I decided to do yoga yesterday morning in the hopes of stretching out my sore lower back.  I hardly ever have back problems, so its weird.  I found one on demand – it was 25 minutes long, and wow, was it hard.  I literally had sweat dripping down my back by the end – but you know what?  It worked great – and my popping ibuprofen during the day helped too. šŸ˜€  And Mari, everytime someone does that saluation “namaste” at the end of a yoga video – I think of you!

I have Kelly to thank for the inspiration for yesterdays breakfast.  My SIL joined WW a few weeks ago, and I’ve agreed to provide lunches for her for the week – she pays me for my time (nice!) – I only have one problem usually.  I need to think of things that will last the full week in her fridge . . . and that’s where the lovely breakfast casserole comes into play.

Luckily I don’t have too many perameters on what she doesn’t like – namely asparagus and blue cheese – I think I can steer clear of those two ingredients pretty well.

So a while back I saw Kelly’s spicy potato and bacon casserole – one of the things I like about Kelly’s recipes is that her portion sizes are pretty generous.  I hate seeing a WW friendly recipe that is like 7 points, but its 1/16th of the recipe – really?

So I wrote down her link to make it – and when I got ready to, um, I guess I remembered the ingredients wrong – so this is my version of a breakfast casserole that Kelly inspired – thanks Kelly! šŸ˜€

Potato Ham and Spinach Casserole

  • 7 Points for 1/4 of casserole

Ingredients

  • 4 cups frozen shredded potatoes (not thawed)
  • 2 ounces sliced deli ham
  • 2 ounces regular cheddar cheese
  • 2 cups egg beaters
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 4 cups chopped fresh baby spinach
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all the ingredients together except for the cheese.  Pour the mixture into a deep dish (it will fill it to the top!) and top with the 2 ounces of cheese.  Now mine took 60 minutes to bake because I didn’t thaw the potatoes – but its super easy to put together, pop it in the oven and walk away.

With an ounce of Italian toast with a shmear of light margarine and grapes and banana on the side, breakfast comes in at 10 points.

Since my back was still kinda stiff I decided that I would just walk at lunch – nothing too strenuous.  And at 88 degrees I think I made the right choice.  I walked around my office for 50 minutes and was definitely sweaty when I got back, but it felt good.

Looking back on my food journals, I still realize that I am lacking in the veggie and fruit department.  So my lunch was packed full of both:

  • 2 cups mixed greens
  • 1 carrot
  • 1/2 an apple, diced
  • 1/2 cup green grapes
  • 1 ounce Italian bread diced (think panzanella salad, with just less bread)
  • 5 ounces of grilled chicken breast
  • 2 tablespoons light caesar dressing

The whole salad was 8 points and extremely filling.  And it took me a long time to eat too. šŸ˜€

I thawed out two kinds of “mystery meat” although I knew one bag was marinated meat for kabobs, and a small steak.  I mixed the meats and made kabobs with zucchini, corn and beef – a quick summer night meal.  On the side with cooked rice I cooked in chicken broth and I combined 2/3 cup of the rice with chopped fresh spinach.

As I was trying to thread the corn on the cob on the skewers, it just wasn’t happening.  So I opened my utencil drawer and found the solution – it worked perfectly!

My plate: 2/3 cup rice, 3/4 cup chopped baby spinach, zucchini, 3.5 ounces beef and 1/2 an ear of corn:

This whole plate is only 9 points šŸ˜€

So when I was walking today, I felt fat.  I don’t know how a 1.6 pound weight gain can turn my mind around so quickly, but I am not going to let one up week get in the way of my goal.  This is huge for me – I am usually the first to throw in the towel when things don’t go as planned.  Mark a NSV for me! šŸ˜€

Stats for Tuesday:

  • 27 points
  • 5 activity points earned (1 for yoga, 4 for walking)
  • average blood sugar 131

What is your latest NSV?  (non-scale victory)

Make it a great day! šŸ˜€

Quote of the Day:  “Just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something.”  That’s going to be my mantra for the rest of this week. šŸ˜€ 

And I have to give you a sneak peak into one of my dishes tomorrow . . . cannot wait to eat this with my breakfast this morning:

And one last shout out to Tony.  He’s finally throwing away this t-shirt.  Ladies (and gents) he would actually wear this shirt, in this condition around the house.  His contention is that it took years to get the comfort into the shirt, and he held on until he could hold on no longer.  Why do men hang on to ratty t-shirts and underwear??