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!

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?

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.

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!

Crockpot time – Moroccan Chicken and Lentils

I forget how much I love my crockpot until fall and winter comes along. I never break it out during the rest of the year, but it’s so easy to make dinner with a slow cooker!

Since I’m done with grad school, and trying to do better with this weight loss thing, I decided to try and plan some meals this past week. This involved me looking through my freezer and panty to see what it held, and what was going to expire soon.

I had a new bag of lentils plus about a half a cup of lentils left over from last year in my panty. In my freezer, I had about three bags of frozen chicken parts. One bag of breasts, one of thighs and one of breast tenders, all from Trader Joe’s. I don’t have ground red pepper, so I substituted a few red pepper flakes.

I’ve made this for friends before, including once for my best friend from high school who married a man from Morocco. He said it tasted authentic and they enjoyed it. It’s from my Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook.

When I stayed home and made it, the timing worked perfectly, but since I work a full day, this time I may have cooked it a little too long, the chicken was a little dry.  The carrots that were on the bottom were nice and moist though.  I’ll work on the timing.

Moroccan Chicken and Lentils

Ingredients
8 ounces baby carrots	3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups uncooked lentils	3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 lbs frozen chicken tenders	1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 (14 1/4 ounce) cans fat-free chicken broth	1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons minced garlic

Directions:

Place the carrots in the bottom of a 4-5 quart slow cooker. Pour the lentils over the carrots. Arrange the frozen chicken tenders on top of the lentils. In a separate bowl combine the tumeric, ground red pepper and cinnamon together and sprinkle evenly over the chicken. Pour the 2 cans of chicken broth over the arrangement.

Time: Cook on high for 5 hours, or cook on high for 1 hour, then on low for 7 hours.

Serves about 4-6. A 1 cup serving is 5 points. With the lentils, it’s very high in fiber.

Weight Watchers at Work

Today was the first session of Weight Watchers at work, but I did not join.

I feel a little bit bad, but I really don’t want to waste my money when I’m not following the program anyway. I’m mostly writing down what I eat, except when I overeat and don’t want to see how many points I have actually consumed.

I am exercising pretty regularly these days, so my weight is staying about the same despite my tendency to overeat on my daily and weekly points.

I’m doing the best I can, but I don’t want to spend my money on something I’m not going to follow.

School started up last week, so my exercise days have changed a bit. I find I can’t exercise on Monday and Tuesday, so I’m going Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Today I did about 30 minutes of weights, and took a walk during lunch. Then we went to our newly refinished tennis court after dinner. I tried to hit a few to my husband, and juggle entertaining and trying to teach the three-year-old how to hit a tennis ball.

Tomorrow I’ll do my step class, Friday my Body Pump class, and Saturday one class or another depending on how I feel. I was too sore for Boot Camp, so last Saturday I did kickboxing, Tae Bo style. I asked, “Why no fans?” as I was totally drenched in sweat and my neighbor said, “Because she wants you to FEEL it.”

Oh I felt it all right, and it was nasty. I hate sweating, but this was miserable.

So no Weight Watchers for me right now. I’m trying to count points and eat well, but some days are harder than others.

No Pudge Brownies with Frozen Yogurt

This is one secret dessert that I learned about in Weight Watchers. When I started 4 years ago, I could only find the box of mix at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, but now even Safeway and Giant have them. I had one tonight.

They are No Pudge Fudge Brownies and are Fat Free and all natural for the health and organic folks. You can make them by the pan full, or by the single serving size.

I usually make a single serving for myself and have recently become a little creative and started mixing in chocolate chips and/or nuts like walnuts and pecans. Only a tiny amount, because the batter isn’t that thick.

Here’s the single serving recipe, and they have more recipes on their site.

In a small microwaveable container mix 2 tablespoons of your favorite flavor No Pudge! Brownie mix with 1 tablespoon of non-fat vanilla yogurt. Microwave on high for one minute. Top with fat-free frozen yogurt or whipped topping.

The brownie by itself is 2 points, and add the points amount of your topping and mix-ins. They have several flavors including mint fudge, cappuccino, and raspberry, but I just do the original chocolate mix.