Works for Me Wednesday

Before I say anything else I want to make it clear that I don’t know anything about losing weight. I’m just a mom who finally figured out how to lose a few pounds. Not a lot, and not all of them that I need to lose, (just ask my Wii fit) but a few.

#1  -  I stopped listening to the experts.

It’s not that I think fitness and weight loss experts don’t know what they’re talking about, or that I don’t think it’s important to understand the facts and new information when it comes to eating and exercising. I just can’t do it all.

I’m a perfectionist. I don’t do everything right all the time, I just don’t want to do anything unless I can do it perfectly. So, when I read about all the things I’m not supposed to eat (sugar, white bread, white rice, bad fat, processed food) and all the things I’m supposed to eat (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, good fats, a bazillion different minerals and vitamins) and how I’m supposed to exercise (every day, in the morning, before eating, with weights, on a treadmill, uphill, downhill, for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 120 minutes for the rest of my life) I feel like I have to do ALL of that. I can’t!! I can’t even keep track of it all. Do you know how hard it is to find whole grain bread, that’s really whole grain, (not fake whole grain) that doesn’t have sugar as one of the first 5 ingredients?!?! I don’t think there is such a thing. Except for maybe Ezekiel bread, which tastes like cardboard.

I decided to stop trying to do what the experts said I should do and just concentrate on doing what I could do.

#2  -  I did what was easy.

I made the decision many times to start working out. Usually my plan was to work out every day. I tried Tae Bo, Pilates, T-Tapp… I tried running but I really hate running. HATE it. I started hiking the mountain near my house once. I really enjoyed it and stuck with it for quite a while but things changed and I wasn’t able to fit it into my routine anymore. I was trying to do what the experts said I should do and usually hated it, dreaded it and had a hard time making it work with my life. Every day when I woke up I groaned in my head at the thought of having to do whatever exercise I had chosen for the moment.

Eventually I just quit.

This year I decided I would just walk for 20 minutes 3 times a week. Just 20 minutes, just walking, just 3 times a week. I don’t mind walking. I have a treadmill and, because I like to hike, I decided to max out the incline on my treadmill during my 20 minute walk. It was a little harder, but not something I dreaded, and 20 minutes was something I could easily fit into my schedule.

After a month or two I found myself looking forward to my walk after work so I started doing it every day. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Then I decided I could run for a minute. Just a minute. And then I ran for a minute twice. And then I ran faster for half a minute. I enjoyed challenging myself and my body. Honestly, I have to work now to not let exercising take over my life. I could easily work out for almost 2 hours (with a few breaks to catch my breath) between the treadmill and some DVDs I have. I try not to do that, though, because I don’t want to start doing something I can’t maintain, and I don’t want working out to take priority over my family.

I could have just as easily decided to walk to my neighbors house and back if that was all I could bear the thought of. I just started doing something, but not so much that I hated the thought of doing it every day.

I don’t LOVE working out and there are certainly times when I really don’t want to do it. Sometimes I just don’t do it, And other times I decide just to do my 20 minute walk.

#3  -  I stopped trying to lose weight.

It’s not that I didn’t want to lose weight, but that’s not what motivated me to start this time and stick with it.

I’ve never made a real all-out attempt to lose weight. I’d given it some half hearted attempts, but after a few weeks, when my clothes didn’t start falling off and the scale wasn’t moving, I gave up.

Then I started taking the stairs at work. I work on the fourth floor and had to get to work early so I could catch my breath before I had to get on the phones. I hated those stairs but made myself take them because it was such a little thing, and when I was a stay at home mom I was jealous of all the people who could take the stairs like the fitness expert said. This was my chance.

I made the decision to start walking because I wanted to be healthier. I wanted to be able to take the stairs without needing a 5 minute recovery period. So when I didn’t lose weight right away it didn’t matter. I wasn’t failing. The scale wasn’t proof that all my hard work was wasted. Eventually the scale moved and I had to buy a belt, but that was just icing on the cake.

#4  -  I don’t get hungry.

I eat every time I feel hungry. I tried not snacking at work but came home so hungry that I inhaled several hundred calories of junk food within 20 minutes of getting home. So now, Even if it’s an hour before dinner, I’ll eat something small if my stomach starts to growl. I try to keep protein bars in my purse. I bake bran muffins to bring to work and keep around the house.

I try to eat healthier foods when I’m hungry. I find my craving for junk food isn’t as strong if I keep myself full on healthy food. I feel hungrier sometimes after eating some fruits and vegetables, so while I do try to eat more of those, they don’t really work for me as a “keep myself from getting hungry” snack. I know that carbs a supposed to be bad but I feel full longer if I include them in my meals.

#5  -  I eat foods I like.

I’m not eating pizza every night with cheesecake for desert and chocolate cake for a midnight snack. But if I want a piece of cheese cake, I’m going to have it. The funny thing is, once I started working out I started thinking about my food differently without even wanting to or choosing too. I would pick up a candy bar and think about how long I have to walk to burn those calories. “Is this worth an hour of walking?” Sometimes it is and I enjoy every bite. Sometimes it’s not, and even if it’s just a couple of M&Ms, it’s easier to say no. And sometimes it’s not worth an hour, but is worth 20 minutes, so I’ll have a couple of bites and leave the rest.

I also don’t make myself eat yucky food just because it’s healthier. Those protein bars I keep with me all the time? They’re the yummy ones. Some of those things are pretty nasty. I don’t eat those. I will by low fat versions of some foods IF it tastes as good as the full fat version. I eat regular yogurt because the light stuff has fake sugar in it. I hate fake sugar. I buy low fat mayo, ranch dressing and sour cream because I really don’t notice a difference in taste.

BONUS RULE

I stopped trying to do what worked for other people.

I used to read stories about DVD’s, exercising schedules, diet plans etc. that worked for people. They lost tens and hundreds of pounds and several sizes. If it worked for them, it can work for me, right? WRONG. I was forgetting that these people are different than me. They have different attention spans, different tastes, different schedules, different obligations. What they did, I might not have time to do. What they eat, I may hate. (Like those instant shake things. No wonder people lose weight when they drink those! I felt sick to my stomach the rest of the day!) And what they think is a fun exercise, I may consider a form of torture.

The same goes for this list here. Maybe you need something much more structured. If you need tasks to check off and rules to follow, that’s ok. What I really want you to get out of all of this is that you have to find what works for you. Just try something. If it doesn’t work for you, it’s ok. Try something else until you find something you don’t hate.

I grew up in Michigan. You can grow almost anything in Michigan – blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, peas, carrots, green beans, corn, blackberries, apples, mosquitoes… I never saw a single citrus tree, though. Citrus was such a special treat that the high school marching band used to sell boxes of citrus as a fundraiser.

Now I live in Arizona. It’s pretty hard to grow most things in the desert, but not citrus. When the citrus trees start bearing fruit you can’t give the stuff away. Even food banks will refuse to take it.

This is my neighbors tree. It hangs into our yard a bit so I’ve been helping myself to the lemons. (It’s ok. He doesn’t mind. I promise.)

Growing up without lemon trees nearby, I thought Country Time was the best lemonade ever. Then, a couple of years ago, I tried fresh lemonade. Oh. My. Gosh. I don’t even know how Country Time sleeps at night calling itself lemonade. Fresh lemonade is so good. I had no idea. I want you to try it, even if you live in Michigan. Just go by a few lemons. I know they’re expensive there, but splurge just this once. You deserve to know what real lemonade tastes like.

So here’s what you do.

Buy yourself some lemons, or, if you’re lucky like me, steal some from your neighbor in the middle of the night. You’ll probably need 5-7 depending on the size and how tart you like it.

Then cut them all in half

and juice them.

A few years ago my dad got me an electric citrus juicer.

They’re not very expensive, so if you have room, and think you’ll be juicing citrus a couple of times a year, this might be something you’ll want to invest in. For those of you in Michigan, where citrus is worth it’s weight in gold, you probably won’t get enough use out of a juicer so you can just juice them by hand. They won’t come out this clean though.

If you live in Michigan you’ll juice your 5-7 lemons and skip to the end of the post for the lemonade recipe. If you’re lucky enough to have a neighbor with a lemon tree, though, you’ll want to keep going until your garbage can looks like this so you can have real lemonade all year round.

The juicer will strain a little bit of the pulp and seeds, but your still going to have quite a bit in there.

If your daughter freaks out about the seeds let her dig them out herself.

After you’ve juiced your lemons, measure out 2 cups of juice and pour it into a freezer bag. I put mine over a measuring cup to make it a little easier. Make sure you push the bag close to the sides of the measuring cup to eliminate as much air as possible, otherwise your juice won’t fit. And again, when you seal the bag, try to get most of the air out, it’ll freeze better.

Stack your bags and freeze them flat. If your freezer has wire shelves you might want to put a piece of cardboard or a baking sheet under the bags of lemon juice until they’re frozen.

Here’s the recipe for lemonade. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, so for now just imagine a tall, frosty glass of fresh tartness. This is so easy and will make even a simple meal of burgers and dogs something extra special.

2 Cups lemon juice
1 1/4 Cups sugar
6 cups water

Mix until sugar is dissolved.

Like my salsa recipe, this recipe can be adjusted to taste. I like mine a little tart. If you like yours a bit on the sweet side you can reduce the amount of lemon juice or increase the sugar.

If you’ve never had fresh lemonade before, please come back and tell me what you think!

I should probably start by telling you why this is The 2nd Best Salsa Ever and not THE Best Salsa Ever.

Years ago we had some neighbors who made The Best Salsa Ever! It was so good that when they gave us a jar for Christmas we wouldn’t waste it on just any chips. We called all over town to find our favorite chips. (now out of commission, otherwise I’d tell you about them.) I was desperate to learn how to make it because I couldn’t bear to eat store bought salsa after eating The Best Salsa Ever.

I asked them for the recipe but they said they didn’t know, they just throw stuff in until it tastes right. I asked them to measure the ingredients before they start and then measure again when they were done to see what was left. They hemmed and hawed but never gave me the recipe. I’m slow, but eventually I figured out that they just didn’t want to share it and I would have to live without.

A few years ago a friend of ours (Hi J!) gave us the recipe I’m going to share with you today. While it’s not quite as good as The Best Salsa Ever it is very close and super, super good. We prefer it to any salsa that comes out of a jar and haven’t yet tasted restaurant salsa that we like any better.

Here’s what you’ll need:

3 ½ to 4 cups cilantro leaves
2 or 3 dried red peppers, at least one without seeds
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 dash of garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/8 red onion (umm… forgot to put it in the picture. You’ll see it later.)

All of the amounts above can be adjusted to taste. I don’t like a strong onion flavor so I don’t put a ton in. If you like it hotter you can leave the seeds in both peppers or add an extra. Just experiment with the recipe and make it your own.

The first thing you need to do is strip the leaves from the cilantro. This is everyone’s least favorite job. We used to do it by hand, but then I discovered the cool extra tool the people at The Pampered Chef built into their kitchen shears.

All you have to do is put the stem of the cilantro into one of the holes in the handle of the shears. (There are 2 different sized holes so just adjust for the size of the stem.)

Before long you’ll have a blender full of leaves and a pile of naked stems! We still don’t like it but it’s much easier now.

OK, back to the salsa. After you’ve paid one of your kids 5 bucks to strip 3 or 4 cups of cilantro leaves (I just measure using the markings on my blender) you need to cut the onion. I’m sure you could figure this part out on your own but I’m including pictures because I feel bad that I forgot to include it in the ingredients picture. It’s called a red onion, but it’s really more purple. I cut it down to 1/8  and then chop it up a bit more so it doesn’t take as long to get blended up.

Next just dump everything in the blender. It’s really easy to get the seeds out of the red peppers. You just snap them in half and shake. The seeds fall right out.

Now turn on your blender until it turns a beautiful yucky green color. (I think I added a bit too much cilantro.)

I usually taste it at this point and add anything that seems to be missing. We think it tastes better cold and because we’re not particularly patient we throw it in the freezer for a few minutes. But sometimes we can’t even wait that long.

Who doesn’t love some good fried potatoes? I’m not talking about French fries, I’m talking about home fries, breakfast potatoes… yummy. I love The Pioneer Woman, too, (obviously, since I’ve linked to her twice in my first 5 posts) but if I had to make home fries the way she does, I’d only have them once a year. There’s nothing wrong with the way she makes them, I’m just much too lazy. I don’t want to clean potatoes, boil potatoes, chop potatoes, and then chop the onions and peppers… Not for me, all that work.

I do make fried potatoes at home, though. Wanna know my secret?

I’m such a cheater….

So, here’s what you’ll need:

two 32 oz. packages frozen potatoes O’Brien (hash browns with bell peppers and onions)
one 16 oz. smoked sausage
one cup shredded cheese

I have a husband and 2 adult boys in my house. (They’re my kids. I can keep calling them boys if I want to.) I used to get away with one 32oz package of potatoes and ½ of the sausage, freezing the other half for the next time. Everyone’s so stinking grown up in this house now that I have to use 2 bags of potatoes and the whole sausage.

I didn’t think to start taking pictures until I cut the sausage so pretend there’s sausage in that package in the front. It’s one long sausage in a U shape. You can get turkey sausage, breakfast sausage, ham or whatever else you’d like. I’m not a big sausage fan but I like it with the potatoes. I think I’ll try turkey sausage next time. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The first thing I do is put the potatoes, bag and all, in the microwave and defrost them for 5-10 minutes. They cook faster that way and they seem to brown a little better if they are softer when I start cooking. It might just be my imagination, though.

While the potatoes are defrosting I cut the sausage. Again, I forgot to take pictures until this was done but what I do is cut it in half at the bend, and then cut each piece in half lengthwise. Then I just cut it into pieces and throw it in the pan.

Turn the stove on medium and fry the sausage until it’s nice and brown.

I used to cook the potatoes in the grease but I’m trying to cook a healthier, so today I drained off the grease. Again, didn’t think to take pictures but I think you can figure it out. I just pushed all the cooked sausage to one side of the pan, tilted the pan so the grease ran down to the opposite side of the pan, and scooped the grease out with a spoon. I honestly didn’t notice a difference in the flavor so will be doing it this way from now on.

Next, toss in the potatoes.

Stir everything up and put the lid on so the potatoes on the top can finish defrosting while the ones on the bottom are getting a tan. Make sure you stir this every 5 minutes or so to prevent burning.

See how part of the picture is in focus and the edges are blurry? I have no idea how I did that. I thought I had to buy a special lens to get that to happen. Sorry, that’s another post.

I probably could have cooked these a little longer but I was getting hungry.

Remember the fat calories we saved by draining all that grease off? Well, now we’re putting it back on, in the form of cheese. I love cheese. Did you notice on the cheese package that I used 2% cheese? It makes me feel better about eating it.

Put the lid back on, turn the heat off and let it sit while the cheese melts.

I like pepper on mine, my family likes ketchup. This is great for breakfast or dinner and the leftovers are just as good.

I’ve always hated making dinner. This one aspect of being a mom/wife has taken away more of my reading time than any other household chore. First you have to prep the food, then cook the food and after everyone else gets to enjoy the food you have to clean up the mess. But, as lazy as I am and as much as I dislike the thought of all that work and all that cleaning, those were not the things I hated most about making dinner. What I hated most was deciding what to make.

I felt like I had been making the same meals for the last 18 years. I was tired of the same thing every night. I was tired of always having to be the one to decide what we were going to have for dinner. I decided it was time for my family to help.

I sat down and made a list of all of the meals I had made that my family liked. I kept the list on the kitchen table and every time I remembered something else, I wrote it down. My family got involved too, adding to the list as they remembered meals they enjoyed. Before long we had about 50 meals to choose from.

After I felt we had the list pretty much complete I made everyone pick 3 things they wanted for dinner in the next 2 weeks. There are 5 people in my family and since I hate shopping I decided I would do the grocery shopping every 2 weeks. Yes, that leaves one extra meal but sometimes I let someone (me) get away with only choosing 2 meals if they aren’t feeling inspired. Sometimes I carry something over to the next week or have a nice weekend lunch.

When I came up with this idea, I just wanted to get everyone else to help decide what we were going to have for dinner. I got way more than that, though. Because I knew what we were going to be eating for the next 2 weeks it was easy to do my grocery shopping for 2 weeks at a time. I wrote down the meals we were going to have, made a list of ingredients I would need, checked what I had on hand and soon had a complete grocery list. I hate shopping, so being able to minimize my grocery shopping to twice a month has been great.

The most unexpected benefit of this has been the money we save on groceries. I usually go to Wal-Mart. I don’t by produce or meat there, but for everything else… their prices are often much cheaper and they price match so as long as it’s not a % off or buy one get one I get the same deals and only have to go to one store. AND, I’m not having to run to the store every night for one thing that ends up costing me $20 or more because I impulse buy. We probably only spend two thirds of our old grocery budget, if not half, buy shopping once every 2 weeks.

And this has definitely made dinner time easier. I don’t have to think so hard about what to make because the thinking was done for me, and I don’t have to run to the store because I already have everything I need. I still have to cook and clean up, but compared to the hassle dinner used to be, that’s nothing. (And many times my husband will clean up for me which makes me very happy) I almost enjoy making dinner now because I’m so proud of myself for planning ahead.

If you’d like to try this, here are a few tips that will make things a little easier on you:

• If you run into situations where several people pick the same meal you can run it like a draft. Instead of everyone giving you there 3 or 4 meal choices, have them each choose one thing, no duplicates, then go to round 2 etc. You can rotate from week to week who goes first.

• Make meals with breads and fresh produce at the beginning of the week, either your shopping week or the next week. Just make one quick trip to the store to get the fresh ingredients in the middle of the 2 week cycle.

• Other than placing the meals with fresh ingredients at the beginning of the week, don’t worry too much about what night you’ll eat a particular meal. If there’s a day you know you’re going to be home late, plan a crock-pot meal for that night, otherwise just go down the list and write Mon. Tues. Wed. etc. next to each recipe. Check the night before to make sure it’s not a crock-pot recipe that needs to be started in the morning but other than that, you really don’t have to worry about it.

Weekly meal plans aren’t new. I always loved the idea but had a hard enough time coming up with one night’s dinner; I couldn’t bear the thought of coming up with 14 at once. And they always seemed so complicated, with lots of steps and charts… I don’t have time for that. I think this plan is super easy but I know everyone has their own style and what’s easy for me may not be easy for you. Give this a try and let me know – Has this changed dinner time at your house or is there something about it that isn’t working for you? Have you modified this in some way to better suit your family? I’d love to hear your experiences.