Smooth(ie) movies

You know what? Smoothies are awesome. I've been having one every morning for breakfast and I kind of love them. I just make one each night before bed and grab it on my way to the bus stop and by the time I get to work I'm full of fruity (sometimes veggie) goodness - though I still need a coffee.

It's also a great way for me to get more fruit in my life since I'm so hit and miss with my fruit consumption. (The mad apple cravings I was having a month ago have passed.)

I've been fervently collecting smoothie recipes and I'm finally getting brave enough to change them up and add and subtract ingredients as I see fit. One thing I've done is stop making my smoothies with yogurt. While using Greek yogurt gives a smoothie a great protein boost, I'm just not a fan. For liquid, I'll use 1% milk but mostly water is just fine. I guess it depends on how think you like your smoothie; if you want to be able to walk on it, go with yogurt. If you like it a little thinner, milk or water will do that for you.

And that's a big reason why smoothies are so great: customization baby! I've already shared my love of the peanut butter-banana smoothie; here are two more I'm into right now:

Spinach-strawberry-mango-banana smoothie
1 banana
1 cup mango
1/2 cup strawberries
Handful spinach
1 cup liquid (I use milk in this one)
Then blend it up and drink it up!
I also through in one scoop of vanilla protein powder and a tablespoon of flax seed oil.

Spinach and strawberries and mango, oh my!

 Grapefruit-mango-strawberry smoothie
1 medium grapefruit, peeled and sectioned (I cheated and used stuff from a jar)
1/2 cup mango
1/2 cup strawberries
1 cup water (I feel like milk would be weird with grapefruit)
Blend and drink!
Again, I did my protein powder and flax seed additions. I don't eat a lot of citrus fruit so this is a great way for me to get some extra vitamin C.

See those grapefruit chunks in the bottom?

Day One

Today is the first day I'm monitoring my food on Weight Watchers and I've already had a couple of eye-openers.

I've become rather lazy of late and started eating breakfast at work. I always get a breakfast sandwich from Tim Horton's, but before you condemn me, I get it on an English muffin and only egg and cheese - no meat. Combined with my standard (and very necessary) x-large coffee I always felt this was a decent breakfast. I've even looked at the nutrition info and at 280 calories it seemed pretty decent. Imagine my surprise when I logged it into Weight Watchers and it came up at 8 points. That's 1/4 of my daily points value right there, in one hockey-puck shaped meal of eggy goodness.

The next surprise came at lunch. I've fallen in love with this bbq chicken ranch salad here at work. It's big and filling and delicious and even has creamy dressing but comes in at 390 calories (dressing included). And it keeps me full until after my afternoon workout, which seemed even better. And then I entered it into Weight Watchers and the dressing alone came to 6 points. I should have guessed it would be high, seeing how it has 20g of fat (!!!) but at 190 calories for the packet, it still kept my lunch at around 400 calories which, again, didn't feel that bad.

I'm dreading dinner a bit tonight as I'm at work and I'll have to be very careful with serving sizes and then with finding the food in WW. But this week is going to be more about seeing where I'm at then about being super strict with my points. Still, though, I'm already a bit in shock over food I thought was better for me (and that I really enjoy). What will matter is how I do each day and where my points are at by the end of the week and if it's still worthwhile fitting these things into my diet.

Oh, and I weighed myself again this morning. All week I know I'll be a little obsessive about it because I was so disappointed with the number yesterday. Though this morning I weighed in at 201.8 lb, which is down 0.2 lb from yesterday. While it's not much, it does indicate that even getting back to my pre-Christmas eating habits will be good for me. I also threw out the last of the Christmas baking last night. There are a couple of boxes of chocolates at home but they'll be done soon; then the last of the temptations will be gone and I can focus on what's good for me. Tomorrow I plan to stock up on fruits and veggies too. It's doing the little things that will help make the bigger things happen - namely being less of a bigger thing!

Back at it

Today is August 1, meaning I'm back on the scale.  I made sure I hopped on before eating, just because I wanted to, you know, be as light as possible.  I'll admit, there was a part of me hoping to see the number come in below 190, as a kind of reward for staying away from the scale for a week and just focusing on exercise and trying to make good eating choices.

Alas, 'twas not to be: I weighed in at 195.2 lb. 

Yes, I'm not thrilled with this number but I can tell I'm getting slimmer: my clothes fit better; I'm liking my reflection more; and I've recently purchased a few items of clothing (two pairs of shorts and a pair of pants) in beautiful size 12.  I'm wondering if part of the weight gain is due to me increasing my muscle mass, but since I haven't weighed myself for a month I can't be sure.

I'm going to restart my Up-Down Challenge with my next official weigh-in on Wednesday August 10 and I'm still going to reward myself with a book; increasing my book ownership is going to be the "up" part of the challenge.  But since I'm doing the Canadian Book Challenge, I'll be getting books for that as well, so every time I lose 5 lb, I'm buying a book for myself. 

Once again, I find myself aiming for 190.2 lb so that's my short-term goal.  Here's a list of where I want to be and when:

By September 30,  I would like to weigh 180 lb.
By November 30, I would like to weigh 170 lb.
By December 31, I would like to still weigh 170 lb.

I'll be really happy if I can hit 170 lb and maintain that weight, especially during the delicious Christmas season.  And 170 lb feels like it's a good weight for me to aim for, because I should be able to achieve it and because I think it's a good weight for my body type.

I've also got some other goals, which I'll outline this coming week.  It's been nice being off the scale for a month, but it does help motivate me so I can't stay away.  But to help alleviate the disappointment I feel when the scale doesn't go down as much as I'd like (or when it goes up) I'm going to have other things to use as a way to measure my progress.  Because sometimes progress can't be gauged by a simple number on a simple scale.

Even with all this planned in my mind, I still wanted to take advantage of the holiday Monday so I made the Beau and I a delicious brunch:

Homemade crepes topped with fresh blueberry sauce, Phoenician yogurt with cinnamon, peameal bacon and orange slices.  YUM!

(Oh, and I'll get back on the loan updates starting August 10 as well!)

I did it!

I got up this morning and exercised!

Okay, it wasn't at 7:30, it was actually closer to 8:00 but I had a very good reason: my kitty wanted cuddles.  Seriously.  We left her alone all weekend and she was a little starved for attention so I decided a Monday morning sleep-in with the kitty was just fine.

But I still got up and did 30 minutes of cardio on the exercise bike we have in our condo.  And I also did something for the first time ever in my working career: I ate breakfast at home.  This is not a normal occurrence for me.  Often, I'm too rushed in the morning to eat at home so I have breakfast at work.  I've become quite good at making my breakfasts ahead of time so I have something relatively healthy to eat, but today was a whole new experience for me.  And, I must say, I kind of enjoyed it.

Although after eating All Bran for breakfast, having a high-fibre granola bar for a snack and eating an apple in the early afternoon, I've had a bloated, gassy, achy tummy.  Oh, the sacrifices I make to be healthy.