Brussels Sprouts, Oh How I Hate Thee!

Growing up, I was a typical child and I hated eating vegetables. It wasn't until I became a vegetarian that I slowly started incorporating more vegetables into my diet. And that was out of necessity because when at a restaurant, most vegetarian options were filled with a wide array of vegetables. Vegetarian options filled with vegetables? Shocking, right? So over the years I have grown to love and appreciate most vegetables. However there are still some vegetables that I just can't seem to enjoy. I am not a big fan of cucumbers, celery and brussels sprouts. I just think cucumbers and celery are sooooo boring. Brussels sprouts aren't quite as boring but for some reason I just haven't been able to find a way to prepare them that leaves me wanting more.

I have tried sauteing them, boiling them and baking/roasting them. But when I eat them, I just don't enjoy it and I don't want to eat them again. However when I eat other vegetables I actually enjoy the taste and think the addition of certain vegetables enhance the flavor of the dish. So in the pursuit to find a tasty brussels sprout recipe, I bought a frozen bag of them so I wouldn't feel the pressure of fast perishing produce. The first thing that I tried was mixing them into a salad. I also added vegan bacon bits, broccoli, carrots, broccoli slaw, onions, greek yogurt and honey mustard dressing. To my surprise, this was actually pretty tasty. Gave a weird after taste but that was probably from the vegan bacon bits, rather than the brussels sprouts.

Next I tried mixing them into a stir fry. I love making a stir fry for several reasons. 1) It's ridiculously easy. I just keep frozen bags of vegetable medleys in my freezer, toss them into a pan with tofu, onions, and any other fresh vegetables that I have on hand. 2) I am eating so many different types of vegetables in one sitting. And I am constantly trying to think of new vegetables that would taste great in a stir fry. 3) I usually top it with soy sauce or a low calorie stir fry sauce which offers a lot of flavor and variety but keeps the points plus value really low. 4) I can use the left over stir fry as a topping for my salad the next day at lunch.

So last night when I was preparing my dinner, I started off with a fifth of a block of tofu (the recommended serving size) in a large pan, with cooking spray. Then I threw in a frozen bag of vegetable medley, which includes broccoli, carrots, red pepper strips, onions, sugar snap peas, baby cut cob corn, and water chestnuts (it's called Harvest Hodgepodge vegetable blend from Trader Joe's). Then I chopped up some mushrooms and yellow onions to throw into the pan. While rummaging around my freezer looking for more vegetables, I noticed that I still had some frozen brussels sprouts and decided to throw some of those in too. Lastly I threw in a large handful of kale and topped it with soy sauce and a small splash of teriyaki sauce.

I loved the results! I thought the brussels sprouts were a great addition to the dish. And the soy sauce really complimented the flavor of the brussels sprouts. I also love putting kale into a stir fry because it bulks it up really nicely. This was also a great addition to my next day salad that I had for lunch.

I am still not a lover of brussels sprouts but I am trying to think of more and more ways to incorporate them into my everyday meals. Maybe I could try adding them to spaghetti or mash them up with a potato. Who knows, but I will keep trying, I am determined to like these unique little vegetables!

My Infatuation with Bagels!

My mom rarely let me have bagels growing up. She knew the relation of carbs and weight gain, so for her own diet, she never had them in the house. When I did get to eat a bagel, it was a special occasion and I felt like I was having a treat. My consumption of bagels changed once I got to college. My roommate used to work at Panera Bread, and when she came home after work, she would bring home a large bag of leftover bagels. Because of this, my infatuation with bagels has only grown over the years. I wish I could say that I hated bagels but I don't and I could eat a bagel at every meal. And there used to be days when I did eat a bagel at every meal (it's no wonder I gained weight)! Luckily my roommate had stopped working at Panera shortly before I started dieting. However that did not stop me from buying bagels.

Finally after 6 months of dieting but still maintaining my love for bagels, I gave them up. Well not completely, but I stopped buying them to keep at home. Luckily when I started Weight Watchers, I realized that most bagels had between 7-9 points plus value. And this is before the addition of cream cheese, peanut butter or whatever other smear you put onto a bagel. To me, 11 points for one bagel is sooo not worth it.

So what does a chronic bagel eater do when craving a bagel? Well, I finally tried these wonderful things that I had been hearing about; bagel thins. These bagel thins are the answer to my bagel lovin' prayers. For one bagel thin it's 110 calories/3 points plus. And I am wild for them! I store them in the freezer and whenever I am craving a bagel I pull one out and toast it. Because they are thinner, you do lose the chewy, doughy part of the bagel but that also makes them a lot easier to eat and definitely cuts the amount of carbs consumed.  








Yesterday morning I made myself a bagelwich using the following things:
1 Bagel Thin
1 egg, fried with cooking spray
1 wedge of french onion Laughing Cow cheese spread
1 Morning Star veggie sausage patty
A small amount of organic strawberry fruit spread

 I just smeared the cheese wedge across one side of the bagel thin, and strawberry preserve on the other side. Then I placed the veggie sausage and egg in between the two bagel halves. And here is the finished product:

It was a total of 8 points plus. But if I had used egg whites instead of an egg I could have shaved off 1 point. I also could have left off the veggie sausage and ditched another 2 points, but I thought this bagelwich was perfect, just the way it was!

Forcing Myself to the Gym!

As much as I try to convince myself that I like fitness and working out, I still have days where I am sore, tired, and just want to be lazy. Last week I was having a night like that. I was tired all day, I came home from work and flopped into my bed. And I probably could have stayed there all night. My roommate, who tends to be on the lazy side of things, came home from work and was feeling the exact same way. My fitness class had already started, but I was still struggling with myself to get up and go to the gym. I knew that I wasn't going to make it to the gym the following night, and so I realized that I should really have been going to work out. My roommate and I were lounging in the living room, and when I was telling her that I was feeling guilty for not going to the gym, she made a comment about not having to be obsessed with the gym, and to just take a night off.

It was then that I had an aha moment and I immediately jumped off the couch and started putting on my gym clothes. If you spend a lot of time on the pinterest fitness section, you probably have seen a poster that says something along the lines of: "Obsessed is the word the lazy use to describe the dedicated." The minute that she made a comment about being obsessed, I knew that I needed to get myself to the gym. The other phrase that came to mind was: "The only work-out you regret is the one that you don't do." So with these words of inspiration running through my head, I got to the gym, and worked on the elliptical trainer for 45 minutes. Afterwards I did some lunges, squats and weighted side leg lifts. When I got home from the gym I was feeling good, refreshed and full of energy. I made the right decision by going to the gym, I just have to keep reminding myself of that every time that I am feeling a little lazy!

Alcohol + Weight Loss = Hard but not Impossible

I love going out for drinks. Whether it's for a happy hour, a low key night sitting at a roof top patio bar or moving around the dance floor, drink in hand, certain that I look as good as one of JLo's back up dancers, I love it all. I am 22, I have little responsibility, and I live in a city that has a large variety of bars, clubs and restaurants to chose from. Why wouldn't I use this portion of my life to paint the town red? The only problem with enjoying a night out on the town is that alcoholic drinks, and drunken snacking don't exactly mix well with dieting. Within the last year I graduated college, got a big girl job, started working out and eating better, and moved out of a college house into a grown-up apartment. With all of these changes, the frequency of my drinking went down drastically but I was still finding trouble losing weight.

I never imagined that a glass full of liquid would be my dieting demise but alcohol itself has a high caloric value. And then when you start adding your mixer of choice, before you know it, the drink has more calories than dinner. So with the weekend near and a baseball game to attend, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some strategies to make a night out a little more friendly on the diet.

I have heard and read a lot of tips on ways to lose weight while still enjoying an adult beverage, so first I will list things that I don't currently do, but I would like to work towards:

1) Drink more water. If you are out at the bar, try drinking water or a diet coke in between each beer or cocktail. This will cut the amount of drinks that you consume in half. And this will also ensure that you don't drink to much and make bad choices later. Although, making bad choices are usually the best part of being drunk and then you can always blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol!

2) Track your drinks. Use your smartphone to track how many drinks you've consumed in the night. Since I am in Weight Watchers, I have access to the etools, which means I can track what I am consuming, the minute I consume it. And if you are not doing WW but counting calories or keeping a food journal, you could always use the 'notes' feature on your phone to keep track of each drink consumed so you can record it later. Do I actually record my drinks when I am out? No, but I need to start.

3) Ditch the plastic. In an effort to be kind to your diet and wallet, only bring a small amount of cash with and leave the credit card at home. This will limit the amount of drinks that are bought and when the cash is gone, don't let other people buy the drinks, kinda defeats the purpose! The only time this could go awry is if you don't save enough money to get a taxi or a bus ride home. So if you end up drunk, alone and stuck down town with no cash left, don't blame me, you have been warned.

Next are the things that I currently do, and have found to work really well: 

1) Use sparkling water. I am the type of person that really likes carbonation. I love diet coke, but more so I love flavored (or plain) carbonated water. I drink a bottle of carbonated water almost everyday. So naturally when I am making an alcoholic beverage, carbonation is what I look for. Since I typically have sparkling water on hand, I have started mixing it with a small crystal light (or any other low calorie drink mix) packet and using that as my mixer. I love the results and it's also a rather cheap option; this particular brand of sparkling water comes in a 6 pack for under $2.00 at my local grocery store. Much cheaper than a 6 pack of soda.

2) Forget the juice and regular sodas. An easy way to cut calories while you are out at the bar is to swap high calorie juices for low calorie sodas or water. For a long time I was drinking cocktails that had cranberry juice or sprite and grenadine. The amount of sugar that I was consuming in one night was probably more than ten toddlers in tiaras downing their pixie sticks at pageants. So if you normally drink coke and rum, swap it out for diet. If you can choke down rum, you can sure handle diet coke. Nowadays I try to go for a drink with diet coke, diet tonic or club soda. If given the opportunity I will try to drink gin and diet tonic but I also like gin with club soda and extra lime!

3) Dance! I am definitely not the first person on the dance floor, and some nights I don't even make it out to the dance floor but when I do decide to grace the dance floor with my unrefined dance moves, I know that I am working up a sweat and burning calories. Even if I don't make it out to the dance floor, I still move around, singing and shaking my tail feathers, which I am sure is also burning calories.

4) Find the low calorie alternatives. A lot of companies are starting to make lower calorie options of their products. It has become a lot easier to find light margarita mix or a low calorie strawberry margarita with the alcohol already added. There is even a whole line of low calorie cocktails, vodkas and wines called Skinnygirl Cocktails. And light beer is even becoming lower and lower in calories with MGD 64 and Bud Select 55. Although if you are a beer enthusiast, you probably aren't going to enjoy the taste of a beer with only 55 calories. But I tend to drink whatever beer is put in front of me or on special at the bar. That might make me sound trashy, but this is very acceptable and understood among the college aged community.


I tried this Skinnygirl cocktail mix, it was White Peach Margarita. It wasn't my favorite of the products but you can't beat a margarita that is only  107 calories (for 4.5 oz.)!

So these are a few loopholes that I have found to drinking while on a diet. As much as I would like to believe that alcohol and dieting can be friends, I know that alcohol is not a healthy substance and that my diet would be better off without it. But for the time being I am going to keep searching for low calorie drink options!

Something I Can Be Proud Of!

When I first started working out, I wasn't working towards anything but weight loss. I wanted to get in shape but I don't think I knew what that really meant. Or what that was really going to entail. My idea of getting in better shape meant that I would be less winded when I walked up a set of stairs. Or that I would be able to last on the elliptical trainer for more than 20 minutes. I have come to find out that being in good shape can mean a wide variety of things. And because I have found that being in good shape can mean a lot of things, I have found that I have set new goals for myself but I have also reached targets that I maybe didn't set for myself, but should still be proud of.

I touched a bit on my experience with a cardio class called Cardio Kick in another post. This class is taught twice a week, but with two different teachers. The first class that I attended, the teacher was petite, energetic and appeared to be in great shape. She had us doing 3 minute jump rope intervals, I only lasted in this class for twenty minutes before busting out of the class feeling defeated and broken down. When I finally started attending this class regularly, I stopped going to her class but instead found inspiration from the other teacher. I haven't interacted much with the jump rope interval teacher since that initial class period, however she became a sub for my weight lifting class this week. I was dreading having her in class, assuming that she was going to work us too hard and once again she would show me that I still wasn't in great shape. But to my surprise she started off the class by stating that she would not be doing most of the exercises with us, because she wasn't in the best of shape.

By mid class I had an aha moment that had me beaming from ear to ear! I was lifting heavier weights and producing more reps than the teacher that originally proved to me that I had let myself go. I am still not in fighting condition, but I am on my way to becoming stronger and thinner. By having this aha moment, I was able to reflect on how far I have truly come within the 7 months that I have faithfully been attending the gym. I am lifting a heavier weight than I was just 2 weeks ago. I am running more laps that I probably have been able to in my entire life. These were not goals that I set for myself but I can't help but smile when I think about how far I have come. But I also get excited when I think about the future and what my body will look like in 7 more months!

Additionally I think I find comfort in knowing that building up endurance and muscle can come in any shape and size. I may have been able to lift more weight than the substitute teacher, or other people in the class, but other people maybe can run a longer distance or jump rope for a longer period of time than I can. By learning this, I have also learned that there is no one easy definition of 'being in shape.' Recognizing this fact has freed me from feeling judged at the gym. And I also feel less intimidated to attend a new cardio class because I know that if I suck the first time, there is no place to go but become stronger!