Sweet Potato Fries

Made these a few weeks ago and have been meaning to share! Quite possibly one of my most favorite things ever and SO EASY.

Peel your sweet potatoes (I just did one for me at the time) and cut into whatever shapes you prefer. Lightly toss with olive oil, and sea salt (some people add other seasonings like garlic salt, etc.). Layer on baking sheet and bake for 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. I like mine crispy! Keep an eye on them though, you don't want them to burn obviously!

















I serve mine with ketchup...yum yum!!

















I'm estimating about 6 points on Weight Watchers for approximately one serving, not including the ketchup.

Operation No Snooze Button: An Update

Every since I have turned the snooze option OFF on my cell phone, I have been forced out of bed every morning at 6:45. For the first 2-3 minutes, I'm really ticked off that I can't hit snooze. Like a bear that has just awoken from a long winter hibernation!










But after I get up, I'm totally fine. It's been life changing.

• I'm on time to work...usually early.
• I'm not grumpy. Shocker!
  
• I have time for a full breakfast.
• I have time to apply my makeup and not in the car like I usually do. (don't judge)
  
• I get to watch a snippet of the Today show.
• I have time to pack my lunch every day.
• I have time to make my own coffee.

My goal is to eventually schedule in a short workout in the morning. But baby steps...for now this is working. Who knew?

Weight Watchers Mid Week Update

Wednesdays are my weigh-in days, and I'm here to give you the skinny good or bad! Well, it's not good but not the worst news in the world. My weight loss for the week:

-0 lbs.

Yep, I lost zero. I'm going to have to blame it on this....



















Lovely, no? But really...who loses weight on a Girls Weekend Trip to the mountains? At least there was no gain, right? I weighed on Monday morning (I promise I am not obsessing with the scale, just wanted to see what the damage was) and I was up 2.5 lbs. Must have been water or the change in altitude. Thank goodness that did not reflect today.

Total loss to date: 4.5 lbs. I have some work to do!! My birthday is mid March, and I'd like to see a real change in my body by then. Onward to the next week...my friends will laugh when they read this: "Healthy Choices!" ;) I'm determined to see at least a 2 lb loss next week.

Oh, one last note. My gym membership expired, and I did not renew. They require a one year commitment, and I'm a commitment phobe! Mainly because when the time changes, I have lots of sunlight after work and I like to be outside. So I found a small gym nearby that is month by month, and CHEAP! Going to check it out soon, and see if it can meet my needs for just the next 2-3 months.

xoxo!

Snow Tubing

This weekend I went on a fun trip to Blowing Rock, NC with some of my best girlfriends. We had a blast! I highly recommend Blowing Rock - it's a gorgeous little town nestled in the mountains of NC. More pictures to come as soon as I get them from my friends (cough, hint, cough) but here are just a few :) I took these on my cell phone which is why they are not the best quality!

Chatola Resort is where we stayed. This is the front of the resort and it overlooked a huge pond that was almost completely frozen over. The place was gorgeous!



















This is one of the hills we went down:

It was soooo cold and windy! But we had so much fun!



















And afterwards we warmed up with a few brews! :)



















Definitely visit Blowing Rock if you ever have the chance. The views are amazing and the town is so quaint and pretty!

One week experiment with NO SNOOZING!

Now that my insomnia issues seem to have gone away (Thank the Lord!) I want to admit another problem I have. It's called the Snooze Button! I have seriously snoozed hours of my life away and I hate that. I hate that I hit snooze for as long as possible in the morning, only to have to rush through my morning and arrive at work looking haggard and in a bad mood. Most days my makeup gets applied in the car or in my office at work.

This needs to stop ASAP.

I think I have found the solution. I have turned the snooze option OFF on my blackberry (which is my alarm clock). *gasp* I honestly did not even know that was an option. But now that I have discovered this, I might be able to break this habit. The one thing I have never done is fall back asleep if there is no snooze option. Because I KNOW if I lay back down on my pillow I will fall back asleep. So that is not even an option. I will have to get up.

I'm going to see how this goes for a week. Do any of y'all have snooze issues like I do? For those of you that bounce right out of bed everyday, how?? I would love to be one of those people. (and I know having a child or dog you have no choice, but all I have is lazy cats that have no problem snoozing with me.) Also, I have tried the whole "putting the alarm across the room" trick. Have I mentioned I'm a champion at falling back asleep? I would get up, walk across the room, slap snooze, and get right back in bed. Zzzz....

Wish me luck!

Weight Watchers: The new pro points program

I started back on Weight Watchers 2 weeks ago, and I have been using the new Points Pro system. I was a little skeptical at first, but I decided to give it a go. If you follow my other fitness & diet blog, you will remember I had been having some problems with losing weight and I was super frustrated. Weight watchers worked in the past for me (lost 30 pounds in 2006), and I decided to really fully commit to doing it again.

Which means recalculating ALL of my food. The new program is not as easy to configure points. In the past, you could go loosely by calories and estimate your points. A 100 calorie food item was approximately 2 points usually. The higher the fat content, the higher the points. Now Weight Watchers does not consider calories in their formula. They focus on protein, carbs, fiber and fat. Many processed foods went up in points. Which is a good thing! This means I won't waste my points on silly processed 100 calorie crap, that does nothing for you.

The biggest change that I have noticed is that I am eating more fruits (which are 0 points now!) and protein. And the difference? I am FULL all the time. I also try to eat a pretty big breakfast every day. That's the key for me to not overeating throughout the day. I've also been cooking more of my own food, and that's been the fun part! (who knew?)

The only negative is that other than yoga, I haven't done much cardio much the last 2 weeks. But I'm one of those type that can only really focus on one thing at a time, so the cardio had to take a back seat while I figured this all out. Now that I'm in a groove with my eating, I can concentrate on cardio again.

The result? Down 3 pounds so far. It's not a huge loss, but it's a start. I am hoping that once I start exercising regularly again, that will increase. But on the positive side, what weighs 3 pounds? A half gallon of milk. That's nothing to sneeze at.











Link source

Here's to losing a whole gallon next.... :)

The most perfect bowl of oatmeal EVER

Even if you are not into oatmeal, you should try this. It's that good! (Inspiration from Kath Eats Tribute to Oatmeal - lots of great ideas on her page.)

1/4 cup McCann's Steel Cut Irish oats (or whatever brand you prefer)
3/4 Cup skim or low-fat milk
1 banana
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond butter
1/4 cup walnuts (or a palmful is what I use)
A dash or 2 of cinnamon

Cook the banana in with the oats and milk and let it simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the banana is nice and melted into the oatmeal. Then turn off the heat and add the remaining ingredients. When it all comes together, this is what it looks like:

















This turned out delicious and extremely filling! A perfect way to start my day. Enjoy!

A Snow Day! YAY!

It snowed last night and we woke up to a winter wonderland! Which is even crazier because it just snow 2 weekends ago! That never happens here so needless to say we are thoroughly enjoying it (and the day off from work...because that's how we roll down South!)



















I made a super delicious soup last night and I want to share the recipe with you all. I got it from The Fitnessista. It's delicious!

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

- 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
-1 small sweet onion, small diced
-1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
-1 can organic black beans, rinsed and drained (I added some red beans bc I didn't have many black beans)
-1 14 oz can organic fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained (I didn't drain)
-1.5 C organic veggie broth
-3 garlic cloves, minced
-1 T chili powder
-1 t cumin
-1 t paprika
-pinch cayenne
-1/2 t sea salt
-1 lime (for splash of juice at the end) - (I didn't add this bc I didn't have any lime.)

Combine all ingredients into a slow cooker (except the lime), sprayed with nonstick spray. (I used a Dutch Oven instead.)

















PS Thank you for all your suggestions on my sleeping issues! I've been trying several methods and things seem to be improving. Boy, not sleeping is awful. I have a whole new respect for those with chronic insomnia.

I can't sleep!

For the past few nights I have been going to bed and then laying there wide awake for HOURS! And it's not as if I'm not tired, because last night I almost fell asleep on the couch. And normally I am a CHAMPION at falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. So hopefully this is just a phase that will pass. If I can't sleep tonight then I am going to have to go buy some Tylenol PM or something.

Do any of you ever have this problem? If so, how do you function the next day? I am an 8 hour of sleep a night girl (always have been) and if I don't get my sleep I have a VERY hard time concentrating at work the next day. It's amazing how much sleep affects us. Even right now I'm at my desk and about to fall asleep in my coffee cup.

A Resolution & and a Confession

I normally don't do resolutions but this year I have decided that I will because I have a dirty little secret. And it needs to be outed so I can change this terrible habit ASAP.

Here it is:

I resolve to never text message while driving ever again.

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and how I needed to stop but I had not done it yet. It's actually been a little dirty secret of mine, one that I was/am ashamed of. I've been known to fuss at others about it, and yet I have been doing it myself more than I'd like to admit. I wanted to stop, but I would be driving down the road and the text sound would go off. The wondering of who it is and what they want drives me crazy. So I read it, and then of course think I have to respond. Which is ridiculous. Most of the time I am in the car for no more than 10 minutes. There is almost nothing that can't wait 10 minutes for a response.

So there you have it. I knew in order to make this real for me, I needed to post this on my blog. Make myself accountable. Last Thursday, I happened to watch a video on facebook that a friend's mom posted. It was about texting and driving. That was the moment I decided to make this real and I vowed, no more. You heard it here first, folks.

If you know someone that texts while driving, have them watch this video and vow to quit with me. It's powerful...