Operation Wedding Dress & 30 Day Challenge!

Happy Monday everyone!

I know you are all biting your nails in suspense as to what Operation Wedding Dress & the 30 Day Challenge is but you will have to wait till the end! :)

Food first!!

Ok, let me just tell ya'll.

How good did it feel going on vacation 25 lbs lighter?? Um. In a word...Amazing. 

I know I am not at goal but it felt SO good to FEEL pretty and FEEL like I looked so much better than normal.  I enjoyed where I was and who I was with and what I was doing and didn't feel like a beached whale.  It was awesome. 

Ok, SO on to breakfast!

250 calories

 

The usual suspects this morning: my waffles, whipped peanut butter, and banana!! With coffee in the Alabama (ROLL TIDE ROLL!!) cup and water! Good as always.

 

Lunch rolled around and I knew I wanted more than just my tuna.  I needed some soup.  So I had to go to the bank and picked up a soup at walmart. 

 

This is just the normal heat and eat chicken noodle soup but I LOVED IT! It was so tasty and the noodles are short!! SO cute and easy to eat!! And only 140 cals.

 

436 calories

 

Soup, Tuna kit and strawberries and water :)

 

Then around 4 I got knawy...thats what we call HUNGRY here in the south. Haha.

 

I popped some Aldi's Fit & Active popcorn.

 

110 calories

 

And yep, filled up that water bottle.

 

When I got home Mom came over and we went to do our walk. 

 

Back home it was Lasagne for dinner!

 

440 for the Lasagne/140 for the Breadstick

 

and also had a side salad with 1 tbsp ranch, olives, onions and shreadded cheese

 

70 cals ranch/28 cals cheese/25 cals olives

 

And I capped off my sweet tooth with a mini bite size milky way.

 

It was a great day on plan!

Ok now on to Operation Wedding Dress!!

 

This is ME on my wedding day....November 18, 2006

 

 

I was around 175-180 lbs I think. 

 

I want SO bad for that dress to fit. 

 

I have not tried it on. 

 

Having gained over 40 lbs after I got married I never really tried my dress back on, not wanting to be disapointed.

 

I knew, that it would break my heart not being able to put it on. 

 

I am telling you that, to tell you THIS.

 

I am going to put that dress on this comming November 18th.

 

I am going to take a picture. 

 

I want it to FIT!!!!

 

SO stay tuned for that!! I want to tell you all that I worked hard this year and that it fits and that I am back to the size I was (or SMALLER!) when I was married to the love of my life!

 

 

I will share more wedding photos when it gets closer to my anniversary :)

 

I know you all cant wait :)

 

Muwahah. Ok sorry.

 

Man, I love that boy.

 

Ok! SO. Now on to the 30 day challenge!!!

 

My dear friend Staci at www.anewstaci.blogspot.com, writer of Staci's Slimdown (her journey on weight watchers) is starting a 30 day challenge on her blog to get her kicked into high gear for the next 30 days and invited us to join her!

 

I have been reading Staci's blog for a while now and I love her.  She is a very good friend of mine and I just have to join in on the fun!!

 

So this is how I will be participating: Water.

 

I will drink my 8 servings of water everyday for the next 30 days.  The challenge should end on Thanksgiving.  Ya'll this is something I struggle with!!

 

I am just NOT a naturally thirsty person. 

 

But I know how good it is for me and how well my body responds when i am drinking the recomended daily ammount of water every single day.  So I am hoping this will really help me!!  You guys should do it too!!! Make your own challenge for the next 30 days and check out Staci to see how she does hers!! 

 

Thank you so much...each and everyone of you.

You motivate me.  Inspire me.  Encourage me. And keep me going. 

 

And I appreciate every single comment, every single follower, every page view, and every new friend on myfitnesspal. 

 

I appreciate YOU!! Thanks :)

A Day trip to the Mountains!

So last night as we are sitting at home hubby tells me...would I like to go to the mountains tommorow?

Would I?

Are you kidding me?

OF COURSE!!

So.....we did!

He wanted to us to get to see the leaves and do something fun!

I am all over some leaves and funness ya'll!

So this morning we got up around 8 am and got ourselves ready pretty quickly.

We decided to eat a late breakfast when we got into the mountains so we grabbed some coffees at the gas station for the ride up there.

I am pretty lucky considering I live 2 hours from the mountains and about two and a half hours from the beach.  My town is not the coolest thing but Im pretty close to some cool things. LOL.

It was super cold this morning!

We finally got into Boone and drove to Cracker Barrell because we were so hungry!!

We had to wait about 20 minutes for a table.  I was determined to stay on track even though we took a mini vacay!

770 cals

 

Ok guys this is what I did.  I got the Old Timers Breakfast!

 

It came with eggs, hasbrown caserole OR fried apples, a meat, grits and biscuits.

 

I asked for EGG BEATERS (no additional charge), TURKEY sausage, hasbrown caserole (77 cals for 3.4 oz's in my fit pal) and I asked for butter on the side.  I put one pat of butter on my grits, ate NO GRAVY, and had two biscuits.  I put a little bit of strawberry jam on the biscuits (like half a little pot) and one pat of butter. 

 

It was so good and filling!!

 

So then we went riding around downtown Boone, visited APP state, and went by the Tanger Outlets in Blowing Rock, NC. 

 

Ahh...Tanger. My old friend, we meet again :)

 

Except their mall stinks compared to the tanger in Pigeon Forge/Sevierville.  LOL.

Their only redeeming quality is they have a Coach outlet.

 

However me and Hubby found a couple things on a great deal at Aeropostale and I found two things for like 20 bucks at Banana Republic outlet. 

 

We sprayed on some free perfume/cologne too. Woot.

 

Gettin out moneys worth thats right.

Haha. Then we went to THE BLOWING ROCK. 

Apparently there is some old Cherokee legend about two indian lovers and the guy is torn between his woman and a war and he jumps off the blowing rock and she is so sad.

Well, the indian dude comes right back up to her.  Apparently the air blows upside down there and you can even see upside down snow!

In case your wondering, its true. The part about the air at least. I felts it. :)

It was 6 bucks to get in and you get to walk around it and you could actually picnic there!

It was such a gorgeous day today!! We had so much fun there taking pictures.  Unfortunatley I am having a difficult time getting them on here but I am trying!

Here's a favorite of mine with the Hubs on a rock!

He is so presh. I lurves him.

 

Ignore that dude in the background photobombing my beautimous pic.

And finally me...

We had such a great time today!

I love having spontaneous romantic trips with the Hubby :)

On our way home we stopped by a little mountain roadside market and got some apple cider and boiled peanuts! Yum...

Around 6pm we got into town and ate some mexican at our favorite restaurant.

661 calories

I had chicken and steak fijitas. Suprise suprise. LOL.

I ate about 2-3 bites of beans, the lettuce and tomatoes, most all the rice, all the fijitas (except some onions) and half a flour tortilla. And chips and salsa too :)

 

We had such a fabulous day-cation yall!!

I hope yall had a great weekend and I hope you all have a great week!!! Happy Fall!!!!

Extreme Fatty

Happy Saturday everyone!

Did you think I would post a recipe and not follow up with you all ??

Of course not :)

I am super tired. Probably due to eating like a fatty tonight. Ugh.

Yeah I may or may not have went over my calories by 423 calories today.....

...*crickets*...

Whatever. Im over it. Back on track tommorow!

Breakfast was cereal and coffee and a cheesestick that seems like a lifetime ago right now. LOL

 

Then for lunch after a long morning at work....sigh...

 

Lean cuisine bbq chicken pizza and salad with 1 tbsp ranch 5 olives and cheese.

 

Mom and me did go on a walk luckilly! And she brought me and hubby a halloween treat :)

 

Pretzles, a cute note pad for the fridge! And that little mock chinese container filled with candy!

I did some grocery shopping and cleaning and made taco soup. Scroll down for the recipe !

I ate WAY too much of this soup. 

I ate WAY too many (4) mini chocolates. Bad lauryn. Bad.

See those chips?

They are halloween chips.

For 1.49 at aldis they rock.

 

Ok that's it.  If you are my friend on myfitnesspal then you can see what an extreme fatty I was today and how exactly I went over 423 calories. Whatev's.  Tommorow is a new day :)

 

And almost all of my candy is gone now.

 

So that helps.

 

:)

Best Taco Soup Ever

You guys made me all warm and fuzzy inside this week, praying for my Grandma and all, so I figured that I would share with you one of my favorite recipes. Hands down.

By now, if you have followed my blog for a while you know already that I have a passion for some mexican food. It's true. No shame in this game.

And I make a mean healty taco soup when it's cold and I get a craving for some spicy on the border :)

So here she is in all her glory...my Best Taco Soup Ever. The recipe is perfected and ready to share with you dear friend!


You will need.....

1 pkt taco seasoning

1 can black beans (drained)

1 can pinto beans (drained)

1 can corn (drained)

1/2 onion (diced)

1 can rotel (NOT drained)

1 lb. LEAN ground beef (93/7)

3 and 3/4 cups of water

...OPTIONAL toppings

*shreadded cheese
*light sour cream
*green onions
*cilantro
*crushed tortilla chips

STEP 1: Get a big pot on the stove and brown your ground beef.

STEP 2: When meat is browned add in the whole pack of taco seasoning.  This is KEY! Also add about 3/4 cup of water to it and let it cook up a minute or two. 

STEP 3: Next add in about half of an onion diced up.

STEP 4: Add in the cans of everything and stir. 

STEP 5: Let it simmer on the stove and get warm about 15 mins before you serve it.

STEP 6: Garnish with what ever toppings your little heart desires.

STEP 7: Comment below thanking me for making your taste buds dance and your MAN happy!!!

Hahaha you totally dont have to do STEP 7, only if you REALLY feel like it :)

You should get about 12 one cup servings out of it and they are 137 calories a piece.

Calories: 137
Carbs: 11
Fat: 3g
Protein: 10g

*I put light sour cream and shreadded cheese on mine...

This is freakin awesome ya'll!! Go make this NOW! :)

Cupcakes & Chinese

Happy Friday Loves!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

My friday was pretty good...even though I had to eat soggy waffles about 1.5 hrs after I toasted them. But oh well. I didnt want them to go to waste!  Instead of peanut butter I used this little guy...

This is a peach spread the Bestie brought me all the way from Boone's Plantation in Charleston, SC.

Yes, the place where Ryan Reynolds & that Blake Lively chick got married :)

It's 60 cals a tablespoon and I used about that much. 

I had some strawberries to round it out with my coffe & cheesecake creamer.

271 calories

 

I know some of you cuties have been spreading pumpkin fluff on these babies! Good idea!!

 

Finally I got to leave for lunch after a crazy busy morning! I went to the library because the second Hunger Games book was there waiting on me!! Hollaaaaa. Peeetaaa. haha.

 

I was totally excited for that.

 

Ok so then I had to go to the bank and I stopped inside Subway to get me an overpriced & overrated grilled chicken salad.

 

422 calories

 

In the mix: Lettuce, Spinach, Mozz. cheese, onion, bell pepper, banana peppers, tomatoes, olives, salt n peppa and grilled chicken and cukes.  I used one little cup of sweet onion sauce and one little cup of honey mustard and two packs of the captian wafer style crackers.

With water.

 

No snacking today folks.

 

Plus I was really busy at work. 

 

Anyways by the time Hubs got home I was ravenous and so was he. 

We went to one of our faves: Red Bowl.

 

It has all kinds of asian foods and we usually get a bento box. 

 

564 calories

 

I got the sesame chicken with white rice (I never get fried rice anymore and I love white just the same), I also get the side salad instead of sushi-with ginger dressing on the side, which I DIP in. And a spring roll.

I barley used any of that ginger dressing.  I left 3 chicken pieces and some rice. 

It was delicious.

 

Then we did a little shopping :)

 

I mean, we were at the Mall and all :)

 

First I had to head into Bath & Body works.  They were starting to put out their Christmas candles and they hooked me up with a coupon so I HAD to buy something :)

 

 

 

I LOVE the new formula they use for their body wash now, so I got the Warm Vanilla Sugar which has new packaging for some reason.  And we picked out a candle that smells like Christmas, Christmas & Clove I believe it's called.  And I wanted a Candle holder. All for 11 bucks and some change, not bad.

 

Then I found some shoes for work that I need BADLY at Belks on SALE! Whoop whoop.

 

So off to The Sugar Shack it was.

 

Cute little cupcake place in the mall :)

 

202 calories estimated on MFP

 

This is CUPCAKES and kickboxing after all right?

 

So what I did absolutley no kickboxing this week!

At least I had a cupcake, people. Come on. :)

 

It was brown sugar with vanilla buttercream and spice cake or something. 

 

It was very yummy. 

 

I made hubs eat a lot of the cake part because I mainly want the icing.

 

I knocked most of that brown sugar off too.

 

Because I mainly want the icing. 

 

:)

 

I hope you all have a great Saturday!

 

Tuna & Taco Thursday !

Good news!!

This morning I got the lowest. number. yet.

If you look to the right you will see I have now hit 25 lbs lost.

Yeah, Im pretty stoked.

Yay!

Ok, breakfast was a quick one.

I tried to make it look purdy for you :)

260 cals

 

See it smling at you? :)

 

I ate about half of the banana.

 

Lunch was pretty good today. 

 

446 cals

 

My friend Stacey on youtube lifewithstaceyd (great weight loss youtube channel, by the way!) has gotten me wanting tuna due to her latest video on 4 Healthy Homemade snacks!!

 

So Tuna it was, with crackers, and I also added in a hard boiled egg.

That is Light Maryland Crab soup put out by Campbell's.  It's pretty good and has an Old Bay taste to it definetly.  Only 80 cals a cup.

 

And my strawberries. :)

 

I left work at 3.  Grandma was out of surgery so I left early to go see her.

 

 

50 cals

 

Me and Hubs split this on the way there.

 

When we got there they were trying to wake her up because she was sleeping too much :(

 

They wanted her to eat and drink and try as I did, she just wouldnt. 

 

She was too sleepy :( But they had given her morphine for the pain! She is 83, what do they expect??

 

So she was so sweet. She would wake up and sing with us a little bit and go right back to sleep. LOL.

 

Try as we might we just couldnt get her to wake up. So we let her sleep. She had a fever but it was going down when I left.

 

We were there from like 4pm till a bit after 8pm. 

 

By that time we were STARVED. 

 

I had eaten one bite of a moon pie (grandmas fave that I brought her) and a coffee with a ton of creamer because it was like the darkest coffee known to man. 

 

Luckily I had a ton of cals left when we went by taco bell.

 

Thank the sweet Lord for MFP. 

 

I went into the app on my phone and typed in "taco bell fresco" and tons of options popped up. I love it.

 

580 cals

 

One fresco steak soft taco.

One fresco chicken soft taco.

Two crunchy fresco beef tacos.

(one is not pictured due to it being scarfed down in the dark on the way home)

 

So that is it guys.  That's all she wrote.

I hope you all have a fantastic friday tommorow!!!

That's Much Better...

Well, Praise the Lord, today was a MUCH better day than yesterday! :)

Thank you all for the prayers and sweet comments about my Grandma. 

I can't tell you how much it means to me.

She is scheduled to have surgery tommorow at 7am!

So this is good. And come to find out her hip is not totally broken so it wont be a full hip replacement, which I am glad about.

Anyways, lets get on to my day!

It was pretty chilly this morning and I kinda wanted something different.  In fact I had been dreaming of my egg salad again because it was so good yesterday.  I boiled 3 eggs at dinner last night so I grabbed one on the go this morning and used out last piece of bread!

205 calories

 

I actually did NOT eat that banana, and I included 40 calories for my creamer in my coffee. :)

 

Later, I walked in on my boss eating some crackers that looked yummy.  I decided I wanted some too. Plus, I had errands to run and that would tide me over till the afternoon.

 

210 calories

 

They were sooo good. I used to eat these a lot when I was a kid, with a glass bottled coke. Great for upset tummys too :)

 

And tide me over it did, I didn't care to eat lunch until almost 3pm. I am hoping this is due to a shrinking stomach :) Ah..we can only hope.

 

But when I finally did break out the goods, good it was :)

 

404 calories

 

I had a lean pocket pepperoni pizza with my light lays and strawberries.

 

Needless to say that lasted until I left work.

 

Mom came over for us to go walking, so heading out the door I grabbed a small apple with some new peanut butter. It's Peter Pan Whipped and its only 150 cals for 2 tablespoons!

Sorry no pic...I literally swiped the peanut butter on the apple and carried it with me. LOL.

 

Then hubby got home around 7:30 and I was planning on him being out of town this week.  So I didnt exactly have anything to make him for dinner.  We had to go to walmart for a few things anyway so we stopped at McDonalds.

 

Hubby got his man food and I got one of my fave fast food salads, the Southwestern Grilled Chicken Salad, it comes with a cilantro glaze drizzled on.  My aunt eats this all the time and so does my friend Staci, its delicious and only 290 calories without dressing.  I eat one pack of Southwest dressing for 100 calories with it.

 

390 calories

I had an unsweetned large iced tea with splenda and lemon too. 

And Im not gonna lie, I ate two of Hubs fries AND about 1/4 of a cheeseburger.

But guess what?

 

I had the calories for it.

 

Woot woot.

 

So thats all good.

Guilt free Mickey D's.

 

Well I hope you lovelies have a great evening and a terrific friday eve tommorow!! :)