My Wedding Dress is in....

....and I am going for my first fitting on April 16th - that leaves about 2 and a half weeks to reach my goal. Only seven pounds to go! After my talk this morning with my coach, I realized how much the goals are mine and I will be the only one not to make them if I don't make a concentrated effort - thanks for the push off the cliff Doctor! That push, coupled with a date for my first dress fitting has spurred me on - BREAKFAST EVERY DAY THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!

Free Telecourse: Why diets don't work!

I thought I would let some of my friends in blogger land know about a free telecourse that I am holding next week.

Why Diets Don't Work
We don't fail diets, they fail us!


Are you frustrated, discouraged and depressed over trying to lose weight? Do you think why bother? Are the emotional and physical deprivations of diets getting you down? Then you need to join us for a lively and informative phone call where we will discuss why diets are an ineffective means of achieving long term health and weight loss. The problem is not personal will power. Diets are unnatural and unrealistic and present health- threatening restrictions that you should know about.
Date: Tuesday April 3rd, 2007
Time: 8:30 p.m. EST

To take charge of your health and your weight e-mail info@melissawest.com to register for this free phone call.

What's a telecourse?
Instead of having to book a flight, hire a babysitter, find a hotel and schlep through airport security to attend a seminar, you simply dial-in to the teleseminar phone number at the scheduled time. You’ll join your fellow participants and the seminar leader on the phone call. Teleseminars consist of lecture, Q&A, and discussion, all over the phone.

I ate eggs for breakfast

I actually cooked a couple of eggs yesterday for breakfast.....and ate them in an english muffin as a sandwich. Yeahhhhhh....protein for me in the morning, one of my goals achieved! This morning I am enjoying my rye bread and peanut butter..........more protein for me (a trend is starting.....).

As well, on Saturday afternoon/night, we were going out for St. Patrick's Day and I wasn't sure what kind of food I'd be eating at the pubs - so my goal was to make lunch my biggest meal of the day. I actually baked two pieces of chicken around lunch on Saturday and ate one of them with a very large salad, including some chunks of cheese (notice the protein theme again....). The second piece of chicken is in the fridge at work today and will be put on another big salad, along with a of variety nuts (protein again......)!

Tonight I'm heading out to the bulk store to find hemp seed nuts and then I'm going to pick up some chickpeas - all additional sources of protein. On my next grocery order I'll be adding brown rice to the mix.

Only 5 weeks till my first wedding dress fitting!!!!!!!!!

Breakfast!!!!!

If there is one thing I have difficulty with it is motivating my lifestyle coaching clients to eat a BIG breakfast. Breakfast should be like any other meal of the day and include whole grains, fruits or veggies, and protein. It is intended to break the fast! Eat up! Get that metabolism going!

Pictured here is an idea for breakfast. It is meusli that you could make the night before and grab on the go in the morning.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup organic oats
2 apples
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp. pure maple syrup
1 cup plain yogurt (replace yogurt with soy milk or yogurt of rice milk for a great vegan option)
2 tbsp. pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp. sunflower seeds
2 tbsp. sliced almonds
1 cup fresh or frozen berries

1. cook up 1 cup of oatmeal according to directions on the package (avoid using the microwave it at all possible!)

2. Toast the nuts and seeds. Cut the apples into bite sized pieces and cover with lemon juice. Mix all ingredients together and cover and place in the fridge to enjoy for breakfast in the morning.

For extra protein, you could have it with a hard boiled egg, boiled the night before as well!

Winter veggies - ugghhhh!!

So the bean sprouts were a bust - they were already bad by the time I went to use them last night for my chicken stir-fry. The snow peas were really yummy though, and I have the rest to eat raw today with my lunch! I added green/red peppers, carrots and onion to the stir-fry, along with chicken and rice - it all combined to make another tasty meal!

Meal Planning 101

So my goal in the next two weeks is to "meal plan". We went to the grocery store on Saturday and I had a list of items I needed from recipes I had pulled from one of my cookbooks. This way, when I go to cook something after a long day at work - all the ingredients are in the cupboard! Monday night we had a great recipe with chicken, broccoli, mushrooms in a "low cal" soup/sauce over rice - yummy! Tonight after going to the gym, we'll be having chicken stir-fry! I've been really turned off this winter by the vegetables and when I saw bean sprouts and snow peas on the weekend, I decided to give them a try in a stir-fry.

Another goal for the next two weeks is to eat some sort of protein at breakfast - this morning I enjoyed my english muffin with peanut butter and tomorrow morning I'm actually going to boil an egg - yes....I'm going to make an effort and actually cook something for breakfast!

So we had to change the time for our "coaching" calls - due to the travelling, but also having our time scheduled for 4:30 pm (way too much going on at the end of the day), we have now adjusted to a 9:00 am call starting this Friday. I realized this week when we spoke how much I actually missed the calls the previous couple of weeks (both due to my fault) and being able to re-focus/re-group for the coming week.

Back to regular life....

Well the conference is over and I'm back to "normal" life, at least for awhile! Since I've been back last Friday, I've gotten to the gym twice and played ball hockey last night. I'm really feeling focused again on getting below that 160 mark! I wasn't going to give myself a goal to get to 160 - I thought it was too close when I got down to 162.4, but I'm realizing very quickly that it's not going to be easy and that I need to remain focused - with my eye on the prize!!

I weighed myself this morning and.....

Weight: 163.2

Body Fat: 33.0

Water: 48.9 %

Bone Mass: 6.5

I've learned from my coach that my prize must be a non-food item (because previously I would always reward myself with food - my goal before coaching to get to 165 was a Vachon Flakie!!)....... My birthday is in 11 days, and if I can get down below 160 prior to my b-day, then my prize is going to be a manicure/pedicure - I don't get them often, but with the winter months my hands and feet could use them!!