Weight Watchers Food - Flat Bread Pizza Recipe 7 points

I came up with a quick, delicious pizza that is very filling and yummy - even my husband who is very picky and adverse to anything “diet” loved it.

1 Whole Wheat Flat Bread or Wraps (I bought some at Costco, should be less than 3 oz) (2pts)
2 tbsp Pizza Sauce (comes in a can at the grocery) (.5pts)
3 Artichoke Hearts - optional or any other veggie you like (0pts)
9 Turkey Pepperoni - tastes like the real thing (1pt)
3/4 cup 2% Kraft shredded mozzarella cheese (3pts)
1 tbs grated pamrasean cheese (.5pts)

Pile it all up, bake it ’til the cheese melts. The whole family can make their own pizza.

Rants and Raves

It’s been a month and I haven’t made much progress in losing weight, however, I do have new a new habit of walking most days. Last week I started Weight Watchers. I like it. I have lost 2 lbs and wasn’t hungry and ate what I wanted including birthday cake and wine. It didn’t take too much effort in planning. This is something I can live with and stay on forever. Soup is going to become a staple in this house and luckily we all like it. The kids always ask for more.

I miss Colorado. I’ve been pondering why I want to go back, what difference does it make where we live? I can suck up the weather, I’ve already made lots of new friends, what is it? I think it’s my perception of quality of life. Things are more laid back and easy going and slower in Colorado. People here in VA seem very uptight, in a hurry and driven. I’m not driven anymore and have no desire to be that way ever again. It has taken me years and years to learn how to relax and just chill. I’ve had tons of physical ailments that I know were caused by stress and am not interested in any of that.

The concern is that this drive and all or nothing attitude that I perceive is being passed onto my children. Quinn at 10 yrs. old is terrified of failing 4th grade, then he’ll have to repeat it and then he won’t get into college. Really? No one cares about what your grades were in 4th grade when you get to college - and he’s doing just fine. I was sharing this with a neighbor who told me she tells her 3rd grader he needs to be more serious if he wants to go to college. I wholeheartedly DISAGREE!!! Kids should be kids! Not little grown ups with filled schedules.

My husband seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. He keeps scheduling the kids for stuff and talking about getting them “involved” and signed up for activities. Ugh. We live across the street from a park - that is always packed with kids - they can go out and play. Boy Scouts didn’t work out - too religious and too much like school. He did basketball, now he’s taking tennis lessons. One activity is fine, but I’m not driving them all over town. Vivi has a few weeks more of swimming lessons then she’s free.

I’m going to send Quinn to summer camp for 2 weeks this summer where he can run around like and just be a boy with other boys. Overnight camp, in NJ, all boys. He’ll love it. He drives me crazy with his “I’m bored” all the time. He needs to learn to just be.

Vivi keeps herself busy and has lots of friends. She never says I’m bored. They are so different.

I have to stay grounded, no getting caught up in the rat race. I’m not in a hurry, none of this is life or death, they are too young to be talking about college and each day is a mystery and an opportunity. I will keep creating the space to just be. And stop daydreaming about moving back to Colorado!

Doing it my way - a breakthrough

Diets aren’t real life. I usually go total nazi and won’t deviate a single bit or if I do deviate I figure the whole thing is blown and quit. Not this time.

Spring is here and Chuck can’t sit still. He likes to get away on the weekends. This past weekend we went to Williamsburg. I started my deviation on Wed. night - I totally wanted chicken teriyaki and had a bento box for dinner - it was quite a bit of food. I didn’t eat all of the chicken or the rice, but ate all of the sushi. Thursday afternoon we headed out. He was jonesin’ for Outback - so I shared a filet with Vivi and ate all of my loaded potato myself. You can imagine how the rest of the trip went. I indulged. It was a choice and I was in control. Sat. night on the way home we stopped at Maggiano’s for dinner - that place could add 20lbs in one meal!

I’m choosing to live my real life and work it all out and not be a slave to the diet. I will lose weight more slowly, but this is a lifetime change, not a quick diet and back to eating “normal”. I will continue to input my food and watch the calories. I’m learning and not making myself wrong as I so often do. I was hungry today and had a snack - the rest of the gnocchi from Maggiano’s. It didn’t put me over the edge - I”ll just have to watch what I eat for dinner. I know I can’t let myself get hungry or let my blood sugar drop - then it is all over. Allowing myself to choose instead of feeling confined and making myself wrong is so freeing and allows me to go with my day and not constantly focus on food and my next meal.

I have also noticed how much more energy I have when I’m eating healthy. It’s ironic, the more fat and sugar I eat and the fuller I feel, the more I want to keep stuffing my face. The veggies make me feel so much better and no cravings. I have this thing - when I eat cheese, I want chocolate. Weird.

My little graph showing my progress will be a zig zag up and down instead of a nice slope downward. That’s ok. As long as the trend is down. I backtracked 2 lbs. and now I’m sliding down a little more slowly, but it’s only been 2 weeks.

The rain seems to have stopped, maybe I can get a good walk in this afternoon.

Reality Sets In

I guess I was just floating around on wishful thinking. I kept thinking that my weight would just level out. I would stop gaining and stay at some weight and learn to live with it. What that weight was I had no idea, but I kept on eating, waiting. After 7 days of keeping track of my calories I realized (duh) that I would just keep gaining weight until my gigantic body mass required the same number of calories that I ate every day to sustain itself. Wow - I could have grown really huge - probably well over 300 lbs.

I didn’t actually ever bother to count the calories I was eating, but I’m guessing they were somewhere between 3000 - 4000 calories per day. How do I know? Well, for one thing, I’m eating under 2000 calories on NutriSystem - about 1700 - 1800 calories per day. I can guess the calories because the food I eat is about 25% - 50% of what I normally eat. I keep track in a widget I have on my google home page. I have no idea if it’s scientific and correct, (fatsecret.com) but I like it and it works for me - it has everything already in there with all the nutritional info. It calculates how many calories I burn each day - I supposed based on body weight. It counts sleeping and resting and I add in my walks. I burn about 2800 calories per day just existing - according to the widget.

This is a life long change if I want to keep the weight off. I guess I was hoping for some magic pill, miracle cure for obesity. I worry about doing this all over again and again. It was pretty easy to lose 50 lbs last time - the phenteramine helped quite a bit. Keeping it off was out of my reach. This time, I need to change permanently. Does that mean I can never eat yummy stuff again? No. Does it mean I can never pig out and eat so much I can’t move? No. It means that every day is a new day. And it’s the long rung that counts - just like the stock market - peaks and valleys.

Losing the weight is just the beginning, keeping it off will be the journey. I am making a weightloss journal this time - with photos and measurements. I was inspired by Cathy Zielske and her journal. I’ll post some pages in a few months when I’ve made some progress, the first photo is very unflattering.

Here is a dorky photo of me sitting here writing my blog with my new glasses…

new glasses

Day 3 - yummy cinnamon bun and a power walk and 2.7lbs lost

I slept in this morning - didn’t get up ’til 10am. I watched Battle Star Galactica The Plan last night. Chuck left after 10 minutes, I suffered through it. It was as bad as the series was great. What were they thinking? I stepped in the scale - 2.7 lbs down - I know it doesn’t really mean much yet, but down is better than nothing! For breakfast I had Stonyfield Farms organic raspberry yogurt - yuck. Wegman’s is way better, a banana and a NutriSystem cinnamon bun. The cinnamon bun was very good. It was small but it had 8g of fiber in it. Why can’t real food have all that fiber?

I grabbed our old little iPod and went for a walk. It’s amazing how music can get my butt moving much faster than I ever thought possible. I walked for 34 minutes, out of breath and sweating for a good chunk of it. I felt good while I was doing it, but I can feel everything starting to stiffen up on me. Why does my body punish me for doing something good for it???

I am thinking Weight Watchers might be a good way to go after this 35 days of NutriSystem is over. I found some local meetings and I am going to check out a center later today, before my massage appt. Maybe I’ll feel better after a little pounding - I have shin splints from walking.

Chemically engineered muffins - Yucky

The NutriSystem blueberry muffin I had for breakfast was gross. It had that weird diet food manufactured taste. It’s chemical, I don’t know any other way to describe it. I choked it down. Thankfully, I think the blueberries were real and I could actually taste those in the mix.

I was a little hungry yesterday, but nothing I couldn’t live with. I had a giant salad for lunch and three cheese chicken and pasta for lunch. The 3 cheese was good - not a lot of food, but tasty. I made sure I shook it up good like the instructions said - I think it could be gross and lumpy if you don’t mix it well.

I had swedish meatballs for dinner. It was also good. Next time I think I’ll add some cauliflower to it. It had lots of gravy. I also had 15 peanuts (only supposed to have 10), a cup of rasberries and some baby carrots. I wasn’t interested in any other veggies or another salad, so I didn’t eat everything I was supposed to.

I had the pound cake for dessert. It was good - I wanted another piece - mostly because I was still hungry.

So far, I’m liking this diet better than others I’ve tried. Atkins was great and it worked, but after a while you miss bread and pasta. No bread on this diet, but there was pasta in 2 of my meals yesterday and the desserts and stuff make up for the lack of bread. I get a wide variety of foods and textures that will keep me going.

Headed out for a walk, need to throw in some movement to speed up the process a little!

I have been ignoring my blog…

I have not been keeping up with my blog. I don’t think anyone reads it anymore so why bother. I am embarking on a new journey - NutriSystem. So, I’ll blog about it! Last week I went to costco.com and bought the NutriSystem for woman package - 35 days of food for $259. Costco sent me a card with number and a pin. I used it to log into the NutriSystem website and order the food. You can choose what you want and they have lots of stuff to pick from. A window popped up for a little live chat and she was very helpful telling me what customers prefer and best sellers. It didn’t take long, then I just had to wait a few days for the food to come.

I got home from work yesterday to a giant box of food. It was quite a bit of stuff. My lazy susan in the corner was empty so I filled it with lunch and dinner, stuck breakfast in a big drawer and dessert in a box in the pantry. They sent a little booklet with instructions and daily check off lists. We went to Wegmans last night to stock up on the fruit, veggies and dairy I need to include in the plan.

This morning I weighed myself (very, very fat) and reached in the breakfast drawer and pulled out a chocolate scone. It’s nothing like a scone. It’s totally like lembas bread from Lord of the Rings. Very small, but very dense. It took me a while to eat. I ate some, took the kids to school, ate some more, went for a 25 minute walk, then ate the last bit. It didn’t taste like much, so not good but not bad.

I had some questions - do I need to eat all the stuff in one meal at once and can I save something for later in the day - like my breakfast fruit for an extra fruit in my afternoon snack so I can make a smoothie. I called them - counselors are available 27/7 - very nice. The nice counselor I spoke to said it’s all OK but at the end of the day everything must be eaten and checked off.

I was worried that I was going to starve - but now that I see the whole plan, it actually looks like a lot of food. I want to lose 50lbs. I’m tired of the plantar fasciitis and arthritis in my hips. My knees bother me sometimes, too. My face is fat and so are my fingers. It’s gross. It’s all gotta go. So - I’m off to the races with my first meal (I only ate 1/3 of it so far) down.

Tags: nutrisystem

Random stuff from an email my mother sent me

DID YOU KNOW . . .

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to
pick the little “stringy things” off of it. That’s how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.
If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil.
It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef.
It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of
spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints
in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste
of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply
chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them
in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350
for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low
and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on
the cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing
it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer
for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes
with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in
a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food
moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers,
put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and for-
get about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not
get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can’t see easily.

No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket.
It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!
To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper.
The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and the squirrels won’t come near it.

Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel
roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in nar-
row openings.

Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt
or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose.
Place pin in seam of slacks and … ta da! … static is gone.

Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water.
Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such
as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of
your car . When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside,
just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals
easily.
Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It’s cheaper than shaving cream and
leaves your legs really smooth. It’s also a great way to use up the conditioner you
bought but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2″ with Apple Cider Vinegar
and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the
cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants =
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants They eat it, take it “home,” can’t
digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works
and you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to thedryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material … I’m sure you know what your dryer’s lint filter looks like. Well … the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn’t go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film, but it’s there. It’s what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free … that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box … well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.
He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!

Note: I went to my dryer and tested my screen by running water on it. The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water and a nylon brush and I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it … the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn’t any puddling at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!

Melissa’s Eggcelent Egg Salad

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 pieces of hardy wheat bread
1 tsp. Miracle Whip Light
1 tsp. Spicy Brown Mustard
Arugala
1/4 of ripe avacado
dash Salt
dash Pepper
dash Paprika
dash Garlic Powder
dash Dehydrated onion bits or onion powder

1. Place the eggs in a a pot of water, just enough to cover them. Bring it to a boil and turn off the heat. Leave them to sit, covered for 10 minutes, then plunge them immediately into ice water.
2. Peel the eggs, placing them back into the ice water to cool off.
3. Toast the bread.
4. In a small bowl, combine Miracle whip, mustard and spices and mix well.
5. Dice eggs and add to bowl, mix very well.
6. Spread avocado on one piece of bread
7. Spread egg mixture on the other piece of bread.
8. Add a thin layer of arugala to one side and place the pieces together. Cut sandwich in 1/2 to minimize spillage!

Serve with salt and vinegar chips and a coke.

Let me know what you think if you try it.

HGC Day 13