Side Note

I completely feel like I've abandoned my blog this past week...This is the last two weeks of my school year so I have been stressing out about getting everything finished. I have decided that I am not going to weigh myself this week, I will weigh myself next Tuesday and see what happens... hopefully four lbs fingers crossed. I just thought I would at least explain why there hasn't been any blogs this week, but that doesn't mean I've stopped my journey, no way...it's still on and I'm still pushing forward. I promise there will be more posts this weekend. :)

My weekly Weigh in

So it has been another week on my journey to losing weight. I had a really tough time this past week but I still managed to break into the 50's :) I lost another 2 lbs this week! I also tried on a pair of size eight jeans and they fit. With the weather getting nicer hopefully it will push me to wanting to keep losing that extra weight.

"Hungry Girl"

I found this website today of Author, Lisa Lillien, and it has all her recipes on how to eat TONS and still lose all that extra weight. I cannot believe no one has shown me this before, so I definitely wont deprive you from it. here is her site with great tasty recipes with half the calories.

Here is her site: CLICK  I hope you enjoy this as much as I am.

Making up Dinner Ideas

When it comes to living on a budget for groceries and trying to eat healthy you need to get a little creative when it comes to dinner ideas. The dish I made the other night I call:

"Curry Orange Pepper Pasta"

What you'll need:

1 handful of chopped orange/yellow peppers
1 handful of chopped white onion
1 handful of chopped green onion
a package of stew beef (can be substituted with really any other kind of meat)
1/2 a bottle of Indian Madras sauce ( any curry sauce will do)
3 Vermicelli noodles

Serves four

Start off by cooking the stew beef

Chop up the onions, and peppers

Once the stew beef lightens up add all the peppers and onions to the pan. Mix it all together.

Cover the veggies and meat and continue to let cook, while that's going on, place the noodles in water on high. 

While noodles are cooking mix in the sauce and just let it simmer until noodles are done cooking. 

Place noodles on plate and put your Curry orange pepper and stew beef on top and enjoy your meal under 300 Calories. 

Healthy Lunch Ideas

Here is a simple lunch idea that I made today for my lunch...whole wheat toast, tomatoes and cottage cheese.

 and here it is...its a good way for me to eat my tomatoes (not a big fan of them but this really helps me to enjoy them)

Tips Thursday...On Friday?

Sorry everyone, I forgot to do my Tips Thursday... so I'm doing it today.

#6 simple tip that helps me to keep loosing weight: never eat straight out of a box or bag of anything, take out the handle full of crackers of chips you want to eat because most the time when we eat straight form the container we ALWAYS eat way more than we think we do.

Update

Just updating you about my weight, my goal was to loose about 2 lbs a week and for my first week I lost a grand total of 5 lbs. Now that seems like a lot but whenever you start eating right and working out again normally for anyone you loose the most weight in the first two weeks, I'm guessing that it will start to average out soon...but I am very happy :) now 40 more to go!

Pamper Me Day

For all the ladies out there who work all day long, come home make supper and take care of your kids all while making time to eat right and fit in that 20 minute walk, this is for you:

Pamper yourself! No I'm not kidding. I'm asking you to squeeze in another time for one day of your week to really pamper yourself. I believe it is very important to do something for yourself...to help unwind, relax and to just fully enjoy you and your new healthy body!

I know when I take time to doll myself up or to take a long warm bath I feel better about myself - I feel more relaxed therefore making me feel more confident (even more sexy ;) )

Here are some good ways to enjoy yourself and take care of you for once:

-Paint your nails/toe nails
-Take a warm bubble bath with soy candles burning
-Shave your legs and moisturize :) This always makes me feel great
- Even just plucking your eyebrows (mine are always long over due and once it's all done I feel like a brane new person
-Have a glass of wine and do a facial cleanse

So take out that 20 minutes a week to pamper yourself and I promise you will start to feel like a more better you.

Blending it

It is very important that during the day you have three meals and then snacking in between them. One of my favorite snacks is of course the smoothies! This is a great way to get all your fruit in for the day and it helps to stay full. Here is what I like to put in my smoothies:

a splash of almond milk
1 cup of strawberries and bananas
a splash of orange juice
and 4 scoops of plain greek yogurt (adds a zest to the smoothie)

Add your fruit (can be any fruit you like, blueberries and or watermelon are really good ones too! )

Then add the splash of orange juice and almond milk

Next the yogurt and then your all ready to blend...

Serve and enjoy :)

Cut it Out!

There were many many many things I ate ALL the time that I know I definitely should not have been eating, or at least not have been eating everyday. (once in a while is okay)

Some of the things I needed to completely cut out of my diet was Sugar and sweets... once in a while is okay but I had sweets almost everyday, couple times a day - I have a very large sweet tooth, I mean come on my other blog is called "Candy Coated Diaries".

So now I don't eat any sweets or candy. But I do have two exceptions that I do, I will have a tablespoon of Nutella once in a while :) I also love to have a 1/2 a cup of frozen yogurt in the evenings with raspberries. By cutting out sweets and sugar has made me feel like I have a lot more energy and I feel better about myself. It was a great change and one I'm glad I did.

What's in Your fridge?

I don't know if it's just me, but I love to see what other people get for groceries especially people who eat healthy. I have made quite a few changes to my diet and I will show you what changes I have made and why I chose certain items as a "must have always".

First off you can see the almond milk (35 cals. a glass) back there, I switched from skim milk (about 70 cals. a glass). I have tuna...which is great for lunches, adds a lot of protein. I also try to get foods that will add some other great tastes to my meals, like the honey (adding a sweet touch to anything), the apple cider vinegar which I use as a salad dressing - soooo good :). I also use egg whites now, but occasionally I will use an egg with yoke to mix it up a bit. Low-fat cottage cheese (great for breakfast), raspberries for flavor. Green onion for adding great flavor to any meal. Now do you see that white pink thing in the back? Those are asian noodles made of beans! Isn't that fantastic? If you don't want to eat as much carbs but still want pasta, then this is a great solution (Vermicelli) Now the kiwi is there because I sometimes have a hard time eating certain types of fruit...for example I like grapes so I"ll end up buying them but never eating them all, I don't know why I do this but I do...SO I decided that I will buy the fruit I know I will eat like kiwi, watermelon, any mellon, and strawberries. I love these fruit so why not just buy the fruit I will actually end up eating.

I like to get mixed leaves for my salads. Pickles :) to add flavor. Tomatoes are great with cottage cheese and pepper. Green apples for snacks. Greek plain yogurt gives a nice zesty taste to your fruit smoothies. Peppers are great in my salads, and for stir fries and egg white omelets. Finally one of the last things you can see there are some spices. This again is to add to some meals that seem too plain, it gives it a little something extra. My favorite is dill or Italian seasoning...I love mixing them with my tuna.

This of course is not ALL I eat...there is lots more but these are my must haves and essentials for helping me to eat healthier and to enjoy my meals along the way.

Healthier Choices For Supper

Toasted Sesame Ginger Salmon...sounds fantastic right?

and looks delicious too?  here is the great thing the salmon, sauce and all, was under three hundred calories!

This meal didn't take long at all to make, so there goes the theory of good meals take you all day slaving in the kitchen. The recipe I will give you below calls for brown sugar but I just chose to not put it in and it still tasted wonderful.

I am now trying to make new meal ideas at least three times a week so that I can eat healthier and therefore I don't get bored of the same healthily meals  (salads, chicken). If I get to taste new flavors each week, eating healthy can be fun, exciting and very yummy. so this Toasted Sesame Ginger Salmon was a success for this week. It's a recipe definitely worth trying.

I got this recipe here from this guy :)

Enjoy

Tips Thursday

Here are some simple little things to do to help stay healthy and loose that weight:

#1 Drink lots of water
#2 Eat tons of Veggies and fruit
#3 Cut down on dairy, instead choose almond milk and low fat cheese
#4 Cut out as much alcohol as possible from your diet
                     AND
#5 Try to have a type of freshwater fish 3 times a week. Great for your heart.

Studying, baby care, and being a wife where is there time for exercise?

Like I have said in my first entry when your a mom and a full time student AND wife you need to get very creative when it comes to finding time to work out. Today I have figured out my everyday work out routine.

When Carly goes down for her morning nap: Pilates time (30 mins. of full body) I use this video for it.
                                                                        Pilates full body work out

When Carly goes down for her afternoon nap:Biggest Loser Boot Camp work out (45 mins. intense cardio and strength training)

Then after supper (now that the days are getting longer :) ) My whole little family go out for an evening stroll around the block - Great for my husband and I to get time to talk together and Carly is able to calm down in those fussy evenings.  oh and Fact: did you know that pushing a stroller while walking burns an extra 187 calories per hour!


Now I have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so those days I will only do the walk in the evening (those can be considered my break days)

Well for now this is it. I would eventually (soon) like to mix in some weight training but, of course, it all takes time.

Counting Calories?

Now counting calories is something that a lot of people would say they are against because it is time consuming, it can become obsessive AND it should not be about calories anyways but about eating right/ healthy lifestyle...I get it I do but in order for me (someone who just eats because I'm bored home with the baby) I need to see and understand that there is a limit to how much I should eat in my days. This tracker allows me to see it all.

SO...I have found this wonderful site that helps me to track everything I eat each day and does an over all for the weeks I've done. It allows me to see what is in the food that I'm consuming like how many cholesterol, fats and sugars are in my food. Some stuff is very surprising! It's great and it helps me to think twice about eating those double stuffed oreo cookies :)

It looks like this below: Click and give it a try for yourself

Best Friend's Wedding and I'm a size 10!

My whole motivation for writing this blog is so that it can help me stay accountable to loose the several pounds I have gained since having my first baby. Being a stay at home mom and a full time student makes it pretty hard to get the time to really push myself to work out. excuses excuses...I know. I seem to make a lot of them so hopefully by writing down my actions and progress in the following weeks will force me to keep it going.
Now the BIG real reason why I need to loose all this baby weight in 160 days is because my best friend since forever :) is getting married and I can not walk down that aisle in a mini dress at the size I am. Being a size ten just isn't me or ever has been me, I want to be able to look how I normally look for my best friend's wedding, I want to be able to look back at those pictures and think to myself I really did it.





The summer before I got pregnant I was a size 0 and in some jeans even a double zero and weighed 115 lbs. (keep in mind I am only 5'2)

Now after giving birth and five months down the road I am a size ten and, ow this is hard to say...165 lbs. I am giving my self 160 days to get back in shape, so that I can feel better about myself, and to live a healthier life for not only me but for my little baby too.

(I will no longer take photos of my body so this is the best photo I could find to use as a starting reference point for me)



So Here I am now wanting to loose weight, in a healthy way, in 160 days... for me, my baby, and of course my best friends wedding. Let the eating and exercise begin.