Momentum Sunday

This weekend we were making out our shopping list and when asking my husband what he wanted for dinner this week, the list read largely like the list a triumphant seven year old with overindulgent parents might put together: hot dogs, pizza, chicken fingers. Not so, thought I! I'm cracking open the new Momentum cookbook and preparing some new and tasty dishes.

I decided to try two different recipes, one for lunch and one for dinner. I was dying to try the "Best Ever BLTs". I haven't had a BLT since long before I joined WW, but I do like them. I was a bit skeptical about trying turkey bacon, but in for a penny, in for a pound, so I bought some on my shopping excursion Sunday morning.

Well, I don't know if it's the best ever BLT, but it is pretty darned good. It should be called an ABLT, as it has avocado included on it. I like avocado, but if I make this again, which I probably will as I have an entire package of turkey bacon looking for a good excuse to be eaten, I might leave off the avocado.

The pesto mayonnaise was a fantastic touch, and very easy to prepare. I really enjoyed it instead of plain mayonnaise, which I am not that crazy about. The turkey bacon was fine, not as good as the real thing, perhaps, but knowing it was a healthier choice kind of pushed me towards it as a certainly viable option.

Overall, I'd give this recipe a B+/A-. I really enjoyed eating a good BLT and this was no exception. The minor quibbles I had with it weren't worth getting too excited about. I used Pepperidge Farm 15 grain bread, which I recommend. As you all remember, when I started eating a lot of fiber and grain bread products, I had a very difficult time. Eventually I switched to Nature's Own Whitewheat on Lauren's suggestion, which has proved very satisfactory. But the picture of that bread in the cookbook made me want to eat something more substantial, so I bought the 15 grain bread and had no problems with it whatsoever.

For dinner, we tried the turkey cutlets milanese. Since joining WW, we have pretty much been on a chicken and turkey diet. We never liked to eat too much beef anyway--it was rare I would make something like beef stroganoff, and we never ate steak or roasts or anything of that nature. The only beef we were big on was ground beef for things like tacos or burgers. However, even that we have mostly supplanted with ground turkey now. I swear, we are going to sprout feathers and either cluck or gobble. Apparently, there is a WW booklet coming called "Beyond chicken" and I am lokoing forward to that.

So, I am on the prowl for new poultry recipes to jazz up our menu of fowl. (Nyuk nyuk) I found this turkey cutlets Milanese and decided that it sounded like a good Sunday dinner kind of thing. I have never made turkey cutlets before, but I do make chicken cutlets, which Michael and I both LOVE to eat, and I figured turkey cutlets would be pretty similar.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, dipping the cutlets in a mixture of egg and lemon juice and then into a mixture of corn meal and parmesan cheese before sauteeing them in some olive oil. The result is a very nice, crisp cutlet that is quite flavorful. It does taste like turkey, and I don't know why that surprised me, but when I bit into it, I thought, "Wow, this actually tastes like turkey!" I guess I expected a milder kind of chickeny taste. I dunno.

Anyway, the recipe was quite good and garnered rave reviews from my other half. The cutlet is topped with a salad of greens and halved cherry tomatoes covered in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing, which I left off his portion. I served mine over a bed of Barilla Plus pasta and his with a side of mashed potatoes, and we were both most satisfied at the results. It was very filling and a nice twist on what could have been another ho hum poultry dinner. I will say that I didn't taste the lemon in it at all. If it was there, it was so subtle as to be overpowered by the parmesan and salad dressing, which is fine with me as I am not a big lemon fan anyway. I don't hate it, I just don't love it. I would give this one a grade of A. We both really enjoyed it.

So thus endeth Momentum Sunday. I plan to try the Thai shrimp salad this weekend when I have company around to help me eat it, as I don't think The General will stand for it. He can have hot dogs or something! Hope everyone is having a good week out there!

Weekly Report

Well, since I had a loss today, I am reporting in early :-) I credit this week's 2 pound loss to the new DVD. That thing makes me work it, while at the same time having fun. The added bonus is that it's exactly the same amount of time as the General is on the treadmill, so we start and finish at the same time and can sit on the couch and groan together. Fun!

I am now down 54.8, so it maybe sucks just a little bit that I didn't hit 55 this week, but oh well! Next week.

I can hardly believe it's December and I'm actually losing. It has helped tremendously that I'm not baking yet--this is often my baking weekend. No Christmas goodies or snacks around, though, so that's been helpful.

I'm trying to think of a goal that I want to hit after I hit my 60 pound goal, which was my post-10% goal. 75 is the next logical step. I just need a deadline. Maybe by our anniversary in April, but that seems a bit far in the future. Still, one never knows what will happen, so it might be good to plan it like that.

I want to put in a plug for those new Progresso soups which have WW points values on the label. Yesterday I got home, and I knew I was short on points, but I wanted a snack, so I grabbed a zero point soup and ate half the can (one serving). It did a great job of a) filling me up and b) warming me up. I'm stocking up on them--lots of coupons, so we can get lots of soup!

Till next week...

A Slight Uptick on the Scale

This week, I am late in posting. I always hate posting on the weeks I have a slight gain, or any gain, for that matter, not that this one was anything worth crying over. I went up 0.2, which in WW land is akin to maintaining.

I suspect it happened on account of the fact that last week was so nuts. There were 3 days I didn't get to do any exercise at all apart from the day-to-day stuff of shopping and wandering around per my usual routine. This has been drastically remedied this week, however.

After a long time of Sweatin' to the Oldies, I decided it was time to trade it in on a newer model, so I pulled out my DVD of 60's Blast Off. I could about fall asleep while I was "Sweatin'" and I figured it wasn't giving me as good of a work out as it could any more. When I started Sweatin' 53 pounds ago, it was a struggle. I couldn't even do the entire DVD, fast forwarding through the Wipe Out section, which involved a lot of running and hopping and skipping. 53 pounds later, however, not only can I do the entire DVD, but I'm not breaking a sweat doing it.

Enter 60's Blast Off. Richard has traded in his Yale wifebeater and candy cane striped shorts for hot pink and sparkles. And he's taken the exercise up a notch. This DVD is much shorter--only about 30 minutes. But it is an intense 30 minutes. By the time it's over, I am sweating and am really out of breath. However, it is actually FUN and I feel like I'm a coordinated dancer type when I do it. I think it's probably giving me good results, though I won't know till Saturday. So I'm excited to do that.

I'm also excited to note that this week, the General has been consistently breaking 1 mile on his treadmill. Yesterday was his personal best at 1.06 miles in 26 minutes. When we started, he couldn't do but 5 minutes before collapsing. And for a long time, he's been stuck at .95 miles. So this is a big step and I'm really proud of the work he's putting into it!

Ok, see you all on Saturday!