Healthy Living

Thank God for my Biggest Loser Monday weigh-ins at work!  On Saturday at Weight Watchers I was 3/4 of a pound away from the  20 pound mark and now as of today I surpassed that by a pound and a half!  I’m down just over 20 pounds now in 8 weeks of Weight Watchers & 2 weeks of my workplace Biggest Loser!  I feel great, I’m starting to notice a bit, little baggier, looser-fitting clothes and slimmer face and my hairstylist noticed the minute she saw me as did a co-worker this morning!  It’s really nice, I have far to go but with these results I know I can do it!

Hey y’all… It’s been awhile since my last update, but Michelle has had some kick butt progress. GO MICHELLE! Me, I’ve managed to lose another 3 pounds, but I’m sure that once I start working more I will be losing more weight. I’ll be working the sales floor and that will include A LOT of walking, plus pushing and bending while stocking.

Anyway, last weekend I made a turkey for dinner with the turkey that John received from his job for Christmas. I looked on the net for a recipe since we don’t eat turkey much and I’m not a very experienced turkey gal. I found Mom’s Roast Turkey at Simply Recipes.

This recipe uses the aromatics (carrots, celery and onion) and involves cooking the turkey breast side down. I also took the recipe up a notch by rubbing the bird down with olive oil as suggested, THEN rubbing it down with dried Thyme, Marjoram and Parsely, and since we aren’t big on rosemary here we ommitted that.

Also, I chopped up a little more veg than what was called for and put some of the left over that didn’t fit in the bird under the bird. These veggies got all golden and caramelized from roasting in the open, cooking in turkey juices. Oh, my sweet LORD they were so good.

After dinner, John and the MIL and I all admitted that it was so good that we over did it a bit. I couldn’t believe that I said, “I ate too many vegetables!”, and I’m pretty sure that was the first time that phrase was ever uttered in the history of man.

I do think that since the breast side was down, the bird had to cook about 30-45 minutes longer than it should have, but it was so worth it. Because the bird had cooked 90% of the time breast down, all those juices were already in the breast meat and I was able to turn the bird over to crisp the breast of the bird and it didn’t dry it out at all. And, this was the moist tender and moist turkey that has ever had the privelege of being in a sandwich… YES, the next day the meat was still that moist!
I give this recipe two thumbs up! Enjoy

I’m going strong, I weighed in Saturday at Weight Watchers & I’m now down a full 15 pounds exactly in 5 weeks!  I feel great and I’m working towards my first goal of 10% body weight gone, I’m about halfway there! 

 Monday is my first weigh-in for my workplace Biggest Loser contest and I can’t wait to start that too and get a little boost in my efforts with a possible cash prize at the end of the 10 week challenge!

I haven’t even exercised yet!  I did reserve a Pilates Weight Loss for Dummies DVD at our library so as soon as that’s available I will give that a shot and once the damn snow gods stop their games of snowing every couple of days, I will be able to go for walks and maybe go to the local indoor pool for some swimming, I just can’t bring myself to do it in this weather!

Any other ideas for cheap exercise options?

I’ve done it!  I lost my first 10 pounds!  I knew all of last week I needed to drop 1.8 to hit the 10 pound mark and I lost exactly that!  There’s no stopping me now!  10 pounds in three weeks!  The Weight Watchers Flex Plan is so easy to follow and live with, I know I can do this long-term!

Well,

I weighed in for the end of my 2nd week in Weight Watchers last Saturday and dropped another 1.6 pounds so I’m only 1.8 pounds now from my first 10 pounds lost!!  I can’t wait to weigh in on Saturday this week and see how I did!  I’ve tried to be sure to use up all or most of my daily points upon advice from a LONGTIME Weight Watchers member and leader, my counselor Sharon.  She said part of “sticking to the program” means trying to eat all of your points, I still don’t use any of those 35 weekly allowance points but know they are there if we go out for a big meal or around holiday time or something.  I just think early on it’s better to stick to using only the daily points.  I just need to work on drinking more water, I have it at work all day, but don’t drink as much as I should and when I’m home I hardly drink any. 

 Check out my list of my latest favorite foods over at my other blog.  Those help me stay within points without feeling deprived!

You may have noticed I have ANOTHER weight loss blog, basically it’s my A Skinny Girl Trapped In A Fat Chick’s Body blog… but fine tuned a little bit. My site isn’t about being popular or page ranking, I really would love to have a circle of friends that want to cheer each other on.

It’s about being healthy whether you need to lose a few or gain a few. I’m interested in promoting all walks of healthy lifestyles so if you would like to contribute your story, your gripes and groans, your encouragements and YES- Your Successes then give me a little information and you’ll be added to the blog as an author.

The one criteria is that I have to have known you for a little while for you to write posts here. If I know you from your main blog, please feel free to email me. If not, hang around and comment. After I get to know you then you can be a contributor too!

The posts as I said can be anything health related, including recipes and exercise that is working for you.

I will need:

Username (nickname if you want)

First and last names

Email

Website

the password you want to use

Also, if you are interested here are some ticker sites if you want to put one up on the blog, some will work for weight loss and weight gain:

http://www.tickerfactory.com/weight-loss/wBMqOsc/

http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/Weight-Loss-Ticker.asp

http://www.evenhealth.com/cgi-bin/guest-ticker.cgi

http://www.3fatchicks.com/weight-tracker/

Let me know!

Hugs, Mary Mert

I have been slowly working ground turkey into our diets here in the ‘Vich household, mainly by cutting ground beef recipes in a 1:1 ratio. It’s pretty darn yummy. This was my plan for hamburgers, but you know how it goes when your clan isn’t quite in the mood for a particular dish, and then you have several pounds of Meat X about to slip past the Use By date. So I put my ground beef in the freezer and left the turkey out since it had a few more days left on it.

Hmmm, what to do. Find a turkey burger recipe, of course! I found a winner the first time out, and I wanted to share this recipe from All Recipes with you.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 pounds ground turkey
• 1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup finely diced onion ( I used shallots since you can get a finer chop very easily)
• 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley ( I used dried and it was fine)
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced (1/2 if you like less garlic)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix ground turkey, seasoned bread crumbs, onion, egg whites, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Form into 12 patties.
2. Cook the patties in a medium skillet over medium heat, turning once, to an internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C).

I even sauteed some mushrooms and put some on my burger; ’twas very, very good.

Enjoy!

Something has clicked, I am finally there! I joined Weight Watchers on Saturday and got choked up during the meeting because it was just so perfect. It just hit home, the feelings I’ve been having, the motivation I now am feeling for some reason. I’ve done really well keeping track of my points, it’s so easy! I have the booklets to look up points in plus the e-tools to use on their website, that part is really great! It’s so easy to use! I can’t wait until next Saturday to go to my next meeting & to top that off I get a haircut that day too!

I’ve added a weight-loss ticker up by Mert’s which I’ll update after each meeting/weigh-in!

Happy New Year!!

I hope all of you are off to a wonderful start for the New Year!

In the past I had never been one for resolutions, mostly because I lacked the intestinal fortitude to keep the pessimism at bay AND because I procrastinate too much. As part of my Positivity Regimen for the last year I vowed to overcome my fear of failure. So far so good.

I also made a promise to myself that I would start a new sewing business online (more about that later). I also managed to finish Nanowrimo and I plan to continue writing my novel. Also, I need to set up a new blog on Wordpress because Blogger has pretty much outlived it’s usefulness for me, I need a separate blog page for reviews since I have been accepted into the Parent Bloggers Network, and I need to put up a sewing section on the new blog.

Also, since we have financially challenged recently and we have stopped eating out John and I have managed to lose about 7 pounds (Anna has lost a few herself). I want to establish a workout schedule with the MISU and stick to it because our 20th (gasp) anniversary is in a year and a half. I wanna look GOOD!

So, there you have it.

1. Start online sewing business
2. Continue writing/editing novel
3. Set up new blog with main blog, review and sewing sections
4. Work out a workout schedule with the hubby and stick to it

Elizabeth at Table for Five has a new blogroll for those of us who want to keep ourselves accountable, and so that we can cheer each other on during our progress reports! So if you would like to join, head over and leave a comment and a link to your New Year’s Resolutions. Care to join me? Come on, lets make this New Year a fulfilling one.

Oh yeah, you heard me right! Elizabeth at Table For Five was offered an opportunity to host a giveaway on her blog… A years supply of Orville Redenbacher’s Natural Popcorn and a years subscription for Netflix!

Recently we had to cut back a little and unfortunately Netflix was the first thing to go, so when I saw Elizabeth’s blog post I immediately began to drool over the prospect. My daughters are voracious popcorn eaters so I know they would be just as excited as I am.

Elizabeth only has a few guidelines, so it’s as simple as writing a blog post just like this before January 5th, AND she changed the rules a little so that you can enter each of your blogs if you have more than one.

What are you waiting for? Hurry on over and write that post