For the one person left out there...

Jen...I think you may be the only one that didn't give up on me/us when we "fell off the wagon".  I know Lisa checks in every now and again, as well at least one of my aunts and one of my cousins...so I figured I'd write this one to you :)

Today, I am feeling hungry...and I don't know if its just a subconscious thing or if my body was starting to get used to not eating the right portions again.  I'm about to make dinner (Whole Wheat Chicken Pizza Pockets) and I find myself not wanting to get up and make them.

Also, that whole counting calorie thing is not for me, but I figure, it's part of the app/site...might as well get an idea of how many calories I am ingesting.  I know, in the before time, in the long long ago (I'll laugh if you get that reference) that we were probably eating about 2200 calories a day with no more exercise than our job (which some days is 6 hours on your feet) and we were still losing.

But I have a problem...which is, if I see the calorie count and I go over, then I will feel  :(   even though I know that what I am eating is as minimally processed as possible.  At the same time, I do like to know the breakdown of everything.  So...hopefully, I don't get bajiggity about the number...as long as it doesn't go over 2500...that would just be bad.

I hadn't used the site in a long time...so thanks for getting me back onto it.  Hopefully the novelty doesn't wear off like it did the last time.

If you have October Unprocessed rants, rant them to me...I know how you are feeling :)

Wow...Have We Been Lazy

Hot...busy...just downright lazy!!!

Three things that have kept the last 8 weeks full of reasons why we've fallen off the wagon!!

10 lbs for each of us...which mostly comes from high levels of sodium...and sugar (welcome home soda...how I've missed you)!!

Every day we say - "We have to get back on track! And we really need to do it this time!"

I know our biggest reason for struggling to get back on track every day is we both remember just how nightmarish the cravings were - for both salt and sugar...and food in both quality and quantity.

So the plan is grocery shopping this afternoon...with - if I make it on time after what I have to do for work today - a kickoff dinner.  Then we are going to kick it into gear...

because have pledged to October Unprocessed 2012 (check it out - http://www.eatingrules.com/october-unprocessed-2012/)!!  And if we don't start now...come October 01...its just going to be too difficult.

That's all for today...there will be more soon :)

The End of the Beginning

Tomorrow is our last weigh in for the competition that we've been in with my family.  It's the end of the beginning.  It's a good thing, because it has kept us motivated this far, but I'm a little wary that not having that motivation will cause us to relapse.

We've been trying to be good lately, but it's been really hard - especially because we are working at getting A/C in the house but it is WAY to hot to cook.  That was kind of the nice thing about trying to not eat meat this week...but that was hard to, because I really missed it.  I think Kurt did too.

The other day, my friend posted a link to the most delicious looking burger ever.  It was a pepper jack and green chili stuffed burger.  Mmmmmmmmm!!  However, we had to go about rethinking it so that it wasn't too horribly awful.  We used mozzarella instead of pepper jack because its less oily and of course no bun.

I was still very much impressed with how it turned out.  It really hit the spot.  We went a little overboard with it and had 2. :/  But you could definitely be filled up with one and a side (we had yams cut up into cubes and barbequed in a foil envelope for about 15 - 20 minutes.

Try it out!!

Green Chili and Mozzarella Stuffed Burgers

Yields 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 lb of lean ground beef
• 1/4 onion, diced
• 3-4 garlic, minced
• 4 slices of mozzarella
• 1 - 3oz can of whole green chilies, seeded and diced
• Green Leaf Lettuce

Directions

1. Mix together ground beef, onions and garlic in a bowl
2. Separate into 8 - 1/8 oz patties
3. Place one slice of mozzarella on each of 4 patties
4. Coat cheese slice with green chili pieces
5. Cover each of the 4 patties with the additional 4 patties
6. Pinch the edges of each burger together to keep stuffing from falling out
7. Grill on barbeque or stove until desired temperature
8. Remove and wrap in 1-2 lettuce leaves
9. Add your favorite condiment and enjoy.

Cheesy Vegetable Pasta

I had a thought today about how I've been doing the blog.  Usually, when I have a recipe, I "predate" the blog post to before we started the blog in the first place so it doesn't get in the way of the meat of it all.

However, then that requires everyone to go to the recipes section and decide whether we've actually put a new recipe in...so I've just decided to integrate it...because the chances of you seeing it are far greater.

This was very yummy...and you could do really whatever vegetables you want.  I'm going to write it out the way we made it though.

Cheesy Vegetable Pasta

Yields 4 servings
Based on a recipe from www.realsimple.com

Ingredients

• 4 servings of whole wheat spaghetti (I have one of those spaghetti forks with the serving holes but from what I remember, 1 serving is 2 oz dry, 1 cup cooked)
• 1 - 16 oz bag of frozen broccoli
• 1 bell pepper (I used yellow)
• 1 zucchini
• 1 - 14-15 oz can of diced tomatoes, strained
• 1/4 yellow onion, diced
• 4 oz of mushrooms, sliced
• Italian Seasoning (as preferred)
• Garlic Cloves, minced (as preferred)
• Salt (as needed)

Directions

1. Boil water and light barbeque or preheat oven to 450*F
2. Slice bell pepper and zucchini and mix with frozen broccoli
3. Create a pouch out of aluminum foil and fill with vegetables
4. Place pouch in barbeque or oven for 15 minutes
5. Add spaghetti to boiling water
6. Drain tomatoes and empty into saucepot
7. Add garlic and other seasonings you prefer to tomatoes
8. Heat tomato mixture over medium heat while blending into sauce with a hand blender
9. When tomato mixture is fully mixed and heated, add onions and mushrooms and continue heating
10. Drain spaghetti when ready
11. When everything has fully cooked, add spaghetti to bowl and top with "steamed" vegetables and tomato sauce mixture
12. Top with freshly grated parmesean

Enjoy!!

A Repeat of Day 1...Again!!

So...we've fallen off the wagon pretty hard.  It's been about 3 or so weeks since we've really eaten well.  We've let our busy schedule and a lack of motivation overwhelm us to point in which ... well, we both feel like crap.

We have been consistently saying "We need to go grocery shopping."  "We need to go grocery shopping."  I have had no drive to meal plan and I can't walk into the store anymore and just wing it.  If I do that, I'll find myself wandering endlessly down the aisles wondering what to make - a waste of energy and time.

FINALLY, with the help of a Papa Murphy's Take 'n Bake Pizza last night, Kurt and I agreed that we felt awful and we HAD to go to the store.  We've been pretty run down lately.  We've been snapping at each other more than we had when we were regimented.  We've gotten tired earlier and not wanted to get out of bed in the morning (of course, a little in our defense, we've been pushing ourselves to try to stay up until 11pm or midnight and get up between 4am and 6am - too much to do...not enough hours in the day).

We decided that we were going to lay off meat for a little bit (for about a week or two, depending on how long we last) - partly because, while we both have relatively maintained our weight for the duration of our cheating, we both feel like we've put the weight back on (due to the sodium bloating and overall unhappy body feeling) and partly because I'm watching this movie called Forks Over Knives.

I am not all the way through this movie yet, but the overall premise is two doctors who have studied the affects of a high animal protein diet on the body - and have found that cancerous cells have a higher growth rate the higher the animal protein in your diet.  Now, of course, I don't like to take things at face value and I would like to look into the research they are discussing, but it's enough to turn my stomach at the thought of eating meat for the next week.

So, tonight we picked ourselves up, picked the gravel out of our road rash and are dragging ourselves back on the wagon.  We made a mushroom, onion and red bell pepper pizza on a whole wheat crust - just to ease ourselves back in.

And the cravings have set back in...not as bad this time...but enough that I want sweets and salts. 

Right now we are getting most of our exercise from working on our front yard - Kurt has been removing all the dead sod while I have been trying to till up the first couple of inches of soil so that we have a base to work with.

We are making a variety of new meals this week - Mushroom and Poblano Tostadas, Grilled Portobello Quesadillas, and Roasted Vegitable and Quinoa Salad to name a few.  I will definitely let everyone know how it goes - and post recipes if we enjoy it.

I just remembered that we have dinner out tomorrow - so there may be a possibility of some meat, as I don't know what's on the menu...so a little meat tomorrow probably.  Since we didn't buy any meat...well, we bought bacon for our egg casserole bites, but not for a main course, our grocery budget for this next week was very low...about $112.  Which is good, because we have applied for...WAIT FOR IT...health insurance!!  Woo hoo!!  Wouldn't it be nice to see a doctor once in a while!!??  Anyway, we have to budget just a little better so we can afford it.

Anyway,  I'll try to be on here more as a means of motivating myself more.  Until next time!!

Uggg

Just a quick note before I head out for the day...

So we have been in the thick of things with work...long hours, not a lot of time, not a lot of drive when we do have time...and we've struggled in the past 2 weeks.

We've done better than we have in the past 2 weeks with our cheating than we use to in the past, but still we've been bad.  Today is our weigh in day for our competition...and it isn't going to be good.

We though it would be easier since we were lacking in drive to shop on a daily basis, and it seemed to be working pretty well...but it also allows for cheating more...so

Today on the way home, we're going to get back on track...go grocery shopping...and hopefully we can turn ourselves around.  We both have been enjoying the weight loss and the feeling better...and we would like to keep it going :)

That's all for today...

The Highs and the Lows

I slacked off a little on this weeks post.  Partly because I have information that I try not to give away regarding the weigh in competition that we are in - and I usually don't like to share our numbers until everyone in our competition knows what percentages that everyone was at for the weigh in...but mostly because I am on the computer SO consistently now that sometimes the extra 5-10 minutes it takes me to get out my thoughts on the week are too "painful" to consider continuing to sit at this desk.  I really get that "5-0'clock" I'm done twitch feeling when I don't need to be sitting here anymore.

So, regardless of everyone in the competition knowing their results (which I suspect has a little to do with my mom and stepdad's scale being at the house they are not living it - and they should just bring it to the house that they are living at) :

This last Monday Kurt was down 6.8 lbs from his weigh in 2 weeks earlier and I was down 11 lbs.  Yea!! :)

In all fairness...my drop was really only 8ish lbs because the day that we weighed in 2 weeks from this last Monday, I had gained 2 lbs from the previous 2 week weigh in...but the next day I was down 3 lbs from that...so my 2 (now almost 3) week ago weigh in was a little bit of a fluke.

But I'll take what I can get...and so will Kurt.  That was the high.

Now for the low...we've both fluctuated between 1 lb either direction this week.  We really haven't been the best this week - but at the same time, we haven't been awful.  He's still been getting over the remnants of his cold while for me, some days I really feel like I'm getting over my allergies...and others - like yesterday...they were very bad.  I didn't help that we were photographing a house that seemed to be coated in pollen.

All the bad things (before yesterday) really hadn't been awful.  I forgot to make tortillas this week, so we had to buy a bag of whole wheat ones at the store.  We wanted a little ice cream so we bought a pint of vanilla that we shared over 3 days and had a couple of Oreos with it (ok...that was bad - but we were really craving sugar this week).  There was one day that Kurt did not like what we made for dinner - "Breaded" Chicken - chicken thighs breaded in almond meal - so we didn't have the leftovers for lunch the next day...but to be honest with you...I can't even remember what we had...I think we split a small pepperoni pizza with white sauce and some cheesy bread.

Okay...now that I've really had a chance to think back at it...yeah...it was kind of a bad week...a bit more awful than I originally thought.

As for yesterday...I'm not even going into that...you don't want to know.  All I can say is I felt awful all night, had a hard time sleeping...and of course - we're going back to our regular routine today.

Today is grocery day...and of course I haven't even made my meal plan yet.  I finally got a greater repentance of my sense of taste and smell back so hopefully I can actually taste what I cook this week.  I think there were a couple of meals from last week that I would like to try again...Kurt said they were good...but I have only their texture to go on.  I'll post more recipes as I can taste stuff.  I'm sure I have a couple I can put up...but I really would like to get away from my desk for a little bit.

Last grocery day - we spent $144 - but it does not include the things we cheated with.  The amount we spend on groceries is usually the way we deter ourselves from cheating, because we don't want to through money  away ... this week, other than the leftovers Kurt didn't like...I don't think anything has gone bad.  So grocery-wise, not a bad week.

Until ... probably sometime next week,