Hellooo?

Anyone out there?

Bueller? Bueller?

I know it's been almost 2 months since we've posted. Nikki's just lazy. But I have a good reason. I've been cheating on Two Pink Hippos with my other blog. It's my running blog. I'm not sure I can call myself a runner yet but I really want to be one. So please humor me? :)

Since both Nikki and I have stopped blogging on TPH (although you'll be glad to know we are both still doing well on Weight Watchers), I decided to move my recipes to my running blog and combine both into one.

Please find me at:
http://seecupcakerun.wordpress.com *OR* http://seecupcakerun.com

I'm sure that Nikki will make some guest post appearances on there too. (If I ask nicely.) For now TPH will be a recipe placeholder for Nikki since she's too lazy to print them out herself. (Are you noticing a theme yet? lol)

Hope to see you all at my blog!

Weigh Day Fun Tip

Horses butt, I had this all typed up and totally forgot to post.  Oopsies.  It's late but here it is

I'm bailing on weigh in today.  I need to get my teeth cleaned and well, this was the best appointment my MIL could get me and I'm not driving an extra 45 minutes just to WI.  I know where I'm at ( in the area of 1lb) and it's just not worth it.

CB is going to be disappointed because she already knows this one, but seriously folks, if you haven't given it a try then you need to go to the store now and get some canadian bacon.  I usually only eat one slice for a point, but CB did the math for more slice and 4 slices are 2 points.  Holy awesome sauce.  Of course, you need to check your packaging, but it's low in points.

What can you do with canadian bacon, well folks, it's a yummy breakfast food.  Cut it up and put it in an egg white omelet, super low points.  Or, you can do what I like to do best and make a piece of low point toast, cook an egg over easy, break the egg on the toast and top with a cooked up piece of canadian bacon.  Holy yum.  it's so satisfying and delicious.  I eat one every weekend.

Weigh Day Fun Tip

Well, clearly my body appreciated my running this week.  Had a really good weigh in and hit 10% lost.  No one at my meeting has lost 10% since I've been there, so I was tres excited to get this little keychain I had no idea was coming my way.  Made me feel special.  And we spent like 5 minutes talking all about me and anyone who knows me knows that I pretty much live for the world revolving around me even if it's just for 5 minutes.  Apparently I get little charms for other fun milestones I pass.  Who knew?  Clearly I didn't look at all of the pages of my pocket guide. Now, I'm more excited to hit 25lbs than 20 because I'll get a pretty little charm to put on my keychain.  God I'm a sucker for stupid little trinkets.

Now on to our fun tip, This is something I owe at least a chunk of this weeks loss too and I feel like it needs a shout out.  On Sunday we were heading out our ILs and there's just something about my MIL that makes me drink.  No, it's not what you're thinking, I don't have to drink to have a good time with her, she's just fun to drink with and there's always more than enough wine to get me shitfaced and I just keep on drinking.  I was a weee bit worried.  I didn't want to throw my awesome week of running down the drain, so I had G stop by the packy and get me a 6 pack of Budweiser Select 55.  Only 2 points!  I could drink the 6 pack and still only be at 12 points.  Score.  I would have drank 12 points worth of wine in about 10 minutes.  Now, they're only 4% alcohol, but I was able to happily drink three of these without any guilt.   They tasted just like Bud Light, which obviously is not the greatest beer on the planet, but it's alcohol, wasn't nasty and was super low in points.  Yippeeeee

With summer months coming up, this is a huge find.  I'm sure I'll be at a  ton of events and such where it's all about hanging out somewhere drinking a few beers and rather than always having to drink water I can easily bring some of these with me and not feel like the loser in the corner drinking water because she's losing weight.

Leftovers, Weigh Ins, Giveaways... oh my!

Where does the time go?? Has it really been 5 days since I last posted?

Lately me and the Hubs have been doing leftovers and repeat dishes so nothing new to post on that front. Although I need to give you an update on the Meatballs And Polenta recipe. I tweaked the polenta recipe by adding some mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Oh baby! It's higher in points so you eat less per serving but it's cheesy polenta goodness.

Now for some unpleasantness.

WI #6 = +0.6lbs. *sad face* I know my weight loss journey will be full of ebbs and flows but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was bummed. After a good cry, I decided to tie up my shoe laces and hit the pavement. I started Couch25K (C25K) today. It's a running program designed for couch potatoes like me to run a 5K in 9 weeks. You can read more about the running plan (here). C25K Week1 Day1 - CHECK! I'm proud of myself. No gain is gonna hold me back. All I can do is keep moving forward.

But enough small talk. Let's talk giveaway.

Apologies to all that entered our WW calculator giveaway and have been patiently waiting for the winner. I blame Nikki. She knows I have a bad memory and she forgot to remind me.

And the free WW calculator goes to: *drum roll*



MRSDANIGIRL, Please email me with your shipping address! Thanks to everyone that left a comment. If you didn't win, don't binge on your points. There are more giveaways to come in the future!

Have a healthy day.

Weigh Day Fun Tip

It's weigh in day again.  Week #7 and I hit the 15lb mark.  So very exciting.  The three 5lb star stickers I got gave me quite the thrill.  Wanna know what's even more exciting?  I've mentioned it here and there, maybe not on here, but when I started I had already lost 20lbs in the last year and change.  That means that in the last year and just under a half I've lost 35lbs.  Holy shit batman, that's a fuckton of weight.  I didn't try for the first 20lbs, they just happened naturally, but hot damn these 15 have come off much faster and to be honest, it wasn't that hard to make it happen. 

In other exciting news this week ... and coincidentally, it goes with this weeks meeting theme, a bunch of my WW buddies on the interwebs and I have decided to ease ourselves into running with C25K (couch to 5k).  That's right folks, we're going to run like the wind in no time.

I had a few potential ideas for the fun tip, but since I just came back from day 2 of running, I'm going to share with you the key to getting off the couch and being able to run.

Anyone can go online and find guidelines for a C25K, but the problem with all of those, as CB so eloquently noted when we were discussing it, is that in order to pay attention to the times we have to switch from running to walking we'd end up staring at our phones and face planting into the ground.  Not good.  Soo ... it's iphone app time.

If you want to get your butt in gear and start running you NEED this C25K app.   It's pretty fabulous how it works.  You select the day you're on, press start and put your headphones on.  Every time you need to change what you're doing it dings and tells you what to do.  The best part is that you can listen to your music while you use it.  When it's time for a switch it just dims the music, dings and you're on your way.  It also looks like they have an option for those with mp3 players but no iphones.  Sweeeet.  If you don't have an mp3 player by now, get one.  It's 2011 folks, you can get them for almost nothing.

Crispy Coconut Chicken Fingers - 8 WW Points+

Whoa, was tonight ever a NSV (non scale victory).   Today started off on the wrong foot.  My car wouldn't start.  Well, that's a lie, it started and then puttered and stopped.    Like anyone that has no desire to figure out what's wrong with their purdy car on their own, I called G.  Our conversation went a bit like this.

Me: (whine) My car won't start
G: What do you mean? 
Me:  I mean it won't start.  Well, it will start, but then it putters to a stop.
G:  Go walk to the gas station and get gas
Me:  But it says I have 40 miles to go, that can get me to work and home at least once probably twice. 
G:  Get Gas
Me:  But I don't NEED gas
G:  I don't know what to tell you, I can't do anything from here.  Go get gas.

So, after sending my boss an email saying "I'll be late if I can even make it blah blah",  I'm such a drama queen ... he would have come pick me up and did offer to do so, I went off for my walk to the gas station.  It was cold and drizzly and I was still half asleep.  Not fun.  Luckily, they had gas cans because G keeps ours in his car ... dbag.  I got my gas and headed home.  On my way back I passed a woman that looked at me and said "Bad day already?  Oh Suck"  It was a sympathetic comment, but it just added to the sting that I was wondering around with a container of gas that I may or may not have used the wrong cover to seal.  Ya, I was dripping gas the whole way back to my car.

Needless to say,  gas worked.  Bossman called me on my way into work and was like that just doesn't make sense.  I was like you're telling me.  At least someone else agreed that G's suggestion was ridiculous even if it did work.

So, what's the point of this story, no, it's not that I probably earned an activity point or two, it's that I had a bad day and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was melt into the couch and order take out.  I really really really didn't want to cook.  My Just 5 cookbook came in the mail, I didn't care, I didn't want to cook.  But, like a good little WW-er I did and it was so worth it.  Had I been craving a particular fast food, I may be singing a different tune, but nothing sounded good.  Oh how things have changed in a month and a half.  I didn't even want the heavy gross food, I just didn't want to cook.

After a quick flip through my new cookbook, I decided I wanted to eat coconut chicken/turkey fingers, but  a 5 ingredient cookbook is useless if you don't have one of the 5 ingredients.  They all tend to be fairly important.  So, off to the interwebs I went and hells ya this was tasty.  I tried making baked chicken fingers a few weeks ago and they were pretty meh, but these were freaking yummy.  G and I decided that we just need to create a good dipping sauce to go with, because nothing we had lying around (ketchup and BBQ were both sampled) really did these justice.  Next time folks, next time.

Crispy Coconut Chicken Fingers
Adapted from Our Best Bites
Serves 3 - 8WW Points+ (you can eat half of them for only 12 points if you want a bigger serving)

Ingredients
15oz aka just under a lb, chicken tenderloins (you can use breasts and cut them too)
1/4 cup white flour (this is what I put in the dish to dredge the fingers, but I weighed what was actually used and it was only .5oz, so only .5oz is counted towards the point total)
1 egg
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp curry powder

Directions

- Turn the oven to 450 degrees and get out three dishes for dredging.  Put the egg in one and beat it lightly until it's all mixed up, put the flour in the other

- For dish three cut the coconut so it's about the same size as the panko.  I didn't do this, but you should, notice the "crisp" long curly coconut.  Then combine panko, coconut, garlic powder, salt, onion powder and curry.  Mix it up

- Dredge all of the chicken in flour.  Trust me it's easier to do it this way, your fingers will get all sticky and coated in egg and panko/coconut and it will be a mess.  If you don't do it my way don't say I didn't warn you.

-Once all of your chicken is floured, dunk it in the egg then take it out and put it in the panko/coconut mixture and coat it. 

- Put your fingers on a pan sprayed with cooking spray and cook for about 15 minutes give or take a little.  Flip them half way through so all sides get toasty.

- A serving is 1/3rd of the fingers and will cost you 8 points.

Weigh Day Fun Tip

I was going to chat with you all about my new hydracoach that I got in the mail yesterday, but this thing sucks.  Mine is broken.  I measure out water and it holds about 24ish fluid ounces.  I drink the whole thing and it says I only drank 7 .... ummmm ya that's not right.  It also resets itself every time I refill.  I'm ready to throw it across the room.  That being said, I think mine is just defective because CB adores hers and it has helped her make huge leaps and bounds in the water drinking department.

So ya, I'm bummed and this is all you get.  Blah.  Maybe CB will add her two cents and make you love this thing and help this post not be so cranky.

CB's $0.02:
I LOVE my Hydra Coach water bottle. Mine's a purdy royal blue not that ugly tangerine color that Nikki posted. (Sorry to anyone that likes orange!) Even though a few people on the WW boards mocked me (all in good fun) about using a cup instead of a $30 water bottle, I don't care b/c me and Hydra are joined at the hip. I think my husband is getting jealous b/c I spend so much time with Her. lol. But if you have problems getting your WW recommended 48oz of water in and you're OCD about numbers like me, you'll love this bottle. Seeing the numbers pushes me to drink more and it tells me at the current rate how much I'm drinking per hour too. I really believe that's why I lost 4lbs last week b/c my goal was to drink at least 48oz water/day. I accomplished my goal and lost weight. Coincidence? I don't think so! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT. Did I mention that I love it? Check out the Hydra Coach website (here) although I bought mine from (here).

In better news, today was obviously weigh in ... down 2lbs.  That means I've lost a grand total of 13.8lbs and it feels damn good. <-- You, my friend, are an effing rockstar!

The Great Debate: Diet vs Exercise

In a perfect world, we'd all eat healthy and exercise regularly but it's not a perfect world and we're all trying to find the short cuts to being skinny. Some people think if they exercise consistently they don't have to watch what they eat. While others feel that diet is much bigger factor to weight loss than exercise.

For me. I'd say it's 80/20. 80% diet and 20% exercise. I guess I feel like unless you're a professional athletic then you can't possibly exercise enough to make up the calories you ate. Because I don't know about you but when left to my own devices I eat A LOT of calories. I think before WW I was probably eating 3000+ calories a day. (I love me some fast food! The greasier the better.) Heck that might even be conservative. Now that's scary! And well above the 2000 calories/day recommendation and definitely too much to lose weight.

WW operates on a point system. The points are set depending on your height, weight, age and gender. I'm on 29 points/day which is roughly 1200-1500 calories. You can also earn activity points. And you always get weekly freebie points to use however you want. Now I know there are many people on WW that don't exercise and still lose weight b/c they are drastically changing their diet. And if that works for them, who am I to tell them any different?

But even though I agree that changing your diet has a higher percentage of success than exercise alone in weight loss, I still try to work out 30-60 minutes 4x a week. Yes, I wanna lose weight but I want to be tone and healthy in the process. I want to walk up a flight of stairs and not breathe hard. I don't want excess skin hanging from my arms! <-- that's my vanity coming out.

I dunno. I guess I'm striving for that perfect world.

What's your take on diet and exercise?

Postscript: WI#4 -4 lbs! Total -9.8 lbs. <-- Hit my 5% goal. *fist pump*

The thing I miss the most

So for me, my biggest change has been not going out to eat for almost every single meal.  To be honest, I haven't missed it all that much, I'm totally fine with it and have been eating tons of delicious food.  But, the thing I miss about not going out all the time is being a regular. 

I've been going to the same sub shop a few days a week for lunch for years.  They know me, they love me and I kind of adore them.  Hell, I don't even need to order unless I'm changing things up.  But I haven't gone since starting WW because

1) My turkey and cheese sub is not good to be eating.  Tthe turkey and cheese is fine, it's the approximately 12 point sub roll and mayo that's an issue.  And lets not even talk about the days I change things up and get chicken finger subs.

 And

2) because I've been afraid they'll kill me for giving them no warning that I was going to fall off the face of the earth.

Today, when I poked into the fridge at work and realized I just had some cheese and nasty turkey that G bought, I decided to go grab lunch at my favorite little shop.  I knew I could get a Greek salad with feta and be fine and I had dressing at work.  When I walked in, there was a mini uproar, which is saying something considering only three people were working.  Everyone came out from  where they were working and there was all sorts of where have you beens tossed around.  Of course, I just played it up as oh I haven't been going out to eat ... I was tempted to say "because not coming to see you crazies 3 times a week has lost me over 10lbs", but I figured I didn't need them to feel like it was their fault.  Apparently, there were all sorts of theories as to where I had disappeared to ... I got laid off, went to drug rehab, died.   They were ready to send out a search party looking for me, but they forgot where I work (in their defense I've only had food delivered to our new location once or twice in a year and a half).   Me bringing my lunch was just not an option that crossed their minds.

And then I ordered the salad and was totally given the side eye by the guy that runs the joint.  I'm pretty sure he was ready to make me the greatest turkey and cheese sandwich of my life.  Instead,  he put about 3 cups of feta on my salad.  That's how being a regular is, when they love you they give you extra.  So, I of course needed to remove some of the feta (but have totally saved it for other lunches this week ... score), but it was good.  I'm glad I went it and got to say hi and I totally stayed OP.

I think the thing that can be hardest is that food is such a social thing. It can be damn hard to balance eating well with not avoiding the social situations where food is the leading lady.   I think this is honestly harder than combating the food itself.   If I'm just home with my husband I have no problems staying OP, but send me out into the world and put a pile of cheese and crackers, chips and pretzels in front of me and FUCK, it's hard.  I can be as full and prepared as I want to be, but a pile of delicious cheeses and crackers ... talk about hard to resist.  And I've come to learn that, like with all things WW, it's all about finding that healthy balance.  The balance between feeling like you're missing out on something, whether it be the food itself or time with friends and staying OP.  I think I'm starting to get my groove, but it's still not easy.

What are the things you miss the most?

Cheese-stuffed Turkey Meatballs with Pasta - 10 WW+Points

It used to be that when I wasn't going out to eat and had no idea what to make, I would just throw in some pasta, whip up a sauce and eat.  Lately though, my pasta stash hasn't gotten much love.  I just don't trust myself.  It's not the eating, it's the heavy cream and or meat in the random sauces I'm worried about.  I have a thing for meaty or creamy sauces ... I've totally used cream in red sauces.   Ya, it's a problem.  I love heavy cream ... sue me.

That's not to say I haven't eaten pasta.   I've eaten some of everything since I started, but I have yet to be the one to make pasta and when G mentioned spaghetti and meatballs during a random conversation while walking around Boston all plans for dinner were squashed.  I knew what I was making.

I decided to poke around my new Points Plus Cookbook (ya another one) and sure enough, I found what I was looking for.  It was delicious.  So yummy.

Note, this is G's plate.  He has a bit more pasta than we WW's people get, but not much more

Cheese-Stuffed Turkey Meatballs with Pasta 
Adapted from WW Points Plus Cookbook
10 WW Points+ (mine was 11 ... I think, need to check on the sauce)

Ingredients

8 ounces ground skinless turkey breast
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup plain dried bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup fat free milk
1 large egg white
2 garlic clove, minced
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 ounce part-skim mozzarella cheese cut into 16 cubes (I used shredded and only made 8 balls and was able to stuff it in just fine)
2 cups Fat free marinara sauce (I made my own, kept it simple with tomatos, garlic, basil salt and pepper)
1/2 cup water
8 oz whole wheat spaghetti (I don't "do" whole wheat pasta ... I took the point and when with reg pasta)
2 cups thinly sliced escarole (I skipped this all together, I didn't have it)

Directions

- Mix turkey, 1/4 cup Parmesan, bread crumbs, parsley, milk, egg white, garlic and cayenne in a bowl.  WW says to make 16 balls, but I like big balls so I went with 8 .... either way you choose to go stuff them with mozzarella chunks (1/16th or 1/8th of the mozzarella depending on which direction you go).

- Bring Marinara sauce and water to a simmer ... I just now realized I skipped the water.  Oops.  I'll need to figure out if that adds a point, but really, why would you want to thin down your sauce ... it's prob for the meatballs so too much moisture doesn't cook off or something like that, but whatever.  Simmer your sauce.  Add the cheesy balls, cover and let simmer until they're cooked through (approx 10 mins if you go for 16 balls, prob more like 20-25 mins ... make sure to get your pasta cooking at the appropriate time)

-If you're going with escarole add that during the last minute of pasta cooking

-Divide pasta into 4 bowls, top evenly with meatballs and sauce.  Use the rest of the Parmesan to sprinkle evenly on top.