.

Let's not talk about the greek food, the baklava, the pizza, the chicken strip-things, and the buttery popcorn I ate on Saturday, or that I was really sick to my stomach at around 4 am on Sunday (I really can't put it away like I used to!).

Let's not talk about the entire container of Ben and Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that I just ate in one sitting (or the huge veal and pancetta burger and fries I had for lunch today).

Let's not talk about how nervous I am about weighing in this coming Saturday and being up again, or the fact that I have not been consistent for months now, or how scared I am that I won't get my groove back.

Let's talk about how I will try again tomorrow. Because I have no other choice.

On Plan on the Road?

Does the air up North make anyone else's appetite INSATIABLE?

On Wednesday, my mom rented a van, and I helped her move some furniture up to the cottage my parents bought this summer.

My mom and I have done a lot of moving (mostly moving me around before/during/after university). But this time, we bit off more than we could chew:

Let's back up.

Knowing that we would be doing a lot of driving, and that the temptation to eat all of our meals out would be VERY strong, I did some pre-packing:

I wanted to make sure that any craving my mom and I had would be met (with something healthy!). I had hardboiled eggs, homemade hummus, crackers, steel cut oats (for a cottage breakfast), granola bars, homemade date-coconut bars, red lentil curry (for a cottage dinner), plain yogurt with fruit, and some orange slices all ready to go.

When we first arrived at the cottage, our property was covered in snow (no one has been there since October). We got to work (our plan was to back the car right up to the front steps so we could easy-peasy slide things up and in to the cottage).

Now, I have not shoveled in at least a year. It is HARD WORK. This snow had been sitting a long time, and was really hard to chip away.

We worked and worked and my muscles are still aching, two days later. But I treated it like I was just trying to get a really good workout (and not like I was trying to clear an impossible amount of snow). I tried to have "good form" (what is good shoveling form?) and use my legs and hold my core tight (hey, it really helped!).

By the time we had shoveled as much as we could, it was already dark, so we left the unloading for Thursday morning. Most of the unloading was fine. Then it was time to move the huge (well, normal-sized) pull-out couch. We were not able to back the car up very close to the house (while trying, it got stuck in the mud), and we were not able to totally clear the snow. We had a long path to move the couch along, then a few stairs.

It was the hardest thing EVER. I'm usually very positive, but I kept telling my mom we would NOT be able to do it (I was being a bit of a cranky pants!).

We ended up having to drag it across the snow and mud (with a couple of garbage bags to protect it), then shimmy it slowly up the stairs.

I may or may not have burst into tears at one point.

We finally got it inside and said "never again."

So, what with all the shoveling and horrible couch-moving, I definitely got some activity in. But I also got in a lot of food (I guess my mentality was that I should reward myself for my hard work). I did eat many of the snacks I brought, though, and if I hadn't had them, things would have been much worse. (I like to look on the bright side!)

Let's hope it somewhat balances out and I don't see a gain tomorrow...

In other news, the scenery was very pretty (although it frightened me to see people ice fishing and skidooing on the lakes... it has been a MILD WINTER! I was wearing a t-shirt while moving, and there was open water among the ice!)

I may not be posting over the weekend, because in about an hour I'm meeting one of my best friends (my old university roommate) at the bus station! She is staying with me until Monday, and tomorrow we will be joined by two of our other old roommates for the day. We all live in different cities now, so visits like this are all too rare.

Don't worry, I will still go to my Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow morning--although it will be hard to stay on plan with my friends around... not because they are the type to sabotage me in any way, but just because I'll be in the "celebration" mindset. Wish me luck!

I will report back soon with tomorrow's weigh-in AND Tuesday's booty camp results! I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Last Booty Camp Tonight!

Sunday was a bit of a write-off.

I tried to go for a run to take advantage of the beautiful weather, but instead I took a nap in my running clothes (seriously). Then I kind of pigged out during the Oscars.

Thankfully, it was back down to business on Monday! Yesterday, Kate mentioned that she had a sugar hangover... so did I. After I eat a bunch of junk, I feel really gross the next morning. It takes awhile for my stomach to get back to normal.

I never used to feel horrible after eating junk food (back when I would eat it all the time)... unless I did feel horrible, but didn't notice because I felt like that all the time? My body really notices now when I give it junk to eat. I guess it's gotten used to the good stuff!

I had a green smoothie to try and fool my stomach into feeling better, and then I managed to actually get out the door in my running clothes! I ran for half an hour, but I was struggling by the end. I barely made it home. I definitely needed more than a green smoothie before my run... I had slept in, so my blood sugar was running pretty low.

I had a huge pile of marking to contend with when I got home,

so I settled in with a coffee and one of Jess's two-minute flax muffins - you make them in the microwave! It was so easy to make, but I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about them. I'll probably keep making them just because they're so fast and healthy! Here are the ingredients all lined up (as you can see, I do a lot of shopping at bulk food stores):

And mixed up in my mug:

And the final product (I never said it would be pretty!):

I had it with some jam.

I barely made a dent in my marking, so that's what's on the agenda for today (good thing I'm up bright and early!). I also need to do some planning. I will be away from home (mostly in a car, and packing/unpacking) with my mom from Wednesday-Thursday, and I am DETERMINED to stay on-plan! I will let you know how it goes!

I also have my LAST Booty Camp session tonight. Wow, I can't believe it's been 8 weeks since I started. I really want to sign up again (and probably will). I'm pretty curious as to what my measurements will be tonight... hopefully I won't have gained weight again like I had at the 4-week mark! At any rate, I feel MUCH stronger and fitter than I did 8 weeks ago. I will let you know how the measurements go... probably. ;)

Last night was my last Pilates class, too... what will I do without these pre-paid classes to keep me motivated?!

90 Pounds Lost!

So, how did my week of hardcore planning go?

I was down 11.8 pounds today. I'm still in shock. The receptionist was shocked. Now, impressive as this sounds (and I am proud of my week), this brings my last 3 weeks' total to 1.6 pounds lost. (So, not as crazy as it seems).

My recent trend of gaining a lot of weight one week (from eating way too much), then losing it all the next is not one I'm particularly happy with. I would LOVE to have multiple weeks in a row of losing reasonable amounts.

This week also brings me to 90 pounds lost (90.8 to be exact) since August 2007! I used to weigh 276 pounds and today I weighed in at 185.2. I'm also getting closer to my Weight Watchers 10% goal (which will happen at 181.8 pounds).

Vague, Incomplete Plan for this week:

- Pilates on Monday, last Booty Camp on Tuesday

- some sort of workout this weekend (maybe a long walk today in the BEAUTIFUL Toronto weather, and something more intense tomorrow)

- meal planning to some degree

Challenges facing me this week:

- will not be at home all of this week (am helping my Mom move a bunch of stuff up to a cottage for a couple of days)

- week off from work = lack of normal routine

I also want to work on getting in enough dairy servings every day! Milk in my coffee, 1/2 cup of yogurt, and the occasional 15 grams of cheese just ain't cutting it! It won't be difficult for me to do this, in that I love drinking milk... I usually just don't want to spare the points. But I must!

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

Last Day of Preplanned Meals (this week)!

Last Sunday, desperate to be back in control of my food, I did a crazy amount of planning.

I have had an AMAZING week. I'll admit, sometimes I ate extra snacks that weren't planned if I was hungry (or if some dried cranberries just kind of fell in my mouth), but I tracked it all and am within my points! This despite a buffet lunch yesterday!

Somehow (probably only because I gave up junk food for Lent) I avoided all of the cakes/squares/pies at the dessert table and stuck to fruit. It's funny: at the time, I felt like I was making balanced, healthy choices at the buffet and not overdoing it (and I'm very proud of how I did), but when I estimated all the points later, it was over 30! I also felt a bit too full afterwards (but not as bad as I usually feel after buffets).

On Wednesday night, I was out at a bar but only had one sip of my sister's beer (it helped that I knew I had to get up at 6 am the next morning for work). Here we are (I debuted my new blouse!):

Has anyone else been taking full advantage of the Toronto coffee wars? In order to compete with Roll Up The Rim at Tim Hortons, McDonald's is offering free small coffees. Last night after Booty Camp, I passed a McDonald's and got one (they actually gave me a medium!) even though it was around 8 pm. I've also been enjoying rolling up my rim though, as I usually stop by the Tim Hortons at least once a day at work...

This morning, I decided to get some fresh air and walk to McDonald's for my morning coffee (don't worry, I didn't buy anything else there). I enjoyed it with some steel cut oats a la Jess (i.e. with egg whites!):

Such a lonely looking blob of peanut butter. I must say, I liked the egg white addition! A great way to get some more protein in my oats. I was FULL after this! (I also added some extra peanut butter at the end...)

I am very excited for my Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow. Don't you love that feeling? I doubt I'll have lost all of that extra weight I put on last week, but I'm not in (much of a) hurry. Slow and steady, right?

Hodge-Podge

Booty Camp tonight was the brutalest workout OF ALL TIME. Yes. Brutalest. We did a series of timed intervals, so it was just insane brutality (for 1 minute? an eternity? I'm not sure) followed by 15 seconds of rest. Repeat.

There were jumping squats (hopping forwards and backwards). There were burpees. There was some psychotic tricep-dip-meets-marching-in-the-air move.

There were leg lifts. There were jumping jacks. There were mountain climbers. There were pushups. There were these crazy flutter kicks that sound cute & fun, but were literally impossible to do for longer than 3 seconds at a time. And the lunges... My God, the lunges.

While I definitely feel way stronger than I did at the beginning of Booty Camp, this workout made me see how much more fit I could be! haha. So now I really want to sign up for another session. I'll have to see if my finances allow it!

I know that I "could" workout without spending the money, but let's be serious: if I wasn't taking this Booty Camp class, I would not have worked out nearly as often in the past 8 weeks (and there's no way I would have worked out as hard). Plus, it's fun! I really look forward to it every Tuesday and Thursday.

So far, I've been sticking to all of my pre-planned meals for the week (with a few extra added snacks). I think I'm going to some kind of charity event (with food, I'm sure) tomorrow night, and I'm going out for lunch on Thursday, but I should be able to... no, I will be able to still eat reasonably and keep this nice, healthy feeling. :)

In other news, Lynn over at Life, Health & Fitness is having a giveaway for HoneyBars! If you would like to win a box of assorted HoneyBars (do I even need to tell you what they are? Has the name not already convinced you you want one?), go check out this post. (Not gonna lie, I really want to win this...)

Hope you're all having a happy, peaceful Tuesday night!

X-TREME Meal Planning

As you may know, I've been struggling with food lately. I haven't been in control of my food, it's been in control of me.

So I took drastic action.

It began on Saturday night. I did some preliminary meal planning:

Then, on Sunday, I got the necessary groceries and spent a few hours cooking, chopping, pre-portioning, packaging, and labeling. Behold:

And close-up:

That's right. Those are all of my lunches, dinners, and snacks (except already-portioned things like fruit and granola bars) for the rest of the week (exceptions: I'm planning on eating two meals out this week, and for some reason Friday dinner is not accounted for. But that shouldn't be a problem).

It's like my very own Nutrisystem! Hmmmm... Katri-system?

I didn't want to have to THINK at all this week. I just wanted everything laid out for me so I would have NO EXCUSES. Some highlights:

- red lentil curry

- homemade hummus (I don't use tahini though... I like it better without!)

- tofu stirfry

- triscuits!

- date coconut bar

I didn't pre-make my breakfasts, because it's not usually breakfast where I go off-track. I already have not stuck with my plan 100% (I had a latte today, and I'm having an extra snack), but this will be accounted for with weekly points and activity points.

Obviously, this is not something I can do every week. I happened to be able to make the time for it this weekend, because I knew I had to do something radical to jumpstart my eating again. And I have some extra leftovers because I made big batches of the red lentil curry & tofu stirfry, so there is more in the freezer for upcoming weeks! :)

The only drawback to a mass cooking session:

I've also got this week's exercise off to a good start! As I mentioned on Saturday, I did the Booty Camp Beginner Workout from the DVD. I also managed to go for a swim on Sunday! I have Pilates class tonight, and Booty Camp on Tuesday & Thursday, so even if I don't do anything else, I feel pretty set.

How are you planning to be healthy this week?