Transformation Thursday - #6

I can't believe it's been five weeks since I started blogging about my health and fitness journey.  Throughout the week I think about this little space and the commitment I've made to blog about my experiences.  It's helped keep me accountable when I just want to hide with a cheeseburger or scarf down some ice cream.  Tracking and blogging have been essential for me these past five weeks, and have been so instrumental in my success.

 

And yes, I said success because that's what this week was, a great success!  There was still a lot of stress present this week, but I didn't let that effect my diet.  The biggest challenge I encountered was eating out.  We went to Red Robin, one of my favorite places to eat.  I'm a cheeseburger girl, remember?  Well, my hubby had a birthday burger on his loyalty card, and so we decided to stop for dinner.  That was hard.  The waitress brought a platter of French fries before the meals were delivered.  Those fries stared at me the whole time, but I didn't eat one.  Victory!  Choosing a meal turned out to be even more difficult!  They didn't have a nutrition menu readily available and I couldn't pull it up on my phone without downloading some app.  Thankfully I had my trusty MyFitnessPal app on my phone and I could look up some menu options.  I'm still baffled by how many calories and fat grams are in some salads and soups and sandwiches.  And the old me would have ordered a big cheeseburger, which probably would have been worth my daily calorie limit.  Eating away from home is tough.  I met the challenge with a little frustration, but ultimately success.

I wanted to provide a tip this week for something that's been helping me.  I realized the other day, as I was making an egg and toast, that butter has a whole lot of calories.  I know, shocker, right?  One tablespoon of butter contains 100 calories.  Wow!  I can eat a whole banana for just a few more calories than a little tablespoon of butter.  Being calorie conscious, I decided to forgo the butter.  And guess what?  I couldn't tell the difference because I dipped my toast in my egg yolk.  My tip is, when you have an ingredient that carries a lot of calories or fat, think about whether that ingredient is essential to the flavor of the dish you're making.  I've been skipping mayo (high calorie) on my sandwiches and adding spicy mustard (low/no calorie) instead, and I really don't miss the mayo.  Cheese is another one.  I love cheese.  Love it!  But is it really necessary on my sub when I load it up with tons of flavorful veggies?  Nope.  I'm finding that it's not.  Don't get me wrong, cheese is essential sometimes and so is butter.  I'm no butter-cheese hater.  But I've just been taking a brief pause before I add those ingredients to my meals, and considering if I can leave them out or replace then with a healthier option and not alter the flavor of the dish too much.

 

Those are my thoughts for how things went this week, and what I'm doing to keep up with the challenge.  Now let's talk numbers!

 

Calories Burned won't be entirely accurate this week because I couldn't get my phone to track my last workout.  Boo.

 

Calories Burned: 1,995 (goal of 1,520 per week)

Exercise Minutes: 246 minutes (goal of 250 minutes per week)

Pounds Lost This Week: 3.8

New Weight: 162.6

Total Pounds Lost: 29.4

 

 

Yay!!!  Totally blown away and pleased with my numbers this week.  In the beginning of my journey I had 57 pounds to lose to reach my final weight loss goal.  Now I've surpassed the halfway mark!  AND, I'm only 0.6 pounds away from having lost 30 pounds!!  I had wanted to lose 30 pounds by the end of June, and I think I'm going to make it!  Happy Dance!

 

Thanks for stopping Transformation Thursday this week!  I hope you're inspired to make healthy choices this week, even something small like skipping the mayo or taking a walk around the block.  Small, healthy choices can make a big impact on your life over time.  I'm rooting for you too!!

 

 

Fruit Leather



When I was a kid the cool thing to have in your lunch was a Kool-Aid Jammer and Fruit By The Foot.  Alas, I wasn't a cool kid, and I usually had a CapriSun and no sticky, corn syrup, red dye filled Fruit By The Foot.  Total bummer.  Now I'm a little older and a little wiser, and I know my mama was doing me (and maybe my teachers) a favor by not totally pumping me full of sugar and food coloring.  Thanks ma!  Well, we can still enjoy a sticky, fruity treat without all the funky junk.  Enter, fruit leather!

 

My dear friend and neighbor had an abundance of juicy, red strawberries and asked if I wanted half a flat.  Umm, heck yes!  We traded that half flat of berries for jam and chocolate chip cookies, and I got to work on my fruit leather.

First, I washed and hulled two pounds of berries.  Then I popped them in the food processor and pureed them until the liquid was smooth.

At this point, I tasted the puree and it seemed a little tart to me.  So I added a smidge (official US standard measurement - look it up) of honey and a splash of good vanilla until I was satisfied with the taste.  This is totally up to you how much sweetener you add, and you certainly do not have to add vanilla.  I just happen to think everything tastes better with a little vanilla.  If your berries are sweet enough, don't add any honey or sweetener and pat yourself on the back for making no sugar added treats.  Hooray!

 

For a little variety, I chose to make a batch of strawberry banana too.  I blended one pound of strawberries and one pound of bananas in my food processor until smooth.  What a pretty, pretty color!

After tasting this puree, I decided the bananas added enough sweetness so I just added a little splash of vanilla and called it a day.  You can strain the puree through a fine mesh sieve if you want to remove the strawberry seeds, but I don't mind them so I skipped that step.  Next, I lined my dehydrator trays with parchment paper and spread the purees out on the lined trays.

 

You want the puree to be about an 1/8th inch thick.  If your puree is spread too thin, your leather will be brittle.  Too thick, and it will take forever to dry and might be too chewy.

 

Once my trays were all filled it was on to the dehydrator.  Another blogger suggested starting out at a lower than normal temp for fruit leather, so I popped my trays in the dehydrator and set the heat at 105 degrees for 10 hours.  After about 8 hours, I checked my trays and realized they needed to be turned and to dry for a little while longer, and a couple seemed a little runny still.  My dehydrator model has a display with suggestions on temperature settings for different types of foods.  The suggested temp for fruit leather was 135 degrees, so I bumped up the temp and set my timer for another 6 hours.  I know, it's a long, long time to wait for a treat, but your patience will be rewarded!

Check it out!  I made fruit leather!  The texture should be a little sticky, but peel-able.  I'm thinking I need to invest in some Silpats or Teflex sheets for my dehydrator because the parchment paper seemed to bunch a bit.  Plus Silpats and Teflex are reusable - bonus!  But, if you only have parchment paper on hand, that works too and the winkles in the leather don't affect the roll-ability or the tastiness.

 

Peel, roll and enjoy!  These are so tasty and so incredibly easy to make!  These, however, do not look like Fruit By The Foot.

Bam!  Oh that's better.  You can use scissors to cut your fruit leather in to strips.  Then roll up in wax paper or parchment paper and you have your faux Fruit By The Foot.

 

Just look at that gorgeous red color and flecks of strawberry goodness!  Way cooler than store bought, boxed junk in my opinion.  Pack these in your family's lunches for that cool kid factor.  Get the kids involved so they can say, "Yeah, I made these."  Total cool kid status.  I hope you give fruit leather a try!  Don't stop at strawberry or strawberry banana.  Branch out.  Get crazy!  There's a whole rainbow of fruit out there just waiting to be made in to fruit leathery yumminess!

Transformation Thursday - #5

This has been a week of stress and challenges.  We're going through some home repairs and renovations right now, and it seems like our little house is turned upside down and inside out.  My dear husband is doing a lot of the work and in the meantime I'm trying to keep the kiddos busy and out of his hair.  A lot of times that means we're not in the house, we're on the go.  Going to the park or the library or walking around the grocery store, anywhere but home where the temptation to pickup daddy's tape measure might overcome them.  When life turns upside down, dieting and exercise gets hard, and this week was majorly difficult.

 

 

I'm proud to say that I didn't succumb to stress eating.  My past self would have binged on snacks or calorie filled coffee drinks.  Not this time!  This time was sort of the opposite problem.  I was away from home, I didn't want to eat fast food, so I didn't eat.  I came in under calorie many days this week.  Eating too few calories is almost just as bad as eating too many.  You body doesn't understand why you're not providing it fuel, so it can go in to starvation mode and cling to the fat you're so desperately trying to lose - so I've been told.  Ugh.  Not what I want.  Yay for not stress eating, boo for not eating enough.  Never would have imagined I'd encounter THAT problem!

 

Exercising, also a challenge this week.  I try to fit in my exercise after the kiddos are in bed, but we were busy so many nights this week that I just didn't get the time.  And when I could find the time, the weather wasn't cooperating.  As a result, I didn't hit my exercise minutes goal this week.  When I did get to fit in some movement, I tried to make it count.  I added some miles and hills to my bike route one night and rode over 17 miles.  And I started the Couch to 5k program.  I'm not a runner, but I'm loving this program.  I put an app on my phone that tells me when to change pace and keeps track of what day I'm on in the plan.  This week, I really missed not being on my bike so much or going for long walks.  As I've said in a few prior posts, I'm really enjoying adding fitness to my lifestyle and I miss it when I don't get to spend that little bit of time on myself throughout the week.

 

 

So this week wasn't so great.  Full of good intentions, but lack of time and stress got the better of me a lot of the time.  And I'm a realist, I understand that LIFE is going to happen and sometimes our diet or exercise regime takes a backseat.  What's important is that I'm taking time each week to recognize what went wrong and what went right over the past week, and how can I do better next week.  Since we're still in the midst of home stuff, this next week I'm going to try and plan more.  I need to plan my meals so I don't get caught without something healthy to eat, especially if we're going to be away from home.  I also need to plan time for exercise, even if that means working through a Jillian Michaels exercise video - I'd much, much, much rather be outside, but if it's my only option for the day then I'll hang with Jillian.

 

Okay Jillian, I get it.

Okay, without further ado, here are my numbers from this week:

 

Calories Burned: 2,335 (goal of 1,520 per week)

Exercise Minutes: 135 minutes (goal of 250 minutes per week)

Pounds Lost This Week: 0.2

New Weight: 166.4

Total Pounds Lost: 25.6

 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed with those numbers this week.  It's hard having a big loss one week, and a puny one the next week.  But I'm not going to let it keep me down!  My mind is still set on the finish line and I'm 0.2 pounds closer to my goal!  Let's look at the big picture: I started blogging about my weight loss journey on May 22nd - just 4 weeks ago.  On that day I weighed 174 pounds and pledged to lose and blog about it.  Since then I've lost 7.6 pounds - that's an average loss of 1.9 pounds a week.  That is definitely a victory!  I attribute a lot of that to staying accountable and knowing that each week I'm going to have to tell the world about my choices for the week.  This little blog has helped a ton. And on a non-scale victory note, my clothes are too big!  I may need to hit up a few garage sales this weekend and look for some summer shorts because the ones I have are gapping in the waist all around and I keep having to hike them up.  I'm okay with that!  So, just because this week didn't go as planned doesn't mean next week can't be awesome.  Hope your next week is filled with healthy choices and awesomeness too!

 

Stawberry Jamming - 2014

 

My littles are creatures of habit, especially my boy. Every morning he wakes up before the sun, shuffles in to our bedroom, and asks the same question, “Can I have some yogurt?” I usually buy a big container of Stonyfield organic banilla yogurt (banana-vanilla flavor) and put some in little snack size Rubbermaid containers because it's much more economical than buying individual cups of yogurt. But there have been a few nights where I've gone to the fridge to get Beebo's yogurt cup ready for the morning and we're out and I have to make a dash to the grocery store to pickup more because ya know if he wakes up and there's no yogurt in the house the entire neighborhood is going to be waking up too! His desire for routine comes naturally to him, since I'm the same way. I enjoy the same thing for breakfast pretty much every morning – there's just something comforting about knowing what comes next.

Yogurt isn't my little man's only vice. He really loves a good PB & J, made with, what he refers to as “Mama's Famous Strawberry Jam”. So you can imagine what happened when this mama ran out of her “famous strawberry jam” this past year. I tried not to tell him at first. I went to get a jar of jam from my reserves, and the cupboard was bare. So I reached for a jar of apricot jam instead. But when he took a bite of his sandwich he saw right through my feeble attempt at a swap, scrunched up his nose and said with indignation, “Hey! Dis is not Mama's Famous Strawberry Jam!” No sir, it was not. I had to fess up and tell him we were out of strawberry, and I couldn't make any more because strawberries were not in season yet. On my next trip to the grocery store I tried to put a jar of strawberry jam in my cart, but I just couldn't do it. All those funky ingredients that I couldn't name gave me the creeps! I promised that as soon as I could get my hands on some fresh Michigan strawberries I would refill our stock of strawberry jam.

 

 

Well, I'm happy to say that time has come! This weekend we took a little break from home renovations (OYE! - a tale for another time), and ventured to a local strawberry patch. My children LOVE to pick fruit and veggies. Have you taken your kids to pick anything? Try it, I bet they will love it just as much as mine do! So many berries end up in bellies, and that's okay because it's all part of the fun. My babes put on aprons and sun hats and bring their little buckets along and help pick the berries that are destined to become the jam they'll enjoy for at least the next year. I just love when I hear them ask, “Mama, is this from the strawberries we got to pick?!” And I get to say YES! YOU helped make this awesome stuff!

 

 

Every year I run in to the same problem: How many jars of jam do I make? And then I curse myself for not keeping better track. And I search the internet for how many pounds are in a quart of strawberries, and how many quarts are needed for a batch of jam, and how many pints of jam does a batch make, and why do all these recipes make half-pint sized jars?! It's frustrating to say the least. So I decided to write all that down this year so my future self won't have to look for it again. You're welcome, future self. I figured we'd go through about 1.5 pint sized jars of jam per month, so we'd need at least 18 pints of jam to put away for the year. The recipe I found makes 8, 8 ounce jars of jam per batch. Since I'm using 16 ounce jars, that means a batch will get me 4 jars. I would need to make 5 batches of jam to fulfill my family's yearly jam needs. Now that I had an idea of how much jam I needed to make, here's what other information I gathered...

• Strawberry Measurements
• 10 cups of whole strawberries = 6 cups smashed = 2 quarts = Approx. 3 pounds = 4 pints of jam
• How many pounds of berries will I need?
• 5 batches x 3 pounds per batch = 15 pounds of berries
• How many quarts does this equal?
• 5 batches x 2 quarts per batch = 10 quarts of berries
• How much will the berries cost (based on 2014 u-pick prices)?
• $1.65 per pound x 15 pounds = $24.75

This information helped tremendously when we went out to pick. It was nice knowing how many pounds of berries I needed to leave with, since the strawberry patch was 45 minutes from our house. I certainly didn't want to make a return trip if I didn't get enough berries the first time. Which didn't end up being a problem because my little family picked almost 24 pounds of berries! The next challenge was getting all of these berries made in to jam while they were still good. Commence Jam Marathon 2014!

I basically processed berries and made jam for the next 12 hours. And what I ended up with was 22 ½ jars of ruby deliciousness.

 

 

I don't think my original pound figures were quite right because I used up all of the berries and only ended up with 22 ½ pints of jam. I'll have to remember that for next year. I'm so happy to have so many jars to put away for the year, and hopefully we won't run out again this year. In case you were wondering, here's the price breakdown for my strawberry jam-a-thon this year:

Strawberries (local, u-pick): $39.35

Sugar: $2.50 per bag x 2 bags = $5.00

Pectin (Mrs. Wages Low Sugar Powdered Pectin): $1.99 per box x 5 = $9.95

Total Cost: $54.30 or $2.41 per jar

I think the cost and time is totally worth it! I love having jars of yummy red goodness in my cupboards made with fruit that my family picked, that was locally grown, and that I canned! So cool! Do you want to make your own jam too? Why not?! I found my recipe on the PickYourOwn website, and it can be found HERE. Take a look around this website while you're there. It has become an invaluable resource to me. Whenever I'm looking for information on what's in season in my area, or where I can go to pick, I go to PickYourOwn.org. And they have many great recipes to help you figure out what to do with all that fresh, locally grown produce. Plus each recipe that I've encountered on this site usually comes with a breakdown on cost as well, so you can know a rough figure on how much a batch of each particular recipe will cost you to make.

I hope you'll take advantage of the beautiful red strawberries that are in season right now, and make your family a batch of delicious strawberry jam! Happy jamming!

 

 

 

Transformation Thursday - #4

Welcome to the 4^th installment of Transformation Thursday!

 

This week has been a whirlwind! My 5-year old daughter had her last soccer game of the season, a kindergarten end-of-year program, and her last day of school this week. We've been busy! But I haven't let that keep me from adhering to my goals. I can honestly say this is the first time in a while that I tracked all of my food choices with 100% honesty for the entire week, and I stayed within my calorie goals. Yippee! Tracking has been tremendously helpful for me. Knowing what I'm putting in my body, as well as how many calories I'm burning, has really helped me stay on track. I've mentioned it before, but I use My Fitness Pal to keep track of my health goals. It's a free, online tracking program and there's a mobile app too. I use both, and the mobile app has been a lifesaver when we're out to a restaurant and I don't have immediate access to their nutrition information. The nutrition database is loaded with just about every food choice imaginable so you'll always be able to track your nutrition. Find me on My Fitness Pal (username: CLivingston722), and we can encourage each other to stay on track!

 

I realized last week that I was getting on the scale too much. I was weighing myself every morning, and sometimes getting discouraged when I would see the scale move up from the day before. Especially if I had burned major calories and stayed within my nutritional calorie goals. So I decided last week that I would put the scale away and only weigh myself once a week. I had to hide the scale, folks. I had to put that baby someplace totally inconvenient to me so I wouldn't be tempted to step on it. And I'm happy to say, it worked!! I haven't stepped on the scale at all this week until this morning. That's been huge for me! It's been so nice not to worry about what the numbers are going to say. I know I'm eating well and exercising, and this week that's all that has mattered to me.

 

As for exercising, that's been going great too! I've been trying to fit in some form of physical activity at least 5 days a week. Even if it's just going for a walk or doing an exercise video. Anything is better than sitting on my butt! I managed to get in a few killer bike rides. Last Thursday I covered 21.5 miles with my Jake and biked a total of 1 hour and 44 minutes. Yes! Some nights I was just short on time, so I shortened my rides and focused on speed instead of distance. I was able to get my average speed up to 15.8 mph – that's the fastest I've EVER averaged! That's some major non-scale victory for me! With this week being so busy, there were a few days that posed a challenge for me to fit in some exercise. On those days, I tried to break out the hand weights and work on my arms or get out my mat for a few minutes and do some ab work. I may not have gotten any cardio in, but strength training is just as important. Need muscle to burn that fat! And for the first time I'm starting to desire to see some muscle definition on my body. I long to be strong!

 

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic week! My non-scale challenges were all met: I stayed on track with my nutrition goals, I exceeded the number of minutes I set for myself as an exercise goal, I tracked my nutrition and exercise for the whole week on MFP, AND I managed to stay off the scale! So now that I've stayed away from the scale all week, I want to know what all this hard work has earned me in the digits department, don't you?! Here goes, my numbers for the week...

 

Calories Burned: 3,897 (goal of 1,520 per week)

Exercise Minutes: 356 minutes (goal of 250 minutes per week)

Pounds Lost This Week: 3.6

New Weight: 166.6

Total Pounds Lost: 25.4

You may notice that my goals keep changing. I'm trying to find the goals that are right for me – a challenge for my body, but not so challenging that it's unattainable. Please bear with me while I fine tune my goals.

 

Scale Victory!!! Oh my goodness! I am SO HAPPY with those numbers! I have not see a weight lower than 167 in a very, very long time. Yay! And now I'm 3.1 pounds away from being half-way to my goal weight. It's not about the numbers, but it sure feels good when the scale agrees with all the hard work I've put in throughout the week. Thanks for all the reads and support and encouragement from the friends who keep the kind words and thoughts flowing! Until next week folks!

Transformation Thursday - #3

3 weeks in a row! I'm on a roll!  And boy do I have a whole lotta bunch of non-scale victories to share with you!

This week went pretty well. I manage to keep my eating under control and not overindulge too much. We did have a graduation party to attend, and of course there was cake, and of course I ate some. But I knew I had eaten really well leading up to that point in the day so I didn't feel too guilty about it. And we did eat out once this weekend....and I may have had a delicious cheeseburger and some fries. *sigh* I'm not gonna lie, I'm a cheeseburger gal. And I married a cheeseburger guy. That meal, I felt horribly guilty about. I knew that in just one sitting I probably consumed well over my daily allowed calories. That's a bit depressing. But I didn't let it keep me down for too long. I'm starting to recognize that weekends are my weakest points. We're on the go a lot, and I'm not always prepared to eat healthy while we're out. And my brain and tummy seem to think we're on some wild vacation so we can party it up! I just need to remember that while it's okay to have a treat once in a while, it needs to be done in moderation and with my end goal in mind. The weeks are flying by, and I don't want one day to ruin my scale moment at the end of the week. It's just not worth it.

In addition to making healthier eating choices most of the time this week, I also got in some pretty spectacular workouts! On Saturday, my mama and I completed an 18-mile charity bike ride. That's the farthest we've ridden so far in our biking journeys together, and It. Was. AWESOME! There was an option to ride the loop once or twice more, and we both thought that once more (on another day) would be totally doable. We're ready for a challenge, and Michigan has some amazing bike routes to help us accomplish that. So the bike ride went great. We finished in good time, 1 hour and 33 minutes for 18 miles of riding – not too bad! And then we picked up our ride packets and prepared to head home. Did I mention this was a “Cupcake Cruise”? Yeah. The lady that put this ride together had mini cupcakes donated from the local cupcake shop, and we receive a box with six pretty little cupcakes inside. I truly had no intention of eating them, I was going to let my kiddos and hubby have at them when I got home. So mama and I put our cupcake boxes in plastic bags and got ready to leave. Then it happened. The thing I've been dreading since I first started riding. The thing that freaked me out more than anything else about cycling. I fell off my bike.

My Jake (bike) and I are just starting our relationship together, and I'm still a little wobbly on those skinnier tires. But I also have these funky shoes that some cyclist wear called clips. They sort of look like a cleat on the bottom. And my pedals are designed to clip inside the bottom of my shoe. I set my foot on the pedal, and my shoe snaps on so I'm attached to my bike. Cool right?

 

 

Now when I got these shoes and pedals with my bike a few weeks ago I practiced clipping in and clipping out over and over again on a trainer in the bike shop so I'd get comfortable with the process. But I forgot to ask what happens if I lose my balance and start to fall. Will my shoes just disengage? Is there an emergency eject button somewhere? I should have asked. Well, let me tell you what happened in this scenario. I had a bag of cupcakes on my handle bars, and one foot clipped in to my pedal. I raised myself up on the seat and pushed off to get going. My handle bars twisted, I could feel the fall coming, I tried to move my foot to catch myself but I wasn't even thinking about clipping out, and before I could even think, I fell. And I landed on my cupcakes. And then laid on the ground laughing and making sure I didn't break anything while my mom rushed over to make sure I was okay. Thankfully, no broken bones. Just some smashed cupcakes and a few bruises. Not my most graceful moment, but I'm thankful we were sort of away from the starting line at that point and it wasn't witnessed by a bunch of biker folks or my pride would been bruised along with my legs. I told my mom at the time that I could feel the fall coming and knew there was nothing I could do to stop it, so in those milliseconds leading up to the fall, you just have to embrace it. Embrace the fall, say Oh Crap!, and hope and pray you don't break anything!

I fit in a few more fall-less rides throughout the week as well as some ab workouts with Jillian Michaels. Jillian is kicking my butt guys. I'm huffing and puffing through those workouts, but my muscles don't seem to feel it until the next day. I've woke up sore every morning for the past three days. And I love it! I know I'm getting stronger and healthier and my muscles are waking up. I'm really starting to enjoy fitness, which is something I never thought I'd say.

Alright, so that's how my diet and exercise went this week. Better than last week. Always improving! Now for the digits. Here's my numbers from this week:

 

Calories Burned: 6,472 (goal of 1,520 per week)

Exercise Minutes: 597 minutes (goal of 240 minutes per week)

Pounds Lost This Week: 2

New Weight: 170.2
Total Pounds Lost: 21.8

Victory!!!  I'm learning that I just need to trust in the process and quit weighing myself every day.  The scale is going in to hiding for a week!  And I am killin' it with the exercise!  I LOVE it!  Smashing my calorie burn and exercise minute goals.  Even if the scale doesn't like me some weeks, I am not gonna stop because this exercise high is enough to carry me through 'til Christmas!  With that said, I have to encourage you, if you are reading this and you want to start exercising but you don't know where to start, just get out there and get moving.  Take a walk.  My fav, go for a bike ride!  Get some sunshine on your shoulders, and try to move your body.  It's hard at first, but once you get a few days behind you you're going to start to feel your energy perk.  And then pretty soon you're going to start to crave those endorphins, and you might just surprise yourself like me and enjoy exercising!  There you have it.  Challenge issued.  Get moving!

See ya next week peeps!