My No BS Weight Loss Journey

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Diet, health, No BS, weight loss

So I know my focus is a food blog, but I thought I would share a little about my most recent project. Me! As you can imagine, loving to eat and cook as I do can make weight management challenging. Challenging, but not impossible! In the last 1 1/2 years I have been working to lose weight and I am currently 84 pounds down. That’s just the physical weight! I’d say I’ve lost about a ton of mental weight!

Like many, my weight crept up with age and then life hit me with some emotional challenges and that helped accelerate my gain. After a traumatic vacation to Orlando, where I couldn’t keep up with my family and couldn’t fit on some rides, I made the decision that I needed to regain control. Luckily, I stumbled upon a wonderful podcast, “Losing 100 Pounds With Corinne Crabtree”! I started at episode #1 and this southern lady with a potty mouth made sense!!! We can lose weight with 4 simple basic behaviors; Write a plan for your food every day and stick to it, eat between hungry and satisfied, drink 64 oz of water, and get 7-9 hours of sleep. That’s it!!! No diet, you ask? Nope! No exercise plan? Nope! Not necessary if you follow her basics!

If you’ve read my blog, you know this girl loves tasty food! All the food! The carbs! The meat! The sweets! Appetizers! Baked goods! All of it!!! I finally found a plan that suited my food lovin’ lifestyle!

In addition to the four basics I described, Corinne also focuses on doing the thought work that will forever change your relationship with food and teach you how to manage your feelings and urges. This is REALLY where the rubber meets the road!!! Here is where her program is different than any other program, because the things you learn will not only help you lose your weight, but keep it off for good. I’m telling you! This program is like no other!!! It will not only impact your weight, but so many other areas of your life!

So if you’re looking to lose some weight, I highly suggest you check out the free podcast. Corinne also has free training available at her website. Anyone is welcome to check out the free podcast, but her training is intended for women. If you’re interested in going deeper and having access to much more amazing resources, she does have a paid membership available only to women.

I get no tangible benefit from sharing this information. Really!!! Only the joy of helping others change their lives and get to a healthier you! If you have questions, please feel free to drop me a comment.

Be healthy ya’ll!!!

My Fitness Pal- An Awesome App to Help Your Weight Loss Efforts!

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app, Cooking, Food, My Fitness Pal, weight loss

  
Hi my name is Kelly and I’m a repeat offender at Weight Watchers. All jokes aside, my love for food has also caused me to struggle with my weight and lately weight control has been extra hard. I had major abdominal surgery a couple of months ago, so that slowed me down. Before that I was suffering from really painful plantar fasciitis (wear your good shoes with arch supports people!) and not to whine, but my ankles, knees, hips and back bother me too! It comes down to the fact that my increased weight contributes to all these issues being worse. I’m pretty much recovered from my surgery, so it’s time to get back into gear!

Earlier this year, before my surgery, I was doing well and losing weight. So as I felt my aches and pains walking down the stairs at work, I decided it’s time to get back in the groove!

One of the tools I used successfully earlier this year when I was losing weight, was an app called My Fitness Pal. If you haven’t checked it out already, I would like to recommend it.

I like the versatility of this app. You can use it on your Apple or Android devices or you can just login at their website, Myfitnesspal.com. Best of all, it’s free to use!!!

The app uses basic weight loss principles. If you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in! You start by entering some information about yourself; height, weight, exercise habits, etc. and then you get to select your weight loss goal and then how much weight you would like to lose per week. The app then calculates daily and weekly goals for you, such as how many calories you should eat and how much time and calories you should spend in exercise.

The app makes it very convenient to track your food and exercise. It has an extensive database of foods and exercises. Of course, my favorite exercise in there is “Cooking or food preparation”! LOL! Hey! I’ve had some days in the kitchen where I felt like I’ve run a marathon!

But let’s talk some more about food! One of my favorite conveniences is that when using your mobile device, you can scan the bar codes of foods and the app will tell you the detailed nutritional values and then you can easily log the food if you’ve eaten it. You can even build your own recipes in the app, again scanning ingredients, and this way you can easily log the nutritional information of what you’ve eaten. This is especially helpful for favorite recipes that you make frequently.

When scanning foods or selecting from the database, you will get very detailed nutritional information. This allows you to keep an eye on how you’re doing. Are you getting enough Calcium? Enough Vitamin A or C? It’s pretty cool!

One last thing. The home page of the app serves as social networking site, if you choose to use it as such. This is really a great way to get encouragement and share some with others. You can adjust your privacy settings, so it will only show what you want it to. For example, with my settings the app automatically shares the amount and type of exercise I do each day and how much weight I lose, but it doesn’t share when I gain weight or the details of my food log. I have found this to be pretty cool. People post questions, frustrations, victories, etc. and the community chimes in. I have found all the people to be very encouraging.

So I hope you’ll give it a try! If you do end up using it, look me up and friend me! My user name is Kelsurfs. That way we can cheer each other on!

White Wine Spritzer – A Refreshing, Low-cal Cocktail Choice

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cocktail, Cooking, Drink, drinks, eating, Food, low calorie, spritzer, summer, weight loss, white wine, white wine spritzer, Wine

  
I had always heard of a white wine spritzer and Weight Watchers always mentioned them as a good lower calorie drink choice, but I never tried one until recently. What on earth was I waiting for??? On a hot summer day, this is such a refreshing drink choice and it doesn’t weigh you down like straight wine can. We recently enjoyed these at my birthday picnic (see previous post). They are especially great for people that aren’t big drinkers. My inlaws don’t drink much, but they really enjoyed these!

These are a commonly made drink, so you can easily order them when you’re out on the town. They are also super easy to make, so they’re perfect for home parties or picnics. The other great thing about spritzers is that you can make them to suit your tastes and desires. Below I’ll share a suggested recipe, but if you want to lower calories or alcohol content just increase the amount of club soda to wine ratio. Club soda has zero calories so you  get the bubbly without the alcohol calories!

If you’re like me and are late to the spritzer game, I hope you’ll give this refreshing beverage a try!

White Wine Spritzer

1/3 part club soda

2/3 part white wine (I really like to use Sequin – Delicately Bubbled Pinot Grigio)

1 lime wedge – squeeze into spritzer and then drop in

Just add all ingredients to glass and gently mix. I guess you could make it by the pitcher for a party, but it might go flat over time. I also like to start with ice cold ingredients, so I don’t have to add ice, which will water it down when it melts.

Cheers!