Carli's Latest Blog Entry
On Sunday, my Little Sister told me her and Mama were going to dinner. I self-invited. Much to my horror, I discovered we were going to a buffet. I said why don’t we try the Asian restaurant instead? Nope, everybody wanted the free buffet with the coupon. I kind of freaked out. I text my Special Friend telling him I was scared. He likes to eat too; he understood and said he was scared for me. When the hostess asked what I wanted to drink I just said diet soda. Even though I don’t drink soda, I was just thinking about not drinking my calories/points. My mom ordered unsweetened tea, I always forget about tea. I ordered a tea as well and sweetened it with Splenda. I had a light breakfast that morning and 20 bonus points left in the week. I couldn’t do too much damage? Right?
I got little bits of everything but mostly meat and veggies. I ate a few spoonful’s of each dish and then scraped it all into one plate. I actually did it, I wasn’t stuffed to the point of being miserable and ate proportionately. But, it’s still hard for me to waste food. I grew up in the clean plate club. You couldn’t get up until you ate all of your food. Still to this day, I rarely leave anything on my plate unless I just didn’t like the way it tasted. But that day, I threw away good tasting food. It feels so wasteful, it’s probably people starving blocks away, and we pick over it and throw it in the trash.
Anyway, it was time for dessert. I figured my “get everything and eat a few bites” philosophy worked well with dinner, it should also work with desserts. WRONG! I got apple cheesecake, strawberry short cake, and 2 flavors of gelato Italian ice cream. It was all displayed so beautifully and tasted just as good as it looked. I started with a few bites but ultimately ate ALL of it. Me and my sister felt like pigs afterward. Lesson learned, if I have to get a dessert, just get one. After dinner we went home and worked out, hoping to balance things out. I’d probably have to work out for 8 hours to burn off all of that food.
The next day was my Weight watcher weigh-in. I took off my heavy sweater and exchanged it for the thinnest t-shirt I could find. This was the first time I was actually nervous about the scale, even though the whole week was great prior to the buffet. On Saturday, my scale at home said I’d lost 3 pounds. I stepped up at the meeting and lost .8 (eight tenths) of a pound. I almost felt bad for a minute, knowing that I had really done much better before the buffet debacle. But then I realized that’s almost a whole pound and I’ve consistently lost weight for 4 weeks. I literally haven’t done that in years. I lost 8.4 pound in January, and I’m no longer bursting out of my pants. They actually fasten now. That’s what I call success and a lesson learned.
I’ve been doing a really great job staying on the weight watchers plan for the last month. It’s really a mind over matter thing, but sometimes I lose my mind and forget I’m on plan. On Friday afternoon they sent out one of those dreaded food emails, detailing whatever free treats are in the office kitchen. This particular day it was chicken wraps. How bad could a chicken wrap be? It could be my afternoon snack. I hurried over to the kitchen eager to get one before they were gone, completely ignoring the fact that I wasn’t really even hungry. They looked good, so I got two. Prize in hand on the way back to my desk I saw the left over brownies from the same meeting at another secretary’s desk. Yummy free brownies, how dare she not include that in that in the email? Free dessert always tastes better. I got two brownies as well. Then it hit me as I looked down at the two handfuls of food hidden in the paper towel, so no one would see how much I really got. I’m a weight watcher now, trying to get healthy, I don’t eat like this anymore. I no longer hide food and mindlessly eat because it’s free or because it tastes good. I put one of the brownies back.
When I got back to my desk I started eating the chicken wrap which was very difficult with my new braces on my teeth. I threw the other wrap in the trash. But there, are starving kids in Africa, that’s wasteful right? Well, I’ll say a prayer for them and release the guilt of throwing away food. Well maybe I can take it home and give it somebody I thought. But in reality, my family would look at me like I was crazy if I brought over a half of a chicken wrap left over from a meeting at work. Now, for that nasty little brownie situation. I pulled up my WW e-tools online that I use to track my food points. I had pretty healthy day, and there was some wiggle room. I tracked the brownie, ate the brownie and enjoyed it.
As I walked in the door at home after work, one of my friends text me, saying “congrats on your weight loss.” I was hungry and just wanted to eat, and didn’t care what I ate. I was probably feeling this insane “hunger” because of the sugary brownie messing with my blood sugar. I made a quick pot of chili and starting filling up a monstrous sized bowl. “I don’t care,” I said out loud, “I’m hungry, I’ll eat how much I want” Right in that moment I heard myself. “Of course you care, you even have friends that care” I reminded myself. I put half of the chili back and counted my crackers according to the serving size on the box. I went to my laptop and pulled up my e-tools as I ate, tracking everything. Friday taught me an important lesson. Sometimes, along this journey, I will have moments that I temporarily lose my mind and revert back to old mindsets, but taking just a few seconds to re-assess the situation can make things back the way they should be.
Since I finally seem to have gotten my insane eating under control with the help of weight watchers, I decided to do a new type of post called Delicious Discovery. Anytime I find or re-discover a new food, I’ll do a quick post and a review. So, today’s Delicious Discovery is Lactose-Free Yoplait Yogurt. I’m lactose intolerant (allergic to milk/dairy), so I was super excited to see this in Super Wal-Mart yesterday. Here is the nutrition label.
It comes out to 170 Calories or 4 Weight Watcher’s Points Plus. It was delicious. I highly recommend it.
Halloween here in the States is a fun spooky holiday surrounded by sweet treats. But, for those of us trying to lose or maintain our weight, it can be a very tricky day to handle. So, I did a little research and came up with 7 ways to tackle the candy obsession and stay on track… I even threw in a few kid-friend ideas.
1) Instead of candy, pack snack sized portions of animal crackers, 100 calorie packs, raisins, trail mix, sugar free hot cocoa or apple cider.
2) After carving the pumpkin, save the seeds and roast them in oven. Or as my super-efficient mother did when I was a child. Cook them on a plate in the microwave.
3) Make Orange or Black Jello. Decorate it with Plastic spiders or cut out spooky shapes.
4) Healthy Caramel Apples - Click the link for a recipe to Trim some of the calories
5) Banana Ghost Pops - Using Bananas, coconut and Orange Juice
6) Apple Bites - These are too cute! - Just quarter and core an apple, cut a wedge from the skin side of each quarter, then press slivered almonds in place for teeth. Tip: If you’re not going to serve them right away, baste the apples with orange juice to keep them from browning.
7) Easy Cheese Fingers – Ingredients – Mozzarella string cheese, Green bell pepper, Cream cheese
Instructions:
1) Wearing plastic gloves or sandwich bags over your hands to keep the cheese as smudge-free as possible, use a paring knife (parents only) to cut each string in half and then carve a shallow area for a fingernail just below the rounded end of each half.
2) Mark the joint right below the nail as well as the knuckle joint by carving out tiny horizontal wedges of cheese, as pictured.
3) For the fingernails, slice a green bell pepper into 3/8-inch-wide strips. Set the strips skin side down on your work surface and trim the pulp so that it’s about half as thick. Then cut the strips into ragged-topped nail shapes and stick them in place at the ends of the fingers with dabs of cream cheese.
Today was the 2ndAnnual Sista Strut Breast Cancer Awareness 3K walk in St. Louis. I participated in the Sista Strut last year . It was held in Forest Park, and started at the history museum. My Lawyer friend and my Paralegal friend joined me and thousands of other Black women bringing awareness to the terrible disease.
Too often my African-American culture does not focus on health and nutrition like it should. At most of the endurance events that I have participated in, there are very few people of color. However, today it was refreshing and encouraging to see so many women of every shape and size there to support the cause. The Sistas were so brave and strong. One woman proudly wore her bald head like a crown and another wore high heel shoes and ran the whole time. I was impressed by both of them! It was so good to see my girls since I don’t work with either of them anymore. After the walk, we went a community pampering event. They did blood pressure checks, had free massages, manicures, pedicures and facials. I even won free tickets to tomorrow’s Ram’s Football game. After that, I went to brunch with my Lawyer friend and several other ladies. I looked up the menu online the day before, so that I could be prepared. But, when we got there, the restaurant had amazing specials like rainbow sprinkle pancakes and cream cheese stuffed French toast. I opted for the Skinny Scramble, which had egg whites, fresh fruit and wheat toast. Although I really wanted the special stuff, I was able to still enjoy their company and the brunch experience without loading up on sugar and bad carbs. I’m still taking baby steps to get to my goal. After brunch I went to the nail shop and shopping with my Mom. Then, that evening my Big Little Sister invited me over for dinner. I could hear my niece screaming “Auntie! Auntie!” through the closed front door, and then she gave me an enthusiastic hug like I was a celebrity. There’s nothing like a 3 year old greeting you like she hasn’t seen you in a million years, when she totally saw you the night before… My Sister made chicken, eggplant parmesan and a corn medley. The eggplant was delicious, but my stomach didn’t like it. Unfortunately, that’s a veggie that I have to cross off the list. I think its the consistency and mushy texture. I’m weird like that…just like the Greek Yogurt. However, I enjoyed the chicken and corn while I played with my honey bunny.
Page 1 of 712345...»Last »
