The Incredible Edible English Muffin

In the past I've always shied away from English Muffins. I thought of them as dry and tasting like old cornmeal. Recently, however, I discovered the Thomas' Light Multi-Grain ones which are pretty moist, taste good, and are only 100 calories each. I take one, toast it, divide 1 tablespoon of light margarine (50 calories) between the two halves and then sprinkle 1 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar (15 calories) over the two. It comes out kind of like cinnamon toast and it's quite good and fairly low-cal at 165 calories. Add a piece of fruit or some light yogurt for a whole breakfast.

These yummy little carb circles also make great low-cal pizza! I take two (200 calories), split them apart, and spread 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce (90 calories) over them. Top with 2 ounces of mozzarella (160 calories) and bake. Four mini cheese pizzas for 450 calories. Sometimes I sprinkle them with a little parmesan and add pineapple, ham, and/or pepperoni.

Yes, I am obsessed with food.

Weekly Weigh-in

What a total shock this week! I lost 3 lbs.! It was definitely more that I thought it would be. I'm thinking that the good numbers from the past two weeks are due to a couple of things. First and foremost some of it is from that time of the month. In addition to that, I've stayed away from anything containing aspartame. For some reason that stuff slows down my progress. Not sure why. The other reason IMO is that I've stepped up the exercise a bit. I did 4.5 hours of walking on the treadmill over the past week.

Whatever the reason, I'm just happy to see 3 more pounds gone forever. :-)

Yummy Carbs

Even though I've been on this diet for two months, I still find that I think about food all the time. Lately I've been trying to focus that energy on finding new recipes to make. I've already made a few pasta salads with Mueller's Multi-Grain Rotini and they tasted great. I've also discovered that fresh spinach makes a great salad. Who knew?

Last night I made Peanut Noodle Salad. I left out the bell peppers (yuck!) and the dry-roasted peanuts (to lower the calories) and it was delicious! Of course I was the only person in the house to think so. :-) Based on the ingredients I used, the whole batch was 1520 calories. I weighed out half of it and that was my dinner. At 760 calories, it was a few more than my typical dinner. I usually have a big dinner of 600 - 700 calories as I find this really helps with the nighttime snacking. In retrospect I could have gone with 1/3 of the batch since it was very filling.

Finally!!!

Hopped on the scales this morning for my weekly weigh-in and I lost 2.4 lbs. Yipee!!! My current weight is 295.8 which means I've lost a total of 21.8 and finally reached my 20 lb. mini-goal. Now I'm only 8.2 away from my next mini-goal of 30 lbs. lost and I hope to reach that by the end of May.

I've discovered a new dessert which I totally love and have had nearly every night for the past week. It's two servings of light vanilla ice cream (200 calories) plus two cinnamon graham crackers (130 calories) crushed over the top. OMG it's so delicious. It kind of reminds me of the fried ice cream at Chi Chi's.

Woohoo!!!

Just had to share with everyone that today is my 2 year anniversary of quitting smoking. :-) Here's what my meter says...

Two years, 14 hours, 58 minutes and 47 seconds. 21188 cigarettes not smoked, saving $2,754.45. Life saved: 10 weeks, 3 days, 13 hours, 40 minutes.

Ahh, Easter. One of the most difficult holidays of the year with all of that candy. PMS and chocolate filled Easter baskets are a very bad mix. Last night I just had to have a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs while making the baskets. Mmm... Delicious! Those evil little eggs bumped me up over my daily calorie limit and I ended up with 2,090 for the day. In the end they were worth it. :-D

Happy Easter!

The good and the bad...

Well today was weigh-in day and I lost 1.2 lbs. this week which was good. The bad thing was missing the 20 lb. mark by only .6 lbs. Waaaaah!!!! I don't care what appendage I have to cut off, I'm hitting 20 next week!

I got 30 minutes in on the treadmill today and did the whole thing at 115 bpm. I guess I wasn't overexerting myself since I was able to keep pace AND yell at the kids to quit fighting pretty much the whole time. LOL I think I'll shoot for a rate of 120 next week.

Once I get the kids in bed I'll start my first day of strength training. I went out and bought new hand weights today at Target just for this occasion! :-) They're pretty neat with a little strappy thing to go around the hand on each one so I won't accidentally drop them on my feet. Oh wait...hmmm...how much does a foot weigh?? :-D

Okay...so now that you know more about me, it's time to get down to brass tacks. I've tried a few "fad diets" (I thought I was going to die after one day on Atkins!) but the diet that has always worked for me, as long as I stick to it, has been good ol' calorie counting and exercise. I'm starting out with 2000 calories a day and 30+ minutes of cardio 4-5 times a week. Those numbers will need a bit of tweaking, but I feel it's a good starting point.

I'm not avoiding any particular foods or food groups, just eating whatever I want and counting the calories in a food diary. When I hit 2000 I stop eating for the day. I'm trying to stick mainly to fresh and wholesome foods, but I will have the occasional can of soda or bowl of ice cream, I just weigh everything single thing to the gram and figure the calories accordingly.

The cardio is on either my exercise bike or treadmill. They both have heart rate based workout programs which I find very useful. The treadmill even has a wireless heart rate monitor chest strap that sends its signal to the console so I don't have to hang on to a pulse sensor. Pretty nifty, huh? I'm currently working out at 110 - 115 bpm and am looking to increase that in the near future. I had pneumonia in the beginning of the year so I don't want to overdo it right off the bat.

The only thing I'm missing now is strength training. I'm trying to figure out what I should do for that, so if anyone has any links to good sites please let me know!

Where it all started...

Yep! That's me as a baby. A bit chubby, eh? LOL I entered this world fat (weighed 10 lbs. 0 oz.) and it's been that way my entire life.

Growing up there were a few times I was thin, like when I had mono in the 2nd grade, but overall I was pretty heavy as a kid. I started dieting around the 5th grade and after the 7th grade my parents even sent me to fat camp. I'd lose a few pounds here and there but the pounds always came back and brought a few more along with them.

In the 9th grade I weighed 205 and went on my first big diet. I lost over 50 lbs. and got out of plus-size clothes and looked pretty good. After a few years I put it back on and by the time I was 19 I weighed around 210. Things went downhill from there.

Fast forward to age 26... I got on the scale after avoiding it for a few years and realized I weighed 269!!! I immediately started dieting and lost 103 lbs. in a year and then met my future husband. After a whirlwind romance we got married just 2 months after we met. Two months after that I got pregnant with our first child. With my husband being formerly married to a woman with a bad eating disorder, he was understandably a bit touchy about me dieting while pregnant. He convinced me that it would be better to go off the diet and start back up later on.

After an uneventful pregnancy I had our baby and the scales had reached 210 again. :-( I tried dieting, but as anyone with a little baby around knows, it's really hard. Every couple of hours I'd feed the baby and then feed myself. LOL We were on the same feeding schedule! :-)

A year later I weighed 250 when I got pregnant with our second. I actually did really well that time and only gained 6 lbs. I managed to hang onto that size for a year and a half before quitting smoking which made my weight skyrocket!

When I quit smoking in 2004 I pretty much gave up one addiction for another. I put the cigarettes down and picked up the junk food. Mmmm... Double Stuff Oreos, Fruit Snacks, Mountain Dew Code Red, Marshmallow Peeps, Reese's Cups... You name it, I ate it. After nearly 2 years, I've managed to stay smoke free but I also have an extra 67.6 lbs. to show for it.

So that brings be to today. After 47 days of dieting I've lost 18.2 lbs. I know I have a long road ahead of me, but I know I can do this. Wednesday is weigh-in day and I'm really hoping to hit that 20 lb. milestone.

After reading other weight loss blogs, I figured I should jump on the blogwagon too. :-) I started my current diet February 22, 2006 and I'm now on day 43. My starting weight was 317.6 and my current weight, as of today, is 299.4 for a total loss of 18.2 lbs. It's so good to see the 200's on the scale! I count every single calorie and try to stay around 1800/day but sometimes I'm closer to 2000/day. I had very good results dieting like this before, but this time I'm going to keep the weight off. Coming soon....My Story....