I’m on the Juice..

Back in August, I wrote a little post about my overflowing garden and joked about making wine from my grapevine.

Well, I’m not that cool so I settled for some grape juice!

I went out to the vine and picked as many grapes as my bag could hold.

Then, I de-stemmed, sorted and washed all the ones in good shape.

After moving them to a large bowl, I took my handy potato masher and mashed those bad boys up, being careful not to mash too hard so the seeds didn’t split and cause bitterness.

Then I transferred the whole bowl of mushy goodness to a stockpot and let it simmer for 15 minutes, mashing again halfway through.

Finally, I strained the juice through both a fine mesh strainer and a colander about 5 times until there was very little residue being caught by the strainer. (Note the juice splatters all over my sink. They stain, in case you were wondering.)

All there was left to do was let it cool in the fridge for a few hours, then enjoy!

It was amazing! The grapes are so sweet it needed no extra sugar. We got a good full sized pitcher’s worth out of the one bag of grapes. (My husband loved it too even though it was thick and he said it made him think of drinking blood. Yum.) I will definitely be doing this again!

And since it’s now officially snowing in Utah, I thought I would just post a picture of what I only get to enjoy here for about two weeks a year. Fall.

3 Years..

So no much is happening on the weight-loss front as of now, but there has been lots of other things going on! I went to Vegas last weekend, I have had people over to party, I made homemade grape juice the other day… All these things deserve their own posts but I thought today’s milestone was worth talking about first.

Today was my 3rd wedding anniversary! It’s so weird to think that it’s been three years since one of the most hectic, hardest and happiest days of my life. I thought today was a perfect time to participate for the first time in Flashback Friday!

Three years ago today…

I married my best friend.

(That happens to be one of maybe 3 pictures of just me and the hubs on our wedding day. Our photographer was horrible!)

My two older brothers gave me away.

We had a traditional Dutch dance…

and somehow our bodies got hoisted in the air.

I loved my cake.

We had a candy bar as our favors.

And we just had a good time.

Now, we still have a good time. Not much has changed except for him maybe having even less hair, me having less weight on my body and the black hair I rocked for so long is gone. (Today partying in front of our hardcore wood paneling.)

Love you Danny!

A Rant.

I’m feeling frustrated. I have been stuck at a total, stubborn, monumental plateau. I have been working out regularly, incorporating more strength training than ever, watching what I eat…nothing is working. I cannot budge past this weight I have been stuck at for months. It’s not like it’s just the number that isn’t budging either. My clothes aren’t fitting any better so I can’t even be positive about that.

I feel like this.

 

I do think that I’ve been eating more than I believe I am. I stopped religiously counting calories awhile ago and thought I was comfortable enough to do it on my own. I don’t think I am ready to be in that position yet. When I counted calories, I felt committed to that number. I did whatever it took to stay within range or no more than 200 calories over. I’ve never been super obsessive about it, but knowing the range I should be in and planning accordingly made me successfully stay around that number and successfully lose weight. I think it’s time to get back into the habit of tracking everything I eat. I did it before on the Daily Plate and that’s where I am headed back to.

It’s been almost 2 years since I started losing and I am nowhere near my goal. I swear I have been stuck at this plateau for almost the whole last year. I’m not sure what else to do. I am the first to admit that there is still plenty wrong with the foods I choose to eat, but that’s kind of my whole system. I don’t want blacklist any particular food if it’s something I really want. I will eat it, enjoy it and try my hardest not to feel bad about it. I guess I have just been letting myself have those moments way too often.

I read an interview with Valerie Bertinelli (I know, right?) where she said, “I love a big slice of pizza, but I love myself more.” I want to adopt that attitude. I have the knowledge, I just want to learn how make the right choice. It’s all a choice, isn’t it?

Have you weight-losers ever suffered through a plateau? What worked for you?

With this Ring…

No matter much I fight the feeling that I look the same now as I did pre-weight loss, there are little things that shout, “You’re wrong Elizabeth! There is a difference!”. I have gone down 3 pant sizes, I can’t deny the changes in pictures of myself and my wedding ring hasn’t fit for over a year.

My ring was getting loose, right from the beginning, but it wasn’t until I lost it that I stopped wearing it altogether. I had had the ring slip off a few times while washing people’s hair at work, but when I didn’t notice my ring fall off cleaning the snow off my car one morning, I knew it was time to put the ring away for awhile. I noticed later in the morning that my ring wasn’t on my finger, but had no idea where it could be. Luckily, it was lying in my driveway when I got home that night.

I kept putting off getting my ring re-sized until I met my goal. I figured, why do it more than once if I don’t have to? Recently, however, I have really missed wearing it. I have kept mine in a drawer in my bedroom and would pull it our from time to time just to see it on my finger. (Is that sad?)

With my 3rd anniversary approaching next month, I decided to stop waiting and just get it sized. $35 and two days later, I feel like a married woman again!

(On my wedding day.)

The best part? I went down from a size 9 to size 7.5 ring. I have man hands. If you don’t know what I mean, refer to this Seinfeld episode. I have never in my life worn smaller than an 8 ring, so that felt as good as when I went down in pant size.

Too bad after my first day wearing my ring to work I have no desire to wear it to the salon again. How did I do hair with it on before?

Little Light Cookbook

I fell in love with Cooking Light magazine when I was working at my old salon and had access to every month’s edition, due to the salon having a subscription to pretty much every magazine published. When I moved to my current salon, I was so sad to discover that we aren’t nearly as advanced in the magazine world. So, I finally had to succumb and buy my own subscription to Cooking Light.

Since then, the magazines have been piling up and sharing a shelf with my cookbooks. Clutter drives me absolutely crazy and there is no need for hundreds of pages of articles taking up space in my house when all I want to save is the recipes.

I decided it was time to practice some organizational skills.

I went to Walmart (don’t judge me) and bought just what I needed. Adorable binder, sheet protectors, divider tabs and an extra folder (for any articles I wanted).

Then I made my way through my stack of magazines. I ripped out every recipe and save-worthy article, sorted them, protected them and made myself a personalized cookbook!

I love that I have space back on the shelf in my kitchen. I love that I can now recycle all my old magazines. I especially love that my lovely cookbook only has recipes I am truly interested in making. Yay for organizing! By the way, who else out there is in l.o.v.e. with the new Cooking Light format? I am!

What do you do with your old magazines?

A Review or Two

There hasn’t been a lot going on lately besides working, working out, currently being sick and seeing BoyzIIMen in concert last night! Haha, there will a whole post about that one later.

I’ve been meaning to post something about a couple products I was sent out to try so I thought I would take care of that!

First up, the great people at POM Wonderful sent me a couple of their new POM Teas. I was really excited to try them out. First I tried the Pomegranate Wildberry White Tea.

I have to say, I was disappointed. It tasted a lot like Kool-Aid to me. The taste was fine, but considering how much I love the POM juice, this just tasted watered down and fake in comparison. I felt the same way when I tried the Pomegranate Hibiscus Green Tea. Now, it could be that those two flavors also happened to be “Light” versions. I will let you know if the regular ones taste any different. Thanks to POM for letting me try these out!

I also got a great little package from Stonyfield Farm. They sent me a great little reusable tote bag and coupons for their Oikos Greek yogurt.

I have seen greek yogurt all over the place and have always been anxious to try it out, but always a little hesitant too. I have gone from Yoplait yogurts to Dannon Light and Fit, to Mountain High non-fat vanilla. Each one tastes less sweet than the last because I’m trying to wean myself off of overly (and artificially) sweetened yogurt. The Mountain High has no artificial sweeteners and is a great product but even it has started to taste like candy to me.

The idea behind Stonyfield is the same: all natural, all organic, all the time. I was so excited to try out Oikos. When I finally got my hands on some, I decided to try out the Vanilla and Honey flavors.

The first thing I was impressed with was how high in protein these bad boys are!

15 grams of protein and only 110 calories!

Since vanilla has always been my flavor of choice, I started with that. I actually didn’t really like it. The texture was great but it was too sweet for me!

Honey was next which I had with some granola. OH. MY. Seriously, this is the best thing ever. As soon as I took a bite I knew I was in trouble, because this is my new addiction.

Towards the end, I felt like there was even a little too much honey, so I am excited to try plain next. I think I have found the perfect yogurt fit! It’s thick, creamy and delicious! Thank you so much to Stonyfield for opening my eyes to this great product!

 

What kind of yogurt do you eat?

PT

Pretty much every time I go to the gym near my house by myself I get harassed by a personal trainer to come get a “free” fitness evaluation. I have done it before, got my ass handed to me in a killer workout and then treated like crap when I told them I couldn’t afford personal training at the price they were offering.

A few days ago I was approached yet again by one of them. After telling him multiple times I wasn’t interested, he just wouldn’t let up. He kept saying, “It’s free. Why wouldn’t you do it?”. So I told him straight up that fine, I would come but I can’t afford the sessions he really is trying me to sign up for and so he would be just wasting his time. He still insisted, so I figured I might as well get a good workout out if it.

He asked me to write down everything I ate the day before my appointment with him so he could evaluate my current habits.

When I went to meet him the following morning he seemed surprised by my day’s intake. I ate well and apparently often enough for his liking. (I even admitted to the 2 candy corn pumpkins I ate at work. Damn Halloween candy being out so early.) He also seemed surprised by my knowledge of nutrition in general, cardio and weight lifting.

I think he thought I was cheating, so he put me on the spot and asked me if I could write down a day’s menu that would be ideal. He was looking for the “right” balance of carbs, protein and fat at every meal, the “right” frequency of eating and so on. (I put the word right in quotations because what’s right for someone isn’t right for another. I just knew he wanted for something designed by the book.)

He looked for something wrong and was put out when he couldn’t find anything that was against the general rule. (I’d like to thank all of you who show me what a balanced day really looks like.)

It’s all so easy on paper. I can take all my knowledge and write it down for anyone, but it’s a completely different story trying to make it apply to my real never-have-enough-time life. I can rock the microwave like it’s nobody’s business though.

He did kick my trash in a workout. I did weighted squats, lunges, step ups, pushups, sit-ups, running, jumping jacks and so much more. It’s now two days later and I can hardly bend over. I stretched thoroughly afterwards and my legs and arms feel great but nothing can help these abs. It was one of the best workouts I have had though and I loved that the only pieces of equipment we used were a bench, a stability ball and two 10-pound dumbbells. Too bad I still can’t afford training. Good thing I have access to all that equipment to recreate the workout anytime.

Do you get harassed by trainers at the gym or is it just my Gold’s Gym that has the problem? I swear, they see a fat girl sweating away by herself and they just assume I need all the help I can get.

Let’s have a chest to chest talk

I know, you’re thinking, “Elizabeth, it’s heart to heart”. No. I can’t stop thinking about my chest and quite possibly, yours.

I have had my boobs since I was 13 and I must say, I’m a little, um, attached. Through all my body ups and downs and criticisms, I have always been quite happy with my boobs. They have never been the perkiest little bags of fun, but when you have a full C at 13 and a full D at 18, you get over the minute presence of natural gravity.

I knew that I had a big chance of losing some size due to losing weight. After the first 25 pounds I lost, I was thrilled to discover that I hadn’t gone down in cup size. My band size has changed, but those cups remained the same. Score one to me.

Just 8 pounds later, my boobs have gone to shit.

First, let me talk about my best friend. She is pregnant and her bra is currently bursting. This girl has complained about having small (perfectly round and perky, might I add) breasts and has always wished they were bigger. Now that they are, she takes it all back. I could tell they had grown, but until she decided it was time for me to see the horror in the flesh, I didn’t realize what was going on under those t-shirts.

This girl lifts her shirt and I swear, I thought I was looking at Pamela Anderson, pre-implant removal (and then of course, subsequent implant renewal).

No joke, this is my best friend, minus Kid Rock and the beer (she’s knocked up, remember?).

I might have been pseudo-sympathetic if at that exact moment I hadn’t realized how much my boobs have really changed. I look like I have nursed two children and haven’t supported the girls with a bra in 10 years.

There is no problem with saggy boobs, especially if you’ve had the honor of nursing two babies. However, I am 25, never been pregnant but plan on it in the future and have at least 40 more pounds to lose. What the hell are these things gonna look like then?

I have always been against a boob job for myself. I have been one of those embrace my own natural beauty kind of girls. Well now, I might just have to rethink my hard stance on plastic surgery. It’s surprising to me how much the change is bothering me. Good thing I have a loving husband, who after hearing my saggy boob tirade simply said…“I will still play with ‘em“. Thanks, D.

After lifting my boobs from my armpits into my bra, I looked online for some information on weight-loss-induced sag. I came across a site with tons of pictures sent in by average women, like you and me, of their breasts. No faces, no porno poses, just normal, chest only pictures. It’s kind of an odd site, but its intentions are to show women that boobs come in every shape, size and direction. I must admit, I feel better about myself (albeit a little voyeuristic) after viewing dozens of those pictures. So while I fight gravity as I work towards the rest of my weight loss, I might just take my husband up on his offer.

And it was going so well…

I tried out my new shoes for the first time the other night. I went to Zumba and they felt fabulous. The Zumba teacher was definitely having an off night, so it wasn’t the best class I’ve ever done, but everyone has those days. I decided to run for just a few minutes after class to sweat a bit more and try out my shoes on the running front. I jumped on the treadmill without my usual setup of Ipod in ears, swagger on hips and water bottle in hand.

I started out with the intention to run for 5 minutes and I figured that’s all I would be able to pull off since I depend so heavily on rockin’ music during my dates with the treadmill. Turns out, I run pretty well with my thoughts on full volume. I ran a quick mile and when I say quick, it was actually pretty slow to most of you, but the fastest I have ever done! I was pretty damn proud. I don’t know whether to thank my shoes or the silence.

Fast forward to today:

I came home from a crappy day at work and got straight into my pajamas. I started to make dinner and then felt really guilty that I wasn’t getting a workout in first. I pushed the thought from my mind for a minute but then the nagging thoughts persisted.

I knew if I just got my clothes on, I would make it happen and be happy that I did. So I put the beginnings of dinner in the fridge, changed my clothes and headed to the gym. On my way there I had the wild thought to just go to the high school and run around the track.

You see, in all my limited running glory, I have never once attempted to run outside. The track seemed like a great place to start since I could easily track my distance. I got there and was happy to see that the place was deserted. I pressed my headphones into my ears, cranked up the Beyonce and was off.

You know how 4 times around a track is 1 mile? And that would make 1 time around the track 1/4 mile, right? I was completely out of breath by the time I completed the first round. I had to stop and walk the next lap, run the next, walk the next and so forth. Then I finished by running the stadium stairs until the darkness came and I wanted to make my way back to my car before some scary man made his way to me.

Why oh why could I not make it around that track 4 times? I can run a mile easily on the treadmill and have plenty of energy to keep going. I don’t know if it’s because of the high-altitude, lung-collapsing air of Utah, or if it’s just the lack of a machine-propelled stride.

I feel pretty lame. Maybe I should stick to Zumba.

It’s about time…

Since the beginning of my running adventures I have been making excuse after excuse about why I can’t run as much as I would like. I have blamed many of my problems on having bad shoes. Well guess what? No more excuses. I finally got myself some brand spankin’ new running shoes!

I went to Salt Lake Running Company here in Utah and had my gait professionally evaluated. They told me I over-pronate slightly and that my arch collapses mildy on my left foot (which happens to be the knee that has been bothering me so badly after runs). They suggested I get a stability shoe, but nothing too hardcore or it would cause more problems. Out of the options I was directed towards, I went for the Asics 2140. My runner sister-in-laws swear by Asics, so I felt good about buying them.

Tada!

I am in love. Just trying them on in the store and running a lap I could tell such a huge difference in how my feet, knees and hips felt.

Now I just need to go for a run. The reason I haven’t? I’ve finally joined the millions of people brave enough to attend classes at the gym! I have had a membership to Gold’s Gym for about 4 years now and had never had the nerve to go one class. A few weeks ago, however, I made my 18 year old brother go with me to kickboxing. It was the hardest workout I have ever done and I loved every minute of it. The next week, I decided to try a Zumba class. I have heard many rave reviews of Zumba and thought it sounded like a great time. I wasn’t about to force my little brother to go to that one so I had to suck it up and go alone. I felt embarrassed, uncoordinated and completely obsessed. As soon as the class was over, I couldn’t wait to go to the next one. Why oh why had I waited so long to go to one of these? I am hooked. No one cares what I look like or how bad I’m doing, because they are too busy thinking the same things about themselves. And even if they do think I look like an idiot..who cares? I am having a great time! I am going to kickboxing and Zumba every week and it is getting me in the gym more regularly than anything else has. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend trying out a class at your gym. I promise, you will love it.

Question: I am not sure if I should wear my new running shoes to the classes. I have this idea in my head that the moves in the classes will wear down my shoes in a different way than running will and I might end up with more problems. Do you wear your running shoes for other exercise or use them strictly for your running?