Snow Day!!!

One year ago this week we had the worst ice storm I had ever experienced. Everything shut down for about a week. My parents were without electricity for about 10 days. We lost it for 3 days. We were able to crash at my husband's brother's house. We were lucky they let us stay with them. I don't know what I would have done without them.

Well, we almost had a repeat this year. Luckily, we have gotten more snow than ice. It started last night as freezing rain and sleet but changed over to snow in the middle of the night. It hasn't let up at all today. It's nice to see the snow as long as I don't have to get out in it. I checked the Weather Channel's website. Here's what the radar shows:



Looks like it's going to be coming down for a while longer. At least I don't have to get out and drive in it.

Show Us Your Life- weight loss tips

I've posted about this in the past but I thought I would mention it again because I think its a great tip. Kelly over at Kelly's Korner is hosting a link party to share weight loss tips and ideas and I thought I would link up and share.


One of my resolutions this year was to really commit to losing weight and to exercise more. This past summer I started going to the local youth center with my sister-in-law to workout. They have the basic equipment that I was interested in using. The best thing about the youth center is that it only costs $26 a year for a membership. There's no way a gym membership is going to fit into my budget this year and this is a great alternative. Most of the gyms around here are at least $30 a month plus you have to sign a contract. Not so with the youth center. You don't have to sign any kind of contract. Its a one time fee to use the center. They have decent equipment and a track that I like to use. The center I go to also offers a variety of fitness classes that you have to pay an extra fee for but its minimal.

So if you are looking for a place to workout but the paying the expensive gym fees is not in your budget check out your local youth center. They are not just for the kids.

400 calorie chicken nuggets and fries

Last night my husband had to work late so I ended up making dinner for just me. I decided I wanted chicken nuggets. I love chicken nuggets. I have always loved chicken nuggets. So I started looking for a recipe that would work for my diet plan. I came across a couple that used cornflakes but I didn't have all the ingredients needed. I found a recipe calculator that will give you an estimate of the nutritional value of your meal. Like I said in my last post, I'm trying to stick to four 400 calorie meals a day. This one was pretty close.

I used the recipe calculator to tell me about how many calories would be in my meal. I entered the following ingredients:

chicken breast, no skin
cornflakes
black pepper
paprika

It came out to be about 150 calories per serving. These turned out really good. I ate them with ketchup of course so that added about 20 calories. So far my total is approximately 170 calories.

Since I was having nuggets I decided to make some oven fries. I used sweet potatoes since they are a better for you than other potatoes. I went back to the recipe calculator to make sure I was staying under 400 calories. Here's what I entered in:

sweet potato, 1 medium baked
olive oil
paprika

I used about 1 tbsp of olive oil to coat the potato wedges with the seasoning. Baked them at 400 for about 30 minutes. Delicious. And best yet they were approximately 240 calories. This was what the calculator spit out for one serving. I didn't eat the entire potato so it was probably less than that but we will go with 240 for now.

So I had nuggets and fries for a total of 410 calories. I'm guessing that it was a little less than this but I'll take it. And it was delicious. I felt full and satisfied afterward. I was curious and I entered a serving of chicken nuggets and medium fry from a local fast food chain. The calculator showed that these were approximately 600 calories per serving. That's a saving of about 200 calories. Wow.

I was so proud of myself. It may not seem like much but I love that I can still eat things that I like and still feel good about it. Hopefully it will pay off.

New Diet Plan and Meal Planning

I've never been very consistent with my meal planning. I love having a list when I go to the grocery store and having my weeks meals planned out. I just don't do it that often. I'm trying to get into the habit of it this year. One reason is to simply be more organized and save a little money. The big reason though is due to my New Year's Resolution to lose weight. I've started a new diet plan.
I heard about this book on an episode of "The Doctors."
I'm not following it exactly but I'm using it as my inspiration for my meal planning. The idea behind it is eating 4 400 calorie meals that contain a lot of monounsaturated fatty acids or MUFAs. These are found in things like olives and olive oils, nuts, dark chocolate and avocados.

Now it says on the cover that you can lose 15 pounds in 32 days without doing any crunches. Not that I'm doubting what they say but I personally believe that exercise is just as important as eating the right foods. I'm not expecting these kinds of results but I hope to be successful.

I'm not only using the Flat Belly Diet as inspiration. I have found several recipes from the Weight Watchers cookbooks as well as the Prevention website. Really, its all about watching your calorie intake. I'm going to do my best to stick to the four 400 calorie meal plan. As long as I keep it under this I can eat pretty much anything I want.
I hope to start attending a weekly meeting with my wonderful sister-in-law. The program is called TOPS and I'm hoping that it will help keep me motivated and hold me accountable. Here's to the new me. Can't wait to post some of my results.