Healthy Dining Finder

Today I was browsing the web and pinning away to Pinterest when I searched for 'healthy options when dining out'.  A website Healthy Dining Finder came up and so I clicked on it.  It's ah-mazing!  Maybe some people know about this website but I had no idea.  The site has a team of registered dietitians who work trying to find healthy dining options for us!  You can put in your zip code and it brings up a list of local restaurants and then you can click on them and it shows you a list of recommended healthy options.  You can even click on the option and it tells you all the nutrition information, some even have pictures of the entree.  And some recommend that you make a special request for like "ask for no olive oil", for example.  It's great!   This will be especially helpful when I get to the maintenance phase of my program (in like a year), or when I go on vacation next week (because will be eating some meals out with my family).  It's also really helpful because it gives calorie info so you can track your calories.  This might be my new favorite thing!  Hope you find this website helpful as well!!

No class this week!!!

I haven't blogged in 1 1/2 weeks!! So working full time, having a 3 year old, and now a new puppy to watch 24/7 is taking up like 100% of my time!  I won't be blogging as much, I know this...but I do plan on still updating when I can about my progress etc.    So today is the 4th of July.  I'm off work, and so are most people...including the people who work at the clinic where I go to weigh in, and my dietitian.  So there is no weekly class today or weigh-in.  I could, if I wanted go up to the clinic to weigh in tomorrow but seeing how the hubs doesn't get home until almost 6 on Thursdays and the clinic closing at 6 I doubt that will be happening.  Last week I weighed in and lost 7.7lbs - per the clinic.  This is absolutely not right.  Apparently, they re-calibrated the scales and so they are now "correct" and were not correct before.  By my scale at home the change on the scales at the clinic is almost 4lbs... which leads me to believe I lost somewhere around 3lbs.  Unfortunately, I'll never know the true amount I lost.   It was kind of upsetting at first but at least the scales there are telling me my true weight now and from here on out they should be accurate.    I have been weighing myself at home and the numbers are going up and down dramatically and this morning, it still didn't even read as low as the scale at the clinic.   I have still been following the program, eating my 5 meal replacements and my veggies/fruits.  I ate much more veggies/fruits this week than I did last week.  I went to Kroger on Saturday morning and the abundance of fresh awesome produce was overwhelming and exciting!   I bought fresh green beans, onions, mushrooms, summer squash, cabbage, asparagus, peppers, lemons, mango, and peaches...    my new favorite thing is grilling my veggies on kabobs as you saw in my last blog's picture.  I also love sauteing my squash and my green beans w/ white onion. So yum!  

Have I told you how much I LOVE Butter Pam???  It's incredibly flavorful and zero calories and is amazing for cooking all of my veggies!!  They are so delicious and I'm not adding any calories to them!  I forgot to get strawberries/grapes so I picked those up at Sam's on Sunday.  Sam's strawberries are always so fresh and look/smell amazing and they are so sweet.  And the price?!  Can't beat it!!  I recommend getting your strawberries from Sam's if at all possible!   I also have been back using my creamy potato soup MR to make pizzas and since I can eat veggies now, I've been added onion, mushroom, zucchini to my pizzas for little extra calories!  Makes them so delicious!!  Instead of using Parmesan cheese which is 20 calories for 2 tsp, I've been using fat free feta cheese which is only 9 calories per Tablespoon and you can't beat that and I love feta!  

  

Last week, Ben and I went to the UAMS weight program's "Cook-In".  They had demonstrations for Zumba, and we got to try several new recipes including the Strawberry shortcake which was made w/ the vanilla MR.  Pretty delicious!   I also won a "portion plate".  It's this plastic plate w/ a graphic on it and it has divided sections for your protein, veggies/fruits, carbs.  Pretty helpful for learning how much you should really be eating at a meal!    I've still be exercising 5x/week and so far it's been pretty easy still continuing to follow this program.  We go on vacation in a week and a half for a week.  That will be a challenge and for that week my goal will be to not GAIN any weight.  I think I can do it :)    Can't wait until next week when I can go to my class and weigh in and have that accountability I'm missing this week!