Another milestone reached!

Hi friends! Today is our first (and hopefully only) snow day. We are all home staying inside and enjoying the warmth of our cozy home. As of today I am down 21.6 lbs. I am so proud of myself! I have stayed strong and kept losing even with go out to eat and making one or two bad food choices. As Dr. Oz would say, I guess I had a "faturday"!

The last time I posted I was concerned about going out of town and eating poorly. As it turned out there was only one real yucky experience. We were in Dallas so before heading home we had dinner at Spring Creek BBQ. Brian and I love this place. They have these rolls (that will be served in Heaven) to die for. This is the thing about having foods that aren't so good for you- if you say to yourself, oh, I'll only have just one- that turns into two or three, but if you don't allow yourself to have any then its not a temptation. Perhaps I should listen to my own advice. Those rolls got the best of me. :) However even after eating poorly at that dinner, I still continued to loose.

As I posted previously for every 10 lbs down I get to add a charm to my bracelet. I now have ONE charm on my bracelet right now. It has a cross on one side and the word "believe" on the other. Subtly appropriate I thought. If I believe in myself I can do anything. Right?

This weekend I made this lovely recipe that you MUST try! Go to the Hungry Girl website (www.hungrygirl.com) and type in BBQ Bacon Shrimp. It's also in the 200 Under 200 cookbook. (I love HER, I promise I'm not endorsed by her, but maybe I should be!) Anyway you make this bbq sauce, take 1/2 slice of bacon, coat it in the bbq sauce, wrap it around a shrimp and cook it in the oven for a few minutes. YUM! and only about 30 calories per shrimp.

On Wednesday I am headed with Natalie, Andrew, Brenden, and I are headed to Memphis to spend some time with my family. My Mom has always cooked well and healthy, so I'm not really worried about gaining weight with the food choices, but need to be really religious about writing down what I am eating and pay attention to portion sizes. Hopefully I'll continue losing.

I'm very excited about my progress and the clothing I am fitting into again. I am already back in prepregnancy before Andrew sized tops and my bottoms are prepregnancy before Brenden but loose. I don't think I'm ready to be in the next size down yet but it won't be long. :)

Until next time. . . happy healthy living!

A little nervous

Hey friends! Well today finds me down 17.2 lbs as of this morning. I'm staying strong in my journey even though it's long and tedious. I'm proud of my efforts and proud of my progress. I'm headed to Memphis in 2 weeks to visit with my parents and hope to be down 20 lbs with my first charm when I go. It's a lofty goal but I think I can do it. Only 2.8 to go.

This weekend I'm a bit nervous however. We are headed out of town today to Dallas to visit with friends and for me to attend Spring Launch with the Pampered Chef. I'm really excited about going and gleaning all the awesome stuff from the conference, both new tools and new knowledge! However you know what that means when you go out of town. Eating out or not being able to control what I'm being served. Yikes!! I'm really hoping at the very least I can maintain and not blow everything out of the water!! I don't want to regress on my good start. :(

I'll post again towards the beginning of next week and let you know how going out of town went.

God bless your weekend. Until next time happy healthy living. . .

Goal #2 achieved!!

This is HUGE! I have met my second goal, which was losing the weight I put on with Brenden- 15 lbs. As of this morning I have lost exactly 15 lbs since I started on Jan 3. I guess I should have made my first goal 10 lbs and then the next goal 15 lbs on top of that, but hey, gotta celebrate the little success right? I'm so proud of me!

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to the scale. I never thought I'd hear myself say that in a million years, but I get on the scale every day. I know I know, don't do that, you are all saying, but it's as if it gives me insight as to how the previous day went. Big loss, do it again like yesterday. No loss or gain, you better change some stuff. For instance I lost 12.2 lbs. Then I gained one pound a day for 4 days. I was concerned. I knew I needed to get with it and get serious again. We had gone out to eat in that 4 day period of time. Which by the way, eating out is HARD when you are trying to eat healthy and low calorie. I am going to try to do better though and at least do every other day. I've been told to only get on the scale once a week at the same time every week but I don't think I can go that long. :)

I learned a couple of new tricks that I didn't know that I want to share with you. One recipe I made called for string cheese in a shredded form. Huh? How do you do that? Well the recipe told me. :) So I took two 50 calorie light sargento string cheese, broke them into thirds to make them smaller and then put them in the food processor till they were chopped up. Tadah! Shredded string cheese. :) Fabulous. Also, laughing cow swiss cheese can be used for more than just a snack with crackers. I put it in green peas and mushrooms the other day, and it melted while in the oven, i stirred it all up together after taking it out, and it made the most fabulous creamy goodness. Also I used it with pigs in a blanket instead of using regular cheese. Most definitely yummy, and much less calories. 18 calories in cheese instead of 70. Incredibly, huh? I just spread 1/2 a wedge on the cresent roll before rolling it up with the hot dog. Most hot dogs are about 70 calories too but we used the turkey ones for 40 calories a piece. Yummy!

Oh! I must tell you about the meatloaf I made too! It had the most random ingredients- but in my husband's words "this is the best meatloaf I've ever had!" (shh, don't tell his mom)
It was a lb. of lean ground beef, quick cooking oats, sugar free jelly (the recipe called for grape, but we didn't have any so I used raspberry), an egg, garlic, salt, pepper, and ketchup. I think those were all the ingredients. Anyway, cook it in a loaf pan for 50 min. Delicious! I could have eaten the whole thing! Good thing it made just enough for the family to each get some. :)

Hope you are having a happy healthy week!

Here's to better living. . .

Some random thoughts

Since I last posted I've lost 12.2 lbs total. The losing has slowed significantly which I can only assume is mostly water weight. However 12lbs in such a short timeis still a good loss. I made a deal with my husband that I could build a charm bracelet based on my losses. Every ten lbs down earns me a charm or whatever to add to my bracelet. Today I went to Brighton and got my bracelet. What a great visual motivator to stay on course. I'm excited to add my first charm. :)

I've had a couple of thoughts since I started that I thought I'd share. I love cheese. All kinds of cheese. I add it to everything. Recipes seem to be more dressed up with cheese when thrown in there. However I bought low fat shredded cheese the other day. It was Kraft I think, but it was awful. No taste, a rubber like consistency, and it wouldn't melt. I'd rather not have any cheese than eat that stuff. I won't be buying that again.

The other thing I've rediscovered is Hungry Girl. I already had one of her cookbooks "200 under 200" and it's a good one. Then i got "300 under 300" for Christmas. It has the new points plus stuff in there if you are doing Weight Watchers. Also I subscribe to her website (it's free) and I get daily emails with calorie friendly recipes. Go to www.hungrygirl.com and check it out.

Also a shameless plug for my business- Pampered Chef's "Make It Fresh Make It Healthy" cookbook is a must have. If interested in that one you can visit my website : www.pamperedchef.biz/lesleybarker

Until next time happy healthy living. . .

A few pictures

You know, mirrors, are evil. There is no hiding anything with mirrors. I have one full length mirror in our house and it hides very well behind the bathroom door. I have to make an effort to look in it. I'm pretty sure I did that for some subconcious reason. :) As if mirrors aren't bad enough people that love you want to take pictures of you. Full length, non flattering, pictures of you. Well I decided that after seeing these pictures that is motivation enough to stay on course. Here are a few from recent months:

This is me meeting Brenden for the first time. He was still in the nursery ward of the NICU.

This was taken just a few weeks ago at Christmas at my Mom's house.

Another picture from Christmas just a few weeks ago.

I want to post pictures showing results, however since I have been "bigger" I don't do full length pictures, so it'll be hard to do a before and after shot. I will post one of my 11 lb. loss soon. :)

This is a picture of my after my 11 lb loss, taken today. It's a little inflated I think since my husband was seated while I was standing, makes me look bigger, but still you get the idea. I'll keep posting as I keep losing. :)

First goal achieved!!

The only way I know to do this successfully is to do it in small chunks. I have 115 pounds to lose. That won't even bring me to the weight the "chart" says I should be. You know that nasty bin chart that says you are normal or obese? Well losing 115 lbs doesn't even get me in the normal range bit it's where I want to be for now. Maybe I'll reevaluate later on. My first goal was to simply drop 10 lbs. I did it. As of yesterday morning I've lost 11.6 lbs. I'm so proud of myself. It's only been 10 days too. I can do this I know I can!

To put it in perspective- Brenden's 2 month appointment was this past week. He weighed exactly 11 lbs. So thus far I've lost Brenden. :) My next goal is to lose Brenden's baby weight. I put on 15 lbs with him. I'm almost there. I can do it!

The next goal is Andrews baby weight. :) That ones a little harder. It's 40 lbs. Yeah- I totally ate for two when I was pregnant with him. I was a little smarter with Brenden.

Hopefully the next time I post I can share my news of meeting another goal.

Until then. . .

Happy healthy living.

A Week In

Yesterday was exactly one week on my new lifestyle. I have to make it that. If I don't I'll view this as another diet and fall off the wagon. So far so good. There have been ups and downs, days where I'm not hungry at all and days where I'm famished. There have been a couple of times where I have been out driving to go get the kids from school or wherever and it takes this extraordinary amount of willpower to not swing through the drive through and order whatever I want without thinking about it. I'm not even hungry when I have these urges. I just want to do it compulsively. Nuts huh?

Overall in this week I've lost 8.8 lbs. My husband even noticed and said something. Yeah! Thanks honey. :) The important thing though is I am starting to feel better, have more energy, and be proud of myself. I'm sure that most of the weight is water weight but hey I'll take whatever. It's pretty motivating!

I wanted to share a couple of things that I have found helpful. First of all I must get the not calorie friendly food out of the house. No more, well the kids can eat that. We just need to get rid of it. I also have found that the more water I drink the better I do. For snacky/munchy purposes I have fallen in love with veggie straws and apple straws. Yum! The crunch of that potato chip without the grease, fat, and calories. Remember Bugles? We stuck them on the ends of our fingers like claws and waved them around at each other as kids? Well that's what veggie straws taste like. Good stuff! You can get them both at SAMs.

One thing I am struggling with though is how to exercise appropriately. I know I need to. I know walking/running is good for me but beyond that I don't have a clue. I have the fitness center at my disposal for free but don't know what to do while I'm there. Every time I've begun to exercise in the past I've ended up gaining weight. If any of you have any suggestions they'd be appreciated. Oh, and the thought of getting a personal trainer scares me to death so don't go there!

Well I hope to check in with you a couple of times a week to let you know my progress and how things are going. Until then. . .

Happy healthy lifestyle!