Pro Points

I'm one week into the Pro Points programme and I lost 1.3kg! I'm not exactly sure how I managed that since I ate so much but I did track every day (a miracle!!) and I am still doing so. I've been snacking on fruit quite a bit so can only assume this is why I lost so much - that plus my hormonal gain of the week before when I should've (according to my scales) lost .5kg.

Anyway, this was last night's dinner. It's the sweet potato, bacon & corn quiche from the December issue of WW magazine. A quarter is 6 Pro Points. Pretty good!

It's been a while

My weight has been pretty steady for the past 2 months but I'm not particularly happy with that. We have a communal journal at our WW meeting so last week I decided to take it & track. I was really good for the first three days and then I had a weekend away sewing. I was all ready to have a scone for morning tea & count it when I discovered that the organiser had chosen the healthy option. So we had fruit for morning tea & yoghurt for afternoon tea. Bummer! But it helped me stay on track I suppose.

But of course we went out for dinner on the Saturday night. I was really good...I had fettucine in a tomato sauce with prawns, NO dessert, NO entree & just one piece of plain bread. Unfortunately though I drank a whole bottle of wine myself. :) Consequently I had a gain of .3kg. But I think that was mostly hormonal and I was pretty happy with that.

So this week we started the new ProPoints system. I was a bit dubious at first - especially when the on-line tracker showed beetroot as being worth 1 point! But then I discovered it depends which bit you read/use so now I fiddle it & count it as zero. I'm evil. So I've been eating and eating (can't believe how much you can eat on this new programme!) & finally the scales are pointing down. So I can't wait for the meeting to see if I've officially lost!

August was a complete disaster!

I've not been happy these past few weeks & have had 4 gains in 4 weeks. I now weigh 89.2 & I'm not happy about it. This is the same as I weighed this time last year which means I've been fiddling around for 12 months. So this week I've been pretty good so far. I've walked 3 out of 4 days but I still have a little late night eating going on which I need to reign in.

I've just had brunch (no pic) which was 1 piece of grain toast with 2 tblsp WW cottage cheese, 3 slices of WW bacon, 130g baked beans & some tomato. Very yum & only 4 points. Tonight's plan is Classic Beef Stew with Mash (5.5 pts) followed by Chocolate Self Saucing Puddings (3.5 pts) both from the Cook Tasty WW cookbook. I don't usually cook dessert as I'd rather use the points for something else but I know that my husband likes them so I thought I'd spoil him since it's Father's Day.

I have some challenges this month....first of all there's my birthday next Saturday. I'm going out for lunch with my mother and also another lunch with my WW pals. Ergh. Then the week after, I'm off to Ballarat for the Sewing Guild convention. A week of food that I have no control over. Plus alcohol! Then after that (as if that's not enough!!) I'm going to New Zealand for 5 days to visit a friend. Let's hope that September is not as bad as August.

Tonight's dinner

I've really got my money's worth from that WW cookbook. Tonight's dinner was Curried Chicken Pie. I changed the WW recipe a little by only using 1 sheet of pastry & not bothering with the egg wash. Saved myself 2 pts. :)

Other recipes I've made from this book are Baked Pasta Frittata (yum), Beef & Lentil Lasagne (OK but I'm not a big mince fan anyway - the family loved it though), Classic Beef Stew with Mash (very yum) and Indian Style Chicken Curry (yum).

I went away to the Hunter Valley for the weekend last week and so gained 1kg at weigh in. Bummer! I haven't really been good this week either although have been great today. I had all intentions on Sat & Sun, only to discover that my husband had brought home chocolate & cake after a visit to his mother. Sigh.

New WW cookbook

I bought the new WW cookbook this week, Cook Tasty. It has the recipe for the Shepherd's Pie from my last post in it. The recipes in the book look so good and don't appear to have any strange ingredients in them (thank goodness). So I planned my week's menus and have so far made 2 things from the book. No pics though.

I've made the Lasagne which was very nice. It could do with some vegies in it though and I have also made the Prawn Risotto. Now that was an interesting thing. It's made in the oven which I had my doubts about but I dutifully followed the recipe and as I suspected, the rice wasn't cooked in the time they said to have it in the oven. So I put it in for 10 more minutes...still not cooked. I added more liquid, gave it another 10 min....still not cooked. I was starting to get a bit shirty...gave it another 10 mins. No. Parts of it were OK but the rest was still crunchy. So I gave up, added the prawns & gave it another 10. The prawns weren't cooked!! The recipe says to cook the prawns for 5-7 mins. No chance! Another 10 mins and the prawns were done so I gave up and served it. It was still a tiny bit underdone but delicious. Next time, I'll make it on the stove top as I usually do.

I just hope the rest of the week's recipes will be easier than that!

Update

Once again there's a big gap between my posts. I've actually lost a little bit and am now down to 86.8kg. I was 86.5 last week but let's not go there. This week, I'm being good. As good as I can that is. I'm just back from a 30min walk and it's my second walk this week which is pretty good for me.

I've come to the conclusion that this weight loss thing isn't a race and that it doesn't matter how long it takes me...as long as I get there in the end. Gosh..that's deep & meaningful isn't it. LOL.

I made something new 2 nights ago. It's the Shepherd's Pie with sweet potato which was in the WW weekly booklet 2 weeks ago. Oh yummy yum yum. I was completely stuffed afterwards. It's very filling which is a damn fine thing. You want pics? OK then.

Here's how it looked before going into the oven.



And here's how it looked on my plate.

What happened to April????

April has been and gone and my blog remained update-less. Oh well. My weight wasn't doing much either so it doesn't really matter.

In the last 2 weeks I've lost a total of .5kg which doesn't sound much but it's pretty good for me. My leader has suggested that we email our trackers to her which is fabulous. It certainly keeps you honest and good. I was sooo good last week but only lost .2 which was a disappointment but this week I cracked the 87kg mark. Woot! This has given me motivation to continue.

I spent some time this afternoon planning this week's dinner menu. That's something I haven't done for a while. This is how it looks:

Wednesday: Curried prawns
Thursday: Chicken & Cashew stir fry - STGTBT Book 2
Friday: Oriental Pork - STGTBT Book 4
Saturday: McDonald's - I have a Seared Chicken Deluxe Burger without cheese, 6 points
Sunday: Tortilla Stack - STGTBT Book 3
Monday: Pork in Plum Sauce - an old WW recipe
Tuesday: Mongolian Lamb but it will be chicken - STGTBT Book 3

So onto today's pic........ this was tonight's dinner and very yum it was. Curried prawns from STGTBT Book 2. I made it exactly as the recipe except I added more vegies and omitted the chilli powder. I loved it! My DD said it was a bit spicey but still ate it so that's good. Other big news here this week was the purchase of a rice cooker. Fabulous!

MIA

It seems to be a trend among my blog buddies at the moment. We're all faffing around not losing much. I actually did have a loss this week, half a kilo. I haven't been all that bad in the past few weeks but nothing was showing on the scales. Who can explain that? Anyway, this hopefully will give me a bit more motivation to continue.

In keeping with my last couple of posts, here is my dinner from tonight. It's based on Annette Sym's Chicken Homestead Pie from STGTBT book 4. I don't actually make my own pastry and I add lots more vegies than in the recipe. This one has mushrooms, shallots, capsicum, cauli, carrots & beans. The sauce is made with 4 sachets of cup-a-soup mixed with milk. When boiled, it thickens up beautifully & is pretty tasty. Tonight's was a mix of cream of mushie, spring veg & cream of chicken. 5 points is the total for 1/4 of the pie using reduced fat puff pastry.

My lunch

Here's a pic of my lunch today. It's brown rice, capsicum, cherry tomatoes, feta, chickpeas & balsamic dressing. Very yum & very filling. I've been a bit bored with my lunches lately so I'm trying to mix them up a bit. This recipe came from the March issue of WW magazine.

Last week I had a hormonal gain of .6 and this week I lost it again so I'm back to 87.8. The reason I didn't lose more was due to my late-night eating which again has become a problem. For the last 2 nights though, I've been good so am hoping for a loss this week too.

Dinner

This was my dinner tonight. I made a couple of recipes from the February issue of the WW mag. The chicken lovely legs were marinaded in a mix of oil, garlic & herbs and then oven baked. Yum! The tomatoes are stuffed with rice, cream cheese, paprika, tomato and herbs. They were good but I think they'd be better with different cheese, maybe parmesan.

Stuffed capsicums

I just wanted to nip back & post about my dinner or part of it anyway. These are the stuffed capsicums that I mentioned a little while ago. They are very yum!


Alison's Stuffed Capsicums - 1.25 pts per capsicum

• 5 or 6 red baby capsicums
• 1/2 cup cooked rice (I keep some in the freezer for occasions like this)
• 1/2 cup diced tomato
• 1/4 cup corn kernels
• 1/4 cup diced celery
• 1/4 cup chopped mushrooms
• 1/4 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp BBQ sauce
• 2 tsp tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp vegie stock powder
• 1 tblsp grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese (I used Bega So Extra Light tasty - points will vary depending on cheese type)

Cut the tops off the caps & scoop out all the crud from inside. Mix all the other ingredients together in a bowl (except for the tasty cheese). Stuff the caps with the mixture. Sprinkle tasty cheese on top. Bake at 180C for 25-30 mins. Eat & enjoy!

Phew....not over 90!

Big sigh of relief here when I stepped on the scales on Wednesday. 89.4 thank goodness. I only gained .6 so that was fabulous. I was very lucky! So this week my goal has been to track. And I have...except on Thursday night. All had been ticking along nicely on Thursday....it was really hot here in Sydney...40C and a hot wind blowing and I had plans of putting on the crock pot. Well I totally forgot so arrived home to no dinner. Bugger! Normally I would chuck some fish & wedges in the oven but it was just tooooo hot for that so we had sandwiches. Which then gave me the green light to continue eating. Ergh.

Anyway, I am back in control now (Saturday) and the scales are co-operating. I still haven't done any exercise but I think getting my eating under control is more important right now and I will work on the exercise after Christmas.

I have to mention part of our dinner last night. We had the Beef Pie out of the WW Secrets of Success cookbook but that wasn't the good bit. I had purchased baby capsicums a week ago thinking I'd seen a recipe for stuffed capsicums. Well I had but it wasn't what I wanted so I used a STGTBT recipe from book 3. She does stuffed mushrooms (& I've made them & they're good!) so I used that recipe for the caps. Oh yum! They were gorgeous. Red caps are so sweet & yummy baked in the oven. Let me recommend it to everyone. I think they were around 1 pt each.

Going well so far this week

I'm very happy with how I'm going this week. I've clocked up 10,000 steps on my pedometer every day except for today. Today I'm sewing. I just made a Tshirt in a size 14! Now if any of you sew, you'll know that sewing pattern sizes mean nothing compared to RTW. But for me to get into a size 14 with minimum adjustments is a real motivator.

I've also been doing well with my eating. Tonight is a challenge though as our family traditionally have McDonalds for dinner. My DH goes out to the drive-through and brings the food back but last week we got the bad news that McD's have decided in their infinite wisdom to stop making the Lean Beef Burger. That's what I usually have....it's 4.5 points and a good choice. Now they've got rid of it. I'm not happy. DH brought me home a Quarter Pounder last week! Eek...it's 11 pts. I won't be having that tonight so have told him to get food for himself & DD....I will have something else.

What the?

I only lost .2kg this week. I have no idea what is happening here...obviously the not walking is coming back to bite me. Oh well...I just need to keep going and get back to the walking. The weather here has been a bit rainy so has affected that. But, as my friend said, "you *can* walk in the rain you know"! Well..hello! So it was nice today..I did a 4km walk and so will continue on with that tomorrow.

Tonight's dinner was meant to be pork in plum sauce but I discovered at 5.30pm that we didn't have any plum sauce. Bugger! Luckily I have some frozen fish fillets which I will cook in the oven. The family can have chicken tenders and chips. Here I was thinking I was so organised with meal planning. So it always pays to have a stand-by in the freezer! There's always something to learn on this journey.

Not that great a week

I gained 0.1kg this week. I knew I would so that just made me hungrier. Why does that happen? I haven't been walking very much in the past couple of weeks and it's finally caught up with me (as I knew it would eventually). So I have to get back into that and have done a 4.65km walk today & yesterday. I really need to do this to keep losing otherwise it's just a complete waste of time.

I also need to continue my menu planning. I haven't done it yet for this week. Last week's meals were all good and the family liked them so that's always a plus. I particularly liked the Oriental Pork which is a satay number and I also loved the Spicy Thai Fish which was a red curry but without any evaporated milk. It had spices and fish sauce and tomato paste..mmmmm! I will make that again this week. The beauty of that dish was that the family didn't have it so I could eat the whole thing (I divided the recipe of course). So I ended up with this plate full of fish and veg and yummy stuff plus half a cup of rice. Have I raved enough yet? LOL.

My weight is going down

I lost 0.9kg this week! Woot!! It's very strange because I haven't been doing my daily walks this week. I only walked 2 days out of 7 plus the 1 day of cycling so I'm not sure where that loss has come from. It seems that when I'm good I don't lose much but then I lose the week after.

I went for another bike ride this morning. I got a padded bike seat cover yesterday and my husband moved the bike seat up a bit. It seems to have done the trick and I'm much more comfortable although my bum was still hurting at the end. Oh yeah...the seat cover had moved and I didn't know LOL. I still can't work out the gear thing on the bike. I found gear 6 to be the best for the flat but I can't seem to do the small hills. I tried 1st gear but I might as well have not bothered. Geez, I wish I had my old back-pedal no-gear bike from when I was a child. Some lowlife stole it from our garage. Don't know why considering I had painted it lime green when I was 15 and it had blue grips and made a hell of a noise when riding it. It was second hand when I got it at 10 so god knows how old it was. But I miss it! Sniff.

We had the porcupine casserole for dinner and it was yummy. It could've done with a vegie or two though. I think some carrots and maybe even potatoes and I think I'll put it in the crockpot next time too. 4 stars for that one. Tonight is honey prawns and they are definately 5 stars.

Things are going along nicely

Weigh in is tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty good even though I've only walked 2 days this week. Yesterday I got my daughter's bicycle out (mine is bigger and I don't feel comfortable on it) and rode it for 3kms. OMG! My bum is so sore and the muscles in my thighs are hurting. The seat was a bit low so my knees were scrunched under me and I can never work out this gear thing. Consequently, I couldn't go up any hills LOL.

Yesterday I did my menu planning for the next 10 days or so. Usually I do this on Wednesday but since I was doing the grocery shopping, I thought it might be an idea. So here is what's planned for our household this week.

Last night: Butter chicken and stuffed mushrooms from STGTBT Bks 4 & 3.
Tonight: Chicken Burgers (it's scrapbook class night for me so I need something quick and easy)
Wednesday: Pork in Plum Sauce
Thursday: Porcupine Casserole from STGTBT Bk 3. Everyone on the WW boards rave about this so I thought I'd try it.
Friday: Honey Prawns from STGTBT Bk 4. Had these last week and they are divine!
Saturday: McDonalds - I have a Lean Beef Burger and cook myself some Woolies Select oven fries
Sunday: Oriental Pork from STGTBT Bk 4
Monday: Thai Fish from STGTBT Bk 4
Tuesday: Subway

Those STGTBT books have been an absolute godsend for me. Everything I've tried so far has been so yummy and the family has loved them all. So I'm looking forward to the week's menu. I remember when I used to hate cooking...now I'm loving it. Funny isn't it?

Points to ponder

I jumped on the scales this morning to do my usual naked morning weigh. I know...you're not supposed to but it's always a good indication for me as to how I'm going. Well, they said 97.6kg! OMG!! So that makes me even more determined to continue with my walking and pts counting. I've discovered that even going over my pts by one or two makes a big difference at the end of the week. So I've been very good this week.

I've done a 4km walk every day so far this week. I am totally exhausted when I get home (& busting for a wee!) but afterwards, I feel sooo good. So that will continue.

If someone had told me 6 months ago that I would love low-fat plain yoghurt, I would've said they were crazy! But I do....my fave is Vaalia and I put 2 tblsp on my muesli for brekkie. Yum! I can't do flavoured yoghurt on cereal; it's too sweet so plain is the one for me. It has a tart flavour and is also yummy with my canned peaches. The consistency is almost like cream and I have it every day.

I've just finished lunch and that was a turkey, lettuce, tomato, beetroot and hommus sandwich. Thumbs up for that baby! Tonight we have Maccas for dinner and my choice is a Lean Beef Burger for 4 pts. Nothing else. I might whip up a salad if I feel the urge but usually I don't have anything with it (unless I've saved some pts for a 4.5 small serve of french fries..god..they're divine!). So that's my day. Hoping everyone else is motivated right now.