Sushi + Cupcake =Perfection

Hello readers! Thank you for the emails and messages over the weekend. I decided to take a 2 day blog break to have a little date time with my husband. After getting in the habit of writing daily, a blog free weekend was a little weird but a nice change of pace. However, I am glad to be back and ready to dish all about our fabulous Saturday date day.

The hubs and I were up extra early Saturday to make the hour’s drive up to Roanoke, Va for the day. I was pretty much thrilled that the weather had warmed up enough that I didn’t have to lug a winter coat around all day. We also popped the sunroof for a bit which was an extra bonus.

You might be wondering why we traveled an hour when there are plenty of good places to grab lunch and shop where we live. Well I will tell you in a word…Wasabi’s. Wasabi’s is a small restaurant in downtown Roanoke. A friend of mine took me a few months ago and I have been hooked ever since. It’s a cute little place with very cozy decor. I think its the perfect place for a fun lunch.

They serve what my friends and I affectionately refer to as “the good sushi” and this trip did not disappoint. In order to stay on my weight loss plan I allow myself one planned indulgence every Saturday. I had been craving sushi for weeks and I knew exactly where I wanted to get it. I was all smiles as I waited patiently for my plate of sushi goodness to arrive.

This little joint filled up quickly but I barely noticed anything after my little plate of heaven made it’s way to the table. 😉

I highly recommend making a stop by Wasabi’s should you ever find yourself in the Roanoke area. It was delish! After lunch, the hubs and I did some shopping. I found some really cute things I plan on taking to FL at the end of the month as well as a complete steal on a “Lucky Brand” necklace. I love a good bargain. Once we were all shopped out we moseyed over to the moves to watch “Black Swan” (totally weird btw but I enjoyed it) and decided to round out our day of fun with a cupcake. We headed over to Bubblecake (my most favorite cupcakes on the planet) and nabbed some cupcakes to go.

Did you eat anything fantastic over the weekend? Tell me about it!

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Weekly Weigh-In # 4 and Month’s End Stats

So, today marks the official one month mark that I have been on my new diet/workout program. I was up super early Saturday morning to get my official way-in done. Here are this week’s stats….

Week      +/-        Total lost

4               -1.0          18

Which makes my overall stats:

Week            +/-          Total Lost

1                   -10.8         10.8

2                   -3.2            14

3                   -3.0             17

4                  -1.0              18

I will admit I was a little disappointed with just a 1 pound loss. I feel like I have SO far to go and that 1 pound is just a drop in a pretty gigantic bucket. However, when I look at the month as a whole 18 pounds is a very respectable loss for one month. I was also pretty excited to learn I have lost 4 inches from my waist! What’s more, I think looking at my overall appearance is a motivating factor. In just 4 weeks my skin looks better, I am less “puffy” and I am starting to feel more confident about the process. Here is a quick comparison look at my starting photos and my current photos….

I am excited to get February started and see where the next month of my journey takes me. In terms of NSV (non scale victories) my February goals include:

1. Trying a Zumba class
   
2. Making certain I eat my points (no daily points left behind)
   
3. Incorporating more fruits and veggies into my daily routine
   
4. Being conscious of my bread/crackers intake
   
5. Taking a multivitamin daily!
   

Also, for those keeping track of my little arrangement with the hubs, this week I chose Lady GaGa “The Fame Monster.

I now return you to
regular food/fitness blogging! Happy Monday!

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Dinner for 2….or 12

There is nothing I like more than a good breakfast, even if it’s for dinner. In fact, I have been toying with the idea of throwing a “Brinner Party” for some pals this coming Spring. I am already thinking of some super cute ideas for décor and side dishes. Tonight, though, the hubs and I set up what will likely be the “star” of my brinner party….Omelet stations.

There is probably nothing quite as cost effective as serving up an egg based meal. Customized omelets are great because whether you are cooking for 2 or 12 everyone can get exactly what they want. For example, the hubs likes a good meat and cheese omelet while I think the more veggies, the better!

The other great thing is how simple it is to execute. You can simply set up bowls/small plates with various “fillings”. Some favorites in our house are mushrooms, green bell peppers, spinach, tomatoes, onions, turkey sausage, and of course cheese.

Next, heat up your fillings to the desired tenderness. I chose onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and a touch of turkey sausage.

Then you will prepare your egg…

Add your fillings (and cheese if desired), flip, and plate (the word is you shouldn’t overstuff the egg. I ignored that obviously and shoved in as many veggies as humanly possible!)

Once your omelet is plated you can have a little bar of toppings such as sour cream, salsa, or green onions to choose from.

Everyone can top their omelet with something fabulous

Then scoop up some fantastic sides and enjoy! (PS: How cute are these “pink” oranges I found today? Check out the sticker (it says pink is the new orange). There is NO WAY I could pass them up!

Bon Appetite!

What sort of yummy breakfast sides would YOU serve at a Brinner Party?

 

*Thanks again to the hubs for being the official photo taker tonight. ❤

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Summer Eats on a Winter’s Day

As I mentioned earlier, my office was on a 2 hour or so delay this morning. As I spent a lazy couple of hours with the pups and some blogs waiting on the world to thaw out the hubs was hard at work de-icing our sidewalks, porch, and driveway. He went all “Knight in Shining Armor and a Dallas Cowboys hat” and scraped the wonder-bug for me. It was all warm and ready to go when I finally headed out.

To reward my sweetie for his efforts I decided to make a dish tonight using one of his favorite ingredients, coconut. I don’t love coconut so I don’t cook with it very often. However, after making this dish I might need to rethink that philosophy.

I spotted this recipe while watching Rachael Ray last week. She had a show highlighting her ten most downloaded recipes of 2010. One of which happened to be Coconut chicken cutlets. You can find her recipe here. My hero RR gets full credit for this gem of course but I had to change it up just a tad to meet our needs. Here is what I did.

-Trim up some boneless skinless chicken tenders and pound them until they are your desired thickness. Salt and pepper the chicken to taste. Hopefully you will have a tenderizer and not have to improvise like I did!

-Set up a 3 step “dipping station”. The first container will have flour, the second an egg beaters/water combo, and the third an unsweetened coconut/ panko bread crumb combo. (1/2 cup of each)

-After dipping your chicken tenders, place them in a hot skillet liberally drizzled with olive oil.

-Serve with dipping sauce and veggies.

I may tackle her glaze next time around but tonight we paired these tenders with a light honey Dijon sauce. Yum!

What is your favorite coconut recipe?

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Classic Duo

There are some things that were just meant to go together- Fred and Ginger, Regis and Kelly ;), Fireworks and the 4^th of July…That is why this morning with a two hour delay from the office and the ability/time/stocked pantry to have whatever I wanted for breakfast I chose a super simple, yet classic, duo.

Yes, the organic peanut butter on whole grain toast and banana slices combo. Peanut butter and bananas were pretty much made for each other. It was also a nice fruit/whole grain/protein combo and filling way to start my short day at the office! What is your favorite easy-peasy breakfast?

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To Kill a Craving Part II

So today I was having a very specific craving. This craving was so vivid and so specific I could almost literally taste it. Way back in August at HLS one of the trainings mentioned when you have a craving you should try to indulge it as best you can. They did not mean, of course, that this gives you a license to eat junk. Instead it means to indulge the craving as healthfully as possible so you do not eat a million calories in other stuff that never quite hits the spot. I think this makes all of the sense in the world.

However, what do you do when your craving is of the super unhealthy variety? Today, I was faced with such a dilemma. I could not shake the craving for a Melt and Shoe String fries from Steak and Shake with a side of ranch and a soda. Ahem. Very specific (and a little gross).

Ahhh Steak and Shake. This is a joint that has steak burgers, double steak burgers, crispy fries, and heavenly milk shakes. It is also a place that a dieter dare not enter, at least not this one. Fries are kind of my weakness. I was not going to indulge my Steak and Shake craving for a couple of reasons 1. We don’t have Steak and Shakes where I live. And 2. More importantly, I was not willing to give up the 1390 calories and 93 grams of fat this meal entails. In fact, just the thought makes me nervous.

So, I set out to curb my craving with my own recipe of BBQ turkey burger “melts”. Here is the method:

-Pre heat your oven to heat up some sweet potato fries or organic shoe string potatoes. (I’m in desperate need of new bake ware. Ick!)

-Heat up 1 slice of turkey bacon per person. While the bacon cooks up combine the following: 1 lb of lean ground turkey, 3 tablespoons of BBQ sauce, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 2 grated gloves of garlic, 1 ½ teaspoons of chili powder, 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard, 1/3 cup panko bread crumbs, ¼ cup diced onion.

-Heat up 2 slices of bread lightly brushed with butter or olive oil. I like olive oil but if you don’t like the taste use butter. Heat at 350 degrees for 17 minutes.

-Grill up your turkey burger patties in a touch of olive oil.

-Next assemble your melt. Place 1 slice of bacon on the patty and 1 slice of cheese on top of that. Place some pickles on the bottom piece of toast, add meat/cheese combo, add veggies, and add the top piece of toast spread with condiments.

This was a super filling meal that fell well within my allotted points plus/ calories. Also, it totally killed my Steak and Shake craving. Do you have a craving you want me to help you kill? Email me at runninginpinkproject@gmail.com and I will hook you up on a future blog!

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No Peeking

Since starting Weight Watchers at the beginning of the month I have been trying to get into the mind frame of weighing only once a week. However, last week I found myself weighing daily all super crazy psycho style. I literally could not wait to haul my little self into the bathroom to get my official number for the day. I would get up in the morning, jet to the bathroom, strip down, and hop on the scale. I would then obsess about the number, redress, and start my morning routine. I know some of you have been there. This small little device was/ is making me a crazy person.

It’s not the scale’s fault per se. He is, after all, only doing his job. The problem came with the idea that with a gain (even just a couple ounces) or not a big enough loss I was starting off my day grumpy and frustrated. Never mind that my official weigh-in was a steady 3-pound loss. I was preoccupied with the daily weigh-in. In fact, this happened to me just this morning with an alleged 4 ounce gain since Saturday.

I am so conflicted about this. Part of me wants to weigh daily and track my weight during the week. I feel like it might teach me something about my body. For example, I know I weigh much less the day after yoga due to fluid loss. I weigh more after my indulgent meal on Saturday’s usually due to sodium. I could go on and on. However, the other part of me thinks this is obsessive behavior, which can hinder the growth process, and I should stick to a Saturday only weigh in philosophy.

Next week, I plan to experiment and leave the scale in the hubs home office for the week. I want to see how not obsessing during the week impacts my ultimate outcome. Truthfully, I want to start working to correct the negative behaviors that have gotten me into this situation to begin with. I want to find health, both physical and mental, in regard to my weight loss/fitness project. I think a huge part of that is changing disordered behaviors regarding food, eating, weighing, and working out.

Do you personally feel weighing daily is helpful or harmful to the weight loss process?

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Moves and Food on a Sunday

Since last night’s movie party was pretty indulgent in terms of food I wanted to make sure my Sunday was 100% back on track.

Today’s Food:

A fruit and yogurt smoothie

A bacon and egg sandwich with an oatmeal/chocolate cherry low sugar dessert

Spinach Artichoke Chicken Penne

And Today’s Moves…..

5 miles at a slow pace on the paved trail

Now, Im enjoying the rest of my evening with the hubs, my pups, and a full TIVO! How did you spend your Sunday?

PS: I finally busted out the new Rachael Ray cookware my parents gifted me for my Birthday. LOVE IT!!

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Some Potluck Love

I think I have mentioned before that the hubs and I host movie night at our house for family and friends once a month. What I may not have mentioned is that our movie nights are themed. We’ve had horror movie night, Christmas movie night, 80’s movie night etc. Last night, we had Romantic Comedy Night. It works like this, the hubs and I decide on a genre and then he picks a film usually guy friendly and then I pick a film usually girl friendly. Last night, we ended up with two favorites.

I love getting friends and family together and I love to entertain. It was one of the things I was most excited about when we left our rental and moved into our own home 3 years ago. So, for movie night I always make a killer desert (or try to) and prepare dinner. Since discovering Rachael Ray a few years ago cooking and I are like this (now imagine me holding two fingers together). Ha! That is why I adore making a spread for our movie night peeps. However, even though I still made my killer dessert (a strawberry cake with vanilla cream icing and how cute is that stiletto cake server from my pal Liz btw) we decided to go in a different direction for January movie night.

The hubs and I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a potluck movie night where every person/couple brought a dish to share with the group. Potlucks are always cool because you have everyone sharing and complementing each other’s food. Since not all of our movie-goers are acquainted in “real life” it’s a neat way to get people talking. In addition to the strawberry cake, the hubs and I spent a few fun minutes in the kitchen making my “Skinny Pigs in a Blanket”. We use a low fat hot dog (in this case chicken dog) and cut them into thirds. We then take reduced fat crescent rolls and cut them into thirds. You can guess the next part. 😉 Wrap the mini dogs in the mini crescent rolls and bake them. Finish up by tossing them in a bread basket with plenty of sauces on the side for dipping!

The hubs and I were pretty pleased with our handy work. I was also excited to bust out the fancy apron my friend Kristen gave me for Christmas. I LOVE anything with my name or initial on it. Plus its trimmed in pink. How can anyone not just adore that?

Then something really neat happened. It’s obviously no secret that my 2011 goal is fitness and weight loss. However, when sending out the invites I simply said “Bring your favorite side dish or appetizer to share”. I never asked for “diet friendly” dishes. However, when our friends and family started to arrive I started to hear things like “I used 2% cheese and salsa for this”, “This is pretty healthy. I subbed ground turkey, used lots of veggies, and wheat tortillas”, “I baked this instead of fried it so you could eat it”, “this is low sugar and made with oatmeal”, etc etc. Every single dish brought in by our pals and family was modified so the calorie/fat content was not such that I could not have it. I cannot even say how awesome this was. I will also mention that the low calorie nature of the spread left nothing to be desired. The food was AMAZING!

I absolutely cannot express how much I love having a full dining room table/living room, and a house full of laughter. We all had a really fun evening sampling goodies and watching movies. I giggled all of the way through Hitch like I had never seen it the 10 times I have. 😉 If you are looking for a way to host pals on a budget I highly recommend a potluck movie night. I was left with a serious case of the warm fuzzies after the night was said and done!

Happy Weekend to You All!!

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Running (off road) in Pink

Today after my weigh in and a quick breakfast the hubs and I hit the off road trail again to get our Saturday workout in. Though we went at an overall slower pace than last weekend’s off road run we did some uphill sprints (though why I agreed to that Ill never know) and enjoyed being outside even with a temperature in the teens. I should also mention we brought along our chunky monkey pup Harlow. She normally gives up about a ½ mile in but something about the cold makes her feel all fancy and fantastic so she was hanging in there like a big dog! I am happy to report another successful run and I am feeling stronger every week. On another note, I was all bundled up in my signature color today so I am pretty sure that helped. 😉

Now to cook/bake/organize and get things set up for our movie party night!

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