First Week of Weight Watching Completed!

Well, I have just returned home from my first week weigh in and I lost 5 pounds. I was pretty surprised as I really ate a LOT of food this week. The difference being that the foods I'm eating now are higher in protein and complex carbs. Also eating a lot of fresh fruits and veggies. Here are some of the highlights from this week in food:

Breakfast: the best find so far for convenience and sustainability is a breakfast oatmeal shake recipe that I found and then altered. It consists of 1 packet of instant oatmeal (unflavored) that you mix with 2 cups of water and boil. Then pour into a blender with 1 cup non-fat milk, 1 cup icce cubes and 1/2 banana. The whole thing is about 2 large cups and costs about 5 points. I've been making this before leaving for the day. Drinking one cup quickly at home and then drinking the other throughout the morning at work along with my coffee.

Snack: I've found that purchasing the pre-cut fresh carrot slices are an easy and tasty snack too, I've been eating those along with a handful of snap peas with 2 TBLS of athenos hummus. The snack is only 1 point and the crunch along with the garlicy hummus is very satisfying.

Lunch: I've made and frozen two soups that have both been fabulous, one a cheese tortellini in broth with fresh baby spinach leaves, the other a minestrone soup. I've also found that 1/2 a cup of tuna in a whole wheat pita with zero point vinegrette is very filling too!

Dinner: So far the options have been a "lighter baked macaroni" "Turkey Zuchinni" burger patties and "ground beef with spinach meatballs. All options taste good and leave me full.

Dessert (my favorite): I've fallen in love with the Skinny Cow brand icecream sandwiches, they were on sale at Safeway last week and I tried them, 4 points a piece but they are worth it! I also baked an Angel Food cake early this week. I sliced it up into portions that are 4 points a piece and froze them. One piece of that cake along with some fresh ruby red grapefruit segements and sliced fresh pear is delicious!

I hope that week two goes as well for me as week one has. I hope to encorporate some excercise in as well but have yet to figure out when and what.

Cheers, and happy new year!

Preparing for Next Year! A new go at freezer cooking for the Moorhead Household!

A few weeks ago I learned that one of my benefits through our insurance is the opportunity to participate in Weight Watchers with out having to pay. We are able to get 14 meeting vouchers and as long as I attend 10 or more meetings in a 14 week period, I can get an additional 14 vouchers for more meetings. I can do this up to 4 times per calendar year. So, I've ordered my vouchers (which should be arriving any day now) and plan to begin weight watchers next week after our Christmas weekend has passed.

This evening I discovered a blog chock full of weight watcher recipes. All the portions have been figured out per recipe and the point value per serving is included. So, I'm prepping this evening for my shopping trip tomorrow. I began by selecting recipes to try, aiming to get about 60 servings of dinner entrees as well as trying a lunch item, and a couple of desserts. Here is our menu for the upcoming month:

Spinach Tortellini Soup
turkey Croquettes
Baked Ziti with Spinach
Minestrone Soup
Santa Fe Chicken
Chicken and White Bean Enchiladas
Italian Spinach Meatballs
Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Turkey Burgers with Zuchinni
Pomegranate Scones
No Bake Fudgey Snowballs
Banana Pancakes
Carrot Cupcakes

Once I'd selected the recipes I put together a shopping list for tomorrow. I am now ready to brave the grocery store with my two little girls tomorrow morning (first Monday of Christmas break) as soon as we are all up, fed and ready to go.

I'm looking forward to putting these meals together. I am planning on packaging them differently this time though. Since we will be counting points I'll be freezing meals in either single or double servings which in essence means that some evenings we could potentially all be eating different meals. However, since all the cooking will be done ahead of time it will not entail additional work from myself or my hubby!

Pictures of completed ready to freeze meals to come soon!

Ho Ho Ho Holidays!

I am really excited to be sitting by a warm fire and a decorated Christmas tree this evening after putting my girls to bed! We had a busy weekend and I was lucky enough to get a little nap in this Sunday afternoon!

We started the weekend off by continuing our tradition of taking a trip to Hallmark to pick out our ornaments for the year. Sydney got her baby's first Christmas ornament, a winnie the pooh selection, Emma picked out an iceskating Mickey and Minnie mouse, McKenzie found a Batman and I got another Santa ornament. Just as we were about to leave I spied some very cute stockings. I'd been on the hunt for just the right stockings for the girls and was very excited to see these! Everywhere I'd been looking I'd found stockings but the fabric seemed to thin, or they were covered by cartoon characters that were very popular right now, and I wanted something more classic.

So, these stockings are perfect! Emma chose the snowman and we picked the reindeer for Sydney. They each have a little chalk board where we can write the kids names, and a little pocket to hold the chalk. I figure when they are bigger they can practice writing their names themselves and that will be fun! As for now, I've written their names and they are hung with care on the hearth.

On Saturday, we had many plans, McKenzie started off the day prepping a turkey that he then took to a friends house to fry/eat while they watched the civil war. Lucky for us all the Ducks won the game and continued with their perfect season. While McKenzie was gone the girls and I began our morning with their first shared bath.

Later my mom came and picked up Emma to play at her house and then we meet back up at Aunt Nancy's for cousing Hudson's third birthday party. It was a very busy, tiring, but great day!

Sunday was yet another adventure. We went out to Ramsby's tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. My mom and Ayaka and Akari joined us and we had a great time finding just the right tree, cutting it down and then having a bit of cocoa before returning home to continue with holiday festivities.

We all had fun playing in the trees, and Emma even got to "drive" a little tractor as we got ready to head home!

Once we got home McKenzie got our tree all set up. I started some fresh sugar cookies and we shared a lunch of sandwiches and sandwich wraps. I covered our tree in lights and then the decorating ensued! Akaria, Ayaka, Emma, my mom and myself unwrapped and hung many ornaments with care. When we were done it looked just perfect :)

After decorating the tree, we spent some time decorating cookies. Emma was so focused, she concentrated on placing sprinkles just perfectly onto her cookie. Then licked them off, got a new color of frosting and placed more sprinkles again.

Later that evening Sydney had her daily meal of rice cereal. this is about her 7th day of the cereal and she has caught on to eating from a spoon much quicker than Emma did at this age. She is still very messy but loves the cereal and I can't seem to feed her fast enough most evenings. Lately she has taken to clasping her hands in front of her while she eats, sometimes sucking on her fingers after I've given her a bite. It's just so cute! Sydney suddenly seems to be growing up so fast!