New Meal Monday- Spice Rubbed Roasted Salmon

As promised- New Meal Monday!

Tonight's dish: Spice-Rubbed Roasted Salmon

I will forewarn about tonight’s dish... I did a fair amount of guess-timation. I didn't physically measure my spices because the original recipe called for 6 filets of salmon (almost 2 pounds). Because I had no intention of eating 2 pounds of salmon tonight, I just sprinkled my filet generously with spice.

Ingredients:

1. Salmon Filet
2. Sea Salt
3. Ground Cumin (one of my new favorite spices to cook with! Feel free to enter a “That’s What She Said” here, I did the first time I wrote it).
4. Paprika
5. Ground Cinnamon
6. Freshly Ground Black Pepper
7. Cooking Spray
8. Lemon Juice

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400'

2. Spray a sheet of tin foil with cooking spray
3. Place salmon filet on tin foil and sprinkle generously the 5 spices.
4. Splash approximately 1 tablespoon of lemon juice over filet, and wrap the foil as a "pocket"
5. Bake in the oven for approximately 22 minutes.

"Foil Pocket"

Nutrition: 3 Weight Watchers Points (Old System)

 

Yummy Yummy!

Minus the defrosting process of the salmon filet, this dish could seriously not be easier!  Plus it tastes a bit like Christmas with its big bold spice flavors! I paired with a side of long-grain wild rice making my whole dinner a total of 7 points.  Not a bad day paired with my 2 two point snacks and California roll for lunch. I should have plenty of omega-3's going through my system (whatever they are good for!)

Enjoy!

-K

(The Delayed) Weekly Update

So Friday morning I genuinely was avoiding this thing.... I had every intention to update the blog in the afternoon when I got home from school but time just seemed to slip away from me this weekend. For a "no plans" weekend, I certainly filled every minute.

So a long a due weekly update...

The Bottom Line
-1.0 lbs

Total Weight Loss: 4.6 lbs

Positives for the Week:

1. Great week in the gym. I felt I hadn’t blown my weekend like I did the weekend in Hocking Hills, yet I remained on my vigorous workout schedule. I truly felt like things weren’t going to be that bad Friday morning. I plan to keep it up.

2. Waking up at 6:05 on a Sunday morning to go for a power-walk? A positive for the week doesn’t seem enough, this practically deserves a parade!

Room for Improvement:

1. Eating when I’m not hungry… particularly Thursday for conferences. I had a particularly heavy lunch since I knew I wouldn’t have time for dinner but that didn’t stop me from eating the meal Chris made for me when I got home. Maybe I felt guilty the food would go to waste? Maybe I was just eating to eat? Either way, I point this as the reason what made me post-pone my weekly blog update.

2. Am I really trying that hard? This is something that crossed my mind Friday morning. When I saw the original number and had an absolute meltdown the thoughts began processing am I really giving this my all? Yes, I want the weight to fall off, and rather quickly, but if this was the case wouldn’t I be trying quote, unquote “harder.” Yes I’m putting the time in at the gym, and yes staying well within my points, but there is almost a feeling of lack of deprival. It’s a bit hard to explain, but by me not feeling all that deprived from what I’m eating (the occasional cookie, drink with dinner) am I really putting my all into this diet? Does diet automatically mean withdrawal? We will see what this week brings.

3. I’m bringing a lot more water into my diet this week. Like, a gallon a day. I plan on dedicating an entire blog to this once I process 4 days of the ultimate hydration, so stay tuned!

This weekend was the first time in a long time I actually ate out every night. I really tried to eat as healthy as possible, focusing on how my stomach was feeling and not over doing it. I ate a lot of salads, A LOT, but they were really yummy and left me feeling full every night. Combine this with the gallon of water I drank each day and the form of cardio I forced myself to do, hopefully it will remain a successful weigh in week. I feel like I should break it down for a future guide if this week does in fact remain successful, if it does not, I can further look where to tweak. I'll admit right up front, I'm not including the bread I ate, and I did enjoy the basket of bread on more than one night. That’s right, basket.

Friday: Dinner at Roosters with mom. Shared the chips and queso appetizer and I ate half a red, bacon, and blue salad. There was so much bacon on the salad (and I do love bacon) that I didn't even need much dressing.

Saturday: Dinner at Brio with Chris. Half a brushetta appetizer with Chris and a side wedge salad. We also had a couple drinks but it was a Saturday night and I'm not going to feel guilty for that.

Sunday: Dinner at McCormick and Schmidts: Since Chris is a vet (thank you honey!) he got a free meal at our favorite seafood place. Last time we ate here I went absolutely nuts since it was so delicious. This time I decided to go with the side wedge salad and half an order of shrimp scampi. I know Shrimp scampi and pasta is as far from healthy as you can get, but Chris was not hearing it when I told him I'm only ordering a salad at a fancy seafood place. No drinks this time, and they didn't have the dessert I thought they did so no desert either.... So not as horrible as it could have possibly been.

Obviously today will have a second post since it is new meal Monday... so another stay tuned for tonight!

-K

Keeping the Mindset

I'm starting to think the "funk" has just progressed into an issue of "I'm really, really tired." I really have no reason not to blog... but the days seem to be losing hours, and I'm spending most of my free time heading to bed early, or playing the Sims. Probably another effect of the time change...

To pick up from last week, no matter how sour my mood was, I owe it to myself to recap and refocus. Yes, the weigh in killed me. But what it did Friday was give me a kick to really really try hard for the weekend. My gut told me that weigh in had to be wrong, so I decided to break my rule and check back Saturday morning. I was right, and had I saved my weigh in for Saturday (like I initially planned) everything would have been ok. In fact, I would have been .2 down for the week instead of 1.4 up. I have to credit this loss to eating extremely healthy on Friday, though, a ritual I usually don't follow. Friday's have always been my kind of "break day", I don't work out, I usually enjoy a good dinner, and then follow up with a few I celebrated the end of the week drinks. That was not the case Friday, I followed my points like there was no tomorrow, I analyzed, calculated, and planned everything that day because of my devastating blow that morning. If I wanted to enjoy Friday night, I was going to have to work for it. It's too bad I don't do this all the time. If I had this mindset every day, instead of just when I see a bad number, this weight loss thing wouldn't be so hard to do.

Friday did make for a nice push into the weekend. I hit the gym early Saturday morning to counter anything I might do for the weekend, and work up at 6:05AM to take Athena for a 2.5 mile power walk before the Browns game. Yeah it was early, but it took some of the guilt away from how "bad" I had eaten for dinner Saturday night. Overall, it wasn't a completely blown weekend (leaps and bounds better than the weekend before) and hopefully it will show for this week’s weigh in. I've been hitting the gym almost as hard as last week, and I hope to continue this in the weeks to come. I don't want the funk I was in last week to haunt me through this whole weight loss process- because if my history of weight loss is any indicator- I'm in for a yearlong funk.

Fingers double triple crossed for tomorrow. I can't hit the gym tonight because I'm in teacher conferences until 8 tonight, asking myself to hit the gym after is just not realistic or in the cards. Let’s hope I can channel last Friday to bring me to a good today and tomorrow.

New Meal Monday- Turkey Joes and Chips

This time change is certainly throwing me off- dark by 5:50? Really?! In my mind this means it’s time for soup season. Unfortunately I did not prepare adequately and my kitchen lacks basic essentials for getting a good pot of soup going, oh well, maybe next week!

I'm keeping this one short and simple- I have a lot I want to blog about this past weekend but for whatever reason I'm lacking the motivation to write the blog. Could be the 75 minute workout? Or worried about my chips burning... Either way I'll save that for a midweek post!

This Week's New Meal Monday: Turkey Sloppy Joes and Homemade potato Chips:

The turkey sloppy Joe’s I'm not doing anything special. Just follow the back of a can of good ole Man-Wich substituting ground turkey meat for ground meat and Wahlah! Turkey Sloppy Joes. I'm putting mine over a bed of lettuce instead of the bun to save a few calories, and save some lettuce in my fridge from going bad.

Homemade Potato Chips: Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ground pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon Emerald Essence Seasoning

2 Red Skinned Potatoes peeled and sliced

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375

Peel and slice potatoes- mine are about 1/8th inch thick

Line Potatoes on baking sheet and spray some type of non stick oil (Pam, etc). This allows the spices to stick without using olive oil- a little taste difference, but not much.

Combine 3 spice ingredients- sprinkle generously over sliced potatoes.

Bake for 25 minutes. I suggest flipping them at minute 20; otherwise they get a little dark on one side.

Nutrition:
2 Weight Watcher Points

A little cheese instead of a bun, yes please!

Easy peasy! Not quite the homerun meal like last week, but I did laundry all day- I figured that was housewife-y enough with dinner still on the table!

PS- my husband loves this whole new meal Monday thing- he even sent me a text to remind me! Hopefully he's not let down this week!

 

Weekly Update

I've gone back and forth all day on whether to actually update this. Fact: I'm too depressed, embarrassed, upset, wrecked (insert other depressing synonyms) to really handle this so I'm going to make it as painstakingly easy as possible. I gained weight, it sucks. I know I had a bad weekend, but I really put the effort into the gym this week to work it off. I feel fat, worthless, bloated, and I'm going to probably break down in tears any minute (which isn't so great when you’re subbing a class of 25 fourteen year olds). Maybe this is PMS and when I weight in next week I'll magically be 4 lbs lighter? Who knows? Here's to hoping for a better week....

The Bottom Line

+1.4 lbs

Total Weight Loss: (-3.6 lbs)

Maybe I'll be in a better mindset tomorrow and actually able to write the positives and goals. Game plan for right now is to survive the day, and take a long walk when I get home with the pups. This mindset goes on any longer I'm really in for stormy days ahead, time to snap out of it. Must snap out of it. 



Fighting On

Tomorrow's weigh in has me a little more than nervous. It's one of those sick to my stomach, can't snap out of a funk nervous days. I may have slipped up on my promise not to have pop this week (I've had 2), but I've been guzzling water that should more than make up for it. I've also hit the gym every day as promised, and only last night fell short of my 1 hour goal (after 42 minutes I realized I really would rather be at home with the hubby). I realize it’s not the end of the world if I've put on weight since last week... it’s just that ever since I realized I packed back on the weight (and much more than expected) I haven't been able to break out of a continued depression I've had. More than anything I just want to feel happy again. I want to see a number that doesn't make me feel like quite a failure. It's something that’s hard to admit, but any number really won't make me feel better tomorrow or worthy of my dieting woes. I just want to wake up and poof! The last 2 months haven't happened eating wise. Sigh.... the fight continues on.

What helps a girl snap out of such a funk? Shopping. Always. Right now I'm on the hunt for the perfect little black dress to wear to New York with my sisters when we dine at Tom Colicchio's NYC restaurant. (My reality obsession is Top Chef, I've eaten at his Dallas restaurant and it could easily qualify as the last meal of my life, can't wait to try the NYC version). If I can use November to get some of this weight off I've promised myself I'm allowed to splurge and buy. (Who said a little bribery for motivation doesn't work?!)

 

Express.com Would love this little beaut!

Express.com- Could double for NYE?

Express.com- A little short for school but at least I can use it for winter!

White House Black Market- Could totally teach in this!



White House Black Market- Come Hell or High Water I want to pull off the tunic look!

Happy Halloween

Hope your halloween is going spook-tacular!

 

I feel I am not alone with most American's when I state- I love Holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July, Halloween, I love them all! Each with something that makes them unique (dressing up, lighting things on fire), yet each has something that ties them all together- food.

 

I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but that doesn't mean I don't love a piece of candy here and there on halloween.  Here are my tips for "healthier" candy choices on Halloween.

 

3 Musketeer’s- The mini's are only 24 calories, and the light fluffy chocolate doesn't make you feel awful after eating them.  Makes it easy to curb that chocolate craving without hurting diet plans.

 

York Peppermint Patties-Light and airy filling means fewer calories!  Plus, I can't say no to the intense mint taste and dark-chocolate wonderfulness! Usually I eat one of these after a big bowl of skyline chili, but this will satisfy my sweet tooth tonight.

 

Tootsie Carmel Apple Pop- 60 calories, less than .5 gram of fat. Suckers generally last a long time — meaning that by the time you finish them, you won't feel the need to go back for seconds...or thirds...or fourths

Candy Corn- My absolute favorite candy of the season! Seriously, if these didn't go bad so fast I'd keep them on hand all year around.  I look forward to these like I look forward to pumpkin spiced latte's every fall! They're a little on the light side as far as a serving goes, but if you truley need to curb the sugar craving- nothing says Halloween more! (10 pieces) 64 calories, 0g fat.

 

.... Bummer, my favorites aren't on the list :( Cookies and Cream Hershey Bars and a close runner up, Twix!   But hey, at least I have some survival techniques for surviving this sugar based holiday!)  

 

 

Chipotle is having a deal going on if you dress in costume they will give you your meal for $2.00. Hubby and I will defiantly be hitting that up tonight. I've been meaning to do a blog that sing's Chiptole's praises.  Maybe I'll have to save that one for tomorrow...

 

STAY SAFE TRICK-OR-TREATERS! BOO!

 

-K