David's Story

My post this morning is something that my husband wrote. He wanted to share a few of his thoughts on what he's been through on his weight loss journey in hopes that it will encourage and inspire. I won't say anymore, I'll just let him share.

For those of you who don’t know me I am David, I am the husband of the master mind behind Yum to the Tum Megan. First off I want to say how incredibly proud I am of her. It’s great for me to see the fulfillment that she receives out of taking what we are learning and sharing it with all of you. I hope it is making as big of an impact in your life as it is mine.  

I wanted to take a minute to share a very small part of my journey and hopefully encourage all of you. I have battled with health and weight my entire life.  Over six years ago I weighed in at a whopping 366 lbs. I was pre-diabetic, hypertensive and had already begun to lose circulation to my extremities. After an eye-opening Drs. Appointment I knew I had to make a change.  Over the course of three years I lost 166 lbs. I can’t say that it was all downhill there; I had several times where I fell off the Wagon and actually gained weight back. By the time my little girl Tessa came along I was back up to 296 pounds. Once again here I was in a familiar situation but this time it was not only about me It was about this little life that God had given me and I wanted to be there for her. I lost another 98 pounds putting me at my lowest weight of 196 pounds.  I really felt like I had accomplished all that I wanted to accomplish I ran a sprint triathlon finally saw the number that I wanted to see on the scale all is good. Unfortunately for me meeting those numbers were good enough, and I became complacent. The combination of complacency and the battle with infertility were enough for me to gain over 60 pounds. By this last Christmas I was back up to 266 pounds. 

So you may be asking what can I take out of this story. What encouragement or wisdom can I gain from this? The first thing is none of us are perfect we all have our up and down moments, some more drastic than others. You can’t change what you have or haven’t done in the past so move on dust yourself off and persevere. Secondly, the scale is obviously a great tool in weight loss, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. For so long my goal and accomplishments were solely based off the numbers I saw on that scale.  My translation of being healthy was what I saw on the scale, and that is why it was a rollercoaster ride for me. Don’t base your success according to the scale only, make healthy habits your lifestyle. For example: eat more greens, consume less sugar and artificial sweetener, eat lean cuts of meat, be active, last but not least, water, water and more water.  So yes shoot for a number but don’t let that number be what drives you. Focusing on your healthy lifestyle first is key and will ultimately bring success on the scale. Think of the long term benefits that the number on that scale will have on you and your family, and never settle for complacency your better than that. Set a goal for yourself, and honestly challenge yourself we are so much stronger than we often times give ourselves credit for. Let me fill you in on my health goals this year. I am challenging myself to ride a minimum of 75 miles on the bike a week. I would also like to see myself free of artificial sweeteners, and supplementing with more water in my diet. As a reflection of all of these lifestyle changes I would like to see myself weigh in and maintained at 190 lbs. No more rollercoaster dieting for me!! Be accountable it is so much easier to accomplish your goals as a team than it is alone. We can and we will do this together!! Never give up and continue to achieve your goals you can do it!!

Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is upon us. Ahhhhh....a day to show those whom you love that you care about them. And a day that I typically covered in chocolate....ahhhhh. I will admit, the chocolate is my favorite part of Valentine's Day. This year, however, I'm a bit torn because I love chocolate, I love getting it, giving it, and eating it, but I also am really thrilled with the progress that I have made over the last 6 weeks with my weight loss. In six short weeks I am down 14.2 pounds and I really am being careful to think twice about overindulging in chocolate so as to not have to back track.

This is where my opinion differs from that of my husbands, I am of the mindset that I like to be able to treat myself to something that I have been staying away from every once in a while so that I don't feel deprived of my favorite things and end up binging on them and eating an entire bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups or something. He, on the other hand, feels like when he loses the taste for something, he needs to stay away from it completely because he feels like getting the taste back for it would make it harder to limit himself to a small portion. Some of you may be more like me, some of you may be more like him, and it's important to realize which you may be. I can honestly say, I will be treating myself to some special desserts over the next few days. I am planning to take my daughter for a special Valentine's tea party at my cousin's tea room and they have the most incredible desserts! I will probably have one when we go, and honestly, will do my best to try and eat only a small portion of it. I'll probably share it my daughter. Then to make up for those extra calories, I'll order something to eat that's a little lighter than I probably would. Even then, I may still go over my points a little. There is one awesome thing about the Weight Watchers program and that is the flex points part of the system. The flex points are a set amount of extra points that you have to use throughout the week if you go over your regular points. On a normal basis, I never dip into my flex points, it's just not even an option for me. For me, those flex points are there for special occasions and that's precisely how I use them. And considering that I'm down over 14 pounds, I'd say that what I'm doing is working just fine.

Something else really cool that we are doing this Valentine's Day that we have never done before is, as a couple, rather than focus on food and desserts and sweets and treating ourselves that way, we are going to have a more active Valentine's date! This was something we talked about last weekend when we were trying to decide what we wanted to do for our date night. My husband brought up the fact that he's having a hard time making plans because everything he could think of revolved around eating. So he asked me if I would like to do something more active instead of just indulging in sweets, and I thought that sounded great! Some of his suggestions were ice skating, bowling and rock climbing! We'll see which idea he ends up deciding on, I'm leaving that up to him. Then we totally felt on top of the game when we sat down to watch The Biggest Loser on Monday night and one of their segments was on having an active date for v-day...we both looked at each and high fived each other! Pretty pleased with ourselves that we were already thinking in that direction. We are still going out to dinner, he's taking me to one of my favorite places, and I will probably get a special dessert (which I already have been thinking out ahead of time and am planning on asking the server to bring me half and box up the other half so I don't eat it all at once, and take the rest home to my daughter) but then we're going to go out and have fun together doing something that is more than just sitting at a movie or sitting around eating chocolate (both of which do sound equally fun).

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day and have a chance to show the people in your life that you care about, whether it's your spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, parents, grandparents, kids, or friends, that you love them and appreciate who they are and what they mean to you. Happy Valentine's Day!

Party Appetizers!

Last night, we had a Lee family game night, which is something that we try and do every month or every other month. My husband's side of the family all gets together and we eat and play games, typically Rook is our game of choice. *There's an odd chill in the air...beware the eerie black bird...Caw! Caw!* Sorry, a little joke in our family. Since I was hosting game night at our house this month, I decided not to do a full on dinner, but just do appetizers and have everybody bring snacks and stuff. I figured this would be the best way for us to eat carefully. His family brought veggie trays and fruit salad and pita chips with hummice and and I made my yummo glazed brownies (which everyone LOVED, even those not trying to eat healthy...which goes to show those brownies are yummy to all!) I also made three different recipes of savory cupcakes, but made them half the size as the recipe calls for and cooked them in mini muffin tins!

They were so yummy! I'll admit, it was a lot of work trying to make three totally separate recipes of savory cupcakes all to be ready at the same time, and I didn't manage my time the best, thankfully, most of them were late getting to our house, because I certainly wasn't ready when I said I would be. :) But with my helpful hubs as a sous chef who did all my cheese and veggie grating and measuring stuff that he felt he could be trusted with, we got them all done! I made mini french dip cupcakes, mini white vegetable lasagna cupcakes (for the vegetarians in our family, which I totally loved as well!) and mini taco cupcakes. The picture doesn't show all that I put out, just what fit at one time on my serving tray. A normal cupcake recipe makes 8, so in a mini muffin pan, each made 16, take that time 3 recipes and I had 48 mini cupcakes set out for snacking! I think we had maybe 4 or 5 left at the end of the night, I'd say they were a hit. And each little cupcake rang in at 2 points a piece! It was a fun and kinda fancy looking appetizer to put out...highly recommend it for your next party!

The French Dip cupcakes recipe can be found right here: French Dip Cupcakes. To make them as minis, you use a mini muffin tin, and instead of double layering all the incrediants, you just single layer them and spread them out evenly among the 16 muffin cups. First down is the wonton wrapper, then evenly divide the roast beef mixture, then evenly sprinkle the mozzarella cheese on top. Pop them in the oven at 375 for 12-14 minutes.

I will be getting the taco cupcakes and white vegetable lasagna cupcakes recipes up sometime this week!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my husband's birthday so we went out to celebrate tonight! His favorite restaurant is BD Mongolian BBQ so that's where we went. It's really hard to calculate points at places like that, so rather than stressing myself out over figuring exact points, I just tried to be smart. I filled my bowl with chicken, broccoli, pineapple, onions, chives, water chestnuts and then topped it with teriyaki sauce. It was so super yummy!! I didn't hardly even finish half of it. I find that my stomach must really be shrinking because I get full so fast these days. So then, I was trying to decide what to do for dessert. We are both trying to stay in points, but it is his birthday and we wanted to do something special. I've heard quite a few people talk about CherryBerry so we decided to head there for some low-fat dessert! I even looked up points on my Weight Watchers app and for the non-fat yogurt it was like 2points for a 1/2 cup. Granted, at a self serve place like CherryBerry, it's easy to overdo it with their big bowls that are just crying out to be filled to the top, but it's definitely a better option than some of the alternatives. I used the smaller bowl and filled it not even quite half full with the white chocolate frozen yogurt and topped it with a few graham cracker crumbs and a few chocolate chips. It was awesome and it felt like a huge splurge, but in reality, I think we did pretty well. Added bonus....today is National Frozen Yogurt Day and if you could show on your phone that you liked this particular franchise of CherryBerry on Facebook, it was half off!!! So the three of ate for like $6!! I don't know my exact point total for today, but I think I came in right about at my points for today and I'm definitely done consuming until tomorrow! What a fun birthday celebration!

Surviving the Super Bowl

Let's face, big parties and gatherings where everybody is together and eating and bringing food are the HARDEST times to try and stay on track! If you're really watching your calories and were invited to a fun Super Bowl party, it's highly unlikely that everyone else at that party is going to be carefully watching their calories as well. It happens, but not likely. I'm thankful that we are planning to head to my mom's house for a Super Bowl party and most of my family is really carefully watching what they eat, but that doesn't mean that even when it's healthy food setting out on the counters that you can't overindulge! So I thought I would offer a few tips of things that I like to keep in mind that help me get through big gathering where all the food isn't exactly on my plan.

First of all, if you're invited to a party (or hosting one) it's likely that you are making some food to take with. Be SURE that the food you are bringing is something that fits within your points(calories) for the day, so you know there is at least something there that you can snack on. I am making a pot of chicken tortilla soup and also bringing a pan of brownies. I wasn't asked to bring two things, but I decided I'd rather bring a little extra and make sure that there are alternatives for David and I than to feel like I have to totally deprive myself of something or eat something I shouldn't. Some good suggestions of things to bring would be fruit and vegetable trays, soups, low calorie desserts or salad fixings. It might not be the most exciting things to eat, but surely someone else will be bringing all the heavy-calorie items, they'll be there whether you want them to be or not. For me, soup is an easy thing to portion out because I can serve up my portion and head off to enjoy, but it's a lot harder to be tempted to continue to snack on, at least for me. Fruit and veggies are unlimited, snack away!

Some of the real culprits are going to be the real cheesy, ooey, gooey dips that go along with their oh-so-easy-to munch chips. It is so easy to head straight for those and they are a super easy snack to just dip and run and take in many more calories than you think you're going to. Those chips, potato chips, tortilla chips, corn chips, all so high in calories and fat. Even those baked ones, if you can limit yourself to just a few, then go for it, but they can be more deceptive that you think. Just because it's baked doesn't mean you can go hog wild! (Not to mention they can do goofy things to your stomach later on).

My other suggestion is to stick to water and diet sodas. Regular soda can pack a high calorie count, and it's really wasted calories. Plus, the more water you drink, the more your stomach will fill up and the less you eat. I know not everyone agrees on this, but I love diet soda, Diet Coke in particular, and I know the artificial sweeteneers aren't the best for you, but the fizziness helps to fill my stomach and I find that I eat less if I'm sipping my Diet Coke throughout the night.

My suggestion is going to be to fill up a plate with lots of salad, get a bowl of soup or chili (try to avoid piling it cheese and sour cream), grab some fresh fruit and maybe some pretzels, if you're really needing that salty fix, and head for a room away from the food to watch the game, or the commercials, in my case. :) If you need to go back into the kitchen, fill up with water or diet soda or fruit and head back on out. You're just asking for trouble if you're going hang out next to the cream cheese and refried bean dip to stand and talk.

Here's a recipe for glazed brownies that our family LIVES on during the week for our sweet fix...bring these for your dessert to the big game!
Glazed Brownies