Renewed determination

So it's been awhile and I have been cheating a lot on my diet, not just once a day.  Luckily I've been sticking to my exercise so I haven't gained weight, I've just been staying consistant even though I have about 8 lbs to go to my goal of what I weighed when I got married almost 10 years ago!  Here's the latest "after" picture with the first before picture.

April 2012

August 2012

Oh my!  Right?!?!  Huge difference.  So now I'm getting back on track starting another 10 day cleanse to force me to stick to my diet (I just started day 3 today) and have a new exercise routine for the next 10 days at least.  On the first day I did 45 minutes on the treadmill, and whenever I walk on the treadmill I'm using resistance bands to work my arms, and I'm also using my exercise ball for crunches and pushups.  On the second day I did the Zumba Flat Abs video and then 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I will alternate each of these every day for the 10 days.  I will be done with the 10 days before my schooling starts, so while I need to keep up eating good and exercise I may not have the time to devote over an hour every day like I can the next 10 days.  So that's the plan and we'll see if I can make my goal- which overall is a total of 40 pounds gone!!!!!!

Eli's birthday and Two special treats!

The first of two birthday parties for Eli was yesterday and I made a few special treats just for him!
The first is an Eli friendly mini-pizza.  There was only one pizza sauce at the store without soy in it, so I bought that.  I used a corn tortilla for the crust, topped with sauce, lunch meat, and then his Diaya dairy free, soy free and gluten free cheese product that I've had in the freezer for over a year (I bought it at Jungle Jim's in Cinci on one visit with my sisters and haven't gotten around to using it).  That cheese stuff tastes funny, I can't lie.  But Eli doesn't know and loved it and loved saying he was eating pizza (usually he has salad bar at the pizza place while we eat pizza)  Here's some pictures.
 The ingredients:

 Pizza before cooking:

Pizza after cooking:

The next treat for Eli was ice cream sandwiches for his birthday!

I used Rice Dream ice cream, which does have Soy Lecithin which the allergist has said is okay, but we generally avoid.  We tried it anyways.  It has a little better texture than the Tempt Hemp milk ice cream we've tried before.  We sandwiched this between two enjoy life snickerdoodle cookies and tahdah!

 Here's the finished sandwiches:

Here's my big boy enjoying his pizza!  :)

Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Coleslaw

Had a yummy dinner last night- I made BBQ pulled pork and coleslaw.  I've been talking about pulled pork for weeks and been trying store bought pre-made and wasn't impressed, so I looked up recipes online and printed off Emeril Lagasse's recipe from the Food network website.  It included a recipe for the pulled pork, Essence ( a creole seasoning in the rub), a wet mop sauce, barbecue sauce and coleslaw.  It also has fried pickles, but I wasn't interested in that.  The pork and BBQ is Eli friendly, and he had some but not the coleslaw because of buttermilk and mayo.
Here's some pictures of the progress...
This is the pork before cooking...I prepared the rub and applied it the night before and also prepared the wet mop sauce (not pictured) the night before so the flavors can blend.

 This is the BBQ sauce, it was sweet and tangy!

 This is the pork after 7 hours at 225 degrees.  The juice on the bottom was the wet mop sauce that I basted the meat with every 45 minutes while cooking.

 This is the pork in the bowl after I shredded it.

 This is the homemade coleslaw- probably the best coleslaw I've ever had (but I'm not a big slaw fan)

 Eli's plate- potato chips, pulled pork and BBQ on the side.  The meat was quite spicy (from the cayanne pepper) but the sweet BBQ really toned it down.  That wasn't good enough for Ella who wouldn't eat it.  I think a lot of the spice was from the wet mop, so if I wanted to tone it down I might cut some things from that.

 My sandwich- yummy!  Pulled pork, BBQ, coleslaw on a honey bun!

 Yum- a good and messy sandwich! :)

Lyle and I loved it just the way it was!  The kids thought the meat was too spicy.  The link for the recipe is...
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/barbecued-pulled-pork-sandwiches-with-homemade-bbq-sauce-cole-slaw-and-fried-pickles-recipe/index.html

Work out tip

So for those who might be reading this interested in weight loss....  if you work out using a treadmill consider upping the incline to boost calorie burning.
For example:
 10 minutes at 3 mph (a walk) with no incline burns 39 calories
 10 minutes at 3 mph with an incline of 3% (which isn't much) burns 53 calories
 10 minutes at 5 mph (decent jog) with no incline burns 102 calories
 10 minutes at 5 mph with 3% incline burns 114 calories

Totally worth the extra incline in my opinion! I do a program on my treadmill called fat blast that takes the incline up and down automatically and other than warm up and cool down is between 3% and 5% incline.  I then manually increase or decrease speed depending on my motivation or mood.  I always do at least 3.7 mph (good power walk) but when I feel like jogging take it up to 5 mph.  Today I did 60 minutes on this program, and 20 minutes in a row of it at 5 mph, then another 8 minutes later at 5 mph and the rest at 3.7 except a 3 minute cool down- this burn 544 calories!  I can eat my "cheat" food today knowing I've burnt most or all of it off already!
:)

1 month down!

Okay, so it's been a little more than a month, but I'm very excited about my results!  I've lost 5 more pounds this week, another inch off my waist and hips!  That's a total of 20 pounds!  YES!
Here's my before picture again..

This is after the 10 day Advocare Herbal Cleanse...

And this was today- after more than a month, 20 lbs, 4 inches off my waist, and 4 inches off my hips!

Feeling good and looking skinnier!  YAY!  :)

Message me if you want information on the Advocare products or a copy of the diet I followed.  It takes lots of commitment, and you need to work at the diet and exercising but it has been totally worth it for me! :)

Beef stew/chicken stew

So last night I made some beef stew. Sounded good and I haven't had any red meat in awhile. Of course Eli is allergic to beef so I had to make him his own stew with chicken, but I will say how I adapted his.

So I start by browning stew meat seasoned with Thyme.  If you're doing chicken you can grill it up at this point with whatever seasoning sounds good.  We had left over chicken breast for Eli's.

So after the  meat is cooked I throw in my onions and celery because I like the flavor it gives the meat and I like them super soft when I eat them.  If it were up to Lyle he would leave them towards the end because he likes them crunchy-but he wasn't cooking!

Then for ours I added butter to get ready to make a gravy- about a tablespoon because I don't drain the meat.  For those with allergies to wheat, the easiest way I make gravy for Eli is a corn startch gravy, usually with chicken broth then add it at the end.  If your not allergic to wheat but do have soy and milk allergies this spread is what we use for Eli.  Gluten, soy, milk free and we can finally get it in town now!

So next you add some flour, enough to soak up all the juices in the pan and a little extra, and let that cook in for a few minutes.  Then add some water or chicken/beef stock depending on your tastes, not quite covering everything and make sure you get everything stirred up well and all the goodies scraped off the bottom of the pan.

I bring that to a boil for about a minute the add all of my other veggies- carrots, potatoes in this case.  I save mushrooms until the potatoes are completely done so they don't get overcooked.  After you add the veggies add just enough water to cover them.  Boil until potatoes and carrots tender, add mushrooms and simmer until desired thickness.  We like a thick, chunky soup.  
For Eli's this time I boiled carrots and potatoes in chicken stock, added left over chicken, and added a little cornstartch to try to thicken it up hoping it would be an easier gravy than another dirty pan- it didn't work.  So boil everything you want and make a separate gravy, then simmer in gravy for a few minutes to get flavors in.  Here's the finished products.

Eli's chicken and veggies (gravy didn't really work)

Our beef stew

This would be my cheat meal for the day, because of the starchy veggies.  It was very yummy and worth it. 
The diet is still going strong and at last check in on Monday I had lost 15 lb!  It's totally working for me!

AdvoCare Products/ continued weight loss

So it’s been awhile, but   I’ve been trying to recover from my finals.  I passed my classes, one with an “A” and one with a “B”.  The “B” is weird for me because I’ve always been one to excel, but it was a very difficult class for myself and my family (because of my moods!) so I’m glad it’s over and I can look back and said I learned from it.

My latest weight loss measurements from Monday are:  down two more lbs for a total of 14!  Hips are down a half an inch, waist line stayed the same.  So not too shabby.  I’m hoping I can keep busy enough that I’m not tempted to snack and exercise even more without school work happening and keep the weight loss going through the summer. 

One test for me was yesterday baking cookies for a bake sale my mom is having for Relay for Life.  I did eat one cookie, but that was it!  So I feel I did good and it was my cheat for the day.  My friend Ty is distributor so  if you're interested in the products please order through her!  Also, make sure if you choose to do this to follow the diet exactly or else your gut won’t forgive you (think multiple bathroom stops!)  If you want the diet, product list with price or other info e-mail me and I'll e-mail it to you.  I was going to post it but it won't work without a lot of jibberish mixed in!

My distributor site: https://www.advocare.com/120311897/default.aspx
(you may need to copy & paste the link)> go to "Shop Now"
> go to "Benefit" on left hand side, "Weight Loss"
> you will order online, using a CC, super-easy!

No new recipes at this time, I’m considering after a few weeks of summer going to the library to get some ideas for low fat/low sodium/Eli friendly recipes to try!  So maybe in June after vacation!