Spaghetti and Kelly.

 

Weigh-in

Another Friday has approached, another weigh in day for me.

Last Week’s Weight: 158.2lbs

This Week’s Weight: 157.4lbs

Difference of: –0.8lbs

Total Lost so far: 52.2lbs

Slow and steady wins the race right! A loss, is a loss, is a loss. I’m happy with it. :)

 Training

I did well sticking with my May Motivation schedule so far this week! Well, until this morning…I just could not get up. I tried really hard, but totally cashed in on another hour and 15 minutes of sleep.

I ran 4 miles yesterday, it was a slow moving 4 miles, I averaged 10:55/mi, but I was a little dehydrated and underestimated how warm it was outside and didn’t take water with me. At least I did it and that’s what counts!

High/Lows

Highs

• I had 4 really GREAT work outs this week.
• I had a weight loss.
• I spent quality time with my husband and my friends.
• Tonight I will get to celebrate a friend’s birthday and see some friends I haven’t seen in awhile!

Lows

• I had a chocolate problem this week. As in, I couldn’t get enough of it.
• I didn’t stick to my meal plan very well at all. I ate well, just not what was planned.
• Skipping my work out this morning. Even though I still kind of feel exhausted, I still feel a little guilty about skipping. Especially knowing I won’t have time to squeeze it in later today.

Cooking

I love spaghetti. I could eat my weight in it most likely if given the time and a large fork. To help fill me up so this doesn’t happen, I load my spaghetti sauce with lots of chopped vegetables. Here’s my recipe!

Tonyne’s Hearty Spaghetti (6 pts per serving, 2 servings)

Ingredients

1 link Lean Italian sausage link, hot 
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped  
1 cup canned tomato sauce  
1 cup asparagus, chopped
1 cup zucchini, chopped 
1/2 cup tomato, chopped  
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning  
2 cups cooked whole-wheat spaghetti

Instructions

Remove sausage from casing and brown with onion. Add vegetables, tomato sauce and seasoning. Cover and allow to simmer while pasta cooks.
Serve half of the sauce over half of the pasta, top lightly with parmesan cheese if desired.

You could easily leave the sausage out of this to make it vegetarian or change the meat to ground turkey or lean beef. You can also use your preference of veggies, this is just a quick way to make a wholesome, homemade sauce instead of the over processed jarred stuff. I at mine with some garlic bread and a little parmesan cheese!

Wrap it up Tonyne…

In totally unrelated news, I would like to wish my friend Kelly a very  Happy Birthday today! She is a dear friend and a huge source of support to me. Tonight we will be enjoying buckets of chicken and buckets of daiquiris on the beach in her honor! I am looking forward to it! So, Happy Birthday Kelly! Here’s to an amazing year!

That’s it for today I guess! Happy Weekends to those of you that have them!

The Spouse.

 

I was going to share my recipe for spaghetti today or talk about my workout schedule some more. I am doing really well this week, so far, I was going to write about that too. However, some recent discussions I’ve read in blog posts got me started in another direction.

The Spouse. Mr. Unlikely Success Story. Mr. Tonyne (he hates when I call him that, so I like to :) ). Jeff.

God’s gift to women? I’m not so sure…but he is a good man and I love him very much. My husband has an esophageal condition known as Barrett’s Esophagus. On top of this condition he also has esophageal strictures and a severe nut allergy. The nut allergy, is manageable, however the other two make it very hard for my husband to eat. Basically anything he eats has to be liquid by the time he swallows it or he can get choked. So, if you imagine doing that yourself…it’s difficult and nearly impossible with some foods. Because of this condition, my husband is underweight. Going out for dinner is next to impossible for him and he eats very, very slowly. He feels uncomfortable eating around people because of it.

If that isn’t enough (and trust me, it is!), my husband might quite possibly be the pickiest eater alive. I can’t tell you the number of times I make a Green Monster, asparagus or any vegetable other than broccoli to hear him say behind me “That’s nasty.” Has he tried most of this stuff? Probably not, but this is who he is and I knew that when I married him.

My recent lifestyle change has made meals almost impossible for us to share. He eats a lot of processed food because it’s convenient and quick since it takes him so long to eat. I cook him chicken and dumplings occasionally, but for the most part we eat separately. We also work different schedules, he runs a bar at night, I run a maintenance department in the day.

Our marriage is different that way. We are both very independent individuals. We love each other and try to make sure and put focus on the time we do have together, but when it comes to things like my races or successes, he’s not always around to share them with me. Most of the time, I’m alright with this…sometimes, I’m not. Do I feel jealous sometimes when I read about couples doing this together and fully supporting one another? Absolutely. I would never say Jeff is not supportive, because that’s not the case at all. He doesn’t flinch when I need new running shoes, a new healthy living gadget, cookbook, etc. He listens to me when I talk about a new recipe or training schedule.

He’s never visited this blog, he knows it exists of course, but how does a weight loss/healthy living/cooking blog interest him? I get it. Does it hurt sometimes? Yes. Do I want him at the finish line of my races. Yes. But I understand too. If I was limited and held back by a health condition, would I want to have someone’s health successes constantly in my face? Probably not. I feel bad sometimes because I am so excited about my new life and I talk about it incessantly, much to the chagrin of those around me I’m sure.

One of the points I wanted to make by putting myself out here so personally, which is really hard for me, is that the blogging community is such a fantastic source of support and encouragement for me. My friends and family are great as well, don’t get me wrong they listen to me drone on A LOT (Jeff included), but here I can talk about the changes I’ve made all I want. You can either choose to read about it or choose not to. I know that someone somewhere is waiting to hear my race recap or read my recipe from dinner last night. Not all of us have that super interested, living the same lifestyle spouse at home and that can be hard.

What it comes down to is we do this for ourselves, first and foremost. Yes we do it to be around longer for the people in our lives, but if you are making a lifestyle change you have to do it for YOURSELF. YOU are important and YOU are worth it.

Those of you out there that feel alone, like you don’t have a support system, you do. You have it right here. The Health & Wellness blogging community is made up of some of the kindest souls I’ve ever “met”. I am really happy to be a part of it.

I think that’s enough for today. I just want to tell you all again how much it means to me when you read and comment. I try to read and comment on as many blogs as possible because I know that the encouragement we get from our blogs or our online support system (whatever it might be) might be the only encouragement some of us get that day.

Tell me 1 thing the blogging community has given you, if you write a blog or not, just 1 thing.

Meatless Monday – Lemon Veggie Orzo

 

This is a very light, quick and easy dish. It will be a perfect dish to carry you through Spring and Summer and would be great for entertaining! I give you…

Lemon Veggie Orzo (4 pts per serving, 2 servings)

Ingredients

1/2 cup uncooked orzo  
1/2 cup zucchini, chopped  
1/2 cup asparagus, chopped   
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped  
1/2 cup tomato, chopped  
1 tsp olive oil  
2 Tbsp reduced fat parmesan cheese  
2 Tbsp lemon juice, canned or bottled  
1 clove garlic minced  
7 oz vegetable broth

Instructions

Heat oil and some non-stick cooking spray in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in orzo and allow to brown while stirring for 2 minutes.

Add all other ingredients (except cheese) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and allow to simmer until orzo absorbs all the liquid.

Serve topped with 1 tbsp of parmesan cheese.

I had 1 cup of Campbell’s Garden Broccoli Boxed Soup on the side. It’s not too bad for store bought soup and only 1 weight watcher point per serving.

Toasting the orzo before hand gives it a wonderful nutty flavor. The vegetables stay crisp too with tons of flavor from the lemon juice and garlic. I could easily eat 2 servings of this if I didn’t have the soup on the side!

I realized that I forgot to post my meal plan for the week! Sorry about that, obviously, this was Monday’s meal…

Tuesday: Spaghetti with Turkey Sausage

Wednesday: Mexican Kiwi Tostadas

Thursday: Herb Parmesan Tilapia

Friday: My friend Kelly’s Buckets & Buckets birthday party on the beach…buckets of chicken and buckets of daiquiris.

I am still trying to make a decision about the 2 Sunday 5ks this month. I would really like to do the one on Sunday, but I’m not sure it’s realistic with my current weekend plans and the one on Mother’s day doesn’t really interest me to participate in. So, we’ll see what happens there. It might be one of those “morning of” registrations. Surprise, I just ran a 5k! Booyah!

Yesterday I had a great workout. I did 22 minutes on the Elliptical, 25 minutes of total body weight training and 10 minutes on the stationary bike. It was nice to have a focused workout that didn’t involve running…but, this morning, I run. And, I’m off! :)

May Motivation

 

Can you believe this week will deliver us the 1st of May? I can’t believe how quickly this year is flying by. The past week I was very lazy, flailing around, not really working out. So I decided that I would change all that with a May Motivation Work Out Schedule:

I am one of those people that tend to do better with a To Do list, or something to mark off. My training schedules for races hang on my fridge and as I complete each day I make a little note (minutes/mile, etc) and knowing that I get to do that everyday somehow makes me do it. I’m a little OCD. Not going to lie about it. Just because I’m not training for a race, doesn’t mean I can’t have a training schedule, because starting June 27th I will begin training for the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon with I have now officially registered for. I don’t want to get out of shape in the mean time. Alt Cardio means at least 20 minutes of cardio activity that is not running, I can walk, bike or use the elliptical.

Usually I have a rest day on Saturdays, but I’m not off on Saturdays, so I might as well get up early and work out since I’m getting up for work anyway. Sundays, I don’t have to work, so I can truly just enjoy a Rest day. I scheduled my “long runs” for Thursdays because that’s my other day off and just seemed more practical to me based upon my summer work schedule. If anyone wants to use my schedule, feel free! I can even email you the file if you want to change it, print it and hang it on your fridge! :)

ACE Fitness posted an interesting article about setting goals on Twitter the other day, I wanted to share this information about goal setting with you:

One proven way to set effective goals is using the SMART goal method. This method will allow you to take those vague ideas and transform them into reality.

SPECIFIC: The goals must specifically state what is to be accomplished. They must be easily understood and should not be ambiguous or subject to interpretation. For example, rather than stating you would like to improve your fitness level, set a specific goal to be able to run a mile in 12 minutes.

MEASURABLE: The goals must be measureable so that there is no doubt about whether you achieved them. Measurable goals also allow you to evaluate your progress. Goals can be measured objectively or subjectively (i.e., how you feel and look), or both. For example, you could measure your percent body fat and body weight, but also monitor how your pants fit.

ATTAINABLE: The goals must be attainable—not too difficult or too easy. Easy goals do not motivate, and overly difficult ones may frustrate you and lead to a perception of failure.

RELEVANT: The goals must be relevant or pertinent to your particular interests, needs and abilities. For example, when preparing for a 5K walk, running quarter-mile sprints would not be the best approach

TIME-BOUND: The goals must be time-bound by specific deadlines for completion. Timelines can be both short-term and long-term and should help you stay focused and on track.

*Courtesy of ACEfitness.org

I think these are great things to remember when we set goals. As I read on OhSheGlows’s blog the other day:

 “If you only do what you know you can do- you never do very much.” Tom Krause

Setting goals will help us do the things we don’t think we can do. What are you current goals?

I have one quick food idea to share from the weekend. I wanted a quick pasta dish on Saturday after work and grocery shopping, so I threw together a quick Mediterranean Pasta. It had the following items:

• Whole Wheat Pasta (1 serving cooked)
• 6 large olives chopped (I used kalamta and green)
• 2 Tbsp chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped spinach
• 1 roasted Roma tomato chopped
• 1 artichoke heart marinated in light Italian Dressing* chopped
• Some Greek Seasoning blend
• 2 Tbsp Reduced Fat Feta Cheese

Toss together and serve. It was fully of healthy oils and tasted amazing. It only took about 15 minutes to throw together too!

*I buy canned Artichoke hearts in water and when I get them home, I transfer them into a jar with 1/3 cup Fat Free Italian Dressing. They are cheaper that way, and I know what is in the marinade.

My husband and I have enjoyed a lazy weekend around the house. I even managed to fit a craft project in! Now it’s time to kick my ass in gear for the week, I’m off to the gym.

Happy Monday? :/ That doesn’t really work, does it?

Food for Comfort

 

Meatloaf. You love it or you hate it. I happen to LOVE it. Tonight I tried my hand at a Turkey Meatloaf with a Honey mustard glaze. Here’s what I got!

Tonyne’s Terrific Turkey Meatloaf with Honey Mustard Glaze

(5 pts per serving, 2 servings)

Meatloaf

7 oz uncooked ground turkey breast  
2 slices light whole wheat bread, ground in processor
1/3 cup egg whites
1/4 cup cooked carrots, shredded and sautéed  
1/3 cup cooked onions, finely chopped and sautéed  
1 tsp garlic powder  
1 tsp onion powder  

Glaze

1 Tbsp mustard  
1 Tbsp honey  
1 tsp SPLENDA® Splenda Brown Sugar Blend   

Preheat oven to 350*. Combine all ingredients for meatloaf in a bowl. Add mixture to a 5" mini loaf pan. Place in oven and cook for 25 minutes.

While loaf cooks, combine mustard, honey and brown sugar blend, whisk well.

Remove loaf from oven, top with glaze and place back in oven for 5-10 minutes.

Very YUM indeed. I served mine with a side of parsnip fries, which I’m not ashamed to say I’ve made 3 times this week. After hearing Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point rave about them for months, I finally caved. I don’t know why I waited so long!

I hope you are all having terrific weekends thus far! I am stuck at work…tell me what you’re doing! Let me life vicariously…please! :)