recipe review: apple and maple steel cut oatmeal

I am not really into breakfast, but this was a pretty good take on the boring old oatmeal!  Give it a try, I'm sure you will enjoy it, or you can add your own twist on it.  

Apple and Maple Steel Cut Oatmeal

4 servings

3 Points Plus

1/2 cup steel cut oats

1 cup fat free milk

1 cup water

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 small apple, peeled and diced

1 teaspoon imitation maple flavor

Bring the water and milk to a low boil in a medium saucepan.  

Add sugar, diced apples, and the steel cut oats. Reduce heat to medium-low.  

Simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Once the liquid has been absorbed and the oats are tender, stir in the maple flavor.  

Serve in small bowls, or if you're like me then just put it into your favorite tea or coffee cups.  

Now I have to be honest about this recipe, the first time I made this recipe I calculated it out to be only 2 servings at 6 Points Plus per serving.  Then I sat down with a bowl full of it, and I could only eat half of the serving!  So I've adjusted it to four servings, and it's only 3 tasty Points Plus per serving!  

Plus, you can put it into a storage container and reheat it throughout the week!  What a time saver for those of us on the go.  

points bomb: the patty melt incident

How many of us have ever gone into a restaurant, taken a look around the menu, ordered we something we thought was a good idea and then discovered later it was the complete opposite? 

Well, I have. 

In fact, I'll give you an example.  I went to a restaurant a while ago with my boyfriend and decided to try something new.  You see, I usually get the exact same fifteen Points Plus meal every time.  This time, I ordered a patty melt, hold the cheese, hold the 1000 island dressing, please. 

Bread, meat, onions, fries.  How bad could I have been? 

I'll tell you how bad, thirty four Points Plus bad. That's right, 34.  

It was what I like to call a "points bomb" or something that after you've consumed it, has completely demolished all of your points for the day, week, or even year! 

I only consume twenty eight points per day, and at the time of consuming this patty melt, I had about ten of those left.  I was out of my activity points for the week, and I hadn't dipped into my weekly points (thankfully!). 

But in reality, I don't use those forty nine extra points.  They aren't usually nice to me because when I used to use them they all went to beer, wine, and junk.  So now, I stick to the mantra that you can only eat what you've earned.  That's right, I only eat my twenty eight daily points and whatever weekly activity points that I can earn.  I'm crazy like that. 

So there you have it, lesson learned.  Plan ahead, or stick to the things you know won't hurt you. 

restaurant review: red robin

The boyfriend and I like to go out to eat together, quite often unfortunately.  It has been a big past time with us, almost as big as our expanding waist lines.  

The bigger problem is that he tends to be more picky then I am, and that dictates where we go to eat.  He enjoys Mexican food, burgers, diners, and things of the like.  This can be a diet disaster!  That is, unless you plan ahead.  

I like to keep three or four dinner ideas for each week, and this allows me one night a week to have dinner with my mother, and another two evenings out with the boyfriend or other friends.  Also, once I find something that I consider to be a Points Plus bargain at a restaurant, I usually save it in my online tracker and order it quite often.  It's a good way to prevent a meltdown while I'm out and about.  

One of my favorite things are chains that put their nutrition information online, and even better than that is a chain that has its own recipe builder!  Enter: Red Robin Gourmet Burgers!  

At the bottom of the page is a handy little tool where you can build your meal!  

After plugging in what I ate (I ordered a "Keep It Simple" burger) and adding in my side of steak fries, I was able to very confidently track my fifteen points plus!  They even have an iPhone app, but unfortunately I have an EVO.

All you do is select your burger and customize whatever you added or took off of the burger!

And then hit the button at the bottom-right hand side of the page that says "Calculate Nutrition."

And then take that and plug it into your online points calculator.

It's awesome and easy!  You can pre-track or wait until after you've eaten to discover the damage you may have done.  I recommend the former.  

weighing in: no matter what

I've heard it over and over again:

When you have a good week, your meeting needs you.  When you have a bad week, you need your meeting.

Well, ain't that the truth.

I usually weigh myself the day before, the morning of, and when I get home from my meeting.  Then I avoid the scale for the rest of the week.  Why?  I have no idea.  

I was reading a friend's blog, Bikini Countdown, and she talked about how she would avoid the scale and tracking all week until the day before her weigh in.  Then she'd avoid eating all day just so she could weigh in at the same or similar weight as the week before.  

I wish I could say that I've never done this, but I have.  I have woken up on a Monday morning after a really bad weekend and panicked about my Tuesday evening weight in, then I avoid food all day only to completely over indulge on Monday evening.  Or I avoid food all day on Monday only to over indulge on Tuesday, just hours before my weigh in.  

None of this is realistic or good behavior!  

How about the Tuesday afternoons that I used to realize that I'd had a bad week or bad weekend, so I was just going to skip my meeting?  That happened a few times also!  The best thing that happened to me that changed this behavior was that my mom joined Weight Watchers with me last fall.  Since that time, we talk every Monday about meeting at our meeting the next day, and we have dinner after our meeting and talk about our week together.  

I have to say, this has really helped us as Weight Watchers, and as a mother-daughter duo.  We're already close, but I'm so proud and happy that she's chosen to join me on this journey (again!).  

So now, I can't skip meetings anymore.  Today, I take the bad with the good.  From here on out, I weigh in weekly even if I know I face a + sign on that tracker.  It isn't about losing every week, after all.  It is all about changing my lifestyle in the long journey that I hope will be my life.  

I'm leaving you with another Zig Ziglar quote, one that happens to be very pertinent to this particular weight lost battle.  

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.

my first #7daychip

So in early February, I read all about a man named Brad Gansberg and a tool he's added to motivate people online: it's called the "7 day chip" and you can read all about it here.  

Well as soon as I read about it, I had to try it!  It sounded like a great non-scale goal to achieve.  You set your own daily goals, something attainable, and you complete them every day for seven days.  At the end of the week, you shout it out on Twitter or Facebook, or even tell Brad himself so he can recognize you on his blog and Twitter!  Or just congratulate yourself and enjoy it.

Just make sure you are using the hashtag #7daychip so that other people can find you on Twitter and reply to you.  It's a really positive community!  

Then I sat around and thought about it for about four days, talk about procrastination!  What would I set my goals to be?  What if I failed?  What if I forgot completely about my goals and the chip altogether?  

I'm such a worry wort.  

Finally, the day before my Weight Watchers weigh in, I sat down and picked three very simple goals for myself:  

1. I will only use my daily Points Plus target and any activity Points Plus that I earn throughout the week.  
Another way of saying this would be to say that I will not use my 49 weekly Points Plus, but that sounded too negative!  

2.  I will drink eight full glasses (eight ounces each) of water each day for a total of 64 ounces.  
I had been seeing people setting 100 ounce goals each day, but after trying it for a day I decided it was a bit too ambitious for me.

3.  I will eat a minimum of six servings of fruits and vegetables each day.  
I have to admit, number three is a total breeze for me.  I usually eat about eight servings of fruits and veggies each day, so it was a no brainer to put it on my list.  

And then, I started my first 7 day chip.

It was so great!  I had people on Twitter that would see my tag and congratulate me or ask me how my day was going.  I checked in with myself and the Twitter folks at the end of each day and the support was outstanding.  People I didn't know that were on a weight loss journey would throw me the most positive and outstanding messages or notes.  I felt so great.

So great in fact that I ate way more fruits and vegetables and added an addition day of activity to my week, all of this for no reason other than I felt like it.  I would eat four or five pieces of fruit because they sounded good.  I grabbed the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD one morning and did it because I felt like doing it.  

fridge tour: day after grocery shopping

I thought it would be fun to periodically take a look inside of my fridge, because in all honesty when I'm at a friend's house I love to look inside of their fridge!  No really, it's an obsession.  

What's this?  

Oooh!  I love those!  

How do you cook that?  

It's sort of a past time of mine, but I happen to have really cool friends that have tons of fun stuff in their fridge.  Next time you're at your best friend's house, ask if you can take a fridge tour.  It's totally fun!  

So, welcome to my fridge tour.  First up, the door.  

Top left, yes I have butter.  Real butter.  I am not one of those people that puts butter on things, in fact I cannot stand butter on bread or on vegetables.  However, I believe that when a recipe like Chocolate Chip Cookies calls for butter, you should use real butter.  It's just me.  

Next to that you'll see a white bottle of spray ranch dressing from Wishbone, soy sauce, worchestire sauce, teriyaki sauce, spray butter, ketchup, and Tabasco sauce.  

On the second shelf is a flat bottle of diet wild cherry Pepsi (note to self, throw that out!), tartar sauce, an upside down bottle of ranch dressing, a small green bottle of an amazing sake that I've discovered, an upside down bottle of mayo, a hidden bottle of mayo made with olive oil, a bottle of home made salad dressing (in one of these fabulous gadgets), fat free milk, and fat free half & half.  

And the bottom shelf is a melange of salad dressings, hot sauces, and some sadly neglected bottles of wine.  Actually it's one bottle of left over bubbly, a bottle of V Sattui fortified wine (it's STRONG!), and a highly prized bottle of Ethiopian honey wine that I save for special desserts and occasions.  

On the interior top shelf you'll find all of my bread products: flour tortillas, Oroweat Double Fiber bread, hamburger buns, and whole wheat English muffins.  Also up there is a bag of sun dried tomatoes (love them!), eggs, and a store bought spinach dip that I bought for a potluck with some friends.  That spinach dip is just visiting, I think it needs to go away before I devour the whole thing!  

Second shelf contains a large box of pre washed spinach (not visible), corn tortillas, reduced fat cheeses, Laughing Cow wedges, Carl Buddig sandwhich meat, a butter dish, a container of salad dressing that a friend gave me (thanks Marcy!), regular (what I call "full fat") sour cream, fat free feta, and our Brita water pitcher.  

The third shelf is overflowing with Chobani products, low fat cream cheese, two baked potatoes with a turkey breast, a spinach salad with strawberries and feta, Cherry Cheesecake from the Weight Watchers website (3 Points Plus), a container of my Apple and Maple Steel Cut Oatmeal (not visible, I'll post that recipe in a few days), and a ton of produce like mini bell peppers, grapes, and strawberries.  

The bottom two drawers of my refrigerator are always full of fresh fruits (left) and vegetables (right).  I rotate through whatever looks good at the time, and at the moment I've got apples, oranges, Cuties, mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, and zucchini.  

So there you have it, I gave you the run down of my cold storage.  It happens to be exceptionally full a the moment, but I only go the grocery store once every two weeks or so.  Also, I share it with a non-Weight Watcher who happens to love his full fat foods.  

As the week progresses, the fresh fruits and veggies will dwindle down and be replaced by storage containers full of yummy foods like spaghetti and ground turkey meat sauce, butter chicken, stir fry, and more! 

So what's in your fridge?  

to track, or not to track?

The simple fact is that I try to avoid weighing myself at home, but I simply cannot do it.  My meeting is on Tuesday evening, which means that I become neurotic and starting weighing myself hourly on Sunday evening. 

I don't like surprises.  

But why do I do this?  Why do I ignore the scale and my tracking on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday?  Then I become a super tracker on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  Oh, I'm sure that's a great way to do things.  

NOT!  

I can't do much to change that scale on Monday morning if I've over eaten all weekend long!  So why am I not more aware?  That was a huge problem for me in 2011, and I've struggled with myself for several weeks to break it.  Tracking three days a week isn't the right way to do things, so I forced myself to track more.  The final result?  

I tracked 29 out of 31 days in January!  That's right!  I kicked January's butt!  Tracking forced me to become aware of my weaknesses (bread, chips and salsa, beer) and take a look at my strong weeks (fruit, fruit, and more fruit).  If nothing else, it opened my eyes.  

So take a look at your tracker, dust it off.  Open up that app on your fancy phone, sign in.  Put the excuses down and pick up the pen.  

If you nibble it, then scribble it.