Sportin’ a Skirt

I would just like to say that if you have ever in your entire life been able to comfortably wear a Bikini, than you should thank your lucky stars, or your parents for blessing you with such genetics. For some of us a Bikini will never ever happen. I have long since forgotten any day-dream of ever wearing a bikini, or any suit that made me look in some way descent. Nope, the ultimate goal in a swimsuit is FUNCTION + Whatever looks the least ugly. I’m not even saying it makes me look good, just not horrific.

Now I could get all sorts of dramatic and stress all the reasons why I look bad in a bathing suit, but I’ll save you from the 10 page list. Even after losing 75lbs, I’m gonna go out on a branch here and say I might actually look worse than before. Now my skin is lose and unpleasant to look at…ha! Especially the thighs, which is the area my body has apparently decided is the best place to store fat. I’m still working on accepting my legs.

I mentioned a month or so ago that Ms. G gave me a swimsuit…with a skirt. Part of me (since I was a little girl and would go Hot Tubbing with my Grandma) has always wanted to wear a skirted swimsuit. The other part of me realized that it’s about as Grandma-y as it gets. This year, I could give a shit. I’m SOOOOO over trying to look cute or hip or cool, now I’m dressing simply because I like it, and hopefully because its flattering.

Which brings me to the floral skirted swimsuit Ms. G gave me. Pretty much its the most comfortable suit I have ever owned! Seriously people. I actually walked from her house to the pool wearing nothing but my swimsuit, that’s how nice I feel in it. The only complaint I have ever had is that the print isn’t really my style. Its big pink roses on a black background. By no means is it the worst thing I have ever seen, just not particularly trendy. So anyway Mr. Gaunt and I were at Marshals the other night and I happened to be browsing the skirted swimsuit section (ha, I sound like a loser now) and found a pretty darn cute suit (with a skirt) for $40.

Tried it on and bought it! I’m very pleased with this suit, it has a cute Tennis dress feel. I will be bringing both suits to Washington in two weeks (from today) and will wear my skirts proudly…lol!

Day One in Pictures!

I wanted to share how my first day of Eating Like a Baby went! Just so you can see what exactly I will be eating, and also to give you a bit more information on my techniques.

First off I had someone ask me what the importance of cutting food up is. To help explain this I’m pulling a paragraph from this article:

Cut your food up into bite sized pieces. Cutting your food up into smaller bite sized pieces will ultimately make you ‘think’ you have more food.

You can ‘see’ it.

This optical perception is transmitted to your brain. If you see more food on your plate, your brain will acknowledge that and you’ll trick yourself into believing you’ve actually got more food on your plate. Your stomach will feel fuller from eating such a ‘large’ meal, when all you really did was cut your food up into smaller bite sized pieces.

You can lose weight, just by utilizing the perception that you have eaten more!

This is a ‘brain trick’ you can use often. Cut your food up into smaller pieces and you will ‘see’ why its one of the most terrific ways to lose weight that I know!

See totally worth it! i even cut my pizza up into small pieces tonight! Ok onto the meals (please note this is what pictures look like when taken in poor lighting with zero staging…lol!):

BREAKFAST (4:45 am):

1 Whole Wheat Low Fat Eggo Waffle (70 calories)

1/2 Cup Organic Unsweetened Applesauce (50 calories)

1/2 Pink Lady Apple Diced (40 calories)

1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

I mixed the apples in with the apple sauce and cinnamon over night. No Butter, No Syrup.

MID MORNING SNACK (8:00 am)

1/2 Cup Honey Nut Cheerios (100 calories)

1 Cliff Bar (250 calories)

6 Raw Almonds (20 calories)

LUNCH (10:00 am)

1/2 Cup Pasta (110 calories)

1/2 cup Grilled Veggies (20 calories)

3 mozzarella Balls (10 calories)

1/2 mango Sausage (80)

1/4 Avocado (50)

1/2 cup watermelon(20 calories)

1/2 cup cantaloupe (30 calories)

LATE AFTERNOON SNACK (3:00 pm)

1 Slice Ezekiel Bread (80)

1 Slice Light Swiss Cheese (60)

1/4 Avocado (50)

DINNER (6:30 pm)

1/4 cup Pasta (50 calories)

1/4 cup Grilled Veggies (10 calories)

1/2 cup watermelon(20 calories)

1/2 cup cantaloupe (30 calories)

2 slices Caprese Pizza (recipe to come) (300 calories)

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In total I ate just under 1500 calories. Im not really concerned about calories, but every now and then I like to see where Im hitting in a day. 1500 is good for weight loss. I also did about 45 minutes of aquatic work out. 20 laps + aerobics. I feel really great about how the day went! Even now at 9:15 I could totally do a snack, but instead I brushed my teeth and put on my crest white strips…cant eat now! ha!

Pools Open! Back to Summer Health!

The Pool opened on Friday and I have been swimming every day since! Saturday I started my **fingers crossed** Everyday Pool Workout, doing 20 laps + Water Aerobics.

I know a fair amount of water aerobic moves from my mom who goes almost every day and does a mix of deep water running and water aerobics. This weekend at Dick’s Sporting Goods I bought a set of water aerobic tools (not sold online, but it was a 6 piece set for $35) and a new set of goggles.

Tonight Mr. Gaunt and I waited until all the kids had gotten out so we could have the pool to ourselves. I swam my laps (I’m starting with 20, but hoping to slowly work my way to 40 this summer) and he goofed off. We realized tonight that Mr. Gaunt’s size is just not very buoyant…and therefore not so good at water aerobics….lol!

It feels so good to be back in a summer routine of swimming and cooking healthy! I could not be more over winter! BOO! I just love all the melons on sale and cherries! I love that its light out till 9pm, and we can leave our windows open. I can just feel the whole healthy lifestyle we had last year coming back, feels so good!

My focus in the pool this year is to do some cardio, and really focus on my abs and arms with my water weights. This is what my set came with:

Dumbells

floating belt

The dumbells are the best, if you were to only get one thing I would get these. Tonight I swam my laps with my gloves, and oh lord was it a challenge! They give you so much resistance, and I could just feel my muscles aching! Very nice! The belt is nice if you want to tread water but are in a shallow pool.

We have major plans to spend as much time in the pool as possible this summer. Weekends at Jenny and Justins and afternoons in our pool or in Ms. G’s pool (when I work close to her house).

I also think there will be way more blogging now that summer is here! Yay who doesn’t love blogging!

Eggplant, Swimming, Grilling, Babies!

Every now and then my fridge gets overrun with veggies. This isn’t  a bad thing, but I HATE when I let stuff go bad (in all honesty it does happen from time to time) so when things are looking too full I often get a little crazy and start throwing mass amounts of veggies into whatever I’m making.

Last week I got an Eggplant in my Door to Door Organics box, I had previously let one go bad so I was determined to use it up! Mr. Gaunt did a landscaping job last week for extra cash, so I was trying to be a good girlfriend and have dinner ready for him. Here lies the problem: Mr. Gaunt + Eggplant =BAD! He hates Eggplant. HATES IT! I thought I could secretly convince him it was yummy by making: Eggplant Parmesan, Eggplant lasagna, and now Eggplant Spaghetti. No such luck.

In the end I picked out all the Eggplant for him, and he was a happy camper, and I got leftover Eggplant all week! Yay!

Along with Eggplant I needed to use 3 tomatoes and 1 zucchini that night. The spaghetti was super easy though, I sautéed the cubed Eggplant in olive oil, then added the zucchini, then the tomatoes. When they were all nice and cooked I threw in 1/2 a jar of Spaghetti Sauce. Poured over whole Wheat past…yum! What’s not to like?  Oh and because I realized Mr. Gaunt would hate it, I added some Mango Chicken Sausage slices (we got them at Costco, and I’m just not sure I really like them) in the end.

Summer is pretty much here now! We are going to a GRAND OPENING POOL PARTY at Jenny and Justin’s this weekend! I’m so freaking excited to start swimming everyday now!  Also on my list of summer LIKES: BBQing! Mr. Gaunt and I own a very nice (never been opened) Charmglow BBQ (similar to this one) that Mr. Gaunt got two years ago on clearance. Problem is we don’t have a deck, porch or yard that we can set it up in, so it sits in Ms. G’s garage in the box. Sad day. I have been CRAVING grilled veggies and corn. Drooling over the pictures on FoodGawker.com. I think I’m gonna bring some Veggie Kabobs to the party on Sunday, and then take some to Ms. G’s house to use on her grill!

And I leave you with some adorable pics of when Liam met Hula this weekend. They were best buds, too stinkin cute!

Nice Petting

Sharing an inside kitty joke

Wearing his "B IS FOR BOB" shirt we got him for (his hippy mom) 1st Birthday!

Vegan PB&J Muffins

My friend Jama posted these on her (private) blog, and they looked so good! I also had pretty much all the ingredients needed, so I whipped them in this evening. Jama is a Clean Vegan, which I am very interested in. She doesn’t eat fake things like Vegan Mayo, Seitan, Soy Burgers. Basically just naturally occurring foods. Soy in generall weirds me out, which is a big reason I still eat meat, I don’t want to do soy. I have recently thought about ditching cheese though, and trying to cut back on the meat…shhh…dont tell Mr. Gaunt.

I also feel like I’m going to remove eating out all but one day a week. Nothing good comes from a restaurant (including no blog posts from me…lol!) And produce season is coming, and I’m jumping back on the veggie/cooking bandwagon! Oh and the pool opens in TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh speaking of Pools, I have officially decided to rock a bathing suit with a skirt this summer. Ms. G gave me one, and it is totally dated and grandma-like, and I LOVE IT! It covers the thighs and accentuates the waist. I might even take a full body shot of it for yah…lol! Basically I decided that I love to swim, and I don’t give a shit if my suit is a littleold school looking, obviously people can see I’m still young, and Id rather have a flattering grandma suit than a not cute modern suit. So that is that!

Oh I was talking about muffins…lol. Yeah so I pretty much made it like the recipe said, except I didn’t have ground Flaxseed, only whole flaxseed, so I used that. Also I didn’t have any Bran, so I did a 1/4 cup of oats. Last and most important, I used Whole Wheat Flour instead of regular flour. This brought a whole new discussion that I will talk about at the end of this post. For now here is the original recipe:

2 C flour

1/4 C sugar

1/4 C ground flax seed

1/4 C bran

1 Tab baking powder

1/2 teas ground cinnamon

1/2 teas salt

1/3 C creamy peanut butter

3 Table spoon vegan margarine

1 C soy milk

1/4 C maple syrup

1 teas vanilla extract

1/4 C jam

Preheat oven to 4oo degrees. Mix first seven ingredients in a big bowl. Using a fork or pastry blender, add vegan margarine and peanut butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add soy milk, maple syrup and vanilla. Stir until just mixed. Do not over stir.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin. Add a teas of jam to the top of each and bake in the oven for 2o minutes. YUM!!

Jama’s looked all light and fluffy and yummy, mine…well…not so much. I blame two things on this. 1. The altitude here SUCKS for baking, Jama lives in California.  2. The Whole Wheat Flour:

See I said a while ago that I planed on replacing everything with Whole Wheat Flour, because it is healthier for you. So far I havent had a big problem with, but I wouldn’t say it really works the same as All Purpose Flour. See WW flour is so much heartier. It gives things a totally nutty-hearty flavor, basically it TASTES like health food. Also it doesn’t rise as well (avoid using in things that need to be light and fluffy: Cakes, Pie Crusts, Pastries) and it definitely is darker in color. Personally I found a liking to it. I like that it taste more substantial and more nutritional. However Its not for everyone. Mr. Gaunt likes it ok, or at least he pretends to. I think I may actually buy some AP Flour for baking too though.

I would make these again though, they are more like a hearty breakfast muffin than like cake or a treat. I think they will be yummy with a banana in the morning, or some Earth Balance Spread on it. I would defiantly tell people to make these.

A Day at The Pool

Mr.Gaunt and I spent the day at the pool with some friends (and one very cute little boy) swimming and even having a little cotton candy (shhh don’t tell the Vegan Fairies).

Mr. Gaunt and I swimming

Big Feet!

Cutie Pie Liam!

Grabbing Honkers

Cotton Candy...we asked for a small dont worry.

Pool at Sunset

I feel like my body has jumped into overdrive this week after vacation. I was really worried about a weight gain but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m on day two of no meat (or eggs or fish) but have still done a small amount of cheese and yogurt (I love some organic fat free vanilla yogurt) I feel like I may need to watch my calorie intake because cutting out lots of fatty foods may mean I’m not getting all my WW points in for the day which they say is really important.  I dont want to be putting myself into any kind of starvation mode or anything, not that I couldn’t live off my ass fat for a while..ha! Weigh in on Tuesday morning wish me luck!