Tasty Thursday

Each Thursday, we'll be posting a healthy recipe to help us toward our healthy goal. Therefore, Thursadaysare now "Tasty Thursdays" here on the ol' blog. (Okay, I know its kind of lame, but "Meal Mondays" just wasn't doing it for me.) This also gives me a chance to take a blogging vacay (Bonus!). So send me your recipes (the two or three of you that might actually read this) and I'll post them on each Thursday. That way, you too can share in the fame and fortune of being an obscure, unread blogger.

   Our first delicious recipe is from the woman who started these shenanigans, Lorelle:


                
BEEFY NOODLES WITH SOUR CREAM SAUCE

2 cups whole wheat pasta, such as ziti or pene
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup of mushrooms, sliced(optional)
2 cups of low-sodium veggie juice, sucha s v-8
1 Tablespoon of ketchup
1/2 teaspoon of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of celery salt
1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano or Italian
seasoning
1 cup of light sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

1. bring pot of salted water to boil and add pasta. Cook until tender and drain. Set aside.

2. Meanwhile, brown lean ground beef and add chopped onion. Add the mushrooms Cook until browned.

3. To the browned meat add the veggie juice, ketchup, garlic powder, celery salt, and oregano or Italian seasoning. Stir well and reduce heat.

4. Add the cooked pasta to meat sauce.

5. Stir in the sour cream, salt and pepper. Mix well and serve.

Diet is a four letter word

    Okay, I will admit it..I do not like the word "diet". Heresy, I know. String me up by my fingernails, water torture me, burn me as a witch. I truly believe the word "diet", especially when used as a verb, is one of the most negative words someone can use when trying to improve their health.

  In my opinion, there is a very good reason for this aversion. Diet seems to imply a way of eating which is different from the way one should normally eat. In other words, it's a temporary change enacted to bring about desired weight loss results. I've always thought that this is a sort of backward way of looking at being healthy. I mean, if one goes on a diet and loses weight then, theoretically, the diet has "worked". At this point, that person will usually go back to the old ways of eating because of the very often hard to follow extreme nature of the diet regimen. Then that person often gains the weight back which causes them to go on another diet. It's an endless cycle and pretty self-defeating.

   Wouldn't it be more effective to eat healthy all of the time? I'm not saying it's necessarily easier. Lord knows caramel turtle cheesecake has a loud, mighty and convincing voice. But ultimately I really believe that eating healthier wins out over dieting everytime in the Great Weight Loss Battle. 

   It's the same with New Year's resolutions. We usually set lofty and somewhat unachievable goals and then find that we become discouraged when we don't attain instantaneous results or when those goals prove too difficult. I'm a big fan of baby steps-- small goals which give us those warm, fuzzy feelings of satisfaction once we accomplish them.

   That being said, here are my personal goals for this 3 month challenge:
               1. Eat healthier, which unfortunately means
                  less sweets and less chocolate. ( I'm silently
                  crying inside.)
                2. Exercise more. (Preferrably in a fairly
                    remote corner of the world. Say...Siberia.)
                3. Lose about 10 lbs.

   That's it. Nothing earth shattering. I'm not even jonesing for that big pot o' money. Okay, well maybe I'm jonesing a little bit. But I'm jonesing for a big slice of caramel turtle cheesecake even more. What are your 3 month challenge goals?

Oh, yucky day...

...food and weatherwise. Today was a bit of a healthy eating fail. I am sorry to say that I was forced to eat a large slice of homemade pecan pie. By "forced", I mean that the dastardly villain gave me friendly smile and asked, "Would you like a piece of homemade pecan pie?" It was a clear-cut case of healthy-eating sabotage and it was, OMG, soooo yummy! So, as I type this, I have consumed approximately 1800 calories, assuming the offending slice of pie was about 500 calories. Sigh.

  On the bright side, my hubby and I did get to walk two miles once I got home. There was a time, a few months ago, that I was actually walking about three miles almost daily. Unfortunately, the shorter days and a certain scheduler (are you reading CINDY?) have conspired to keep me from getting home in time to get in my three miles. In fact, I had stopped walking altogether. That is, until recently when I got the bright idea that, because walking those three miles takes so long, I would instead run a mile each evening, hoping to eventually work up to more. (In that same line of thought, because it takes so long to drive to each of my patients, I'll instead fly my invisible Wonder Woman jet everywhere.)

  This running idea might work out well, except for the fact that I have, I'm sure, a scientifically documented fear of having anyone witness me doing strenuous physical activity. (Or, FOPSME-- Fear of People Seeing Me Exercise. This goes hand in hand with my compulsion for creating acronyms.) For example, once I joined a Zoomba class at a gym. During the first session, I was so shamed by my dorky, non-rhythmic image reflected back at me in the gym mirror, that I ran screaming into the parking lot--never to Zoomba again. Well, it probably wasn't quite that dramatic but it really has scarred me for life. Not to mention the corneal damage my fellow Zooba-ers must've suffered that evening.

  In my mind, walking very quickly does not fall into the category of Potentially Embarrassing Physical Endeavors. But running does. Therefore, this is how my "running" sessions generally go: I start out from my house promisingly enough, jogging at a good pace. A few houses down, there's Mr. Hudson, my neighbor, playing with his grandchild. I slow down to a brisk walk. It's okay, I was getting kind of winded anyway. Once I'm past the danger, I start jogging again until I get to the next street and I see someone checking their mail. Okay, I don't actually know this person but I might see them at the grocery store some day. I slow down my pace, then pick it up again.

  This goes on for pretty much the entire mile until I get back home. I'm coming to believe that the best time for my jogging jaunts is probably between the hours of midnight and dawn, when the only people I might see would be vampires and werewolves. (By the way, sorry Edward and Jacob,I'm Team Neither.) Part of the problem is that I know that I'm not that totally hot chick that the masses cast an appreciative eye toward as she glides  by, wind whipping through her hair, all her perky parts bouncing with each footfall.Although, my Honey will argue that point. (Rob, not Rolando.). That's because he is totally wonderful, totally sweet and totally supportive. Also Husband Blindness has rendered him unable to see any woman as being more beautiful than me. At least not in my presence. Okay, at least not within my scope of wifely knowledge.  I'm afraid that I'm left in the realm of the Poor Exercising Schlup. As in, "Oh, look at that poor schlup trying their hardest to lose weight. Yay! Go, poor schlup,go!". (Okay, admit it... you know you've thought that before,too.)

   Basically, I know I have to get over my severe case of FOPSME (and this worsening acronym habit.) if I'm ever going to have any hope of my perky parts bouncing with each footfall. (Now that I'm over 40, time is really running short on that particular dream.) So what are some of the obstacles you have to overcome on your quest for physical fitness? Until tomorrow.....

 

Our first day...

  


 I have never blogged before in my life. This is a fact which should be  readily apparent by this feeble attempt to record the exhilarating highs, the tragic lows and the (more likely) mind-numbing mundaneness of the Great Home Care Weight Loss Project. (Or the official government approved acronym which can only be pronounced in Welsh,GHCWLP.)
 
  To kick off the beginning of this ambitious endeavor (backed by a wad of cash) , I offer up my personal experience on our first day of kicking weight loss a$$. (Which is better than kicking my weighty a$$... but I digress.) This is my first day of eating healthier, attaining some measure of physical fitness and drooling longingly over self-enforced missed chocolate moments.

  Breakfast today was lite yogurt, two pieces of toast with butter and hot tea. This added up to around 300 calories. Got to the office just in time for the weekend review.I poured myself a cup of coffee with a bit (Okay, a bit more than a bit.) of creamer. My husband is so proud of me for finally growing up and drinking coffee. I've always been a tea and hot chocolate kinda girl, so he now feels like I've graduated to the Big Leagues of caffeinated breakfast beverages. What he doesn't realize is that I'm only drinking it in a roughly 3:1 ratio. The 3 being anything that can be used to mask the flavor of the coffee. Then  because the challenge hasn't "officially" begun ("official" being the moment we all stepped onto that ugly, lying thing called a scale), I also nab five pieces of peppermint bark candy which total about 100 calories. (I know, I checked.)

  I meet my honey ("honey" being Rob, my partner in happy,domestic bliss. Not some illicit lover named "Rolando") for a very quick lunch at Subway. Subway is healthy. This is a fact proven by various fit athletes and previously overweight persons who tell us that in commercials. They all say it, so it must be true. Subway is surely the epitome of healthy fast food. (I know...an oxymoron.) The Subway guy asks us what we want to eat and I check out the nutrition guide on the glass case. I notice that the healthiest choices are not necessarily the cheapest..er..least expensive items on the menu. Therefore, my newly appointed Healthy Conscience is warring with my inner cheapness...er...frugality. Sorry, Healthy Conscience. You mess with Frugal Bone and you will lose EVERYTIME. I order a 6" Cold Cut sandwich with swiss cheese on Italian/herb bread. The lite mayonnaise goes a long way toward easing that increasingly annoying Healthy Conscience. I also grab a bag of chips and fill my cup with diet Coke.

  This is also a concession to our challenge. Before today, I would've filled my cup with 3/4 diet Coke and 1/4 regular Coke. That way I'd get less calories with 1/4 of the taste. Today, I am a good girl due, in part, to that suddenly unbelievable loud and obnoxious Healthy Conscience which is really looking like a prime candidate for a good beat down. Anyway, the total calories tabulate to around 610, according to the website caloriecount.about.com .

  No snacking during the day (yay!), but when I get home I forego hot dogs and mac and cheese for a medium piece of leftover lasagna which (according to recipe) should equal about 400 calories. Unfortunately, I've gotten home too late for my chosen form of physical activity...such as it is. But that's a story for tomorrow. My total caloric intake today works out to about 1500. I'm good with that.  Oh, and the title of the blog? Blame Cindy. When I asked her for ideas on what to name it, she said "I'll get back to you later on that." As you all know, whatever Cindy says, goes.;-)

  So now it's your turn. Here's the place to talk about our achievements, challenges and that incredibly ANNOYING Healthy Conscience that will probably intrude just when we're eyeing that delicious cheesecake the DME company has dropped off at the office. At least for the next three months....oh, fine! For every day of my life after this! (Yep, a good ol' conscience beat down is looking very promising right about now.)