Revision

Just in case anyone is interested, I revised my apple crisp recipe and it is much better now.

My First 5K

Today I completed my first official 5K! Notice I said "completed." I very intentionally did not say "ran." I am a humongous wimp when it comes to running. I get so frustrated because my legs would totally go a lot harder and faster but I get completely winded!

I didn't train at all for this so I am thinking maybe I need to start doing a little running and see how I do on another one. But I don't have a treadmill (not that I think those are overly effective anyway) and my hubby is gone at work for all of the hours of the day that have daylight. I am scared to death to run by myself in the dark and have at least three kids at home all day. I need to figure something out because I think it would be cool to actually compete not just complete!

My time was 40:01. Not good, but I am glad I did it. My goal was actually to come in under 45:00 because I know what huge wimp I am when it comes to running and I actually beat that by 5 minutes! I also didn't want to come in last. That was my biggest fear! But it was a very casual 5K so there were a lot of walkers. There was a big pack of people up front, a big pack in the back, and stragglers all through the middle. I was towards the rear of the middle stragglers.

Any suggestions for training for running in my situation would be very welcomed!!

I made it through Thanksgiving!!

I made it through Thanksgiving without going crazy on the food! Yeah for me! I staying within my points today and there actually was food there that I liked (despite my earlier claims that there would not be anything that I liked anyway).

I still want to eat more than I do but for some reason, it is all of the sudden getting easier to know when to call it quits and to call it quits. Knowing and doing are two different things. I have never really had a problem with the knowing part, but the doing has taken some time. But I AM doing and it feels great!

I hope my diligence pays off at the weigh in this week!

Apple Crisp

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving (and Christmas for that matter) has been the pie! Oh I love pie! My favorite? Apple crisp - especially warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting over the top! BUT, I also know that apple crisp is FULL of sugar and fat (at least the recipe I have).

I have been eating Healthy Choice meals now and then and they have a wonderful oatmeal topping for their apple crisp. I figured if it was part of this meal, I should be able to find a recipe online for a healthy apple crisp topping. I could skip the crust, put the crisp part on top, and be good to go! Every recipe I found had butter in it! I looked at the ingredient list on the box - NO BUTTER!

So, I decided to try my own recipe using the ingredients listed on the box. And I must say, it turned out decent. It wasn't great, but it is a good substitute. Don't get me wrong, this recipe is definitely NOT calorie free. It is LOADED with sugar. BUT it has NO fat and lots FEWER calories than the real thing!

1 jar apple pie filling
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp dark Karo syrup
1 Tbsp honey
1 cup rolled oats
butter spray

***REVISION FROM ORIGINAL POST***
To help crisp up the topping (and keep it crisper longer) bake the topping for 1 1/2 to 2 hours at 225 degrees. Turn every half hour. I sprayed the topping with butter spray, cooked if for 1/2 hour, turned it and then sprayed it again (so the bottom also got coated). This also seems to improve the flavor quite a bit. Cool.

Pour and spread the pie filling into an 8x8 baking dish (sprayed with cooking spray). Combine sugar, syrup and honey in saucepan and cook over medium heat until well mixed. Add oats and stir until well coated. Remove from heat and spread over apple filling. Spray the topping with butter spray. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

The ingredients list also had molasses but I didn't have any. I think it would probably have been better with a touch of molasses but I can't say for sure!

Potato update

Okay, so do you remember a couple of posts back, I mentioned a party that I attended (and was actually good at) where they served mashed potatoes? I didn't eat them because I wasn't sure what was in them (but had a pretty good idea from a small taste test that it wasn't very diet friendly). Well, I found the recipe for them. I am SOOOOO glad I passed on the mashed potatoes:

15 medium (5 pounds) potatoes, peeled and quartered
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons onion powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 egg whites, slightly beaten
4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup chopped chives (optional)

Seriously! Who comes up with recipes like this? This just shows me that I really have made some changes. Last year, I would not only have eaten the potatoes, but I would have sought out the recipe and made some myself. Now, I look it at this recipe, and it doesn't even look tempting to me. It looks a little bit more like a heart attack in a crock pot!

By the way, I do have a good recipe for mashed potatoes that is still yummy but much healthier! Okay, maybe not technically a recipe, but...

I boil my potatoes (amounts depends on number to be served). Drain the water and blend in a small amount of skim milk and Butter Buds or Molly McButter (sometimes I do a mixture of the two) to taste! I have also added some butter spray before. Still very yummy but no where near the calories and fat of potatoes that have real butter in them.

Weigh in

I know, I have really been slacking in blogger land. Rest assured that all of my blogs have been lacking, not just this one. I just haven't been into blogging the last couple of weeks. BUT, I do have a tendency to go in spurts so stick around....

I figured the least I can do is keep up with my weigh in updates - makes me be more accountable. I didn't post great numbers this week, but I DID lose. And that is what really matters, especially at this point. I really want to lose another 7.4 pounds before the end of the year, but I figure it isn't the end of the world if I don't. I have far surpassed my original goal and I am very happy with that. At this point, my focus is more on NOT gaining than on posting huge numbers at the weigh in. I am still working out because I think one area I am lacking in is toning. I have lost the weight, now I really need to get what is left into better shape!

Weigh in

I am officially a scale buster!! Yeah!! I am now OFFICIALLY in the 130's!!! When I started this journey, my end goal was to be in the 150's. I didn't think it would even be possible for me to go any lower. To have my weight in the 130's...I don't even know what to say!! I only have 8 pounds to go to be able to say that I lost 50 pounds in one year. How cool would that be?

I finally did it!!

It has taken almost a year, but I finally did it! I went to a dinner on Wednesday night and I did fabulous!!

We were served mashed potatoes, ham, corn, rolls, and some sort of jello fruit salad. I didn't eat the salad because it was packed with all sorts of very sugary fruit. I skipped the mashed potatoes because I had no idea what they were made with. I even took a little taste and they were YUMMY. But I still didn't eat them! I ate the ham and the corn and about 1 ounce of a roll (the fact that I know how much an ounce of a roll looks like says I have weighed WAY too many rolls). I even skipped dessert because while they all looked very yummy, they also all looked very fattening and I knew I didn't NEED it.

BUT - it gets better! Last night, I was feeling lazy and bought pizza for my kids for dinner. There was a mix up at the pizza place so they threw in free breadsticks. I looked up the points and had one piece of pizza and one breadstick (the amount of points I normally eat for dinner). A year ago, I would have eaten AT LEAST half a pizza, a few breadsticks, and throw in some soda (I always thought you couldn't possibly eat pizza without soda).

I was good, two nights in a row! AND my hubby is out of town so there wasn't even anyone around to know if I was bad. I always used that as an excuse. My hubby is out of town, I am stressed, I deserve to eat whatever I want. WHAT?!?! And I also deserve to feel like crap and gain weight, right?

I think I am far from having my "food addiction" cured, but I am doing SOOOO much better than I was a year ago!

Another milestone!!...(but I cheated)

Whoa!! I stepped on the scale today and I was in the 130's!!! Hello! I can't even remember the last time I was there! I'm guessing '92-'93-ish. Okay, okay, I have to admit, I kind of cheated. I volunteered at my son's school. It was 1:00 and I hadn't eaten since breakfast (7:00 this morning, a bowl of cereal). I got on the scale with a jacket on (I forgot I was wearing it) and weighed 140.8. So, I took the jacket off and then shed some other extra clothing to get down in the 130's but I figure my true weight would be without the clothes anyway!! Hip, hip, HOORAY for me!! We'll see what my weight is tomorrow at the weigh in but it was AWESOME to see those numbers actually register on the scale!

Halloween should be outlawed!

This is a picture of about HALF the candy my kids brought home.

Can I just say that when you have five children, all young enough to go trick or treating, you end up with A LOT of candy after Halloween is over?!?! I have not done so well with staying out of my kids treats! I have to say that the candy I have eaten has still been within my daily points, BUT I would be better off using my points on healthier options. I have actually done pretty good this year with staying away from treats. I hadn't thought about Halloween. I stay away from treats because I don't buy them! Thanks to Halloween, we are now stocked!!

Every year, we let our kids pick out a certain number of their favorite treats. The rest of the treats go in a "community bowl" for everyone to share. This stash usually last us well into the next calendar year because I usually only let my kids have a piece or two a day. After the newness of it wears off, it goes down to a few pieces a week. BUT this also means that there is candy at my house for a long time!!

Some people say just to let the kids have at and get it over with. But I feel like that teaches them to binge eat. I'd rather teach them that it is still okay to have treats as long as they do it in moderation. Now I guess I need to move on from just keeping the treats away, to having the willpower to not eat them even when they are around. I will admit, if I can gain that willpower, going out to restaurants and parties will be MUCH easier!

Weigh in

Just a quick update. I lost another pound and a full percent of body fat so I am no longer the ONLY person who hasn't lost body fat! Yeah!! It is amazing what happens when I actually exercise.