Start of week 9

It's been another up-and-down week. Mostly I didn't do horribly. I felt exhausted and pretty awful in the middle of the week, and I ended up skipping my workout two days in a row. Luckily, I made up one of the workouts on Friday when i was planning on having a rest day. 

I did have one day where I went way over my calories, but was within range every other day, so…

Weight-wise I'm not sure. I think I'm at a little bit of a standstill. Sort of just doing that fluctuating thing I did last week. It's that time of the month though and I feel bloated sooo I'm hoping I'm weighing in heavier than I normally would be. In total I've lost 13.2 lbs since the beginning of 2012. My lowest weight this year would mean that I've lost 15 lbs, and i weighed in at that weight yesterday, so… we'll see. YES, I said in my last entry that I needed to hide the scale, but … whatever.

I got a couple new workouts from Amazon for my Wii and I'm really sad to say that I really hate both of them. I'm going to try again, but egh. I got a Zumba workout that comes with a belt you wear to put the Wii remote in. Seriously, the screen is ridiculous… it's basically a silhouette you have to follow, and it flashes all these neon colors… it's pretty irritating. The other thing is they have all these "tutorials" where you can learn the Zumba steps, and because I'm so uncoordinated I started there first. Maybe someone more familiar with dance or someone coordinated would be able to figure it out, but it's not even a tutorial. It goes super fast and the Wii remote doesn't measure your moves accurately in the belt, so it kept thinking I was doing the moves correctly when really I was just flailing around. I also got a "Just Dance" workout. This one you just hold the remote in your hand, but it STILL doesn't register when I actually do it. So… pretty aggravating. Lastly, my friend gave me her Wii Active because she wasn't using it, but again, just not working. I guess a lot of this has to do with the Wii. The Wii Active has a band you put around your upper leg. And again, just not registering right. I try to do squats and it won't let me because it already thinks I'm squatting too low even when I'm standing.

So maybe I should blame the Wii instead of the games themselves. I did replace the batteries in my remote and they're full, so not sure what the issue is.

I do still love my Gold's Gym Cardio Workout though! That's what I ended up doing today after failing at the other workouts. USUALLY registers my moves. I just think that the WIi is better suited for workouts that have you hold the remote in your hand rather than trying to put it in a pocket or on a strap of some kind.

Tomorrow I think I'm taking a rest day from working out since I'll be pretty busy. I'm going to go see Fiddler on The Roof - I bought tickets for my dad's birthday. We're also going out to dinner at Abuelo's. I'm trying to find something on the menu that might be healthy-ish, but I'm going to be careful the rest of the day. I will probably get the grilled chicken fajita salad and go light on the cheese and guac. 

Oh, I got a couple great new cookbooks! I finished browsing Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Light and put a bunch of the recipes into my MacGourmet. I'm still at the beginning of America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook and I think it's going to be great. On that note, here's my menu plan for the week:

SATURDAY

Vegetable Meat(less) Loaf

SUNDAY

Dinner @ Abuelo's (probably grilled chicken salad)

MONDAY

Portobello mushroom burgers with peaches and sweet potato fries

TUESDAY

Thai chicken and noodle salad

WEDNESDAY

"Steakhouse side" mac and cheese with broccoli 

THURSDAY

Leftovers

FRIDAY

Jimmy John's vegetarian sub

Every single recipe I'm making this week is a new one! I usually don't do that, but I'm feeling adventurous. My friend and I made the vegetable meat loaf tonight. It's a Cooking Light recipe. Not bad, but really not worth the time it took to make it (there are a LOT of steps.) I liked the idea, though - most vegetarian meatloafs have something other than veggies as the meat replacement (like lentils, or tofu) but this is made mostly of vegetables. The "meatiness" comes from two pounds of cremini mushrooms. Those were pricy! I felt there were too many walnuts. But anyway. I digress.

Going to start a fire and have some tea!

End of week 3, start of week 4

Well, it is the beginning of week four already. I can't believe how fast time goes by.

3 weeks down. I will say that in week 3  i did better than week 2, but could have done way, way better. I didn't avoid alcohol, and I didn't stay within my calorie range a couple days. I did meet my exercise goals but could have done a lot more. 

Good news is that I lost those 2 pounds I gained last week. So I'm down .2 pounds from my lowest weight since I started January 1, and in total, I've lost 10.2 pounds since i started January 1st. 

Still need to figure out what to do with my stress level. I feel like I keep trying things and they just aren't working for me. I will have to work on that. My job is just terrible!

One of my new favorite workout tools is this Wii game.. It's essentially cardio boxing, and not much else, but it's really fun. I'm having a lot of trouble getting the "jump rope" to work the way I want to… which is too bad. Anyway, I had a lot of fun with it the first time I used it and I burned over 400 calories in 45 minutes according to my heart rate monitor, so I though that was pretty awesome. I'm definitely going to want to look into getting some more Wii Fit games. 

Also wanted to share one of my favorite recipes. Not going to post it here since it's from another person's blog and I didn't alter it significantly in any way, so I'll just link it - Zesty Garlic Chicken Wraps from Crepes of Wrath (one of my favorite food blogs - everything I've made from there has been delicious!)  I used a bunch of spinach and also used sharp cheddar (chopped into small cubes) in place of the pepperjack. I've made this twice now and it's amazing. The first time, I wasn't tracking my calories so I made extra sauce because the sauce is pretty much the best thing ever. But it's definitely one of the higher-fat meals that I make (due to the olive oil, though a lot does drain off when you remove the chicken from the marinade - I tried to estimate how much I actually consume) so when tracking carefully I didn't make more sauce. So good though. 

On the creativity front, I am working on (and almost finished with) a painting that I sort of like. I'm almost out of canvas already! I'm also planning on finally opening my novel tonight after I finish this blog… I just get frustrated every time I open it. I am becoming a bit obsessed with Pinterest… there are a lot of crafts and stuff that I think even a non-crafty person like me could handle. 

Here's my menu plan for the week. I went grocery shopping yesterday. They opened a new grocery store right next to my apartment. It used to be a Cub and I never liked the produce there, but I do like the new store. It's a lot more pricy than my normal store though. 

SATURDAY

Zesty Garlic Chicken Wraps (recipe above) and baby carrots

SUNDAY

Winter Vegetable Pie (recipe here.)This is delicious, but I don't think I made it right because mine turned into more of a stew than a pie. I don't think the veggies I picked out were big enough. Tasty though!)

MONDAY

Spicy Tofu Steaks with Bok Choy 

TUESDAY

Leftovers

WEDNESDAY

Portobello mushroom and red bell pepper sandwiches w/ broccoli

THURSDAY

Jimmy John's vegetarian sub

FRIDAY

Leftovers

Things I'm looking forward to… 

Having my friend start at my work tomorrow… hoping she can help with the stressful workload!

Picking up my new glasses after work tomorrow. They finally came in on Friday but the weather was so bad that I couldn't stop to get them. 

And most of all, going to Florida! I just have 8 more working days before I get to go to Englewood. Hopefully the weather will be nice. 

Day 2, and my favorite sandwich.

I really promise I won't be blogging every day, but I mentioned that I would share my favorite sandwich when I made it this week. Recipe (and way too much annotation) is below.

Worked out more intensely today for the first time in a long time. Since November, I think. I did my super dorky step aerobics workout - Everybody Steps with Gin Miller. My senior year of college, I was trying to figure out a nice piece of exercise equipment that I could fit in my 400 square foot studio apartment, and I decided one day that I was going to start doing step aerobics. I am insanely uncoordinated, and hadn't really worked out in a long time at that point, so I decided to get a very basic intro video. That's exactly what this is. It's for beginners, but add a couple risers to the step and run around a little during the more boring parts, and you can definitely get a really, really good workout. I learned the basics of stepping with this video and I still go back to it when I haven't worked out in a long time. It's a 50-minute video, and according to my heart rate monitor, I burned 520 calories doing it. Not shabby! 

Emotionally, I am a little anxious, because i go back to work after a four-day weekend and that's always hard. I'm also emotional because it's my last week that I have at this location (with my beloved coworkers) as they are moving my unit (essentially, only 3 people at this point) to the main building. I've known about this for a few months now and I'm still not used to, or okay with, the idea. Typically, the day before I go back to work is the day where I definitely have some wine, so it feels odd to me to not have a glass (or 3) with dinner. To relax, I might do some yoga tonight on my Wii Fit - I plan on logging into the Wii every day because it wants to do a "body test" daily. I'm also planning on having some tea and working a bit on the novel I'm writing that I haven't opened in a long time. 

I am a boring blogger; sorry. I don't suspect that anyone reads this, but I like keeping it, and I figure I'd offer this delicious recipe to anyone who happens to stumble upon here. :)

Portobello and Red Bell Pepper Sandwiches

Here's my favorite sandwich that I just threw together one night and now I can't stop eating it. It's extremely variable, so I've made some notes underneath the recipe for possible customizations. My only camera is my iPhone, so I won't have any beautiful pictures to share, unfortunately. I love this sandwich because it can be served hot or cold. For dinner I like to serve it warm with steamed vegetables (such as the sad-looking broccoli in this picture); for lunch I don't bother reheating it and serve it with baby carrots.

Ingredients for four small-ish sandwiches

4 2-oz sandwich rolls (or bread) of your choice (see note)

2 large portobello mushroom caps (mine were about 80g each), stems removed and gills scraped out with a spoon, cut in half (to make 4 roughly equal pieces)

1 medium red bell pepper, each side sliced off (to make 4 roughly equal pieces)

2 oz fresh light mozzarella (see note), sliced into 4 roughly equal pieces

4 tbsp of reduced-fat mayonnaise (I use Kraft olive oil reduced-fat mayonnaise)

1/2 tsp honey mustard, or to taste 

1 clove garlic

a few baby spinach leaves, or greens of your choice

salt and pepper, optional

If the bread needs to be baked, preheat the oven to the required temperature; otherwise you can heat the rolls/bread any way you would like (toaster, on the "warm" setting in an oven or toaster oven). 

Heat a good non-stick pan over medium-high heat. If you don't have a good non-stick pan, you'll probably need to spray some cooking spray or add oil (I use an all-clad nonstick skillet that doesn't require any oil). Add the bell peppers and portobello mushrooms, and allow to cook. Flip them and press down on them occasionally.

While the vegetables cook, crush and mince the clove of garlic, and make your aioli by mixing together the mayonnaise, honey mustard, and garlic. If you want to get creative, feel free to add some herbs.

When the bell pepper starts to get brown spots and the mushrooms start to shrivel and release their liquid, they're almost ready.  For me, this usually takes about 10-12 minutes. Remove from the heat, and slice the peppers and mushrooms into manageable pieces so that they'll fit on your bread of choice. You might want to season them with salt and pepper - it depends on what type of cheese you use. If you use a salty cheese, there is no need to add salt.

Melt your cheese a little. You can microwave it briefly on a plate; otherwise, I typically spray the pan with a little cooking spray and add the cheese just until it starts to melt (if there's enough liquid left in the pan from the mushrooms, I just melt it in that.) You don't want it to be a big gooey mess, you want to be able to lift it with a spatula to put on your bread.

To assemble sandwiches, spread aioli evenly on the top half of each roll. Scoop up the melty cheese and place a slice on the bottom half of each roll. Top with the bell pepper and mushrooms evenly. Add a few leaves of greens of your choice (I like baby spinach) and top with the other half of the roll.

Serve hot or cold with a steamed or roasted vegetable (I like steamed broccoli or roasted brussels sprouts), or cold baby carrots.

Notes: You can use any bread you want, but I like using crusty bread rolls. The healthiest choice would obviously be a whole-wheat bread or roll, but I used Trader Joe's mini ciabatta rolls that you buy and then bake at home. There are a lot of "take and bake" breads available, and I like these for this sandwich because it tastes like freshly baked bread. They take about 12 minutes to bake, which is the perfect amount of time for the mushrooms and peppers to cook.

You can use any cheese you like; I like using a light fresh mozzarella (in the log form) because it is pretty mild and doesn't overpower the flavor of the mushrooms or aioli. However, today i didn't have any on hand, so I used a delicious parmesan-gouda blend and it was amazing. Might be too much flavor going on, though. The nutritional information I calculated was using the parmesan-gouda blend, which has 120 calories and 9g fat.  If you use a reduced-fat fresh mozzarella, you'd save about 40 calories and 5g fat.

Nutritional info per sandwich (calculated with parmesan/gouda blend):

254 calories

34g carbs

8.5g fat

11g protein