Day at the park.

I love phot collages! I'm obsessed with my iPhone collage app! This is us at Memorial Hermann Park. Great 3 mile walk and I wasn't winded or tired! I am finally going from Fat to Fit. I hope to include more walk like these this summer, free and fun the entire family can enjoy.

Too long ago!

It has been forever since my last post! I have some making up to do but I can assure you (anyone reading?) that I have plenty to post!

My Ian

He makes me smile =0)

BBQ Pulled Pork, Buen Provecho!

I made some BBQ pulled pork last night for dinner. I originally wanted to make it in the crockpot but didn't want to wait 6 hours so I baked it instead.

Simple! The pork shoulder was pre-seasoned and only took 3 hours and twenty minutes to make. I browned the pork shoulder for about 5 minutes on each side (full circle) and popped it in the oven at 350F.

The pork was tender, lean, and thankfully not smothered in sauce. It was a dry BBQ seasoning but I added 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce with my serving.

4 oz of pork: 4 WW points
1/4 cup of BBQ sauce: 1 point

I also served it with Alexia Sweet potato fries, baked : 4 WW points for 32 fries, 1/2 cup of Green Giant veggies: 1 WW point, 2 slices of Sara Lee Delightful Wheat Bread (45 calories per slice): 2 WW points.

WW total points of: 12 points

I portioned out my daily points to have lighter meals for breakfast and lunch.

Overall, good meal, simple, satisfying and relatively inexpensive.

Fish Tacos! Buen Provecho!

I love to cook, especially on weekends.  Last night I made my version of fish tacos for two. 

I started off with making pico de gallo.  I actually wanted to make guacamole but the avocados weren't ready. 

Pico de Gallo:

• 1/2 tomato
• 1/4 of an avocado, diced
• 1/8 cup of red onions
• fresh lime juice
• sprinkle of salt
• 1/4 cup of Goya Medium Salsa Verde

Personally, I LOVED this mix!!!  Tangy and spicy.

Next, I sauteed 3 fillets of tilapia in a large flat skillet.

• Sprayed skillet with Pam
• Squeezed fresh lime juice
• Lemon Pepper seasoning
• Salt

Tilapia doesn't need much spices.  Too much will overwhelm the fish flavor.

While the fish was cooking I chopped up the fixins.

• tomato
• romaine lettuce
• cut limes in half
• sauteed onions (cooked with the fish)
• And pulled out Laughing Cow Wedge..love this stuff and I add it to pretty much ANYTHING.  Its  mix taste of sour cream and cheese...minus the calories and fat.

I like to chop up the fish on the skillet.



I brought it all together with the following,  weight watchers points listed for 1 serving.   

• 3 Mission Carb Balance small flour tortillas: 4 WW Points
• 6 oz of tilapia: 4 WW points
• 1 Laughing Cow Wedge: 1 WW point
• 1/2 cup of Goya Casero Refried Black Beans: 4 WW points
• 1/2 of the pico de gallo: 1 WW points, this is for the 1/8 of a medium avocado
• WW points total: 14   You can easily modify the meal by removing the beans or a taco to reduce WW points.

Buen Provecho!

Shakeology; Tropical Strawberry

I've learned that chocolate shakeology is not my favorite. I definitely can't drink it with just water. My hubby however LOVES it! He was drinking two scoops even!! I will give it a try again and try new recipes...the colder the shake the better it taste.

Now, Tropical Strawberry I like!!! So very happy that it's vegan and not as heavy as the chocolate flavor. I have not tried it with just water but have with 2% milk and light Silk Soy milk.

Here's one of my mixtures; 1 scoop of Tropical Strawberry, 1/3 cup of pineapples in its own juice, ice and 10 oz of Light Silk Soy milk. Pretty tasty.

Weight Watchers point: 5 <--- works for me!!

Tropical has a heavy banana flavor to me but I love bananas. I'm going to try mixing it with orange juice next time.

The shakes do have a slight gritty after taste but not as much compared to other 'shakes'.

My goal is to replace one meal daily with Shakeology. Perhaps alternate every other day breakfast or dinner.

Full belly, happy heart.

I love a stocked fridge and pantry!! I love having choices and trying out new recipes. I guarantee the content of my fridge has changed drastically in the past two years. Whole milk has been replaced with 2% and occasionally Silk Light, yogurt replaced with strawberry Greek yogurt, cheese with laughing cow and whole eggs and egg whites sit side by side.

My Fridge

I love food but I don't love being overweight. I guess it's true, "nothing taste as good as skinny feels". Replace skinny with fit and healthy and that quote totally applies to me.

My weight loss journey has been Lon but I've never been fully committed to the lifestyle change/improvement. I've gotten better and I'm down 1.8 pounds this week!

I'm ecstatic, I've finally started losing an tracking everyday! The weight watchers app definitely has helped me more than the journal. I'm a visual person so the weight loss graphs puts things in perspective for me.

I've learned, like others I gain the most weight in the summer. Who wants to gain wait in the summer? Aren't we wearing less clothes?!! Summer comes early in Texas....I need to jump on it!!

Houston Rodeo Season!!

It's here, funnel cake, fried oreos, and meat on a stick are all here! I love this time of year, love driving home and seeing the carnival lights. I don't however like the traffic or smell of manure. I digress...

Hubby and I went to the cook off last night and we had a blast! Ate a BBQ pulled pork sandwich, a caramel apple for dessert (yum), and played a few games. Overall, an expensive night but worth it. Can't wait to go see John Legend next week!

Every pound counts!

I'm still here, a pound lighter and happy considering the week I've had. 19 more pounds till I reach WW normal weight range for my height. 24 more pounds till I reach my overall goal.

I've ordered the new shakeology flavor; tropical strawberry. Hopefully this will please my palette. And hopefully I'll get over my cold soon to start working out! It's been too long!

Here's to a healthy weekend....

A-Ma-Zing!

My hubby and I never celebrate Valentines Day on the 14th. It's too expected, over crowded, and very commercialized, so we celebrate the weekend after or a day before. This year we celebrated it on the 13th. We both took off from work and enjoyed our day together.

My day started with waking up to a lovely bouquet of lilies and red roses. They smell divine <3

We had lunch a Fogo De Chao. I don't think I can look at another piece of red meat for a good long while. Afterwards we went to the movies to see Safe House. Long movie but good and the best part was the empty theater!

Unfortunately, I felt a migraine coming on. Never good. We went to the mall, I got an outfit for this weekend and some make up. Decided to go back to Bare Minerals after trying Dior cream foundation. After an hour at he mall I knew my body has enough....and we had to cut our day short.

Thank God I'm feeling a bit better... Thank you hubby for such an A-Ma-Zing day! Our day <3

Art for sale!

I love this lil guy...to the moon and back.

His 3rd birthday is in 3 months and I think I know what to get him. Paint easel and supplies. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, his big sister is a great 'artist' too. I can't want till make an art wall for the kids.

Weight loss update...pebbles

Well, it's been a while! Seen a few new movies and lost a couple more pounds.

I've been regularly attending my WW meetings but it's the beginning of the new year and not a lot of empty seats. I like our leader but the crowd is older. I've been hoping to make a new walking friend but no luck yet. I myself haven't been working out. I know I know but yesterday I cleaned for hours. If I work up a swear I count it. My hubby smiled at that idea.... He would count it as activity points or brownie points if it were him!

I still want to run a 5k this year... I need to pick a date and start doing it....

Here's to less pebbles in my jar!

1 pebble, 2 pebble...

I'm down 10 pebbles =2.6 pounds Happy! 110 more pebbles to go.

Public

Trying to decide on going public with my blog or not....

Shakeology

It arrived!!! Opened the box, looked over the coach's material and recipes. I decided to try Chocolate covered strawberries; 1 scoop of powder, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c water and, 1/2 c frozen strawberries. Yuck!!! Chocolate and water do not mix well. I'll stick to just milk and play with the powder serving...

I hope I like it...invested too much not to like it. Hubby liked it.

Cute top Thursday!

I like...hubby bought... Good deal ;0)

My heart...my smile...my son.

"So, there's this boy....he kind of stole my heart. He calls me mom." <3

120 pebbles....

This is what 120 pebbles look like. 4 pebbles = 1 pound of which me and the hubby wants to lose. That's 30 pounds per person and the race is on to see who empties their jar first.

I've also signed up to be a Beach Body Coach...what am I thinking? I feel like I spend money with minimal results. But, I like the taste of the shakes and my hubby will trade in his whey protein and me my WW shakes in exchange for shakeology shakes. In the end, if I stick to replacing one meal a day with a shake I will save money.

Can't wait to get the bag of chocolate in the mail to begin the 3 day cleanse.
More on this topic to come later....

No loss is better than a gain!

I have to think positive about my weight loss journey. It's not easy for me to turn down food... I'm an addict of delicious food!

I didn't track all weeks but I did better than most! I wish I could go back to how I was when I first joined WW. Tracking and losing. I will get there.

Didn't lose but I also didn't gain. That's a start!

Movie Reviews

I love watching movies, it's something about the big screen and buttery popcorn that makes me smile. I still find it funny that pickles and jalapeños are sold in Texas movie theaters.

Last week the hubby and I saw MI:4. I give it a 5 star rating, funny, action packed and Tom Cruise looked amazing. Definitely will get the Blu-ray.

Last night we saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The book was a slow read And so was the movie. I give it 3 stars, very slow start, Hubby fell asleep but the end was good. I hope the next 2 films based on the book are better...

I think next week we'll do something other than going to the movies....looking forward to Rodeo season in March!

Remember me in ribbons & curls

Beautiful ladies, we're all in the quest to find the perfect products for our hair type...at least I am.  I've tried  a countless number of products from the most expensive to gels sold at dollar stores and it truly is a GAMBLE.  Though its always great to read reviews,  no review is better than your own.  Try something new and if it doesn't work, keep the receipt. "Satisfaction Guaranteed"

My everyday hair style is loose and curly which is my natural hair texture and a head band.  I always wear a hand band...story on that will come at a later post.  I use oil as a base to moisturize my scalp; Moroccan oil, Shea butter, not too picky about the oil.  I don't like using gels, they over dry and make my hair too stiff.  I prefer a semi-wet look.  For about a year now I've been using Kinky-Curly Curling Custard.. it's A-MA-ZING.  I can control how stiff my hair gets from varying the amount use.  Overall great product that doesn't over dry my scalp but I do wish the container was a little larger for $16.  Sold at Target...another reason why I love this place.

Curls are like women, they come in different shapes and sizes.  Appreciate them all! 

Recently I straightened out my hair for the first time in almost 3 years!!!  I'm not too daring with trying new hair styles but I needed a mini-makeover.  I sprayed some John Frieda 3-day straight on my hair blow-dried it and just this alone did the trick.  No grease, fast and I could leave as is.  BUT, I wanted an even straighter look so I bought Garnier Fructis Flat Iron Perfector and a CHI (WOW) and touched it up.  Overall, I was super impressed with my hair. 

Ian wanted to help his daddy... So cute!

Goals for 2012

I have MANY goals but I have to set SMART goals. 
(Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic/Reachable Time bound)

In no particular order;

1. Create a blog and stick to it.  I don't think I'll be blogging every day but once a week will give me enough time to create interesting posts. 
2. Start and complete 1 small house project a month.  We moved in this house end of March 2008 and I'm tired of looking at bare walls.   I am a pinterest junkie and my list of home projects keeps growing.  I'll track our house projects and post before and after pictures.  I'm very excited about this goal...even though we'll be selling this house in a few years to buy our dream home I still want to love this home. 
3. Go out more and enjoy life. I'm guilty of using the "tired from work" as an excuse to just stay home.  I love being at home but I've realized that there's so much more to do than stay home watching reality T.V.  *smile*  This does not mean I'm going to give up Mob Wives but I'm going to stop saying no and go hang out with friends and DEFINITELY have more family dates.

On to some more serious goals:

1. Financially I am not where I SHOULD be.  I want to be DEBT FREE, well at least credit card free before 30!!  Goal #1 is to pay off 75% of my credit card debt.  I've paid it off twice before but it always creeps up.  What's even more sad is not remembering what I've bought. 
2. Lose 25 pounds before my birthday in October.  Last year I joined Weight Watchers and lost 26 pounds but I've gained 9 of those pounds in the last 3 months.  I don't feel comfortable at my current weight and NEED to stick to tracking everyday!  I need to limit my fast food intake, go to the gym and stay active.  I LOVE food but 'nothing taste as good as skinny feels'.
3. Run a 5k!  I've always wanted to be a runner but always felt discouraged because of my flat feet and lack of stamina.  Hopefully a new pair of running shoes will due the trick!  I want to run to improve my health, body, and raise money for charities. 

Here are some of my goals for the year...feel free to comment on some of yours.  Hopefully I'll have some readers soon!

First Post of 2012

So, this is officially my first blog post and hopefully the first of many.  2012 has definitely been going at a slower pace than I had planned but I am OK with it.  2011 was filled with joy, laughter, ups, downs and, ended on a very sad note.  My beautiful mother, the woman who taught me my alphabets, numbers and, silly songs passed away 12/22/2011.  Her passing is by far the hardest thing I've had to go through. I've often said that paper cuts were the worst thing ever but losing a loved one is incomparable. Hopefully I can write a little more about my mom but at the moment I can't express in words the heart ache and guilt I feel for not being there for her when she needed me most.  I only hope that she knows how much WE all loved her. 

Life is short and I hope to use this blog to motivate me to live my life to the fullest.

-Me