EAT FOOD! (with recipe for Lime Chili Spinach Salad)

If you're looking for some interactive encouragement in getting or staying healthy, check out my Facebook group (open to all!) -
https://www.facebook.com/groups/143690642488852/?fref=ts

Important: it's not a "weight loss" group. Skinny, healthy people are definitely welcome. Just be aware that most of us will probably hate you.

Okay, okay - that's not true. There's no hate allowed. But it's a great place to relieve frustration, rant about dieting stress, ask for and give nutrition tips, whatever.

And every time I find a tasty and healthy new treat, I post it there first!

Like ...

Chocolate-cherry all-natural baked granola!
http://www.thenaturalbakery.com/other-products.php








And...

Ooh - and this AWESOME, very simple salad HotDaddy created - Lime-chili spinach salad. MMM...
The ingredients are easy:

Fresh spinach - one cup has only 7 calories! Just rinse it in cold water.

Lowfat 1% cottage cheese: a serving is 1/2 cup, which may be even more than you need for this tasty little salad. But if you want it all, indulge: 1/2 cup is just 80 calories.

Lime Chili Shrimp ramen noodles - 1/2 serving
This is what makes the salad. This flavor is strong and spicy; it's semi-hot, but the cottage cheese cools it down.







To create the salad, just cook the noodles, add the flavoring, and toss all three ingredients together, and devour.
This is awesome because you can just toss the rest of the noodles in the fridge for the next day. This salad is great with the noodles either hot or cold.

Of course, you can use any flavor of ramen you like. Creamy chicken ramen is great for salads, too. Or just make the noodles plain and add whatever seasoning you want, like a buttery-garlic flavor using garlic salt and Butter Buds.

Oh yeah, one more thing - if you think ramen is ghetto, it totally isn't. It's actually cooler than you'd think. These wheat noodles are so popular in Japan that every region has their own special variety. For example, in Hokkaido, the specialty is butter corn ramen, which looks gorgeous:

Drool-worthy ramen toppings used in Japan include minced pork, garlic, CRAB (OMG yum), sliced pork, egg, and spinach (fresh or boiled).

Ramen is so popular that one district of Tokyo has vending machines that dispense cans of warm ramen noodles..!!

Still not satisfied? Don't call them ramen. In Japan, ramen noodles are sometimes called chūka soba or shina soba, both of which mean 'Chinese noodles'. (Although the dish is Japanese, the noodles themselves are Chinese-style wheat noodles.)

Sweet crispy blubber fries: the first 50

A year ago, this was me:

A fat, pale whale. SO SMEXY!! Although not as cute as this ridiculously sweet beluga. Oh, dear ... um, any mentions of "sweet beluga" does NOT refer to caviar. The idea of eating fish eggs is - HURK - excuse me, I have to go vomit for about an hour. x_____x

Where the heck was I going with this ...? Oh, yeah. Me at 305 pounds. I hated myself. I felt massive, blubbery, floppy, hideous, and insanely out of shape. Which, honestly, I was. I couldn't walk a block without keeling over from excruciating back pain.
Yeah, the back pain was brought on by my hugeness. Time for a change.

The problem was (still is!) I'm a mostly sedentary mammal. I'm a student (online classes) = sitting. I'm a writer = sitting. I'm an artist on very small medium = sitting.
And I loooove movies ... yeah, more sitting.

And I've always had a special place in the cockles of my heart (whatever THOSE are) for gorgeous junk food. The nastier, the better!

OMG CURLY FRIES!!! Darn these stupid things, they're better than breathing. So greasy ... MMMM ...

So sitting around a lot + truck loads of junk food = FatMommy.

The first 50 pounds took a YEAR to lose. Which was a pretty slow pace, honestly. For me, that is - everyone is different, and no two bodies lose weight the same way. Basically, I wasn't trying very hard. Like, at ALL. I was eating *slightly* less crap and making a moderate effort to exercise, which is better than I HAD been doing ... but it wasn't much. I was still lazy and eating crap.
I did give up soda and most of my carbs, which I'm sure helped a lot; but I was still spending a LOT of time sitting on my butt.

Then, one day (sometime during the first week of April 2013) - I sat up and realized - holy crap. I lost 50 pounds - and I was barely trying. How much could I lose if I DID try?

Here's what 50 pounds look like:
...
*chirp chirp*
...
*crickets get bored and start watching videos on their tiny iPhones*
...
Okay, FINE, internet. BE that way. I can't find a picture of what 50 pounds of fat looks like - so here's a picture of 5 pounds:

*snort* I love how it's being modeled by this super-skinny chick who has, like, ZERO body fat.

Anyway, I managed to lose TEN TIMES that slimy yellow blob just by a slight calorie reduction and some lazy workouts. I knew I could do more if I actually gave a crap.

And that's how the first 50 gradually, lazily dropped off my frame. The next chunk of blubber would come off a lot faster. Stay tuned!

Introducing my minions

Since a lot of my blog posts will talk about my husband and kid, I figured I should introduce them.

This is my husband:

Pretty close, anyway! He truly is super-cute. Tall, slim, muscles and stuff ... I don't think I even HAVE muscles. Well, maybe buried somewhere under the flab ...
Anyway, for the sake of the blog, we'll call him HotDaddy.

Here's our kid, whom we'll call Bunkie:

Note: he's angelic in appearance only. Ha.
Bunkie is kind of a freak of nature. He's 5, and is almost done with first grade (we homeschool). He thinks reading is this super-fun game and he reads anything and everything he can get his little paws on.
Right now he's almost done with 'The Hobbit'. The original version. Unabridged. Not a kid's version. Like, unadulterated Tolkien.
When I was 5, I was reading "Max the Cat", with brilliant lines such as:
                   "Max the Cat sat and sat. He sat on the bad, bad rat. Oh snap, Max, you crazy cat, omg."
So maybe that last part wasn't totally accurate ...

Both HotDaddy and Bunkie are lean, mean, slender machines. Not a chunk of fat on 'em. Stark contrast to me, the FatMommy, with all my luscious bulges.

But, at least I'm (finally) working on my chunkage issues. And for how I'm doing that - how I lost 85+ pounds and am still going strong - stay tuned for the next post.

Food is evil.

Stupid food. It's everywhere - and we need it to survive. AND, so much of it is super unhealthy. Why did anyone decide that inventing crap like pizza (glorious), doughnuts (heaven), and chicken tenders (nom nom nom) was a good idea?! It's like the cooker-people (aka chefs) of the world have an evil plot to fatten people up. What, are they planning to cook US next..?

For example, look what those gremlins at Red Lobster invented:

I mean, come ON. Lobster pot pie? Served with fried shrimp?? WHY??? There must be ten zillion calories in that flaky, creamy, lobster-y dish. And another ten zillion in those magnificent crispy shrimpies. And LMFBO (laugh my fat butt off), look at the broccoli on the side. As if!! "Oh yes, I'm eating SO healthy these days!! Why, with my deep-fat-fried creamy greasy slimy delicious food, I'm eating VEGETABLES!! Dipped in high-calorie full-fat Ranch dressing!!! I AM BEING SO GOOD!!"

No, hypothetical lobster pot pie eater. You are not being so good.

And the monsters at Pizza Hut came up with this:

I don't even know where to start. The melty gooey cheese? The shimmering pepperoni? Is there anything about this pie that is NOT evil? I think one bite of this nonsense has more calories than I'm allotted for an entire week. Yep, pretty sure. Crazy Cheesy Crust pizza is out to get me.

I'm trying to eat this kind of pathetic excuse for food:

 


To be fair, Hy-Vee brand cottage cheese is pretty freaking delicious - at least, when you're denied the delicious evil food shown above. And you really can't lose weight on Crazy-Cheesy-Evil-Slimy Pizza Hut pizza.

One thing I've noticed about dieting is that it doesn't work. At ALL. Dieting is unrealistic and it won't last for most people. What you do is develop an alternate healthy food plan - something you can actually stick to for long periods of time. And that is all about finding substitutions.

For example:
Ice cream ... BAD. Frozen Greek yogurt - GOOD!
Try Yoplait Greek frozen yogurt bars in honey and caramel flavor - 90 calories each, and I promise, they actually taste like delicious soft serve. YUM.

Most salads ... BAD. (For real!) Low-fat, low-cal salad - GOOD!
My favorite salad used to consist of lettuce, sliced chicken tenders, shredded cheddar cheese, honey mustard, bacon bits, and croutons. That freaking salad was almost as bad as pizza!
Now, I toss in baby spinach with the lettuce - dark leafy greens are the best; for example, spinach is chock-full of vitamins A and C. I usually skip the chicken - or use grilled. No cheddar OR dressing - instead, I swap in a half-cup of 1% cottage cheese (80 calories). No bacon bits, no croutons - I sprinkle flavored slivered almonds on top; it adds flavor, a nice crunch, AND almonds curb your appetite. Win!

"Snack food" (chips, Pringles, snack crackers, etc.) ... VERY BAD!!! Almonds and dried fruit - GOOD!
The best almonds on earth are Blue Diamond honey roasted. They are super crunchy and absolutely delicious. I hated almonds before I tried these puppies.
Dried fruit can be tricky, though. Most pre-packaged dried fruit is loaded up with sugar. Might as well just eat candy (btw, candy - BAD!). If you have a health store, you can usually find dried fruit with either no sugar or just a little added. I get the best dried pineapple rings and papaya spears at my local Hy-Vee health market.

Know of some clever substitutions? Please comment and share!

Wife, mom, student, writer, artist, and ... FATSO.

Well, how should I start this? Oh, yeah - a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is me last year:

Sexy, huh? This is me now (approximately):

And this is my goal:

No problem. *sarcastic face*
Then again, I'm not blonde. So I guess my goal should be more like this:

I have about a hundred pounds to go. Hooboy ... does that make me an official whale? What on earth would qualify this FatMommy to blog about weight loss?! Well, I'm not Jabba the Hutt anymore. I've lost 85 pounds since last year - 35 of that in the last 2 months. (Which is when I finally got my keister off the sofa and started an actual diet and exercise regimen.)

I'm learning that I have control over my blubber - it doesn't have to rule me. So, the droopy tummy, waggling thighs, floppy upper arms, and all the rest of it is being officially banished. Take THAT, Kate Upton's smug "OMG I r soooo hott" face. I stick out my tongue at your ridiculously hot body. Wait. That sounded dirty. That was not my intention! Ew.

Okay - so if you're struggling to lose weight, or you just want to laugh at my fatness, follow this blog. I'll chronicle my adventures in healthy food (yuck), my misadventures in exercising (ouch), and how I'm plagued with dreams of vast buffets laden with fried food.