TGIF!

Hello! I hope everyone is busy making plans for a FUN weekend! I pick up my Brother tomorrow from the airport for the 3 day weekend! I'm excited! :) Polar F4 Stats for this week are as follows- TOTAL CALORIES BURNED 1,652 :) That was 4 days of pool exercises. I gotta tell you, that is a whole lot more than I thought I was doing in that pool! I was just asked the question what exactly did I do in the pool- I have talked about it (I'm sure some of you are sick of me talking about it by now! lol) but I do deep water exercises- lots of arm & leg stuff. Similar to running - just in the deep end! The pool I use is for therapy use only- no swimming. I can get away with a couple of "laps" with kicking down & back as I hold on to a noodle but it is filled with therapy patients. Most of the people have back/spine problems. It is working wonders for my arthritis- I move so much better with the activity that I have been doing in the water- I LOVE IT! :)

Came home to do a little housework and I wanted to remember to wear the heart rate monitor but totally forgot! I bet washing the floors & vacuuming burns something! lol Darn it! Right now here is what I am doing- :) Iced coffee break!

Sean and I went to his parents for dinner and again I forgot a picture of my plate! I need a reminder or something! Sorry! It was good- yellow lentils, eggplant, & ground turkey. Salad too! I brought the cookie balls over for dessert for everyone. Sad that I have to say sorry for my balls to everyone! lol BUT they were good- or so everyone said they were! haha No, Sean would be honest with me if they were nasty, and he ate 2! :) While we were over there it was hard to control myself from screaming at the television as my Lakers were playing! Thankfully they (thank you Artest!) pulled through and won! :) I was grateful no one had to see me start crying. Seriously, I get a little too into the games. haha!

The other night I put this collage together and thought about using it as my header on my blog but I really like my flower pics from restaurants that I take. So I thought I would just share the collage with you for now until I decide to switch things up around here. (click picture to enlarge)

Just took out a few chicken tenders for myself for tonight- and steamed some broccoli. Not sure what I will do with them yet, but I'm sure I will figure out something! :) More than likely won't be blogging over the weekend- won't be home much! But I will take a bunch of pictures to share with you all! Have a safe & fun Memorial Day weekend everyone! :) BYE!

Why is it that....

...whenever I make cookies I get balls? :( No really, this always happens to me. Oh well they taste good this time.

(please excuse my fuzzy hair- it was rainy here today. lol)

Hey at least I can cook. No one said you have to be a chef & a baker right? lol

:)

****Ok- so I guess even when I mess up a recipe you all want to know what I made huh? lol
Here is the recipe- from Cooking Light Magazine

Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: 2 dozen (serving size: 1 cookie)
Ingredients
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
5.6 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 1/4 cups)
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Add egg; beat well.

3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add flour mixture to banana mixture in bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or until golden. Cool on pans 2 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

Nutritional Information
Calories:
115
Fat:
3.6g (sat 2g,mono 1.1g,poly 0.3g)
Protein:
2g
Carbohydrate:
19.1g
Fiber:
1.2g
Cholesterol:
14mg
Iron:
0.9mg
Sodium:
121mg
Calcium:
10mg

Wednesday

Hello! I am doing what seems like an endless laundry load and some clean up around the house today. Just sat down with a cup of afternoon coffee, I luv my Keurig, and a ball- hehe- did you see the post about making these? Go see it HERE. Good Stuff! :)

I went to the pool today and was excited to come home to put my data into the new spreadsheet that Sean (my numbers guy) made me. :) So here are my stats for the week so far! Whoohooo! I am so happy that I can see the calories that I am burning doing my pool exercises now- makes it real to me. I knew I had to be doing something in that water- but I had no idea how much! :) I LOVE IT! :)

Lunch today was some of the Sweet Potato Chili I made- and a bowl of raspberries and blackberries that I scarfed down. Dinner for tonight will be EASY with or without Sean. He might have a meeting tonight so I knew to take out some chicken for myself to just cook up real fast & toss into one of my favorite TV DINNERS! You read that correctly- I LOVE A BOXED MEAL! lol This Smart Ones is delicious. I never eat it "as is" I always doctor it up- so I will toss in a BIG serving of fresh steamed broccoli and 2-3 ounces of chicken breast to make it a FULL meal. But for a frozen dinner it rocks! Unfortunately no local stores by me sell it! lol Seems to be a hard one to find! I will come back later to add a pic of my dish so you can see it! :)

** UPDATE** Doctored Up Frozen TV Dinner- added 1 cup fresh steamed broccoli & 3 ounces chicken. YUM! :)

The timer just went off- gotta get the laundry out so I can add in another batch! Do I know how to have FUN or what? :) OHH I will be having FUN soon! One of my blog buddies- Lola is in town next week for business. She has been a huge help to me along my journey and always offers me support! We are planning to meet up in San Francisco next Friday and I am SUPER excited! I know we will have a fun time! :) See ya soon Lola! :)

Have a GREAT evening everyone!!! :) BYE!

Quick Post!

Hi everyone! Went to my Weight Watchers meeting this morning. I am the same weight as last week. I will take that! :) I really am happy about my choices during the week but from what I have seen if I eat all of my weekly 35 "extra" points I do not see a loss. I am use to eating them all- so maybe my body is TOO use to it?? For me to not be HUNGRY monster all the time I plan on adding in more "filling foods" and seeing how that works for me. We shall see! :)

Here was dinner last night- chicken burger w/ guacahummus and steamed broccoli. YUM! Dessert- Loving the fruit!


Oh so did you see my post about the Larabars? or my version of BALLS? lol Well I forgot I wanted to add in some unsweetened shredded coconut- so I decided to roll the balls in it instead- :) I like how these came out- so tasty! :)

Snack today after the pool was inspired by seeing a similar snack over at Danica's Daily- Cracker w. laughing cow & apricot low sugar jam. YUM!

About to get dinner ready- not a new one for us over here, but a tasty & easy one! :) Lettuce wraps & some edamame. These chicken meatballs are one point each!
I just add in some shredded carrots and top it with a sweet & spicy chili sauce.

OH! I brought my stuff with me for the pool today so after weigh in & lunch I got my butt in the pool again today! :) For those of you who are looking for an easy to use and fairly priced heart rate monitor the Polar F4 (click link to see info on it!) that I got is a good one! I love it and so far am very happy with how easy it is to use! I say look around for a sale- because the prices I see online are WAY higher than what I paid for mine.

Stats for today's pool exercises DURATION: 1 hour 13 min. CALORIES BURNED 421 :) WHoohoooooo! :)

Have a great evening everyone! :) BYE!

MONDAY BITES!

Happy Monday to you all! :) I hope everyone had a good weekend! :) I was a busy lil bee yesterday and made my lunches for this week (ok so I chopped up stuff and threw it in the crock pot- but still I planned, and that is KEY!) Here are a couple of BITES for ya!

Sweet Potato Crock Pot Chili

2 15 ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed & drained
1 15 ounce can redi-cut tomatoes
2 medium sweet potatoes-peeled & cut into bite size chunks
1 medium onion- diced
2 cloves of garlic-minced
2 small bell peppers
1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup corn (canned or frozen)

Basically toss everything in! EASY! :) Stir to mix it all up, cover set at low for 6 hours. I don't like to make it spicy- but add cayenne powder to my own bowl. Added to the WW recipe builder and I get a generous 1 1/2 cups for 5 points. Very filling too! :) I baked some tortilla strips to top mine with. :)
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Yesterday I also whipped up a tabouli salad. Another EASY dish to make! The original recipe calls for olive oil- I skipped that step and most recipes also call for a lot more fresh herbs than I used. It really can be made to your liking.

Tabouli

1 cup medium cracked wheat (also known as bulgar)
1 Cup boiling water
1 cup diced tomatoes
1 cup diced cucumber
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh Italian parsley & mint- chopped fine- as much as you care for. I used about 2 tablespoons of each.

Pour boiling water over bulgar and cover- let sit for 20 minutes or until all water is absorbed. After water is all absorbed place bulgar in a larger bowl and add remaining ingredients- toss to coat, refrigerate & serve chilled. YUM! :)

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Ok so I am super excited about getting a cool lil gadget yesterday!!! Sean bought me a heart rate monitor and I used it today for my pool workout!!! :) THANK YOU SEAN! XOXO We went to REI they had one that was originally $89 on sale for $59 but this one was the last of this color so I got it for $54! I was excited to get in the pool today to try it out- here is the date: Then it tells you the duration of the workout (I stayed longer than the 1hr that I am suppose to! hehe)
Then the next feature is the one that I am MOST excited about!!! CALORIES!!! OMG! Are you serious? I had NO idea that my water exercise was burning that many calories! I am beyond thrilled! For what I am able to do and to see that amount of calories MADE MY DAY! :) I was so happy to see those stats! I need to read the book to fully understand the heart rate info but I am so happy to see the calories! :) Yiippeee!

Dinner tonight for me will include some of that bulgar salad with some grilled chicken- nothing fancy. I am looking forward to it though! :)

Ever eat a Lara Bar? I love them! But I can not eat a whole bar as a snack- too high in calories for me! When I get them I cut them in 1/2. I saw around the blog world a few people making them at home and HAD to try this! CLEVER & EASY TOO! :) Ok so Check out THIS LINK for the blog site that was passed on to me for great ideas on different flavors. Here is what I did-

13 ounces dates
4.30 ounces cashews (I used dry roasted lightly salted)
3.70 ounces dried tart cherries

All of these items I ground or chopped up separately in a food processor- then mix away! Make sure you take off your rings- it was a messy one! :) I wanted to get a one point WW snack for myself so I made 26 balls out of my mixture. I put them into a container and will store them in the fridge. They came out good. Not sure if I would change any measurements, seemed like a good ratio. Excited to try more varieties! YUM!

Oh I also wanted to remind everyone, if you have a question for me and leave it in the comments but do not have a your email address available, I can not email you back. :( Feel free to email me directly if you ever have any questions I will be happy to answer them! :) tjbooboo@gmail.com

Have a great evening everyone! :) BYE!

Weekend Update/ LOOT

Hi everyone! I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for the wonderfully supportive comments on my last post. I cried reading all of them! Seriously, you guys are the BEST! :) THANK YOU! I am hanging in there, doing my part to be OP and tracking well. What I do know is that when I eat all of my weeklies I have not been seeing a loss....so I am not at all hopeful this coming Tuesday on the scale but I feel good about the choices I made. We shall see! What I do know is that even though the pool was closed a couple of days I decided to go on day's that I do not normally go so I still got in 3 days of exercise. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do! :)

Ok so food- yesterday I had the Ensenada Chicken Platter (one breast) at Red Robin. From the online stats w/ dressing it is 15 points. I love this salad and I loved every point I ate. lol I forgot a pic so here is one I found online-

BBQ (mine were fat free) hot dogs for dinner at my Parents house. Also grilled some asparagus-

Today, Sunday we headed out to run 1000 errands, 3 grocery stores, and sushi for lunch-

LOOT- because I know some of you (*FiTCETERA*) like to see my grocery haul. lol


Back at home, made lunches for the week, and started cooking side dishes for dinner- had some munchies for snack time- Trader Joe's guacahummus- YUM! 2 tablespoons for 50 calories! YUM!

I did not finish cooking dinner so I wont share all of the meal today with ya. :) I did however try a new recipe from The Biggest Diabetic Loser's Blog It is delicious- Spaghetti Squash Mac N Cheese! YUM! I can not wait to eat it! I just tried a lil corner of the pan, to TEST it out! lol :)

LOST is on tonight and we are a little excited over here...along with sad. I can not believe it is over!! WOW! I am super tired from cooking lunches for the week and dinner tonight so I am about to collapse on the couch for the rest of the day. Wheew! Hope you all have a greta rest of the weekend! BYE! :)

Flat Line

This week I have been struggling. I feel like I have been the same weight for a while now. For some reason this week got me down. I went to my Weight Watcher's meeting on Tuesday and found myself looking for another meeting to go to on Wednesday. Since I pay for the monthly pass I know that I can go to multiple meetings. I know the topic was still the same but I went, just needed it. While I was there someone asked me how long I have been on the Weight Watcher program. I was almost ashamed that I have been doing this so long. 11/28/07 is my start date. I know this is not a race but I feel like a snail..or the turtle, not sure who is slower in this case. lol

When I feel like this I try to go back to see what I have accomplished. First I had to look at my Weight Tracker on my WW E-Tools site. Here is my over all graph- since I started the program-

Here is the past 24 weeks- FLAT LINE

Can you see my frustration? Don't get me wrong I am happy that I am holding steady, grateful that I am NOT gaining weight. Did you see that spike on the first graph? Yeah that is where I took time off and binged- Sept/Oct 2008 That was my last OFF PLAN Bingefest. I am proud of myself for being strong enough to not eat my emotions, not give into all of those foods that I know are trigger foods for me and push me so far off plan that I stay off for months.

What I do next to help myself see my accomplishments is look at pictures. If I look at last May I was 179 pounds. I was not doing any form of activity at all besides therapy. I no longer have those shorts- they fell off. I do not have that top anymore either. Makes me feel good! :) I also looked at a current picture. I can see my body is smaller, my arms & legs more toned. The pool exercise is showing, and I feel strong- There is only an 18 pound difference in those pictures. In a year...that is all I have lost. Then I realized how much I could have gained had I not been trying.

Doing what I just did- looking at my weight loss graphs and pictures help me realize that I need to be proud of what I am doing. Who cares that I have not reached a goal weight that Weight Watchers says is "NORMAL" for me. I need to focus on how I feel and focus WAY less on the number on the scale. For someone who goes to meetings each week and steps on a scale it is sometimes hard to NOT put the main focus of this journey on the number, but I am determined to reach my goals and become a stronger person AS SLOW AS IT MIGHT BE!

Wanna see some food? lol

Got these ONE point fiber muffins from Trader Joe's- Apple Cranberry. Pretty tasty! :)

I know I mentioned I got my new batch of PB2- the best batch I've ever tasted! YUM! 45 calories for 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter- need I say more? lol

Leftover turkey taco meat used for the last time- in burrito form!

Tonight for dinner is some leftovers from dinner at Sean's parents house. I forgot a picture last night! SORRY! but we had dolma. It was delicious and I can't wait for dinner tonight to enjoy them again. :) **came back to show you my dinner-salad -no lettuce, I ran out! lol w/ TJ's Spicy Peanut Dressing & Dolma (ground turkey & rice- one is wrapped in cabbage with the prune on it "sweet" and the other is grape leaves-that one gets a little plain yogurt on top (forgot to add before pic!) YUM! :)

I know we can all feel like we need a helping hand-even me, a seasoned loser! I guess what I am saying is lean on the people you need to lean on to get support from. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Let your family & friends know you are having a hard time with things. I try to always be upbeat and positive because it helps me! I love cheering for you all on your blogs and in good times and bad we all need a little blog hug! Can I get a hug? :)

LAB WORK!

My mad scientist skills were put to work last night as far as my dinner was concerned. I had nothing planned. I knew I had pasta for Sean with leftover sauce I had in the freezer, but I wanted something different.... (insert evil laughter here)

I tweeted my ingredients-
-chicken
-sweet potato
-frozen broccoli

then mentioned laughing cow cheese....

VIOLA!
See how BIG it was! I LOVED IT! It was tasty, filling, & a total comfort meal for me. My mad scientist skills came in handy! :)

Here I am today, Thursday! Woke up early for some strange reason. lol I like to wake up by reading blogs with my AM cup of coffee and I came across Tony's post today. Did you see it already? Not only was it a good post, but the comments are GREAT! Fellow bloggers leaving their stories of weight loss. Lots of great motivation! GO CHECK IT OUT HERE!

The pool hours today are 1-3 so I might call to see if it is open. I do not normally go on Thurs. afternoon, but my body is SCREAMING to get in that water. Not to mention I feel like a slug and I think mentally I NEED it. Got a couple of questions about going to another pool- but this one is for water therapy (heated to 92 degrees) Oh and I pay $150 bucks a month to use it! I think there is a similar pool about 30 minutes from me- but since I already pay for this one, I never checked it out. Anyway, I am crossing my fingers (and toes) that they FIX whatever problem they were having over there and either today or tomorrow I can get my butt in that water!

Breakfast today for me was a CRAZY CRAVING! CEREAL!!! I know, not so strange right? But for me it is. lol I never eat cereal for breakfast. NEVER! So here is my bowl- Cheerio's, a lil scoop of Grape Nuts, 1/2 banana, & unsweetened Almond Breeze. Let's see how long this tides me over huh? :)

Ok...off to sort laundry (EXCITING) and get some housework done. FUN DAY! :) Hope everyone has a GREAT day! :)

Sad Nemo! :(

The pool I go to is CLOSED! :( I am one sad fishy! :( I drove over yesterday afternoon to get in an extra workout and there was a sign on the door. This morning I called before I left- still closed! :( *sigh* I am super upset. They already have limited times that they are open and now this! Ggrrrr I am a lil frustrated. For those of you who have not read about the pool I visit- it is a pool used for water therapy- indoors, heated to 92 degrees, and totally helps with the arthritis in my spine. Love it! I just hope they open tomorrow afternoon or Friday AM for the regular hours.

Last night was TACO TUESDAY- YUM!

Breakfast this morning was 2 leftover Muffin Tin Quiches that I made the other day with an everything bagel thin. (click link for recipe)

Lunch came around and when I remembered that I have leftover taco stuff in the fridge I got super excited! I love Mexican food- I even love(d) Taco Bell! lol Since I no longer visit fast food restaurants I make items that I can eat at home. I give you TJ's NACHOS (Bell Grande!) OLE!


My version is 7 points. Taco Bell's version is 18. TAKE THAT TACO BELL! I used 2.5 ounces lean turkey (seasoned w/ taco seasoning) 1/2 cup fat free refried beans, 2 Mission extra thin corn tortillas (baked before hand to use as chips!) 1 tablespoon sour cream, handful of mini pearl tomatoes-diced, tamed jalapeno slices, & Mild Taco Bell sauce, sliced green onions.

I loved each bite of this BIG plate of food. For me a big plate FILLED with food = happiness. I know it's sad to say, but I love BIG portions. For me to be able to feel like I pigged out and ate NACHOS makes me happy. :) My belly is FULL right now and I don't at all feel that after fast food feeling of GUILT that would always set in on me when I was finished. I did eat more points for lunch today than I normally do but I will eat a lighter dinner to make up for it.

Speaking of dinner...I have no clue what I am making tonight. lol I planned on using pantry or freezer stuff for tonight, which means I better get to thinking! :)

Have a great day everyone! :) BYE!