Best (and strangest) moments of the night:
- Dinner with my best dinner gang which includes one of my best friends, PB
- Watching PB freak out over the three spiders that decided to wander near her a little too close to the table
- Deciding not to take the high road and proceeding to lecture PB and point out that that is precisely why I don’t like to eat outdoors regardless of how wonderful the weather (I’m a great friend like that)
- Watching a progression of at least 50 bike cops slowly ride down the street on the way home from dinner and deciding I am a much better biker than all of them
- Coming home and deciding that instead of going to bed it was the perfect time to research potential new houseplants and getting strangely excited at the thought of expanding my plant family to four
- Deciding to randomly check out garlic presses online because one day I really will have to give cooking another try
- Finally seeing the movie Almost Famous and enjoying it (once again, at the expense of going to sleep)
A delightful night, indeed. Now, off to bed…maybe.
What am I up to? Oh nothing much. Just enjoying my oldest nephew’s little league game on this beautiful, but warm day! It’s always fun to see kids having fun and as a bonus I get to hang with my other nephews and niece. Swim is postponed until tomorrow, but I think it was worth it. Great start to a long weekend!
Waving the White Flag
I once again lost the battle with my obsession with chips. I broke my “banned from the house” decree Sunday because recently I developed a problem with my previously innocent fruit snacks. I avoided buying more fruit snacks and smugly patted myself on the back. And I thought that the chips would be ok because I had a new food craving—as usual I was wrong. And after two nights of destroying a perfectly good and well-planned eating agenda with those damn delicious chips the scale is noticeably up. I’ll just have to wait another week for that great weigh in I was trudging towards.
First moral of this story—-I probably never will be able to have a healthy relationship with chips. It’s time I learn to live with that fact and stop thinking a few months of detox will cure me. After all, I’ve battled this love of chips for as long as I can remember (that’s not an exaggeration). I don’t know why I keep testing myself when I know deep down I will fail. Those chips never stood a chance.
Second moral of this story—-the more physically active I became over the past two years, the more I relied on those burned calories to eat way too many unhealthy foods. Foods I never really learned to eat in moderation. The one bright side of this injury is that I’m confronting my eating habits head on. I physically can’t burn those junk food calories away right now. I think it’s fine to splurge once in a while but my splurges eventually were happening several times a week. I got away with it for a while because I did work out faithfully. Even today I found myself eating chips and for a second thinking, “It’s ok, we’ll have a really good work out tonight and tomorrow and burn those extra points” (since I’m a Weight Watchers follower, I think in terms of points instead of calories). I keep forgetting that I can’t just get up and run or kick box or do anything else vigorous. I can’t even walk! Now the chickens (or I guess in my case the chips and candy and cookies) have come home to roost.
I’ll see the official damage on the scale Thursday. For now, I’ll just keep chugging along and work a little harder on making better decisions each night. When you can’t really work out you really understand when they say weight loss is mainly based on eating instead of working out.
Happy Mother’s Day!
My mom doesn’t know about my blog, but she deserves a special shout-out anywhere I can make it happen. Mama Jay is one of the most giving and loving and supportive people in the world. Sometimes people take advantage of that. She hasn’t had the easiest or happiest life but did everything she could to make sure my sister and I had everything we needed and everything (within reason) we wanted.
Mama Jay is the only person I know I can call literally anytime and talk about anything. In grad school when I had insomnia and thought I would go crazy, I actually did call her at all times of the night. I simply can’t express how much I love and admire her. I only want to make her proud and happy. The past two years have been hard because I feel like I’ve failed her in a way. She worries about me constantly and I’ve never wanted her to worry about me. Someday soon hopefully things will turn around and she can stop worrying (as much as possible since she is just naturally a worrier).
Mama Jay is my best friend in the world and that will never change. She deserves the best this world has to offer and all the happiness her heart can hold. It’s my main mission in life to see that she gets that.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom!!!!
Hmmm. Is it bad when all you’ve eaten all day are a few peanut butter sandwiches and several bowls of cheerios mixed with craisins? Is that a cry for help? Maybe I should finally go to the grocery store and take another stab at those cookbooks I enjoy buying. Why can’t I love cooking like some people? Why can’t cooking make me happy and excited like baking does? The good news is that the peanut butter has protein and the cheerios and craisins have fiber and other nutrients. And I ate enough to use up almost all of my points for the day.
P.S., If you’re never tried honey nut cheerios mixed with craisins, you’re missing out. It’s quite a delicious combination!
P.P.S., I have a long weekend coming up so maybe I’ll use that weekend to get my house in order figuratively and literally.
Weight Watchers Single-Serving Frittata
This is a recipe that my momma saw in the WW mini-magazine thingy (very technical term) she receives at her weekly Weight Watchers meeting and wanted to try. Oddly enough, she hates cooking, so I took it upon myself to make them for her. Y’all know how I love getting dirty in the kitchen.
The first time I made the recipe was this past weekend, and I pretty much executed it as written. They didn’t come out very nicely. At all. In my opinion, they were too small (barely whet my appetite), and the ratio of potatoes:eggs was too great. In short, the flavors were off, they were too small, and they just didn’t look pretty.
The second time I made them (being this time), I used jumbo muffin tins, the same amount of potatoes, and more egg mixture (but: Egg Beaters! probably 3/8 cup [or 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp, for you baking buffoons] per serving instead of 1/4 cup per serving [as per the recipe], which is fine, because: Egg Beaters!). The jumbo muffin tins are so key for correct flavor ratios, size, and aesthetic pleasure. Seriously.
If you’ve only got normal sized muffin tins (WOE IS YOU), I’d suggest putting in less potato (maybe 1-1.5 oz per serving instead of the 2 oz the recipe calls for?), because if you don’t, your end-result is going to be too potato-y and the egg mixture won’t fit adequately in each muffin cup and it’ll overflow and there will be a mess and it’ll just be a DISTASTER, okay? Okay. /cautionarytale
Next time I make these for my momma, I’ll probably season the potatoes, too. I realize that I’m sort of freakish in that I’m generally not a potato fan, but plain old frozen hash browns are way boring, even for potato enthusiasts. I think. Whatever. To me, they’re not really worth having unless they pack some flavor. BUT: that’s just me, and I’m not the one eating them. I don’t think momma had any complaints taste-wise (though she did agree that the potato:egg ratio in the original recipe was off, and momma knows best, y’all).
Regardless of the size of the muffin tin you use, they’ll take ~20 minutes as opposed to the prescribed 15. I’d start checking on them after 15 just to be safe, though.
But overall: total winner!
Ingredients:
- 1 lb frozen hash brown, thawed
- 4 large eggs, beaten (I used Egg Beaters the second time, because my momma is cholesterol conscious; direct substitution = 1 cup EB. For jumbo muffin tins, use 1.5-2 cups EB)
- 1 tbsp fat free milk (omitted when I used Egg Beaters)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
- 2 oz cooked lean ham, finely chopped (I omitted, because my momma didn’t want it)
- 2 tbsp finely chopped sweet red pepper
- 2 tbsp finely chopped green pepper
- 2 tbsp finely chopped uncooked onion
- 1/2 cup low-fat shredded cheese (doubled, because I omitted the ham. #YOLO.)
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Coat 8 muffin cups with cooking spray. Spread potatoes around bottom of each cup and press up the sides. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes. (They pretty much just warm up after 10 minutes; if you want the hash brown crust to be a bit crisper, leave them for a few more minutes. 10 minutes = mostly soft potatoes.)
- While the hash brown crusts are cooking, whisk together eggs, milk, spices, vegetables, ham (if you’re using it), and cheese.
- Remove potatoes from the oven and press potatoes down firmly with a spoon so they are spread out like mini pie crusts.
- Pour about 1/4 cup egg mixture into the center of each muffin cup.
- Return pan to oven and bake until potatoes are crisp and golden, and the egg mixture is set, about 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let sit about 5 minutes before serving.
Nutritional Breakdown, per serving (one frittata)
- Original recipe = 3 WW points+ / 120 cal / 13g carbs / 4g fat / 8g protein
- Double cheese, no ham = 3 WW points+ / 130 cal / 13g carbs / 5g fat / 9g protein
- Egg Beaters (as I prepared above) = 2 WW points+ / 114 cal / 14g carbs / 2g fat / 10g protein
These look so delicious I just might have to dust off my cooking utensils and try them! Plus, since muffin tins are involved I can technically consider this baking instead of cooking. I do love to bake :)
Pretty Good Thursday
Today (well, yesterday) went pretty well. First, I conducted my weekly weigh in and this happened:
Last Week: 172.2
This Week: 171.2
I’m pretty proud of that one pound loss. I only worked out once and it was a light work out at that (thank you stubborn injury). I had a night out with the girls and didn’t overeat. And while I unfortunately did overeat two nights last week (clearly the stress of my work situation is causing a lot of these weeknight eating problems), I maintained my focus and looked at each day as a new day. I didn’t just throw in the towel on the rest of the week. So the first week back on track was difficult but not nearly as hard I imagined.
I also enjoyed a great lunch with my great buddy A. We went to Cosi. I hadn’t been there in well over a year and the night before I methodically went through their entire menu and figured out the points for each sandwich. Basically I can only eat a few sandwiches without ruining my points for that particular day but those sandwiches are pretty tasty. While at Cosi I experienced that new fancy computerized Coke machine for the first time! Apparently it’s a Coke Freestyle machine and there are so many flavors of pop it’s ridiculous! I intended to get Cherry Coke Zero (because it was definitely a caffeine day at work today), but saw they had a Raspberry Coke Zero and I couldn’t resist. It was quite tasty. Unfortunately I had a refill and didn’t drink any water all day but that Raspberry Coke Zero pretty much made my week. Maybe that’s more of a commentary on the state of my life…
Anyway, I finally got home pretty late and had a little hiccup with my eating but still did a short pilates work out as well as some arm sculpting work. I hadn’t done this pilates work out in a few years and it was tough. I see how I’ve lost in the past two months of inactivity the little flexibility I had gained over the past year with all of my stretches designed to keep my diva knee happy. I guess I’m going to have to do my stretching routine a few times a week even if I’m not working out hard. Luckily the pilates didn’t seem to aggravate this pelvis/hip situation so I can keep doing that. I might not be able to jump or run (or hell even walk) or work up a really good sweat right now, but I can at least focus on my core strength. It’s been on my fitness to do list for a while. And I can always work on toning my arms. I’ll focus on what I can do and worry about the rest later.
Now, I’m off to bed so I can get up early for work and start my weekend at a decent time.
The Return to Working Out
Today was my first work out in weeks. I did the 20 minute zumba express (without any jumping on my part) and my trusty yoga dvd. I initially was just going to go with the yoga but then I did a little bit of mindless eating and felt stuffed so I knew I needed to get my heart rate up a little in order to feel better.
I of course felt my pelvis/hip injury a little during zumba but for some reason yoga seems to have really made it flare up. I’m not sure what that means. Yoga was supposed to be my initial foray back into the world of fitness but I suspect that will not be the case. Tomorrow I’ll try a short strength training work out and see what happens. The upside of this yoga incident is that it may finally force me to return to the pool. Hopefully swimming won’t aggravate this damn injury too!
Despite some bumps in the road the past two nights, my eating has been better. I’m crossing my fingers that my Thursday weigh in goes well. Just have to survive hump day!
Birthday dinner with my girls tonight and three whole days still adhering to my Weight Watchers program! So far so good but I recognize that I have a long road ahead. Lots of great conversation and laughs. And I just might have convinced myself this week that Mother’s Day is tomorrow (well, today) instead of next week. Mama Jay would have been very surprised when I showed up with my card at church in the morning! Luckily I mentioned it during dinner and after laughing at me my girls set me straight. Clearly these past few weeks have been way too stressful.
These first two days haven’t been so bad. At night I still want to eat all the delicious foods but I’ve resisted. And during the day I constantly have to fight the urge to eat all of my food that is meant to last the entire work day in about a two hour span. I’m learning how to eat when I’m at least approaching hunger again. Over the past few months I sort of forgot what that felt like. And I successfully avoided giving in to the buy one get one free sale Walgreen’s has been holding on Hershey candy bars. I walked in and bought my Mothers’ Day cards and while I couldn’t resist walking down the candy aisle, I didn’t give in to the seductive call of the Kit Kat and Heath bars. Baby steps…
I had my x-rays taken today so hopefully there’s nothing serious going on with the injury. In a way I hope the x ray shows something because not having a diagnosis is driving me crazy. And my lovely doctor has already mentioned the dreaded two words no under-employed person wants to hear—physical therapy! I’m still supposed to be completely resting from physical activity but my body is literally starting to stiffen up from six weeks of basically no activity. I think I’ll try yoga tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t aggravate the hip/pelvis. Even though I won’t sweat too much, it will feel good to move around again. The short walk on my daily commute is not really exercise. We’ll see how it goes.
