Beth's Journey to Thin

Morning and TGIF!! I had two fun things happen yesterday after I posted my lunch and I’m not sure which one was more exciting…

First, there is a farmer’s market every Thursday right outside my office, which I go to most Thursdays to browse. Yesterday the Toyota Farm to Table Tour happened to actually be at the market, so my friend Kara and I ventured out in the afternoon to check it out. The whole concept is that they travel around to different farmers markets around the US to show the connection between local chefs and the local food they use. Very reputable chefs from around DC were there, including this guy.

Chef Mike Isabella from Top Chef!! I saw him and almost freaked out, but instead asked if I could get a picture with him. One thing off my bucket list…

I also got to eat a Vietnamese Summer Roll with fresh ingredients from the Farmer’s Market.

It was out of this world.

The other exciting thing was that we had work happy hour, where we get money each month to use towards a social event. Yesterday, we went to The Laughing Man (which I’ve constantly been calling Laughing Cow by accident…)

We ordered TONS and tons and tons of food ($4 apps!)

And I was actually pretty thankful that I don’t eat meat because it made it a lot easier to not overdo it. The quesadillas, taquitos, and chicken wings (obv) all had meat in them, so I stuck with some calamari, mussels, and spinach artichoke dip. I also ordered hummus and pita later, but didn’t feel like I overdid it at all (with the food, that is). I did possibly have a few too many drinks but it was fun and I rarely go out drinking.

That’s Kara and me at the bar, her with a blueberry martini ($4!) and me with my go-to vodka soda with a lime. Don’t mind my greasy face – - clearly I needed some face powder!

This morning I woke up feeling surprisingly great and feeling well rested. I was asleep before 11 and until after 7, so I got over 8 solid hours and felt quite refreshed. I wanted the same breakfast that I had yesterday, but I had frozen the other half of the banana. So, I decided to just microwave it and mash it and it worked out great!

Whole Wheat Toast (1 pt) with 1/2 large banana, mashed (1 pt), 1 tbsp chocolate chips (1 pt) and 1 tsp of peanut butter (1 pt), so only 4 points this time. The key is throwing it back into the microwave for 20-30 seconds once its assembled because everything gets gooey and melts together. After snapping that photo I used a fork to mix everything together so the whole thing was chocolate peanut buttery goodness.

Amazing.

Have you ever met anyone famous? Who, where and how?

I have more good news about that delicious Open Faced Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Sammie from this morning.. it kept me full for HOURS. I was kind of surprised since I only used one slice of bread but after 1pm I hadn’t eaten yet and I wasn’t even feeling very hungry until I thought about it which was 4.5 hours after breakfast. Score!

Lunch was also a hit and took no time to throw together to bring for work. Into my lunch bag went:

• 3 corn tortillas (2 pts)
• 1/2 cup black beans (1 pt)
• 1/2 cup corn kernels (1 pt)
• 1 cup mixed greens (0 pts)
• 1 babybel cheese, cut up (1 pt)
• salsa (in a ziplock) (0 pts)
• 1/2 cup refried beans (1 pt)

When it was time to eat, I toasted the corn tortillas to get them warm and a little crispy, while microwaving the black beans and corn. Once the tortillas were done, I split the mixed greens between the three tortillas, then topped them with the black bean and corn mix, and then added the babybel cheese on top. I nuked the whole thing for about 20-30 seconds to get the cheese a little more melty.

I split the salsa between the three tortillas

And then served the refried beans on the side

This was such an awesome lunch for only 6 points! It seriously took less than 5 minutes to throw together this morning too, which is always a plus in my book. I feel like if I got something similar to this in a restaurant it would be just as good but at least double the points/calories. The only thing I might have changed is added some avocado to the tortillas, but I didn’t have any and these were delicious without.

And now, for some exciting news…

I went to Weight Watchers today for the first time since July 8th. I missed the 15th because I was in Minneapolis and was too busy to make it last week, so this was my first time back in 3 weeks. The results?

I lost 2.4 pounds!!!

I went back for the first time since April on June 24th and I have lost 5 pounds since then! (2.6 pounds on July 8th, and 2.4 pounds today. This is a lot for me since the scale hasn’t budged in so long, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I worked out 6 times this week! I’ve also been trying to plan my meals a little better, eat out less and eat a lot more fruit and veggies. I am sooooo happy because now I only have 4 pounds to go!! I set my official weight goal with my leader today, and while my personal goal is a bit lower, I’m much more concerned with getting to my WW goal so that I can make lifetime and stop paying. I’ve been going since March 2009 (minus a few months here and there) and am finally getting so close to my goal that I can taste it. Originally I wanted to be at my goal by my best friend’s wedding next Saturday, but I realize that’s not reasonable and just want to be able to stick with it and hopefully be to my goal weight by Labor Day.

Is anyone up for a Labor Day Challenge??? There are 5 more Thursdays before Labor Day, so if you are interested, leave a comment saying what your goal is, and it doesn’t have to be weight related at all. It can involve working out a certain number of times a week, getting in a certain number of fruit and veggies, appreciating your body every day.. anything!! I’ll do a Labor Day Goal check-in every Thursday for the next 5 weeks so we can all update each other on our progress.

My goal is to get to my goal weight by Labor Day. That means losing an average of .8 pounds every week from now until then. While I won’t CRY if I don’t reach it, I hope this challenge can keep me on track to at least make heavy progress towards this goal!!

First, let’s get the boring stuff out of the way… Last night I made a veggie soup because I wanted to use up all the veggies in my refrigerator since I’m getting another farm share tomorrow. I cut up about 2/3 of a white onion and sauteed it in a little nonstick spray, before adding zucchini, summer squash, and cabbage (the veggies I had). I added some veggie stock that my boyfriend had over the weekend along with some water and salt and pepper, and cooked it for about 20 minutes.

For lunch today, I added a serving of tofu to add some protein, and just chopped it up and poured the soup over it.

I also had a piece of whole wheat toast with it (1 pt) so the whole meal was 4 (1 for the soup, 2 for the tofu, and 1 for the bread). The soup was fine – - nothing spectacular because I didn’t add much flavor/spices, but it was fine. There’s a lot more of it in my fridge so I’m going to have to figure out something to make it more fun… TBD.

“Fat Girl” Mentality

A reader named Joanna emailed me yesterday to ask about my thoughts on the “Fat Girl” Menality. She said “Can I ask, do you ever have a hard time not thinking of yourself as that fat girl in your head, even tho you look in the mirror and know thats not who you are anymore? I’m really having trouble with that, and I’d love your perspective.”

So first of all, let’s talk about what exactly the Fat Girl Mentality is. If you’ve ever been the fat girl, you know exactly what it is, but it’s kind of hard to put into words. It involves this general paranoia where you just sort of assume that anyone who is whispering or looking at you is saying or thinking something about you and your size and is judging you just because you are fat. If someone at a healthy weight sees someone else look at them, they might think that they are being looked at because the person finds them attractive.  The fat girl mentality makes you automatically assume that the only reason anyone could possibly be looking at you is because you are fat and that they are looking at you in a negative way.

It’s hard NOT to let this take over their life and for you to be afraid to put yourself out there for fear of being judged. A good example is being downright frightened to go to the gym because you know that most of the people there will be thinner than you and just look at you and think, “What is she doing here?” even though the gym is where you should be to change that. I remember when I first started going to the gym I used to hate to be on the treadmill if there was a line because I figured the people in line were wondering what I was doing taking up one of their treadmills since whatever I was doing on there clearly wasn’t working.

As you start to lose weight, your outside clearly changes, but you’re still the same person looking out from within. Because your insides don’t change, it’s very hard time to shake this fat girl mentality and paranoia that comes along with it. The mental aspect of losing weight can be one of the hardest parts because you know what you have to do to lose the weight (eat less, move more), but how do you get out of the trap of feeling like the fat girl who everyone is judging?

Well, it’s not easy, that’s for sure. I still struggle a lot with this, even though I’ve gone from a size 20+ to a size 8/10. While I’ve made a ton of progress in this area, I still have to talk myself out of it more than I’d like to. Sometimes I’ll catch someone looking at me and think, “Oh shit. Are my pants to tight? Is a fat roll hanging out?” when the truth is they could be looking at me for a variety of different reasons, and it’s probably NOT because my pants are too tight. I think the thing that has helped me the most in trying to get myself out of the mentality is just trying to be positive and using the fake it til you make it attitude. When I start thinking those negative thoughts, I try to immediately stop them and think about the fact that people aren’t looking at me for my size anymore because now I’m just average. I try to congratulate myself and my body every time I go for a run or a bike ride or do Bikram because my body is capable of doing these things and I need to embrace it rather than focus on the negatives and shortcomings. As time goes on, it becomes more and more natural for me to think positive things about myself and my body rather than negative things even though at first I had to make a very diligent effort to not let the negatives take over.

Do you struggle with the “Fat Girl” Mentality? What tips or advice do you have for overcoming it? Do you see yourself ever fully getting away from it?

Happy Hump Day! Sorry I didn’t come back yesterday… I had an extremely busy day at work and it got away from me! For lunch yesterday I had brought another Roasted Red Pepper and Chickpea Burger, but in my hustle out the door in the morning I forgot a bun or bread of any sort. I realized there was an italian bakery at Potenza right near my office, so I ventured over there around lunch time in search of some bread.

I was a little taken aback by all the food there! I forgot my camera because I was just planning on picking up a roll of some sort, but it was the cutest little Italian Bakery ever. They had tons of fresh made sandwiches, soups, breads, foccacia, quiches, frittatas, etc, so when I saw the Ribollita Toscana on the menu, described as “Tuscan vegetable soup, black leaf kale, leeks, bartolotti beans, and croutons” I changed gears and ordered the soup instead. It came with a ciabatta roll and was deeeeeelicious.

5 points for the ciabatta roll, and 1 for the soup. I also picked up a humongous grapefruit for 75 cents which I ate as a snack later.

I also ate the burger, which I made with feta instead of parmesan for a snack in the afternoon (sans bread).

This one had just 1.5 points, with 1/4 cup chickpeas, 1/2 a roasted red pepper, handful of spinach, 3 basil leaves, and 1 oz of RF Feta. It was a little loose so next time I would use some parmesan too because that gave it the perfect consistency, but this worked well to eat with a fork.

I ventured to Whole Foods after work because I was out of a lot of staples (bananas, bread, milk, eggs) and obviously ended up getting much more than what I needed, but everything together was $40.

• Silk Light Soy Milk (my preferred kind at the moment)
• Spring Mix Salad
• Organic Frozen Fruit – Strawberries, Peaches, Mango
• Frozen edamame – both in the pods and shelled
• Semisweet Chocolate Chips
• HempPlus Pumpkin Granola (Bulk Bins)
• Roasted Unsalted Sunflower Seeds (Bulk Bins)
• Eggs
• 2 Bora Bora Bars (never tried ‘em and they were on sale!)
• Whole Wheat Bread
• Organic Grapes
• Organic Bananas (same price as the non-organic!)
• Nonfat plain yogurt
• Chunky Medium Salsa
• Organic Refried Beans
• Crofter’s Superfruit Spread – South America

I did pretty well! I think if you shop the sales and a lot of the 365 brand items, you can get a good amount of stuff without it costing you an arm and a leg, even at Whole Foods. I am such a bargain shopper, so I find Whole Foods to almost be a challenge and I love it.

I ended up making some veggie soup last night which I’ll show you at lunch, but I barely ate any of it because the snacker in me came out again! I tried not to have a snack before Whole Foods so I could whip up a quick dinner after I got back, but as the soup was cooking, I had these staring me in the face:

These were a sample from the same company that made those awesome crackers that I got at Costco last week. These things are sooo good, almost too good. You get 35 in a serving (!!!) which has 2 points.

4 servings in the bag, about 3 of which I ended up eating because they were that good… dangerous. I have 3 more flavors of these to try and I think I’m going to break them up into servings when I’m not hungry so that doesn’t happen again. I also had 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and a very small bowl of soup since I was snacked out by the time it was ready.

This morning was a new day, so I decided to go out for a run this morning before work. Here’s the stats:

Distance: 3.00 miles

Duration: 29:02

Avg Pace: 9:41 min/mile

Avg Speed: 6.2mph

Calories: 354

The first part of the run was really, really good, but towards the end I started getting really hungry/famished. I knew that it was because I hadn’t had a good, solid meal last night, so I just kept telling myself it would take longer to get home if I stopped and walked and that got me through the 3 miles.

Luckily, breakfast was something to really look forward to…

Oats in a Jar! Check this baby out:

SO good. I haven’t had oats in a jar in agggessss. too long.

In the mix:

• 1/3 cup rolled oats (1.5 pts)
• 1/2 scoop protein powder (1 pt)
• 1 tsp chia seeds (.5 pts)
• 1/3 cup light soy milk (.5)
• 1/3 cup nonfat yogurt (.5)
• almond butter from the jar (2 pts)

The worst part of this was when it was over. I’m still mourning a bit.

Do you buy organic or non organic produce mostly or how do you tackle that issue? In an ideal world I would love to buy all organic but my wallet just doesn’t go for it. I try to shop the sales a lot, and going to places like Trader Joe’s for apples where they charge by the apple, not by weight, makes it easier to buy organic. I try to buy organic for things where you eat the skin/whole fruit (grapes, apples) and don’t mind as much with things that you remove the skin (bananas). But, if I want apples and no organic apples are on sale and its 2$ more per pound, I’ll usually buy the non-organic ones.

Whew this day is flying by! Busy days are always good in that respect. You know when you’re at the grocery store and you see packaged stuff and wonder what it looks like inside? I guess that’s the beauty of eating whole foods because you can see what you’re buying, but I was really curious what the box of Tofu that I bought from Costco was going to look like. I opened the box and there were three packages that looked like this:

I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box and there were four squares of tofu inside rather than one huge chunk like most packages have!

Each of these squares is 2 Weight Watchers points, so a great portion to cook for one (which is almost always the case when I’m making Tofu). I’ve had the tofu twice since opening the box, once on Saturday night after my race and once today for lunch.

Saturday night my boyfriend grilled me a piece of tofu while he and the girls had steaks. He served it with mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. Check out these grill marks!

That smear is of the ginger dressing (also from Costco) that I marinated the tofu in. I’d never had grilled tofu before, and this was awesome. Grilling it gave it a really nice texture, plus it was pretty to look at.

Lunch today took just a few minutes to prepare. I diced up the block of tofu (2 pts) into 9-1″ squares and rolled the tofu in Italian Herb Garlic Gold (0 pts), and then pan seared it for a few minutes to sear the flavor into the tofu. I served it over the leftover Fajita veggies (1 pt) from yesterday.

I also had a Ceasar salad with this bowl, which had romaine, 1 tbsp of shredded parmesan (1 pt), 1 serving of organic wheat croutons (1 pt), and 1 tbsp of light ceasar dressing (1 pt).

Total of 6 points. The salad and tofu were both in pretty close competition for being the star of the lunch. I got this dressing for the salad:

Which is really delicious. It’s 80 calories and 7grams of fat for a 2 tbsp serving, which is much lighter than most Ceasar dressings. It’s still very creamy and decadent tasting, so perfect when you’re craving Ceasar.

I also had an apple for a snack before lunch, so today’s total is 4 (breakfast) + 1 (snack) + 6 (lunch). I’m trying to be really good about being back to counting points but I feel like a broken record. I am good for a few days then totally off track and just so back and forth. So instead of preaching and saying what I’m going to do, I’m just going to show you. I plan to go back to WW on Thursday since I haven’t weighed in in a few weeks and I really need to lose the last 6.4 pounds +/-!

Hiya and happy Saturday!! I am so relieved to be sitting on my couch right now, but let’s rewind a little…

Yesterday afternoon was so hot (but not as hot as today!) so I went to Starbucks and got myself a little treat.

A caramel frappe light. It tasted so perfect in the heat and was the perfect Friday afternoon treat. After work I ended up going to Gazuza with my friend Lianne to get some drinks and some food. We ended up eating pretty light, and got a combo veggie roll and a seaweed salad to share:

The combo veggie roll was AWESOME. It had cucumber, avocado, and mango in it! And then seaweed salad is one of my favorites and this was delish. We also got an order of edamame to munch on:

Two glasses of wine and one mojito later, it was time to go home and to bed! This morning I woke up and could not believe how hot it already was outside at 9am! There were tons of people at the pool but I honestly didn’t want to even go outside because the heat was intense… plus I had a 5k tonight and wanted to run in it if possible, so I knew staying out of the heat during the day was in my best interest.

We ran out to the grocery store in the morning to stock up because Wil’s daughter Charlotte and her sister Nora were coming today to spend the weekend with us, so we had to pick up a few things. When we got home from the store I had a little snack while Wil cooked us lunch:

Two small pieces of cheese leftover from Thursday night and 1/2 a serving of those crackers from Costco. Wil ended up whipping up a rustic fish and veggie soup for lunch.

It had some mahi mahi, salmon, and shrimp, all leftovers that we froze from different times making dinner. Plus there was corn, zucchini, and yellow squash from our farmshare, and carrots, onions, and basil. And a piece of wheat toast sliced up for dipping. The soup was delicious, especially after I added some sriracha, but maybe wasn’t the best idea for a hot day like today (don’t tell him I said that ).

A few hours later I had a bowl of cereal with a sliced banana:

This was Barbara’s Puffins, Cascadian Farms Cinamon Crunch, light soy milk, plus a large banana. I didn’t measure the cereal, but figured I was gearing up for a race so I deserved it.

I kept trying to talk myself into thinking the race was a good idea all day despite the heat. Nora and Charlotte were really excited to come watch, which made me feel a lot more into the idea, so around 7:30 I got dressed and headed down to the race area.

Charlotte, Me, and Nora.

I was shocked with how many people there were running the race! Can you spot me?

They did and came down to get a closer look of me behind the start line.

I was so glad to have my CamelBak (with ice!!) and my ipod. Once I started running I couldn’t even believe how hot it was. I was sweating even before I started running, so I told myself to just keep running no matter what and that I could go however slow I wanted. I wore my Garmin and the final stats were:

Distance: 3.2 miles

Duration: 31:07 miles

Avg. Pace: 9:43 min/mile

Calories: 384

My first mile was a 9:00min pace, then 9:39, then 10:34. I saw Wil, Nora, and Charlotte towards the 3 mile mark which gave me the final pep to sprint the last tenth of a mile, which was at a 9:27 minute pace. I’ll update my final time once I get the official race time, but it was tough. I could not tell you how happy I was to cross the finish line!!