Checking In - Week 2

Oh dear. I don't know why I let Tiffany have so much control over me. But per her suggestion I am now taking - and sharing - progress pictures.

I'm calling this my before picture. It's the best I've got while not pregnant, before losing any weight on purpose.

No, I don't know why my husband thought it was "funny" to throw his leg over me like that. But I'm sort of grateful that he's hiding some of the flab.

Keep in mind that aside from being VERY overweight still (technically obese, although I just can't bring myself to think about it too long) these next pictures were taken just after I got out of bed and threw my workout clothes on. No hair, no make up, no pretty. Just me. In sweats and a t-shirt. Please be kind.

Also, these pictures were taken by my 6 year old. And they're probably better than the photos I usually take. Sad.

Here I am, in all my glory. Hey, at least my nails look nice, right? Oh, you can't see them? Crap.

As you can see I have curves. Hips and thighs have always been my least favorite feature. They were wide enough before having children. Three kids have NOT helped one bit. Although neither has cheesecake.

Side view. Wow. I'm a bit of a hunchback. Gotta start working on that posture!

And to be fair, I was totally sucking in for that one. This is reality. Apparently I still look very pregnant. No fun.

But now that we have those scary (and depressing) "during" pictures out of the way, I can share the good news!!

Tiffany also encouraged me to start taking measurements every two weeks. I took my first measurements on November 30th, so it hasn't quite been 2 weeks yet, but Monday's are just easier to check in, you know?

So here's the GOOD news!

WEIGHT:

194 lbs.

Yay! Down another 2.8 pounds!! Down anything is good, but almost three pounds feels great!!

MEASUREMENTS:

Bicep 13.5 in

Chest 42 in

Waist 38 in

Hips 47 in

Thighs 28.75 in

That's a total of 6.25 inches lost!! Yay!! That means that even though I don't feel like I can see much of a difference, something is happening!!

I may not love posting these pictures of myself right now. But the idea of looking back at these photos a month or two from now makes me excited. I can't wait to have something to reference so that I really can see how far I've come. Already, even though some days it doesn't feel like much, I know I've come a long way. Down more than 50 pounds from my highest weight, and down more than 25 pounds in just 2 1/2 months. That's definitely something to be proud of!

Baked Vegetable Egg Rolls

Who doesn't love Chinese food?! But grabbing Chinese take out isn't so good for my waistline. So when I found this healthy recipe I got pretty excited! I went out and bought chopsticks, Asian soup spoons, and dip bowls. Then I invited my sisters over for a girls night. And we all loved the food!!

We had Baked Vegetable Egg Rolls and Egg Drop Soup. Unfortunately, we started eating BEFORE taking pictures, so the soup was pretty much gone. I'll have to make it again, take better pictures, and share the recipe later. For now, enjoy these!

(Warning: These took a little longer than I usually spend in the kitchen, but they were so good they are totally worth the extra time!!)

Baked Vegetable Egg Rolls

Original recipe found HERE.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 inch fresh ginger root

4 ounces mushrooms

2 medium carrots

3 medium green onions

1 small head green cabbage

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 tbsp corn starch

1 tsp sesame oil

1 package egg roll wrappers (20 wrappers in a package)

non stick cooking spray

Prepare your veggies. Peel and grate ginger. Peel and grate carrots. Mince garlic. Clean and slice the green onions and mushrooms. Peel the outer layer or two from the cabbage, cut into quarters, cut out the core, and then cut cabbage into thin shreds.

Heat oil in a wok or skillet over medium heat. Saute ginger, garlic, and green onion for 1-2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and saute about 5 more minutes or until mushrooms are soft. Add carrot for 1 more minute, then add cabbage. Turn the heat up to medium-high and cook and stir often until the cabbage reduces by about half.

Stir together the cornstarch and soy sauce and pour over the veggies. Drizzle with sesame oil and stir to coat. Turn off the heat and adjust the flavor if you'd like. I added a touch more soy sauce.

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with tin foil. Fill each wrapper with about 1/4 cup of the veggie mixture. To see a great photo tutorial on how to wrap the rolls, see the original recipe HERE. Place the egg rolls on your baking sheet and spray with non-stick spray. Turn them over and spray the other side.

Bake for 20 minutes or until crispy and light brown, turning once about half way through.

Makes 10 servings.

Nutritional Facts per 2 Rolls:

233 calories, 3g fat, 706mg sodium, 43.4g carbs, 2.7g fiber, 7.7g protein

We dipped our egg rolls in spicy mustard and sweet and sour sauce. Delish!! And the whole meal? Rolls, soup, and dips? Under 400 calories!! I HIGHLY recommend you try these!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Snack time! When I'm eating healthy I find I need to eat OFTEN. I try to eat smaller meals. And my snacks seem to be tiny meals a lot of the time, too. I'm not a big fan of carrot and celery sticks for snacks every day. I want something yummy. And warm in the winter time. So for one my snacks today I'm having Baked Parmesan Tomatoes over toast. Yum!!!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Original recipe found HERE.

Ingredients:

4 medium tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp salt

black pepper, to taste

4 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Place tomatoes cut-side up on a baking sheet. Top with parmesan cheese, oregano, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and bake for about 15 minutes or until tomatoes are tender.

Makes 4 servings.

Nutritional Facts per Tomato:

85 calories, 6g fat, 228mg sodium, 5g carbs, 1.6g fiber, 3g protein

Even with the toast, this snack came it under 200 calories. Perfect! Very Italian. Delicious and light, but filling. And easy to make for one or many!

Hawaiian BBQ Pizza on Whole Wheat Thin Crust

Yay! My first recipe!! I'm so excited to share this!

I have certain rules for dinner. I try to cook about 4 times a week, leaving a couple of nights for leftovers and eating out or ordering pizza once. On the nights I cook my rules are simple:

#1 I don't want to waste my entire day/night in the kitchen. If it takes more than an hour, it's not going to happen. And 30 minutes is really what I like to spend in the kitchen.

#2 I don't want to have to buy fancy gadgets. I have minimal kitchen space and I don't like wasting money on a lot of tools. There are a few things I have splurged on (like my immersible blender for soups!) but I'm not going to go out and buy something if I don't already have it.

#3 I'm only cooking ONE meal. I am not a personal chef. I'm going to make one meal for my entire family. If they try it and they don't like it, fine. But I'm not making anything else. If you hate it that much, you are welcome to make yourself some serious or a sandwich.

#4 Yes, I need something healthy, but I'm not eating cardboard or rabbit food. It's gotta taste good!

Easy enough, right?

I've been wanting to come up with a yummy Hawaiian BBQ Pizza for a while and tonight I finally got around to it. And I have to say it turned out really good! I'll definitely make it again.

And just so you know, I'm not a photographer. I don't own a fancy camera. I'm not going to wait for the right lighting to take my pictures. Maybe one day I'll have a better camera, but I'm never going to be a professional photographer. So no complaining about my crappy photos!! :)

Hawaiian BBQ Pizza on Whole Wheat Thin Crust

(That's one slice. Just so you know, I ate two for dinner. And yes, I eat my pizza with a fork. I'm weird.)

Ingredients:

DOUGH

2 tsp active dry yeast

2/3 cup warm water

2 tsp honey

1 1/3 cup wheat flour

2 tbsp and 2 tsp wheat germ

1/2 tsp salt

TOPPINGS

1/2 cup BBQ sauce

2 cups shredded cheese (I used 1/2 mozzarella, 1/2 cheddar)

1 cup chopped red onion

1 cup pineapple chunks or tidbits

Start with the dough. I'm not a baker. I like easy recipes. I don't mess with proofing the yeast correctly or really even letting dough rise much. I like EASY recipes.

Combine the honey, warm water (just slightly warmer than room temperature, not hot), and yeast. Stir to dissolve and set aside for about 5 minutes.

Combine flour, wheat germ, and salt. Make a little well. Dump in the yeast mixture. Combine with a spoon.

Spray some non-stick cooking spray on your hands and use them to mix the dough until most of the flour is incorporated and you form a ball with the dough.

Cover with a towel and allow to rise 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

The dough really won't rise noticeably. No worries! Roll it out THIN. I don't even bother using a floured surface, but you can if you're worried about the dough sticking to your counter.

Place your rolled out dough on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Remove pizza crust and turn the oven heat up to 400 degrees.

Spread BBQ sauce with a spoon. (I don't use a lot of sauce. I like a slightly drier pizza.) Top with cheese. Add onions and pineapple. (I LOVE red onion. This is a LOT of red onion. And I chop it into larger chunks. If you're not a big onion fan, use less or leave it off entirely.)

Bake again for about 15 minutes or until edges are light brown and cheese is melted.

Makes 8 slices.

Nutritional Facts per Slice:

251 calories, 10g fat, 655mg sodium, 31.5g carbs, 4.3g fiber, 9.5g sugar, 11g protein

Not perfectly healthy. But not bad, especially for pizza! And super delicious. Hope you enjoy! If you try it, let me know what you think!!

Food!!

The BIGGEST part of losing weight is FOOD. Someone said to me the other day, "I just wish I didn't have to workout in order to lose weight." I sort of wanted to laugh. Because you don't! Working out helps you build muscle tone, which DOES burn calories faster than fat. But it isn't very affective for weight loss if your eating isn't in check.

On the other hand, I could do no physical activity and eat healthy within the right calorie limit and I'd drop pounds. Obviously, that wouldn't be optimally healthy, but it's true. So I focus more of my energy on what I eat and do a little exercise on the side.

When I first started trying to lose weight (about four million years ago) I thought the only way to eat was like a rabbit. Vegetables. Salads. A little fruit. No carbs. Brothy soups. Blech. Boring. I just can't eat that way! I like food that TASTES good! I want food that makes me excited to eat, that I can enjoy! I don't want to force myself to eat foods that I don't like.

So I don't! If it doesn't taste good, I'm not going to eat it. If it doesn't fill me up, it's not worth it. Does this mean I absolutely crave and love everything I eat? Like pizza and cheesecake? No. Sometimes I just really, really love things. Sometimes I just like them okay. But most of the time I eat foods that I really, really, really like!

The other thing is getting the family to eat it. I have a somewhat picky family. My hubby will try anything I ask him to (almost). He may not request it on a regular basis, but he'll eat it. And the kids will try it because I make them. :) I will not make them eat something they really, honestly don't like. But I also won't cook two separate meals. And I can tell the difference between "I reeeeeally hate mushrooms!" and "I would so rather be eating pizza right now!" with the kids.

I don't expect them to love everything I make. I made a vegetable stir fry tonight (recipe coming soon!) full of cabbage and green onions and bell peppers and water chestnuts. I don't expect them to pick this for their birthday dinner. But unless it's making them gag, they can probably handle it just fine. Know what I mean?

Also, my kids are really good at seeing vegetables on their plates and immediately starting to whine that they don't like this. I'll remind them that they haven't tried it yet, or they've had it before and liked it just fine. But they continue to whine. I always promise that I am only going to make them try it. And USUALLY they end up eating everything.

This happened the other day at Tiffany's house. I had a huge pot of minestrone soup (recipe also coming soon!) and I took it to her house to share. Payson immediately whined about how she hated this stuff. I promised her she'd live if she tried it. She continued to whine. And then she ate the whole bowl. Awesome!

I plan to start sharing my favorite recipes soon. I could share them right this very second, but who wants just a recipe? Everyone wants pictures. And I don't have those. Yet. But as I start making each of those recipes I will take pictures and promise to post recipes and photos of the foods we eat around here on a regular basis to help you plan healthy meals and to show you that healthy eating doesn't have to taste like rabbit food!

Support and Accountability

So far I've mentioned a few things I'm doing to shed the pounds. Eating healthy, being a vegetarian, exercise, setting goals and having rewards, counting calories (the easy way!). But my secret weapon is Tiffany.

Tiffany and I go back a ways. We met the Spring/Summer of 2004. We were newlyweds living in the same apartment complex in Rexburg, Idaho. We were both pregnant and met at church one Sunday. Tiffany and I would walk together on the treadmills at our apartment clubhouse and share pregnancy details. I adore her.

Jason and I moved after about 5 months and Tiffany and I lost touch. Tiff kept a blog and one day I contacted her because I wanted to start one. (See what you started, Tiffany?? This is my FIFTH blog!!) We kept in touch through blogging and emails here and there. And then Tiffany lost a lot of weight and I started to pick her brain.

As you know, I eventually stopped focusing on weight loss and we lost touch a little again. When I moved back to Utah, we reconnected.

Tiffany decided to start doing some personal wellness coaching and I wanted in! She has a Bachelor's degree in Health Science and is currently studying to become a personal trainer. She's also a Beach Body coach and has started doing Workout Challenge Groups with P90X. I had started losing the weight again on my own. I had been looking into hiring a personal trainer, but there were none in my area. And even if there had been, those guys are PRICEY!!

So I called Tiff. We talked for a while and I decided I needed her! Since then Tiffany has been in daily contact with me and has really helped me to succeed.

When I was feeling a total lack of motivation to workout one day, she told me to simply commit to the warm up. Five minutes. I could do that! She knew that if I committed to the warm up, by the time I was 5 minutes in I would most likely keep going and get my workout in for the day. She was right.

One night I knew I had a dinner to go to. I knew there would not be a healthy dinner option and there would definitely be a dessert table. She helped me get through the dinner without blowing the night and she helped me enjoy the dessert table without eating EVERYTHING. :) Knowing I had Tiffany to report to in the morning I enjoyed two bite sized treats and left the rest of the desserts alone. And I was rewarded on the scale the next morning. Awesome!

When I'm having a bad week, Tiffany helps me refocus. She lets me live a normal life and have bad days, but she doesn't let them last. She gets me right back on track. She understand that you don't have to cut treats out entirely, but helps me decide when it's really worth it.

She has literally been my BEST tool! She's a busy mom of FOUR who has done the work it takes to lose weight. She really gets it. She knows exactly how hard it is to eat right and fit workouts in while juggling kids and husbands and life.

Tiff's Before and After. Seriously! Check out those ABS!!!

Finding someone who gives you the support and encouragement you need is invaluable! I was losing weight on my own. I lost almost 13 pounds by myself in about 2 months. The first TWO WEEKS with Tiffany I lost about 7 pounds!! SEVEN! It's amazing what the right support and advice can do.

Tiffany and her sister, Heather, have a wellness blog where they share recipes and workouts and all kinds of great stuff!! Check them out here!

Lose It!

Everyone needs lots of tools to help them succeed at this weight loss thing. (Time out: My four year old son just walked up to me in my bra. I completely lost track of what I was thinking.)

Oh yeah, tools. (Oh man, focus. Quit thinking about the bra. Back to blogging!)

Lose It has becoming one of my favorite tools! For me, it's important to track my calories. But I hate counting. Hate it. I don't want to waste half my day looking up how many calories each food is worth and figuring out all the math. It's boring and I just don't have the time.

In the past I used Spark People (add that to the list of diets I've tried). It worked. I liked it. But it was sucking up too much of my time! On Spark People there are community forums, personal web pages, articles, and more. So much stuff! I found myself online half the day. So I finally just quit.

Lose It is different. It's simple. I add my foods. I see the numbers. I make choices throughout my day based on those numbers.

Here's how I use it. Each morning I weigh myself. I record the number on Lose It. Takes five seconds. I make my breakfast. I usually eat my breakfast at my computer desk while I check my email. I take another five seconds to add my breakfast. If I have a little time, I comment on a friend's progress or read their comments on mine. It's so nice to have the encouragement and support from others who are doing the same thing!

Lose It shows me how many calories I've consumed, burned, and have left in my "budget" for the day. Awesome!

And when I'm out and about, I have the Lose It! App on my phone. It links directly to my online account so I don't have to update things twice.

Summary? Things I love about Lose It:

*it does the math for me

*support and encouragement from friends

*it's not time consuming

*it has a huge database of food, including store brands and restaurant foods

*if it doesn't have a food, I can EASILY add it myself by copying the info from a label

*I can add my recipes (only takes a minute or two)

*it calculates calories burned from exercise AND daily chores, like house cleaning

There are several tools like this out there. Spark People, Lose It, My Fitness Pal. I'm sure they all have their own list of pros and cons. Lose It is the one that works for me. Join me there!!

mckennaralls (at) hotmail (dot) com