Monthly Archives: December 2015

Want to know how determined I am to stay on track? I just spent the last hour walking around my kids play room so that I met my daily step goal.

I think the fact that i have connected with a bunch of people that are on a weight loss journey. Most having surgery and some doing it on their own. I love the support I can offer as well as the support I am getting. I love that I can post a question on the Facebook page I’ve connected with about something bothering me and there’s a bunch of people that have been thru similar things and how they dealt with it.

For the past week I feel back on track with my food and my workouts! This is a first for me I’m either struggling with my food or my workouts but I have finally figured it out 🙂

Have a great night everyone!

Ok this Chicken Pad Thai was amazing! I felt like I had ordered in from a great restaurant but I cooked it in my kitchen and the kids ate it.  The original recipe I used calls for some hot peppers but since I had little ones to feed as well as myself I just didn’t add them. I will put hot peppers with how much to use but it is completely optional.

This recipe serves 5 (serving is 1/2 a cup)

ingredients

4 oz rice noodle (or brown rice noodles if you can find them)

4 cups of hot water

3 tbsp splenda

1/4 tsp hot pepper flakes (optional)

1/4 cup of water

1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp lime juice

1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 cup of shredded cooked chicken or 400g of extra firm tofu cut into cubes

2 egg whites

1 minced garlic clove

3 thinly sliced green onions

1 cup of bean sprouts

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp chopped peanuts(optional)

1. Place the noodles in the hot water for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes drain and set aside.
2. Mix pepper flakes, lime juice, water, fish sauce and tomato paste in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large skillet add sesame oil. If using tofu fry tofu in a single layer and cook two minutes without touching it. Stir and cook another 2-3 minutes until tofu is golden brown on all sides. Transfer to a plate.
4. Add egg whites and garlic to the skillet and scramble for 1-2 minutes.
5. Add drained noodles and fish sauce mixture to the pan. Cook for about 3 minutes or until noodles are soft. If you find the mixture too dry add water but not too much at a time
6. Add bean sprouts, green onions and peanuts(if using).Cook for another minutes.  Season and serve

I’ve been researching some healthy recipes to eat for before and after my weight loss surgery. So far everything I’ve made has been pretty yummy and the best part is there’s leftovers so I have some soup in the freezer and some Sheppards pie in the freezer as well.  So tonight I’m going to share both recipes with you. Lets start with the Cream of mushroom soup

Healthy Cream of Mushroom soup

1 tsp Olive oil

1 1/2 cups sliced cremini mushrooms (or portebello would work as well)

2 garlic cloves

3/4 cup low sodium vegetable broth

3/4 cup skim milk

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp cold water

salt and pepper to taste.

1. Heat oil in a pot over medium heat. Saute mushrooms for 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Add milk and reduce heat to a simmer, stir every once in a while for 10 minutes.
2. Dissolve the cornstarch into the water. Stir into the soup, bring soup to a boil, stirring constantly. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

The first time I made this soup I didn’t saute the mushrooms enough and the soup was a little bland…the more you saute the more the mushroom flavour will come out.

Sheppards Pie

Preheat oven to 400F

What you need

8×8 glass baking dish

1 cup chopped and peeled potato

1 cup chopped butternut squash

1/4 cup skim milk

1 tbsp butter

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp bread crumbs (optional)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 green onion finely slices

1/3 cup each of celery, green pepper, carrots finely diced

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 lb extra lean ground beef

1 small tomato finely chopped

1 tsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp low sodium soy sauce

2 cups thawed frozen vegetables (I prefer the ones that are cut small for this recipe)

1. Boil butternut squash and potato until tender.While potatoes are cooking heat a skillet over medium heat with olive oil. Add in celery, green onion, carrots and green pepper. Cook for 2 minutes. Add bouillon cube and cook until veggies are softened. Add beef and cook until no longer pink breaking the meat up as it cooks. Add the tomato, paprika, soy sauce and salt and pepper and cook while  stirring for 3 minutes.  Put meat mixture in baking dish.
2. Add thawed frozen veggies on top of the meat mixture.
3. Drain butternut squash and potatoes. Mash with with milk and the butter and season with salt and pepper. Spread mixture on top of veggy layer. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
4. Bake in oven for 30 minutes. Broil on high for 2-3 minutes until the top starts to brown. Serve and enjoy 🙂

In my last post I talked about the ways I ate. The binging at night, depriving myself or eating whatever I want without thinking of the consequences.

This Christmas I’m going to be doing things differently then I have in the past. I’m going to enjoy my food but I’m also going to track every morsel of food that goes into my mouth. I’ve realized a few things from my past mistakes. 1. depriving myself doesn’t work. 2. Binging is no longer an option. 3.Starving all day and eating a larger amount doesn’t work.

Here’s another few things I’m changing this year. I’m making some healthier dishes and hoping that they become our family traditions. I’m going to track my food. And I’m going to practice a few things that I will have to practice after I have weight loss surgery. I’m going to eat small pieces of food. So I will have to cut everything up and put my fork down between my mouth fulls. I’m also going to focus on making the holidays a lot more fun for the kids. Enjoy watching them play with their new toys. I’m not planning a big pancake breakfast or a huge lunch just a turkey dinner with some healthy sides. Once I’ve made my selection of sides I’ll share them on here 🙂

Since it’s almost Christmas I want to do a three part blog based on A Christmas Carol. You know the one where they visit the past, the present and the future. But I’m going to be focusing on my eating habits and how they’ve changed. Now since I can’t really tell you about what the future holds the last blog will be how I hope to be next Christmas. So here we go.

Christmas pasts have been a mix of every type of eating. I’ve had many many Christmases where I would just eat whatever I wanted and not even give a crap what the consequences were. There was Christmases when I would deprive myself of the food I loved only to have a huge binge fest once everyone else had gone to sleep. There was Christmases when I would not eat till dinner. You name it I’ve done it.

So why Am I writing this post you ask? Because I never want people to struggle like I did. Or feel alone. There are literally thousands of us that seem to suffer in silence when it comes to our weight. I want you to know you are not alone. And hopefully we can reach out to each other and get thru the holidays together 🙂

Weight loss can be quite the struggle. But if you remember that you have to be your own cheerleader and treat yourself the way you would treat a friend trying to lose weight your pretty much set.

A weight loss journey isn’t just about the number on the scale but about all the things you are doing to improve your life. Are you eating healthy? Are you picking fruits and veggies over packaged items? Are you making your meals at home? Are you drinking water? Do you have more energy? All these questions are the ones that you need to be answering not how much do you weight. You need to focus on being healthy and the weight will in turn follow.

So I challenge you this month not to measure your strengths and weakness based on the number on the scale but on the way you feel and on what your doing right instead of what your doing wrong. Be your own cheerleader!

Living in Vancouver has taught me to love the sunshine during the spring and summer. Because come fall and winter all we have are grey skies and lots of rain. As an added bonus this year we are also have a higher volume of windstorms. What does that mean for me? Well it means I can get in a funk and a weird mood. We need sunshine it does a ton of things for our bodies. But since I can’t have sunshine year round here I need to find alternatives.

Tanning. I love tanning once every few weeks. You lather on some lotion and get into a warm machine and since you tend to close your eyes you can imagine your back on the beach and relaxing. Ten minutes once every few weeks has worked wonders for me.

Vitamin D. I recently started taking vitamin D after getting some blood work done and finding out I’m severely deficient. So I’ve started taking some as per Dr recommendation. I haven’t been taking it for long so haven’t felt the benefits yet but I’m sure they will come.

And another thing that helps me get out of my funk it to blast some upbeat music and dance around like an idiot. It’s amazing the endorphins that overwhelm your body when you start dancing and laughing. Sometimes as Taylor Swift sings we need to shake it off.

And if all else fails to get you out of the funk get the kids dressed in their rain gear and watch them smiles while splashing around in the puddles and dancing in the rain.

How’s your weather? Do you have rain? Snow? Or are you lucky and have sunshine year round?

In the summer I seems to be able to stay on track. I think it’s because of all the fresh fruits and vegetables that are available. I love seeing the sweet colourful fruit on my plate. So I have decided that this winter I will keep eating fruit but I will have to get creative. Let’s face it the produce that we get in the summer doesn’t taste the same in the winter, but that doesn’t mean we should resort to crappy foods to fill our stomachs. Nope I’m not doing it this year. Instead I am going to make use the great selection of frozen fruits we have available. I’m sure I will eat them cold straight from the freezer as some snacks but lets get a little fancy. I’m going to use my indoor grill and grill some of my favourite fruits. That way it will be warm and I can serve it with some greek yogurt. It’s visually appealing and there’s no better way to develop the natural sweetness of a fruit then by grilling it. The best part I don’t need to use any fat or sugars to make these foods taste delicious. And I can bet you that my frozen pineapples and mangoes are going to taste better then what’s sitting on the shelfs 🙂

How do you plan on keeping your fruit intake up this winter?

You know what I really hate when your mind and your stomach can’t agree on anything. Lately I’ve been dealing with cravings for a variety of things. The thing is none of the foods I have been craving have lived up to their expectations. Also now that I’ve gotten use to eating real food the junk doesn’t keep me full at all.  Basically I’ve learned that cravings will have to pass without me giving in to them because they’re not fueling my body properly.

I’m making my meal plan and sticking to it cause no matter how good I think the chocolate or pizza will taste it never really ends up being that good. I will stick to my good and whole some food. Yeah my yogurt and oatmeal with berries might not be an exciting breakfast but it keeps my body running smootly and I don’t feel as sluggish when I eat those foods. It’s time to start treating my body a lot better.

I’m sure some days I won’t want to eat healthy and the cravings will win but the only thing I can do is to keep trying to treat my body well and hope it keeps treating me well.

So as most of you know I have decided to pursue weight loss surgery. But like everything that I do I want to make an informed decision. So that means I need to do a lot of reading. I have a few different types of books I want to read. I want to read the books about the surgery and how it will be after surgery so for that I’ve picked up Weight Loss Surgery For Dummies and Weight Loss Surgery Guide and diet program. I also want to know what I can eat after surgery so I got the weight loss surgery for dummies cookbook.

However there’s a third type of book and blogs I want to read. I want to read books about people that have actually had weight loss surgery. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly about weight loss surgery and the recovery. I’ve also joined a few Facebook pages and online support groups. I know some people won’t agree on me reading about people that have had the surgery and had issues after the surgery but I want to know what could happen. It’s great that the books say they you could have body dysmorphia or you could get depressed but I want to read the books and try and get into the mind frame. I want to make sure I am prepared for everything. I’m one of those people that need a ton of information.

Have you had weight loss surgery? Any tips or things  I should be aware of that you didn’t find in the books?