Core WW Cherry Cheesecake Smoothie

I switched to the Weight Watchers Core program over a week ago and lost 4.6 pounds my first week. I continued to do it this week, and am guessing I will have another loss, although I won’t find out until Wednesday morning.

 No counting points, I just eat as much as I want from the Core food list until I feel satisfied. Plus I still can earn and eat my activity points and eat 35 points for my weekly allowance. It’s much easier, plus I’m paying more attention to my body, hunger and fullness signals.

Here is one of my new Core dessert recipes.

Cherry Cheesecake Smoothie

1 cup skim milk
1 cup frozen cherries
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 tsp sugar free fat free cheesecake instant Jello pudding
1/2 cup of ice

Add to a blender and mix until smooth. Delicious!

I love my heart rate monitor

 

My Polar F11 arrived in the mail last Tuesday night, and I took it for a test drive starting Wednesday at my one hour spin class. I ordered it from http://www.heartratemonitorsusa.com/ which was recommended by community members on the Weight Watchers website.

It comes with 3 pieces, a wrist watch unit, a chest strap with electrodes, and a transmitter that snaps onto the chest strap.

I picked this particular model because it works with my Virgin HealthMiles, plus the reviews said the strap was more comfortable than the F4 or F6, and the transmitter had a changeable battery unlike the other models. I choose the pretty blue color too.

The set up was super easy; I just entered the date, time, my weight, age and a few other key pieces of information. I also had to take a Fitness Level test which is similar to the VO2max test and scored a “Good”.

I then figured out how to start recording my workouts and was impressed with the amount of calories I was burning. I think it also made me work out extra hard, plus I kept looking at my wrist to see what my number my heart rate was at.

After the workout, I needed to figure out how to download my info to the computer and put it on Polar Personal Trainer. I’m used to downloading my steps on the pedometer with a USB cable, but this little sucker was different. I got the software, and just hold up the wrist watch to my microphone, and it chirps, beeps and hums the info across the net.

Polar Personal Trainer keeps track of all my info including my time, calories burned, percent of fat burned and heart rate zones. Here are my results from a week’s worth of workouts:

Day	Activity	Time	Calories	% Fat Burned
Wednesday	Spin	1:03	655	45%
Thursday	Step	1:00	515	55%
Friday	Body Pump & Elliptical	1:12	595	55%
Saturday	Boot Camp	1:01	720	40%
Monday	Boot Camp & Treadmill 2 mile walk	1:36	811	55%
Tuesday	Cardio	1:00	363	60%

I then learned how to calculate my calories burned and turn them into Activity Points (AP) so I can eat extra points on WW. It’s not official, but some WW members told me 100 calories = 1 activity point. They also said I must eat my AP’s the same day I earn them.

I’m in love with my monitor. It even gave me a trophy at the end of the week. I’m not sure why, but hey, I rocked on my workouts last week!

Take the Diabetes Risk Test

Today is American Diabetes Alert Day.  You have a greater risk for Type 2 diabetes if:

• You are overweight.
• You are age 45 and older.
• You have high blood pressure.
• You have a family history of diabetes.
• You get little or no exercise.

Go take the free risk test at the American Diabetes Association web site to find out if you are at risk. You only have to enter a few pieces of information which include your age, height, weight, lifestyle and family history.

I scored a “5” with a low to medium risk, mainly because I’m overweight. It suggests I keep my weight in control or lose weight, stay active most days of the week, and eat a diet of low fat meals high in fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods.

Check it out at www.diabetes.org/risk and view the at risk weight chart too.

Girl Scout Cookies and Weight Watchers

Girl Scout Brownie - Michelle

Our first boxes of Girl Scout cookies arrived last Friday. There were 2 boxes which my husband had ordered from his friend. He only shared a few Somoas with me.

I had ordered several boxes from a neighbor, but had yet to receive them. Well, I got my six boxes today, and my dilemma is what to do as a Weight Watcher.

I have a long history with the Girl Scouts, as I was one. View the lovely photo of me in my Brownie outfit (very figure flattering) in the 1980’s. My mom was even a leader for my troop for a number of years.

We had fun singing songs, going on trips and camping, but one of my best memories is of the cookies. Our house would be full of the cases of cookies, where my mom had to sort and distribute them to the girls in her troop.

My favorites are Thin Mints, Samoas and Trefoils who have kept their lovely 70’s shape throughout the years.

Now I have a daughter of my own who can join the Girl Scouts when she starts school, but that’s a few years off.

I know I can count the points for the cookies, but for me, it’s hard to resist only having 3, 4 or 5 cookies. I usually can eat half a box of cookies a day. My 6 boxes could be gone before the end of the week. I know I can freeze them too, and the Thin Mints in particular taste particularly yummy frozen.

I looked up the points, and the best amount of cookies for the points turns out to be the Trefoils with 5 cookies for only 4 points. I had even ordered a box of the Sugar Free Chocolate Chip cookies to try, but turns out you only get 3 cookies for 4 points!

Here are the points values that I calculated from Little Brownie Bakers.

Cookie	Amount	Points
Trefoils	5 cookies	4
Thin Mints	4 cookies	3
Samoas	2 cookies	4
Do-si-dos	2 cookies	3
Tagalong	2 cookies	4
All Abouts	3 cookies	4
Sugar Free Chocolate Chip	3 cookies	4
Lemon Chalet Cremes	1 cookie	2

So far today, I’ve only had five Thin Mints (and put down 3 points on my WW tracker), but it’s going be hard to make it through tonight, the rest of the weekend, and heck, even the rest of the week. What’s a girl to do?

High-tech video game bikes

I’m starting to get a little bored at the gym. I was late to my normal step class today, so I got on the treadmill for a walk when after a few minutes my iPod died. I guess the juice just ran out. I completed about a half a mile in 10 minutes, and then was bored with no music.

I jumped from the treadmill to the elliptical machine where I could watch the television and did a cardio program for 15-20 minutes and then noticed these new fancy bikes with TV’s attached. These were no ordinary TV’s, but they displayed trails and looked like video games.

So I got off the elliptical and hopped on the high-tech bike which turned out to be fantastic! It was an Expresso Fitness machine which claims “Bye bye boredom!” I was definitely not bored, but I did have a little trouble figuring the machine out.

Since I’ve been doing spin, I thought I could handle this machine with no problem. Unfortunately I don’t really know how to shift a bike, and this bike had a shift on it!

I picked out the “Evening Bliss” ride and proceeded to go around a nice track with the sun setting in the sky. There was even a glare from the sun when my bike faced the right direction. It was fun seeing other bike riders on the trail, and I enjoyed picking up my pace to pass them (who knew I was competitive?). It was just like a car video game, but at a much slower pace. I went through the entire program and then remembered my headphones.

Since my iPod had stopped working, I plugged in my headsets and could flip between different radio stations. They had several different types of music stations including country, oldies, dance and rock.

Even though I couldn’t really figure out the shift thingy, I did manage to complete the course. My heart rate got up in the cardio range, and I was sweating.

I signed out, and then decided to sign back in as a guest and picked another course, the “Coastal Run” where the ocean was in the background. While I didn’t pay much attention to the first courses’ graphics, besides the sky, I did notice the interesting backdrop for this course. There were sheep on the sides of the road, and some trees whose leaves flickered.

It was fun passing other bikers on the previous course, but since I got into the video game mindset with this one, I was tempted to knock out the other bikers like you do on the car race track.

I admit it; I bumped into and knocked over two other bikers. I know, I’m evil. There was no big crash and burn though like with the cars, you just saw them “poof” and go away with no fanfare.

Then I looked at the clock and realized I had been at the gym for about an hour and it was time to get home to the family.

Anyway, if this is the future of workouts and gym equipment, boy are we in for a ride. I had too much fun, broke a sweat, and lost track of the time. Its not often that this happens to me at the gym, in fact, it’s never happened. I always am looking at the clock.

Check them out. And if you can explain to me how to shift a bike, I’d appreciate it for my next ride.

My very first podcast

I downloaded and listened to my very first podcast this week. I read about the Couch to 5K program on Weight Watchers website, Googled it and found this site.

Robert leads you through the workout with background music. I walked and ran with the first week podcast where you warm up, run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, back and forth. It was pretty good music.

I only got my iPod Shuffle a few months ago, so was excited to try a podcast on for a change. My favorite running songs seem to be from Pink’s I’m Not Dead album lately.

Of course it took me 10 minutes to find the podcast on my shuffle, so I ended up doing 41 minutes on the treadmill for a total of 3.15 miles and burned 430 calories.

He recommends a day of rest in between the sessions, but I’m going to spin class tomorrow.

Now maybe I’ll be able to work up to actually doing a 5K this year.

Devil’s Pumpkin Brownie Muffins

I just found this recipe on the web, and tried it out for the first time. The photo of the results are little different than what I experienced, but they do taste wonderful!

I added about a ½ cup of chocolate chips as well since I was sharing with my co-workers.

The recipe makes 12 regular muffins or 36 mini muffins. 1 muffin or 3 minis are 3 points.

Devil’s Pumpkin Brownie Muffins

1 box devil’s food cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)
1 can solid pack pumpkin (15 oz).
Chocolate chips optional (this probably raises the points, but oh well)

Mix the two ingredients together. The mixture will be very thick, don’t add anything else (except chocolate chips if you wish). Place batter into muffin tins lined with paper, or sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Fabulous Apple Spice Cake

I’m starting the holiday baking for a party at work tomorrow and am using this old favorite Weight Watchers recipe. I was going to make my homemade, non-WW friendly cookies, but decided to wait till this weekend for my normal Christmas cookie baking.

This is a very moist cake that only has three ingredients, a box of spice cake mix, apple pie filling, an egg and egg whites. I’ve also used 2 eggbeaters as a substitute for the eggs before, but here is the orginal recipe.

 Fabulous Apple Spice Cake

1 Spice Cake Mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)
1 cap apple pie filling (try the no-sugar added ones)
1 egg
2 egg whites

Mix ingredients together by hand. Spray a bundt cake pan with cooking spray. Pour mixture into pan and bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Makes 18 servings for 3 points each.

Holiday parties are all about the food

It’s a miracle. I just completed three days of holiday parties without gaining more than a pound. I don’t know how I did it, but I’m not going to argue with the scale.

Wednesday kicked off the start with a little “sweet” holiday soiree by a department at work other than my own. It was held in the afternoon and only had desserts and sweets which included cake, chocolate crème puffs, cinnamon sugar covered walnuts, cookies, fruit, ice cream and Ghirardelli chocolates. If you know me at all, I have a rather large sweet tooth, so I indulged in most of the goodies, and even included some fruit on my plate.

Thursday was my husband’s holiday party during the work day at his place of employment. Spouses were not technically invited, but I snuck in. Their spread of dishes included many healthy options like salad, sandwiches, vegetarian dishes, and of course the dessert tray with an assortment of lemon bars, cheesecake bars, cookies and other treats. For beverages they had smoothies, and for dessert they had sorbet! The main dishes were too delicious for me to know it was healthy for me.

Friday night was our company’s party, held at the Signature Theatre in Shirlington, where spouses were invited. Timed from 4-8pm, we got my sister to be our sitter, and arrived a little before 5pm. We each got two drink tickets, and beer and wine was served until 5, and then after the full bar opened.

Dinner was more of an appetizer/buffet style with two tables of food. It wasn’t ready until about 5pm either. One table had an Asian food theme going on with spring rolls. They were being hand rolled and the line was enormous.

The other spread was more American style with mini grilled cheese sandwiches that had salmon or ham inside. They also had glasses with chicken and a whole grain we couldn’t figure out at the bottom, followed by grilled meat of some sort and grilled mushrooms. This was the shorter line, so I started here first.

My main complaint, no dessert table to begin with. From 5pm – 7pm, it was drinks, and two tables of food. At 7, they brought out the dessert.

Now if I’m planning what I want to eat, I want to see all of my options in front of me! I didn’t know if the dessert would be fabulous or just average, and if I should hold back on my dinner choices.

In the end, the dessert was just slightly above average. They had fruit on kabobs, some mini spice cake/brownie things, but the best part was the servers who went around carrying trays of chocolates. My husband spotted them first, brought me two, brought me another one, and on my way out I grabbed two more. They were a variety of dark and milk chocolate on the outside and different crèmes on the inside. The only one I didn’t care for was the coffee flavored one.

Sure there were drinks and dancing, but for me it’s all about the food.

My two highlights of the evening, the chocolates and taking a snap shot of our VP doing the DJ Casper Cha Cha Slide dance.

New breakfast foods

Greek yogurt from Trader Joe’s. Zero percent fat and 20 grams of protein. It is very thick, sour and tart by itself, but tastes delicious with some strawberries and Splenda. 1 cup is 2 points.

Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal. Recommended by a coworker, has a lot of fiber and some protein in it. 1 cup is 3 points, plus 1 cup of milk equals a nice 5 point breakfast that lasts almost until lunch.

Amy’s Breakfast Burritos. Raved about by my former WW leader. I saw them on sale, buy one get one free, so bought a few. Entirely vegetarian with beans, tomatoes, potatoes, and tofu. Takes about 3 minutes to heat in the microwave, and only 5 points.

It’s the most important meal of the day. Enjoy!