weight loss tip #4

Be Prepared
Plan, Plan, Plan, make sure you know what's for dinner. Make sure you have enough healthy choices for your snacks and lunches in the house. If you go out for the day make sure you bring a portable snack to help hold you off til you get home in case you get hungry.
If you plan your meals you will eat healthier not only by making healthy meals, but you will be less likely to turn to the unhealthy stuff in your house or even fast food. For those nights you just don't want to cook the solution is making yourself a food bank. The nights you do make dinner make twice as much, it doesn't add very much time because your already making it. Freeze the leftovers either in a disposable pan to reheat in oven later or into individual servings and you can toss into the microwave on those “I not feel like cooking days”.
If you clean and cut up veggies and fruit when you get home from the store they are more likely to be eaten and less likely to go rotten. I also assemble things like my veggies for my scrambled omelet in the mornings, and put them in Ziploc bags in the freezer. Makes it a lot less temping to turn to cold cereal.

Mystery dinner

So if you read my blog a few post back you know We were going to have a date night with my sister and her husband. We chose 5 food items for the other team. they had to make a main dish a side dish and a dessert in an hour, we had about 20 min to plan before cooking. well it was a success we liked all the food and came really close in the points. We lost, but that's okay.

We chose for them: tortilla chips, broccoli, yogurt(vanilla and pear), pears, bacon.

They made: cheesy broccoli soup, with diced pears in it, yogurt, bacon and then chips crumbled on top. a salad on the side with all the ingredients in it. I've had a similar salad before with raisins in replace of the pears. then they found a recipe on line for bacon cookies, they added the yogurt and pears to it. It was a very yummy dinner.

They chose for us: Lemons, cream cheese, cheerios, sausage, cucumber.

We made: some German dish we found online (favorite Tuna Dish- on cooks.com). It was like a meatloaf with tuna and sausage, It asked for all but the cream cheese. well we did replace the bread crumbs with cheerio crumbs. It had a cucumber sauce to put on top. I made my non-bake cheese cake. It uses lemon juice and cream cheese, I made the graham cracker crust out of cheerios, then I made a cucumber salad with a lemon dressing.

our points were set up as fallows
did you use all five items at least once: 5 point
how many items did you use in the main dish: up to five points
how many items did you use in your side dish: up to five points
how many items did you use in your dessert: up to five points
did you finish on time: 5 points
presentation: 5 points
taste: 5 points
total:35

We had a lot of fun and it was great to try new things and be creative. I would suggest this as an activity to anyone. If you need partners to join you we would love to do it again.

Weight loss tip #3

Keep Yourself Accountable
Track your calories, write down what you are eating everyday. Research has shown that just by writing down what you are eating you will eat less because your aware of what you are putting in your mouth. A lot of people are mindless eaters I guess.
Biggest loser books suggest to multiply your weight x 7 = the amount of calories you should eat to lose weight. You must eat to fuel your body. Eating to little calories not only could do some damage to your body, but it will have a reverse effect, because your body will think it is starving (which it is) and hold onto everything you eat.

What's on the menu?

Monday- chicken enchilada casserole
Tuesday- Waffles
Wednesday- Mystery dinner
Thursday- Hamburgers & tater tots
Friday- Balsamic Chicken, Chicken flavored rice, & asparagus
Saturday- Shepard's pie
Sunday- Dijon chicken fingers, carrot salad and french fries

for recipes check out cooleycoop.blogspot.com

Mystery Dinner
On Wednesday we are having a date night with my sister and her husband. We are having a challenge. we each pick 5 food items for the other team. one meat one fruit, one veggie and two random items. we then have a time limit to prepare a main dish, side dish, and dessert using those items. We are to try to use them in each dish if possible. We get a point for each time we use a mystery item in each dish. plus points for presentation and taste. I will let you know what items we have chosen and what they have chosen and what we come up with afterward. I think it will be fun.

Crazy Week

The past two weeks have been busy so I haven't been keeping up on much blogging so this might be a long one. I went to St. George on Friday and Saturday as a get-a-way for my sixth anniversary and because I needed and got to take my Brother's Engagements. It was nice to get away from the kids and I'm glad that they were pretty good for my sister.





I'm going to be taking there wedding Photos as well. Talk about some major pressure, but I am excited at the same time.

this weeks getting healthy tip is tip #2

Educate Yourself
Start reading health books and learn what is in food, how it effects you body. How many calories, fat, etc. is in the food you eat. How have others lost weight? New healthy recipes are good and learning healthy substitutions to make recipes healthier.

Some of my suggestions:

Biggest Loser calorie counter- there are a lot of free online options to track your calories, but I find it easier to track mine in the kitchen as I prepare my food. I don't have a computer in my kitchen.

Lickety Split Meals, by Zonya Focco- I have found this recipe book to be the most family friendly healthy recipe book I have found.

Biggest Loser Success Secrets- This gives a lot of great tips and suggestions to help you stick to any plan you choose to do.

Water With Lemon- This book is a different approach to teaching people about eating healthy. It is in a novel form. The story not that interesting to me, but the things you learn about creating habits is great.

You On A Diet- This book gets into the deep medical parts of how food works with your body and the effects it has. “Knowledge is Power” is what they are hoping to do with this book. I found it interesting. It has made me really think about what I'm putting into my mouth.

THIS WEEK ON THE MENU

Wednesday- cheesy poatoes, ham and green beans.
Thursday- eat out
Friday- Pansit
Saturday-Lasagna and salad
Sunday- Creamy chicken and potato soup and rolls.

check out cooleycoop.blogspot.com for recipes.