I'm totally still here, believe it or not. Work has been a total bear and I had Kathy in town visiting, so Weight Watchers (and blogging about my fat ass) wasn't a high priority for me. But I'm back On Plan again today and it feels good to be back in a routine.
Brief (ok, I'm never brief) synopisis of what's been going down in Chubtown. Since January 30th, which was my first weigh-in day, I'm down 11.4 lbs. Slower than molasses on humping old people in January. But! Down is down, so I will take it. Are my dreams of being Giselle by the Fall dashed against the rocks? they would be if I thought that was even possible, so no. But, I'm probably not going to be as far along as I'd hoped. C'est la vie! That's French for "Shit Happens".
The week of 3/5, Kathy was in town, so there was much dining out and cocktailing to be had. I tried to keep my dining out reigned in, except for sushi, when I stuffed my face and had to be rolled out the door. I saved my Points (which I was only mentally logging) for all the high falutin' booze we were enjoying. (Cocktails at the Chandelier in Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino, my friends. Don't miss them.)
However, on the heels of Kathy's departure, the same weekend I took my Prius II in for an oil change, I unexpectedly purchased a different car and I got hit with norovirus (again). So, I became good friends with the public restrooms the Toyota dealership mid-deal. The last thing I wanted to do was barf in my new Prius C, so I prayed to the Gut Gods on the way home and only had to pull over once. Mazel tov on your purchase!
But, I did lose 5.6 lbs the week of 3/12. I realize it's not the healthier way to do so and that it was mostly water, so I chose not to weigh myself the following Monday lest I get all depressed at the inevitable (and totally logical) gain. I couldn't seem to get back into logging, though, so I just kept my eye on things in general and was pleased to find that this week, I only gained back 1.8 lbs. So, still a loss, as far as I'm concerned.
I realize I have kind of been farting along with this, not wanting to actually exercise. I've been doing the whole, "I just need to get a handle on my food and then I'll add exercise." Well, it's been 3 months, when exactly do I plan on adding that?
Looks like I need to bust out my old Leslie Sansone Walk-Away DVDs. Those were effective for me the first time and convenient. I'm in the midst of the 4 weeks of Spring we get in Vegas before it turns into the surface of Mars, so I should take advantage of the fresh air and walk around my 'hood. And once it is kiln hot outside, I can resume the water aerobics at the gym, even if it does smell like heavily-chlorinated old people.
I can't keep ignoring the results that exercise brings to the table. I just loathe it so...
Hello! I did say I had some recipes, didn't I? I have several, but we'll start here with these yummy raisin bran muffins I found on weightwatchers.com
I made a few tiny changes to the recipe, mostly because I was lazy and forgot to soften the butter, but doing so saved me a whole point per muffin, I just discovered, so I like them even more now. I thought 5 points for one measly muffin was kind of high, but fortunately, my change whittled them down to 4 Points each and they are pretty filling. I've had one with my coffee every morning for the last couple days and along with my vitamins and maybe some fruit, it's very filling.
Raisin Bran Muffins
Original recipe: 5 points, My Version 4 Points.
Ingredients
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2 spray(s) cooking spray
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1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
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2/3 cup(s) uncooked wheat bran (I had a hard time finding this, but eventually found wheat bran at Whole Foods. Oat bran would likely work just as well.)
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1/4 tsp sea salt
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1 tsp baking soda
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2 tsp ground cinnamon (They call for one, but I love cinnamon.)
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4 tbsp Land O Lakes Light Butter with Canola Oil (They called for 1/4 cup(s) regular butter, softened, but I forgot to soften it and just used what was handy. I think they came out delicious and it saves a Point per muffin.)
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2/3 cup(s) Sugar in the Raw Turbinado Sugar from Natural Cane, or other brand
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1 large egg(s)
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1 cup buttermilk
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1 cup(s) raisins, chopped (I tried, but they were sticky, and I didn't see their tip about coating the knife in cooking spray first, so they weren't as chopped as I suspect the recipe wanted.)
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 400ºF. Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. I used butter-flavor, but plain works just as well.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, wheat bran, salt, baking soda and cinnamon; set aside.
Using an electric mixer (I did not use an electric mixer, I kicked it old school, stirring by hand) in a large bowl, cream butter with sugar until sugar is dissolved; add egg and beat thoroughly. Add 1/3 of bran mixture and 1/3 cup of buttermilk; mix until just combined. Repeat, alternating, with remaining bran mixture and buttermilk; fold in raisins. (I actually forgot to alternate and just threw in the buttermilk with the egg and creamed sugar mixture. It came out just fine.)
Fill each prepared muffin hole about 2/3 full with batter; place in middle of oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, about 15 to 20 minutes (I went around 18 minutes). One muffin per serving.
4 Points Plus
Overall, these are good muffins and not too dry if you don't overcook them. Mine came out of the pan easily and if you use butter-flavor cooking spray on the muffin tin, as I did, it's got a baked-in buttery flavor that didn't require that I add any actual butter. If I had my way, I'd add nuts and more raisins, but I know that would totally make it like an 8-10 Point muffin and that's just lame. If I'm going to have an "expensive" muffin, I'll go to a good bakery, thanks.
I've started making muffins on the weekend to eat throughout the week as I don't always like to eat breakfast. I just want something quick I can grab and a muffin is quite filling. I made the Skinnytaste banana chocolate chip muffins a couple weeks ago, which I also made some minor mods to and I'll share here soon.
Phew! Ok, so I'm back. Naturally, I finally decide to start posting actual stuff here and an upgrade hiccup made it so I couldn't. Murphy and all that, I guess.
Anyway, it's been 2 weeks since I had my pity party here over 2 lbs and I'm happy to report that after 3 weeks on Weight Watchers, I'm down 6 lbs. This week I only lost .2, which normally I'd be upset about, but since the week before I lost almost 4, I decided to just ride it out. I'm hoping next week will show more generous results.
Tracking gets a little tedious, but I'm sticking with it. Water consumption is way, way up -- about 3 liters a day, thanks to MiO's new tangerine orange flavor.
I've been cooking a lot -- just about every night . I have several recipes I'll share, some hits, a couple misses (I'll spare you those), but despite hating the mountain of dishes I always seem to have, I'm enjoying cooking. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.
Speaking of cooking, can we talk about kale chips for a minute? I've yet to make them, despite everyone's ravings, not because I'm not intrigued but because Weight Watchers counts them as FIVE points -- at least according to the recipe in this month's magazine (Weight Watchers Magazine, March/April, page 24). I think that has got to be some kind of error.
I understand that vegetables arent "free" when you incorporate them into a proper recipe (another thing I don't get), but if all I'm doing is misting some kale with olive oil cooking spray and roasting it in the oven, how exactly is that FIVE points? How much olive oil mist do you have to consume before it's five points? I tsp of olive oil is 1 point, which is what the recipe calls for per 3 cups of kale. So basically, they're saying they're saying 3 cups of kale somehow equals 4 tsp of olive oil? I call bollocks.
Here's the recipe, as they have it listed:
Weight Watchers Kale Bites
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Tear 3 cup of kale into bite-size pieces, toss with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper.
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Spread on a greased baking sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until crispy.
5 Points*
*Pointsplus Values were calculated by adding the nutrition information for each ingredient using the online recipe builder.
I used the recipe builder myself to see if that was accurate and indeed, it shows up as 5 points. If you remove the kale entirely from the recipe, it's back to 1 point. I personally would just use my olive oil mister, but kale is actually four points on its own? Lame.
I realize kale is healthy for you, but I don't really see how five points would motivate someone to go through the trouble of making kale chips when cracking open a bag of beloved baked Cheetos "costs less". Are they 5 points good?
