Soup & Cereal Diet (patent pending)

I'm only half joking-mostly about the patent part:) I kept thinking that I needed motivation and a jump start like signing up for Weight Watchers or Nutrisystem, but the money wasn't really in our budget.

So I decided to try and tackle two problems at once and I created my own "diet" consisting of things I needed to use up. I looked up the Special K diet (several other cereals have the same thing) online and got an idea what that looked like. Realistically I knew I wouldn't be able to stick with replacing two meals a day with cereal, but I needed something low-cal and easy that we had lots of. Progresso soup fit the bill.

Another thing I've read says that some people eat less when they have a repetitious diet. To some degree, that's me. Variety makes me want more because the taste is novel. Having the same bowl of cereal each morning makes it less fun to go back for seconds;)

So here's what I came up with using inpsiration from the cereal diets online, Slim-fast and others like it.

Breakfast: big bowl of fiber rice cereals with skim milk
coffee and milk

Snack: something under 150 calories (high protein is best, but sometimes I have just crackers or a bar of some sort)

Lunch: can of progresso soup, any leftover veggies from dinner and sometimes a couple bites of leftovers- I always have a few bites of dark chocolate and/or homemade iced coffee for dessert. This has to be something I can stick with for more than a week!

Snack: fruit, carrots/fat free dip, yogurt. 100-150 cals

Dinner: Normal. I eat what I feel like until full. I have a small dessert (about 150 cals) as well.

I usually stay right under 2000 calories for the day. I know this is a lot, but since I am nursing and tall its a good amount for weight loss right now.

And I am happy to report that I am within 15 pounds of my goal range. That puts me in the high end of a healthy weight for my height. Last time I checked in I think I was at 27 or so to go (several months ago!) so I am happy with progress.

No shortage of veggie eating here!

There is strong motivation to eat lots of veggies in my life now! We keep getting bags of zucchini from the neighbors so I've been eating zucchini in bread for breakfast, zucchini every lunch and lots of other veggies! I am hoping that translates into some weight loss along with the exercise (3 days in a row now!) I've been doing!

I really like exercise in general but its always harder when I am starting out with extra weight and it doesn't feel good. But you gotta love those endorphins when you finally start working out.

I was telling my dad that the best I ever felt while exercising was right before i met Daniel-I was running 50 minutes a day and it felt awesome! I want to get there again someday. But the best kind of exercise EVER?!?! Ultimate frisbee!! Someday I'll find a team to play with again;)

Healthy, tasty and easy-my kind of food

Since I mentioned earlier I would talk a little bit about what I am eating to work on losing my baby weight-here's a little snapshot of two good meals.

For breakfast today I wanted to use up some fat free cottage cheese. I found out after I bought it that I don't like fat free cottage cheese at all-its not like fat free sour cream or yogurt that tastes okay compared to light in my opinion. So it has sat in our fridge for several days. I wanted pancakes but they are a no-no on core for the most part. Then I remembered that some pancake recipes for core blend in stuff like fat free cottage cheese to give them more staying power!

Here's the basic recipe

Throw all the following in the blender
4 eggs
1 cup oats
splenda to taste
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese

I had to add more liquid to get them to blend but the blender here is lame. The second batch I made used banana chunks in place of a couple eggs and the splenda and it worked out okay. These were yummy and super filling. My toddler ate several.

For lunch I am having a little leftover whole grain pasta heated in a skillet with a whole diced zucchini, some onion, a little canola oil, a handful of cooked pinto beans, sprinkled with salt, pepper, garlic powder and a tiny bit of parm. Also good and filling-very frugal too:)

Post VBAC recovery

So I know I still haven't posted O's birth story. The problem is its already half written, but saved on a laptop on the other side of the state. Sorry about that. And it will be kinda long (44 hours doncha know;) so I don't want to re-write it.

But I do want to say that this is the first week (1 month has passed) that I feel noticeably better. The second week after giving birth I actually felt worse that right after, but I did move the first week post-birth and moved boxes and such that week so that probably explains that business.

Aside from a few problems that give me grief I am starting to have more energy and don't feel like my insides will fall out after walking around for a few minutes. I am looking forward to walking more soon (and losing the *ahem* 27 pounds of pregnancy weight I need to lose. Fun times. Veggies, fruit, water and lots of protein here I come!

In a few weeks I plan to start posting meals and menus from my weight loss journey but for now I am slowly eating more veggies and trying to cut back my sugar habit. Before pregnancy, sugar was no biggie. During and after-terrible sugar cravings. But I intend to cut way back in the next few months. But for now..pass the dark chocolate m & m's :)

Battle of the Bulge: Frugal Weight Loss & Fitness Part 1

In the fall of 2006 I started Weight Watchers. It was something I thought I'd never do (pay money to lose weight) but I signed up when my school district started a group. Now I wasn't wildly successful or anything, but I did lose about 15 pounds, my clothes all felt comfortable (and looked decent) and I was within the top of the range of a normal, healthy weight. I think I was within a few pounds of what is a realistic weight for my body since even in highschool with 3 sports, cutting way back on calories/fat I was only about 13 lbs less than that (and people started telling me I looked too thin).

Right as I was getting close to my "goal weight" while doing Weight Watchers, my husband and I found out we were going to be parents! WW was no longer an option and my appetite went all weird on me. Although I was lucky not to be one of those who was down for the count with debilitating morning sickness, I found that I had to eat small meals all day long in order to keep from feeling queasy. I gained 10 pounds within the first 2 months! Those 10 pounds that I put on before you're supposed to have gained any weight at all are still with me, 6 months post-partum. This is fairly disappointing since I lost 25 pound the first couple weeks after giving birth (crazy I know!). I thought nursing was the miracle diet, but apparently even the miracle diet has its limits;)

So here I am now with a lack of time and money to join WW again, but needing to lose those last 10 or so pounds. In the past couple of months some of my favorite blogs have posted about free weight loss tools and I am finally going to try to take advantage! imommies brought up Wellness 360, a website that helps you to track all aspects of your health. Apparently you get some financial benefits directly correlated to how much you use the program. I'm sure its not much, but anything is worth it, hey? Money Saving Mom is where I first read about SparkPeople.com, a site that is similar to WW etools, but free! I am thinking of checking this out as well. A few weeks ago I noticed an article on Blissfully Domestic about some simple steps to take to lose weight. I am all over that idea. A blogger friend of mine, Sarah, uses a free program called Fitday and has good things to say about it. I am excited to check it out as well once I get the chance. Another link you might want to check out is an article I read yesterday from Cheap Healthy Good. She talks about the recent research that discusses the correlation between people buying certain diet foods and obesity/being chronically overweight. Fascinating stuff.

I'll tell you a little about what I've done already (more in coming posts). The past few days I have started writing down everything I eat. Just like my friend and a great source of inspiration does, I am using the old fashioned pen and paper. This week I've also tried out the green smoothie experiment. If you are interested, check out my previous posts (edited to add a link to the specific amounts to put in your smoothie!) regarding this week's green smoothie experiment here, here and here.

Lest this get incredibly boring, I am going to cut this off now and continue this as an installment series of sorts. Next week (or possibly in 2 weeks as we'll be traveling to Arizona for a week and may not have internet there). I will share a Christ-centered book on weight loss that I've been reading as well as my view/history with exercise.

How do you stay fit and healthy on a budget? I am especially curious about those of you who do/have struggled with your weight. What is your biggest area of struggle?

Green Smoothies: Day 3

Like I mentioned yesterday, I have decided to try out the world of green smoothies for various reasons. I originally read about them here and to be honest was turned off by the idea. For some reason, I came around to the idea, quite possibly because it seemed that everywhere I looked, everything I read was talking about healthier living with a heavy dose of healthier eating. Although my husband and I are fairly healthy "eaters" by our own estimation anyway:) I needed to take it a little further for various reasons.

What I needed a was place to start. A frugal and quick place to start. So this week I am having one green smoothie a day, and so far it has gone well! Yesterday's smoothie was frozen banana, spinach, water and a touch of cocoa powder. I was hoping the cocoa powder would make it more like a "dessert" green smoothie and might make the color a little less disturbing, but only the former was true. The taste wasn't exactly "yummy" but it wasn't something I needed to hold my nose to drink;) I have noticed that it does help with appetite and cravings overall. I also was able to again get in all the recommended servings of fruits/veggies and then some with no trouble. Still too soon to get the complete verdict. Like I mentioned yesterday, I will talk more about health/diet/weight loss (with a decided frugality bent!) as it applies to my family and I on Friday. But so far, green smoothies work for my health and my budget!