Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Puzzle Pieces

One really HUGE piece of the eat right/weight loss puzzle for David and I has been the change in our eating habits. I do so love to eat – as I think I mentioned before! And really I like all kinds of foods… mostly the ones that taste good, so therefore they aren’t good for you, but back to my point – since starting on this path to get healthy and get skinny I’ve changed the types of foods we’re eating for dinner.

When you’re counting calories – which is what we’re doing – it’s hard to “just make a meal” and think it’ll be OK to eat. Because by the end of the day – you really gotta know what you’ve eaten during the day so you know how much you can have at dinner. So in order to help me in this pursuit of cooking better food I set out to find recipes that had the nutritional information available for me (that simply made my life easier!). I have found 2 magazines that have been life savers for us. One of them is called Healthy Cooking – it’s published by Taste of Home. I made a LOT of the recipes out of it and I’d say 98% of them are things we liked enough to eat again! The other one is a Weight Watchers magazine and there are TONS of things in there that I’ve marked for us to try! I tried to get links for the recipes, but they wouldn’t let me. Both of the above mentioned have web sites! Taste of Home and Weight Watchers

Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of things we ate before that were on the healthy side, but I have no idea about the calorie count or anything like that. I also know – but haven’t used yet – that there are many web sites out there that can help you figure that stuff out!

So how do I do a weekly plan? Usually I sit down on Sunday afternoon and go thru these wonderful publications and pick what I want to make each night! I try to take into account any nights David won’t be here – as well as Thursday night which is usually designated as a “leftovers night” since I have Bible study that night!

We eat a variety of stuff for breakfast – usually something protable and fast, and David usually eats the same thing – a banana – unless it’s the weekend and I make eggs for breakfast! Then lunch is usually a turkey sandwich or a chef type salad for me!

Here is this week’s dinner menu:

Monday night: Thai Chicken Pasta (which was OK, but not one I’d rush to make again!)

Tuesday night: Individual garlic meat loaves with Chive mashed potatoes (these are WW recipes – which were totally YUMM-O!)

Wednesday night: Chicken and Edamame stir fry (from WW)

Thursday night: leftovers or sandwiches

Friday night: Corn, chicken and cheddar soup (WW)

Saturday night: homemade pizzas

Sunday night – omelets

So that’s a basic week here at the Winslow house. There is no rule that says we have to eat these meals in a certain order or that they need to be made on the day I originally listed them. One day I would like to get really good at the whole meal planning thing and be able to cook most of the stuff I need for the whole week at once. But I’m not there yet… one step at a time!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Luke



Shortly after Luke was born.




Luke at almost a year

His first birthday


Second birthday

Birthday #3

And last year's birthday

It's amazing how fast the time goes, and how big he looks now!! I'll post pictures of him after his BIG 5 YEAR OLD BASH on Saturday!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Food

Today’s been hard! Not hard like the kids have been bad or I’ve had something awful happen to me, or even something kinda bad – nope, nothing bad has happened. It’s just been hard in the sense that I would really like to eat. And eat a bunch of really bad for me stuff! Which I haven’t done in a while (well, except Christmas and New Years!), and am working on NOT doing today!

I’m talking about greasy, cheesy, fatty, yummy stuff! Pizza, boneless wings from Buffalo Wild Wings, a bacon cheeseburger from Five Guys and a big, big thing of french fries!!! Goodness, that’s just making it worse!!!

Here’s the thing – at least for me. I know I CAN have that stuff… any of that that I want, cause every once in a while isn’t a big deal, but I’ve been working hard, hard, hard for the last 2 months to really watch my calorie intake so I can lose weight! And after sweating up a storm this morning riding the bike for 30 minutes and burning only 140 calories. That's a lot of work for so few calories to be burned. So I’m choosing NOT to eat those things today! Even though I want to, really bad! I even had this thought about it leaving the gym this morning…

“When I get down to _____ (this weight) I’m gonna go for some really yummy Don Juan’s!”

WHAT???

Why would I want to reward myself with food when I’ve worked for 2 months to lose 14 pounds?!?! It’s just what we do isn’t it?!?! We feel like we deserve something for all our hard work! No one was rewarding me when I was putting the weight on, but now I want to reward myself with food when taking the weight off?!?!?! Maybe that's how I got here in the first place!? OK – maybe I can be convinced to reward myself with a new pair of shoes instead!! I do so love shoes!

Anyway, so far in this journey to a thinner me – I’ve had a few days that have been challenging. The feelings of being stressed out and needing to (but only really wanting to) eat has sometimes been overwhelming and at times depressing. Cause boy, it’s hard to work out 5 days a week and get on the scale and have lost nothing or maybe only .5 lbs. That’s hard! It’s a long, slow process sometimes. It can get a person down for sure! But I like to remember this little thing that David has hanging on the wall in his office. Helps me to remember that if Christopher Columbus can sail across the ocean, I can go without some yummy Mexican food!



The diary of Christopher Columbus shows that he fed the greater self and starved the lower as he went through rough storms, dealt with damaged ships, faced deprivation and feared mutiny. Day after day the entries in his log were alike.
“This day we sailed on.”

Sunday, January 3, 2010

And the start of a new one!

How do you start the New Year?

With thoughts of changing your lifestyle? Eat better, lose weight, exercise more, make more money, be a better wife, mother, sister, friend? Go to church more; meet the right “other half” of you?

Let me tell you how the Winslow’s have been spending the first few days of 2010… by cleaning up and moving out! Yup, that’s right - GET IT OUTTA this house! That’s been our motto here the last couple of days!

So in order to do this David and I have been tackling our “areas” of the house. For me that means the kids toys – both in their bedrooms and in the living room area. This is not my most favorite job, but it’s even less fun when the kids are around! It’s hard to get rid of toys when they see you putting them in a bag – even explaining that we’ll be giving them to kids who don’t have toys doesn’t always get it at this age! Then to add insult to injury, Avery says yesterday (after finding Elmo in the giveaway bag) “MY Elmo. I love him! Take him wit me.” OK – fine, take him with you! But I’ve managed to make some room so that’s good!

The other thing we came across was a whole box full of old CD’s. There were also some DVDs and even a few VHS tapes in the box. We don’t even have a VCR anymore!!!! Those things are almost like dinosaurs!!! Anyway, in order to make room and do something to get rid of the CD’s – David started the process of downloading them to his computer so they could be put on his iPod. It’s only taken a few hours a day for the last 2 days, but he’s got all the ones he wants on his computer. Now, for me to do the same!! Goodness, when did the CD become so outta date that we gotta put the music on the computer so it can be again transferred to the iPod?!?!

That lead us to thinking and talking about how much things have changed since we were kids! When I was a kid we still played records (you know the thin round things that play with the turn-table and the long arm with the needle on the end!) at our house and had books on record that my sister and I used to listen to. Now, Luke is totally familiar with an iPod and that it can not only play music but if you have the right iPod you can play games on it as well! Holy cow!!! What will the technology be like when our kids are our age!?!???

All this has lead to a cleaner, bigger feeling house and many, many bags to be taken to Goodwill!

So however you have started you’re New Year, I hope it’s been wonderful – and hope it continues to be!