Sometimes when I don’t post here, I am just off track and don’t want to talk about it.  But I am going strong.  I’ve been tracking every day in My Fitness Pal, and staying within my daily allotment of calories.

I read a post about “brining” beans before cooking them, and I wanted to try that, so I soaked some cannellini beans in salt water for 8 hours and then I cooked them in my slow cooker overnight.  Next time I will cook them for a shorter period of time because they were definitely overcooked, but the texture of the beans was great, just like the article on brining promised.

So I divided the beans and froze some of them, and used a portion of them to make a pasta dish.  It’s not often that we eat real pasta, and I must admit it was delicious.  The recipe builder in My Fitness Pal allowed me to come up with a recipe that I could work into a meal.  I used the cannellini beans, with some onion, canned diced tomatoes, and baby spinach.  We had leftovers tonight (pictured above).

One of the things that the MFP tracking has done for me is to encourage me to exercise.  I even walked in the rain today!  Will walk for food LOL!

Another think we’ve been enjoying here while we wait for our CSA to start is the Bird’s Eye Steam Fresh vegetables.  So easy – just steam them in the bag, so no extra dishes to wash. 

So I decided to weigh again this morning and that the weight no matter what it was.  And today – I was down that half pound plus.  Loss for the week – 1.6 and that is a LOT for me.  I know it’s “week one” after a few weeks of being a slacker, but I am getting very close to my recent lowest weight, and I hope to be back at my WW goal weight soon.

Today’s weight 143.2.  My goal weight is 141.  I could “legally” weigh in at a WW meeting at 143.  See how close it is! 

I have learned a lot during the last week.  First and probably the most important lesson is that when I don’t track, I do a lot of nibbling and mindless eating.  I’m sure I consumed a couple of hundred extra calories a day with just bites and tastes.  Second, I can’t really expect to lose weight if I just sit all day long.  So the days I’ve been most successful have been days when I got up and out and moved.

I’ve got my Fitbit recording calories burned on My Fitness Pal.  Let me tell you it is very encouraging looking at my target calories for the day and seeing what adding some walking does to my balance.

Seven days of tracking completed under my calorie goal! 

I don’t have much choice, but to keep going.  I believe I have completed 6 days of tracking on My Fitness Pal today.  My scale is moving consistently down.  I am thrilled.

Last night I went to Trader Joe’s to pick up some of these Tofu Edamame Nuggets, and I saw they had “Shaved Brussels Sprouts” in the produce section.  I believe they were close to half the price of the shredded sprouts at Wegman’s, so I grabbed a bag to try.  Whoa! They are amazing.  I hope this is not one of those products that they stock for a short time and then discontinue (like they did with the peanut flour).

Tomorrow is my normal weigh in day.  I am curious to see exactly how much I have lost this week.  I am hoping for a whole pound!

Created by MyFitnessPal.com

Thanks, Miriam!  Saw this posted on Facebook and did my own calculation.

I am blocked out of DWLZ today.  I was in the middle of a post and got booted.  It is so strange.  I don’t think I have ever missed a day of going there since I joined back in the summer of 2000.

Today is Day Three of tracking with My Fitness Pal.  There is not an easy way to share that like there is with Weight Watcher’s eTools, but I needed the change.

Yesterday I discovered I could connect my Fitbit to My Fitness Pal, and it automatically factors in my exercise. Awesome!    AND what an incentive to move.

Today was “Meatless Monday” and we had a tofu stir fry for dinner, with a vegetable egg roll.  And thanks to my after lunch walk, I could “afford” my dessert.  Which, now that I think of it contained some yogurt, so I guess there was a tiny bit of dairy consumed today.  Oops!

I normally start on Monday, but I love the fact that I started on Saturday for a change.  Change is good!

I am loving kale.  I am so looking forward to the CSA this year since we will get fresh kale just picked from the field.  Yum!

So in the spirit of no more waiting for the perfect time, today is my time.  I started tracking at My Fitness Pal again. I’m not sure I’ll stick that out, since eTools may be easier.  But for today – and hopefully for the week – I’m doing it!

Today was my weigh in and I weigh exactly the same as last week.  Which was the same as the week before.  I am maintaining with no problems.  I am glad for that, but I still need to put my nose to the grindstone and drop a few pounds.  THEN I will be happy to maintain.

Years ago I used to subscribe to a newsletter written by Tawni Gomes.  I still have one of those newsletters and from time to time when I really need a kick start, I pull it out to read again.

NO MORE WAITING FOR THE PERFECT TIME—

Do you ever find yourself saying or thinking, “As soon as “x” is over I’ll have more time to take care of my health.” I know I’ve fallen into that trap on more than one occasion. It’s an easy trap to fall into. The phrase that helps me through when I catch myself thinking, “I’m too busy” is this: “Tawni, are you every too busy to brush your teeth?” Do we say to ourselves, “As soon as my job settles down I’m going to start brushing my teeth again.” “As soon as I get through the holidays I’ll have time to start brushing my teeth again”

A fellow Connector shared this thought with me and it really struck me: Ya know how you say to yourself or others, “I’d do “anything” to be at goal weight. I’d do “anything” to lose this weight and not be fat”

Well, this IS the “anything” The next time you hit the snooze button that was your “anything’ moment. The next time you buy something “for the kids” that was your “anything” you said you’d do if “only” you could lose weight. Isn’t it funny how often we use the phrase, “I’d do anything”

Well, would you? Let’s see it! I know I’m guilty of this also. I’ve spoken the words aloud, “I’d do anything to be able to run ‘x” minutes for a 10K, yet when the time comes to do speed work, I don’t quite “feel like it” So, then, I guess the truth is I’m NOT willing to do “anything” am I? The truth has smacked me upside the head on more than one occasion.

There will never be the “perfect time” to get started. The best advice I can give you is to start with something—anything. Just start.

Maybe it’s a phone call?

Maybe it’s writing an email?

Maybe it’s drinking water instead of soda?

Maybe it’s ordering grilled instead of fried?

Maybe it’s being the FIRST to suggest going for a walk after dinner, yes even if it’s cold.

You’d do “anything” right? Well, this is your “anything”

The choice you have is this. You can wait for the world to change, or you can be the one to change it. Indeed, the world will change no matter what you do. Yet the more influence you have on that change, the better you’ll like the results.

Excuses are available to you in abundance, but of what value are they? Forget the excuses. Forget about waiting for the perfect moment. Now is the time to get started. Use this moment and each following moment wisely, and you’ll get precisely where you wish to go. One baby step at a time.

I know you can do it! If I can do it, believe me, SO CAN YOU!

Believe in Yourselves!

NO MORE EXCUSES!

Then I attempted to make a “fake” tuna salad. I was pretty successful.  I’m not exactly sure of measurements, so I will guess.  I don’t normally follow recipes very closely anyway

I think the taste may improve as it sits overnight in the fridge.  It was very good, and the best part of all – lunch is made for tomorrow.  We ate this on a Country Kitchen Lite Whole Wheat Hamburger Roll.  Yummy.  I’ll see if I can get a picture tomorrow.

I found a recipe during the week that I’d planned to make, so yesterday I got the needed ingredients and whipped up a batch of Tofu-Cashew Mayonnaise from The Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen.  It is delicious!  And the nutritional stats are impressive.

Nutrition (per tablespoon): 15 calories, 7 calories from fat, .88g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 12.4mg sodium, 20.1mg potassium, <1g carbohydrates, <1g fiber, <1g sugar, 1.1g protein, 0.4 points. (Sodium depends on the amount of salt used.)

Last week I didn’t track, but just tried to eat sensibly.  We did Meatless Monday, and actually did a few more meatless meals during the week.  I weighed yesterday and my weight was about the same as it had been the prior Saturday.  I weighed again this morning and was down almost a pound.  The scale is so fickle.

But I feel lighter eating less meat.  We still aren’t totally meatless and it will take us a while to get there.  We may never go strict vegan, given the fact that we both love cheese and yogurt.  But we can certainly cut back on our meat consumption, and especially get that sandwich meat out of our diets.  It is so full of sodium, it can’t be good for us.

My son starts his first week on his regular shift tonight.  He will work from 7:30 til 4:30 a.m.  I’m sure the first few days will be tough trying to get into a sleep routine.  But he has a job!  Praise the Lord!

Somewhere on the internet today I found a recipe for a massaged kale salad with mango.  I can not find it LOL  Anyway you started by removing all the stems from the kale and then putting it in a bowl and “massaging” it with sea salt.  I believe the recipe called for a dressing of lemon, honey and olive oil, too.  However, I just chopped up the mango and put it in with the kale and it was a nice tasty salad.  I have some left so maybe I’ll try using some dressing on the leftovers.

I was just in the mood to try something different and I had a big bag of already copped kale.  We ate a vegan breakfast and lunch, but we had some Gorton’s shrimp with our veggies and brown rice at dinner.

I signed up for a daily email from Kathy Freston, and today’s message in part:

Quantum wellness is not about imposing big changes but about leaning into wellness, comfortably, adding things here and there to the thrust and taking baby steps toward the changes we want to achieve.

So that is what we are doing.  Taking baby steps, and making changes.  It keeps life interesting!

My son sent me a text with a picture of his new ID badge for Toyota, saying “I’m official”. 

I’m not sure what I am going to do about tracking my food.  I don’t think that WW eTools is the way I want to continue.  I am leaning toward trying My Fitness Pal again.  But this week I am just concentrating on eating well and not stressing over numbers.