I Feel Like a Human Juicebox...Hawaiian Blood Punch

I've never given blood before. I almost did once. Signed up for a blood drive in high school, but in the initial registration, they didn't like one of the acne medicines I was taking and said I couldn't give blood while on it. After that, I think the mental hurdle just kept me from it. I felt like I would pass out, it'd be bad, I'd be too unhealthy to donate...Just a million reasons not to do something.

Shannon had a blood transfusion back in July, when she was in the hospital getting the stent. It was done just as a measure to boost her iron, but it got me thinking about donating. Just because your blood goes to good homes. And really, how hard can it be? So, I made up my mind to do it, especially once the doctor said I was in good health.

So today, we were going to the mall to do some shopping, when I saw the Blood Drive sign. As we walked around, I found the place and they had no wait. So I said, alright, let's do this! Well, apparently, I got the one nurse who really didn't want to be there. She was totally cold and annoyed at everything I did. She said "Hold out your arms" so I held them out in front of me. Well, she really meant "Show me your arms so I can make sure you aren't shooting heroin", so she forcefully turned my arms over to see. Not asked, not explained, just took my arms and turned them kind've gruffly. And I was wearing a "special sticker" which was supposed to identify me as a new donator, so they'd explain things to me more. Yeah, that didn't happen. She just seemed annoyed at everything I did which didn't fit in the routine. But whatever, I dealt and after about 20 minutes, they got me back to a chair. She checked one arm for veins....Then she checked the other arm for veins....Then, "Vein Check!". So apparently, I also have pretty sucky veins. Shannon has bad veins too, but mainly because they roll when people try to take blood, and her return goes dry quickly. I was disheartened at this point and ready to just walk out. It'd been about 30 minutes and I still hadn't given a drop of useable blood (I gave a drop for testing my iron level)

But, new nurse came over and she explained what was going on. Apparently, I just have deep veins. Eventually, she found a decent one, marked it with a sharpie, and then stuck me. And once I was stuck, I bled quick. I filled my bag in about 8 minutes. She advised me to probably drink more water next time and that should help the veins. She was MUCH nicer than the other nurse. And I didn't get dizzy, lightheaded, or anything like that. Just very chilly as we walked around after. And then I felt annoyed at myself, because I forgot tonight was a running night, and so I have to wait until tomorrow night now.

Now that it's done, I'm tempted to go for donating platelets or plasma next time. It's more rare for people to do, so I know it's needed. The biggest challenge with that is time (Takes about 2 hours for platelets, not sure about plasma). But if I pick the right time, I bet I could do it. So, Red Cross, you gave us 1 pint of blood for Shannon, and now I gave you 1 pint of blood. We're even! No blood debt!

I'm Not a Gourmet Cook, But I Try: Salsa Chicken Lunch Wrap

I didn't take a picture of this, but I thought it turned out well, so I'm documenting it here for future tries.

So, lunch time today. Didn't want to do the normal turkey sandwich or anything. Two days ago, I grilled up some chicken that needed to be used, so it's been sitting in the fridge without any use. Ok, so let's go with that. I love wraps, tortillas are just awesome to me. So, chicken wrap. I also love tomatoes, so I diced up a good sized slice to top the chicken with. While doing the tomato, I thought...hmmm, Salsa Chicken, that sounds like a good idea. And to top it off, let's make it a nice lunch wrap with some lettuce, cheese, and mayo. Unfortunately, I realized then that when I got lettuce on Sunday, I had never put it in the fridge. It was hiding in a bag of dry stuff I had never put away. ICK! So no lettuce, but the rest worked. So, here it is....

Salsa Chicken Lunch Wrap

4 oz grilled chicken breast
1 burrito sized flour tortilla
1 large slice of tomato
1/2 cup of shredded lettuce
1 slice of Alpine Lace 25% Provolone Cheese
1 tbsp Kraft Olive Oil Mayo
2 tbsp salsa

1. Cut up the chicken breast into small cubes
2. Put tortilla in the microwave, with chicken arranged on top of the tortilla in the center, and the cheese on top of the chicken
3. Heat for 20-25 seconds
4. Dice the tomato slice into small chunks and put on top of chicken and cheese. Sprinkle lettuce on top of the tomatoes
5. Spread mayo and salsa on top of the pile
6. Roll the tortilla up like a burrito

Per 1 wrap

455 calories
15 g fat
41 carbs
39 g protein

Notes

• After looking over the ingredients I used, realized if I'd only had some hot peppers around, I could've turned this into a Chicken Cheesesteak Wrap, for about the same nutritional value.


• I had to throw this together a bit since Darcy was playing on the floor. In hindsight, might be better to mix up the salsa and mayo together, and spread that on the tortilla before putting the chicken and cheese on.

Dieting Challenge: Red Robin

Something I'm realizing as I'm in month 4 of my diet...you know what, let's stop right there. Diet implies that this is temporary. I know that this way of eating will need to stay with me for life. Maybe not as restrictive, but the choices need to remain the same if I want to keep the weight off. So, let's call this month 4 of my new eating ways. Anyway, something I'm realizing more and more is that I can't always research the exact nutrition in a place we're going to eat out prior to the meal. That adds probably about 15-20 minutes to the wait before getting to the place to eat. And with 2 kids, waiting 15 minutes means waiting like 30-40 because then Darcy would want to eat, or Noah would start throwing a fit. So, I'm realizing I need to be able to figure these things out on the fly.

So due to Shannon's treatment today, we both ended up skipping lunch. It ended right in the middle of lunch, so instead of running out and getting something which we'd have to rush to eat before end of treatment, or instead of running and grabbing something after, we just skipped. Not to mention, breakfast was pretty minimal too, due to the time we get there. So, all I'd had to eat today was a Special K Protein Bar in the morning. Lots of calories, carbs, and fat needing to be used. But, since this was a rare case, the challenge will be modified a bit...

The challenge: Find a meal at RR for 800 calories or less, 25 grams of fat or less.

The choice: So, let's start with some eliminations...
1. Beef. Beef is great, it really is. But unless you KNOW you're getting 93/7 or 96/4 ground beef, avoid getting it. High in fat, and processed.
2. Ask for no mayo. This stings a bit, because I love mayo on sandwiches. But rarely do restaurants use light or healthy mayo.

So, with those in mind, RR has a HUGE chicken sandwich menu. The one I targeted for this occasion was the Whiskey River BBQ Chicken Sandwich. Asked for no mayo, left on cheese. Ate the fries as well, but if it was a "normal" day, I would've subbed a side salad with a low-fat dressing for the fries, no croutons.

The result:
Let's start with the side -
Side salad w/o dressing is 85 calories, 5 g fat. Dressings listed on the website are all high in fat, but I'd be suprised if they had no low-fat/low-cal options. So let's round up to 150 calories, 9 g fat.

Sandwich-
734 calories, 27 g fat. Huh. I thought removing the mayo would be enough, but RR puts TWO slices of cheese on their sandwiches by default. Also, the onion straws add 122 calories and 6 g fat.

So, assuming those two, our meal would be 884 calories, 32 g fat. So this challenge is a FAIL.

Ways I could've done it:
1. Sticking w/ sandwich, take the cheese down to 1 slice of cheddar and remove onion straws. This takes the sandwich down to 527 calories, 14 g fat. That's 200 calories and 13 g fat lower, which would easily put us inside of our ranges. Or, removing cheese and mayo, but leaving onion straws...559 calories, 13 g fat.
2. Don't eat a side. I've done this before with fast food. Just get the sandwich and leave the sides. It's a tradeoff, you get a full flavor sandwich but you may find yourself hungry still.
3. Healthier sandwich: Simply Grilled Chicken Sandwich, starts at 420 calories, 8 g fat. Doing this sandwich, you can add on fries to get 854 calories, 26 g fat. Not great, but close enough to be decent. And if you sub a healthier side...

Twelve Years of Rust: The 20 Minute Run

This Couch-to-5k program has been great for me, from so many angles. The running has certainly helped my weight loss. The plan has made it easier for me to progress in my goal of running the Undy 5k in November. Hell, you could even argue the routine of running has helped me with procrastination (Shannon would probably beg to differ, since I still don't do the dishes or clean the rabbit's cage as often as I should or without a few honey-do reminders).

The plan itself is pretty straightforward. (PLUG: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml). You assume that you are not up to snuff physically (hence, COUCH to 5k), and this little puppy outlines some easy stepping stones to help you break down the task of going from not running to running 3.1 miles in a single sitting. The steps in the early weeks are pretty simple. Run 1 min, Walk 1.5 minutes (Week1). Run 1.5 min, Walk 2 min (Week2). Run 3 minutes. Run 5 minutes. All the way until Week 5. In week 5, it does something a little odd...Day 1, Run 5 minutes, Walk 3, Run 5, Walk 3, Run 5. Day 2, Run 8 minutes, Walk 5, Run 8 (Ok, there's your step up from 5 minutes, got it).

DAY 3. Run for 20 minutes without walking. Ummm, WTF? Are you serious?????? I haven't run for any longer than 8 minutes...ONE TIME! How am I supposed to run for 20 minutes? At once?

So first off, a disclaimer. I repeat weeks on Couch to 5k. I find that helps you best, if you do each week twice, your legs get used to it easier without injury. So I did the first 2 days of W5 last week. Then I repeated them this week. On Wednesday, after doing my first 8 min run, followed by 5 min walking, I went to do 8 min of running. But I decided to push it. I finished out my route running it. I ended up at 11 minutes and change running. And what did that tell me? Once you get past 8 minutes...nothing really happens. Your legs don't fall off. There's no searing pain. There's no panic attack. Your legs are still hella tired, but that's it. So I said, alright, let's do the thing.

Tips...1) Do not look at your watch. For as long as you can stand it. Because as soon as you see you've run for 4 mins/5 mins, all your mind can do is "I have to do 3 more of what I just ran?" And then time just stops moving. 1 minute of running feels like 5 minutes. 2) Since you need to check your watch, pick a landmark on your run for watch check. I used the library, which is about 1.6 miles of my normal 2.1 mile run. So when I checked in and saw I had run for 16.5 minutes, I was like "Allright! Only 3.5 more mins to go! I can do this easy!". And 3) If you start feeling tired, first try slowing your pace. Just do a little more than a brisk walk. If that doesn't do it...then walk. No shame in trying, you'll probably get further than you thought you would anyway.

So yeah, 20 mins. I can do that. Because I just did. So eat it, body rust!

Twelve Years of Rust: I've Finally Reached the OVER-DIET Problem

I'm pretty certain this is the furthest I've gone on any diet. Four months in, and still doing it. I think it's a nice thing to look at a typical meal plan in my old ways and a meal plan today and notice the huge difference...I've figured out what things are heavy in fat and calories so I should avoid, what things are good for me (Pretzel Sticks are the best snack food. 28 pretzel sticks are 110 calories, 2 grams fat. Lots of carbs too).

But I'm noticing that I've finally gotten TOO far on the diet. I'm having trouble eating up to 40 grams of fat a day now. It's easy to see the problem if you look in my fridge. Fat Free might as well be on the outside of the fridge. I've got fat free mayo, fat free shredded cheese, fat free meats, fat free bread, fat free yogurt, fat free ice cream. Cutting out fats is a good thing, but I'm cutting out so much, it's actually getting bad on my nutrition. This was reflected in my bloodwork. I'm really low on HDL Cholesterol. The tips to raise this level are exercise, diet, give up smoking and drinking, and add in more oils, peanut butter, etc to your foods. Except the last one, I've already done all those. And if I add in those oils/peanut butter, my fat jumps WAY up and then I struggle to stay under my daily limit.

So, here's my plan of action. Now, the doctor didn't mention HDL to me at all. I'm thinking he knew I was exercising and dieting, so he ignored it for now. But I would bet that number won't come up much with more diet and exercise. So, for one thing, I started taking a multi-vitamin. Niacin is known to help raise HDL, although I'm taking it in a small dose in the multi-vitamin. My dad mentioned someone he knew went on heavy dose of Niacin and got hives all over, so let's stick to the multi vitamin for now. I'm also SLOWLY adding the reduced fat things back into the diet over fat free. Tonight, I used just 93/7 turkey instead of 99/1. I'm also trying to add in real eggs when I make egg beaters for breakfast. We're getting "farm fresh" eggs from my in-laws now (Thank you btw, they are delicious!), and I know eggs have good fat in them, so if I add one and then use 2 egg beaters, that adds in some fat while not going crazy.

I just find it funny/somewhat proud that i've done so well, I've now got to ADD fat into my diet. Like tonight, eating a cup of pudding after dinner because I was under on all my totals. Oh woe is me, I have to eat some awesome pudding. :)

I'm Not a Gourmet Cook, But I Try...: Pan-Fried Fish, Mashed Potatoes, and Grilled Veggies

I usually blog about a particular dish I make, but since the fish and the veggies were both a bit of "advanced" cooking, and the mashed potatoes are great for my diet, I decided to do a whole meal.

So a good way to get in protein and healthy fats is fish. I love seafood. Granted, I usually love it when I can't cook it (Steamed Crabs, Grilled Shrimp although I'm sure I could do that, Crab Cakes, etc), but it's great. Brain food. We try to cook fish now and again, and more than just fish sticks, which are easy, but incredibly unhealthy. Pan frying is the easiest way I know how to do it. I know I could broil, or grill, or straight up fry it, but I haven't done those yet and I don't feel like screwing around, so I just stick with pan frying.

You can do fish with a lot of good sides, but recently, we'd done pan fried catfish with mashed potatoes and fried squash. That was yummy, so I stuck with those sides. Mashed potatoes, and GRILLED squash. Added in mushrooms too.

So, without further ado. A full meal for fish consumption.





Pan Fried Fish with Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Squash and Mushrooms

1 lb of fish fillets, divided up into 4 equal sections
2 cups white cornmeal
salt, pepper, old bay, Cajun seasoning (No specific amounts needed, just enough to season to your taste)
1 cup egg whites
1/4 cup water

2 medium to large summer squash
1 package sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
seasoning salt (We used Tastefully Simple, you can use whatever you want)

1 package Idahoan mashed potatoes
2 cups water


Pan Fried Fish
1. In a bowl, combine egg whites and water
2. In a seperate bowl, put cornmeal in. Add seasonings and stir to your liking. You should put enough in that you can start to see some particles in the cornmeal when well mixed
3. For each fish filet/piece, dip in egg white bowl several times, then transfer to cornmeal bowl and coat well with cornmeal mixture, so that entire filet/piece is covered. Repeat for all fish
4. Spray a large skillet with cooking spray, place on medium-low heat, and arrange fish inside.
5. Turn fish every few minutes until both sides are crispy and browned

Roasted Squash and Mushrooms
1. Cut squash into slices and open package of mushrooms
2. Pre-heat grill on Medium-Low heat for 3 minutes
3. Sprinkle seasoning salt on one side of veggies and place this side face up on the grill
4. Baste all vegetables on tops with extra virgin olive oil
5. Heat for a few minutes, then turn all veggies
6. Sprinkle with more seasoning salt, then baste with more extra virgin olive oil
7. Turn as needed until vegetables are softened and at desired char levels

Mashed Potatoes
1. Boil 2 cups of water
2. Remove from heat and add whole package of Idahoan Mashed Potatoes
3. Stir flaked until all are moistened
4. Let stand for 1 minute, then stir with a fork to fluff potatoes


Per 4 oz fish, 1/2 cup Mashed Potatoes, 1 cup of mushrooms and squash

490 Calories
20 grams fat (14 g comes from the estimated 1 tbsp of ev olive oil that is in the vegetables)
49 carbs
31 grams protein


Notes

• For the fish, your discretion on which kind. We like catfish because it's naturally tastier, but Giant was all out when we did our shopping. I went with Tilapia, which is low fat, but still had some. The hard part with those lower fat fish are they are naturally bland, so you need to find some way to spice/season them up.


• A good way to add some flavor to the blander fish is to spoon 1 tbsp of salsa on top of the fish when serving


• Idahoan Mashed Potatoes rock. 1/2 cup is 110 calories, 2 grams of fat. And they make flavored, like Roasted Garlic, Four Cheese, etc


• 2 summer squash and 1 package of mushrooms made enough to feed 3 people. I would reccomend going with more if you can

I'm Not a Gourmet Cook, But I Try...: Spinach Lasanga Rolls

This post should've gone up over a week ago, but I got lazy. These things got some pretty high marks from Shannon, my Father-In-Law (a former chef, so that's saying something!), and my parents. Plus, Noah ripped through them too.


So, this comes via another blog, which I'll steal the picture from and give credit for the idea: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/04/spinach-lasagna-rolls.html. I did not deviate too much from the original recipe, just made sure to go fat free on whatever cheeses I could. Prep time on this takes a little while, since you need to boil the lasagna noodles, then DRY them before use. Can't use no-bake, HAS to be the full on boil noodles. It also took time for me to thaw out the spinach, but that was due to poor planning, not always going to be the case.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls

10 oz Chopped Spinach (If you use frozen, make sure it is thawed and drained before use. You DO NOT need to cook it before hand)
15 oz Fat Free Ricotta Cheese
.5 cup Grated Parmesean Cheese
1 egg
28 oz Pasta Sauce
0.5 cup Fat Free Shredded Mozzerella Cheese
9 Lasanga Noodles, the boil kind, Boiled and DRIED
Seasonings as desired for spinach/cheese mixture (The recipe called for oregano and italian seasonings, but I forgot about it until it was too late)

1. Boil 9 lasanga noodles until they are nice and soft. Drain them, then lay them out somewhere they can dry.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine spinach, ricotta cheese, parmesean cheese, egg, and any seasonings you like for the mixture (I only used salt and pepper, in hindsight I would've added oregano, thyme, maybe some garlic powder or garlic salt) and mix until they are nice and mixed
3. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
4. Make sure noodles are dry, then on a sheet of wax paper, lay out a noodle. Spread about 1/3 of the ricotta/spinach mixture on the noodle, then gently roll it up and place it seam down in a glass baking pan. Repeat this for each lasanga noodle
5. Pour the pasta sauce on top of the rolls so they are well covered
6. Sprinkle the mozzerella cheese on top of each roll so each has a small pile on top of it
7. Bake for 40 minutes

Per each roll:

218 calories
4 grams fat
31 carbs
14 grams protein

Notes:

• I wasn't thinking when I made this and made no vegetable alongside it. After two rolls, no one seemed to care.



• I had this for lunch at work 3 days later. Still tasted awesome

I'm Not a Gourmet Cook, But I Try...: Easy Turkey Enchiladas

Viva la awesome. Tonight was a grocery shopping night, so figuring we didn't have time for a big cooked meal, Shannon said "maybe enchiladas". She had a recipe on pinterest for Chicken Enchiladas, but since that involved a lot of custom spices and prep, I said let's just break out the old favorite....Old El Paso's "Easy Beef Enchiladas". But you know me, I always try to give things my dieting twist.


So, let's axe the beef and replace it with ground turkey. I sprung for the 93/7 turkey to add a little fat in. And for cheese, I got some Fat Free Shredded Cheddar. But, since I needed to use up some of my 2% Mexican Shredded from a meal last week, I used that in the enchilada stuffing, and used the fat free cheese on top of them. I also deviated from my normal way to make them. Normally, I wrap them up like burritos and arrange them in the baking dish, smother them in enchilada sauce and bury them in the cheese. Smother and bury are not great dieting words, so instead I rolled them into...well, rollups. Then I drizzled lines of enchilada sauce across and back several times, then sprinkled cheese on top. Those are nicer words. Here is the result tonight...

Easy Turkey Enchiladas

1.25 pounds 93/7 ground turkey
1.75 cups Old El Paso Mild Enchilada Sauce
1 cup of 2% Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese
0.5 cup of Fat Free Cheddar Shredded Cheese
8 Wrap-Itz 8" Flour Tortillas

1. Brown the ground turkey and drain (if there is any grease, I usually do not need to with ground turkey)
2. Pre-heat over to 375
3. Combine ground turkey, 3/4 cup of enchilada sauce, and 2% cheese in a mixing bowl and mix together well until you have a good combined mixture of all ingredients
4. Spray 9x13 glass baking pan with cooking spray
5. Spoon about 2 heaping spoonfuls (I used eyeball measurements) into each tortilla, roll it up, and place it seam side down in pan
6. Pour remaining enchilada sauce evenly over rollups
7. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of enchiladas
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes (Until cheese is melted)

Per 1 enchilada:

280 calories
10 grams fat
23 carbs
23 grams protein

Notes:

• I usually eat two enchiladas, so it wasn't totally lean, but this is about 33% of daily fat intake on a normal diet, so for a dinner, that's pretty good.
  


• This recipe can go leaner if you use extra lean ground turkey and/or Fat Free Shredded Cheese for ALL the cheese. You can also probably go a little leaner on tortillas, but I shopped for a pretty low fat tortilla, and I've tried the Old El Paso 97% Fat Free tortillas. They taste too bland for that it's worth.



• This recipe can certainly go heavier on fat if you need. I won't extrapolate on how, I'm sure you can figure out how :)
  


• Suggestion from Shannon...Don't skimp on the Enchilada Sauce. 1 cup poured on top left the ends of the enchiladas kind've dried out. Enchilada sauce is 0 fat, only 20 calories for 1/4 cup. So adding 1 extra cup on top equates to just 10 calories per enchilada. Much more taste, not much added numbers.



• Not sure which method of "rolling" I prefer yet. This way made for a cooler looking pan, more like Don Pablo's style, but the burrito rolling style is much neater and makes for easier serving

Twelve Years of Rust: 1st Checkpoint

So one of the hallmarks of the Spark Diet is setting goals for yourself. I suppose most weight loss programs do this, but Spark wants to get more general than weight goals, they like covering fitness, lifestyle, etc. Now, I'm doing Sparkdiet, but I'm not crazily into all the site, it's not bad stuff, but some of it is overkill to me. But I do like the goals idea, because instead of focusing on "I have to lose 100 pounds in a year" and looking at progress against the big number, you can chunk it up.

So originally, when I was dropping nearly 3 pounds a week, I'd targeted 225 by July 1st. But my weight loss settled out and I adjusted it to August 1st. In the week leading up, the scale continued to read 228. I knew I was still making progress, because I'd done good on my ranges, I've kept up my exercise, and the 228 number was more common on random weigh ins. My weigh in number changes from hour to hour, so I generally average them out to figure out my real weight, since so many little things can bump you up a pound or two here or there. So when I weighed in today, I was expecting to not hit my goal.

224.4

Yup, I got it. CHECKPOINT CLEARED! I'm going to celebrate with a Lean Pocket Turkey Sausage, Egg, and Cheese (Still good on my diet) and focus on my next checkpoints. I'm on track to be the lightest I've been since college in just a few weeks time.


8/1/2011 - 225 POUNDS - ACHIEVED
11/1/2011 - 200 POUNDS
11/5/2011 - D.C. Undy 5K
2/1/2012 - 175 POUNDS
4/1/2012 - 160 POUNDS
5/19-20-2012 - Warrior Dash MD