Game Day Eats

Well, I didn't Shred last night. It got too late and I wasn't in the mood to get all sweaty right before bed. But, I made sure to do it first thing this morning! My goal is to do it every day in February; maybe by then, I'll be shredded as Jillian says ;) After Shred, I had a cereal trifecta; 1/2 c. Puffins, 1/2 c. TJ's High Fiber O's and 1/4 c. high fiber select. I topped it with 2 strawberries, 1/2 c. blueberries and 1 c. Soy Slender. Good stuff for 4 POINTS...


After my super -cereal, I headed to the basement and did another 25 minutes on the elliptical. So far, I think I have hit my 45 min.-a-day exercise goal for the whole month of January!

I was craving hummus again, so I had to fit it into my lunch. I made a turkey hummus wrap using 2 oz. turkey, 1 tbsp. hummus, lettuce and roasted pepper rolled in a La Tortilla Factory Smart and Delicious Wrap. So delish! I had a serving of Sea Salt and Pepper Rice Chips and a beautiful orange to go with it. A filling 6 POINT lunch...


My snack was a Weight Watchers Strawberry Yogurt (1 POINT - you can't beat that!!) and a serving of Puffins (yes, again!) for 1 POINT...

No Superbowl parties for us tonight; we planned on just hanging out and having a fun dinner in the family room. The daughters aren't really interested in the game anyway, so we watched the beginning while we were eating. My fun Superbowl dinner was Happier Hour Sliders . These are adorable mini burgers! The key to these are the cute little buns that are made with this...

The dough is divided into 12 equal pieces and baked for about 20 minutes and viola - mini buns! Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven...

For the burgers, I used 96%lean ground beef. Each burger uses about 1 1/4 oz. of raw ground beef (yes, I weigh it) and I got 12 patties. Here are some of them...

I pan-fried the burgers in a nonstick skillet and topped them with a bit of 2% cheese. I split the buns and loaded on the burgers and some fixins. Not the best picture, but aren't they cute???

The sliders come in at 5 POINTS for 2 of them. I paired mine with some yummy Black Bean Soup that I made this afternoon. I found the recipe on Heather's awesome blog! I also had some broccoli with garlic and evoo. A great 7 POINT dinner. Touchdown!!!

No dessert tonight. I'm full, so I'm going with it and not forcing anything else down the pipes!

Hope everyone is enjoying the game! See you all tomorrow for some Monday morning quarterbacking =)

5K Saturday and Pizza Revenge

Hope everyone is having a good Saturday! I woke up a little slow; my cold seems to have surfaced. It's mild, but I was still slow going. My first thought was no way am I exercising today, but as I got up and moving around, I realized that I didn't feel as badly as I thought. I donned the sneakers and headed to the treadmill for another 5k Saturday! This was my second time and I was able to run without stopping again! I even beat my time from last week by 3 min.; I went from 61 min. to 58 min! I felt really good afterward. Depending on what I have going on, I may try it again tomorrow morning!



After my run, I had some breakfast of 3/4 c. Puffins, 1/2 c. high fiber cereal, 4 sliced strawberries and 1 c. Soy Slender...









I was craving lots of fruit today and I actually decided on what fruit I wanted before what I would have for the main part of my lunch! I went with a ham wrap with lettuce and tomato, orange slices, grapes and 1/2 oz. Kettle Baked Potato Chips. An altogether yummy 5 POINT lunch...


My peanut butter cravings surfaced again and I also wanted some yogurt for a snack, so I put them together. This was an interesting combo! I used 1/2 c. plain yogurt and mixed it with my BFF - PB2 to make peanut butter yogurt! Sounds weird, right? It was good, though. To make it even better, I crumbled a Weight Watchers Peanut Butter Cookie over the top...

Wow, 3 POINTS of PB heaven!

The husband and daughters devised an evil plot to get their pizza that I deprived them of last night! It was decided that we should go out for dinner and of course, they chose Bertucci's, which is an incredible brick oven pizzeria and Italian restaurant! This place is hard to be in; even though it is a chain -type restaurant, everything is so delicious. But, the item that is the toughest for me is this...

These dough ball rolls are right up there with brownies in the temptation department! They are served with a dish of flavored olive oil for dipping! Evil, evil, evil!!!!! So, I tried to be a good Weight Watcher and moved the rolls and the dipping oil to the other end of the table. I allowed myself one of these rolls, but I waited until the server brought my salad with fat free Chianti dressing until I dug into this doughy goodness...

Along with my salad, I ordered a cup of the Tuscan Minestrone Soup which was delicious and warmed my stomach on this cold, cold night...

I did break off another bite of roll, but didn't eat any of the pizza that was swirling around me! Whew, glad that we got out of there before any damage was done! It's a little rough going out to eat, especially when I knew that I used most of my Weekly Allowance POINTS yesterday on that mindless after lunch snacking. Overall, I was happy with my choices tonight. I have to understand that everything I ate was delicious AND good for me, even if it wasn't what I would have eaten "in the old days" (i.e. giant calzones, heavy pasta dishes, way more than one roll!). As a matter of fact, I commented to the husband on the ride home, that I couldn't imagine eating or ordering the menu items that I used to when we went there. I could almost remember the "after feeling". You know, like that stuffed and lethargic just want to lie down feeling. Again, I acknowledged my progress in this journey of trying to eat healthy! Cool!

When we got home, we played a little Wii bowling and tennis, then I had some dessert. It got away from me last night, but no way can I go 2 nights without some!!! I continued on with my peanut butter craving and had my usual dessert, Deep Chocolate Vitatop with PB2/Fluff icing. This was the last of my PB2 (sniff, sniff), but I have some on order. Can't live without the stuff, now...

The husband brought the remainder of the daughters' pizza home and one of those doughy devils home. I am using Angie's trick right now of imagining that it fell in the toilet!!! LOL! Hey, we gotta do what we gotta do to stay outta trouble!

Hope you're all staying out of trouble, too! I know, I'm NO FUN...

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!! I am really looking forward to starting a fresh new year. I am happy to be starting this new year a LOT healthier and trimmer than last year and I can only hope for the same for the coming year. I have had some thoughts about goals for the new year, but haven't given it as much attention as I wanted to since we have still been busy celebrating and entertaining. I hope to have some quiet time this weekend to get my goals and affirmations together and in place! Well, let's get to the food...



A quick recap of last night; there was a ton of food at the party! I decided on salad to which I added some shrimp from the shrimp cocktail platter, some of Gram's green beans that I brought, a slice of pepperoni bread (so yum) and a piece of soft pretzel...





Looks pretty good, right?? Yeah, well let's just say that soft pretzels are just as evil as brownies especially when they are fresh from the pretzel bakery!! I ended up eating a whole one and another half piece. I also brought a honey bun cake which was not WW friendly at all (i.e. sour cream, oil, brown sugar, milk), but I had to have a piece to make sure it was o.k. to serve to the masses (wink, wink)...

Uh, it was o.k. And super sweet. After that I dug into various other treats. Little pieces, but quite a few. No way to count Points for it all. There was some damage done, but not binge-like. I kept it pretty under control. I wanted to talk more to keep myself busy during the whole eating party, but I lost my voice (no, I haven't been screaming at the daughters) so it was a little difficult to keep conversing without really straining my voice. But, believe me, I tried!

Here's the husband and me, striking a pose during the festivities...

It was a long night, but we all made it to midnight, even the daughters!! They LOVE to party! We finally got to bed by 1 a.m. and since, no one in this house likes to sleep in (except me) we were up and at 'em by 8:30 this morning. Ugh. I hit the treadmill and ran for 15 min. then hopped on the elliptical for another 15 min. Not my best work, but hey, it's New Year's Day and you're supposed to really want to exercise with "resolve" today!!! I decided on a quick breakfast of Trader Joe's High Fiber O's mixed with a Fiber One knockoff high fiber cereal and 1 c. Soy Slender...

We had both sets of parents and Gram over today for New Years lunch. I had a roast pork sandwich with cheese, roasted peppers and baby spinach. My Mom brought some sushi rolls, so I had one of those and I made a wonderful Black Eyed Pea Salad. I had never tried black eyed peas before; they are delicious...

I had also made some lentil soup which I didn't eat today, but stored some in the freezer for another day. As I was cleaning up, I nibbled on two more sushi rolls and a slice of cheese :(

Then, came these guys...

My mother-in-law makes these awesome peanut butter kandykakes and although I tried to resist them, one made it's way into my mouth!! YUM.

We spent the rest of our afternoon playing Wii bowling and some card games. All in all, a nice family day!

I went with a lighter dinner tonight and a repeat from the other night; lighter spinach frittata and a salad with evoo and vinegar...

I wish I could say that was all I had today and gee, isn't this a great first day of a new year of eating right! However, I ate a bunch of junk following this lovely dinner ranging from more kandykakes to some chocolate to a soft pretzel with cheese!!!! I think I was still in "holiday entertaining" mode and once I shake this, I can regroup. I realized part of the overeating issues are just plain being out of a normal day schedule. The daughters are home from school, the husband is off from work and it is making my normal daily routine out of sync. This, in turn, throws my eating out of sync, too. Not that being an excuse, just an observation into the "whys". Anyway, TOMORROW (there's always that day!!) will be better!

I wish a wonderful, happy and healthy new year for everyone! I have been hearing some great mantra's for 2009. Last year was "gonna be great in 2008". My niece, Nikki asked me last night what mine was for this year. I said , I'm gonna lose my behind in 2009! Ha Ha! Her's was a lot better, "gonna get to the finish line in 2009"!!! Leave me a comment with your mantra for 2009! I'd love to hear it!

Dare I Say It

Dare I say the words, "back on track" today?! It seems like I have been saying those words, but not actually following through with them for a whole day! I need to though. I feel like heck this morning. As I anticipated, I did not have a restful sleep partly because of the sugar overload and partly because little daughter decided to wake up 750 times. My body is very upset with me and letting me know it. I am achy and groggy and drained of energy. I think this is enough now. So, yes, I will say it is time to get "back on track" today!

Nothing was appealing for breakfast and I honestly could have skipped it altogether, but I know what nastiness that brings later in the day. So, I finally decided to go with 1 c. high fiber cereal with 2 strawberries and 1 c. Soy Slender. A good 2 Point start...

Now, it's off to the treadmill...