I've got a lovely bunch of lettuce leaves...

... there they are all standing in a row.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!

Well I've had a ton of salads in the last year but this is by far the biggest romaine leaf I've ever come across!

It's bigger than normal, right?

Anyway just thought it was something I had to share! :)

I realize I didn't do a 'Tasty Thursday' post yesterday (I did a special Tasty Monday though!) so here's another quick and easy recipe... and when I say quick and easy, I mean QUICK and EASY! The recipe doesn't even need pictures or steps it's so easy! Anyway, last night I was hungry for some good (healthy) eats so I grabbed a bunch of fresh romaine leaves, washed and tore up about 4 cups worth, added a quarter cup of crumbled feta cheese, a quarter cup of dried cranberries, a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (just plain balsamic vinegar, not balsamic vinegar dressing) and a sliced cooked Morningstar chik patty. And this is what I got:

I normally use real grilled chicken breast but I had none... BOO!

This is one of my all-time favorite go to meals when I'm in a rush. The mix of the pungent feta, sweet cranberries, and tart vinegar is so YUMMY!! I'm getting hungry just blogging about it...

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Weigh-in Wednesdays: 133.6 and CHEESEBURGERS

Last Wed. weight: 134.0
Today's weight: 133.6
Lost: -0.4
TOTAL Lost: -42.8

Still moving along...

I was going through my blog and wanted to reprint this post from April of this year because I found it kinda inspiring:

April 30, 2009

Quoted from People Magazine: "Channing Tatum may have one of the best bodies in Hollywood. But when he isn't working, he's a regular guy with a taste for "beer and cheeseburgers." "Life is too short to miss out on the beautiful things like a double cheeseburger," says Tatum, 29."

Eight months ago, this was my thinking. Whenever I went out to eat, I would splurge. Not on dollars, but calories. My infamous saying was, "You only live once. I wanna be happy and eat what I want". The thing was, I wasn't happy eating what I wanted... not even close. Yes, Channing may have a "nice" body even though he eats cheeseburgers and beer (lucky bastard!), but I am far happier where I am in my life now than eight-months-and-33-pounds-heavier ago. I am no where near my healthy body weight but I am a hella lot closer than I was eight months. When I think back at how my life used to be... fast food for dinner after I got off of work at 11:00pm, going out every weekend and spending $100's on alcohol, not exercising, not doing anything... it's no wonder I exploded up to almost 180 lbs. But it's also so remarkable how some time, effort, and patience can change you. Since starting my weight-loss journey, I have not gone through any drive thrus, I have had only a couple of drinks (TOTAL) in the last eight months, and I exercise religiously 6 days of the week.

Yes, I have a long ways to go to get my "sexy back", but today it is not a question of if anymore, but when!

Tasty Mondays: Kabocha

This is an extra 'Tasty Thursday' blog on Monday! Yay!

Kabocha. I love it! I've eaten it a ton of times but never gave it a thought to prepare on my own. Kabocha is a Japanese squash closely related to the pumpkin and if you didn't know better, you'd think it was a small pumpkin. Taste/texture wise it is just like pumpkin so can easily be substituted in recipes. These recipes (yup - I'm giving out two recipes today!) are not meals, but rather appetizers or side dishes. Like all the recipes I post, both are easy and use very minimal ingredients.

Ingredients:

- 1 kabocha, quartered

- olive oil spray

- salt and pepper

- cinnamon and stevia

1. Being extra careful and using the sharpest knife you have, quarter the kabocha.
2. On two of the quarters (so half of the kabocha) spray with olive oil spray and sprinkle with salt and pepper. On the other half, spray with olive oil.

4. Bake all quarters in a 400 degree oven for 30 - 45 minutes, or until flesh is easily pierced with a fork.
5. After baking, sprinkle cinnamon and stevia on the half of kabocha
that only had the olive oil spray.

6. ENJOY both versions of kabocha with any meal!

New month = new goals

Is it seriously November already?! WOW!

Well a new month means it's time for new goals too. Instead of doing my usual monthly goal, this month I'm going to focus on daily goals... things I should be hitting every day. I've noticed that when I make myself accountable everyday I do much better with my goals because I don't have another day to make up for anything. With a weekly/monthly goal, I would have it in the back of my head that, "Oh, if I screw up today, I'll make up for it tomorrow. No big deal." Yeah, that's not so bad...

IF I ACTUALLY LISTENED TO MYSELF!!

But no! Instead I would repeat that same phrase and keep pushing it off till tomorrow...
then tomorrow...
then tomorrow again!

Well no more! Daily accountability, here I come!

So this is the plan. I'm big on balancing out my checking account and keeping it in the positive, so I'm gonna apply that same principle to my daily healthy 'bank' account:

So I can earn anywhere from -5 to +5 max points a day (4 max pts. on my OFF exercise day)... simply put, if I do it, I get points. If I don't do it, I get negatives. And this month I'm not setting a weight goal... just wanna focus on the daily things that need to be done because if I do that, the weight-loss will follow.

Fear of who I was

Here are more answers to the GAG Challenge questions:

What is your greatest fear?
What habit do you have that you find is just impossible to break?

I decided to answer these two questions together because for me they go hand-in-hand. My greatest fear is becoming who I was at my heaviest weight.

Unhappy
Unhealthy
Unfit
Unattractive

I've been there, done that, so to go back to something I hated will only make it ten times worse. Imagine being in the darkest, scariest place you can think of. Imagine working hard everyday to get yourself out of that hellhole and how happy you are to finally be out. Now imagine you (and only you!) willingly let yourself walk through the door back into that dark place... not because you want to go back, but because you choose to go back. How do you feel?

EXACTLY!

I've worked my tail off to get healthy again and if I let myself go back to who I was, it'll make me feel even worse!

So how does my impossible-to-break-habit fit in? Well for me I CANNOT live without ice cream! Not just will not live w/o it, CANNOT live w/o it! Having ice cream most nights is the habit I find impossible to break... and you can see how this habit would lead me to my greatest fear. I know a lot of you may be thinking that's so weak, but trust me... I've tried to give it up... I've tried to cut it down to once a month... I've even tried to eat the healthy ice cream substitute crap but I just cannot! I've easily been able to give up all the other junk food I used to eat and love but I don't know what it is with ice cream. Granted I don't binge when I eat it, but I do eat some almost every night. (And yes, I realize I may be at goal weight by now had I given ice cream up a year ago, but I don't want to live the rest of my life ice-cream free. So I keep in my diet and just work harder/longer to make up for it).

I just think of it as motivation to get me moving even more (right?)!