Yummy and Healthy

Anyone who knows me knows I like food.  A LOT.

When I eat healthy, I need it to taste good. I can't eat rabbit food.  I just can't.  I don't believe that dieting is a short-term deal and I don't believe you should have to cut out anything to lead a healthy lifestyle.  

The times I've lost the most weight have been when I just cut down my portions.  The times I've gained the most have been when I've just eaten everything in sight. 

So- that being said, here's a soup that I love love love and that is pretty good for ya'.  It's also very filling and lasts for-ev-er.

Take 2 cans of:

kidney beans, black beans, Rotel (cilantro lime) 

2-4 chicken breasts (frozen or thawed)

a can or two of chicken broth or stock (up to you as far as flavor)

Dump all that in the crock pot.  Cover with the stock and add water if necessary.  Throw in chili powder (however much your family can take)!  Cook it on low while you're at work all day or overnight.  (Turn up the heat if you need it faster.) :D

30 minutes before you are wanting to eat, take out the chicken and shred or dice it.  Then add a bag of frozen corn.

Serve with cheese and sour cream, but remember to control the portion. ;)

Grocery List:
Chicken Breasts (2-4)

2 Cans Kidney Beans

2 Cans Black Beans

2 Cans Rotel (cilantro lime)

1 Bag Frozen Corn

Chili Powder

Leave feedback when you try it!!  Hope you love how easy and yummy it is!!

This is the style we love because it has GREAT flavor.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I am a FIRM believer in Christmas stuff waiting until after Thanksgiving.  No music.  No tree.  It waits.

Now the day right after Thanksgiving, it's ON!

We got our tree today and I got the lights on it (and up on the porch).  Decorating is going to have to wait for now, because hubby isn't feeling well and he has to work tonight.  Plus- we have to go to Hobby Lobby and pick out our individual ornaments to add to the tree. (We started that tradition last year.)

The best part- I'm almost done with shopping.  Yep.  I was almost done before Thanksgiving, but NOW I have a tree to put them under. :)  (They're all wrapped already, too.)

Here's a little of what he's getting from us, including the books he'll get to open early.  (We do the pajamas and books as early presents to open. Saw that tradition on Pinterest and liked the idea.)

He LOVES Llama Llama books...

One of my all-time favorites!

Got this used for $30... gonna repaint.

He loves swinging and this way we don't have to be at the park to get to swing.

Here's the tutorial we plan to use!  We've heard Krylon works best.

What are y'all giving this year?  I can't wait to see him open these and his other gifts! I got special wrapping paper for Santa's presents... I'm so excited!!!!!

Did I mention I love love love Christmas?!?!?! It looks like little J is going to love it, too!

Coooooooooookies

I made these twice this week, once to "test" (read as once because I wanted cookies and it was a good excuse) and once for Thanksgiving.  They looked super pretty the first time and then looked not as great for the family (naturally), but they still tasted yummy and that's what counts.  They took me about 30 minutes start to eating. :)

I thought I might share the recipe... not so much under the "losing weight" part of my title... I suppose this is the "living life" bit. :)

Enjoy!

(PS- there are tons of yummy recipes on this site!)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/218565388142006330/ Original pin

http://www.spendwithpennies.com/pecan-pie-cookies/ Recipe

 Stop drooling and get to cooking!

If You Haven't Read It, You're Doing Life Wrong

My absolute hands-down favorite book (and series) of all time is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

It. Is. Awesome.

Awesome isn't even enough.  It's life-changing.  It's epic.  It's memorable and heart-wrenching and truly lovely.

This is the first book in the series.  Get in the car and go buy it.
Now.

This is the brilliant woman who created the series.  I <3 her. ;)

So here's what you need to know.  The books came first, so read them before you watch the series.  (Personal soapbox- always read the books first whenever possible.)  There are currently 8 books in the series and they are HUGE.  Like 800 pages.  They are imposing and you will think well these will last me awhile.  Nope.  You're wrong.
The first 50 pages of the first book took me three months to read.  It's slower than molasses at Christmas.  (Heard that phrase all my life and never have I ever seen molasses in winter for real.)  Anyway- they're slow.  Push through.  It's pretty much right at page 51 where you are BAM! Hit in the face with the awesomeness that is Outlander. You don't get to stop really til the end of the book.  The pace varies throughout the series, I think depending on how Diana felt as she wrote.  The basics of the book are as follows:
1. The main character travels through time.  There's not a ton of scifi in it, but that's the big 'why' of the books.  Deal with it.  It's worth it.
2. The book is a romance.  No an action novel.  No a historical fiction..... No.  It can't be categorized.
3. The book deals with a lot of offensive topics and she isn't afraid to delve in up to her elbows (sex scenes, rape, incest, royal atrocities, murder)... and surprisingly she's done her historical research to accurately include characters and their personalities so that you're really reading about fictional people and true history.
4. Jack Randall and Stephen Bonnett are.. um... jerks.  Seriously.  Just go ahead and hate them.  With a fiery passion.  Hate them.

Now the tv series.

It's amazeballs.  Seriously.  It's probably one of the BEST book to tv/movie translations I've ever seen.  Thankfully, the director has allowed Herself (what Outlandish peeps call Diana) to be a consultant, so she's constantly involved in the production of this beautiful series.
Here's what you need to know about the tv series:

This is the main character.


That's really all you need to know.









Well- it's not ALL you need to know, but it's about 60%.  ;)

He's quite yummy looking without being unattainable.  PS- my hubby watches the show (and read the first book) and he loves it.  The action is amazing.  The characters were perfectly cast.  The writing is phenomenal.  You've only missed one half of the first season so far, so you have time to catch up. It returns on Starz on April 4th.


In summary:
1. Go buy all the books.  You'll fly through them once you get going.  They're incredible.
2. Go order Starz.  It's one of the best shows for Sassynachs and Outmanders alike. (You'll understand that better once you join the community following that's come from this series!)

When you've experienced Outlander, you can come back and thank me. You're welcome.

To Turkey or NOT To Turkey?!

Ok so my husband and I have struggled with weight our entire lives.  We've chosen to try to do 99% organic and fresh foods for J as much as possible.  Yes- he ate a real cupcake for his bday. :) People always give us a hard time about it and we just nod and smile and say, "Yeah. We're weird about his food.  We're pretty easy-going about everything else, so we get to be neurotic about this."

The problem comes at big family dinners.  Everyone wants him to get all the "yummy" foods, but I try to explain that he thinks broccoli is yummy...kale cookies are yummy...organic dairy is yummy... J doesn't know anything different so it's yummy to him.

I don't want to stick to my guns just to be ornery, but I haven't decided what to do about Thanksgiving because he actually can eat the foods this year whereas last year he was all on breast milk (pretty natural, I'd say).  :D  Maybe just give a little along with his organic goodies?  Let him have 2 Thanksgiving meals, two partially regular/partially gobble gobble food, nothing and stick to regular food... help!

What do y'all think?


PS- here are a few places I've found some help when thinking about baby/toddler things! Enjoy!

http://lazygreenmama.weebly.com/  I liked her as soon as I read her blog's title.  <3

http://www.easygreenmom.com/  Who doesn't love finding easy was to be green?

http://theantijunecleaver.com/ Again- anytime I can find someone who admits they're not the "it" mama, I'm in love!

What does NOT taste good...

Ranch pork chops.

Yeah.  We were supposed to have Shake-n-Bake pork chops which I LOOOOVE... that's pretty much the only way I like them.  BUT we discovered we didn't have any SnB, so we thought that coating them in ranch would be a tasty new way of doing them.

WRONG.

Like way wrong.  The pork flavor was overwhelming.  The ranch flavor was overwhelming.  It even made the broccoli beside it taste funny because of the drippings touching the broccoli.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try that.  BLECH!  Some of the problem was that my dear sweetie used too much ranch, but still... just not a good idea.

OMG... Almost a YEAR has gone by!!

Ok.  Not gonna lie.  I have remembered that I started this several times, most of which included the thought "I should post something about this" (whatever I was going at the time).   Aaaaaand then there was a baby cry... or a poop... or a mouthful of peas sneezed onto me... 

Now it's September of 2014 and my baby boy is one.  ONE.  I can't believe it!

Look closely and you can see how much he's grown from day one to year one!!

What a difference a year makes!

Since J is now eating more and more solids, we've started cooking more and more healthy stuff.  Not my favorite, but we made a commitment that we would raise J healthier than we grew up so that maybe he won't struggle with his weight as much as my hubs and I both have. 

The good part of eating healthier is that both Big J and I have lost weight.  I'm very proud to say that I'm now UNDER 210 lbs.  I haven't been under 210 in Y-E-A-R-S.  Big J is almost down to 300.  (Keep in mind that I'm 5'11" and he's 6'6" before you judge those numbers too harshly, lol).

We both feel healthier and it's much nicer to be able to have food we want as treats than to be on some fad diet.  No- we didn't go paleo.  No- we didn't cut carbs.  No- we didn't nix sugar.  We eat closer to nature and that's it.  What that looks like for us is that we buy organic when we can, we buy fresh when we can, and we try not to over cook/freeze/process/spice/etc so that it stays as much like God created it as possible.  However- please notice it said WHEN WE CAN.  We go out to eat.  We eat fast food.  We order a pizza.  Don't be crazy. It's not feasible for either of us to cut out food we love... we're addicted.  That's sad, but it's true.  So ... instead we just try to cook most of the time and plan to cook healthier meal options.  For instance- we just started cooking turkey in cilantro lime rotel.  Turkey normally dries out reeeeeally badly (thus we didn't like it), but when you cook it in the undrained cans of rotel, it stays moist and the flavor sinks way into the meet.  We wrap it up in giant lettuce leaves (instead of taco shells).  We still put cheese inside... we're not insane.  But ya know what?  Those things are ba-licious.  Big J said he likes those equally to regular tacos and doesn't mind having the healthier version every time.  Score one for me.

Now it's time to tell about the time I lost.  I hate fish.  When I say I hate fish, I mean HATE HATE HATE with a fiery passion in my soul HATE fish.  And yet- I ate fish the other day.  (Side note: as I typed "I ate fish" my fingers typed "I hate fish".... true story)  We made baked tilapia.  And by we I mean I found the recipe and my husband did everything else because I refused to touch the fish.  It was a decent recipe, if it hadn't been for the fish.  YUCK.  But- it was my way of committing to the healthy aspect of our changes since Big J isn't big on healthy or change. 

Sadly, I'm still a size 18.  I was a 16 when I got pregnant and I weighed 222 lbs.  I'm down to 209.4 and still in an 18.  UGH.  Talk about frustrating!  Apparently my not-big-enough-for-a-baby-head hips didn't get the memo that they're supposed to be smaller.

Oh well.  I'll keep on truckin'!  Maybe I'll remember to post again before another year goes by.  Until then, here are some adorable pictures for y'all to drool over.  Yeah- my kid's the cutest.  You can't deny it!