TGIF!

Good morning all! And a good morning it is!

The sun is shining, the birds are still chirping outside my window, and I have been up and at 'em since 6:30 this morning. ON YOUR DAY OFF??!!? WHY? I have such a long to do list it's incredible;e so I wanted to the tedious stuff out of the way before I made it out of the house:

1. Workout
2. Shower/get ready
3. Eat breakfast
4. Do 2 loads of laundry
5. Put away the finished laundry that lurks around various spots in our bedroom
6. BLOG!

Guess what? I'm down to only one left and I'm doing it right now! I have been an ANIMAL this morning and I love it. I rode the gazelle for 42 minutes this morning while I watched the reunions of the DC housewives? When the season first started I thought the group of ladies were boring(I mean coming off Housewives of NJ they had some high standards to live to) but it hasn't gotten pretty intense and I'm liking it. I don't know about thie Beverly Hills ladies either....only time will tell.

This means that I can leisurely go walk around some stores and look for a few things that I simply CANNOT live without anymore:

1. Jean skirt
2. More hangers (should I stop buying clothes?)
3. Closet extra rod thing for hanging
4. Bright and shiny objects that catch my eye

Hey, it's my birthday (who just said in their head "and I'll cry if I want to?") and I can only count on my husband's undying love as his present so I'll just do the shopping for him. It's fine though, I get him that same thing for his birthday(and Christmas ;) )

I am also guest posting on Sara's blog today so go take a peek! It's scrumptious! As was my breakfast: the sammy made another appearance, this time with over medium eggs so just a tad bit of yolk go on my chin; NO BIGGIE!


Tell me you're not drooling!


I'm off to conquer the day! Hoping to post tonight after dinner!
Thanks for reading!

Thirsty Thursdays...FAIL

Good evening everyone!

I wanted to have a cocktail so bad after getting off of my "volunteering" shift today. Don't get me wrong, I had way more fun than I would have if I had been doing my regular work shift but the weather was so nice, the sun was shining, and I had just received a parking ticket! Who doesn't sing the praises to the margarita gods for those reasons? My gal pal had to work her second job so it was probably for the best anyways!

Overall, I had a very declious day of eating! Breakfast was a little more labor intesive today as I had some extra time (15 minutes) compared to regular mornings so I friend up, what I refer to as, a "Sunrise Special." "Cause it is OH SO GOOD!

Pepperidge Farm Light 7 Grain Thin Bread, with two eggs, a slice of Kraft American cheese (all that processed cheese product goodness) and some Frank's hot sauce for some ZING! I use a flower pancake shaper thing to keep most (as you can see) of the egg all together so it will fit perfectly on the toasted bred. Egg beaters work better but you use what you got!

WORDS.CANNOT.DESCRIBE! I have been missing these bad boys! Crunchy bread, ooey gooey cheese, crispy egg, LOVE!! And they took all about 7 minutes to make. Might find a regular rotation in the old breakfast go 'round!

BREAKFAST Calorie Total: 273

Usually when I volunteer, I would come home for the hour lunch they gave us for three reasons:

a) It was longer than my normal lunch
b) I only lived like 8 minutes away during daytime traffic :)
c) I'm able to prepare a lunch fresh from whatev is in my fridge

Today, however, was not that way. I was volunteering a new gal that I had never worked with before and she didn't bring a lunch, didn't have a car, and asked me to go the lunch with her. That being said, it's not easy for me to say no to people's face (except if your my husband, love ya babes!) so away we walked (thank goodness) to the friend mecca that downtown Des Moines calls the Kalediscope Mall/The Hub.

Its like a shopping mall's foodcourt: cheeseburgers, chineese, subs, loose meat sandwiches, baked potato bar, pizza, pretzels, sushi, fro-yo, popsorn, sushi, and even thai? I was SPINNING!!! I had idea what to do. There was a Subway, but I swear there was 84 peeps in line and I was pretty starving at this point(almost an hour past my regulary eaten lunch). So I decided that I would just go to the place that had the smallest line; alas, Chineese won. I'm fine with it as I never get it and I knew I was having a healthy dinner. I ordered the Chicken Fried Rice, substitute brown rice instead of white and a delicious egg roll. I simply put love egg rolls. I almost went with the crab rangoons too but minimum order was 6 and there was no way that I could throw all that down. I only ate about half then tried to wash all that sodium out of my body with a Diet Coke. I know, VOMIT!!! I loathe soda, pop, whatever you call it. I mean who doesn't have a water button on the fountain or at least a fountain pumped iced tea beldn. GROSS!!! Oh, and as always when Im starving I forgot pics. You can picture it though: calorie overlaod!!! a lot like this:


Photo courtesy of here
LUNCH Calorie Total(pureply an estimate given by body bugg): 675

I volunteered from 8:30-3:30 so was able to hit the grocery store for some grub before the hubs even got home. I like grocery shopping a lot, especially when I'm alone and get to gingerly(ha ha) look @ new products, compare nutritional values, and spend time actually looking at the produce rather. My regular store doesn't have a lot of variety, which in turns doesn't have a lot of price gouging(which I'm keen on) and the meat counter boys know aht I want(except for Red Face, aka, guy who gives me way more lunch meat than I ask for EVERY TIME!!) I avoid him like he has HINI. I usually also will swing my a really msall grocer near my house for bread and dairy product because somewhow theyir prices on those items are like 75% off anywhere else I've found. It's Lynn's to all you locals :)

Came home, unloaded my loot, and proceed to morph into Martha Stewart. I baked 2 batches of cookies(shown on this blog as my FIRST guest post!) and whipped up the hub's fave meal that I was talking about a couple of days ago.

Dinner was Chicken Paninis (3 varieties) and roasted vegetables. Chris LOVES paninis, of any kind. Chicken, beef, meatless, turkey & ham, its hot and pressed, he will throw it down! He is kinda picky to say the least so when I find something that will please him each time, I stick with it!

I just use Rotella's Hoagie buns, diced chicken breast(most of time made ahead of time), and whatever toppings to make them yours! Our house faves are:

1. Chicken Parmigana(chciken, spagetti suace, and mozz cheese)
2.Buffalo Chicken(buffalo sauce, diced chicken, diced celery, blue cheese, and mozz cheese)
3. BBQ Chicken(BBQ sauce to your liking, diced chicken, diced green onions, and havarti cheese).

TO DIE FOR!!! Somestimes I will carmelize the onions which we all know take it up that extra notch!

I also roasted up a side of veggies for me: summer squash, zucchini, and sweet potato. Tossed them in I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spary with a drizzle of EVOO, garlic salt, pepper, and parsley flakes. Pretty tasty, yams were my fave part and can't beat the nurtitional value for them!


DINNER Total Calories: 419
DAILY TOTAL Calories: 1718(includes random m&ms at Variety :) and popcorn right now! )
DAILY Calories Burnt: 4300+ (one of my highest!)

Between that and the few "mess up" cookies, I was done, Put a fork in me. We watched some TV then headed back to bed, the hubs is getting onset of a head cold so you know what the means? HEAD FOR THE HILLS! I would rather have 12 crying babies than one sick husband. Ladies, you know what I am talking about!

I eventually mustered up enough energy to get on the gazelle and pump out 30 minutes, my daily minimum, although I had already burnt my daily calories through the volunteering adventures!

On that note, I'm POOPED! I've got a big day planned tomorrow: wake up, workout, shower, shop, lunch, eye doc, dinner out with the in law's for my bday @ Waterfront! I heart sushi!

As always, thanks for reading and those of you lurking in the shadows, comment or sign up to follow! :)

PS-I had way betters pics for today but I hit delete when I meant to hit copy so i could move from camera to folder on computer. AHH, will I ever get good pics on here?

Weigh in Wednesday....Continued!

Top 'o' the morning to you laddies!

SCALE rings in @ down 32.8lbs!!!

This morning I was up before my alarm went off(which rarely happens) and I attribute that to a week full of eating healthy and getting in over an hour of exercise per day. Not only does exercising give you more energy, I think it also gives us more motivation to keep going. It's a weird phenomenon I know but I really beleive in it.

This guy DOES NOT!!! I can even still hear him in bed snoring away. So Cute!

Have a good day all, off to go cook up a quick breakfast and help the children of the world with a day of volunteering!

Weigh in Wednesday!

HI Everyone!
I know that I told you last night that it was in-house date night for the hubs and I but as you will soon come to find out, as usual, plans changed.

First things first: my eats for the day:B-fast included same dealio as yesterday: Kashi Go Lean Crunch! Honey Almond Flax with a Yoplait yogurt(this time Blackberry--which was good but had chunks of blackberries which I don't recollect blueberry patch having that but will pay more attention next time. Jury is still deliberating if I like that or not...

Also included in the breakfast was a small helping of cottage cheese. Weird combo right? Only reason being that I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat it at lunch with the ginormous salad I had packed so I nibbled away on it. No biggie! Oh, I just had a fiasco with my phone camera so no pics of breakfast but it looks a lot like yesterdays with a side of cottage cheese :)

BREAKFAST Calorie Total: 391(kinda heavy for me for breakfast but it is totally fulfilling up until lunch around noon!)

Onto lunch, I saved the last bit of spinach/dole classic blend mix from the trash today by making a ole standby for me: my version of the garbage salad, IE: anything and everything you can find goes in! In today's mix: baby spinach, Dole classic blend, radishes, diced sweet onions, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, diced celery, some of the chicken breast I sauteed last night and topped it with Ken's Light Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing.

A bit of background info, since starting this new lifestyle back in January, I would easily say that 80% of my lunches ate work have been a salad of this nature. I usually will have one each day, only mixing up the dressing and by doing that I get a whole taste and don't get bored. I have found some great dressings too! My faves include: Kraft Light Done Right 3 Cheese, Kraft Light Done Right Toasted Asian Sesame, and this Ken's one. I didn't like Kraft Light Honey Dijon(not sure if its named that--see that good of impression!) I just bought a salad dressing mixer up thinger from PC and hoping that arrives soon so I can start whipping up homemade dressing for less sodium. I always prep all my lunch salad on Sundays so its less time consuming on a daily basis. This is what my kitchen island looks like while I'm assembling them as if I worked in the Ford factory. I'M A SALAD MAKING MACHINE!!

I may also go with a small side salad and soups for lunches this winter. Always nice to have a hot thing to eat when "baby, it's cold outside!" Again, due to camera fiasco, no actual pic but I had an old one from a salad (that includes turkey peperoni) to give you an idea of what they look like. I WILL GET A HANG OF TAKING (AND KEEPING) ALL FOOD PICS!

LUNCH Calorie Total: 336 Calories (including dressing!)

My sister Sara and friends Lindsey and Matt always get together each week to watch the Biggest Loser and take turns preparing a delicious yet nutritious meal. This week it was at Lindsey's loft downtown, which is always nice to get a change of scenery on a weeknight, as long as its not too late out :)

On the menu tonight: chicken fajitas with 98% fat free Mission tortillas and Rice-a-Roni Mexican rice(who all sang out loud "The San Francisco treat!" ? BE HONEST!! Here are the green peps and onions sizzling away!


Moving forward, while the veggies and meat were cooking we enjoyed a glass of raspberry chocolate port wine that Sara brought. It was good at first but it sat and got warm(I know! I usually don't give my adult beverages that luxury) it got a little too much for me. Maybe, just maybe, if I only drink things that I won't like after they sit I will drink less. Maybe I'll try that this weekend, maybe not. OK, probably not.


Here is a pic of my sister's plate, again with the forgetting of the taking pictures. Some day peeps, some day. The meal was great. Thanks Lindsey for hosting. Can't wait to see what Chef Sara dreams up for next week? Carry out pizza or maybe frozen chicken nuggets? That girl needs HELP!


DINNER Calorie Total: 634
DAILY Calorie Total: 1582 (includes other random snacks, I'm such a Mrs. Snacky McSnackerson!)

I also hit my calorie burn again!

Well, onto bed. Rise and shine early to go volunteer(a perk at my current employer to go out in the community during your work hours and volunteer and still get PAID!! And not use your PTO!! Sign me UP!!

OHHH! I know its weigh in Wednesday and I totally spaced it this AM(mean I can't weigh in at night after retaining the 1094 ounces of water I drink a day so I will post a new number to the left tomorrow morning!
Thanks again for reading and good night all!

PRO-duct-TIVE!!!

Hi all!
Today was a great day, the weather started out nice but just as I was driving home from the 9 to 5, it started to mist and the winds began to HOWL! Oh well, all my night activities were going to be inside anyways!

Rewind to how my day started:
A new yet good breakfast. I had heard good things about Kashi GO LEAN Crunch! Honey Almond Flax cereal so I gave it go this morning along side a Yoplait Blueberry Patch Yogurt. What a COMBO! I mixed in most of the yogurt with the cereal and it was amazing. There was a bit of the yogurt leftover so that went spoon by spoon into the pie hole.


Work work work then onto lunchtime and I mixed it up again with that today (maybe because I hadn't really done a great job Sunday of pre-planning my breakfasts and lunches--more on that some other time). So I brought a frozen serving of my Turkey Chili with a bit of shredded cheese and some oyster crackers. DELISH! Pretty healthy as well so you'll be seeing a lot more of this in my future...well at least 4 times as that's whats in the freezer ;)


Work work work then finally get to come home!! Ain't no rain going stop my plans tonight. The hubby is out romanticizing his bro-mance with his brother in law so I've got the house to myself, well besides this cutie pa-tootie! CUTEST DOG EVER, RIGHT???!!!


Came home to my new table being already set up. The hubs and I made a CL run last night to the outer parts of WDM to swipe this B-E-A-utiful table from some mansion that had to get a new one "because the new million dollar floors didn't match the wood anymore." WHAT?!?! I am so ecstatic about this table as I had been living with a hand me down from my mama since we moved in here over 3 years and let me tell you, I loathed that thing. Love the generosity, hate the table. Is that even a saying?


Moving on, I went to workout right away as I knew I wanted to try out a recipe tonight that I could never make for Chris. So I plugged away on the gazelle for an hour exactly, clearing out multiple shows on the DVR and bring over 800 calories by going over 4 miles (see DailyMile counter on the left.)

Then came dinner, I had been dreaming of it since I took out the shrimp before work. I had some spinach salad that was on its last leg and I hate to waste so I wanted to make something with that. What did I come up with? Southwest Spinach and Shrimp Salad. BOO YAH!!! What do the following pictures make??






Southwest Spinach and Shrimp Salad
Serves: 1
Time: Less than 20 Minutes for Prep/Cook Time
Nutritional Info: 351 Calories, 36 grams of protein, a little fat due to olive oil (good fat though)

Ingredients:
3 T Onion, diced
97g Cherry tomatoes, halved
200g Shrimp
1 tsp cilantro paste
134g spinach/dole classic lettuce mix
19g Chile Lime Tortilla Strips
1 TB Weber Seasonings, Tex Mex Fiesta
1 TB Lime Juice

Instructions:
1. Tear off shrimp tails, set on papertowl to get rid of excess moisture. Sprinkle with seasonings.
2. Mist skillet with Misto filled with extra virgin olive oil. Add diced onions, half of cherry tomatoes, and cilantro paste. Saute until onions are translucent. Use lime juice to get tasty bits off bottom of plan by de-glazing with it.
3. Add shrimp, saute until thoroughly cooked(or if frozen like mine, until warm throughout.)
4. Top heaping bowl of spinach/salad mix. Add rest of cold cherry tomatoes. Add tortilla strips.
5. DEVOUR!!!

This was so good!!! I recommend everyone to try it, swap the shrimp for chicken if you don't like shrimp and it will just as FAB!!!


I always measure my food when building a recipe with a food scale in grams so I can get precise calorie values but I can estimate regular measuring ways for anyone, leave a comment if you want it! I am going to be posting a new healthy recipe at least every Tuesday so let me know if you have any requests!

All in all, today was a fantastic day: had great food, worked out like the dickens, and met all my calories in vs. calories out goals! Here is a glimpse at my BodyBugg tracker(more on that later too!)


On that note, I need to go saute up some chicken for tomorrow night's dinner and get to bed, Early to rise to work out in the AM! Making my baby's fave tomorrow night our in-house DATE NIGHT! Stay tuned.

And as always, thanks for reading! Sweet dreams!

Welcome to Ginger's Goodies! It's Motivation MONDAY!!

Hi! Welcome to my new blog: Ginger's Goodies!
Named Ginger's Goodies for two reasons: I am a ginger(red head, carrot top, etc) and these GOODIES are going to be FINE BY 29!!!

As the blog progresses, I will try to incorporate a few tidbits of background info on how I got to where I am today, through triumphs and struggles, laughter and tears, sweat and bruises. For the most part I am going to use this as a place to get things off my mind so I can always be refreshed and ready to tackle this thing called weight loss! This will mostly include what I did that to stay active, what food choices I made, and then fun stuff like my always packed social life and every attempt to grab a great deal!

I had a wonderful weekend. The weather in the DMI was to die for! I mean, its October and it was breaking 85: beautiful, breezy, and sunny!

Friday night, my hubby and I went on an impromptu dinner date. I let him pick the place(he is the picky one after all) and he chose Ruby Tuesday. He likes their buffalo chicken sliders and I like their fresh bar so away we went. It was like 5:15 so we were surrounded by all of the blue hairs and the funny thing was they were all chugging their wine and most likely whiskey on the rocks, while we were rocking out waters! Sometimes you have to make sacrifices! Here is a pic of my ginormous salad from the fresh bar, for the most part made good choices(spring salad mix, cucumbers, broccoli, peas, sun dried tomatoes, craisins, cherry tomatoes, red onion, celery), only high calorie/fat items was about a tablespoon of shredded cheese, sunflower seeds, and diced eggs. Otherwise rest was veggies. Oh and the dressing, I used the low cal ranch(as I'm not really a fan of either varieties they have there) with a small drizzle of full fat French. I forgot to take anymore food pics as usual my entree went directly into a to go box. I mean you saw the size of that salad right???!!



After dinner, my sister Sara, her hubby Chad, and their 3 month baby boy Charlie came over to have a night cap. They had to get back home to to get their other kiddo so an early night we had.

Saturday morning started with a quick trip to Kohls and then to Payless Shoe Source. I was in the market for some black walking shoes that were flats. Chris wanted a new shirt for the wedding that night. We end up with a sharp new white shirt for him, and WOOPS I scored two new pairs of shoes: the black walking flats and new pair of closed toe black heels,for the wedding of course. Plus it was BOGO and this girl CANNOT resist a shoe sale! Ok so technically, I bought 5 pairs of shoes over the weekend (due to an impromptu Target and Home Depot stop between RT's and my sis coming over) but total for all 5 pairs was under $45 so I'm ok with that!

After working an appetite walking around the mall, the hubs and I headed to a local BBQ joint Woody's Smoke Shack for multiple reasons: a)we had never been b) reviews are FANTASTIC c) we had a coupon! Well, the peeps who say this place is good are LYING!!! It is awesome! Woody's best deal is what both of us got but mixed up our options we could taste as much as possible. Does any other couples do this? Chris ordered pulled chicken(always a sandwich) with baked beans and cheesy potatoes with a Pepsi(GROSS!)

I got the brisket with mac and cheese and cheddar jalapeno grits with an unsweetened ice tea(my fave bev besides water!). Tons of food for such a small price, $15 for the both of us! That being said, way too much food too! I ate all the brisket, the cornbread, and few bites of each of the sides. Just enough to get my fill but not enough to ruin my day!

A highlight of eating in house(as we saw probably 10 peeps come in and take out while we ate for the 20 minutes) is the complimentary fresh baked cornbread with honey drizzle(if you like and we like :) ). I even smuggled a piece for my mama as she loves her some cornbread. All in all, a really good endeavor to a new local eatery. We will be going again, not only because we have more coupons (which doesn't hurt) but because we love it!

We then went home, where Chris nodded off into a food coma slumber while trying to watch college football. I mean its fine as background noise but does it really matter if its not the IOWA HAWKEYES!! I went on to prep some food for the week as I knew that we were busy Sunday and I like to have nothing to do Sundays, except whateva I feel LIKE!

I also managed to slip in a hard 30 minute workout on the gazelle while watching an episode of Rachael Ray. I HEART her!

We had a family wedding that night and I'll give some more info on that tomorrow!

MOTIVATION MONDAY: What keeps you workin' up a sweat day in and day out?

Good night and thanks for reading the first post!