Pumpkin Bread with Crystallized Ginger

(makes 2 loaves, about 24 slices each)

Ingredients for recipe:

• 1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
  
  


• 1⅔ cups sugar
  
  


• ⅔ cup unsweetened applesauce
  
  


• 2 tsp vanilla
  
  


• 2 eggs + 4 egg whites
  
  


• ½ cup 1% low-fat milk
  
  


• 3 cups all-purpose flour
  
  


• ½ tsp baking powder
  
  


• ½ tsp ground cloves
  
  


• 2 tsp baking soda
  
  


• 3 tbsp crystallized ginger, chopped
  
  


• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  
  

Vanilla glaze:

• ⅔ cup powdered sugar
  
  


• 3 tsp warm water
  
  


• ¼ tsp vanilla
  
  

Preparation (Vanilla glaze):

• Thoroughly mix glaze ingredients in a bowl.
  
  


• Drizzle on bread.
  
  


• Sprinkle with chopped crystallized ginger.
  
  

Preparation:

• Move oven rack to bottom position. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  
  


• Grease 2 loaf pans, 8½ x 4½ x 2½ or 9 x 5 x 3".
  
  


• Mix pumpkin, sugar, applesauce, milk, vanilla and eggs in a large-size bowl.
  
  


• Stir in remaining ingredients except vanilla glaze and ginger.
  
  


• Pour batter evenly into each of the pans. Bake for about 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in middle of bread comes out clean.
  
  


• Cool for 10 minutes then loosen bread and cool completely on a wire rack (about 1 hour).
  
  

Make 24 Servings:

Weight Loss Recipes Amount Per Serving (1 slice (89 g)): 166 Calories, 5 g Protein, 31 g carbohydrates, 1 g Dietary Fiber, 2 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 86 mg cholesterol, 191 mg sodium

I made it through Monday night without an incident

I managed to get through last night without any type of evening snack and no binging. It's a miracle!

Now I need another miracle! It's Tuesday night, and I'm in the same boat as I was last night, except tonight, I'm starving! Seriously, my hunger is off the charts.

My food today was sparse, but sufficient. I was in a rush to get to work for a meeting this morning so I skipped breakfast, which is something I very rarely do these days. I had a glass of non-fat milk because I read on someones blog yesterday that it was one of the best post-workout beverages. Protein and carbs in a glass.

Then off to work for back to back meetings until noon, lunch of chicken breast with two tablespoons of Stubbs barbecue sauce, leftover roasted butternut squash (yummy) and roasted Brussels sprouts (with about a teaspoon of oil). It was a wonderful and filling lunch.

Then a crazy busy afternoon at work, with no time for a snack except a few cherry tomatoes. I left work at 5:30pm to go to the Pyramid Brewery in Seattle for the Big Climb Team Captains meeting. It was a great meeting and now I'm super psyched about doing the event. Only 39 days left!

So I'm in a room with about 50 other Big Climb team captains and what do you think they're serving for hors d' oeuvres? Artichoke cheese dip with buttered french bread, and battered fried chicken wings with hot sauce, and of course beer. Lots of beer. Everyone was drinking beer.

They had a dinner menu and several people were ordering from it. My skinny (but very sweet) girlfriend ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fries. She does Crossfit and works out like a maniac, and she gets to eat whatever she wants and remains a size 2. Love her to pieces, but honestly, life is so not fair.

I ordered the salmon, grilled with no oil and without the cream sauce, steamed veggies, no utter. Water to drink.

I just got home about an hour ago (it's 10:30pm now). I took the train back to my near my work. That was an experience. I missed my stop and had to take a different train to get back to my stop. 9pm and I'm running around in train stations near the airport (a rather unsavory part of town). I made it home safely but it was kind of scary. I'm not doing that again.

So explain to me, why after eating a sufficient amount of food today, do I feel like I'm at a 10+ on the hunger scale (with 10 being the most hungry you could possibly be)? I'm debating about going to bed on an empty stomach. I ate at around 6pm, four and half hours ago.

I could eat something but will that send me into a binge. I'm still debating on what to do. Normal people eat when they're hungry. I've already determined I'm not normal when it comes to food. What shall I do? I'm exhausted so I'm really thinking about just going to  bed.

Pistachio and Fig Bread

(makes 12 servings)

Ingredients for recipe:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
  


• ½ cup sugar
  
  


• 1½ tsp baking powder
  
  


• ½ tsp baking soda
  
  


• ½ tsp salt
  
  


• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
  
  


• ½ cup unsalted roasted pistachios (or walnuts), shelled and chopped
  
  


• 8 dried figs, chopped
  
  


• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
  
  


• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
  
  


• 2 tbsps canola oil
  
  


• 2 eggs
  
  


• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
  
  


• ⅓ cup molasses
  
  


• Non-fat cooking spray
  
  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350 degree F.
  
  


• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder, sugar, nutmeg and mix well.
  
  


• Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the pistachios and figs. Mix well.
  
  


• In a medium bowl, combine ginger, buttermilk, molasses, canola oil and eggs, mix well then pour into flour mixture. Stir until batter is moist.
  
  


• Coat an 8" x 4" loaf pan with non-fat cooking spray. Pour in batter then bake at 350º degree for about 1 hour or until toothpick or knife inserted in center comes out clean.
  
  


• Let cool for about 15-20 minutes on a wire rack. Loosen bread from pan and cool completely on wire rack before slicing.
  
  

Make 8 Servings:

Weight Loss Recipes Amount Per Serving (1/12 of recipe (89 g)): 238 Calories, 6 g Protein, 41 g carbohydrates, 3 g Dietary Fiber, 6 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 36 mg cholesterol, 191 mg sodium

Monday, Part II - How a binge starts

My second post for today...avoiding a binge

It's 10:21 p.m. This is usually when it starts, the beginning of my nightly binge. It always starts innocently enough. Right now it's been about four hours since I ate dinner. I feel a little bit hungry. I'm not starving, I just feel like eating something. Lord knows I can't have a slight hunger pain and not take care of it immediately.

I've thought of all the things that I could eat that would be considered an acceptable snack. I've eaten 32 Points today, which is a large amount of food (I'm allowed a minimum of 29).

I've had three pieces of fruit today, two apples and a banana. I make note of this because fruit is suppose to have zero Points. However, I counted a Point for the banana. That's how I've customized the Weight Watcher plan for myself. Bananas have Points on "my" plan. I decided I needed some sort of ground rule for certain fruits. This is because I ate four bananas at one sitting a few days ago. You may find that unbelievable but it's the truth. Therefore, certain fruits that I would overeat have been assigned a Point value. Apples are safe. I don't think I've ever eaten more than one apple at a sitting. Of course, this is totally against the new Weight Watcher plan, but it's working for me.

Right now, I'm thinking I could have a little snack, maybe a low-fat piece of string cheese for 2 Points. Or a Skinny Cow low-fat fudge bar or maybe another apple (they're organic Fuji's and they're delicious) or perhaps a Dreyers frozen Pomegranate bar. Maybe some baby carrots, they're organic and super sweet. Or a glass of ice cold fat-free milk. I love milk. Maybe it would make me sleepy. Or a small piece of left-over chicken breast from dinner or maybe a Franz thinwich with some maple pumpkin butter (1 Point for a tablespoon). Or microwave popcorn, the Smart Pop brand that's low in Points.

The problem here is if I eat one thing, I can't stop. I'll eat everything I've listed above. Yes, everything. Well, maybe not the carrots, but everything else. I know myself well enough by now that I'm about 99% sure that's what would happen. I would once again ruin a perfect day of eating on plan, a perfect day of exercise, with a binge.

Instead of eating and chancing a binge, I've decided to wait until tomorrow morning to eat anything. I'm sipping water, writing this post. I'm wondering if I can sleep when I feel hungry. It's been a long time since I even tried. Then again, I can never sleep anymore anyway so why would that make it any different than any other night.

That's how a binge starts. This is how I'm stopping it in it's tracks...I'm not going to start. I'm very tired and feeling sleepy. I'm going to bed now, and I'm feeling like I'm in control of my actions. I will not eat until tomorrow morning after 6 a.m. That's only seven hours from now. Surely I can last seven hours without eating.

Good night.

New diets always start on Monday

And it's a Monday
I remember my old days of my dieting failures. I'd always start a diet on Monday, and often by Tuesday or Wednesday, or even sometimes by Monday night, the diet was history. It was too hard, I didn't care anymore, and I was too hungry to continue. I'd always have a plan to start fresh the following Monday.

It's Monday again, and even though I don't live by my old rules, it is a new week and a day where I can start over. Yesterday wasn't a perfect day by a long shot. I went to the gym for an hour and a half workout. Then I blew it. Why I continue this craziness is something I've yet to figure out.

When I came home, I found a bag of opened Original Bugles in my kitchen. I don't even like Bugles, and I can't remember the last last time I ate this snack food. Maybe 20+ years ago. In case you've never heard of them, they're a corn chip snack in the shape of a bugle. Salty and greasy, and really not very tasty. That didn't stop me. It's certainly not a food I sit around and obsess over. As far as I'm concerned, they're far down on the food chain of things I like to eat.

I don't know what possessed my husband to bring them into our home (temporary insanity?) or me to indulge in them (more temporary insanity?). Yet there I sat yesterday stuffing them in my mouth. I even measured out the first serving. 1.5 cups. I think it was something like 180 calories and 9 grams fat for each serving. After the first serving I just dumped some in a bowl and ate them. Probably at least three cups. I didn't calculate the Points. Why bother? It seemed like a lost cause at that point.

Next up was the almond butter, something I read about in last week's Weight Watcher flyer. They were talking about what to eat to prevent night time binges. Peanut butter and whole wheat crackers. Or peanut butter and apple slices. I'm allergic to peanut butter, but I love almond butter. I stopped buying it two years ago. Last night I remembered why. I love the stuff, but too much of it is NOT a good thing. One tablespoon is three Points! I didn't eat just one. Last night was a bad night for me.

It's Monday again, time to start over.


Hunker down
urbandictionary.com...


hunker down:  finally sit down to finish something up. To stop procrastinating and do something.


That's what I'm doing, I'm finally settling down and focusing on reaching goal. I've been putting this off long enough.


I'm past the honeymoon phase, I know this isn't easy nor is it fun. I might return here someday, but it's rather unlikely.


I've faced up to the honesty phase, and yes, this is hard but it IS worth it. This is my life. Forever. I'm the kind of person that even when I reach goal, it's still going to be difficult. I've accepted that it's never going to be easy.


So now it's the hunkering down phase. The phase where I bite the bullet, put my heart into this 100%. The old "no pain, no loss" rule applies to me. After years of diets, I know myself pretty well when it comes to losing weight. I have to be a little bit hungry a good part of the time or I don't lose weight.


I'm not talking about starving hungry, but I can't feed every little hunger pain that comes my way. A little hunger is normal, and something I have to learn to live with. It's not like I'm going to die from a little hunger.


My goal for right now, just get through one freaking day without overeating. My plan for tonight is a small three-Point snack and yoga before bed. No TV after 8pm. No True Blood DVDs that have been giving me horrible nightmares of death and violence. Yoga and a good book are the plan.


Speaking of good books - "This Stranger, My Son" by Louise Wilson
I read this book over the weekend, and it's really good. If someone you love has been diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia, you must read this book. My nephew was diagnosed with it in 1994. He committed suicide shortly afterwards at the age of 31.


My sister has been haunted by this for years, wondering what she did wrong as a mother. Blaming herself, saying she should have done more for her son, even though she did everything humanly possible to help him.


I just happened upon this book at a used bookstore. It was written in 1968 and is a mother's true story of life with her son that was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia.  It's heart-wrenching reading, and I could see my nephew in this story. It's a must-read for anyone that has a loved one dealing with this illness. I'm going to send my copy to my sister.


Weight Watcher New Complete Cookbook (with PointsPlus recipes)
I just bought this cookbook at Costco. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but it's a nice 3-ring notebook style cookbook. It retails for $29.95. Costco is selling it for $17.95, but it has a coupon inside for a year's subscription to Weight Watchers magazine. However, if you don't want the subscription, you can get a refund of $9.99 by writing "refund" on the coupon and mailing it. That means the cookbook was only $7.96! That's a real bargain.

DO NOT USE POWER PLATE WITH LAP BAND

Well that's pretty final.

I rang them, seemed like the easiest option. Actually it wasn't because it took about 30 minutes until I had been connected and connected and on hold several times to get to the right person.

Tragically you must not use this machine if you have ANY implanted device which (after some deliberation by them) includes the Lap Band.

Also phoned my surgeon (as was scared!) and he said no too as it can cause tightness (!) swelling of the stomach lining and also tears in the muscle tissue around the port.

Apparently it doesn't have any effect on the actual band and port itself, but how its sewn onto us and where.

The same applies to massage chairs and the like.

So, my brief flirtation with wiggly jiggly is over.

:-(

It was so good at ridding me of aches after the gym. *Waaaaa Waaaa Waaa*

To power Plate or Not to Power Plate THAT is the question

OK...

H has left me a very interesting comment regarding use of the Power Plate.

I haven't seen any other bandsters (oh maybe just one bandster from Essex banded fairly recently) who use the Power Plate in their Gym routine.

H said that she has known a few people advised NEVER to use it for fear of dislodging the port/tubing etc etc.

Now, to be honest, I never even though about it!! Can you believe that? I never even considered that all that jiggly wiggling would do anything to my band/port! Even after all my band disasters.

So what I NEED to know is -

TO POWER PLATE OR NOT TO POWER PLATE

Just to let you know how I use it:
Calf massage - Lay on back on the floor and have my calves massaged = no jiggly wiggly in rest of body.
Thigh Massage - Lay face down with only thighs on the plate and kind of doing a  press-up on the floor so only bits on the plate are thighs and knees and probs a bit of pelvis/gut too.
Back massage - Sitting on the edge of the plate dangling forward - Whole body buzzing away.

Freaked out!

OMG I do not want this to be the next band disaster in my life! I can see that this would also be an entirely feasible reason for the Power Plate to be contraindicated if you have a band. The lady at the gym didn't even know what a band was... helpful.

HELP LADIES!!!!!!!!!!!!