Buctober is Upon Us

I weighed myself yesterday and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I just didn't lose any weight last week. I stayed at 284.2. After that pretty bad binge, I was sure that I had gained at least 3lbs back, and probably all that I had lost. I guess there wasn't any reason to stress as much as I was. I'm feeling a lot better about tomorrow's pizza, Pirates, and beer outing. I can just go and enjoy myself and not stress about what exactly is going in my mouth. Let's go Bucs!

Dinner tonight was Spinach and Artichoke Baked Pasta. I did all the prep in advance, and just let it sit in the fridge overnight. When I was ready to bake it, I poured my mix into a 13x9 baking dish (sprayed with Pam), covered it with foil, then baked it for 25min at 400F. I then removed the foil, put the remaining cheese on top, and put it back under the broiler on high for 2 minutes. The only ingredient I added was 1tsp of cayenne pepper. I like a little spice in my spinach artichoke dip, so I figured it would go well with this too. And it did. It didn't make it spicy, just added a hint of spice that lingered in your mouth after a bite. This recipe was easy to make and pretty yummy. I'll definitely be putting it on the make again list. 

Please observe the cheesy, ooey goodness!

Weekend Shenanigans

This weekend is finally over. Thank God! Absolutely nothing went as planned. Yesterday was a blast at the final concert of the year though. Florida Georgia Line, Thompson Square, and Luke Bryan did an awesome job. It's crazy to think about the venue we go to being sold out. There were over 30,000 people there Saturday night. That number is just mind blowing to me. 30,000 is also the amount of calories I consumed emotional eating/drinking from not getting my way. Not really, but damn does it feel close.

I had fun, I made good memories with my friends. Those are the important things. But I really do feel like crap. My body doesn't feel good, and my psyche doesn't feel good for failing on my diet this week. I won't let one bad day break me down, but it's been 3 bad days. I'm beating myself up mentally for all the poor food choices I made. And my uncle is in town from NC, so we'll be going out and making more poor decisions. I don't want to go out with my family to a pizza place, watch the Pirates win their first post season game since October 13, 1992, and order a water and a salad. Fuck that. I'm going to have a Southern Tier Pumpking, probably an Oktoberfest, and I'm going to eat fucking pizza. I'm upset that all the fun is happening in like a 4 day window. If it were spaced out over 4 weeks this wouldn't be a problem. Ugh!

Right now the gameplan for the week is to make as many good food choices as possible. Get as much activity in as I can, and hopefully this week is not as much of a disaster as last week. Definitely liking the vegan, vegetarian, omnomnomivore plan I've got going on. You can find my dinners for the week on Pinterest under username Msc120687. I'll be taking pictures of what I'm cooking and do a little recipe review for at least one of the meals we cook. No crockpot usage this week though. None of my recipes jumped out at me while grocery planning. Wish me luck!

Poorly Planned Again

Whelp. Yesterday did not go as planned either. Hubs did not want to stay in the city and went into work at 7 this morning. We still went out, but only I drank the amber nectar of Oktoberfest. 

Booze equals some serious points my friends. I had a shot of Jagermeister, a bottle of Sam Adam's Oktoberfest, and the equivalent of 3 16oz beers. Bye bye all my points for the day. That right there is 46 points worth of beer. I don't even want to talk about what I ate for dinner. All points are definitely gone. I forgot to weigh in yesterday too. I think this week is probably not going to be pretty. Not. Pretty. At. All.

Plans

I should have had a dinner plan before I fell asleep yesterday. I didn't sleep very well because both dogs decided they wanted to play all day and barked at each other for hours. I was up at least every hour. Awesome. I made great food choices by begging my husband to bring home Chick-Fil-A, which he so graciously agreed to. I was so hungry I was convinced that I was going to eat 2 sandwiches. I also had a large fry, and dipped those fries into 3 packets of mayo. I basically ate an entire days worth of points in 15 minutes. 

As soon as I was done eating it was time to rush off to work, and on the commute I started to get really sick to my stomach. And of course, last night was just as much of a doozy as the night before. I didn't feel sympathetic to other people's wants. I felt like yelling, "This is not a Hilton, and I am not room service. Stop calling me! Be a decent human being and say fucking please and thank you. Do not just demand me to wait on you hand and foot!!" At least I got to sit and eat my dinner, but it was probably interrupted about 15 times. My Santa Fe Rice and Beans was so hard after being microwaved a dozen times. Yay, I love my job today...not so much.

BUT, tonight holds the great promise of the greatness that is Oktoberfest! I plan on surprising the hubs with a hotel room downtown so we both can get shitty at Penn Brew. The official plan is to check into the hotel, eat dinner at Atrias for their amaze-balls Oktoberfest specials, then walk off our dinner by walking over to Penn Brew. For Oktoberfest they hitch a huge tent, have an Oompa Band, serve German snacks, and most importantly, sell beer in half gallon milk jugs. Hell yes! I pretty much figure that I will use all of my daily points and all of my weekly points as well. It will entirely be worth it. 

Bring on the dreams of sausage, pretzels, and sexy German men in Lederhosen (does that exist?)

PS: Just googled sexy men in lederhosen, this is apparently not a thing. This should be a thing!

Indian Master, Not Quite

Crock pot Chicken Tikka Masala. Not my best. Made this during the day yesterday. Love the fact that it cooked while I was sleeping. Didn't fall in love with the flavor. One of my co-workers is Indian, and she cooks the most amazing food. I have no idea why I thought I could cook Indian food as good as her on my first try. It was absolutely not on her level. However, it was 100% edible, unlike the cauliflower and peas I made as a side dish. I did however make some banging Basmati rice though. I'm a slacker and didn't take any pictures of this process, sorry!

The problem with the Tikka is the chicken either completely disappeared or the chunks that did exist were too dry. The recipe calls for yogurt, and I thought that would make the dish creamy and delicious. Nope. That tangy flavor didn't exactly cook out or mesh with the other flavors. It was also oddly sweet. I say odd because I didn't add any sugar to the dish. I'm game for trying another Chicken Tikka recipe soon. Maybe I can get a personal cooking lesson from my coworker!

So the cauliflower. I have never in my life cooked cauliflower raw in a skillet. That should have been my first red flag. The recipe called for a minimal amount of oil, and no liquid whatsoever. Second red flag is that most of the spices are in quantities of tsp, except for the ground coriander. Now I've never cooked with it before, and it didn't have an overwhelmingly strong odor, so I assumed that 2tBsp was reasonable to make up for a mild flavor. That has to be a typo in the recipe! The whole thing literally tasted like sawdust, completely inedible. The cauliflower was sooo dry. I have no idea how I managed to make a vegetable taste dry. That's a first for me! Hubs and I each had a bite then threw the rest out.

Last night was a rough night. I honestly ran from 1945 (7:45pm) to 0330 (3:30am). I didn't drink anything, I didn't eat anything, I didn't pee. I never left my patient's room. I finally just had to sit down, get some charting done, and eat dinner at the same time. I had a Smart Ones Fettuccine Alfredo. One of those little frozen meals is absolutely not enough to fill me up. I saw a tip from Hungry Girl that to bulk up the frozen meal, just add more veggies. So I added a bag of SteamFresh Broccoli and had a very satisfying vegetarian dinner that I probably ate in 4 minutes. 

I'm super excited to be home right now and about to crawl into my bed. No idea what dinner is going to be tonight, but I'm too tired to care! Hope everyone enjoys the sunshine, I'll be sound asleep!

Blur

I worked all weekend. At this point everything is a blur. I should have blogged yesterday, but I had a busy morning and then slept for most of the day! I can say that I had a 100% vegan breakfast week. And vegetarian lunches were going well, until Sunday night I ate beef and broccoli without even thinking about it. Oops! 

I also walked 11,000 steps at work Sunday night. I first bought the pedometer after I started this job. I was going home and feeling completely exhausted. I had a feeling I was doing more activity than I thought I was. And it was true. On a typical 12hr shift I will easily walk 10,000 steps. 

Last night I was waaayyy too tired to cook anything, so we went out to Emiliano's, one of our favorite local Mexican restaurants. The staff is always so kind, and the manager always stops by to tell us some story about the food his mom used to make in Mexico. Almost all of the menu is her recipes! I love their arroz con pollo (rice with chicken), and I get it nearly every time we go. They also have banging margaritas. My game plan was to not eat the chips and salsa that come out at the beginning of the meal. Well that plan was quickly bust when hubs wanted their queso con chorizo (also phenomenal). I went in with about 30pts for dinner. I probably ate that many with the cheeze dip. I'm not the kind of person to beat myself up over a mistake. I overate a fattening food. I've moved on. We'll see what the scale says on Friday.

Tonight's dinner was so simple and easy to make, I cannot believe how good it tasted. It satisfied all of my tastebuds. I made Spicy Black Bean Stuffed Peppers. The roasted peppers had just the right amount of crunch and caramelized sweetness. The black beans satisfied the meat portion of the meal, and do not even get me started on how amaze-balls roasted corn is. Oh and onions, have I mentioned that garlic and onions sustain me?

First step was to roast the peppers. I figured, well I'm already turning the oven on. I might as well roast the corn too. I tossed the corn in 1tsp of EVOO, seasoned with some Lawry's Seasoned Salt (probably has some crack in it, too good not to have a little crack sprinkle in there) and some pepper. I roasted both for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. The peppers weren't quite done yet, so I took the corn off the pan and put the peppers back in for another 5 minutes.

While the veggies were roasting I opened and rinsed a can of black beans. I put them in a sauce pan with a 1/4c of H20. I seasoned them liberally with paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, chili powder, and a little adobo. Simultaneously, I sauteed up some onions. I added a heaping 2 tablespoons of minced garlic for the last minute of cooking. Here's one of my secrets. I hate mincing garlic. It's so damn sticky! I'm a bad chef and buy the garlic pre-minced that comes in a ketchup-like squeeze bottle. It works for me.

Once the peppers were done roasting, I mixed all the other veggies together. Then spooned them into the peppers. I sprinkled them with about 2tbsp each of shredded colby jack cheese and stuck them under the broiler just until the cheese melted. I do not have a picture of the completed meal, because the one pepper was inhaled before I could take one! I said that this recipe was 4 servings, and each serving is 6 points.

So I know it's Tuesday, and I'm a day late but I want to state my goals for this week.
1. Vegan breakfasts for 7 days!
2. Vegetarian for 50% of lunches (I already broke the rule today with my Mexican leftovers)
3. Wear my pedometer to work. Get up and walk for at least 5 minutes every hour.
4. Do not stress about Oktoberfest. It is a once a year event.
5. Luke Bryan is Saturday. Try to stay on point.

Tomorrow we're having crock-pot Chicken Tikka Masala, Indian spiced cauliflower and peas, basmati rice, and fresh naan. I started the dish tonight, and in my it's 0300 why am I cooking stupor, I forgot to take pictures. Reviews to follow!

First Weigh In = Success!

This morning was weigh in day. Yay for success!

Officially down 6.8 pound since 9/9. Not too shabby seeing how the only thing I changed is what I was eating. I wanna do a recap with some lessons learned from the past week.

Positives:

* Eating more fruits and veggies will not only help me lose the weight, but I feel more energized after eating these foods. 

* Vegan breakfast is totally do-able. I already typically have a vegetarian lunch, so this wasn't really an issue.

* When I did eat McDonalds, instead of my usual McDouble, McChicken, and a large fry, I had a McChicken and a small fry. I ate right before my mani/pedi and I told myself that if I was still hungry after I could go back for more. I didn't go back through the drive-thru.

* I don't like drinking milk. But if I was going to eat a cookie, I had to have a glass of milk with it. I left the cookies sitting out on the counter in eyesight. It was less tempting to just eat one mindlessly because I knew that only 1 cookie was 5 points. I was definitely more conscious of what was going in my mouth. 

Negatives:

* Craving junk food. I really wanted to binge eat McDonald's and warm chocolate chip cookies.

* I did not exercise.

* I really didn't have enough healthy foods in the house. I need more foods on hand so I don't just grab whatever is sitting out.

* When I had leftover points, I felt it was OK to splurge on dessert. Dessert is not a nightly right. A big dessert should be a special occasion (even if it's weekly), not daily. When chocolate cravings hit, try a couple M&Ms, and maybe a bite of ice cream. Definitely not a waffle cone full of chocolate peanut butter buckeye ice cream :(

Goals for next week:

* Buy a ton more veggies to have on hand!

* Eat a vegan breakfast/vegetarian lunch for 5 days

* When not at work, chew food until food is fully macerated. I'll post more on this later this week.

* When dessert cravings hit, have a few M&M's, drink some more. Ask if it's really what you want right now.

This all seems very neurotic. Tracking every little bite that passes my lips. I'm thinking about food in not a very fun way, but in an analytic way. I know that I'm the person that will do whatever I want if I don't keep myself accountable by writing it down. So I apologize if this is a boring post for y'all.

Oh yeah, I promised some corgi lovin' on here. Well TGIF, Faith's getting excited for this week's football game! Happy weekend!

Perils of no Breakfast

Didn't eat breakfast this morning. I think I kind of understand why they say eating breakfast is important. I was literally starving the entire day and was full of bad food cravings. Last week I had no cravings for anything terrible. Today I wanted to eat McDonald's, chocolate chip cookies, and more McDonald's. Crap. I did a terrible job of meeting my GHGs (good health guidelines). Instead of going for a walk, I got a mani/pedi. I got rear ended, and emotionally drank a beer when I got home. BUT, I did cook a pretty awesome dinner. 

Right now I'm struggling with 2 ideas that WW encourages. One very blatantly, the other is implied. First off, I do not want to take a multivitamin. WW, as part of it's GHG, states that everyone should be taking a multivitamin. I fully believe that as an adult that eats a balanced diet there should be no need for a multivitamin. Our body is meant to thrive on nutritious foods, not a supplement derived in a lab. I know that I am an adult that probably has not been eating the most balanced diet (heavy on foods with no color), but that is something I strive to fix. I am simply not interested in buying into the expensive pee trend. See article here. This is one guideline that I am definitely skipping.

Secondly, WW encourages new members to choose foods that are labeled "Fat Free" or "Low Fat" by assigning a low point value to these foods. For years I have believed that the most nutritious foods are the ones closest to their whole selves. Meaning, butter is better for you than margarine. Or cream cheese is better for you than fat free cream cheese. There's a reason those foods don't have fat in them, scientists have replaced the fat with chemicals. I'm not interested in putting unnecessary chemicals into my body. 

[Please ignore the fact that I love a McDonald's McChicken. I know that McDonald's is basically a vat of chemicals and not food, but I love me a McChicken. I'm working on it, k?]

This idea does not apply to skim milk, or products that are made with skim milk. The fat is literally skimmed off the top! I want to eat foods that have ingredients that I can pronounce. I don't always succeed with that idea, but I don't want to be punished for not eating foods chemically modified to be fat free. For example, I'm going to eat Pringles, not Fat-Free Pringles. By no means do I think I am a poster child for clean eating. I just believe in cleaner eating. 

In other fun news, some jerk rear ended me at a stop sign today. He wasn't even going to pull over! I stepped into the middle of the road and made him pull over. Luckily, I had zero damage to the rear end of my car, not even a scratch. I saw this guy behind me pull out his cell phone as he pulled up behind me at the stop sign, then 3 seconds later, his truck was on the back of my Milan! I was beyond pissed, simply because when I asked him what the deal was he said, "I don't know hun, my breaks just stopped working." I tried reasonably asking him again if it was really because his breaks failed and not because he wasn't paying attention. And he again said, "hunny, it was my breaks. Why don't you just try and calm down." And that's when I flipped out. There was a plethora of expletives flung at the man. I dropped the fuck word multiple times. I called him a stupid son of a bitch. I called him a lying son of a bitch, followed up with I am not your fucking hunny and don't you dare try and tell me to calm down you fucking moron. Followed by, I would not be screaming at you if you had the fucking decency to say "I fucked up. I wasn't paying attention and I rear ended you. I'M SORRY." The asshole never even apologized. All he could say was calm down. He may have been shocked at my language. Apparently no one ever told him that this "hunny" can throw cuss words with the best worst of them. 

So after that fun debacle, I returned home. Ready to punch a baby. Not really. But when I realized that my pork was now probably over cooked, all I could do was turn off the crock pot, remove the pork, and sit down with a beer. I am no one's delicate flower. After the beer, I truly felt less like drowning kittens, and returned to fixing dinner. This was a decent recipe, it's a shame I over cooked the pork. Here's what I did. Followed this recipe.

1) Gather ingredients

2. I didn't have ground sage. So I used a pork seasoning blend. Place water in crock pot. I put my garlic in the water instead of rubbing it on the pork. Then I seasoned the loins, and plopped those babies in the cook low and slow for 6 hours.

This is what they look like when they're all done cooking. They're fully cooked, but still have a very faint pink color.

3.) Make the glaze. Very simple, but delicious. Next time I would probably omit the cornstarch. The brown sugar thickens the sauce up once you heat it. And I think the cornstarch gave my glaze a gooey, almost mucousy consistency. I used an all metal pan so I could whisk my glaze and not worry about ruining my non-stick coatings.

4. Spread glaze over pork. I put my pork in a 13x9 pan, lined with foil, sprayed with Pam. Then I put my pork on the top shelf of the oven, with the broiler on high for 2 minutes. Here's what it looked like after the first glazing.

5. Not bad, but I like a good char on my meat. So I added some more glaze and back under the broiler it went. I repeated this process 2 more times.

And then Voila! The final charred, porky goodness.

I served my tenderloin with some scalloped potatoes (made from a box), and some steamed green beans mixed with a tsp. of EVOO and some fresh ground sea salt. Hubs review was same as mine, good flavor but I overcooked the pork and the glaze had an odd gooey texture to it.

Weigh in day tomorrow! Stay tuned.

HUMP DAY and some spicy sauage pasta YUM!

Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. Guess what day it is Mike?

Love it. Puts a smile on my face every time!

It's HUMP DAY, WOOP WOOP!  Work week milestones don't mean anything to me now that I work weekends and nights and half the time I have no idea what day of the week it is. Like I said before, I'm spoiled and get 4 days off a week! But congrats to all y'all that made it to Wednesday.

First full week on WW is definitely going to be a success. I snuck on the scale for a sneak peek this am, and things are looking good! I'll save the number for Friday though. 

In the future I want to post pictures of what I'm cooking on here. I don't want this blog to be all about weight loss, but also about food and life in general. 

I get a fuck ton of recipes off Pinterest. About once a week I'll pick a new recipe to cook for me and the hubs. Sometimes they're winners, other times they're BIG losers. One of our joint goals for this fall/winter is to use our crock pot more often. We have this magical tool that lets us cook dinner while we're at work or sleeping or sitting on the couch marathon watching The Walking Dead, but hardly ever use it. So we decided that once a week we will be using the crock pot to make a meal.  Also, starting October 1 we will be making a new soup once a week until the beginning of Lent. I fully assume that most weeks we will combine the goals into one, but I'd like to be able to make 2 separate dishes. 

Last night I had well over 30 points left to eat for dinner. It wasn't intentional, I just didn't eat that much for breakfast and lunch. I'm having a hard time eating all 47 points. If I'm sticking to my vegan breakfast, vegetarian lunch (lean cuisine, veggies, and a fruit), and whatever for dinner plan I feel satisfied, and I tend to be way under point. I don't exactly know what to do about this. So to eat my remaining points I had a 16 point heath bar arctic swirl at Edwards. Probably not what WW had in mind when they said eat all your allotted points, but that's what I did anyway. Oops.

But for dinner I made something called Spicy Sausage Pasta 
(recipe found here: http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/spicy-sausage-pasta.html#_a5y_p=668423)
I meant to take step by step pictures, but failed to remember. I'm putting the camera in the kitchen so I'll remember next time. My dish did end up looking like this.

The recipe calls for smoked sausage, heavy cream, and chicken broth. As substitutes I used Hillshire Farms Smoked Turkey Kielbasa, half and half, and fat-free low sodium chicken broth. With my subs, one serving is 8 points. I think there's easily room for more veggies in this dish. I would probably add red and green peppers next time. Mushrooms would even be good in here. Also I would use the campanelle pasta that they used here, not the penne the recipe called for. The delicious cheese sauce would better get in the nooks and crannies of the campanelle, rather than just kinda sit on the penne.

Even before doing WW I found that the Hillshire Farms Turkey Kielbasa is a great substitute for smoked sausage or polska kielbasa when using it in a dish. Sliced up I can't taste the difference. However, if I'm eating it by itself there is no substitute for a good hunk of smoked polska kielbasa.  I've been subbing half and half for heavy cream for years. There are probably a few recipes that I wouldn't do this sub, but in a pasta dish the swap is well worth the lower amount of fat and calories. Once again, I can't even taste the difference!

Hola Monday

Hola Monday! Sup? 

I worked in the sunlight today. Boo. It mildly saddens me that I've been converted into a nightshift person. I used to be such a staunch daylight supporter. Today was the first day I worked daylight in well over 2 months. It felt weird to see the sun shining! I did an 11am-11pm shift, which is such a bizarre shift. I like to sleep for as long as possible before work, doesn't matter what shift. I definitely LOVE to sleep! 

Well the issue with 11-11 is when do you eat? If I eat breakfast at 9ish, then lunch shouldn't be til 1 or 2ish, and I'm stuck in the hospital till 11 so I should have dinner around 7ish, right? But I only get 1 half hour lunch break, so do I do lunch or dinner? I usually just skip breakfast and grab a huge McDonald's meal on my way in, but that's not going to happen right now. 

It literally hurt my brain trying to figure out how to healthily cram food down my throat, and not wake up early. What I did was stop at Sheetz (chanting the whole time, do not get chicken bites do not get chicken bites), grabbed a Luna bar. I ate the bar when I got hungry at noon, and then had some peaches and carrots before my open heart patient rolled in the door around 2. 

I may or may not have eaten the Luna bar in a bathroom to hide the fact that I was taking a food break. It honestly worked out well. I had dinner at 630 once I stabilized some BP issues and then had a popped chip snack on the way home. I stayed w/i points, and I was full almost all day.

One of my goals this week is to do a vegan breakfast 3 times this week. I've been reading about going vegan, which means I'm interested in veganism, but not committed to becoming vegan. I stumbled on a book review for Mark Bittman's Vegan Before Six. If you're not familiar with Mark Bittman, he's a food writer. I've read his stuff in the NYT, on yahoo, and pretty sure epicurious and Bon Appetite, he gets around the internets. 

He came out with a book based on a life experience on where he ate vegan for breakfast and lunch, and whatever he wanted (in moderation) for dinner. Basically his PCP. told him he was pre-diabetic and pre-HTN and if he didn't change his lifestyle he'd be on medication for the rest of his life. So with some help, he modified his diet and was able to avoid being put on medication and lost 35lbs. 

What's appealing about this book is that it's not a diet plan. The weight loss was a side effect of eating healthier. Also, food is Mark's life. I like to think that my tiny world also revolves around food. I am not willing to give up well prepared, delicious foods just because I want to be skinnier. I'm dieting to be healthier and change my lifestyle, not be skinny. 

100% vegan is hard for me though. I LOVE CHEESE. I'm not sure I can give up dairy. So I'm doing baby steps. Vegan breakfast shouldn't be too hard. I like Almond Milk. And cereal. Boom, there's one meal. Vegan lunch...eh. I usually eat a Babybel cheese and yogurt for lunch. They're quick to eat and pack. So I think I'm going to nail doing vegan breakfast, do 100% vegetarian lunches, and whatever happens for dinner happens. For now at least. Also, I should probably read the book.

Week 1 on Weigh Watchers

Tomorrow will be 1 week officially into the diet. So far so good. It's been a busy week and full of chances to blow my diet. First test was my three night shifts in a row. Second I went to the Keith Urban concert Friday (HOLY CRAP IT WAS AMAZING!!). Third, we went out to eat three times this weekend.

Being an RN it's typical that I work long and weird hours. My normal work week includes three 12 hour night shifts. For sleeping purposes, I like to stack my shifts and work them all in a row. It's awesome because that means I usually get four days off in a row! What is not awesome is the fatigue which leads to crappy food choices. I usually eat my dinner at work between midnight and 2am. On WW, I'm calling that meal my breakfast simply because it's the first meal I'll eat during that day. By 4am I am usually starving again. This is when I'll snack on something salty, or chocolatey. Salty is usually chips and chocolate is typically a Snickers or Reeses, although usually miniature sized. What I learned this week is that 4am hunger is probably boredom or sleepiness, not actually hunger. One of my good habits is absolutely no caffeine after 3am. When I get home in the mornings at 8am I don't usually feel like eating a breakfast food. So typically I'll eat leftover pizza, or if I am in a breakfast mood I'll usually do up some eggs and sausage/bacon. Then I'll try really hard to sleep for 8 hours, but I typically get around 6. I wake up, shower, then cram something quick and easy down my throat and repeat the process. I try to eat as much food as I can before work because I have no idea what the night holds and if I'll actually be able to eat anything.

So lessons from the work week and game-plan for this week. 

1.) Don't eat out of boredom or sleepiness. Try drinking something instead. If still hungry after 15minutes, have a healthy snack available. I'll try to pack both a sweet and a salty snack to satisfy both cravings.

2.) Eat breakfast. No leftovers.

3.) I'm not really willing to sacrifice sleep for food. So if I need quick food, I'll need a fast food game-plan. I need to have quick, healthful choices at McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King.

Onto diet breaker possibility #2. My friends and I bought something earlier this summer called the country megaticket. What you get is 8 tickets to every country concert that was this summer (except for the Zac Brown Band) for all around $200. Pretty good deal! Well we're hardcore concert goers. We have a group of at least 15 and everyone has their assigned tasks. There's always lots of food and beer. We usually have some kind of cheesy dip, chips, pizza, sandwiches, pasta salad, brownies, cookies, etc. It really is a diet landmine. Well for Keith (WHICH WAS A LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE) I was prepared with a plan. I had a plan to eat a 6in. turkey sub from Subway, bought some baked chips, and a diet pop to drink. I gave myself enough points throughout the day so I could eat the whole footlong (half before the concert and half after) and not go over my points. It was freezing cold Friday, and a cold beer actually didn't sound good at all! Plus, I didn't pack any "good beer" and all there was to drink was BudLight, ew. I don't actually like raw veggies (carrot sticks, uncooked broccoli, etc) and was worried that if I was starving I was going to blow the whole day. My subway and one serving of chips was actually perfect and all I needed. 

Now about Keith Urban. If you have never seen him live, you must. He was so enthusiastic about being onstage. He rocked out every single song. A good concert is when the musician gives the impression that he is just as happy as you are to be out listening to live music, rather than just singing some songs at you. We got upgraded tickets from the lawn section, to the pavillion. At one point, we were about 3 rows away from Keith. It was awesome! If you haven't bought his new album Fuse yet, go out and buy it soon. It is excellent.

Potential diet breaker #3 was going out to eat at Outback Steakhouse Saturday, and Panera and Tana (a Pittsburgh Ethiopian place) on Sunday. I had a plan for Outback, which I stuck to very well and was able to stay OP without much difficulty. I'm trying to overestimate things, especially if I'm not 100% sure of the point value. I'd rather be honest and overestimate and lose, than underestimate and gain. I always thought Panera was a healthy restaurant, and I was absolutely shocked at the calorie amounts on some of their food! Even though I'm more concerned with fat and carbs right now, almost 900 calories for a "healthy" sandwich seems ridiculous. After much deliberation, I chose (the night before we went out) from the You Pick 2 Menu. I got a cup of black bean soup (6 points) and a half of their Chipotle Chicken Panini (11 points). My husband ordered for me, so I didn't get to pick my side. And I got distracted talking to my girlfriends so before I knew it I had eaten the lil baguette thing that I hadn't planned on eating. I wanted apple slices instead. So that little gem of a side put me over by 7 points (I did eat a packet of butter with it). 7 points for a measly little piece of bread! It was so freaking good, all warm and delicious straight out of the oven...

Every month, hubs and I go out to eat with a group of his co-workers/used to be boss. While we wait for our food we play a trivia game and whoever wins the game gets to pick the next restaurant. Hubs won last time and chose Tana. If you've never had Ethiopian food I highly recommend it. I had all vegetarian items, and I was shocked that my dinner was 20 points. I guess that's not too terribly high (just nearly half of my daily points value), but I thought it would be less cuz of all the veggies. I was wrong obvi, but I left satisfied. I can't wait to go back! There's this beet salad they make called Key Sir Selata and I literally crave it for weeks after we go to Tana. 

That's my weekend in a nutshell. I'll post tomorrow with weekly goals and my meal plan. Have a good week everyone!

First Post

First post.

Let's start out with the fact that I am embarrassed to be posting about my life for the whole world to see. This is going to be necessary to keep me accountable. This blog is going to serve as a place to chart my weight loss journey, my goals, my success, and my failures (inevitable, but hopefully not too many).

I'm a 25 year old RN who 3 days ago joined Weight Watchers. I'm ashamed to say that I'm only 25 and weigh 291lbs. I wear a size 24 jean. My tops are XL - 3x. Wow. That hurts to even type those numbers. Since college, my weight has spiraled out of control. At 18 I weighed a healthy 160lbs for my 5'9" frame. That means since 2006 I have gained 130lbs. Since age 8, I was a competitive swimmer that spent 2-4 hours per day in the pool training. It was easy to eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. But in college, I quit training and barely exercised. That trend continued after graduation. I was convinced that I was comfortable with my body, and didn't care about weight and size, after all they're just a number. After a full year of eating and drinking whatever I wanted, no exercise, not weighing myself, and generally just not caring about myself, I realized that this is an unsustainable path. I didn't care about calories, thin/fat, size, opinions, anything. I was determined to do what I wanted. I loathed girls that made comments about their size for attention, or those that compared their own flaws to others strengths/assets. 

So how did I change my attitude? I need new scrubs for work. The crotch of my pants had almost worn through after a year and a half of owning them. Damn thigh touch. Also my scrub tops were getting tight around my arms and chest. My bras aren't fitting well. My underwear cuts into my groin (at least my butt's still covered!). I had my annual OB/GYN appointment and standing on that scale was the moment that literally tipped the scales. When the nurse said, "And your weight is 2-9-1 P-O-U-N-D-S," I was shocked. I was embarrassed to be standing in front of this woman who couldn't have weighed more than 130lbs. I could see the judgement in her eyes. The doctor however, didn't say a thing. Thank god. I have new stretchmarks under my arm pits. They disgust me. I tripped over a wheelchair at work and hurt my knee. Again I was embarrassed. Not because I fell, but because I thought people were judging me for being fat and clumsy. Looking through pictures on facebook, and not seeing 1 picture taken in the last year that I thought I looked pretty. I don't want to go out with my friends because I have nothing cute to wear. In the simplest terms, I am not happy. My energy level is the lowest it has ever been. All I want to do is lay on the couch and watch TV. 

Life has happened, and now I'm pushing 300lbs. I will NOT HIT THAT MILESTONE. So here I am. I started the online Weight Watchers plan on Tuesday 9/10. I get 47 daily points, an extra 29 weekly. I think it's awesome that fruit and veggies are 0 points. This is my 3rd day into the program, so far I feel good. I've been getting in my daily fruit and veggie serving with no problem! Fridays are going to be my weigh in days, and I weighed myself this morning. I'm still at 291lbs, but that's only after 3 days. I feel full, most of the time. I intend to set a weekly goal for myself, in addition to daily food goals. One of my biggest issues is actually cooking the recipes I have planned out. I find myself at a restaurant instead. So that is probably going to be one of my big daily goals. I'm still working on long-term goals, but my definite is to lose 15lbs by the end of 2013. I also plan on posting at least weekly, but hopefully daily. So I guess...HERE WE GO!