Still Here!

Hi- It's me! I'm still here! Really! I am just struggling with a new adaptation I think I may do with this site. I started doing Core because I was really sick of writing everything down and keeping track of everything that passed through my lips. I wanted to only keep track of non-Core things. And then I went and started this site to do exactly the opposite. I wanted to show people what doing Core every day looks like. That it can be done, it's pretty delish, and it can give you a rockin' hot bod!

It really works, I'm telling you! And I am doing it, I'm just not writing that much about it I guess. I will get back to it, I'm just deciding HOW I want to do it...so don't give up on me!

I also changed my hair (cut and color) and started doing a new exercise DVD. It makes me happy :) It's The Firm (Total Body workout or something like that) and I do the 45 min. routine. And let me tell you- I am usually partial to running on the treadmill or outside because I really see the impact, but the 400 million squats and lunges, etc. in the DVD are REALLY working my legs and buns! Pretty soon I will be made of steel! haha So if you are stuck in a rut, I recommend that you try it out. Totally worth the $15 it cost me!

Also, for some of my WPA's this week- since it really is starting to look like Summer around here, I purchased the Weight Watchers Turtle sundae cups. OH. MY. GOSH. They are GOOD! The ice cream part is a bit thinner, almost like ice milk, but I really like the texture. It feels lighter, but gives you all the satisfaction of the real deal! Ice cream usually gives me a stomach ache, but not these! YUM! Go do your self a favor and buy them!

Same thing with Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches! SOoooooo good!

I saw somewhere someone did a Core shopping list, and I am putting together one of my own so that will be posted here soon and I will link to it in the sidebar :)

Eating the Good Stuff!

Breakfast:

• 2 kiwis

Lunch:

• Diet coke
• 1 pc. leftover cheese pizza (6.5 WPA)

Snack:

• Curry chicken salad
• Tons of water

Dinner:

• Chicken
• Whole wheat pasta salad w/ balsamic vinegar and 2 t. O/O and some left over veggies lying around (satisfying both my 0-2 and my PPS quotas for the day)

Snack:

• Grapefruit
• Popcorn
• Diet coke

I am going to need to do some serious working out this week so I can earn some activity points to eat any more WPAs. Since I essentially ate all of my WPAs in the first 2 days of the week... I am DEFINITELY going to need some more this week! Yikes! Treadmill/outdoor paths and elliptical watch out for this girl!!!

Daily WPA used: 6.5

Weekly WPA used: 34.5 (this makes me feel very very bad about yesterday's choices.... wow! lol... 2nd day and I obviously have only 0.5 points left for the week)

So I have been doing decently well the past few days but didn't have everything written down, so I am making yesterday (Saturday) my official "first day of the week." I think this will work well for several reasons: 1) Saturday and Sunday are usually the days where I use the most WPAs...for obvious reasons I guess, including that I like to relax and not live such a "structured" life on the weekends; but by making the days the "first" of the (counting WPA) week, I won't have to worry about "saving" points all week to last me through the weekend- granted I don't want to use so many those days that I can't have any WPAs the rest of the week either. 2) Sat & Sun are the days I am most likely to give up and just say that I will start my diet on Monday again (due to the aforementioned desire for unstructured-ness)- if I put the emphasis on starting on those days, I think I will focus better. So- here goes.

Yesterday, as usual, was a Saturday AND we had guests in town so we did some touristy stuff that lead to some not so great eating. Here I am fighting the urge to just "start over" today- as if my body actually listens to what day I am starting over... it doesn't change what I put in my body yesterday!

It's sort of embarrassing to admit what I ate yesterday, but here goes:

Breakfast (Day didn't start off bad):

• Scrambled eggs (2) with 2 pc. Canadian bacon, 1/2 pc. American cheese and ff milk, S & P
• Grapes

Lunch:

• 5 Ritz crackers (1 WPA)
• FF Fage yogurt w/ 1 T. honey (1 WPA)
• Chicken w/ spray butter and lemon pepper & FF feta

Snack:

• Mango/orange tea
• 3/4 of a Strawberry churro... (about 7 WPA according to this site)
• Skittles (3 WPA's worth)

Dinner:

• 1 Light beer (2 WPA)
• Airheads Extreme Sour Belts (4 WPA)
• 1 Oreo Double Stuffed Cookie (2 WPA)
• 2/3 piece deep dish pizza (8 WPA)- I'm actually rounding up here from the count I found for a whole piece b/c I am very surprised that this wasn't much higher!

Walked for about 2-3 hours today and have been doing a lot of arm weights and ab stuff lately, but none this day.

Daily WPA: 28 (OUCHHHH!!!)

Weekly WPA: 28

Excused

Due to some extremely hectic life events lately, I excused myself from blogging for a bit. I also excused myself from eating healthy. I excused myself a bit too much and now I can no longer find a good excuse, despite the busy and hectic times lately. Oh well! I don't want to be chubby AND busy... just busy!

So as I zipped along on the train this morning I planned out my week and shopping list as well as a few go-to meals when I don't have time to pack or just want to go out for lunch with friends.

Here is my meal plan for the week (I hope this helps others to see that sticking to a healthy eating plan does NOT mean that you have to eat a bunch of boring salads!):

Breakfast:

• Oat Bran or Bob's Red Mill 10 grain breakfast with fruit (bananas or berries) OR
• Eggs and 1/2 avocado
• Water or tea

Lunch:

• Curry chicken salad (baked chicken, red grapes, and cucomber, ff mayo with curry powder-mix that first before mixing in the rest!)- A CYE recipe!
• Naan (1 piece is about 3 WPA- so I probably won't have a piece every day)
• Diet pop/diet juice/water to drink

Dinner:

• Mediterranean pasta salad (ff feta, whole wheat pasta, 2 t. oil, 2 T. balsamic vinegar, cucumber and red cabbage)- CYE again! and/or
• Vegetable soup (slightly adapted from 0 pt. soup- Weight W*tchers) and/or
• Salad w/ chicken, apples, grapes, and Lemon Basil Dressing or German Salad Dressing- I just realized how great it is to make your own dressing recently and here at Kitchen Parade's campaign to end store-bought dressings are a bunch of great recipes that are definitely CYE.
• This week dinner will encompass both my 0-2 (2 t. daily oils) and my PPS (pasta/potato/starch)

Snacks:

• 94% ff popcorn
• Fruit
• Veg
• FF Fage yogurt w/ honey (1 WPA per T honey)

There is obviously enough flexibility in this that even if you were cooking for your family every night you could switch up dinner and lunch and have left overs and different options. I like options, but I also like a plan, so this works well for me.

I enjoy coming home to a fridge stocked with food I can EAT TO LOSE weight! What a concept!

As you can see, I am down with the CYE dishes, and find it hard to make an excuse when it really is cheaper, yummier AND easier to make your own and tote it along than to spend a bunch of money on something that is not totally on Core! Then you are left trying to guess what parts are on Core, what parts are not on Core, and what points you have to count. Definitely not something I want to do everyday. I can bring a lunch most days and join my friends in the lounge or lobby and get the same effect as going out. Sometimes I like going out though, so here are a few options I pre-selected:

• Chipotle- Green salad, beans, fajita veggies, tomato salsa, corn salsa and guacamole- all on Core! Very little oil, but if I eat this I won't be eating any more oil that day without counting some WPA's
• Local chicken grill place- Salad w/ grilled chicken and green tomatillo salsa

I am also thinking of doing 8 Minute Abs- does anyone have any experience positive or negative about it?

Apr. 30, 09

Breakfast:

• 2 Dove cholocate squares (2 WPA)
• 2 robbin's eggs (1 WPA)
• Carrot bread

Lunch:

• Egg salad (made just like yeserday) on 1/2 WW pita (.5)
• Diet Coke

Dinner:

• 4 Vietnamese style spring rolls- I am ADDICTED to Vietnamese food especially Pho and spring rolls. It is so fresh and delicious. I ventured out and made my own spring rolls last night with: Rice paper wrappers, Soba noodles (100% organic buckwheat so no need to count WPAs), tofu (raw), lettuce, and cucomber.... Once those were wrapped up (.5 WPA for each wrapper + 0 for contents x 4= 2 WPA), I dipped them in 2 T. Kraft Asian Sesame dressing spiced up with Sambal hot sauce (highly recommended) for an additional 1 WPA= 3 WPA dinner)
• Edamame steamed in microwave w/ salt
• 1 Mango - YUMMMM and so fun to watch my dog try to devour whatever is left... he gets so excited when he sees me eating a mango and gets very hyper running around in circles (aka doing his "excited dance")- now wouldn't that make you want to eat more mangos? Yep, me too!
• Kellogs chocolate fiber bar (2 WPA)
• Dove square (1 WPA)

Workout: 10 lb. arm exercises, 400 situps (varied styles)

Daily WPA used: 9.5

Weekly WPA used: 30.5

Apr. 29, 09

Breakfast:

• Carrot bread

Lunch:

• Egg salad made w/ 2 eggs, 2 small pickles, ff mayo and mustard
• Apple
• Coke Zero (cherry-yum :)

Snack:

• FF plain Greek yogurt w/ 1 T. honey and 3 dates (1 WPA for honey and 1 WPA for the dates)- but this is a CYE snack and is almost too good to be true! Tastes like a sundae or something sinful! I reccomend buying the Greek yogurt in the big sizes and honey on the side versus the small individually packed ones sold by F*ge if you are trying to save money. But the small ones are SOOOO good, I just wish they came in FF!

Dinner:

• Mediterranean pasta salad- see a trend here? I think I might be addicted!!!
• Kellogs chocolate fiber bar (2 WPA), good but not as good as Fiber One in my opinion
• Dove Dark Chocolate Promises squares (1 WPA each x 3= 3 WPA)- spring for the pink packages to support Breast Cancer research :)
• Grapes

Daily WPA used: 7

Weekly WPA used: 21

Apr. 28, 09

Breakfast:

• Core carrot bread

Lunch:

• 2 chocolate eggs (2 WPA), 2 robbin's eggs (1 WPA)
• Mediterranean Pasta Salad- seriously try this!!!!
• Grapes
• ff feta plain

Dinner:

• Coffee w/ ff milk (long day and on the run!)

Snack:

• 2 hardboiled eggs
• Austin's cheese on cheese crackers (3 WPA)

Workout: 10 lb. arm exercises, 400 situps

Daily WPA used: 6

Weekly WPA used: 14

Apr. 27, 09

Breakfast:

• Strawberries
• 1 Avocado w/ salt and lemon pepper
• 5 starburst (2.5 WPA)

Lunch:

• 2 slices carrot oat bread (recipe linked in a previous post)
• coffee w/ ff milk

Dinner:

• Mediterranean (made-up) Pasta Salad- CYE to the max! AND DELISH! Directions: Cut up carrots, cucomber, parsley, red cabbage (or spinach), garlic, and toss with 2 t. extra virgin olive oil, 2 T. balsamic vinnegar, salt and pepper to taste, then add cooked whole wheat pasta (whatever shape your heart desires!), and ff feta cheese on top!
• Mango

Dessert/Snack:

• 2 chocolate eggs (2 WPA), 1 robbins egg (.5 WPA), and 5 peeps (3 WPA)
• 94% ff popcorn

Daily WPA used: 8

Weekly WPA used: 8