Body After Baby: Week 5

Oh, last week. I gained. But I'm not surprised with the big amount I lost the week before. And I had a visit from Aunt Flow at the end of the week so I blame her for my weight gain. I also blame her for the doughnuts I picked up on my way home from garage sale-ing on Saturday and the burger and fries we got on Sunday and the homemade sour dough bread I made and the cookies yesterday and the pizza I made last night.........



I have a feeling this week might be like last week. I'm torn between my love to cook and my desire to lose weight. I know you can cook good, healthy, low fat food but it's not as fun as homemade oreos!! I'm sending those to Eli's work. Today's a new day though, right? Just start fresh. That's what I keep telling myself until my sour dough starter starts talking to me and just tempting me to bake something!



I did buy a cookbook at a used book store on Sunday "Secrets of Low Fat Baking". If you remember I own "Secrets of Low Fat Cooking" and I'm supposed to be cooking out of it. I'm excited to try some of the recipes and see if they taste anywhere near the real thing! I'll keep you posted.

Hope you had a great week! Check out Mama Notes for more Body after Baby 2010.

Body After Baby: Week 4

I lost 5.4lbs last week bringing my total weight loss to 10.8lbs!! Before you get all excited, I was sick from Thursday and I'm still recuperating. I had temp on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, spending the whole day Saturday in bed. I still ate but not a lot. I'm on my way to recovering so hopefully I can at least keep what I lost off this week.

Question of the Week: What is your favorite healthy snack? I love chips and salsa so I make pita chips (one pita is 1 point, salsa free). I love nuts but they are very high in points because of all the (good) fat. Popcorn is great! I think the main thing is only having a snack size portion. If I was to take a bowl of salsa and a bag of chips to the couch I would eat half the bag! So I make sure to only dish out the portion I am allotted to eat.

My shopping Tip of the week is to always take your slide to the store with you. Don't be afraid to pull it out and figure out the points value of something you're going to buy. You might be surprised at how many or how little points something may have! It will also help you only bring food into your home that are low points so you won't be tempted to "just have a little" of that high point food!





I'm not much for copying down recipes this week but I will share an easy, low point way to make pizza.

1 Pita Bread- I find a 1point per piece at Wal*Mart. It has flax seed in it.

2T Pizza sauce

Topping- bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, anything "free" of points!

Low Fat mozzarella



Put your pita bread on a cookie sheet and spray with cooking spray to make the edges crisp. Coat with pizza sauce and any spices. Top with free toppings and add a little cheese. If I don't put any toppings that have points in them I count this as 4 points. If you put any meat you will need to add points.

These are so much better then the frozen diet pizzas! The pita's are also good to tear up and crisp in the oven for chips to use with your favorite dip, salsa or beans.



Run over to Mama Notes and see how everyone else did this week!

Body After Baby: Week 3

Last week went much better for me. I lost 1.8lbs bringing my total for the BAB Challenge to 5.4lbs!! I think it helped that Eli went back to work and I had all my meals planned out. Oh, and he didn't make a Chocolate Cream Pie this week. He made Blackberry Cream Cheese Tarts! And I might have eaten a few.....



It was a no go on last weeks Challenge: How many sit ups can you do? I did: 0. I just kept forgetting ;) Really, I would remember after I had already got into bed at night and I was not getting out of bed to do sit ups. But I did go to yoga on Saturday. I'm still not drinking enough water but I am trying. Now that I'm sick, I don't feel like doing any exercise but I will try to go to yoga again on Saturday and we are going to meet up with a friend to go to the park.

This weeks question: Why do you want to lose weight and/or get healthier? What is your motivation? I could go real deep with this question or real light. Right now I want to be at my goal weight before Eli and I start TTC (We are going to start after March to avoid another December baby! I don't want them all to be born in the same month:). It will make things easier on my body and easier to lose the weight after the baby is born. I also want to follow the WW plan while pregnant to avoid gaining too much weight. In the long run, I want to not obsess about my weight so I don't pass that bad habit along to my kids. I want to be able to undress in front of my husband and not be ashamed (totally not his doing, all me). I want to be able to enjoy food in reasonable amounts without over indulging and gaining weight; that only comes with practice and willpower.



I made a really great soup last week:



Broccoli and Potato Soup



2T butter

1 Onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1lb potatoes, cubed

1 bag broccoli (I also used some cauliflower)

3c chicken broth

3c water

1/2 low fat milk

1/2 grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper (white if you've got it)



Heat butter in a pot big enough for all your ingredients. Cook onion and garlic until transparent. Add potatoes, broccoli, broth and water. Cook until vegs are soft. Blend until smooth ( I used my immersion blender). Add milK and cheese. Cook until melted. You could leave out some of the broccoli until after you blended it up, just add it in and cook a bit longer before adding milk and cheese.



This soup was yummy!! I guessed it at 2 points per 1/2 cup and my Mom agreed that sounded about right.

Fiber 1 just came out with a new 90 cal bar that is only 1 point! It is smaller than the regular Fiber 1 bar (3 points). You can get the full size Target brand Fiber bar and it is only 2 points.

I hope you all had a great week and can't wait to read about it! Go to Mama Notes for more BAB.

Body After Baby: Week 2

Well, this week didn't go as well as last. The start of the week went well but Eli got home on Thursday night and it was pretty much all down hill from there. We ate at Dairy Queen one day and Eli cooked a Chocolate Cream Pie another day. Need I say more?



But I did manage to loose .8lbs! That brings my total weight loss to 3.6lbs. It's better then gaining, right?



I went to yoga 3 times: twice with Ethan and once by myself. I also worked the floor change at Express and that's a work out on it's own.



I have a good menu planned for this week. I'm going to be walking the mall with a friend on Tuesday and yoga on Friday and Saturday. I gotta keep moving!

Samantha at Mama Notes, our fearless leader, has posted a challenge and a question for us this week.

Challenge: How many sit ups can you do? When I was in high school I would do 200 every night. Ha!! After abdominal surgery and carrying a baby I'm pretty sure that number is way down.

Question: What is your favorite part of your work out? I would have to say the end! It takes me some effort to get motivated to exercise. Depending on what the work out is, I enjoy the act but the at the end I aways feel so good and glad that I took time for myself.



Here are some more tips on how to stay on points:

Sometimes I get pretty tired of just regular old potatoes. I love to cut them up, with the skin still on them, and bake them. Oven fries are great because you can spray them with nonstick cooking spray, add some seasonings and they aren't any more points then a regular old baked potatoes! I like to add chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

I wanted to find a recipe for chicken nuggets for Ethan so I looked in one of the cook books my Mother-In-Law gave me for Christmas. (She bought me 2 that I really wanted! The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Make it Fast, Cook it Slow. I love them! Thanks Vicki!) I made these nuggets in the slow cooker and they are so good! Ethan loves them and I love that I know what I'm feeding my baby.

For the crust I used ground up Cheerios and wheat germ. I used a smaller slow cooker and halved the recipe. After about 2 hours I checked on them and some of them were done and some I had to turn and cook longer in order to get the crust crispy.

While I was making them it reminded me of some chicken fingers I made from a low fat recipe book my Mom gave me a long time ago. Secrets of Fat-Free Cooking is a great book with low fat recipes and tips. I think the chicken fingers are the only thing I have made out of this cook book so I'm excited to try some other recipes out.

Chicken Fingers w/Honey Mustard Sauce
3c corn flakes
1/2 t poultry seasoning
1/4t black pepper
3 T fat-free egg substitute (you can also use 1 egg+2 egg whites)
3 T skim milk
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast (4 breast halves)
Nonstick cooking spray

Sauce
1/4c +2T nonfat or reduced fat mayo (I just skip the mayo all together)
3T spicy mustard
3T honey
2T lemon juice

Blend the corn flakes in a food processor until crumbs. (Before I got a food processor I put them in a ziploc bag and smashed them up!) Combine the crumbs with seasonings. Combine the egg and milk and whisk together. Cut each chicken breast into 5 long strips. Dip the strips first in the egg and then the crumb mixture, coating all sides well. Coat baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray, and arrange the strips in a single layer. Spray the tops of the strips lightly with the cooking spray, and bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until the strips are golden brown and no longer pink inside. For the sauce, just stir all ingredients together. These are 1 point per strip with 2t of sauce.

Put those together with some oven fries and a salad and you have yourself a meal!



Here's another Low Fat recipe we had last night with our Turkey burgers:



Tex Mex Sweet and Red Potato Salad (From Weight Watchers Turn Around Program Cookbook)

1lb each of Sweet and Red Potatoes

4 tsp olive oil

2 onions, chopped

6T fat free mayonnaise

3T chopped fresh cilantro

1tsp grated lemon zest

1/2tsp salt

1/2tsp cumin

1/4tsp ground coriander

1/8tsp cayenne



Cut potatoes into cubes. Toss with 2tsp olive oil and roast at 425 for 35-40 minutes. Meanwhile, cook onions in oil in skillet. Combine mayo, cilantro, lemon zest, and seasonings in small bowl. Combine potatoes, onions and sauce, mix well. Serve warm or at room temp. 2 points for 1/2 cup.


When Eli got home from work I was putting Ethan to bed so he cooked the Turkey burgers on the grill. When they were finished he asked me what kind of meat it was. He said "It almost seems like they are turkey burgers." LOL!!! I never even thought of telling him so he could make sure they were cooked all the way through. They were and with the seasoning I put in them they tasted just like hamburger meat.



I hope you all had a great week and I look forward to this one being even better! Hop over to Mama Notes to read about all the fun.

Week 1- Body After Baby

I started the Challenge on Friday 1/1. Even though it's only been 5 days (I only weigh in once a week) I went ahead and weighed this morning for our weekly update.

I lost 2.8lbs in 5 days!!!!

The first few days were hard because I always seemed to be hungry even though I had just eaten. Then I decided I was eating the wrong things. I was eating what I would normally eat, just less of it because of the points value. So on Sunday I started looking for more filling foods and things with low point value so I could eat small "snack" meals throughout the day.


Here are a few things I have found that have helped me stay on my points:



Canned Chicken. The first time I saw it on the shelf I thought "Yuck! That can't be good!". But it is if you buy a good name brand and not the Wal*mart brand! Don't get me wrong. I love Wal*mart brand stuff, just not their canned chicken. I use Canned Chicken in many ways including Chicken Salad (2oz for 3 points because of the mayo) for sandwiches or on top of lettuce and many different Chicken Soups.

Bread. I buy Nature's Own Honey Wheat Lite. It's on the cheaper side for bread and it's only 1 point for 2 pieces!!! Ethan likes it too and that's one way I can get some wheat gran into his diet. I eat it sometimes for breakfast with 1T of low fat peanut butter (2 points).



Salads. Weather I have a salad as my main meal or as a side, I try to eat it at least once a day. I use a regular iceberg lettuce with some shredded cabbage added to it for filler and fiber. Elizabeth over at Baby Signs just wrote a post Top 10 Ways to get Fit after the Holidays and #9 is Focus on Fiber. Fiber does all kinds of thing good for your body including speeding up the transit time for food to go through your body. GoAskAlice goes into more detail about the benefits of fiber. The Weight Watcher Plan is based on getting lots of fiber in your diet. I use regular dressing because I hate most of the low fat stuff. I just put a little on and count it as 2 points.



Water. I have a hard time getting in all my water. I only drank one glass on the first day and two on the second. On the 3rd, I decided when I started getting hungry, I would grab a glass of water and drink it all before getting a snack. Most of the time when you feel hungry you are really just thirsty. It's not that I'm drinking other things besides water, I'm just not drinking anything.



Beans. Did you know that 1/2 cup of cooked beans is only 2 points? They are a filling food because of all the fiber. I made a bean chili (just beans and seasonings) in the crock pot and ate on these all week. I smushed them up and made bean burritos with salsa, ate them as dip with pita chip (homemade) and even ate them on top of my baked potatoes. You could use canned but it's so easy to make beans in the crock pot.

One of the soups I made was a Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup. I'm not sure where I found this at but I kinda made it up as I went along.

Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 cans Chicken Broth

1 can of water

1/2 cup uncooked brown rice

1 can 12.5oz Chicken

1 can corn (I used frozen. Remember all that corn I cooked and froze (here and here)? I still have it, a lot of it! I don't think I'll have to buy corn until the summer when I can get the good deals on fresh corn again.)

1 can Black Beans (I cooked my own.)

1tsp cumin

1/2tsp chili powder

1/2tsp garlic powder

1/2tsp onion powder

salt and pepper

I was just thinking about it and you could also add a can of Rotel (tomatoes and chilies) to it.

Bring the chicken broth and water to a boil. Add the rice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover until rice is done. Add everything else and boil on med with lid off until the liquid has reduced a bit. This is really yummy! I counted it as 3 points for 1 1/2 cups.

The best thing about WW is that you don't have to deprive yourself of anything. Eli and I went to Sonic on Saturday and I got a Peppermint Blast and ate 1 cup (4 points) of it every day for 3 days! As long as you have the points you can eat what ever you want.

I hope you all had a good week on your Body After Baby Challenge! Don't forget to check out all the other Mama's @ Mama Notes.

Body After Baby

I'm joining Samantha at Mama Notes for her Body after Baby Challenge 2010!! During the next several months we will be blogging about our Goals, Plans, Challenges and Success in losing our "baby weight"( I like to pretend I need to lose weight because I had a baby not because I enjoy carbs way too much!).

At Ethan's 8 week check up, my midwife gave me the okay to start losing weight. With breastfeeding and following the Weight Watchers plan I was able to drop 20lbs in 3 months! I am still at my weight I was when I got pregnant with Ethan but I am a lot softer and still about 15-20lbs over my goal weight. I'm looking forward to losing these extra few pounds before Eli and I decide to start adding to our family:)

Goals:

• Lose 15lbs by April 1st.
• Workout (walking with stroller) 3x per week outside the house (street or mall)
• "Workout" in home 3x per week
• Drink 8 glasses of water a day (I should be doing this anyway!)

Plan:

• Do some type of workout everyday. This can include walking with Ethan in the stroller outside on nice days or in the mall on not so nice days, doing one of my many exercise tapes or DVDs or deep cleaning something in the house (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) I just need to get moving!!
• Tracking my points. I do very well when I keep my journal of what I've eaten and how much I still have left to eat! I love finding the points value of food. My Mom got me a points scale for Christmas that will really come in handy! Thanks Mom!
• Keeping my water bottle with me all the time! I am so dehydrated all the time but I don't drink nearly enough water and getting plenty of water is a secret to weight loss.
• Planing meals. I've have gotten really bad at my Meal Planing and need to get back on it. This keeps me from asking Eli to stop and pick up fast food on the way home from work! I look forward to posting my plans and new low fat recipes I find.

Wish me luck and hop on over to Mama Notes and join us if you want your pre-baby body, or something like it, back!