Spicy Beef & Lentil Soup

Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups dry lentils, rinsed thoroughly
1 1/2 C chopped carrots
1 C chopped onion
1 C chopped celery
1 1/2 C water
1 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
2 packets beef bouillon
1 Bottle Spicy Tomato Juice -- 64 oz of Spicy V8 (U.S.) or 1.89 L of V-GO (Canada)
2 or 3 dashes Worcestershire sauce
Many dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce (to taste)

Directions:
Brown beef; break into small pieces while cooking. Drain.
Place meat into slow cooker (crockpot). Add lentils, vegetables, water, salt, pepper, bouillon, spicy tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, and Hot Sauce. Cook on high until it boils. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 6 hours, or until lentils are tender. Stir occasionally. Serve with extra hot sauce as desired.

My husband doesn't really love soup for a meal, but thinks this one is good - since it has the hot sauce. It tastes great served with biscuits, fresh bread, or even garlic toast. OH, and I count it as 3 points per bowl (I guess thats about a cup of soup?) The ground beef is really the thing with the most points in it - the V-GO is only 1 point per 1 Cup, so you just have to add the points for the ground beef and lentils on top of that... Anyway, ENJOY!

Check this out for tons of great recipes...

I'll be posting a recipe of my own there later today (and here too). Just click on this big box and you'll be taken to BooMama's recipe event! :o) Enjoy!

WeeHoo

I just want to share that I weighed in today (for the first time in 3 weeks), and I'm down 2.8. And that is exciting to me because I'm pretty sure I gained the first of those 3 weeks, maintained the second, and then lost this last week. So, I'm glad that I did lose.

It's so funny how once every couple of months, I realize that the thing about Weight Watchers is that if you do it the way they tell you to, you will lose weight. Then, I spend a while doing it right and losing weight, and then I gradually peter out to just kinda doing it and kinda losing weight. A lady at weight watchers today said that is like cooking with a recipe... if you follow the recipe properly, it will almost always turn out - but if you stray and get lazy, it probably won't.*

And I also just want to share that this week, I did more Activity Points (APs) than I think I've ever done in one week (well, this time around in my weight loss anyway). I did 14. Wow. I'm loving my treadmill, and loving my kids for napping at proper times so I can use my treadmill.

So, that's my update here. Now, the trick is to stay strong even after a little success. Sometimes I tend to think, WOO - I did it! And then reward myself with food or something silly like that. Well, no sir - not this week. My stickers on the calendar (see the last post I wrote) are working really well to motivate me - I must finish one whole week to see what a completed rainbow will look like! If I do that, then I'll take a picture and share it with you all. Oh, the joys of having a somewhat anal (whats a nicer way to say that?) personality... Sometimes you can use it to your advantage.

Oh, and the WW quote for the day:

If hunger is not the problem, then food is not the answer.

Have a good week everyone! Especially you Amanda (she's going on a tropical vacation!) Heck, just for fun, I'll include a picture of me and Trevor on a tropical vacation (((SIGH))) ... one day it'll happen again... (((SIGH))). oh, and please note that the reason I am wearing a shirt is that I got so stinking sunburned the day before that I thought I was going to spontaneously combust at any point... so the t-shirt was the answer for this day. But I still love this picture cuz of the water.

(((SIGH SIGH SIGH)))

Okay, I'm done now.

*This analogy applies only to people like me, who cook the best with a recipe and who have little imagination when it comes to making variations on the recipes. (And I must admit, I am blatantly copying Amanda with this asterisk. I owe her all of my asterisk credit.)

Stickers

Just thought I'd share my latest motivational strategy... stickers. As I've shared before, I am highly motivated by stickers. Well, my good friend Shayne bought me these beautiful star stickers for my birthday last month, and it occurred to me this week that I should put them to use! So, I thought that if I am good all day (like writing my points down the whole day, and staying within them, or within them using some extra points, and if I exercise that day), then I'll get to put a sticker on yesterday's day the next morning. So far, its working beautifully... thanks Shayne for the rainbow stickers!

Blasted Halloween Candy!!!

Well, okay maybe its not the Halloween candy's fault, per se - I guess perhaps it is more MY fault - but I'd prefer to try to place the blame elsewhere.

It's been quite a week - or 3 weeks around here. In fact, I think its been pretty much since my 30th birthday and my big celebration of having lost 30 pounds... I've just been a bad girl. I have my list of excuses (some of which I think are pretty darn good ones!) but really, I know that there should be no excuse.

Whatever.

In any case, I've started to make an actual effort to lose weight again - as of yesterday. And it feels a lot better.

Its not that I was so so bad this past month - I think in fact that I've done pretty well with the exercise over the past week (I think I've been on the treadmill 5 out of the past 7 days). Unfortunately, I also ate way too many mini chocolate bars on 5 out of the last 7 days as well!

Oh well.

So, my new plan is that I am not going to have even one more Halloween candy this season. Not even one. And since I made that rule yesterday morning, I've done much much better. Its funny - I have to be all or nothing at all. Eating treats in moderation is just waaay too hard.

I blame the mini Coffee Crisps. They are up to no good.

The Plan

Okay, so I weighed in yesterday at 169.0, which is officially a 0.8 pound gain (but technically is really only 0.6 gain, if you'll recall...) Anyway, it is what it is. I was pretty much expecting that for a variety of reasons. And so that's fine. But, I'm not gonna stay there.

So, my goal for October 28th (3 weeks from yesterday) was going to be 163.2 (which will put me at a 35 pound loss). That would mean losing 5.8 pounds in 3 weeks - which is possible, but might be a little excessively crazy to put as a goal. Actually, they teach you in WW not to place numbers as your goals, but rather to place behaviours as your goals - since you can control your behaviours, but not the actual numbers on the scale. And, so my behaviour goals are:
1. I have lowered my daily points limit to 29. Its tricky for me since I'm still breastfeeding to know what the best number of points is each day. I'm technically supposed to have like 33 or 34 points per day, but I don't really lose weight when I do that. So, I'm lowering it to 29 and if I find that I'm really hungry, I'll raise them again.
2. I've been totally sick with a cold for the past week, and if I even try to get on the treadmill, I burst into fits of coughing. But as soon as that has passed, I will get on that treadmill for either a 2 or 3 point jog/walk every day.
3. I will drink 48 oz. of water per day.
4. I will try as much as possible to chose fruits and veggies instead of the yummy yummy brownies that I've been munching on for the past 2 days.
5. AND my last goal is to be good through the seasons of Thanksgiving and Halloween.

One of the other things they teach us at WW is the tool of ... Oh, I can't remember what the proper name for it is right now and I can't find my book either... so I'll just call it "pre-visualization". I think I might even be combining 2 of the Tools for Living here... but either way! What I'm trying to say is: that I need to deal with Thanksgiving this weekend by thinking about it ahead of time and planning what I'm going to eat and to imagine myself in the situation where everyone else is eating tons of yummy stuff and PLAN what I'm gonna do to deal with it. I mean, I do have 35 bonus points in the week, and so I'll use some of those... but I also just want to be sure not to go overboard with yummy whipped cream and pie and all the goodness that is thanksgiving dinner. :o)

(and Momma, if you're reading this, don't worry one bit about what you prepare or what you have in the house - I can totally deal with it!!!!!!) ... (AND I'm looking forward to it!!!!!!!!!!)

So, that is my plan! I hope you all have a great week too.

The Importance of Goals

Okay, I just read a greatly inspiring post on my friend Amanda's website (I do have other friends with cool websites... like this one, and this one...and many more... just I've been really identifying with Amanda's weight loss lately and so I keep talking about her.) :o) Anyway, I realized that I didn't currently have a GOAL in mind for my weight loss. And, as a result, I wasn't going as all-out as I should've been with my WW. And so, Amanda and I have talked and decided to lose weight together this month - we're very similar in weight right now (although she's worked SO HARD and has already lost almost 3 times as much as me!!!) and we both want to lose similar amounts by the end of the month - My goal is to be 163.2 by October 28th (only 3 weeks away!!). I know this is very possible - although Thanksgiving will be a bit of a hiccup, but I can totally do it, and I WILL.
I'm glad I've had this re-focussing this morning - I needed it!

Hilarious

Please go see this post by my friend Amanda. It's way too funny not to.
:o)

(p.s. if you are technologically challenged - i won't name names - in order to see the post click on the words "this post" above... ) heehee