Tasty Tuesday: Making a dish low carb

Living a low carb lifestyle certainly has its challenges. Especially when we live in a society that breads, pastas, and high carb foods dominate the average meal. My challenge to live a  low carb lifestyle is taking meals from my cooking repertoire and making them low carb.

For example, last week the meal plan called for a pasta dish that I typically made for the family.

Ingredients:
1 Jar of Newman's Own Sockaroni spaghetti sauce
2-3 cups of penne pasta
1 pound of bulk mild italian sausage
Low carb version; substitute pasta with same amount of broccoli

Since I'm completely eliminating the whites from my meals but not from my family's meals I cook the meal a bit differently now. I brown the sausage (draining the excess fat of course) and then add it to the sauce. In the past I mixed the pasta with the sausage and sauce and served it up. Now I pour the sauce over the pasta with a side vegetable and then serve it to the family. My portion consisted of pouring the sauce over steamed broccoli florets and then topping it with a bit of shredded mozzarella cheese. I can't begin to tell you how delicious it was.

If your meals are modified from your family's, do you find modifying your meals challenging?

{via pasta,sauce,sausage}

Mediocre to Marvelous Mondays

Hello folks! I wanted to introduce you to my new post series Mediocre to Marvelous. For so long I've lived a pretty mediocre life, I pretty much existed and not doing much "living." My new found weight loss (I've just begun, just you wait) has really made me think about how I can change my mundane lifestyle to the life I've always wanted.

M to M will be my take on how I get motivated to move from mediocre to marvelous. It will be a series of baby steps but it's the baby steps that truly gets us to our goals. Monday's may feature just a quote or an accomplishment that I feel has moved me one step closer to marvelous. I encourage you to do the same. If you're in a place where you don't want to be...think to yourself, how can you get one step closer to marvelous. It may take a bit of soul searching folks but you can do it!

Fashionable Friday: A small victory

I have a small victory to announce. I'm a sucker for striped boat neck tops and I purchased a cute kelly green striped one from Ann Taylor Loft in Spring 2009 with the hope that I would fit it by Fall 2009. Well that didn't happen.

Last week I was feeling a bit confident, you know since I was now able to wear a size 16 skinny jean. I thought to myself let me see if that green top I bought a while back fit, and it did!!!! When I originally purchased it the arms and chest were too tight. Not snug, TIGHT! Taking it off was like trying to peel myself out of a wetsuit. Below is a picture of the top.

Ann Taylor Loft Green top

I paired the top with my really dark denim skinny jean from Old Navy and my gold Kate Spade loafer. I'm not quite ready to post any selfies but once I am I will post a pic here on the blog. Have you had a fashion victory this week? Let me know!

Diet update and my new goal

First I want to thank you for reading my rant the other day. I don't know why I let my expectations of people who let me down get the best of me. I've decided I have the best accountability buddies right under my nose and that's my blog and readers. Duh!

In the past I've been absent because I felt like I didn't live up to what I should or I thought my progress should be. I back slid and avoided the blog because I felt like I would let my readers down. Never once did I think hey maybe I should stay on the blog and blog about letting you down and not living up to my weight loss goals and how I should push through.

Things are going to change. I'm going to share with you my pitfall and my triumphs. The ins and outs of my journey so maybe you can relate and I have documentation of my journey. Without further adieu I wanted to update you on my progress.

I still listen to Paul McKenna. I would say I tune in every other week a few nights a week. I know I don't have to listen to him all the time so the occasional listen for me works.  I've started to ride my bike! I want to be a runner really I do, but new running shoes are not in the budget and my knees are not the best around so I thought the next best thing is riding my bike. My daughter and I ride together 2-3 nights a week. I've started to eat low carb again. I'm focusing on Atkin's because that plan just works for me. I see progress rather quickly which gives me the motivation I need to keep moving towards my goal.

This past month I've lost 3 inches just by eating low carb and not having any "whites" pasta, bread, or rice. I also went shopping and I bought skinny jeans one size smaller!!! Woo hoo!!!

My new weight loss goal is to be a size 10 by Thanksgiving. This fall is chock full of events for me, a baby shower for a high school friend which means mini class reunion, I host Thanksgiving every year at my house, plus Black Friday shopping that night. I have many reasons why being a size 10 is where I need to be!

My short term goal is to be a size 14 by the end of the month. I became a size 16 by the end of last month and I plan on being a size 12 by the end of October so being a size 10 by the end of November is realistic and doable. I focus on size rather than weight because my philosophy is that you can't drag a scale into the dressing room expecting to fit into that smaller size. It's not weight it's inches.

How do you gauge your progress? Do you have any specific goals for the fall? I'd love to know, post below!

Being 40 something is tough

I thought back when I was approaching 40 that turning that monumental number would be an easy pill to swallow. For the most part it was, I don't "look" 40 most people think I'm in my early to mid-thirties, thank you very much!

Unfortunately, its not arriving at the number that's the hurdle it's the baggage that the number brings. Baggage meaning, feeling uncomfortable after eating your "favorite" meal, developing pre-diabetes, and pre-hypertension. Having those "stiff" moments when you get up, sit down, breathe...you know what I mean. It's those times that I wish I took better care of myself when I was younger. I think if I did being middle age wouldn't seem so unbearable. Oy vey!

My question is, is it too late to "feel" better through diet and exercise? Because despite my efforts I'm not there yet and I'm not sure when the "feeling great" part will kick in...

Living with Confidence

Today on my drive home from school I was listening to Joyce Meyer talk about Living with confidence. I'm not one to talk about religion and proclaim my views about my faith. I feel that it is personal and I certainly don't want to hear someone's rebuttal on my beliefs. That is one thing I really do enjoy about listening to Joyce Meyer, while she speaks about various bible verses I feel that even the non-believer can take something away from her message.

Back to why I started this blog post. Yesterday I complained about how my accountability buddy failed me. After listening to Joyce today I learned I really was behaving no differently than my fair weather buddy. I should have embraced the fact that I was blessed to have someone I could talk to about my weight loss journey and that she probably was supportive as best as she could be, even if it wasn't what my expectation of a buddy should be.

I took time to reflect on how I handled the situation and going forward I know that most of the time people do the best they can. I must be honest that I haven't reached out to her to let her know she'd been fired. I'm now rethinking how can I communicate to her what my expectations are and how to move forward. I admit I feel 100% better after having heard her message.

Lastly, I wouldn't have known about Joyce Meyer if it hadn't been for my dear friend. I'm truly grateful for the gifts that she's shared with me that have positively affected my life. Looks like I've had an accountability buddy and didn't realize it. Thanks for allowing me to share my revelation with you in the hopes that you don't make the same mistake I made.

Shouldn't buddies be supportive?

I know it's been a while but I just had to vent about accountability buddies. You see I had one, well I have one but I'm not sure how "supportive" she is. I feel like I take time to listen to her complaints and her venting but when it's my turn she doesn't have the time. That's not right, right? I mean I thought you're suppose to be there for your buddy no matter what?

Let me back up by saying that I support her on her weight loss journey even though it's almost to the end. Well sort of. Once she reaches a new goal weight she makes a new one. I think she's hoping to weigh less than 105 pounds. Anyway, she focuses on the negative and the things that are NOT going well in her life instead of accepting that life will have rough patches and it's how you get through them that counts.

Life it NOT about wallowing in the rough patches and making bad situations worse. It seems like in my texts I keep repeating myself, so much that I'm a bit blunt and direct now and not so tender and soft spoken anymore. I'm telling you folks the constant bitching and complaining gets old.  Especially when she's not doing anything to improve her situation and there is minimal to no support from her.

I think in her mind being my buddy means, half way reading my text messages and giving me one to three word answers. Or better yet not replying because the "tragedy of the moment" which is not-so-tragic is too much for her to deal with. So I'm done. I'm firing her and trying to think of a way to tactfully do it.

Have you ever had to fire your accountability buddy?