Protein Shake? For Breakfast?

So I need your guys help! Please? :-)

So I've been thinking about starting to have protein shakes in the morning for breakfast. The problem? I have no idea where to start and no knowledge really on this subject. That's where you lovely people come into play :-) Do any of you have protein shakes for breakfast or any other meal? If so, what are your favorite recipes or essential things to put into it? I know that a lot of protein shakes call for some kind of protein powder. For some reason I've always been "leary" of using protein powder, I feel as though it's not as nutritious or good for you as regular food. What do you guys think of protein powder and which ones are your favorite? Also, I saw that you can substitute egg whites instead of using protein powder. Is this as effective?

Sorry for all of the questions!! Hopefully someone out there has the energy and knowledge to answer them.

:-)

Happy Hump Day!!

Mmm Monday

Happy Monday to everyone! Personally my Monday would be much nicer if it would stop raining! It has been raining nearly non-stop since Friday and all last week as well. Hmm oh well I guess it's supposed to be stopping after today. I must say I love logging on here Monday morning after the weekend and reading all the blogs. I purposely don't read anything over the weekend so I have a lot to read come Monday. :-)

Food this weekend wasn't good at all. I honestly can't remember half of the stuff I ate which is the worst part. I'm not choosing what to eat, instead I just shovel stuff into my mouth. I've tried to be very conscious about what I eat so far today. For breakfast I had half of a grilled chicken breast with some ketchup and a small glass of milk. I guess that wasn't enough to hold me over because about 20 minutes ago my stomach started growling so I went upstairs and got a bagel w/ cream cheese from the vending machine. I was very proud of myself because the second I opened it up I threw the bigger half away and just ate 1/2 of the bagel with a tiny bit of cream cheese. According to the nutrition facts, 1/2 of the bagel should be about 115 calories so not too bad. I have also been trying to load up on water. Friday I drank 3L which is really good for me and so far today I've drank about 1L. My goal is to drink at least 3 a day. Today I brought one of my Blueberry Turkey Burgers for lunch. Now don't get me wrong they are very tasty but I am such a visual person that I'm not sure I can get myself to eat it. It looks like a mushed up blueberry muffin but it tastes like a Turkey Burger. I don't know I just hope I get paid today so I can go grocery shopping and get some more yummy healthy foods.

Exercise has been pretty blah. (No surprise there!) I had to be to work at 6am today for some overtime so I wasn't able to do my circuit training this morning but I plan on doing it tonight when I get home and then start doing it in the mornings for the rest of the week. I'm very excited about starting that I think it will really boost my confidence and give me a kick in the butt that I need.

I'm trying to find ways to keep me motivated. I took some "before" pictures (not too cute) and now I just have to find the cord to hook my camera up to my computer to post them (even though I don't want to lol) on here. I think I'll do that tonight. Also, another blogger mentioned starting to take pictures of everything they eat to keep themselves accountable and I think I am going to start that as well. I think it will really help me when I have to stop to take a picture before I eat anything. I suppose that is enough for now.

Toodles

:-)

New Love...

So I found a new love...

Cooking.

I've never been much of a cooker and basically relied on my mom for meals (pretty lame I know). But I've come to realize that if I want healthy meals I have to make them myself so I can prepare them how I need and want them prepared. Last night I went grocery shopping and got supplies to make Blueberry Turkey Burgers and Veggie Quesadillas. I made the burgers last night and oh my goodness they are AMAZING! I don't even know how to describe them. They are kind of sweet which isn't a suprise considering there are blueberries in there. I brought one for lunch today with some steamed asparagus and lowfat mozzarella cheese to put on top. I def. should have bought wayyyy more asparagus, I forgot how much I LOVE it! Too delicious!! I can't wait for 11am to roll around!

Didn't work out at all yesterday but I will be taking a walk with my mom after work. She usually walks about 2 miles. This weekend I'm going to start getting into the circuit training and then start full blast on Monday. It's going to be fun and I think I'm actually going to enjoy it. I know it'll make me feel and look better so I can't wait to get started.

Happy Friday!!

Reflection

So I'm very glad that I weighed myself last night. It helped to open my eyes to what I needed to see. How can I be motivated enough to do anything if I have no idea where the starting line is and how far I have to go to achieve my goals? So I decided now would be a good time to reflect on what has contributed to this weight gain and what I'm going to do to change it.

1. Not exercising - Hmm no surprise here that this has contributed to significant weight gain. My plan is to get my lazy ass up an hour earlier than I do now and work out each morning before work. My problem is when my alarm goes off at 5am I think "No way in hell am I getting up right now" and reset my alarm for 6am. I've come to realize that within 20 minutes of waking up I no longer remember how 'amazing' it feels to be laying in bed, but if I used that extra hour to work out I would see the results. Basically it's waste an hour sleeping that I don't even remember or get my ass up and make a change. I like the latter. I'm a very 'plan-y' person so I've layed out my routine. M-F I am going to do circuit training in the morning. Monday and Friday will be intervals of walking on the treadmill and arms, abs and legs. Tuesday will be treadmill and abs, Wednesday will be treadmill and arms, Thursday treadmill and legs. I will also go on a 2 mile walk after work with my mom when I'm not busy doing other things. Saturday or Sunday (whichever I'm available) I will mix it up doing some kind of cardio. I'm thinking either long walks or maybe doing one of the exercise videos I have.

2. I'm Happily In Love - Now I don't plan on doing anything drastic here lol except re-evaluating using this as an 'excuse' for my weight gain. When you're in love and your boyfriend (or girlfriend) tells you that you are sexy and they love you no matter what it makes you feel ok about eating McDonald's and it makes you feel ok about gaining 10, 20 even 30lbs. If they don't mind it you shouldn't either right? Wrong. Yeah, my boyfriend loves me but if I truely loved myself and was genuinely happy with me and my body, I would be allowing him to love me even more. They say if you don't love yourself no one else can love you as well and it's very true. Not only is this transformation for me but for him as well. He deserves a happy, healthy girlfriend beacuse he is absolutely wonderful.

3. Fast Food - Again, not a huge suprise as to why I've gained weight. I eat fast food multiple times a week. When I'm with my boyfriend we eat fast food, when I'm shopping with my friends we eat fast food, at work for lunch I eat fast food. Man, that's nearly 6 or 7 times a week that I eat fast food. Not only is it bad for my waistline but also for my wallet. I never realized how much money a week I spend on food. I could go and spend $30 at the grocery store and have enough food for lunches and dinners all week. But instead I spend $40 on just lunch and maybe a dinner here and there. So now I need to start buying food to make myself healthy lunches and dinners and refuse to eat out with my boyfriend and friends. Lol easier said than done. I am going to the grocery store tonight to get some stuff to make Blueberry Turkey Burgers and Veggie Quesadillas. Yummy :-)

Whew, sorry for such a long post. I think those are the 3 main reasons for my weight gain and I think that writing them down and now knowing my starting weight will really help me to focus on me and getting healthy and happy. I can't wait, it'll be a fun ride.

:-)

Embarassing? Yes...Suprising? No

So even though I'm very embarrassed right now I figured that talking about what just happened would help me to kick my own ass.

So I decided to finally weigh myself seeing as I haven't since I "started" this journey back in January. So since my digital scale sucks and I need to get a new one I hopped on my mom's non-digital scale (is there a better term for that?) and guess what happened? I exceeded the weight limit of 266 lbs. Hmm how embarrassing? But unfortunately not surprising. So I hopped on my digital scale and tried to get a reading I thought was about right. Now my digital scale gives me a different reading every time I stand on it and it varies depending on if I move the scale or not. So the general reading was about 270. Blah. It makes me feel so gross. I figure since I'm not positive about my exact weight right now my first goal is to get down to a weight that I can actually measure on my mom's scale. Ha

So anyways I plan on taking pictures tonight and will post them on my pictures page that is currently empty. Ooops. I'll let you guys know when they're up.

I've been steady researching recipes to make and have found a ton really yummy looking ones on recipezaar.com (Thanks to the blogger who suggested this website!!) Tomorrow I'm going to the grocery store with my mom and I think I'm going to get stuff to make Blueberry Turkey Burgers. They sounded soooo good in the recipe I hope they are! I think I'm also going to get stuff to make Veggie Quesadilla's so I can get this weight loss mission on a role.

So I hope you all are having a great Wednesday! And thank you to ALL of you for your ongoing inspiration.

:-)

Exhausted

So I had a SUPER busy weekend but it was a blast!

Saturday we headed down to Illinois for my cousin's wedding which was tonssss of fun. The wedding was really beautiful, it took place in this really old Catholic Church that was just breathtaking. I've always been really into architecture and hope to someday get a degree in it so I was in heaven once we stepped inside the church. I must say, however, that the best part of the wedding was definetly the fact that my cousin's bulldog, Hotrod, was the ring bearer complete with doggy tuxedo. It was tooo cute! :-) I did pretty well on food at the wedding. We had a delicious salad, pulled pork with bbq sauce, cheesy potatoes and almond green beans. I took little portions of each and didn't have any cake so overall I think I did pretty good.

Sunday was my brother's confirmation, food wasn't too good there. My boyfriend came and met the majority of my extended family for the first time. It went really well but of course the added stress of that plus the fact that we had tons of food: more pulled pork, cheese, crackers, sausage, veggies, fruit, tons of dip and chips, brownies and 3 cakes! Ahhh it was a nightmare for my hips. Trying to get back on track and still searching for some good recipes. I found one for black bean stuffed sweet potatoes that sounds delicious so I think I'm going to try that next.

I want to start doing circuit training for an hour a day, I think it would keep me from not getting bored and I heard it burns more calories than just cardio alone. Does anyone do circuit training or know much about it? I think tonight I'm going to just do some research and planning since I'm bloated and PMS-ing and don't feel like working out lol. It's funny you know how they say that women's cycles synch up after they around each other a lot? It must be true for bloggers too lol because almost everyone I follow on here is getting their lovely visit from TOM right now. Hmm kind of ironic lol.

Well, Happy Monday! :-)

The Weekend Has Arrived!!

So I'm doing my best to blog more, I mean what's the point of having one of these if I don't write in it?

This weekend is going to be SUPER busy!! But it'll be lots of fun. Tonight I have to rest up because i'll basically be in autopilot on Saturday and Sunday. Tomorrow we have a family wedding to attend in Hampshire, Illinois which isn't too far outside of Chicago. It's ab0ut a 1hr 45min. drive from Madison so it's not too bad. I am re-evaluating my sanity, however, regarding my ride home. On my way home I'm going to be driving up through Milwaukee and then back to Madison so that I can pick up my boyfriend and bring him to my house for Sunday's festivities. That drive will total about 3 1/2 hours...blah.

It'll be worth it though, because my brother is getting confirmed into the Catholic church on Sunday morning and really wants him to be there for that and the family party afterward. The family party is going to be consistent of both my mom and dad's sides of the family (Even though they are divorced they are still civil) which is about 50 people total.

My mom was praying for good weather, the forecast is showers all day.

Hmm

Let the chaos begin :-)

Food...

So lately I've been searching online trying to find some healthy recipes that I can prepare for lunches and dinners, since I'm trying to completely makeover my eating habits. I'm quite suprised that I really haven't found a whole lot of resources. I have found eatingwell.com which has some good ones and I found a cook from the Food Network, I think her name is Ellie Krieger, that prepares some great recipes. But overall, most of the websites I go to have recipes that have been submitted from people and it kind of makes me leary on how healthy they really are. I'm trying to use what little knowledge I have of eating healthy to de-code some of these recipes but it's hard when I'm pretty new to all of this.

Does anyone know of any good websites or recipe books that are out there?

Also, I noticed on some websites like fitnessmagazine.com that some of the recipes were 400-500 calories per serving. Isn't this a little high? I was under the impression that around 300-400 calories per serving of big meals (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner) was sufficient.

Any thoughts?

Bankrupt?

A Journey of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step...

Baby steps are good, baby steps are necessary. Nothing happens overnight, as we all know very well. My family went to the Harley Davidson museum in Milwaukee on Sunday and it may sound weird but it helped inspire me further on this "journey". Harley Davidson was founded by 4 guys back in 1903 in a 8'x10' shack. You got to see their progression, how they supplied motorcycles for WWII, and even when they were bought by AMF because they couldn't do it on their own anymore. They eventually bought the company back but it was basically buy the company back or go bankrupt and it reminded me of any weight loss journey. You start small with itty bitty baby steps, maybe first cutting out soda, then commiting yourself to exercising 3x a week. Once you get comfortable with managing that you up the exercise, throw in some healthy eating that you've got a recipe for success; however, there will always be a point, no matter who you are, when you run the risk of going "bankrupt". You have to sit down and go over what's working and what's not and sometimes be "bought" just to keep your head above water. Whether you'r'e bought by food and decide to allow yourself an extra snack here and there or by cutting down your exercise so that you're making "cut backs" in order to keep yourself from quitting all together. Then, you get to a point where quitting seems so easy, it seems within reach beacuse you've started to limit yourself and you have forgotten how capable you are of doing great things. It comes down to a decision: go bankrupt or "buy" your life back. If you can look back and reflect on what worked and what didn't it's always possible to buy your life back, it's all about baby steps, about having support and about wanting to change for you. I think we all need to almost be "bankrupt" in order to get that kick in the butt we all need. You need to be ready to quit in order to realize how badly you want this. Hmm so enough of pretending I'm a philosopher. Ha. Well I never realized how cheap it can be to make meals for the week. Last night I made potato gnocchi with cut up zucchini and cherry tomatoes in a creamy pesto sauce. It made 3 servings and each serving comes out to be about 310 calories. Yummy I can't wait to try it. The best part was that all of that together cost me about $10.00 total. I was shocked, I've wanted to make healthy meals to bring to work for lunch but I was always procrastinating because I figured it would be expensive but it wasn't. Also, this may sound like a stupid no brainer question but is pasta considered processed food? I'm trying to eat as "clean" as I can and I know that pasta isn't the healthiest with all the carbs but is it processed? Hmm I'm not sure. I've also decided that I am going to start walking to/from work. It's about a 2 mile walk and I think that would be great for me to walk at least 4 miles a day. I'm actually quite excited about starting I just have to figure out how long it will take me so I don't end up being late lol. I think about 40-45 minutes. Hmm. Anyways, toodles and hope you all are doing wonderfully today. :-)