My inspiration

There are 347 days remaining until my 40th birthday. Just wanted to remind myslef of my inspiration to get to 18o lbs by then.

Week 3

After 2 weeks back OP, I'm down a total of 1.5 lbs, which is a little surprising, since I didn't do all that well last week tracking my food, and had a couple days where I went pretty overboard. Still trying to come up with a solution for exercising. Also, I'd really like to start eating better (more veggies) and more interesting food. Found a great recipe:

Chicken Tikka with Baby Spinach and Tomatoes
from: www.drweil.com - recipe of the day

Points/serving: 4

2 servings

Start to finish: 15 minutes

8 ounces chicken breast (one large or two small breasts) boneless, skinless
½ cup plain, low-fat yogurt
2 tsp garlic, chopped
2 tsp ginger root, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp fresh mint or coriander, chopped (optional)
2 cups cherry tomatoes (preferably organic)
2 cups baby spinach leaves (preferably organic)

1. Mix the yogurt well with the garlic, ginger, spices and fresh mint. Cut chicken into fairly large chunks, about five or six pieces for each breast. Soak the chicken pieces in the yogurt mixture, turning over to make sure all parts are coated. Let the chicken sit in the fridge in the marinade for an hour or two, if possible.

2. Preheat the broiler. Place the chicken pieces on a lightly-oiled baking pan or piece of tinfoil, and broil for 5 minutes. Turn the chicken pieces over, add the cherry tomatoes and broil for another five minutes. (The pan should be at least 10 inches from the broiler.)

3. Put spinach leaves in a saucepan with ¼ cup of boiling water. Cover tightly and steam for 3 minutes. Drain. Serve the chicken and tomatoes on a bed of spinach.

Per serving:
364 calories
4 g total fat (1 g sat)
54 mg cholesterol
54 g carbohydrate
30 g protein
3 g fiber
128 mg sodium


and another (from the WW food section)


recipe renovation: asian noodle peanut salad

POINTS® value | 5 Servings | 4 Preparation Time | 15 min Cooking Time | 15 min Level of Difficulty | Moderate main meals | This Asian specialty is often fat-laden. But a quick renovation (chicken broth, not oil, and reduced-fat peanut butter) puts this treat back on the menu!

Ingredients

8 oz uncooked soba noodles, or udon noodles
1 cup fat-free chicken broth, reduced-sodium
2 Tbsp reduced-fat peanut butter
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce
1 medium sweet red pepper(s), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium bell pepper(s), cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tsp ginger root, fresh, minced
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced

Instructions

1. Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain, transfer to a large bowl and cover with foil to keep warm.
   
   
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together chicken broth, peanut butter, soy sauce and hot pepper sauce; set aside.
   
   
3. Heat a large, nonstick skillet coated with olive oil cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add peppers, ginger and garlic and sauté for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth mixture and cook to heat through, about 2 minutes. Transfer mixture to noodles and toss to combine. Yields about 1 cup per serving.
   

Last week didn't go so well. I did great Mon and Tuesday, but blew it on Wed. My wife's cousin and aunt were in town, so we went to her parents house for a turkey dinner and I way over indulged. Then on Saturday, we celebrated my brother-in-law's and my birthdays, and I ate too much ziti, garlic bread, and cheesecake, and did the same thing with leftovers on Sunday. Because I blew it on Wednesday, I got sloppy counting points the rest of the week too. It's not helping anything that I'm not sleeping well because of the baby and too much stress-all that contributes to making poor food choices.

Also, I'm still struggling with a way to incorporate exercise into my daily routine. Early mornings is the only time I can really see it working for me, but I can't leave the house because I have daddy duty until my wife wakes up, and she's been going to bed at 2 or 3 (or even 4) and sleeping until 10. Which is also contributing to my stress-I need to be able to be working by 8am every day.

So, I'm moving forward and trying to stay OP again this week. My challenges will be networking events on Wed and Thurs evenings. Wed is a dinner meeting, but they almost always serve chicken and rice or a veggie. I just need to stay away from the dessert. Thurs is a "business after hours" thing, so I don't think there will be anything but perhaps appetizers there, and those are easy to resist.

Today I begin...again...

On April 1st, 2002 I weighed myself and was horrified to see the scale hit 278 lbs. I had decided the week before that I was scared about my weight and fitness level. Here I was, 37 years old and walking up a flight of stairs made my heart feel like it was going to explode in my chest. I train in Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and going to class was painful-by the end of class I felt absolutely horrible. Also, I really missed hiking-I love the mountains and being outside, and I was feeling like I needed to reconnect with that part of me. So on April 1, I began my journey to a smaller me. I did a bunch of research and figured that a goal weight of 180 seemed reasonable. That would give me a BMI of 27.4, which is still technically in the "overweight" category, but when I weighed 180 earlier in my life, I thought it looked about right, and it seemed attainable. I began watching what I ate and how much, and walked at least 4, usually 5 days a week on my lunch hour-usually about 55 minutes of walking time. Over the course of the next 4 months, I lost 35 lbs. On August 20th, I was laid off, at which time I started my own graphic design business. The rest of that year, I managed to continue walking at lunch time, but the stress of losing my job and starting a new one caused a change in my eating habits and I ended up gaining 17 lbs back.

On the first Monday in January, 2003, I joined weight watchers as an online only member, and had enormous success. That Monday, I weighed 261 lbs. In the next 8 months, I brought that down to 204. I was walking every morning with my new dog-a yellow lab mix. I was going to Aikido 3-4 times a week, and I was hiking at least twice a month. Then, in Sept., we found out my wife was pregnant. Psychologically, this had a rather profound affect on me-the stress increased, especially since we were trying to remodel the kitchen and a room built on the back of the house to turn into the office so we could use the current office for the baby's room. I began to slip-exercising less and less, especially when I would get busy with client work. I stopped journaling my food, and the weight crept back on. On April 15, 2004, our baby daughter was born, and after that it became almost impossible to exercise and the demands on our time were such that meal planning and cooking were let go, and it was impossible to find time to exercise. I stopped going to Aikido in August-money was incredibly tight and it became a hassle to leave the house except for necessary business reasons. My wife had some pretty deep emotional issues after the birth of the baby that had a great impact on our relationship and added stress to the situation, causing further food issues for me, and my eating choices continued to decline. I began trying to get back on the WW program, but was sporadic at best. I'd count points for a couple weeks, exercise for a couple weeks, then would get busy with work and make excuses for myself to slide.

So here I am. It's Jan. 3, 2005 and I'm determined to recommit. I just turned 39 and will be 40 on Dec. 31, 2005, and my goal is to be at my goal weight of 180 lbs on my 40th birthday (hence the title of the blog-I want to be 180 lbs in 360 days).

I'll be using this blog to track my progress-not in the sense of exactly what I eat every day-I'll be using the WW online tools for that-but overall progress. I'll post point totals each week, photos, my weekly weigh-in results, thoughts and problems that arise, and just general "stuff" that seems relevant. I'm hoping that this blog will help me stay on track.

As of 7:00am today, my weight is 242.5 lbs. only 62.5 .bs to goal.