The Scale Will Come Out...Tomorrow

Hey, it's tomorrow! That's what I said to myself first thing this morning. Not gonna dwell on the cookie/pretzel incident at the party. Gotta get back in the saddle. I was scared smart enough to avoid the scale so as to not ruin my day :) But, I can't keep running from it. I have to get on and see where I'm at to make sure I'm not going too far in the wrong direction. My clothes still fit, so I guess I'm okay. Although, come to think of it, when I first started on this weight loss journey, it took me having to lose 27 lbs. before I came down a pants size. How the hell tight was I wearing my friggin clothes??? So, what do I know! But, I will not go there. The scale will come out. There's always tomorrow :)


On this bright new "tomorrow" day, I had to head out first thing to get both my car and the husbands' car oil changed. No, I don't have a clone. I had to drive back and forth which pretty much took up the entire morning. A clone would have been nice :) Anyhoo, I grabbed a breakfast to go before heading out - Banana Nut Vitatop and a blueberry crackshake for 3 POINTS...

Many of you have asked how to make the crackshakes. You can click HERE and HERE for some ideas. The base is really just unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze and a tbsp. sugar free, fat free instant pudding mix and ice! Add whatever fruit you are in the mood for and count the POINTS accordingly. Warning: they are addictive; hence the name!

Breakfast didn't hold me over long and I was starving when I finally got home around lunch time. I made a big plate of food. I went with a Health is Wealth Chicken Free Patty on an Arnold Sandwhich Thin with a slice of 2% cheese, carrots, TJ's sour cream and onion rice chips and an apple with Lighthouse Reduced Sugar Caramel Dip. A huge spread for 8 POINTS...

That huge lunch carried me through until dinner. Mission accomplished! I made pasta for the husband and daughters and took out my homemade frozen dinner of the Chicken and Broccoli with Garlic Sauce from last week. I paired it with one of TJ's stirfry veggie eggrolls for a delicious 7 POINT dinner...

After dinner, the doorbell rang with a special delivery. A while back, I won Danica's Mac Pack Giveaway from Annie's and it came today! Yay! Thanks again, Danica!

I was craving a dessert tonight and decided to change it up a bit. I went with a ClifZ Chocolate Brownie Bar topped with PB2 for 3 POINTS. Super yum...

And I'm still trying out my counting "experiment". I'm going to give it a few weeks to see if it makes any difference for me. Or for the scale!

Have a great night everyone =)

Whooo Hoooo!

Sorry, I can't contain myself; I'm gonna say it again - WHOOOOO HOOOO! Today was weigh-in day at WW and for the BLBE and I'm glad to say that I am down 4 lbs. from last week! Best of all, I FINALLY hit the 70 lb. mark (actually went over!), so my total loss is 70.6 lb. Wow, I've been wanting that so badly!! Now, I'm on my way to 75!



I was running a little behind this morning since I tried to fit in my workouts before going to my WW meeting. I was able to do 30 minutes on the elliptical, but only got to half-Shred before hopping in the shower. I'll get the other half in tonight. Only 9 days left! Before I hurried out the door, I grabbed a CranBran Vitatop(1 POINT) and my bottle filled with iced tea. I didn't get to snap a pic before, but here is the "after"...



For lunch, I wanted to try this new find...

These are made by the same company of the eggplant cutlets that I have also bought which are very good. These eggplant vegetarian meatballs did not disappoint! They were firm, tasty and had a great texture - almost exactly like a regular meatball. They are a bit small, but the nutritionals are terrific. A serving is 5 meatballs for 90 cal. 2.5 gr. fat, 5 gr. fiber and 9 gr. protein. This serving size is only 1 POINT! Can't beat that! I decided to stuff them into a Weight Watchers Pita with a wedge of Laughing Cow Light, lettuce and roasted red pepper. On the side, I had a serving of Cheddar Goldfish (I really need some chips!) and a dish of stawberries and blueberries with 2 tbsp. Cool Whip Free. An awesome 7 POINT lunch...

This was so filling and I didn't even think of snacking this afternoon. So far this experiment of eating a bit more at meals and ditching the afternoon snack has been working out!

Before heading out to little daughter's dance class, I prepared MY dinner for tonight: zucchini lasagna. Yeah, you know there is NO WAY the husband and daughters are gonna touch that with a ten foot pole! I bought zucchini last week after being inspired by Gina's version of zucchini lasagna. For my recipe, I used 2 large zucchini sliced thin on a mandoline (I love this thing!), 3/4 c. fat free ricotta, 2 egg whites, 1/2 tsp. dried basil, salt, pepper, 1/4 c. parmesan cheese(divided) , 2/3 c. Weight Watchers Reduced Fat Mozzarella Cheese and about 1 1/2 c. of my homemade marinara sauce. I put it together in an 11x7 glass baking dish and cooked it in a 400 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes. Here's the finished product...

I ran all my ingredients through the Recipe Builder and got 3 huge servings at only 5 POINTS each! It was delicious and filling. Unfortunately, there was no way to make this look glamorous, so here's a look at my sloppy serving...

And because it is my job to torture my family, I made them a side dish of sauteed zucchini sticks to go with their pasta dish. I added a serving to my plate, too for 1 POINT...

I was just noticing that I had a totally vegetarian day today! Hmmm...I like it! I did declare myself to be a vegetarian a couple years ago. It only lasted a few months, though. I started off cooking very healthy things for myself, but unfortunately, I discovered that chocolate and cheese were "vegetarian" also and things just went downhill from there ;)

Anywho, I still had a good 3 POINTS left for dessert and since today was a day of celebration for me, I decided to have Banana Caramel Fudge Cake! Wait, I didn't go off the wagon - look at this....

Heavenly! I used a Banana Fudge Vitatop, topped it with a bit of Lighthouse Reduced Sugar Caramel Dip , sliced banana and drizzled the rest of the caramel dip over the top. A 3 POINT yumfest:)

I'm off to visit with Jillian for a bit then, it's dreamland...have a great night!

Bye Bye Christmas

See ya Christmas. Later. Don't let the door hit ya! That's how I felt today as I was putting away all things Christmas. It was a great holiday season, but I am ready to put it all behind me (unfortunately a lot of it ended up ON my behind) and start anew! Getting on the scale this morning did help me with this new found motivation I have today! Not a pretty number:(



I was so busy helping little daughter clean her room this morning that I "forgot to eat" breakfast. Okay, that phrase could never be part of my vocabulary, so in all honesty, I just didn't want to stop what I was doing to eat something. Weird for me. No, I don't have an extremely high delusion-causing fever! When we finished cleaning I noticed it was pretty close to lunch, so I decided to just go with a slice of apple cranberry bread to tide me over...







When lunchtime rolled around, I decided to go with something different - pasta! I don't usually eat pasta at lunch. I fear it won't hold me through the day, but today I gave it a try. I used 2 oz. of Ronzoni Smart Taste Penne and topped it with 1/2c. of leftover black eyed pea salad from New Years lunch. I also sprinkled 2 tbsp. grated parmesan over it. Oh my greatness, this was so delish and only came to 6 Points...




Suprisingly, it held me over pretty well. I was busy putting away the Christmas decorations and cleaning, so I'm sure that helped, too. When all was done and put away, I sat down to a lovely snack of sliced pear, Lighthouse Reduced Sugar Caramel Dip and a 1/2 serving of pretzel sticks...

Now I'm off to catch up on some reading. See ya!

Cookie Day

Today was the day of the cookie baking extravaganza with my Mom, Gram and daughters! I woke up without a solid eating plan and I just decided to treat it like any other day and deal with the cookies when I get to it. I wanted to make sure I had a filling breakfast, so I went with the same one as yesterday, Egg, Cheese and Bacon Muffins and a Thomas' Light English Muffin. I had some Cinnamon Vanilla Nut Coffee, too. Satisfying breakfast...


I did plan to take my lunch to my Mom's, that way I wouldn't be tempted to just grab whatever was around when I got hungry. I found these guys way in the back of my freezer! Forgotten Dr.Praeger's Pizza Bagels...

I had two of these for lunch with an apple and Lighthouse Reduced Sugar Caramel Dip...

Not a bad 7 Point lunch! Now for the cookies!! We made 9 different kinds. We try to make different ones every year. Here were the ones we went with this year...

• pizelles
• orange almond biscotti
• pecan caramel surprises
• pignoli cookies
• white chocolate cranberry cookies
• white chocolate dipped coconut biscotti
• elfin shortbread bites
• white chocolate fudge cookies
• chocolate fudge cookies (so easy!)

My Mom and Gram also made some cucidati which is a filled Italian cookie and some chocolate dipped hazelnut cookies (which weren't ready to take home, yet). It was a six hour bake- a-thon!

When I got home, I assembled everything on trays to take to my neighbors. Here's what it looked like all put together...

I added a package of my chocolate dipped pretzels rods to the tray, also. I wrap it all in cellophane with ribbon and I added a card with the "cookie menu" on it. It's a nice touch. The husband does a great job of delivering them; this year he even wanted to wear a Santa hat! Thankfully, we did not have one!

So, the "non- plan" - how did it go?? Well, I pretty much sampled everything we made and I did not beat myself up about it nor did I feel guilty. I was fairly relaxed about the whole thing. I tasted it all and now I feel like I'm done with it. Maybe because I feel a little bleh and kinda sick of it all! I know this is not healthy, but I didn't even eat/want dinner tonight. My stomach is full of too much sugar and nothing seemed appetizing anyway. I'm hoping to be back to my normal eating for the next couple of days before the big eating Christmas day and to keep up with my regular exercise (I did fit that in this morning before I left!).

At least that's the plan... =)