Truth in numbers. Two months down and feeling good.

Hard to believe only two short months ago I decided to get real about my weight gain.  Only two short months ago, I realized my eating habits were not being kind to my hips.  Only two short months ago, did I realize my wine consumption was a little out of control.  Only two short months ago did I fully grasp what I did to myself, and fully understand it was not a healthy way to live.  Only two short months ago I weighed in at 154, with a bad attitude about myself, food, and wine.

The video blog post: Weight loss success is more than a number.

Welcome to my first video blog post or my Wii & Wine series! 

As you know I love to write and find it very therapeutic, however to mix things up a bit I decided to record a video post.  I figured some subjects need a little visual representation to fully get my point across.  So, every now and then to spice thing up, I will throw in a video post for your enjoyment and education.  Thank you and enjoy!

Wow that is a great face!  Sure glad they used that one.  Kinda like whenever you pause a movie, the actor are always making the most stunning gorgeous faces.  Anyways, please share your comments below, on pintrest, twitter, Google +, or facebook.   Yes, be quite, I really do have that many social profile sites!   But it is mostly for the blog:) Cheers!

This was originally published on my wine blog wineabit.net on 2/29/12

Week 6: Time to be brave. Time to be real.

Here's what I been thinking about.

My mom told me recently I am a deep thinker, a little scary if you ask me.  Ha!  But seriously, it did get me thinking about a ton of stuff the last couple of days, and yes, most of it did have to do with weight issues, but also just being honest about who I am and what this weight loss journey really means.  Time to be real, like one of my new favorite artists Mandisa would say in her song,  no more temporary fills, no more hidin'.  


Time to be brave.

Week 5: A super week with a super attitude

So how did I do?

I titled this post super because it really was a great week.  Everything, both eating and emotions were on track and back to normal.  I am not sure what the scale will say yet, as it is also my monthly gift week, but regardless, I will not let it get me down or distract me from my goal.

Week 3: The Wii and why exercise will not lead to a smaller butt.

So how did I do?

Well this week I have decided to talk about exercise and my Wii program.  I could talk about food stuff and self sabotage, but maybe I will delve into that next week.

I am the girl who used to hate the word exercise and saw it as a form of self torture and brutal work.  I hated to sweat, it just felt so gross and disturbed me to have something drip down my nose.  And worst yet, I hated to exercise with people around.   I don't sweat enough, so my face turns the color of the Sedona red rocks and stupid people would always ask me, why I was so red.  It irritated me so much that I confined myself to I only working out at home or in a swimming pool.  


Plus, exercise was so boring, and I asked myself, why I am doing this much work and not training for anything?  I was an athlete throughout high school, once that part of my life was over, exercise seemed silly and pointless.  Why sweat if you are not working on getting better times or faster on the court?

Wii and Wine: Truth in Numbers: Weekly Weigh in #2

Great news!  Numbers went down!  Which means I lost most of the weight I put on during the stressful holidays.  I am now only 2 pounds away from being in the healthy BMI zone.  So without further ado here are my new numbers:

BMI : 25.23

Weight : 151.4 :)

All this means that tracking your foods (with or without the calorie amount) and exercise along with keeping the stress levels down can lead to weight loss success.  All things I already knew, but chose to forget about in the last last year or so.  Silly me, but hey, it keeps life interesting always looking for the magic weight loss pill.

Also I did drink wine three days last week, however the key was to stick to only one or two glasses a day.  And if you are a women, it is important to note, if you are going to drink wine with your meal make sure you are still getting in your dairy/calcium.  The best way I have found to accomplish that goal is, to have a glass of milk with breakfast or lunch and yogurt as a snack.

Looking forward to next week!

This post first appeared on my wine blog wineabit.net on January 19, 2012

Week 2 Review

So how did I do?


Last week my goal was to journal at least one full day over the weekend, and I am happy to say I meet that goal.  I recorded all Friday and Saturday.  It was not easy, I had to make myself do it just to prove that I could do it.  And it was a good thing I did because, I found out that I need to save more calories for the weekends.  Something I already knew, but like anything, without the hard evidence you can conveniently forget.  And it seems like Saturday is my big food and wine day.  So now I know and can plan accordingly.


That is the best part about tracking what you eat is, you can figure out any eating patterns and then formulate a plan to deal with any issues.  Sometimes your plans are genius and work right away, and other times it takes tons of tweaking.  I have not come up with a big grandiose plan yet, but I will be thinking about one in the next couple days and then see if it works for Saturday. 


One big change I know I need to make is the Sprouts bin treats.  I love those stupid bins, but they are not very helpful when you are trying to slim down.  And Wednesday, for some reason has always been the day I want to give myself a little treat and it is also the day I go grocery shopping at Sprouts.  The last row of bins are the most tasty and tempting, therefore I need to steer clear of that isle.  In addition, since that is the day I like to treat myself I should add wine to my evening dinner.  That way I have something to look forward to at the end of the day, and it can help me to stay clear of those devil bins.


I did struggle a bit in the middle of the week with munching around.  Once again, I know it has to do with not really planning a big calorie day.  Now that I know my big calorie day is going to be Saturday it should help with the munching during the week.   Like I said last week, it is important to include your favorite foods/drinks into your life but, you need to be smart about how you go about that.  I also noticed I saved all my wine drinking for the weekend, again not the best plan.  I am usually better off if I space it out during the week, that way I am not tempted to overindulge once I open a bottle.  I did not over do my wine intake, however I like to stick to one or two glasses a night, and a couple nights I had three.  So not horrible, just not where I would like to be.


Overall, I feel so much better both physically and mentally.  It is very refreshing to have food and wine back in it's appropriate place on the priority list.  My energy and mental well being are both up and in the healthy zone.  I am not thinking about how fat I am, how I look compared to other women, and better yet, not always thinking about my next meal or treat.  Next week's goals are to do the same, log at least one weekend day and keep my healthy attitude.  And yes, find a solution for my big calorie day and make it worth the extra calories. 


And the whole month of menu planning, I love it!  I must say, it is a brilliant idea on my behalf.  And I am still loving my Wii exercises.  I will talk more about the Wii next week.


Thank you and enjoy!

Weekly Diary
Day 8:

Buttermilk oven fried chicken with roasted potatoes and coleslaw
Exercise:  1 hour 15 min Cardio Box class at the YMCA

Day  9:

Southeast Asian Fried Rice (this was an excellent chioce for anyone who loves fried rice)
Exercise: 45 min NFL training camp and 15 min Wii Fit yoga

Day 10:

Caribbean shrimp salad (this was so good and would have loved an Albarino white wine to complement it)
Exercise: Wii Gold's Gym Cardio for 20 minutes

Day 11:

Thai beef salad (made by my sister, we do a weekly meal exchange every Wednesday)
Exercise: 30 min Wii NFL Training Camp and 20 min Wii Gold's Gym

Day 12:

Golden Winter Soup, side salad with mixed greens drizzled with champage vinegar and pumpkin seed oil topped with a TBS of pumpkin seeds.  Served with 2009 Castle Rock Pinot Nior from California $9.99

This is one of the few Pinot Noir's under the $10 range that is always worth the money.  Most of the time if you see a Pinot Noir under ten bucks, my advice is to walk on by, unless you can taste it first.  This one always delivers great Pinot taste and satisfies even the pickiest Pinot lover.  The wine was wonderful with the soup as it complemented the earthy quality of the cheese.  The texture of the soup and wine were also sung a beautiful song together.  Terrific pairing.
Exercise: 30 min Wii NFL Training Camp and 20 Wii Fit as a warm up

Day 13:Mom's Spaghetti and meatballs with green beans and freshly baked bread, served with Page Springs Cellars and Vineyards 2010 SGMP ( I will be doing a separate post on this meal since the paring was outstanding)
Exercise: 45 Min Wii Gold's Gym Cardio Box

Day 14: 

Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Chicken with brown rice and snow peas served with the amazing Sand-Reckoner Rose'
This TJ's meal is really good, the only pre-made frozen food I ever eat.  It is our to-go meal if we are too lazy to cook or have an empty fridge,  we always keep this dish on hand.
No exercise, just walked the dog before football

This post was originally published on January 17, 2012 on my wine blog wineabit.net

Wii & Wine Week 1 Review

So how did the first week work out? 


I would say pretty good,  overall I made much better food choices and really thought about what I was going to eat before it went into my mouth.  I know you are wondering looking at my meals, how is she going to lose weight eating fried fish, hamburgers, and Fettuccine Alfredo?  Simple I say, these are all food I love (except for the fried fish, that was a meal I owned to my husband after losing a bet), however I have found through Cooking Light, how to make them healthy.  Every recipe was both nutritious and good for you if you followed the recipe and portion size.


The first week I was not going to write down points or calories on anything I ate, just writing the foods down was a huge first step.  I have been rebelling from doing the whole journal thing for a while, namely because I was lazy and did not want to face the truth of what I was eating.  I found a fantastic app for your iPhone or iPod, named caloriecounter.com.  I started using it on Sunday and love it! It gives you options to scan the food bar code, type in the calories, or speak to it to find the foods in the database.  The reason I love it,  the ease of use and huge food database.  I have tried many other weight loss tracking apps and websites in the past and have always found them to be clunky, and overly complicated.  So far, I have tracked my foods by either typing in the calories or using the talking method and both have been really great. 


I still struggled to write down everything on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I wrote about half of Friday, none from Saturday, and half from Sunday.  I was a little mad at myself initially, but decided to cut myself a break.  I am not striving for perfection here, just doing my best to make healthy and smart eating decisions.  So my goal for this weekend is, write down one full weekend day's of foods. 


Another great idea I came up with is a new menu planning scheme.  I am one of the few people in this world who seems to not got horrified by the idea of meal planning.   I typically plan out my dinners for the week, it just makes life way more simple.  So I took that idea a step further and planned for the entire month of January.  I busted out my January issues of Cooking Light, printed out a calender and plotted out the entire month of dinners.  That might sound overwhelming at first, but I watch football all day on Sunday anyways, so it just gives me something productive to do while being a couch potato.  I will keep you posted on how this new scheme works out.


And it may look like I am an exercise queen but, my husband was home on winter break, so I had more time on my hands to exercise and explore the workouts on the Wii.  I do not see this week looking the same since he went back to work and my schedule is now back to being a little busier.


That's it!  Let's keep this train rolling!


Thank you and have a great day.


This was originally posted on 1/11/12 on my other site wineabit.net

Wii and Wine

Wii and Wine : The new wine and food series

After a year of blogging about food and wine I have noticed something I am not too happy with, weight gain.  Like most people in this world gaining and losing weight is a constant battle.  I have been battling my bulge since I took my first steps into adulthood, entering college and living on my own.

Growing up, I had an overall healthy outlook about food, and was not too self conscience about my weight.  My mom cooked healthy meals and always stressed the importance of eating our fruits and veggies.  Enter high school, all the pretty and popular girls made me feel insecure and heavy.  Being a girl with Polish and German blood running through my veins, I have always been heavier than my friends but never fat.  However, when you are not a size 0 or 2 everything thing else is considered pudgy.  Hence high school, is when I developed an unhealthy body image and issues with food.  I have battled those issues ever since, and it was not until recently I got a better handle on it.

I lost 25 pounds after having my son, and was very happy and satisfied with my weight.  However, in my opinion I was still not perfect even though everyone, and everything else pointed to the opposite.  Slowing the weight crept back on since I never got to the root of my body image problem.

Enter in present day.  Since I started the blog, I have dealt with many body image and food issues and overall have a better since of where it all belongs.  Eating good is important, drinking good wine is fun, but not at the expense of my health.  While I have only gained between 5-10 pounds over the coarse of the last year, those pounds are not good on my frame, and make me feel uncomfortable.  Therefore, with all the holiday stress and business behind me now I have had a chance to really evaluate my weight and overall health.  With that evaluation I have come up with an idea for a new series on the blog.

I received a Wii Nintendo system this Christmas, yes I know I am late to the whole Wii stage, but hey better late than never.  Since it was given to us to use as a fitness system, we went out and purchased the Wii Fit Plus and a few other fitness video games.  I am not a video game player, and believe they are a time sucking vortex that only wastes time and brain cells.  However, the Wii can be a useful system to use as a fitness and health device.  I have always been a home fitness fan, because you don't have to drive anywhere to workout and I can look like a complete idiot and no one can see it.  So the Wii balance board and other fitness games play the perfect role to help me attain my new goals.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept the Wii Fit, it can calculate your weight, and track your progress for you with the handy dandy balance board.  It can also help you set goals and work on other various aspects of you fitness and overall health, plus the games are just fun.

My goal with this post series is simple, to blog my progress with losing that initial 5-10 pounds and then how I keep that weight off while still enjoying great food and wine.  I think it is so important to not give up the things we love, as long as they are not destructive, but figure out how to make them a part of our lives in a healthy way.  After all, wine itself is not the devil and neither is chocolate cake.  If you are using those things to cope with life, than yes they are destructive.  Wine and whatever trigger food you have, was not made so that life can become easier, and nor were they made just to taunt you.  They were made for enjoyment, not gluttony or enlightenment.

For the first month, I will chronicle my eating habits along with my progress with the Wii Fitness.  I am planning on cooking out of Cooking Light magazine for the month of January.  As I have written before,  Cooking Light is a wonderful resource for great tasting, healthy meals, and I have a ton of magazines to draw from.  I will note my progress with this plan, as well as how I incorporate wine into it.  I do not believe on giving up on wine, however I am just not sure how I will fit the whole thing in yet.  My goal is to find the right balance and finally get a grip on the whole weight, food, fitness, and wine thing, and chronicle that journey with you.

I am not quit sure how this series will look yet, but I know it will be fun to share, because I am not the only person in the world who enjoys good food and wine and is still looking to stay in shape.  So please join me on this discovery, and if you are looking for the same thing, please share your journey with me here on the blog, on twitter, google+, or facebook.

Thank you and as always enjoy!