So Much Basil!

My little garden in my deck is actually thriving this year! My strawberries could do with a little more sun (the berries are so tiny!) But the flowers are looking good and my basil is putting forth so well I went in search of more recipes to use with it.

For dinner tonight I made this tomato, basil and feta cucumber salad (though, I used a little less oil than it called for). It was so delicious and fresh! I highly recommend it :)

New Habits, New Recipes

Lately, I've been trying to make better choices and to be more aware of what I eat. This fitness app that I've been using is a really handy tool for that. On the surface, it's mostly just a calorie counter, but it also keeps record and offers charts with a breakdown of the different nutrients I've eaten like, what percent of my diet is fat, carbs and protein as well as just how much sodium I eat (yikes!).

So, to try and cut back on all that salt, I've been more diligent I'm making my own food rather than eating processed stuff. But I've also realized just how much bread I eat! So, I've been trying to balance that a little better too.

In changing my habits, I've been adding some new recipes to my repertoire and I thought I'd share a couple that I've really liked.

Mini Omelettes  (serves 4.5, each serving 167 cal.)
4 c. broccoli or spinach
4 whole, large eggs
5 egg whites
1/4 c. cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 c. parmesan cheese, grated
1 tsp. olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350F.
Steam broccoli for ~6-7 mins. (or chop spinach), once cooked, crumble into small bits. Add oil, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Spray muffin tin with cooking spray. Spoon broccoli evenly into 9 tins.
In medium bowl, beat eggs and whites, cheese, salt and pepper. Pour into prepared tins, over broccoli until ~3/4's full. Top with cheddar and bake until fully cooked, about 20mins.
Wrap leftovers in plastic and store in fridge.


Perfect Chicken Salad (yield 4-6 servings)
4-6 chicken breasts, cooked, cubed
1/2 c. pecans, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium apple, chopped
1/2-1 c. plain yogurt
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. honey
garlic powder, salt, pepper, dried basil - to taste
lettuce or spinach

Put chicken, nuts, celery and apple in bowl. Stir. Add yogurt, honey, lemon juice and spices. Mix until evenly coated. Serve over bed of lettuce or spinach.

Slow Progress

I think there's probably a lot of people with a cute shirt that just doesn't fit right, so it sits in the bottom of the drawer, and the only time it gets used is when everything else is dirty. Anyway, I have one of those. I pulled it out yesterday evening, being too tired to go grab something from the basement, and threw it on. 

And it fit. 

The numbers on my scale are still being stubborn, but this shirt, which has been too small for ages, fits. And my pants are not that far from being ridiculously large too. I think I might have to go through the drawer of stuff that's "too small" and see if anything else can come out for use. That's pretty exciting!

Wonder when the number on the scale will catch on? I have to admit, it is becoming entertaining to see how much my body can change while it keeps the same weight. 

Jalepeno Popper Chicken Breasts

Hey, Mom! Daddy would like this recipe. He likes Jalapeño Poppers.

Here's another that looks tasty. Grilled Roasted Veggies. Grilling would add a tasty smoky flavor. I think that just about everything is tastier on the grill! I should look for one of those cool grill-baskets for ours.

This "Sticky" Chicken also looks interesting. The first commentor said they did it in a crockpot and they plan to use the juices as a soup base. Yum.

I think that I'm going to have to keep browsing the SparkPeople recipes from time to time. There's some tasty-looking stuff in there.

Keepin' On

Tried a new recipe this afternoon, and I quite like it, though it wasn't a huge hit with my family. We had Parmesan-baked Zucchini. I haven't had much zucchini before, but I'm deciding that I like it. It's got a milder flavor than many veggies, almost sweet. I don't use the butter sprays, so I just melted a little butter and brushed it on. Then I dipped it in the cheese and cooked it on my pizza stone under the broiler. Easy-peasy. Next time I might add a bit of milk or something to moisten things up a bit more so I get more parmesan flavor, but for the most part, I really liked it. Dragon threw his on the floor, but Hero actually ate his with a minimum of complaints, which is unusual for green foods. He's not a veggies kind of guy! But even if I was the only one eating it, I think this recipe was quick enough and tasty enough that I'm ok with that.

I'm still struggling to get my water to level out, but my clothes are saying nice things to me. I'm also getting stronger. We're doing Pace Express workouts, and they include a number of things that build strength. There's a bunch of things to like about Pace. The program is based on heart rate and exertion, so however you get to the level that you need to be at, it's OK. It's great for starting where you're at and building on it. And it's working. It's challenging to be perfectly consistent with littles, particularly the newborn, but I'm doing pretty well! I think that as soon as I get the retaining water thing worked out I'll see happy numbers on the scale again.

Well, I am starting again.  I gained a bunch over the winter.  I am down some, still got about 9 more pounds to go to be at my lowest point.  But, I am motivated to do it. 

Motivaton #1 - My body is grumping at me for not excersizing much lately.  I will feel a lot better when I get walking again and when I am eating the right way.

Motivation #2 - I am cooking much better, much more health consiously. Cooking better is very important because my dear sweet husband is successfully losing weight and I want to support that effort!!! I would also like to lose weight with him.  :)  Much easier to keep losing if you have a partner.

Motivaton #3 - My clothes weren't fitting right - it was either lose some of this weight that I gained or buy new clothes in larger sizes.  What fun is there in that!!!   I would much rather have to buy clothes in smaller sizes!!! 

Motivation #4 - I still have lots of things I want to do with my life.  I don't want carrying around too much weight to limit that.  57 ain't that old!!!  I got a lot of living left to do!!!  Just as well have a body that lets me have fun doing it!!

Grumbles

My pants say I'm down; my scale says I'm up. Way up. Four pounds in just a handful of days. I don't think so--- oh wait. I've been eating salted cashews (Yummy protein!) aaaannnd I'm dehydrated. OK. I'm retaining water. Whew! That one's easily solved. Unlike my other grumble.

Counting calories is hard to do when you only have half the tools. My new Sparkpeople software is great! As far as it goes. I can scan stuff, and it searches its database, and usually there's something in there. As long as the food is bought. But bought food isn't the healthiest food, and one of the things I try to do is make a fair amount of our food. I'm not as successful right now, but still, I make some. Figuring out the calories on that stuff is not easy. I have software that does it... but it didn't get moved to my new computer and now it's packed. The other tool that I'm missing is my little kitchen scale.

Drat. This business of having the house on the market and a bunch of our stuff in boxes is for the birds. I hope we move. SOON.

Food Addiction Blog?

Last night our RS put on a Food and Nutrition Night with a registered dietician and fitness consultant. Very fancy. But I was so grateful, because it has been on my mind. A lot.
I am reading a book about a lady's love of horses and how her horses gave her the strength to look at herself closely and realize she was an alcoholic. They gave her the motivation to stop drinking so she could be a better provider for them. It's a very interesting read and I picked it up not realizing that it was about her struggle with alcoholism. I thought it was about her love of horses and blah, blah, blah.... I'm interested in horses. But what it really turned out to be was an eye opener. The author describes her realization of the problem and how it affected her life and somewhere around 100 pages in I realized that, if you were to exchange food/sugar for every time she wrote alcohol, she was describing me.
At the activity last night, I talked very briefly to the speaker about food addiction. It's real. It's not just in my head. It's something that will be just as hard as a cocaine addiction to overcome. She recommended the church's 12-step program. It was so nice to know that I'm not just lacking the discipline to stop over-eating. That is the case, but that's not the only obstacle to overcome and she pointed me in the right direction to start.
I'm thinking of starting a new blog - one that I will commit to actually posting on a regular basis - to write my thoughts and be accountable for putting some serious effort into fixing this problem. I have the manual for the church's 12-step program and I have read skimmed over it but didn't figure out how to apply it to me. I want to figure it out, get some more materials and learn about nutrition and how I really should be eating instead of just taking a shot in the dark. No more yo-yoing. No more emotional roller coaster rides. And *hopefully* I won't pass this problem to my children through my bad example.

Counting Calories

Counting calories gets a bad rap, but I like it. Now, I could be crazy; I like to weigh myself daily too. But it's not just random. I have my reasons for liking these things.

I like to count calories because it makes me take a close look at what I'm eating. I have to think about each thing I put in my mouth, and that means that I can use it to reeducate myself about food. I like breads. I like to bake them, and I like to eat them. But they're pretty calorie-dense, so I need to balance them with fruits and veggies. Happily those are tasty too. To me, it's all about balance, and learning to get my portion sizes right so that I can eat good food and not be hungry. Counting calories helps me figure out what that's going to look like on my plate. It makes me realize how much of a difference it makes to have an apple for a snack, instead of half a bagel with some tasty spread on it. My counting is teaching me to make better choices.

As for the scale, I know that conventional wisdom says to do it only once a week. But if I do it daily or near-daily then I see the small progress, which is very motivating, and if I'm eating poorly then the scale will wake me up. But only if I stand on it. When I weigh daily, I notice and correct quickly. If I wait a whole week i may gain a pound or two, which I find very frustrating, and that just kills my motivation.

And, because I weigh frequently I know that I'm already down a pound. I like that.

New Beginnings. Again.

I bought the SparkPeople app for my phone to help me track my calories. I am planning to leave a mixed review, because they don't want nursing mothers to use it, but don't say so until after the purchase. I'm also using the software anyway, and I am really liking it so far.

I'm hopeful that I can use the stuff to help keep the weight loss thing going. I lost quickly and easily after giving birth, and stabilized about 5 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. I like that! The extra baby jiggle, not so much. The pathetic muscle tone, particularly in my abs? The fact that I'm still just over 200 pounds? Eww... I have plenty of work to do now that the easy stuff is off. But I knew that was going to be the case, so it's ok. And I'm hopeful that the new tools will help me return to a place where I'm eating better, cooking better, and working out more. Last time I got all those things in place some very exciting things started to happen! So here's to new beginnings, again!