Protein Packed

I've been eating a lot of this lately.....

Lowfat Cottage Cheese

It's lowfat, decently low carb, and high in protein. It's great alongside some vegetables, fruit, or sprinkled with some cayenne or just salt and pepper. I think my absolute favorite way to eat cottage cheese is with slices of home grown tomatoes with salt and pepper. It's the best!

My local grocery stores charge about 3 bucks (sometimes more) for a 16 oz container of this stuff. I have found that I can get this huge 3 lb tub of it at Sams Club for less than 5 bucks. Buying in bulk obviously makes more sense. When I have it on hand I usually eat cottage cheese once a day and end up making my Carb Man (Carbohydrate loving husband) some lasagna with it. It's great stuff.

Anyways, that's my bit of advice for the day.

Happy Eating!

Life Savers!

I'm very much a fan of the Minute Maid Light beverages. They're quite tasty and a quick way for me to get in some liquids. The lemonade only has 5 calories in the entire can and the other 3 flavors have 10 calories. The cherry limeade is probably my least favorite, but it's still really good.

What would I do without cheese? These little things are fantastic. Each individual serving has 50 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, and 6 grams of protein. They're perfect for portion control, sack lunches, and an on-the-go meal.
We've gotta have fat. My fat no longer comes from tortilla chips and queso, but from wonderful things like seeds and nuts. I feel that I'm kind of a nut snob, but I gave these a whirl. They're amazing! They were roasted and salted perfectly. I love that this mixed nut combination includes walnuts.
This is a ZERO calorie chai. Yes, you're supposed to blend it 50/50 with milk, but I break the rules. I add a little bit of half-n-half (1 1/2 Tbsp. (30 calories)) and lots of water. It mostly tastes like chai tea with cream versus a chai tea latte, but it's so much healthier.

This will make a great dessert. 2 tablespoons of the Reddi Whip has 5 calories. Well, I can't physically eat much so I figured I can responsibly enjoy some of this. Bones will have to help me eat the banana too because there's no way I could eat an entire one myself. I will absolutely savor my tiny bites though. ; )

I never tried a bread and butter pickle until this year. Can you believe it? Well, I found these wonderful no sugar added bread and butter pickles at my local grocery store. They were on sale for 2 bucks and I had a 50 cent off coupon. I stocked up! They're sweet like dessert and have the perfect crunch. Yum!

I'm an Aldi shopper. This deli meat is budget friendly. I get a whole pound of deli sliced chicken breast for less than 3 bucks. I enjoy taking 1 slice and rolling it around a slice of 2% American cheese or around some low-fat cream cheese. They're great hot or cold.
I found these at my local grocery store. I figure I'll allow myself 1 for Thanksgiving. I plan on adding some sugar-free Torani pumpkin syrup to ricotta and then stuffing it in one of these little guys and then top it off with a squirt of Reddi Whip. We'll see how that goes.

I know it's not on my list of foods I can eat, but it's better than all the other sweets and carbs that will be everywhere I look on the Holiday's.

What a find! I'm looking forward to trying this with my next batch of chicken, tuna, or egg salad. This was on sale at my local grocery store for 1.50 and I had a 50 cent off coupon. I only paid 1 buck for this. Excellent!
I've NEVER been a fan of sweet pickles, but at the price I paid I figured I'd try 'em out again. These are the no sugar added kind too so they're much healthier for me. I love that they're in single serving packages. I'm guessing I'll probably get several servings out of each little package though. Funny how that works now. lol! Good thing they don't expire for a really long time.

LOVE these! I highly recommend them. They count as a fat. I only eat about 4-6 at a time. That's 1 fat serving. Fat never tasted so good. Mmm....

Protein Powder

I ordered my first container of protein powder last night. Shelly at theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com believes that Max Protein Powder is the best, so I'll give it a whirl. I'm super excited!
I don't know if I could have ordered it at a better time. I just love hot cocoa with all this cold weather, but there is absolutely nothing nutritional about the stuff. It's just calories, but if I can make hot cocoa with the protein powder I'll get getting loads of protein.

What protein powders do you recommend?

Sept. 30, 2009

I weighed yesterday morning and I'm officially down 71 lbs. It feels so good to be able to say that, but at the same time it's very embarrassing. I've never been a small, medium, or even large kinda girl. I was extra-extra large! It's sad that I let my weight get so out of control.

While most of my weight problems were due to my own laziness, I didn't exactly have the perfect genes either. Obesity runs in my family and I was one of the unlucky ones who it affected. I finally came to the realization that I have to work extra hard in order to lose weight and maintain weight.

For an obese person I ate pretty healthy. I love vegetables (the non-starchy kind) with a passion and enjoy lean meats. Fruit has never really been my thing, but I do enjoy an occasional apple. Sweet treats were never a weakness for me. I honestly think the habits and things that got to me the most were overeating for my almost non-existant metabolism, not exercising, and carbohydrates. Changing all of those factors has made me a new person.

I've also made other changes in my life. I no longer drink soda. This is crazy because I used to have a can of Diet Coke almost every morning. That was my breakfast. I sometimes think I miss the carbonation, but I know I'm much better off without all of those chemicals even though there aren't any calories in diet soda.

I was off caffeine for a couple of months. I'm slowly adding it into my diet again. I just make sure not to drink more than 24 ounces a day. And I only allow myself to have caffeine if I'm doing good at getting in all my liquids (mostly water). I've discovered that hydration is key when trying to lose weight.

Things are starting to get a little tricky. I have 3 pairs of sweats that sorta fit. They're pretty big and sloppy, but I think that's acceptable with sweats so I'll keep wearing them for now. I have 2 pairs of dress pants that fit and one of them is actually starting to fall off of me. It's frustrating, but exciting! I put on some pajama pants last night and felt like I was going to get tangled up in them. They're huge! I guess it's time to put those in my bottomless pile of clothes I've out-shrunk.

I'm still eating 1-2 meals per day. I only eat up to 2 ounces of food a day. I'd love to go wild and just eat a veggie salad, but it's vital that protein comes first. Luckily I enjoy cooking and have come up with some creative ways to prepare meat. It hasn't become boring yet. I've also found a couple of blogs that inspire me to try new recipes. My favorite is theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com. It's amazing!

My biggest news is that I now go running in 3 mile stretches pretty regularly. I wasn't planning on starting to run until Christmas time, so I'm way ahead of schedule. I'm needing to get in the routine of running about 10 miles a week during October. I'll bump it up to 15 or so in November and 20-25 in December. Once I get to that point I have a training schedule I'm going to follow. I'm hoping to run a 1/2 marathon in the spring. That's my goal and it gives me something to work towards.

Well, I just wanted to post an update about my journey. It's only been 3 1/2 months and I've lost 71 lbs. That makes 43 lbs since my pre-op which was 2 months ago today. It sure would be wonderful if I could drop another 43 lbs in the next 2 months. That would make me smile from ear to ear!

Time to run some errands. Hope all is well!

Only 68 lbs to go!!!!!