Chicken-Sausage Penne

Made this recipe today and it was definitely a good one around here! It was super easy to make and the sausage definitely made it scrumptious. Great serving size to fill ya up too! This recipe is a must share for a healthy meal that is filling! 

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Chicken-Sausage Penne (thanks to hungry-girl.com!)

   

Ingredients:

• 4 oz (about 1 1/4 Cups) high-fiber penne pasta
• 1 (12 oz) bag broccoli cole slaw
• 1 Cup chopped bell pepper
• 1 Cup chopped onion
• 1 Cup sliced mushrooms ( I left this out)
• 9 oz (3 links) chicken sausage with 8g fat or less per 3 oz serving ( I used turkey sausage instead)
• 2 Cups canned crushed/diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp garlic
• 1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper

1. Prepare pasta in medium pot per instructions. Drain, transfer to large bowl, cover to keep warm
2. Bring a large skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat. Add broccoli slaw and 1/4 Cup of water. Cover and cook until mostly softened (4-6 min)
3. Add bell pepper, onion, mushrooms to skillet. Cook and stir until soft (6 min). Add remaining ingredients to skillet, cook until hot. 
4. Mix pasta and sausage mixture together and serve


Serving Size (2 cups): 298 calories, 6.5g fat, 806mg sodium, 43g carbs, 9g fiber, 11g sugars, 20g protein -- PointsPlus® value 7*

Struggles....

Last night I pretty much had a mental breakdown. I felt like total crap because I was starving. I didn't want to eat chicken because that is pretty much all I have been eating the past two weeks now. I ended up eating pizza... I felt so guilty, I felt like a failure... I felt like I could not do this anymore. 

I hit an all time low, I was moody, pretty much starving, and was ready to just quit the WW program. I have realized that this is a great program to start out with, but I keep harping myself into trying to make this total change in my life and limiting myself from any food that I am used to. I need to find healthier options that taste good to ME and foods that I can enjoy and learn to love, not forcing myself to eat things that I know are better but can barely swallow... seriously.

 I am not sure if I will stay with the WW program in the long haul... it has been helping me to realize my eating habits, make better choices, portion sizes, and being more conscious about what I am eating, but I cannot stand feeling like I am still hungry and being worried about going over my points! 

There HAS to be a balance! I don't like being moody, grumpy, and difficult to be around, I do not like this at all, and I for sure have not liked myself the past couple of days. Something has got to change here....There has to be a way to eat healthier, exercise, and lose weight, without starving yourself of things you still love. 

One thing I have accomplished so far is I have not touched fast food since I started almost two weeks ago, this is a big accomplishment for me, and I have no desire to eat fast food either! I have learned through WW how terrible FF is for you along with simply eating out all the time. And I am SURE this is a HUGE source of my weight gain, no doubt. I have also cut my pop consumption way down and have stuck with it as well! I have only had one 12 oz Pepsi a few times now, and I have limited my 1 Pepsi to the nights that I work (this is from drinking 3-5 cans/bottles a day!). 

So there is my rant, I have been making changes, even though it seems rather slow. I feel like I have cheated at WW the past 24 hours!  I am sitting in my computer training class for work for 9 hours today, so I figured I would do something with my lunch break besides look up healthy recipes that actually sound like they will cater to my picky taste buds! :-) 

Next mission: Focus on drinking WAY more water to promote weight loss!

Food Prep Day!

First official food prep day has taken place... I spent several hours last night looking up recipes and planning out a weekly menu and shopping list. By doing this I realized, hey I can actually eat some food and not go over my points!

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(Strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, grapefruit, oranges, apples, string cheese, hummus, low fat high fiber muffins, Light Progresso soups for work, reduced calorie rye bread, 2 new recipes: frozen make ahead crock pot santa fe chicken, fiesta bean salad) Will report on the new recipes whether we like them or not!

Other recipes planned for this week:

• Eggs Florentine
• Creamy Scrambled Eggs with Scallions and Tomatoes 
• Egg McMuffin Sandwich
• Tomato, Spinach, Mozzarella Panini 
• Chicken with Spinach and Mozzarella

Weigh in Day

Okay, so I fixed my scale and ended up putting off weigh in day by one day because I read that when your muscles are sore you should put off weighing in because your muscles retain water to heal themselves, and let me tell you I was sore- it was terrible to just sit down I was so sore! Check this out:

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* After are hard workout, glycogen is depleted and when you eat sugar (from simple or complex carbs) your muscles will soak up a fair amount of it along with some water right away. 

* When you work out hard, you get tiny micro-tears in your muscles. To repair, they retain some water to help the process along. 

* Once your muscles get better even though maybe not fully healed, your body starts to move the water, waste, blood, etc. through you muscles much more normally causing you to “lose” the weight.

(the full article is at http://run4change.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/qa-post-weight-gain-after-events-sore-muscles-and-hard-efforts/)

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So the results were in this morning and I was scared as I waited for the scale to decide what it wanted to say.....

Starting weight : 148.6 lbs
Weigh in week one : 146.8 lbs

That was a weight loss of 1.8 lbs this week and I am happy about that!!!! Hard work does pay off, even if it's not as quickly as you may like!

Week One

One week ago today, I decided to join Weight Watchers. I'm not overweight, but I can say that I have gained at least 25 pounds in the last two years and I have never weighed this much. I knew I ate terrible and I kept saying I was going to make a change. I finally just jumped in and did it. I knew if I kept going the way I was, being able to get started was only going to be that much more difficult. I was not happy with myself, I'm not as fit or toned as I would like to be, and I really don't want to buy new clothes because I barely fit into mine right now. I took the leap, I sucked it up, spent the money, and joined weight watchers, I mean I felt pretty motivated... how hard could it be...right? 

So, it's official, I have completed week one of weight watchers. My scale is out of service so I have no idea if I actually lost any weigh currently, but I'm not sure if I want to know right now either! I had no idea when I spontaneously joined WW that getting down to 26 points was going to be as hard as I have now discovered. By day two, I wanted to cry. Going from eating fast food almost on a daily basis and have about 4 cans of pepsi a day to drinking only water, cutting out pop, cutting out fast food, and trying to eat healthy food has been an eye opening week for me. 

This week we also joined Planet Fitness, we worked out 4 times this week. It felt good, but it also made me realize how out of shape I am. I used to be able to do the elliptical for 40 minutes... right now I can barely manage 20. Makes me quite sad. I also bought Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs and have done that about 3 times now as well... it's pretty good, definitely can feel it the next day. 

Trying to find food that was minimal "points" has been very difficult. I'm a pretty picky eater to begin with so that does not help much. It's nice that fruits and veggies are 0 points, but seriously who can eat a celery stick without some peanut butter? I thought granola in my yogurt was good.... it ended up being like 30 some points, that's more than my daily allowance! Even regular yogurt was 6 points! I thought to myself this is nuts! How do people do this? So it's been give and take, but I'm starting to become more acquainted with how many points things are, it's still taking getting used to. I must say once again, this has been an extremely difficult week for me. One day I used most of my points and I was still starv-ving! It has been hard trying to find a balance between things that are good for you and also filling. 

Last night was my last day of week one, and.... I had to have normal food again, so we got a Little Caesar's Pizza... little did I know that ended up equalling 22 points! That is crazy to me. But I needed some food..... what I found surprising was that after eagerly awaiting to eat it, it didn't even taste that good! SO weird. I came to the conclusion- a drastic change like this is hard. It is OK to have some "normal" food, just in moderation, and not nearly as often as we used to. (When I say "we" I'm referring to my boyfriend and I who is happily supporting this journey with me :-)). 

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(One dinner we had this week, skinless chicken with garlic seasoning, cauliflower poppers, peppers and onions, and a salad with egg, tomatoes, croutons)

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My goals starting the week after next (not this week because we already went to the grocery store haha):

1. Work out at least 4 times at the gym

2. 3 days of hip hop abs

3. Plan a weekly menu for the next week

4. Plan next week's grocery shopping around the menu plan