Taco Salad

When people think of eating healthy it seems like they automatically think of salads, that salads are "diet food." While this may be true, salads can also be amazingly delicious and amazingly fattening if you don't know what is going in it. The dressing, that is the real killer. I must say, if I am going to have "just a salad" then you can bet that I'm gonna have some kind of delicious dressing on that salad - and a lot of it. Well, I figured out how to cheat the dressing gods and have a delicious full fat dressing that coats my entire salad without spending my entire booty of WW points on it. Forge ahead to find out how.

Taco Salad:
8p+ for 1 MASSIVE serving.

2C chopped romaine
1/2C spinach
1/2C grape tomatoes
10 large olives, sliced
1/4C shredded carrot
1/4C chopped bell peppers
1/3C kidney beans
2T Fresh Gourmet tortilla strips, santa fe style
2T ranch (made from a hidden valley packet)
2T salsa

Throw everything from romaine to tortilla strips in a bowl and call it macaroni. Acutally don't, that could be confusing. Call it taco salad! My taco salad is sans meat, I get protein from the kindey beans so that is good enough for me. It wasn't worth the extra points for taco meat on here. Ground turkey cooked in taco seasoning might be a good compromise. I'll let you decide.

Right, the dressing.

Don't put the salsa in the salad then add the ranch. No. You must mix the ranch and the salsa in a separate container, then pour it over and toss. This makes the ranch go so much futher and more evenly distributes over the ginornmous salad. It's salad science really.

Enjoy!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Holy smokes it is getting increasingly colder outside by the day. How to people live in places that snow? Seriously. I could never do that. Contrary to popular belief California is not always sunny (and the roads are not actually paved with gold in case you were wondering). I live in Northern California, which may as well be a totally different state. It is freezing balls here. I decided to warm myself up with some delicious chicken tortilla soup. This is an easy recipe that can be done in the crock-pot, and it is a decent amount of points for the serving size for those of you following Weight Watchers (like me!). Note: if you are doing WW, you should be able to search for this recipe in the tracker, Erika's Chicken Tortilla Soup, and it should come up so you don't have to add everything to the recipe builder yourself.

Chicken Tortilla Soup:

Makes 6 servings at 7 p+ per serving (not including tortilla strips and sour cream on top). With Tortilla Strips and 2T sour cream 12p+

1 15oz can red enchilada sauce
1 can corn, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small can diced green chiles
1/2 packet taco seasoning
3 chicken breasts (I put mine in frozen, thawed is fine, too)
1 can reduced fat cream of chicken soup
1 medium sized can sliced olives (like 5-7oz... somewhere in there)
2-3C low sodium chicken broth (depending on how thin you want the soup)

Put everything in the crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours. Make good homemade food is so ridiculously easy that is saddens me more people don't take the time to cook.

After 8 hours, take out the chicken breasts, shred and put back in the soup.

To make the yummy tortilla strips on top:

2 corn tortillas, sliced up using a pizza cutter
2tsp canola oil
salt.

Toss tortillas in canola, line em up on a baking sheet and bake at 425 for 4-6 minutes, then flip and bake for another 4 minutes until golden and delicious all over. Sprinkle with salt while hot, and serve over soup.

Case of the Mondays

So it's Monday. Enough said.

I went to Zumba on Saturday, it was great. I was really proud of myself for actually getting up and going. I did not go to the gym yesterday as yesterday I had a fun filled day of homework on my plate. Oh yea, so I'm in grad school online for my master's in marriage and family therapy. I've wanted to be a therapist since I was like 12. I was a strange child. 

Anywho, onto WLJ (weight loss journey) talk. I have officially packed my gym clothes bag and will be going to zumba tonight after work. I brought my HRM again, it is really exciting to get an accurate picture of how many calories I am burning. 

My menu for the day:

B: chocolate slim-fast

S: banana, Chobani 0% - probably peach. 

L: turkey sandwich on a roll with 2tsp mayo and mustard with baby carrots and a diet pepsi

pre work out S: 16 RF wheat thins and 2T hummus

D: TBD, will have about 10p+ to spend on dinner. 

Why is dinner TBD you ask? Shouldn't I have all my meals planned, you ask?

Well my boyfriend and I recently bought a house, okay recently is a stretch we bough the damn thing a year ago and have slowly remodeling for what feels like forever. The house we were renting in the mean time sold and we had to move out. My parents took us in until our house is done. More on the joys of living with the parents later. Right, the dinner... my mom is making dinner tonight and is apparently incapable of planning ahead. 

Guess I should get some work done. Yea... we'll go with that. 

Day 1

Well here I am... Age 25 and over 183 pounds at only 5'2". It's time for me to start. I mean really start. Not be all hung-ho and commit to exercising and weight watchers only to lose 10 pounds then fall off the wagon again. Not again. I really cannot deal with the failure of gaining back any weight I lose again. Yea, part of it is the superficial part of me that wants to be able to go out with friends and not always be comparing myself to everyone else in the room, looking to check that I am not the heaviest - though usually I am. This is also a dedication to being a healthy person. I want to have kids one day and be an active mom, I want to run 5Ks (heck I would settle for grocery shopping without breaking a sweat), I want to go to the beach and wear a bathing suit, I want to look good for my man so I am not embarrassed every time he touches me, I want I want I want. So if I want it so bad, then why can't I just do it? There lies the question.

I have stopped and started so many times I can't even keep track anymore. But no more. This girl is getting serious about being healthy.

So about weight watchers, aka WW. I love WW, it is a fabulous plan that can literally fit any lifestyle. They do not pay me to write these things I swear. It is really amazing. Like 2 go-rounds ago I lost about 30 pounds. I have no idea why I gave up that time. I felt so great about myself and was on the right track to healthy... when I fell off. I gained nearly every pound back. My original start weight was about 186. Here is am just over 183 and ready to really commit to this.

This is my new accountability. This is where I will post (not everyday, I can't commit to that) what I am eating, what I am doing for exercise, and most importantly how I am feeling about my self. I will probably post at least weekly to keep record of my weigh-ins (WI) which happen on Fridays. At WI yesterday (12/7) I was at 183.4.

I know this will not be easy, I know it will take self-control, dedication, and the occasional splurge so I don't go absolutely crazy; but I know I can do it. Right now I have a goal weight of 133. When I want to reach that goal is unknown, I can't really put a strict time limit on it, that wouldn't be fair to my psyche or my body. All I really want are steady losses and to feel better.

I bought a heart rate monitor, a Polar FT60 to keep track of how many calories I am burning at workouts. I recently took up Zumba at a local gym and want to keep doing that for sure along with some other kind of cardio.

So here it goes. Wish me luck.

I took pictures of myself today for comparison down the road. Those will make a debut when I have a "during" pic to post with them.