Kale Salad with Tahini-Lemon Dressing

Hi friends, I'm back!  The last 3 years I've ended up gaining back some of the weight I lost. Luckily not all of, actually not quite half of it.  Now I'm ready to get back to where I was with healthy eating and working out! 

I've been back on plan for about 2 1/2 weeks now and I'm down 6 lbs.  I joined Dietbet.com and it's really kept me motivated. If you aren't familiar with Dietbet it's a website where you put money up (mine was $20 a month for 6 months) and bet that you will lose the weight they set in the challenge you joined.  If you make it until the end you can collect all the money in the pot from those that either dropped out or didn't reach their goal!  It seems to be really be keeping me on track! 

On to the salad...I love kale. Kale is so much heartier than lettuce and much more chewing is required so it's more satisfying to me.  For this salad I grilled some chicken thighs and added tomatoes, a little low-fat feta cheese, toasted walnuts and yummy homemade Tahini-Lemon Dressing.  Here is the recipe I used for the dressing

Tahini-Lemon Dressing

1/2 cup Tahini

3/4 cup of water (more or less depending on the consistency you like)

Juice from 1-2 lemons (I like mine lemony)

1 garlic clove finely minced

salt and pepper

Whisk all ingredients together. 

That's it for today but I hope to be posting here more often and I even started a Fit and Fabulous Over 50 Instagram page so follow me there! 

A Delicious Breakfast Idea

We're in Hawaii right now and this is our usual breakfast here.  It's half a papaya filled with low-fat cottage cheese!  It is so good and so healthy! 

I've never been a big fan of cottage cheese and I hadn't eaten it in many years until I met Allen.  Now after giving it a second chance I love it and I've been eating it every day for months! Some times I'll have it with my scrambled eggs in the morning and other times I will have 1/4 - 1/2 cup with some fruit. I even like it with salsa on top but I think in the papaya boat is my favorite!

Best Superfoods for Weight Loss

I found this article and wanted to share! Click here:  Best Superfoods for Weight Loss.  I've started eating more grapefruit and after reading this I may try to have a half of one before every meal!

What I've eaten so far today

Breakfast - scrambled eggs, 2% cottage cheese and salsa

I walk 1 mile every day on my lunch break. This is part of my walk

A lot of people have asked what I eat each day so here is what I've eaten so far today. I took this right off my Lose.it.com summary. I'm still under 1200 calories (only at 1031 calories so far) and I plan on going to the gym so I'll have room for a good snack tonight. The numbers next to the food are the calories. The numbers next to exercise (walking) are the extra calories I've burned so far today. I also drink about 4 16oz bottles of water a day and I have coffee in the morning and the afternoon.


Daily Report for May 8, 2013

Breakfast  Total calories: 231
Salsa ⅓ Cup 27
Egg (Large) 2 Servings 140
Cottage Cheese, 2% Fat ⅓ Cup 65

Lunch Total calories 380
Pop Chips 1 Serving 100
Pasta, Classic Favorites, Ricotta & Spinach, Weight Watchers Smart Ones 1 Box 280

Dinner Total calories 198
Chicken Breast 5 Ounces 150
Spinach, Stmd ¾ Cup 48

Snacks Total calories 222
Yogurt, Greek, Mango, 2%, Chobani 6 Ounces 160
Grapes, Fresh 1 Cup 62

Exercise Total calories burned 102
Walking 35 min 102

Summary
Food Calories 1,031
Exercise Calories 102

This report was generated with Lose It!

Dinner tonight - chicken breast and steamed spinach with garlic and red pepper flakes

I'm still hungry after eating this dinner so I will probably have a snack before I go to the gym and since I'll have calories left I'll have another snack later tonight.

I usually cook a more interesting dinner than this but my daughter had cooked the chicken tonight for salads but I wasn't in a salad mood so I made mine with the steamed spinach.

I'll try to do more of these posts so you can see how I eat and how I've lost 75 lbs.  

Squats - A great exercise

I found this chart on Facebook and started it about 5 days ago. At this point I can't imagine doing 250 squats but I'm going to work my way through this!  Yesterday was on Day 5 and after work I met a friend for dinner and then ran errands and I was just too tired to do 70 squats but I plan on doing them today!  Even if it's impossible to do 250 squats I'm still going to incorporate these into my exercise routine because just after a few days I could feel my behind and the back of my upper legs getting firmer!  Those are my problem areas!

When you do them just be sure to not let your knees extend beyond your toes...that is bad for you knees! 

Before and After - 75 lbs weight loss

I've been planning on doing a "Before and After" post for a long time but I wanted to wait until I reached my goal but I've decided to just do it now. I still have 10 more pounds to lose but I've been at this weight for at least 6 months now so I might not reach that goal.   This before photo above was taken in 2009 and I think I had just started losing weight.  

The before photo above I took when I started dieting because I wanted a really bad before picture. I put those jeans and top on just for the photo. I wouldn't have been caught dead going out wearing that. Those pants were a size 16 and I could barely squeeze into them they were so tight. The skinny jeans in the photo above are a size 4 from Old Navy! I still remember trying those on. I was in the dressing room with a size 8 and they were too big so I changed back into my clothes and went out and got a size 6 and those were a little big. I went out again and got a size 4 and I couldn't believe I was able to get them on!  I was standing in line to buy them and I was texting my daughter that I fit into a size 4! I was giddy with excitement!  Those are the only size 4s I have though, all my other pants are size 6 but I'm fine with that...I was a size 18 and squeezing into a 16...size 6 feels great! 

I'm 5'7" and I weighed 220 lbs at my highest and now I'm about 145...I seem to go up and down a few pounds regularly!  My goal is 135.

I'll share more soon on how I did it but most of it was lost through Weight Watchers and LoseIt.com.  I also started working out.  

March 2013

I think it's obvious that I'm a lot happier now!

I know I love to see before and after photos of people and I found looking at them very inspiring when I had all that weight to lose! I'm sharing these photos in hopes of inspiring at least one person! If I can do it so can you!

April 2013

Classic Inspiration!

I found this outfit above on Pinterest awhile back and fell in love with it!  I even posted it to Facebook and proclaimed my love for it!  

It wasn't until weeks later that I realized I had some items in my closet to recreate a very similar look!

Please excuse the unmade bed and the big black hot-flash fan!

I actually have two of these white cotton shirts. They are from Victoria Secrets online store.  I bought the one above in a size Medium and it's a little too tight in the bust area but I decided to keep it for when I lost weight and I bought another one in size Large.  I had the large one on earlier in the day but spilled salad dressing on it so I had to put the medium one on, which is still to tight in the bust even though I've lost weight.  It was just a tad too snug so I decided to put a lace camisole on under it.  

The skirt I bought awhile back at Express.  The skirt in the inspiration photo is higher waisted which would be better with the belt but since I already had this I decided to make it work!  

I also had the brown belt, shoes, and handbag! Forgot to put the handbag in the photo though!

When I had the larger shirt on without the camisole I wore a very similar necklace as you see in the inspiration photo!  It looked a little too busy with the lacy camisole though.

I can't believe it took me weeks to realize I already had everything I needed in my closet to recreate this look I loved!  

I love finding ways to mix and match my clothes! Sometimes it just takes a little creativity and sometime it just takes some outside inspiration!