Thanksgiving menu

We are baking up a storm today! Here is what is on the menu!

Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Rolls
Corn
Cauliflower/bacon/cheese/mushroom casserole
Gravy

Pecan pies
Pumpkin pies
Apple pies
Maple cinnamon bars
Cinnamon roll cookies
Turkey cupcakes

THM pecan pie cheesecake
THM cream cheese filled pumpkin cookies
THM pumpkin pie
THM Apple Crisp
THM peppermint bark chocolate
THM Cheesecake balls
THM Brownie batter balls

And we are off!!!!

Diving In

A change of attitude. This is actually a huge thing. Even throughout the entire time I lost my weight before I got pregnant I did not have this attitude.

Basically there are two ways I can do this weight loss thing.

Mess around and lose slowly OR

Be serious and lose faster.

I realized that I was date nights and special occasions were starting to be something I sort of dreaded. Because they always consisted of eating WAY too many sweets (because cheat time only lasts so long you know) and the entire time I would be thinking (while feeling FAT) that I couldn't wait until I was back to eating RIGHT again and feeling like I was getting thinner. The scales would be UP the next day and sometimes take a few days to get back down again. I start feeling like I am on a roll and BAM, another date night! (Or some other special occasion!) Repeat, repeat, repeat!

But the thought of giving up my cheat times was horrible.

But guess what? I am two month postpartum and down how much weight (after the initial baby loss) ?

NONE........Well ok, I can't quite say that.........I am down 3-4 more LBS but pretty much NONE.

I have wasted 2 months!!!!!! The sad thing is that I have done EXCELLENT 75% of the time. Then you have all of the cheat times! They are enough to keep me from losing. I am SICK of that! I am SICK of the way I feel when I am not eating right. I HATE feeling fat and that is exactly what I feel like when I am eating badly.

So I was dreading Thanksgiving. Eating ON plan for Thanksgiving seemed ridiculous and HORRIBLE! That wonderful Thanksgiving dinner? Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, fresh rolls with lots of butter, desserts desserts and more desserts! This is something that is not ever going to change around our house. And we don't even WANT it to. We aren't a family who will ever cut out white flour and sugar completely.

BUT, it hit me. For NOW I need to get serious. This isn't a forever thing. Once I am at my goal weight I can enjoy more crossovers/sugar treats. But for now? I can't afford it. Not to say that I plan on getting to goal weight and going back to the way I used to eat. Not at all. I don't EVER plan on quitting the THM concepts. This is for life for me. But right now, I am undoing damage that I have done and it is going to take being EXTRA strict if I don't want it to take 10 years. When I am at goal weight, I can be more liberal, but that doesn't mean I plan on STOPPING. No way! This is all about being healthy for me.

I am not saying that I won't have ANY Thanksgiving sugary treats because I am going to . But instead of looking at it as a day to cheat all day. I am going to stick on plan as much as possible. Not cheat as much as I can just because I can. I am making LOTS of THM treats and will be eating very few off plan things.

I am so excited and relieved to know that I am not going to be going backwards here in a few days but instead, I can end Thanksgiving atLEAST staying where I am at, if not going forward just a little.

I am sick of going forward forward forward BACKWARDS BACKWARDS forward forward forward forward forward BACKWARDS BACKWARDS BACKWARDS forward forward BACKWARDS BACKWARDS forward forward forward BACKWARDS BACKWARDS.

See my pattern? I would love it to look something like this........

forward forward forward forward forward forward forward STANDSTILL forward forward forward BACKWARDS forward forward forward forward forward STAND STILL STAND STILL forward  forward forward forward forward forward forward forward forward forward forward BACKWARDS.

I don't mind treats now and then as they come up in life. But there is a BIG difference in going to visit my dh at work and being offered a doughnut, eating it, and then getting right back on plan OR literally eating as much junk as I can all day every Saturday.

I DO still plan on using small amounts of sugar (as I described before in another post) as long as the carbs are within the limits. I have no problems with that. I am just going to quit the planned cheats. (Except for real chocolate.........We always have real chocolate on date nights. But THAT is not my problem. It is the eating sweets ALLLLLL day and night that causes me a problem.)

I am going to continue my breakfast-lunch-afternoon snack- supper- dessert  pattern. That has been plenty of food for me. If I do need something more to eat after my evening dessert, I am going to make it FP.

I want to try and lose 2 lbs a week on average. If I don't, I don't. But I think it is very doable if I stop so much cheating.

The cheats are NOT worth me being 20 LBS down after 5 months instead of 40 ! Not at ALL!

I have SO many THM desserts that I LOVE. Instead of putting so much energy into planning cheat times, I am putting my creativity into making up THM desserts. 

Enjoying your food does not have to be unhealthy or fattening. I can either be full and satisfied, knowing that I didn't go BACKWARDS, or full and satisfied knowing that I went BACKWARDS and have to work it off now. There is no question which direction I am going to go!

I have spent WAY too many days of my life feeling fat and miserable. Feeling depressed because I don't feel good about myself. Wanting to lose weight but failing failing.

Then I made soooooooooo much progress after my 7th baby's birth and did SO welll al throughout my 8th. Better than EVER.

I will NOT stop. I WILL keep this up and get to my goal.

So all that to say? I am so excited about planning my THM menu tonight and I am SO relieved that I don't have days coming up that I have to feel horrible about and feel like I am GROWING instead of SHRINKING!

Horray!!! I can't tell you how wonderful it feels.

Excited today!

203 this morning.

I have already body brushed, exercised (40 minutes of dancing and 10 minute Tiffany Roth ab workout) , showered and I am getting ready to eat!

I saw a picture of myself today and it just disgusted me. I can't wait to feel undisgusted about myself. I am feeling GREAT though that I am OFF of the doing bad wagon! I feel so motivated and just plain wonderful!

A few yummy things........

For breakfast this morning I had a small amount of chicken breast sauteed in butter along with green peppers and 1/2 of  a Joesphs wrap. After that I ate 3 chocolate chip cookies topped with a tiny amount of caramel/almond butter! All carbs totally in the limit! It was SO delicious and amazing that I could be eating something that good and still be doing great!

Another yummy treat is spreading a Joseph's wrap with peanut butter and a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips! Fry in a skillet with butter! Delicious!

Off to shop!

Brownie Batter and White Chocolate Pecan Cheesecake Balls

I have done GREAT yesterday and today! I am very motivated! I am so.sore today and got very busy this morning so skipped exercise. That's ok though. Will be back at it tomorrow! I did order 4 LB of oat fiber, some more gluccomannan and 2 dancing/workout dvd's! I am very excited about those things!

I was 204 this morning.

Below are two AMAZING recipes that you must try! Substitute any sweeteners you want/need to!

Two DELICIOUS recipes I made up.

Brownie Batter Balls

1 C almond flour
1/3 C cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
4 TB melted butter
3-4 shakes NuNaturals stevia
1 tsp xylitol
2 tsp sugar
2 TB chocolate chips

Just mix everything together and shape into 12 balls!

Experiment with the chocolate chips! We used mint chocolate! SOOOO delicious! We also topped each cookie with a little bit of Redi-Whip.

2 carbs each cookie (But that is not counting the carbs in the almond flour......I don't ever count the carbs in the nuts)

White Chocolate Pecan Cheesecake Balls

1 1/2 C almond flour
8 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
5 shakes stevia
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1/2 C chopped pecans
3 TB white chocolate chips
2 tsp xylitol
2 tsp sugar
Sprinkle or 2 of salt

Mix the above all together and shape into 30 balls.

Make a mixture of :

1 TB sugar
1/4 C almond flour
1 tsp vanilla

Roll balls in mixture

FREEZE

2 carbs each and 3 grams of protein each!

Grrrrrrrr I am so mad at myself!

But I am not looking back and letting it depress me anymore! Gracie is 7 weeks old. At my last post (1 week postpartum) I was 202. Guess what I am today?

205 !

Why?

Because I keep messing around. Do great (even PERFECT!) for a few days, cheat for a few days, do great, cheat...........It just disgusts me that I have wasted this time.

BUT I am back now and ready!! I really have eaten sooooo much healthy food in the last weeks and my milk supply is great, Gracie is growing wonderfully and I FEEL great.

But I have not been eating to LOSE. SO here I go! I have not reached the goals that I wanted to by this point so my CURRENT goal is to be under 200 by the time Gracie is 2 months old! (Next Tuesday!) To give my body a jump start, I am going on a mild cleanse for the rest of this week. I did this after my last baby and felt great, he did great and it gave my weight loss a nice jump!

I am having my deep S morning coffee at 5:30 with dh (no sweetener and with coconut oil in it.....only 1/2 cup coffee) and then eating nothing but a green smoothie until lunch. I did juice last time but I am leaving the fiber in this time and just doing it in the blender.

Greens, coconut oil, protein powder, tea, celtic salt and some other goodies. It is actually THM's "Earth milk" but I just don't feel like posting the recipe.

I am back to working out full throttle! It isn't that I haven't made *any* progress during this postpartum period. I have been slowly doing more and more exercise. Today I did a 20 minute kettle bell workout with my 15 LB kettle bell! (And then did almost 3 miles of WATP) It was killer but I did it! (The Kettle Bell workout that is.) I am still sore from the day before yesterdays Billy Blanks "This is Tae Bo" ! :) It feels great! So I *am* happy with myself as far as exercise goes.

A DELICIOUS recipe that I invented yesterday!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough!

1 C almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp xylitol
2 TB butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tb semi-sweet chocolate chips

Just mix it all together and then make it into 12 balls. You can eat 3 of them and only be at 6 carbs. They are 2 carbs each. Yes, they have a small amount of sugar but that is fine with me. You could replace the sweeteners I used here with all stevia if you wanted to and use skinnny chocolate chunks or something.

But for me? These are just amazing and I so don't mind that tiny amount of sugar! They taste soooo much more *real* and are still so healthy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2E3Qd5r3uM

That is the link to the 20 min kettle bell workout we did. It was not our favorite at all. It has no music so it makes it boring to us. It is HARD THOUGH! One of the moves I could not do with my 15 Lb kettle bell. The one that you hold it straight out to the side.

Well, that's all for now!