Maribeth's Blog

I feel great, kitchen is well stocked with healthy foods, meals are planned out, and I have a work out schedule. What else am I missing? Record food intake and power. 2 things I’m working on. Must write down food, must write down food, must write down food. I wrote all of yesterdays food down, now just need to write down today’s intake before I forget. Shhh, don’t tell Dan, but I’m using the Livestrong app again. I know it doesn’t tell you all your totals for protein, fat, etc. But guess what, that one almost never has what I’m looking for in the database and it’s what will work for me. Off to go record.

One major goal that I had for today is grocery shopping and picking up the CSA produce before the weather turns ugly. I want to get everything while the weather was nice outside. Let’s face it, picking up produce with no real cover while it’s raining and windy out = no fun! Plus, Daniel would be with me, so I headed out early this morning. I went shopping and picked up the produce with just enough time to come home, eat lunch, and put Daniel down for his nap. And I could blog while he took a nap. Hooray! Here I am.

Next blog I need to plan everything out for next week. Hopefully, tonight I can blog after Daniel goes to bed. I need to plan out menus, write down work out schedule, and write those darn calories down. Maybe I’ll write down what I ate here.

Breakfast – protein shake, some goldfish.

Lunch – slice of pizza with chicken, some blueberries, 4 cherry granola cookies, 1 banana puree muffin, no make that 1.5. 1/4 cup of dark chocolate covered raisin. Water to drink.

I did take my multivitamin and 2 fish oil capsules with breakfast. A couple of mini peanut butter crackers. I think that’s it so far. Pat on the back for at least writing it down.

Now off to clean up the kitchen.

Ugh! What can I say? This last week and a half with Daniel off from school and Dan working on putting up the new DealCatcher had me super stressed out. The good news is that it’s getting better. Daniel went back to school yesterday and I did what any mom would do. I went back to bed and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house. Now it’s time to get back on track and start going to the gym, writing down calories, and exercising.

Exercising works great for me in more ways than one. I enjoy the time to myself, listening to music, and the endorphins that make you feel good and happy.

As for the menu, tonight is Mexican night. I asked the lady at the Trader Joe’s for some suggestions. I was interested in trying something new and open to suggestions. She suggested their black bean and corn salsa. I’ll give it a try tonight when I make turkey tacos. I also got some corn today from the CSA, so I’ll make some of that too. It’s Daniel’s favorite and Dan will eat it too.

Daniel for whatever reason wouldn’t take a nap today. I’m exhausted! I think he has more energy than I do! He even woke up a half an hour early this morning. Then he fell asleep for about 5 minutes in the car on the way home from Trader Joe’s. I don’t know if he thought he slept for 2 hours or what, but I was looking forward to his nap. I was going to blog and meal plan then, but that didn’t work out.

Breakfast: Whole wheat french toast with light butter and a wallaby yogurt.

Lunch: Sliced Roast beef with havarti with dill cheese. Some mini Trader Joe’s crackers.

Dinner: Bison ground meat with mexican seasoning and Amy’s Black Bean Vegetable soup on a whole wheat tortilla. Side was mixed vegetables and flax seed veggie chips.

Snack: A plum and some banana. 1/2 cup dark chocolate covered raisins, blueberries, and cherries.

For tomorrow, I’m looking forward to working out in the morning and then going out to lunch with Mary. We are meeting up at Lettuce Feed You. I’m looking forward to getting a garden salad. I’m bringing my own salad dressing, so I know exactly what I’m eating. Salad dressings can be both fattening and high in calories, so I want to make sure I avoid that.

I think that’s all for now. I’m going to finish watching the Phillies and Eagles’ games. Go Phillies!

The funny thing about exercise is if you exercise it’ll make you feel good. That pre-workout feeling of sluggishness goes away about half way through the workout. Endorphins kick in and you think to yourself “Why didn’t I do this earlier?”

Today, I worked out for 1 hour on the elliptical machine. Even better, was that I had new music to listen to. I got tired of the old tunes and they were not rocking enough for me to keep me motivated. This morning before heading to the gym I added a whole bunch of music to my shuffle. Dan found me a bunch of songs, too. Thank you!! One thing I have to check out is why my toes start to fall a sleep after a while on the machine. I’ll have to ask some one at the help desk the next time I go in. Total Calories burned was 606, average heart rate was 154, max heart rate was 169.

On to meals for the day.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs (Daniel loves these, too ) and a deli flat bread.

Lunch was late, since I didn’t get home from the gym until well after 1. It was reduced-fat cheese stick, 5 rosemary triscuits, wallaby yogurt (it’s a new brand), slice of filet (super yummy) and half of a deli flat bread slice with dark chocolate pb.

Dinner was nice and healthy. Dan cooked the Perdue Perfect Portion chicken on the grill that was topped with a Curry sauce. Sides were steamed broccoli that Dan said couldn’t possibly be healthy and corn on the cob. Great addition to flavor for the broccoli and corn was “I can’t Believe it’s not Butter spray. Tastes like butter, but without the fat and calories. Plus, it’s pretty easy to spray corn instead of trying to spread butter on it with a knife. The broccoli in the bag that I bought from Trader Joe’s was awesome. Just throw it in the microwave to steam. I had to show Dan the bag because he didn’t believe me as to how low calorie it was.

On the whole, today was a great day. Meals were good and I worked out. What more could I want? Next goal is to start a new category on here and log meals with calorie amounts, food group, etc. Maybe I can work on that tomorrow while Daniel takes a nap.

Off to bed I go….

Last night’s dinner before I forget what I made was 99% fat-free Turkey, bowtie pasta, and peas with Lite Alfredo sauce. This was my lunch today. I added steamed broccoli to spruce it up a bit and so it wasn’t exactly what I ate last night as well as I wanted to add more veggies.

Tonight for dinner, I made my healthy version of my favorite kind of pizza. I must say it tasted pretty darn good. If you like white veggie pizza, you should try this. Here’s what it consisted of: Pepperidge Farm whole wheat deli flat bread, 1 wedge of Laughing Cow light garlic and herb cheese, steamed broccoli leftover from lunch, chopped tomato, and finally some Reduced Fat Mexican cheese sprinkled on top. Then, I toasted it in my toaster oven for about a cycle and a half. Yummy!

No exercise! I expected my MIL to come over tonight, but as I later found out went looking for a new car. I took a deep breath and that’s all I can do for today. It’s late now and I’ll have to do something tomorrow as Daniel will be at school.

I do feel pretty good this week and feel confident about getting closer to my first goal. I’m only 2.5lbs away! I just have to keep telling myself that’s it and first goal will be reached.

Well, I have been thinking about what exactly what I want to do with this blog. I think it would be cool to blog about my weight loss progress and my adventures in healthy cooking. I’ve been thinking about learning some new recipes and if I can find super healthy ones, it’s double bonus. I want to include my daily meals here and keep track of my weekly weight loss. I also want to get Dan to take some “before” pictures. I wonder if I can find some kind of blog count down. Something to investigate.

After watching the movie Julie & Julia,  I feel inspired to write a blog. What will it be about? Well, I’m not exactly sure myself. Do I want to lose 50lbs and end up on Oprah? Sure. Could I write about me a mommy and my daily adventures? Sure. Maybe it’ll be a combination of both or maybe I’ll just vent about that driver who clearly cut off a bunch of people. We’ll see. I first thought about writing in a journal, but feel I can type faster and not have to deal with scribble handwriting. Plus, I don’t mind sharing my thoughts and feelings with other people. Maybe someone will understand me better or tell me they have been there done that and here’s how they can help. Why should I beat my head against a wall if someone has the answer? Here it goes….