I Got The Power

           This week's meeting topic was about Power Foods. Now I don't know if I was having a senior moment or something but when my leader Melanie asked us to name some "power foods", I couldn't think of one thing (clutch pearls here :O).  I felt like I was there to take a test and all of the information flew straight out of my head. Seriously, I heard crickets chirping. She must have thought I was sleeping with my eyes open. But I wasn't. Sorry, Mel. This bothered me so much that I went home to do my homework. I logged onto the Weight Watchers website and brought up the list of power foods. This too was overwhelming. Here was this huge list of power foods staring me in the face. I made a mental note to myself to print this this out when I get a chance. Still feeling a little dazed, I went to track my food for the day. And there it was. I eat power foods all the time. I may not be in the" power foods challenge" but when I checked the last week of tracking on line I saw GREEN TRIANGLES everywhere.
egg whites- POW!
light multi grain Thomas english muffins( even though it is now 3pts) POW!
whole wheat spaghetti POW!
brown rice POW!
Zero Point Soup POW!
fruit  POW!
tossed salad POW!
            It seems that the changes that I made in my diet while paying close attention to the Weight Watchers guidelines was giving me POWER. And making better choices for me and my family in what I cook was giving them POWER too. And they don't even know it. SHHHH!
            This week I scored a +/- 0.0 lbs again. I did not lose or gain any weight. I am okay with this because there can be a few reasons why this is going on. So while it is too soon in my journey to be maintaining, I am glad I did not gain.
            I started out this week by making six servings of my Zero Point soup. My grab and go soup came in handy right away. We had a training session at work last week and lunch was served. I decided that morning that I was bringing my soup to the meeting because I did not want to wonder what was in the buffet. It turned out to be sandwiches. Now there's nothing wrong with sandwiches but I wanted to count what I was consuming and not worry about mayo, cheese , ham etc. I strolled into the meeting with my container, a small whole grain roll and a banana. That's right. POW! POW! POW! I shot the sheriff.
          Another change I made this week is water consumption. I was reading an article about how much water you should consume. It said that you should take your weight and divide that by two and that is how many ounces of water you should drink each day.
233 divided by 2=  177 ounces
         I am not going out like that. I have my WW water bottle at the office which is 24oz. So I drink two in the morning and one with lunch. The good side to this is that I am putting a lot of steps on my pedometer running to the ladies room all day. The bad side is that I think my kidneys are doing the backstroke. So on most weekdays I am cosuming 72oz. On the weekends and days I work from home, I have a 32 ounce refill
 water bottle . I drink three of those so that comes to 96oz. I am doing this to see if the amount of water I drink has any effect on my diet.
         Although I am counting the days to Spring along with Melanie, I am having those Winter blahs. It keeps snowing and snow I lose the track in my neighborhood. I know you're probably saying, Carin why don't you join a gym. All I can say is that it's not in the cards right now but I will join one eventually because I don't want to go through this next winter. In preparation for last week's snow storm, I decided to plan a Activity Snow Day. I purchased a new yoga mat (IN PINK!!!!!) and I pulled out all of my exercise dvd's and vhs tapes. Man were some of them dusty. The first one I tried was Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shredd.

I purchased this dvd over a year ago when I wanted to move up a level. It's a 22 minutes workout. But alas I am still not into her "kill me in 22 minutes" workout. I did the whole workout but I struggled quite a bit.

          Next up was the Weight Watchers "Get Moving Mix". This is a beginners level workout but it still packs a punch. I did the 20 mins "Fat Burning Basics" routine.

          Third, I did the WW "Walking Kit" . I bought this one so long ago that I forgot I owned it and I never used it (it was really dusty). So I decided to do the 30 mins routine which really is not just walking but aerobics as well. I was so happy  that I decided to do the 10 minutes Power Walk as well.

        Last but not least, I pulled out the AM Yoga ( for beginners) so that I could have a relaxing 15 mins stretch at the end of all that working out.  Usually when I go to the track, I am walk/jogging for 60 to 90 minutes.  So while I did not workout as hard (with the exception of that devil Jillian), I did workout for a long time.
22 mins + 20 mins+ 30 mins + 10 mins + 15 mins=  97 mins

        On Sunday, I pulled out an oldie but goodie; Richard Simmons Groovin' In The House. This workout was approximately 60 minutes and I was having so much fun with it that I did not feel time go by. So while I miss you sweet track, I am still sweating.
This week's activities
Tues.: all day- 2pts
Wed.: 2- 20mins dvd's - 4pts
Thurs.:all day - 8pts
Fri: all day- 6pts
Sat: dvd's- 6pts
Sun: all day-2pts + dvd- 4pts
Mon:all day 3pts + 2- 20 mins dvd- 4 pts
        I was catching up on my Fitness magazines when I came across a recipe for light mac and cheese. I have been denying my mac and cheese cravings for all the points they consume and usually make sure there is plenty of the box and frozen varieties for Jake. But I ripped out the page and picked up the ingredients on the way home. It is a Rocco DiSpirito recipe.

-Nonstick cooking spray
-4 oz whole wheat macaroni
-1/2 cup onion-garlic puree(will explain shortly)
-1/2 teaspoon dry mustard ( I eliminated it)
-pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1 cup shredded 50 percent reduced fat cheddar ( I used Cabot's 50% sharp cheddar)
-1/3 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
-1/4 cup whole wheat panko bread crumbs( I just used whole plain bread crumbs)
-1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

** Onion-garlic puree
-chop one Vidalia onion and nine cloves of garlic
-put in microwaveable bowl with 1/2 cup of water and nuke for 10 mins
-place nuked onions and garlic in blender and puree

1)Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray an 8x8 cooking pan with cooking spray.
2) Boil macaroni. When cooked, drain water and put macaroni in cooking pan.
3)Bring your onion-garlic puree to a boil in a separate non stick pot and add seasoning and cheddar chesse , strirring often until the cheese has melted.
4)Remove the pot from the heat and whisk it the greek yogurt until you have a creamy sauce.
5)Pour the sauce into the 8x8 pan all over the macaroni and mix it together until every macaroni has sauce on it.
6)Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top and then sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the bread crumbs.
7) Bake for 10-15 mins in 425 degrees oven.
8) Take it out of the oven and devour it. It has four servings of a 2/3 cup at 8pts.

                 So this was my week.  I still weigh 233.6lbs but I'm okay. I had fun with diverse workouts and found out that I've got the power of power foods.