Thanks for all your wonderful comments about my WI after my ten day cleanse!  It is actually all of you who kept me motivated these last ten days – but now is the hard part.  Seems I need to have a goal dangling in front of my face to keep things interesting!

While I am going to continue with my strength training program these next six weeks, I need to set a cardio goal.   As in Miles.   My goal for the month of November is to move 125 miles – whether on the treadmill, stairmaster, or exercise bike.  That’s an average of 4 miles a day – and obviously on the days I bike, I can do 8 miles easily in a day.  Anyone care to join me?

Knowing that we had a pot luck yesterday at lunch, I decided to start my day out right with a ghoulish Green Monster!  I love this combination – I am going to have to see if they sell this Good Belly stuff in stores other than Whole Foods.  While I didn’t like drinking it by itself, I love it in a smoothie.

I wish more people would have dressed up, but it was fun.  I actually didn’t put much thought into my costume this year – so Tony came up with the idea of me being a “cereal” killer.  I tried to find tiny boxes of cereal, but after three stores came up empty handed.  Tony went to our local dollar store and scored – 8 tiny boxes for $3!

I used one of Tony’s shirts and Tony put the tiny boxes of cereal on my shirt with safety pins and thread.  I just used a bread knife at work for effect!  Ha, do I look scary enough?!  I didn’t get a full picture, because no one in my office focused my camera right – it is a manual focus lens, so this pic will have to do!

And because there weren’t many people dressed up – I won a prize!

I actually had some pretty healthy options to choose from!  I snacked on some raw veggies with about a tablespoon of wasabi hummus – I found this recipe for a ginger wasabi edamame hummus that sounds amazing – just the right amount of spice.  I may need to recreate that over the weekend.

There was fresh fruit and Olive Garden’s salad – thankfully the icky red onions were in rings so I could just toss those straight into the trash.

I made my famous buffalo chicken chili, so I had a cup of that, some salad, fruit salad and two spicy meatballs.  My co-worker C makes these every year – it’s a jar of jalapeno jelly mixed with cocktail sauce, then you pour that over frozen meatballs and put them in the slow cooker.  Trust me, they are amazing!

I was very proud of myself that I didn’t dive into the fritos, tortilla chips and guacamole, the cookies, carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting – you get the idea.

That is, until I saw a dish that happened to be right in front of me.  Turns out my boss brought in a cheese dip.  Huh.  I asked him if his wife made it and he was like “um, I made it.”   I don’t know why I was stereotyping him thinking his wife made it!  Just like when I talk to people on the phone about my bosses hotel reservation and they ALWAYS say “what’s HIS name” as if my boss couldn’t be a woman!  Shame on me.

Well, guess what was next to the cheese dip?  Frito dippers and pretzels.  Salty crack.  So I ate 4 dippers full of this delicious cheese dip – I ate about 1/4 cup of the cheese dip and literally could have eaten the whole thing.

It got me thinking that this is the perfect dip for a football game, tailgating party, family holiday gathering.  It can be made up ahead of time and it was good both cold out of the fridge and hours later when it was room temperature.  So thank you, to my bosses Mom, Mrs. Huddleston, for having this recipe for your son to make for our Halloween party.

Mrs. Huddleston’s Chilled Cheese Dip

• um, let’s not pretend I am going to figure out the calories for this one!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup miracle whip
• 24 ounces shredded cheddar cheese (2/3 mild, 1/3 sharp)
• 1 can green chilies
• 1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
• 1/2 bunch of green onions (chopped) – eek, didn’t mind the green onions in this dip – what is wrong with me?!
• 4-5 jalapeno peppers (chopped)
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce

Directions:

• Mix together and chill.
• That’s it.

Oh lordy.  To eat cheese again was glorious!  But I refrained and didn’t have any more.  (Note to self, the leftovers are still in the fridge at work – if the remainder of that dish comes home with me over the weekend, I have no idea how that happened!)  Let me know if you make this – so easy and good!

I was so excited to come home because there was still 90 minutes left of trick or treating!  I asked Tony if we had gotten any kids yet.  Nope.  Not one.  The rain was letting up, I saw my neighbors grandkids, but not a single one came to our door.  And I had good candy too!  Tony said next year he’s going to pay kids to come to the door!

I had ground beef and I really had no idea what I was going to do with it for dinner when I threw out some ideas to Tony and taco salad stuck.  As I was reaching for a paper towel, I saw this spider and thought “ha, Tony is trying to trick me!”  Um, no – that was a real life spider and I hate spiders!

I had to kill it.  You should have seen me because I ended up putting on oven mitts just in case it started to move!

Fifteen minutes later, dinner was ready.  I had a tablespoon of blue cheese dressing and some of my tomatillo salsa for a dressing – 3 ounces of ground beef, carrots, cucumbers and romaine and boston bibb lettuce.  I had 4 blue corn tortilla chips for dipping.

Totally filling and hit the spot.  So I wrote down pretty much everything I ate, and tallied it up last night – I didn’t do too bad!  Most importantly, I did not have one piece of Halloween candy at all – the snickers, almond joys and paydays are still in the trick or treat bowl!

Stats for the Day:

• 1614 calories, 151 carbs, 71 protein, 85 fat, 21 fiber
• 46% of calories from fat, 17% from protein and 36% from carbs
• A grade from calorie count – because of my green monster, I got all of my recommended vitamin a, c and nearly all my calcium!
• no exercise

I cannot believe its November 1 already.  Do you have any goals for the month?  I’d love to hear them!

My gym bag is packed so I am off to the races.  Today is shoulders and cardio – Happy Friday!

So it’s been 10 days since I started my Cleanse.  Lots of sweat, lots of meal planning, lots of avoiding work treats and treats I have at home (Hello Fritos and Paydays – I am looking at you!).

But I have to tell you that it went by fast!  And each and every day I had to continue to make good choices, avoid my beloved wine and get my ass up and to the gym, so that no matter what my day threw at me, I knew I at least got in a solid hour workout before work.

Drum roll please . . .

I started 10 days ago at:

The first scale is a scale called the Zero scale.  New readers wouldn’t have seen it before – Helen and I got them a couple years ago.  The premise is that it it doesn’t matter that the number is on the scale, but your progress.  I reset it 10 days ago, so that’s why it shows –4.6 for 10 days, because that’s the last time I stepped on the scale.  Next time I get on it will tell me how much I’ve lost since the last time I got on, and then a total from Day 1.  My goal for the end of the year is 150, so only 8.6 more pounds to go!!

Wow!  I was hoping for 2.5 pounds, so I am THRILLED with the results.  And I like that I was able to eat normal food, didn’t have to drink any weird shake supplements or spend money on protein powders, etc.   Look at all the good food I ate!  (Well, Tony will debate about the Green Monster and the Sweet Potato Tacos).

So now what?  Well, I am still going to continue to make good choices each and every day.  I still have six more weeks of my strength training program.  I may throw in an ounce or two of cheese here and there, and a cocktail here and there, but for the most part, lets say I will continue this path 90% on, 10% fun shit.

Once again, I was up to hit the gym.  Since I knew I had a doctors appointment at lunch yesterday, it was going to be my only workout of the day.

Holy shizz – that workout for legs above???  Took me 40 minutes to get through!  The hardest was the 3 sets of 20 barbell lunges – I do each leg as 1 rep – so 60 lunges makes your legs on fire!

And I hit a new personal best on the leg press – 4 sets of 8 reps at 160 pounds!

Since the strength took me so long, I ended up only able to do 20 minutes on the Stair Master – not bad – 1.21 miles and 58 floors in 20 minutes!

  

I actually can’t do the barbell lunges WITH a barbell – I have absolutely no flexibility in my shoulders – so I subbed in two 8 pounds weights for the lunges – still tough though!  And I kept my jacket on for the Stair Master – can’t really see it, but I was schweaty!

I had my English muffin with peanut butter for my pre-workout fuel.  I had yet another slice of my crustless cheeseless zucchini quiche for breakfast, but when I got to work they were doing some repairs under the sink in the kitchen – saws were going, tools all about – I never ended up eating my quiche but instead ate my lemon Chobani and an apple.  I really think the lemon Chobani is my favorite!  (still looking for the coconut though!)

My doctor appointment was uneventful – literally lasted all of five minutes.  Got my prescription for my mammogram and I’ll schedule that in the next couple days.   Gotta protect Tony’s boobs!

I brought leftovers for lunch from Saturday night – I am notorious for always cooking too much pasta for two people!  A cup and a half of whole wheat pasta with baby spinach and 3 ounces of chicken breast.  I like that shot – for anyone that has a DSLR it was ISO of 200, shutter speed of 1/80 and f4.5.

I lucked out at the store the other day and got beef stroganoff for 30% off – so less than $3 bucks for our meat!

I used my recipe for pork stroganoff – only this time I used 1 cup of beef broth and obviously used beef.   I also found whole grain egg noodles!

I was super hungry, so this is a shitty picture, but Tony has regular egg noodles and mine are whole grain – can’t really see the difference and these were tasty!

And I meant to sauté up some zucchini for my plate, but completely forgot – doh!

Stats for the Day:

• 1523 calories, 228 carbs, 94 protein, 35 fat and 29 fiber
• 18% of calories from fat, 23% from protein and 57% from carbs
• B- grade from calorie count – low on vitamin a, c, calcium, iron AND potassium – wow!
• 40 minute legs for strength
• 20 minutes Stair Master – 58 floors

Happy Halloween! My office always dresses up.  I think my favorite costume by far is when I dressed up as Guy Fieri a couple years ago:

I wasn’t as creative this year, but it will still be fun – you’ll have to stop by tomorrow for the pics.  We are having a pot luck, so I am bringing my famous Buffalo Chicken Chili for the main dish.  I even bought an onion to dice up as a garnish – how nice am I?

What was your favorite costume growing up??  Suzi and talked about it, and we both were Hobo’s for years running.  The reason I liked it?  My Mom put Vaseline on my lip and chin, then put ground coffee on the Vaseline so it looked like I had stubble for a beard and mustache.  I didn’t dare eat any candy while trick or treating though for fear of getting coffee grounds in my mouth, but I loved how it looked!  Mom, Jenn or Charlie, do you remember that??

I took this morning off from the gym – with my costume and all the stuff I have to bring for our work office party, it just made sense, and I have to tell you, my body is thanking me for it this morning – those leg exercises were killer yesterday!

Time to put my shit together – just remember, Halloween is just one day – you can skip the candy and treats!

I have both Shelley and Tony to thank for making me an honest woman.  Here I was saying it had been 8 days since I last had cheese.  Well, they both pointed out that a mere 5 days ago I had a cup of Panera’s broccoli CHEDDAR soup.  So it hasn’t been a full 8 days since I had cheese. . . I lied.  BUT I have to say going from having cheese at nearly every meal to ONCE in 8 days, I think that is still amazing to me I’ve lasted that long.

It was another rise and shine day to hit the gym before work!  I love that my food and workout bag is packed and ready to go – I woke up at 6:30 (snoozed a bit after the alarm!) and was in the car at 6:44!

On tap was arms/abs/cardio.  The strength portion took me 35 minutes and I ended up doing 8 miles on the bike in 35 minutes.  Nice! 

It wasn’t until I was ready to shower that I realized my bag that has my hairbrush, shampoo, etc. was still sitting on the floor NEXT to my packed bag at home – it never made it in the bag!  So my fingers actually “combed” my hair when I put it back in a pony tail, and I have a spare deodorant in my car – whew!  Thank goodness I don’t give a shit what I look like at work!

My pre-workout meal – un-photographed high fiber English muffin with a tablespoon of peanut butter.  I am shocked at how full that keeps me – I didn’t eat my “real” breakfast until 10:30!  More crustless, cheeseless zucchini quiche with grapes and Chobani.

I had planned on hitting up the pool at lunch again, but the little kids were testing in the pool to see if they could graduate to the next level – lots of parents around, so I ended up walking on the treadmill, watching the Chew at a 3.8 mph pace on a 7.0 incline. 

Remember the whole chicken Tony grilled last Friday night – and made me my “cleanse approved” side dish of sweet potatoes, corn and carrots?   I ended up making a chicken vegetable soup with the leftovers – no real recipe, just picked off the chicken and added the cooked veggies with some chicken brother – easy peasy.

On my second to third bite of my soup it had a nice layer of heat to it, and I couldn’t remember adding any crushed red pepper or anything – doh!  I forgot Tony added jalapeno to my veggies – just the right amount of spice.

I ended up buying Tony some gyro meat to make for lunches during the week, only to remember that I didn’t have any pita bread!  If you haven’t tried making pita bread, it’s so easy.  Just mix the dough, let it rest, and then cook a couple minutes a side in a hot cast iron skillet.  I used halfbakedharvest’s recipe – only I halved it to only make 4 pita breads.   Each pita bread comes in at 160 calories, 2.2 fat, 30 carbs, 1.3 fiber and 4.4 protein.  I asked Tony how the pita bread turned out and he said “it was softer than I thought it would be.”  Ah, perfection!

So, I did sneak in a little “white” during my cleanse – I made a roast beef and spinach panini to go with my soup.   Holy cow this sammie was delicious!  Even without the cheese.

The afternoon flew by at work.  Dinner was done the night before – my best beef stew – although without the beer!  I always think that beef stew tastes better after it sits a day or two.  I may have had two tiny biscuits on the side.  I counted the calories though!

Nothing more comforting than a bowl of beef stew.  I actually like the added cinnamon and brown sugar to the beef – it’s subtle but really rounds out the flavors.  And since I didn’t use beer or wine in the stew, I added 6 ounces of mushrooms to the base – they kind of dissolved in the gravy, but seemed to give this an extra beefy flavor.

Stats for the Day:

• 1699 calories, 189 carbs, 96 protein, 62 fat and 17.2 fiber
• 32% of calories from fat, 22% of calories from protein and 44% from carbs
• 35 minute arms/abs for strength
• 35 minute 8 mile bike ride
• 40 minute 2.5 mile small hill climb at lunch

I have legs on tap for strength today with cardio.  I rescheduled one of my doctors appointments from Monday to today – I am ashamed to admit it, but it’s been SIX YEARS since I’ve been to the gynecologist – gah!   I guess I am too busy making sure I am taking care of my diabetes, that I kicked the gyno to the curb!   They actually had to pull my file out of storage for my appointment (hanging head!).

Alright, time to get the show on the road – make it a great day!

We are week two into getting up to workout before work and it was absolutely no problem for me to get up.  Not knowing what my work day was ahead of me, I just wanted to make sure that I got at least one good workout before the day got in the way.

I made banana bread over the weekend for Tony to snack on during the week.  Um, it was just okay.  In fact, upon the first bite Tony said “it’s good, but it’s not my Mom’s.”  True dat.  My MIL makes a mean banana bread.   I think its because I used defrosted bananas? 

I ended up having a 200 calorie slice of it as my pre-workout fuel.  I toasted it so that made it taste better.  The moon greeted me good morning!

Traffic was backed up for some reason yesterday morning – took me 40 minutes to get to the gym – so glad it’s a 1 minute commute from the gym to my office though!  It was back and cardio yesterday – the back strength portion took me 25 minutes.  I decided to run for my Cardio – I was just going to run for 30 minutes, but when I saw I was close to a 5k, I just finished it up!

Not too bad considering I haven’t run in a while! 

I ended up making a crustless cheeseless zucchini quiche over the weekend.  In one fell swoop I have four breakfasts – just need to round out with some Chobani and some fruit.

Crustless Cheeseless Zucchini Quiche

• 4 servings: each one – 117 calories, 3.1 fat, 3.9 carbs, .8 fiber and 16.5 protein

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces chopped deli ham
• 1 cup shredded zucchini, squeezed dry
• 1 cup egg whites
• 1/2 cup egg beaters
• 1/2 cup 2% skim milk
• salt and pepper
• pinch of crushed red pepper.

Spray a pie pan with Pam.  Place the chopped ham on the bottom of the pie pan.  Heat oven to 350.  Mix the zucchini, egg whites, egg beaters, skim milk and seasonings and mix well.  Pour into pie pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until set and slightly browned.

My breakfast plate.  I was actually surprised at how well this plate kept me full!

The morning went by really quick and before I knew it, it was time to swim!  I love this swim.  It’s only 30 minutes, I don’t go very fast, but it just loosens all my muscles up.  Best part?  The pool was empty!

A quick swim and I was back at work.  I couldn’t wait to eat lunch.  I ended up making Tami’s African Peanut Quinoa Stew for lunch.  Slight changes – um, I thought I had quinoa and I didn’t.  She said that the quinoa thickened up her stew.  Well after I cooked the stew down, it was still kind of soupy, so I ended up pureeing it, and it got nice and thick.

While this isn’t the prettiest soup/stew to look at – the flavors are so complex.  I did end up adding 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper to mine too.  But the the garam masala, African curry powder, pinch of cinnamon – an explosion of flavor with just the slightest amount of heat.

My pot made 8 cups – so I made it four servings of 2 cups:  403 calories, 19 fat, 46 carbs, 15 fiber and 14 protein.  It’s high in fiber (15 grams wow!) Vitamin A, B6 and C.  It’s high in fat even with the light coconut milk, but still gets a grade of A- on caloriecount.

On the side I had a serving of leftover apple jicama salad, and an orange for dessert.

Later in the afternoon I had my first Skinny Café Mocha of the season.  25 calorie pack of Swiss Miss Diet, coffee and 2 tablespoons of whipped cream – a delicious 40 calorie afternoon snack.  It wasn’t until I put that on Instagram that blog reader Carol pointed out “what happened to the no dairy?”  Doh!  I completely forgot! 

Don’t worry, this will be the first of A LOT of snowmen mugs – just want to get you mentally prepared and well, Tony to be prepared for the impending snowmanpalooza our house gets at Christmas time.

Alright, I did end up having a bit of white rice for dinner, but as of yet, I have not found a whole grain Arborio rice, and I actually don’t even know if it exists.  I ended up mixing 1/3 cup of rice with 2 cups baby spinach and the peas and carrots I cooked with the rice, along side a lightly breaded Pam fried chicken breast on the side.  I was HUNGRY by the time dinner rolled around – I cleaned my plate!

Stats for the Day:

• 1779 calories, 261 carbs (ooh – too high!), 94 protein, 45 fiber and 44 fat
• 22% of calories from fat, 20% from protein and 57% from carbs
• A- grade for the day on CalorieCount

So seriously, no joking aside, this has to be the longest streak of me not having cheese.  I didn’t even put any Parmesan cheese on the chicken breading, or in the risotto for my portion.   And every time I look in the fridge that porter cheese I bought at Whole Foods with my sister keeps giving me the stink eye!

But I can wait.  My final WI for my 10 day cleanse will be on Thursday morning.  It will be interesting to see if I’ve lost any weight by ditching the wine, dairy (almost Carol!) and sugar. 

Alright, time to head to the gym – today is chest/abs/cardio.  Make it a great day!

I don’t know about you, but typically during my work week, I have everything planned, I am set in my routine and it runs pretty smoothly.  Weekends?  I start dreaming about cheezy pizza and Pinot Grigio!

But, this weekend I was still in My Ten Day Cleanse.  That mean no cheese, no alcohol, no sugar – basically no processed foods.  You know what we have in our house right now? 

• Fritos
• Ice cream sandwiches
• Halloween candy – snickers, almond joy, pay day!
• three different kinds of cheese

But I stuck to my guns.  As much as I love Tony’s cheezy eggs on the weekend, Saturday I started my weekend on the right foot and made a Green Monster.

• 1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 a cup of Good Belly
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1/2 cup frozen peaches
• 2 cups fresh baby spinach

This big glass: 336 calories, 12.6 fat, 53 carbs, 7.7 fiber and 9 protein.  It provides 134% of my Vitamin A, 102% of my Vitamin C and 85% of my daily Calcium!  And it tastes amazeballs!  Tony won’t try it though – too much Vitamin K for him and his blood thinner.  Plus, I think the thought of drinking baby spinach makes him throw up in his mouth just a tiny bit.

      

Not long after, I got my Insanity pants on, after I took my Cleaning pants off – I deep cleaned our kitchen Saturday morning – took me nearly an hour!  I ended up doing a 40 minute Cardio workout:

I knew I would be having movie theater popcorn for lunch later.  My guess is my small bag of popcorn came in at around 450 calories – so worth it though!  We saw Old Grandpa, and there were parts that were really funny!  Not sure it’s a movie you “need” to see in a theater, but it was fun.

It was a gorgeous drive home too:

I didn’t do any grocery shopping yet, but as we were driving home from the movies, I was going through my head what we had on hand – 1 small chicken breast, 1 Italian sausage, baby spinach, pasta – done.  I ended up using the leftover pizza sauce Tony made for our pizzas the other night – just added a bit more tomato paste and cooked it down some more.  So good!  Um, for the record, only my plate had spinach and I used Ronzoni whole wheat pasta – it’s my favorite whole wheat pasta.

I went to bed at 10:45 Saturday night, only to wake up at 10:15 yesterday morning – gah!  I actually woke up to go to the bathroom around 7:30, and came back to bed thinking I’d probably sleep another half hour – I wish I could give my gift of sleep to other people who need it!

Tony asked if he could make me breakfast.  I said yes, but that he couldn’t use cheese, processed meat, he could use the Ezekiel sprouted tortilla, and any vegetable he wanted.

He told me “you are really stunting my creativity!”  He brought me a lovely two egg scrambled tortilla with jalapenos and a side of strawberries.  He brought it to me and said “Here’s Hells Burrito!”  It was so spicy good – you never know how spicy jalapenos are going to be – this one made me cough when I brought it to my mouth!  Luckily the strawberries cooled my mouth afterwards.

I went grocery shopping, got some gas while Tony watched football.  The Bears have off this week, but he still loves watching that game!   I scored and got 7 bananas off the $1 rack.  I individually froze them for Green Monsters this week.

I ended up cooking a bit more than I thought yesterday.  I had scheduled a day off today, but one of my other co-workers had an emergency, so I am headed to work this morning. 

For dinner last night I made one of Tony’s favorites – meatloaf.  I left the bacon off of this version though!  On the side he saw Pioneer Woman’s Crash Hot Potatoes – I did those in the toaster convection oven while I baked the meatloaf.    Since I am not supposed to have white stuff on the cleans (truth – I ate one potato!), I made a side dish for myself.

Last week when I was at Whole Foods I bought a container of jicama – I forgot I had it, and it was still good, so I made a jicama apple salad.

Jicama Apple Salad

• 4 servings – 103 calories, 0 fat, 25 carbs, 10.5 fiber and 1.7 protein

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces of jicama, diced
• 1 apple, cored and diced
• 1 shredded carrot
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper

Just mix together and let it sit for 30 minutes before serving.  I loved the crunch of this, the slight sweetness from the apple and honey and the bite of the vinegar and pepper.

My dinner plate:

I’ve decided that Sunday is going to be my true rest day for the week, and it was nice to rest yesterday and my body is thanking me for it.  I also got in all my water over the weekend, which I normally don’t do – and I counted calories both days!

Saturday:

• 1373 calories, 179 carbs, 65 protein, 53 fat and 34 fiber
• 32% of calories from fat, 17% from protein and 59% from carbs
• A- grade from CalorieCount

Sunday:

• 1402 calories, 164 carbs, 58 protein, 64 fat and 27 fiber
• 39% of calories from fat, 15% from protein and 44% from carbs
• B+ grade from CalorieCount

I wrote down everything I ate, and was quite surprised how low the calories were, but then again, I wasn’t getting my pre-workout meal in like I do on a weekday, and I wasn’t drinking wine!

Alright, time to get this show on the road – can’t wait to eat Tami’s African Peanut Stew for lunch today – such complex flavors!

Make it a great day – did you plan for your week?