Weigh In Friday – Week #4 (after another start)

Back at the end of March I tried to get on track again, but it apparently didn’t work out so well for me.  When I look back at the last weight-in in April and compare it to what I weighed at the beginning of October, I saw that in six months I had gained right over 20 lbs.  That is all kinds of crazy!  I know it is time to do something about that.  If I don’t do it now, I will just keep gaining weight, and I really don’t want that for myself.

Starting weight: Oct 7 – 178.6

Oct 14 – 176.8 (-1.8 lbs)

Oct 21 – 174.4 (-2.4 lbs)

Oct 28 – 173.4 (-1 lb)

Pounds lost in Oct:  -5.2 lbs

From Oct 4^th through the 31^st I managed to make friends with the Exercise Bike and the Treadmill once again.  I totaled 130.5 miles, mostly on the bike, but they still mean calories burned.  All in all it wasn’t a bad month for me.

At the end of last week I ordered an AC adaptor for the Elliptical, named Hank.  I either packed his original cord away in the garage sale stuff (that is still in my storage building) or threw it out.  The new cord cost me $28, but it means that I can work out at home again (bike and treadmill are at my mom’s) so I really have no excuse at all for not doing it.  For some reason Hank is much harder for me to do than the other two pieces of exercise equipment.

And now, here it is the first Friday of November and time for another weigh in.

Last week’s weight:  173.4 lbs

This week’s weight:  175 lbs

Loss/Gain: +1.6

Right now I’m chalking this up to being a woman, not drinking enough water and craving salty.  We will see how I do next week.

I do keep track of the miles I do each day so I will go ahead and share the totals here as well.  Saturday’s was included in the October total but I will go ahead and track it in this week as well, since my “weeks” go from Friday to Thursday.

Exercise Bike:  12 miles

Treadmill:  3 miles

Elliptical:  3.5 miles

Total miles for the week:  18.5

Total miles since 10/4:  141.5

18.5 is better than last week’s small number of 13 miles, but still not as good as the week that I did a total of 59 miles.

While I am working on eating less, I am not doing strict calories counting at the moment.  I might go back to that, but I haven’t figured out how to make it work right now.  I have worked on eliminating fast food from my diet so that has helped.

This weekend I will make a meal plan, go to the store, and then do food prep for next week.  Now to figure out what I want to eat next week…

Umm, Hello November!?!

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

And now it’s November, so that means it has been 7 months since I have posted here.

Wow!

I wish I could make a post about how I have done all kinds of things, that I got my weight down where I wanted it to be, that I’ve done an awesome job of saving money and that my house is perfectly clean.  But I can’t. 

I could go on and on all day about all the things I have not done.  But I’m not going to. 

I already have a long list of could have, should have, would have, needed to have’s in my head, spending time typing them up isn’t going to change the fact that it isn’t done.  I’ve decided I’m working on positive thinking.  If I keep dwelling on what I haven’t done, that really puts me in a not so good mood, and that doesn’t help me push forward.

I am working on getting back on track, and hopefully will be posting more here which gives me some accountability.

Menu Plan for April 4

B:  Cinnamon bread (160), yogurt (80), cheese stick (90)

L:  Pizza

D:  Pancakes, bacon and eggs

Tuesday

B:  Peanut butter and banana sandwich (235ish), with fruit

L:  BBQ Beef* Sandwich with coleslaw

D:  Turkey patty with cabbage and salad

Wednesday

B:  Bagel Thin with cream cheese (170), yogurt (80) and fruit

L:  Turkey patty with carrots* & potatoes*

D:  Carnita* nachos** with carrot and apple salad

Thursday

B:  Breakfast burrito* (180ish) with yogurt (80), with fruit

L:  Beef* tostado with lettuce, tomatoes and avocados

D:  Tilapia with oven roasted broccoli and cauliflower

Friday

B:  Bagel Thin with cream cheese (170), a yogurt (80) and fruit

L:  Tuna salad with chips** and fruit

D:  Omelet with toast

*   In the freezer

** Chips made with egg roll wrappers

For other ideas, check out Menu Plan Monday at Orgjunkie.com.

Weigh In Friday – Week #2

Starting weight:  156.8

Last week’s weight:  156.2

Current weight:  157

Pounds lost:  +.8

Yep, that’s right.  My weight is up.  I’m reluctant to say that it is an actual gain, because I’m about 95% sure it is mostly fluid.  I was already preparing myself last night for the step on the scale this morning.

I’m not totally into the losing weight thing yet though.  I’m doing little things, here and there that help, but I haven’t jumped into it with both feet yet.  I’m not sure why, other than I just haven’t made the solid effort.

I don’t want this to become a “Oh I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll try again some other time.” I just need to buckle down. 

I know I can do this, I just have to start making the real efforts to do what I need to do.

March De-Cluttering ReCap

Even though I spent some time this month de-cluttering and cleaning up spaces I never got around to writing about it.  So instead of a recap with links to the post, I’m doing it all in one.

Saturday, March 5^th

I started with my cake decorating tool box.

The top tray…

Under the tray which didn’t look too bad…

Everything out of the box…

Cleaned up and organized…

What didn’t go back in the box, but did go in with the other cake decorating stuff I have…

That same afternoon I for some reason opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and found two bottles of carpet cleaning stuff for the steam cleaning and a bottle of carpet stain remover.  Since all of my carpet was removed in January I decided I didn’t need them any more.  I actually pulled these bottles out and closed the doors, then actually came back and decided to clean out the cabinet while I was at it.

The before…

I’m not going to post the yucky before I wiped it all out pictures.

This is the after…

The ‘to go’ pile is on the left and the trash pile is on the right…

Last but not least for that day, one of the kitchen drawers…

The drawer before…

Everything pulled out of the drawer…

The organized and containerized drawer…

The pink container went into a different drawer a few drawers down.  I didn’t do away with anything in this drawer because while some of it may not be used often I like having it.

Sunday, March 13

Because I could not put off washing clothes any longer I needed to rescue the washer machine from being the catch all of the moment.

Before…

After…

I'd hoped to get more done inside but I didn't manage too.  I did spend some time outside de-cluttering the yard though, which made a huge difference. 

I'm linking up over at A Slob Comes Cleaning.  Check it out to see more decluttering adventures.

March De-Cluttering: The Outside Addition

Last week in this post about dealing with my outdoor mess I had mentioned that I was doing some cleaning up.  I’m not sure if this counts to other people or not, but since it made a big difference in appearance and I got rid of things, I’m counting it as a de-cluttering adventure.

All of my flower pots ended up in a big square in my front year.  This square was at one time a flower bed, because of rotten timbers I just had them removed so it could become yard again.

I’d actually removed a few pots before this picture was taking, since it was an after thought.  I also did take the pictures with my cell phone, sorry.

This would be the trash after day 1. 

The pots shown are cheap pots.  The bonus of cheap pots is that they are, well cheap.  The crappy thing about cheap pots is that they usually don’t lost more than a summer in the Texas heat, they get brittle, crack or break when you pick them up.  I’d also whine about how people seem to have a habit of weed eating right against the pots, but I won’t.  First because I didn’t have to do it, and second because really they were stuck in the middle of the yard, then never moved because I never did that ‘I’m gonna’ that I had thought I would do.

The bag of trash is mostly the weeds and grass that were pulled out of the flower pots.

This is another area that I needed to work on.  This is also an after thought picture.  The large orange and green pots off to the left, as well as the two larger white pots on the steps were beside the steps. There were also some smaller pots along the front of the house.

This is the trash from day 1 and day 2.

Are you ready for some after pictures?  Hmmm?  I feel like I need a drum roll for this one!

This picture is why it is nice to take before pictures.  The after picture just looks like a normal yard huh?  But when you see the before picture you realize how much work was really done.

I pretty much weeded any pot that had dead flowers in it.  I was lucky enough to have some flowers that were come back so I weeded their pots, and in a few causes give them more room to spread.  I also planted the dahlia bulbs I bought, the one ‘flower’ I’ve allowed myself to buy so far.

I have learned that fire ants love potting soil, so if I find them in the pot, I totally ditch the potting soil.  Other wise I had to kill them, then be sticking my hands in potting soil with ant poison in it.  I had to do that with numerous pots this year.  Unless the pots were very large the potting soil got dumped into a couple of tubs so I can put it in the pot size I need and use it later.  I’ve got a pile of pots hanging out if I need them.

Of course I had a nice pile of trash when I was done.  And yes I know I could have carried the trash over after each day, but doesn’t this just look like I did so much more work? *wink*

Here is the pile of sticks I gather from the yard.  Sadly there are more out there that I will need to pick up before we can mow.

After 10 trips to the dumpster this is what I had.  I ended up keeping one of the buckets so that I could carry it around the yard to pick up sticks later.

The trays and stacks of little flower pots are going to be passed on to someone else to use, after I finish gathering the rest from off the porch.

I do still have more work to do but this was a great start and it make a big difference in how things looked out there.  I will also confess that I didn’t do anything out in the yard this weekend.  *frown*

But I’m not giving into that *I’m gonna* just yet.



Egg Roll Wrapper Chips & Carnita Nachos

A year ago or so I was told about the wonderful other things you can do with egg roll wrapper sheets.  I can’t and won’t take credit for this idea, but I did want to share it with others.

I love making these because they are pretty quick to make and they have a different taste than regular chips. 

3 egg roll wrapper sheets are 170 calories. 

That is about 57 calories per sheet. 

I first start by cutting an egg roll wrapper in half then in quarters.  

 These quarters get cut in half again, on the diagonal.  This will give you 8 larger chips per sheet. 

For smaller chips I just give each triangle another slice and you will have 16 chips per sheet.  I generally do one and a half sheets which would be 85 calories, but sometimes I splurge and do two sheets, which is what is pictured above.

Next up I pull out the cooking spray and give the cookie sheet a quick spray, then lay the triangles out in a flat layer and give them another light spray.  I’ll then sprinkle them with salt.  The ones in the picture got a little cumin dashed on them, as well as garlic powder.  I’ve also done garlic salt for another tasty chip.  You could probably bake them with out the cooking spray, but to me it helps the salt stick.

I bake them at 350*.  I’m not sure I have ever timed it, but you are going for a slightly golden color, and flip them halfway through.  Watch them closely, because they will burn fast.

This is the yummy chip you get when they come out of the oven.  These were slightly on the darker side.

This time I decided to try out an idea I had seen online about carnita nachos.  Guess it was a good thing I had some carnita meat in the freezer.

For my nachos I sliced the thawed meat up thinly, crumbled it up, and then topped the chips with it and some cheese.  That went into the oven to melt the cheese.  The rest of the toppings were some green onions, avocado, a little salt and a squirt of lime.

These were totally yummy and I will definitely be making them again!

I'm going to link this post up over at...

and at

Elements Interiors: Whassup Wednesday