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!

Making Meals Ahead!

I unexpectedly had last night free, so I used that time to get groceries and make some meals (and snacks!) to feed me for a little while. I like to freeze individual portions of things so I can have healthy frozen meals without all the salt & chemicals like the ones in the store (which I also eat on occasion!). I always bring a lunch to work with me, and this makes it much easier.

The only problem is that my freezer is very small, and doesn't always freeze things properly... which isn't good. I have to tell my landlord to get me a new fridge one of these days...

I started out by preparing some meatloaf! I made a few changes to that recipe: I just used pork and beef, not veal, and I improvised a bit on the breadcrumbs. I used some bread and a pita to make some of them, and filled in the rest with a container of store-bought breadcrumbs.

After I prepared the meatloaf, I made some pizza! The toppings were olive oil, fresh parsley, red onion, and potato! I felt very fancy:

While the meatloaf was in the oven, I ate 1/4 of the pizza, and finally made the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins that I had wanted to make on Thursday. They turned out really well. I stuck to the recipe pretty closely, except I used canola oil instead of vegetable oil, and fat-free plain yogurt instead of low-fat. (The batter was delicious, too!)

Before going in the oven:

And after:

Today I'm planning on making some beans and rice in my slow cooker... I won't have to cook again for awhile!

I also had a very on-plan day yesterday! The past couple of days, I just haven't had my typical insane desire for food! (This is a good AND UNUSUAL thing!) Yesterday I ate whenever I was hungry, and (maybe because I was so busy cooking), I only ate my daily points. I also worked out: I did the 30 Day Shred Level 3!

This was my first time trying Level 3... and I did not find it as difficult as I was expecting!! There was one move that I really struggled with & could just barely do the modified version. (It was being in a plank position with your hands still holding dumbbells, then you would lift one arm in a row, then lift a leg, and alternate. I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME get a hand off the ground while in the plank.) But the rest of it was pretty not-horrible!

Tonight I have Pilates class. Here's to another great day!