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Ahhh! WIW - really late edition

I’m so sorry! Life has been pretty crazy lately and I forgot to post about my weigh in last week. No worries, I have still been tracking and working this program, just not posting here.

Anyway, week 2 brought a 2 pound loss! That brought my total to exactly 5 pounds lost! I’m really glad I deleted my history so I was about to celebrate my first five pounds with my WW group. It has really been helping to have a clean slate instead of focusing on the past.

Like I said, this week has been crazy. Work has been so busy but for really great reasons. Big things happening in my library!!

And in my personal life it has been a big week as well. Thursday brought my husbands and my four year wedding anniversary! We went out for a lovely dinner at one of our favorite Greek restaurants. Yum! I tracked everything, including the pie we picked up on our way home!

This weekend we had my husband’s company Christmas party (better late than never I suppose!). It was held at a Whirly ball/bowling place and they served us pizza, chips and salsa, pita and hummus and a few other apps. The pizza was great but the rest was just meh. So I enjoyed (and tracked!) some pizza and mostly skipped the rest. It was an open bar, but I was driving so I stuck to soda water and lime.

The blizzard hit while we were out so I came home and hibernated! The cold is really hard on my lungs so I’m glad I didn’t have to go out in it yesterday. Or today because I have a SNOW DAY!!! Our college is 100% commuters so if the roads get bad, we usually get a cold day. Hooray!! I don’t know our final count but I think we got at least 14 or so inches.

Stay warm folks!

acarsc:
“I forgot to post yesterday.
This was my lunch at school. Caprese flatbread, simple salad with balsamic vinaigrette, minestrone soup and water. It was delish and filling.
So, I’m finding I’m not eating enough. I’ve been focusing on not eating...

acarsc:

I forgot to post yesterday.

This was my lunch at school. Caprese flatbread, simple salad with balsamic vinaigrette, minestrone soup and water. It was delish and filling.

So, I’m finding I’m not eating enough. I’ve been focusing on not eating too much and have been ending my day with extra points. This is not cool! I end up feeling crappy because I hungry. Day one I ended up with 8 points so I had 1/3 cup of real ice cream. Last night I went to bed with 13 extra points! No bueno! I will say that last night I wasn’t feeling well with stupid sarcoidosis stuff, but still…..I went to sleep hungry.

So that is what I’m working on today. More food!

Whoops! I accidentally posted this on my personal blog. This was from early in the week when I wasn’t eating enough points.

WIW

I’m so glad to have Weigh In Wednesdays back! It just sounds so much better than Weigh In Thursday.

So this week was good! I really focused on tracking every single thing. I actually noticed that I was holding onto points too much and was ending they day hungry with 14 extra points. Not cool! So I have been working on that. I also noticed that I was getting a lot of power foods in which is great.

Weigh in was good. I lost exactly three pounds which I’m really pleased with! But my concern is what is to come. The first week is almost always easy because of the loss of water weight. I’ve had such a hard time losing weigh that I’m a bit gun shy. Between prednisone last year and the terrible plateau the year before that….I’m just really keeping my fingers crossed that I can continue to lose. I hope that doesn’t sound like too big of a Debbie Downer, but that is just where I am at mentally. I know that this worked for me in the past so I just need to trust the plan and actually follow it.

Soooo….I hope you all had a great week! I’m looking forward to my assessment period ending tonight for my ActiveLink and seeing what that shows. I’m concerned about what I’ve seen so far but I’ll write more about that later.

I still owe a health update post…I haven’t forgotten!!

First dinner back on plan was solid. I need to do a shopping trip but I’m going to be gone part of the weekend so I’m buying minimal amounts of food.
Dinner tonight was an omelette with 2% cheese and bacon bits, sautéed spinach with olive oil and...

First dinner back on plan was solid. I need to do a shopping trip but I’m going to be gone part of the weekend so I’m buying minimal amounts of food.

Dinner tonight was an omelette with 2% cheese and bacon bits, sautéed spinach with olive oil and garlic, and two slices of whole grain bread with butter. The bread was made by one of my baking and pastry students and was super delicious.

I’m pretty proud of myself. I weighed the cheese and bread, measured the bacon bits, olive oil and garlic, and even measured out the butter for the bread!

Off to a good start. And thank you so much for the support this afternoon! I appreciate the kind words here and over on the Facebook page. You guys motivate me so much!

Remember Me?

I rejoined Weight Watchers. Well, I never actually canceled my membership because I knew it would be way harder to come back if I did.  So I have been paying money for the past few months and not actually participating. 

But today I came back.  And not just that, I started over.  I deleted my history and today’s weight is my new starting weight. I wanted to start fresh and not be comparing myself to, well, myself.  

So I faced the music and weighed in.  I’m still 14.6 pounds down from my highest, so I didn’t end up gaining ALL the weight back.  But today’s number is my new start. 

I also purchased the new Active Link.  You all know how I love fun technology!  I am doing a new assessment period to find out where I’m at physically.  This new version has so many new features that I’m looking forward to playing with. I’m sure I’ll do a post about it once get some experience with it.

I will also do a separate post this week about how I’ve been doing health wise……because my word that deserves its own post!

So here I am. Back again.  Writing here helped me so much in the past so I’m going to try and better about posting.  

Updates

Hi all!

Sorry (again!) for the lack of posts. I have been tracking, counting points and attending my weigh ins and meetings. I just haven’t had a chance to really write much! 

As far as weigh ins are concerned, they have been ok. I maintained the first week (well, had a .2 pound gain) and gained 2 pounds the second week. I’ve had pretty busy and food heavy weekends lately with some out of town trips to my family beach cottage so I wasn’t too surprised.  

Sarcoidosis wise, I’ve been struggling a bit. My doctor tapered my dose of prednisone down to 5 mg about a week and a half ago, and I just haven’t been feeling great. It started off slow but over the past couple of days my breathing has been struggling. About 90% of the time I can’t get a full breath of air. It’s not nearly as bad as it was back in February, but it just isn’t pleasant or sustainable. I’ve also had quite a bit of fatigue and too many elevated temperatures.

Anyway, I finally called my pulmonologist today and he unfortunately raised my dosage. Ugh. I’m back up to 20 mg for 5 days, then down to 10mg for three weeks. I’m hoping that this jump will help but it worries me going back up so high. I really hate prednisone (I’m sure you are all sick of hearing me say that, but it’s true!) and I want to a point where I don’t need it. 

Sooooo, that is what is up with me! I have a few posts lined up for the rest of this week with some fun happenings…so be sure to check back! 

I hope…

I hope that I never again take for granted the feeling of taking a deep breath and my lungs filling with air.

I’m constantly amazed how wonderful it feels. And since starting treatment (as horrible as the prednisone is) I’ve realized that my lungs weren’t functioning properly for as long as I can remember.

I just keep praying that the disease goes fully into remission and I don’t get worse when I’m fully off the pred. I don’t think I can handle the feeling of not getting enough air in my lungs. I don’t wish that panicky feeling on anyone.

Weigh In Thursday

Well, that could have been better. Not only did I gain, but I gained the entire loss from the week before. Yep, I gained 3.4 pounds. Womp womp. 

BUT, like I mentioned in my previous post, I’m super motivated to keep going.  I won’t be on prednisone forever (God willing), shark week will arrive (again, God willing!), and I can learn from my mistakes.  

I don’t have nearly as much going on this coming week so that should help. Jeremiah and I will be spending the night out in the suburbs this weekend to visit with family. I can’t WAIT to see my goddaughter!! YAY!!  I also have one of my best friends coming into town!  Double YAY!

Some more pre weigh in musings.

I think I’m going to have a gain tomorrow. My weight has been up all week. Ugh.

There are a few things at play. First, it’s the week before shark week. I almost always retain water like ca-razy during this week.

Second, I’ve had a really food heavy week. I’ve been tracking to the best of my ability but I definitely overate this weekend. I also had a big picnic last night at the baseball game.

Third, maybe it’s still the prednisone?

Fourth, maybe I’m just struggling with getting back into the Weight Watchers lifestyle? I haven’t realllllly been on plan for quite a while and it’s definitely taken some extra effort to be more mindful of my eating.

Whatever the reason, if I see a gain tomorrow, if will definitely provide some much needed motivation to keep going and have a better weigh in next week. And if I see a loss? Awesome!

Cheeseburger Casserole and Creole Green Beans
Lately I’ve been on a beef/cheeseburger kick. Not sure why….maybe I’m low on iron? Anyway, I saw this recipe a while back and knew I needed to make it. And I’m SO glad that I did! Not only was it super...

Cheeseburger Casserole and Creole Green Beans

Lately I’ve been on a beef/cheeseburger kick. Not sure why….maybe I’m low on iron?  Anyway, I saw this recipe a while back and knew I needed to make it.  And I’m SO glad that I did! Not only was it super easy to make, but it was really delicious. It totally satisfied my craving for comfort food and pasta without totally breaking the WW bank.  

Go ahead and check out the full recipe over at Skinnytaste HERE. I followed the recipe pretty close with only a couple small additions.  I added some McCormick hamburger seasoning (about 1 tablespoon) and some cayenne pepper to the beef.  I felt like it was missing something and I really enjoyed the additional flavors.  I think it would 100% be just fine without the extra spices, but I liked what they brought to the table. 

******

I have reallllly been craving cajun/creole food lately.  We ate so much wonderful food during our New Orleans trip in March and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I remembered having some AMAZING creole green beans at Coop’s Place in New Orleans. (Pro tip: if you visit NOLA, you MUST go to Coop’s. For real. It’s the best.)

So I started scouring the internet for a copycat recipe. I found a few different recipes, and this one was the easiest/the pictures looks the closest.  While it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it was a seriously yummy side dish.  It was a little too sweet for my taste and lacked some spice. So next time I think I will cut down on the brown sugar and add in some spices.  

You should definitely go to the original post but since it is a short recipe, I’ll also share it here with my changes)

Ingredients:

  • 3 (14.5 oz.) cans whole green beans, drained
  • 4 slices bacon, diced (I added 6…..wise choice)
  • ½ cup chopped onion
  • ½ cup chopped green bell pepper (I hate these so I just added more onion)
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1 (14.5 oz) can stewed tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce

Directions:

Cook bacon in large skillet until crisp. Remove bacon, reserving drippings.

Sauté onion and pepper in bacon drippings until tender. Stir in flour, brown sugar, salt, pepper and dry mustard. Stir in tomatoes and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in green beans and cook until thickened and thoroughly heated, about 10 minutes. Top with cooked bacon.

******

I started with the casserole and then cooked the beans while the casserole was in the oven.  Dinner came together in just under an hour from start to finish. 

PointsPlus wise, this meal was fairly decent.  1/9th of the casserole is calculated at 7 PointsPlus a serving. I accidentally cut the casserole into 6 portions instead and didn’t realize until after we finished eating.  Whoops!  The portions were pretty large and very filling and when I recalculated it came out to be 10 PointsPlus for 1/6.  The green beans (with the extra two slices of bacon!) entered in the recipe builder came out to be 4 PointsPlus for 1/6. That means, even with the extra large portion, my meal came out to be a total of 14 PointsPlus.  Not too bad considering the meal felt really rich!

Add this to Pinterest HERE!

Snack-a-lackin

I’m not going to lie, I feel pretty proud of myself whenever I pack snacks for the day.  It’s such a small thing but it makes me really pleased that I planned ahead!  Also, I really look forward to those snacks alllllll day. 

Today’s snack menu: 0% Greek yogurt with 2 teaspoons honey and a sliced granny smith apple.  Yum!

Weigh In Thursday - Hesitantly Happy

I always love the first week back on plan because the weigh ins are usually awesome.  I realize that most of the weight coming off is water weight as you adjust to eating healthy and drinking lots of water, but it still makes me happy. 

Seeing a 3.4 pound loss was not surprising, because I had been keeping an eye on the scale, but it sure did make my day!  I’m sure a lot of that is water weight, but it provided the motivation to keep going. This brings my total pounds lost to 28.8. 

Last time I started WW on prednisone (back in April) I had a great first week followed by several crap weeks of gaining and maintaining.  I’m hoping that since my dose is so much lower (I’m on 10mg currently instead of 40mg) I might actually be able to lose weight?  The crazy intense hunger has calmed down but I’m sure my metabolism isn’t back to where it was pre-prednisone. 

So yes, I’m happy, but very hesitantly.  I’m not really sure what my future weigh ins will look like since I’m still taking prednisone, albeit a much lower dose, but I’m going to continue on plan and hope to keep the scale moving in the right direction!

Some Pre-Weigh In Musings.

Well, my first week back on Weight Watchers is coming to an end.  Tomorrow morning is weigh in and I’m curious to see what it will show.  I’m hoping for a loss, even if it is mostly water weight. 

I think I did pretty well this week! I planned to the best of my ability, adapted to surprises, and made some good choices. I stayed within my points and have about 15 weeklies left over to cover for any incorrect calculations.  Unfortunately today I had quite a lot of salty food (darn culinary students over salting my salad!) but I tried to drink a lot of water to help counteract the water retention. 

Today I planned my meals for the coming week and went grocery shopping.  I’m going to be spending most of the weekend with my girlfriends so I had a few less meals to plan for.  We always eat really delicious and fairly WW friendly meals when we are together so as long as I have decent portions, I should be good to go.  I do have a few awesome meals planned for the coming week that I’m really looking forward to trying and then sharing with you all!

In other news, I got the sweetest note from a reader today!  I love reading your comments and notes….it makes me so happy!  Thank you to all you wonderful people who support me from afar! 

Cheeseburger Hash Brown Cups with Arugula Caprese Salad
I had three different delicious components to last night’s dinner, but this post will only cover two of them. The pickles, that I’m completely obsessed with, require a dedicated post just to...

Cheeseburger Hash Brown Cups with Arugula Caprese Salad

I had three different delicious components to last night’s dinner, but this post will only cover two of them.  The pickles, that I’m completely obsessed with, require a dedicated post just to themselves. 

First let’s talk about the main course. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand time, Emily Bites does some amazing work. And this recipe is no exception. The cups were hearty and flavorful and not difficult to make.  Head over to her post for the full list of ingredients and recipe.  

I followed the recipe pretty much to a T.  The only thing I did differently was add chopped up pickles to half of the cups. My husband is not a fan of pickles (Appalling, I know!) so I left half of them plain.  The consensus among the rest of us, (Chris, Laurie, and myself) was that the pickles were an awesome addition.  If you are a pickle fan, DEFINITELY add some chopped up dill pickles!  I added about 1.5 tablespoons to half the recipe, so the full recipe would require about 3 tablespoons.  

Ok, next up is the side dish!  I love a yummy caprese salad.  The flavor combination of tomato, basil, mozzarella and balsamic is just perfection.  This salad is one that I have pretty regularly if I have the ingredients on hand.  It’s super flavorful, gets in a couple servings of vegetables, at least one serving of oil, and can be adapted easily.

I usually don’t use any lettuce in the salad, just tomatoes and basil, but I was short on tomatoes last night.  So I added a few handfuls of arugula to beef up the salad.  Definitely a good choice!  

The only mozzarella I had around were a few fresh mozzarella sticks from Trader Joe’s (think string cheese but made from mozzarella!) so I chopped those up and threw them in.  

Quick side note: A few weeks ago I asked my parents for a random request.  I wanted a basil and a mint plant in olive oil tins. The Greek’s from the island often grow their basil in used olive oil tins…I think there is some old wives tale about the leftover olive oil helping the plants grow?  I’m not sure. Either way, my parents’ screen porch is full of basil planted in tins. My wonderful father obliged  my request and gave up two of his olive oil tins for my plants.  Now I have a little silly garden of herbs growing on my balcony.  I think I need to Instagram them asap.  

Annnnnyway, long story short, I picked the basil for the salad from my very own basil plant! I felt very domestic.  Let’s hope I don’t kill the plants! 

Back to the salad…..tomatoes, arugula, mozzarella, basil.  Oh, and the dressing. I sprayed everything with some olive oil, added some salt and pepper, and drizzled it with balsamic vinegar. I thought (very briefly) about making a balsamic reduction, but I didn’t really have enough time, energy, or vinegar to make it happen.  

I really loved this meal.  I was very pleased with how everything came together and how delicious it was.  I know its a good meal when there aren’t any leftovers! As far as the PointsPlus are concerned, it was really solid.  The cheeseburger hash brown cups come in at 7 PointsPlus for two. I planned to eat three and ended up eating four because they were so amazing. Thank goodness I had a few spare points leftover from a small lunch! The side salad was only 3 PointsPlus and the pickles were 0! Not too shabby! 

Add this to Pinterest HERE!