Two Product Recommendations

So, I have been super beyond impressed with two products recently.

1. Yes To Cucumbers Facial Wipes

I bought a travel pack of these at Target and absolutely LOVE them! They take my make up off, while gently soothing my skin and keeping it feeling moist and refreshed.  I highly recommend them. If you sign up for the Yes to Carrots email, you can get a 5% off code.

2.Weight watchers creamy popsicles

These little babies are only 3 points, gigantic, and delicious! They are more delicious than many popsicles I’ve had that were full fat.  And they are so big! I can not finish one faster than in fifteen minutes. And that’s trying to eat it fast! I highly recommend it! I found these at my local grocery store.  

Ten Lb Milestone!

I have officially lost ten lbs since I started Weight Watchers at the end of August.  Okay, so the rate of loss is a little slower than I had hoped, but getting my “additional 5 lbs lost” (aka ten lbs lost) mile marker felt so rewarding! Even if I am losing slowly, I am gradually getting healthier and reaching my goal!

I also have been eating regularly all week, so I feel good about this week’s weigh in… The last two weeks I kind of wondered if my weight would sky rocket back up once I wasn’t feeling sick anymore. But it hasn’t! I also got back into working out… I did an hour of indoor biking on Thurs, then I had a half hour weight training session + 15 minutes cardio to warm up on Friday, and yesterday Jonathan and I went to a spinning class.

 

Now comes the hard part… eating right and exercising during the longest week of my life. I have class for 11 days solid with no days off because I have a weekend class next week.  AHHHHH. The weight loss contest with my friends ends a week from today, and this week could really blow it because I don’t know how I’ll find time to work out. Jonathan is going to try to keep me stocked up with healthy meals and snacks that  I can take to school with me so that I’m not tempted to hit the school cafeteria which is unhealthy and expensive!

So… wish me luck during hell week! 🙂 (and just that I’ll survive.. you know.)

Weight Watchers Milestone + Christmas Ornament Picture

So, I got busy and forgot to blog yesterday… oops!

On the other end, I feel fully recovered from my illness and my weight has seesawed its way back up and has stabilized over the last few days, so I am feeling good about it!

I track my weight on Sundays, so I was glad that I felt like I had a somewhat stable number to put in today. And guess what? I reached a new milestone on Weight Watchers… 5% ! Yay me!

 

I am also about to go buy books for school, and that means I am about to have a lot of homework. So no more crafting / fun times for awhile for me … so in honor of that, I am posting a picture of the salt dough ornament I made for Alysha!

She took a pic and emailed it to me awhile ago, but I hadn’t gotten around to posting it yet… here it is!

 

This was the one that I thought was most successful. The shape is a Dala horse, which is an iconic horse from Sweden. She had bought me cookie cutters when she studied abroad in Sweden, so I used them to make a horse ornament for her!

 

Mom’s Chicken and Broccoli Casserole – lightened up just a bit

So I’ve been building recipes on Weight Watchers to track the points. And I am pretty sure I have shared this recipe on my old blog before, but I wanted to share it again for a few reasons:

1. I now know the weight watchers points

2. Mom used to make this for me as a celebration, and I had a minor celebration tonight, so I made it. 🙂  The minor celebration being that I received the highest grade in law school that I have ever received. And please don’t ask me what that was because that will totally ruin the celebration, lol.

So here we go, Mom’s Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

Ingredients:

1 Chicken Breast

3 cups Broccoli florets

1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup (I only use Campbell’s)

Cheddar cheese to the sharpness of your preference. I like it better as slices from a block of cheese because of how the casserole layers, but I’ve been told that shredded cheese is just fine

1.5 Slices whole wheat bread (you could use white bread if you are not concerned about weight loss or health or fiber… but the points do go up if you use white bread.)

a pat of butter

Cook the chicken how you please. (I heat a pan with a touch of olive oil, and cook the breast whole and then cut it into bite sized chunks. You can also pre-cut the chicken and then sautee it. The first method makes the chicken come out juicier but takes longer. The second method is quicker.)

While the chicken is cooking, steam or boil the broccoli florets until cooked, but still firm.

If you’re a super multi-tasker like me, while the chicken and broccoli are going, make toast to your preference. For this recipe, I like to do texas toast on the stove… so.. melt the pat of butter in a pan, and rub the bread around in the butter on both sides, and sizzles until toasty. Chop the bread into crouton-like bites.

Once the chicken and broccoli are done, get an 8×8 pan. Put the chicken in the bottom, then put the broccoli on top. Pour the cream of mushroom soup from the can into the pan on top of the broccoli and spread it around until the broccoli is covered. Slice thin slices of cheddar cheese and make a solid layer on top of the soup. Put the breadcrumbs on top.

Bake in the over on 350 until the cheese is nice and melty (10-15 minutes).

Voila!  Simple, delicious southern food.

1/4 of the recipe is 5 WW points.

1/2 of the recipe is 7 WW points.

You’ve got protein, dairy, healthy carbs, and veggies all in one easy meal! It only takes about 25 minutes total to prepare, and the last 10-15 you can be chilling watching tv while it bakes.

I highly recommend it!

Shout outs to my mom, who made this recipe for me all the time when I was a kid. 🙂 Although mom always used white bread and full fat cream of mushroom soup.

Maybe next week I will tackle mom’s chicken curry…. although I doubt it will turn out quite as good!

Healthy New Years Meal (a day late)

So yesterday the hubby and I had this delicious and healthy meal planned for our New Years dinner… and then we both felt too lazy to go grocery shopping so we postponed to today!

Anyway, pictured below is Chicken Rollatinis (recipe from skinnytaste.com, http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/04/chicken-rollatini-with-spinach-alla.html). The recipe turned out absolutely delicious, as does everything we have ever made from this website. Kudos, Gina!

We did simple roasted broccoli and cauliflower, which we made by drizzling olive oil over it, and seasoning it with oregano and garlic pepper seasoning, and then roasting on a cookie sheet in the oven.

And finally, Jonathan had made whole wheat onion rolls, so today he sliced them into toast points and crisped them up in the oven.

Weight Watchers wise, this plate is 10 pts, and it was super filling and fabulous!

Car Maintenance and McDonald’s

So I’m a good steward of my car, I take it to the dealership regularly for its scheduled maintenance. I take it to the dealership because I like to just waste extra money that Jonathan and I have… no just kidding. I take it there because our warranty requires that… how convenient.

Except it’s not convenient at all. The dealership is 45 minutes away (an hour if you get stuck in traffic.)

So I get to the dealership at 7:59 for my 8:00 am appointment. I’m a good little law student, I’ve packed a stack of notes that need to be typed up. I figure that should entertain me for an hour and then I can surf the web for thirty or so minutes and be done.

 

No, no. This service is going to take 3-5 hours. Really?  REALLY?  You couldn’t have warned me?  If you had warned me I would have brought an arsenal of study materials.  And snacks. healthy snacks.

Nope. No warning. And I was hungry. And now cranky.  And super, super irritated.

so here I am, sitting at the McDonald’s, and logging into weight watchers.  HOW IDIOTIC.

Oh well. Atleast it’s delicious. I know I’ll regret it for the rest of the day.

Of course, I will be so frantic from getting so far behind on my exam study schedule that I probably won’t even think about eating for the rest of the day anyway 😛

Weight Watchers is Working for Me!

I know this post is going to sound like an advertisement, but it’s not. I’m just excited. By sticking to weight watchers and tracking every bite I eat, I am seeing results in a way I never have before!  For the first time, I feel active and like I can finally achieve my weight goals!

Weight watchers also just added an activity feature, where it sets an activity goal for you, which encourages me to work out!  I’ve been working out four times a week, and I’m getting to the point that I love my work outs.

Anyway, I’ve been seriously doing weight watchers for about three weeks and I’ve lost five pounds. It does require discipline to stick to, but having the structure has been great.

And I found a website that has great weight watchers recipes. It’s skinnytaste.com. we made the coconut curry butternut squash soup last night and it was rich and delicious!  I highly recommend it! 🙂

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/10/coconut-curry-butternut-squash-soup.html

 

(of course, I recommend everything on that website! Everything we have tried has been delicious!)