Menu Planning and Meal Prep

One of the biggest steps to getting healthy is nutrition.  You have to get your eating going in the right direction if you want to get results.  Believe me you can't work off a bad diet.  It's not possible, I know I've tried it.  And a few months after I started working toward getting healthy, my gym instructor brought a DVD to class about meal planning and prepping.  I had already been working on menu planning.  I still do.  On Thursdays I sit down and plan what we are going to be having for dinner the following week. And then I'm not scrambling around, throwing hands up in the air and going to McDonalds.  I try to make a variety of different dinners.  Fish and lean pork at least once a week.  Switch between lean ground beef (93/7) or ground turkey, and of course lots of chicken.  A good stir fry with plenty of veggies is always good too.  Wednesdays are leftover day.  Fridays I do my grocery shopping.  But, the biggest thing I learned from the DVD, and what I really want to talk about is this:  Have fruits, veggies, and snacks readily available.  Put them in baskets where you will see them right away.  So I went down to the Dollar Store got me a few baskets, and it has made a huge difference. Here they are:

The first one is the veggie basket.  All the vegges are prepped and ready to go either as a snack or into salad.  Right now I have baby carrots, cucumbers, celery, yellow bell peppers (those are my favorite color, but you can use red or green or orange), radishes, cherry tomatoes, a couple limes, and a lemon.  It makes putting a salad together a snap.

The second one is the fruit/cheese basket. Today I have halos, gala apples, pineapple cups, green and purple grapes, and my beloved laughing cow cheese.

The last basket is the snack basket.  This one usually changes but basically it always has individual popcorn bags.  And other low calorie snacks. 

 The other point the DVD made was to keep the baskets right where they would be the first thing you see.  Then it's the first thing you reach for instead of candy or cookies and all those naughty things.  So I keep the veggie and fruit basket front and center in my fridge.

And I keep the snack basket right beside the fridge in my little space saving pantry.

For meal prepping, what I like to do is on Sundays I take boneless skinless chicken breasts, trim all the fat off, which usually it doesn't have all that much.  Then I pound it to an even thickness. Really big breasts I cut in half.  Rinse it in cold water, pat dry with a paper towels.  Place all the pieces in a gallon ziplock baggie and I marinate them in a lemon pepper marinade in the fridge for several hours.  When I get ready to cook, I spray a skillet (or you can use a grill) with Pam, they sell one that is for grilling that's the one I use. Heat the pan to medium.  When it's hot I sprinkle each side of the chicken breasts with lemon pepper seasoning.  Cook for about 12-15 minutes flipping once.  Until the juices run clear.  Then I transfer the cooked chicken to a tin, cover with foil, and let it cool.  Then I stick it all in the fridge and I use it through out the week for salads, wraps/burritos, tostadas, soups, I have a delicious pita chicken bacon pizza recipe that I found on the HungryGirl website, or any other recipes that called for cooked chicken.

 The other food I prep is black beans.  I love black beans.  I buy the can of No Salt Added whole beans, not the refried ones.  Rinse them in a colander.  I take a medium size skillet add about 1/4 cup of water.  Heat over medium, and once the pan is hot I add the beans.  Then I season them with garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, pepper, crushed red pepper, cumin, hot sauce, and 25% less sodium seasoned salt.  Stir it all up and then mash them.  You can add more water if you want them to be bit more runny.  And all the seasonings are to taste.  Just depends on your taste buds.  I cook them for about 5-7 minutes on low and then put them in a container.  Once they have cooled down I put them in the fridge.  Again I use them for wraps/burritos, quesadillas, and tostadas.

So these are just a few of the things I have learned.  I hope that it helps, I know doing all this has helped me immensely.   And if you take the time to prep and plan, you'll save yourself time, and frustration through out the week.  Not to mention cutting back on junk food and fast food suppers.

Motivation

People ask me how I stay so motivated, that it's so hard to find motivation.  And it's very true.  But once you find the proper motivation there is nothing that can stop you.  For me it's these 3.

1.  My husband.  He's my best friend.  And in the whole entire world there is no one else that gets me like he does.  We have been married now for a little over 10 years.  And I have cherished every day by his side.  When we got married it was till death do us part.  And I don't want that parting to come too soon.  I want to spend as much time as I have on this earth with him.  For that we both have to be healthy.  I want the rest of our lives together to be as good as we can possible make them.

2.  My daughters.  I have 3.  The two older ones are my step daughters and we only have one daughter together.  I want to show them how to be as healthy as they can.  I was starting to watch my baby girl, who is 10 now, make the same poor choices I was making.  I was being a horrible example for her and she was learning my awful eating habits.  I mean there were days where I would eat a bag of Cheetos for lunch.  Sometimes with hot melty cheese.  I didn't want her to one day wake up a couple years from 40 and weigh 280 pounds.   Now is the time to show her how to be healthy and active.  Actually it was probably many years ago, but I'm doing it now.

3.  My parents.  They took care of me when I was young.  And they took care of my grandparents when they got older.  My mom could have easily put them into the nursing home.  But she felt that had she made that decision they would not have lasted very long.  So she took care of them right up to the end.  I want to be able to do the same for my mom and my dad.  They deserve to always be surround by love and family.  And when the time comes I can't take very good care of them if I don't take care of myself.

I know most everyone says that we have to do it for ourselves, for me it's not true.  If I was going to get my life on track for myself, I would have done it years ago.  I had to find my motivation outside of myself.  And every time I feel like I just don't want to.  I think about them and it gets me up and dressed and to the gym.

The best thing about my motivation is that there is nothing like hearing them tell me that they are very proud of me. 

My not so secret, secret

When people ask me what I do. These are the 4 things:

1. Eat healthy. This is the most important one. You have got to get your eating cleaned up. Otherwise you are just spinning your tires. One thing I do is on Sundays I will grill chicken, and that's boneless, skinless breasts, and have it ready to go through out the week. Either for salads, wraps, soups, tostadas, etc. I also have salad ingredients all washed and ready to throw together.

2. Exercise. And change up what you do. Cardio and strength training go hand in hand. But don't get stuck in a rut because then you can plateau. Listen to your body. It will tell you when you are ready to try heavier weights or more intense cardio. Don't be afraid to give new things a try. You will be surprised what your body and do once you get it out of your head that you can't.

3. Drink water. I drink at least a gallon of water a day. I also have 2 cups of green tea. Not the bottled stuff but a tea bag steeped in hot water, and if you don't like it hot then take the tea bag out and let it cool. And if you don't like green tea, there are tons of different flavors of green tea. Without sugar. My doctor told me to drink green tea as it would help my metabolism.

4. Get enough sleep. At least 7-8 hours a day. By the way for me this was the hardest one.

And I don't mind answering questions if you have any. To the best of my abilities I will try to help. 

1 step forward 2 steps back

About 13 years ago I my weight was at an all time high of 200 pounds. So I decided to try to go to Weigh of Life...remember that program. I took the pills and followed the diet plan. I lost 20 pounds in 2 months. But that was all I could do. I don't like taking pills and the diet plan was crazy. No eating after 2 pm. What kind of crap is that? So I stopped going. And over the past 13 years I gained back those 20 that I lost plus about 40 more. Then 7 years ago I decided to try the starvation diet. And Sweating to the Oldies...I still love to do Sweating to the Oldies it's fun. And I lost about 30 pounds. But starving myself was not the answer. And I gained back those 30 pound in no time and put on an extra 70. Last February I weighed in at 280 pounds! That was the highest I had ever weighed. And I finally decided it was time to make a change. I changed my lifestyle. Trying to eat as healthy as possible. Exercising regularly. After a few months the weight started coming off. I set goals for myself:

Get under 200 pounds by Feb. 2015

Lose 100 pounds by July 2015

Reach my goal weight of 150 by Feb. 2017 which is my 40th birthday.

I accomplished my first goal on Dec. 1st 2014, two months ahead of schedule.

I accomplished my second goal Jan. 26, 2015! 6 months ahead of schedule!

And I can't wait to see when I will accomplish my 3rd goal.

Is that my last goal? NO WAY. My ultimate goal is to maintain my healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life.

Introductions are in order

Hi, my name is Leticia, but my friends call me Letty.  I started this blog as a way to try to help people who used to be just like me.  In February of 2014 I reach an all time high, or an all time low.  Depends on how you look at it.  My weight had climbed up to 280 pounds.  The most I have EVER weighed.  And after years of abusing food, I decided to do something about it.  I started watching what I was eating, in other words counting calories.  Yes, I'm a calorie counter.  I started working out and for the first 3 months...nothing happened.  Well, actually I lost a grand total of 3 pounds.  But I didn't give up.  I could have.  Lord knows it wouldn't have been the first time.  This time, though, I wanted to see what would happen if I saw this new healthy lifestyle through.  So I kept on plugging away.  And lo and behold the weight started coming off.  Now 13 months after I started I have lost 121.4 pounds.  I'm still 8.6 pounds from my goal.  And my journey is far from over, in fact it's just the second leg has just begun.