Forget the Cute Post Title

I am far to excited to concoct a clever post title. Why you ask? Get a load of these babies:

To-Good-To-Think-of-a-Post Title Turkey Sliders
(Okay, I developed a bad habit of posting pics, but never a recipe.)

• 99/1 Lean Ground Turkey (Most of the time I purchase ground turkey breast...recession.)

• 2 Mini Rolls

• Roma Tomato

• Great Value Southwest Spicy Mustard

• Onions

• Lettuce (...not brown like mine)

• Mom's Secret No-Salt Seasoning (made by my Mom)

• A Little Sprinkle of Shredded Cheese

1. I used 4 oz. of raw turkey to make the meat patties. Mix the following ingredients into the raw turkey: 1/4 cup chopped onion, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, Mom's Secret No-Salt Seasoning.
   
   
2. Now, mold the meat mixture into little mini patties.
   
   
3. Next, I cooked the patties in my Redi Set Go for 10 minutes. What a surprise...I cooked the patties in my Redi Set Go (NOT!) ...lol.
   
4. I then removed the patties from the RSG and added the fixins' of my choice: tomatoes, lettuce, shredded cheese, and southwest mustard.
   

THESE SLIDERS GET A THUMBS UP!!

Excuse my brown lettuce. Normally, I eat spring mix lettuce or green leaf or the cheapest lettuce, but NEVER iceberg lettuce. Last week I purchased my favorite salsa from HEB and received a free bag of crappy non-nutritional shredded iceberg lettuce. Who am I to pass up free lettuce?

Aloha friends, and welcome to my second installment of Aloha Friday. So, last time I inquired about the frequency of your blog posting. Thanks to your comments, I decided to post every other day, as well as auto-post. However, the thing about auto-posting...I need to find time to write the post to auto-post.

Anyway, this time I want to know your protocol for responding to comments.

1. Do you answer ALL comment?
   
   
2. And do your respond via email or do you respond in the comment section of the blog post?

Thanks in advance for your participation in Aloha Friday.

Well, I need to get to bed. I weigh-in tomorrow and I plan to squeeze in a workout. If all goes well at my weigh-in tomorrow, there's some grand things in store for the followers of Me So Hongry (insert mustache twirl here).

O by the way, stay tuned for my post... Awards Season.

The Taco Bell Diet? Really?

I promise y'all...I aim to blog more regularly. Between chauffeuring my boys and the dance crew around the city, and my socializing, I struggle to find quality blogging time. Pictured below...some highlights of events robbing my blogging time:

My oldest a.k.a. BB Boy Dom Bomb hitting a freeze after a performance!

The boys clowning around...

My youngest BB Snake Eyes clowning around with HE Buddy.

Me...celebrating a co-workers birthday

Of course I threw in a pic of me showcasing my signature pose..."hands on the hip and let the backbone slip"...BAM!

Everyday something blog worthy occurs and I scribble the details in my blog notebook. Then...night falls and bed time arrives before I get the opportunity to blog my thoughts. Right now, 10 different blog posts swirl around in my head trying to bust out! Where to begin...

The other night while watching TV, a Taco Bell commercial aired. Basically, this lady starts jibber-jabbing about some Taco Bell Drive Thru Diet...really? Soooo, you mean to tell me, if I eat the Taco Bell Fresco tacos, I can expect to slim down like Christine (the lady in the commercial)? Whatever Christine...gimme a break! I tell you one thing, Taco Bell waited until the most opportune time to unveil their "drive thru diet." That fresco menu is far from new, but what better time to promote it... at the start of the New Year when the New Years Resolutioners are in full swing.

Whateva TACO BELL! I got your "drive thru diet" right here...BAM!





Of course, I made my own homemade chips using the Thin Mission Corn Tortillas 1pt. for 2 tortillas...OLE! I covered my chips with a 1/2 cup of pinto beans (2pts.) made by my Mom, lettuce (0 pts.), 1 huge Roma tomato (0 pts.), HEB salsa, and 14 oz of cheese (1pt).

What cha think about that Christine?

P.S. I am slowly but surely catching up on my blog reading and commenting!

Winner Winner...Chicken Dinner!!

First things first, weigh-in results...5.6 pounds down! 5.6 pounds forever REMOVED!
At this week's WW meeting, we discussed MOVING MORE! In a nutshell, the leader stated that members must make exercise a priority and a good fit with our lifestyle. From my personal experience, I generally choose physical activity that I like AND also gets me excited, which in turn led to my self diagnosed condition of Physical Activity A.D.D. (P.A.A.D.D for short). I generally tend to purchase workout "stuff" and quickly lose interest.

As a sufferer of P.A.A.D.D., that means I own many many pieces of exercise equipment and products which I found alternate uses for: DVDs now serve as coasters for drinking glasses or as a writing surface, my Reebok Step doubles as a stepping stool to reach food I hide from myself way up high in the pantry, and let me not forget my weights that also make great doorstops. I gotta get my moneys worth!

At this week's meeting I learned something new and received some shocking news. Well, I learned that I must earn between 7-14 points a week in order to lose weight. I earn about 3 points a day with a 3 mile jog/walk. So, for the shocking new...after I reach my goal, I must earn at least 28 points a week to maintain my goal weight...28 points...good lawd!

At the end of the meeting, the leader challenged everyone to add 10 minutes to our workout routine, and for those who have yet to start moving, start out with 10 minutes of activity a day. Now I challenge you! Keep it moving y'all!

So, on to the winner of my first giveaway...drum roll please! And the winner of the Progresso soup giveaway is...

Amy from Amy's Assorted Adventures!

The scientifical (not a real word) method of selecting a winner...
I decided to use random.org to choose a random umber based on the number of comments received.

Number of comments...268



So into the number generator I plugged in the necessary information...

AND BAM...THE WINNER #121!

On to other news...
In keeping with my goal to try at least 3 new recipes a week, I concocted a couple of culinary creations last week. Feast your eyes on this:

Eggster Sliders
Well of course I used my Redi-Set-Go to make my eggsters. I think I cook just about everything in my RSG...best investment my Mom EVER made...best EVER!!!

I gave up turkey bacon a while back UNTIL...until found Butterball's Low Sodium Turkey Bacon for an amazing 1 pt. for two slices.

2 of these bad boys...4 points!!! Oh, my Mom found these mini buns at Wal-Mart. The only downside, Wal-Mart only sell them in white...no wheat.

Next, I made my In-A-Hurry-Curry-Chicken Wrap...
I found these kid sized flat out wraps at H-E-B.



Well, of course I cooked the ingredients in my Redi Set Go! I used some left over rotisserie chicken my Mom made. I found these mixed peppers and onions in the freezer section at H-E-B.

SOUPer YOU Debut: PROGRESSO SOUP GIVEAWAY!

This crazy Houston weather...Today I wanted bust out my flip-flops, but just last week, the frigid temperatures made for the perfect soup weather. Nothing soothes the soul like a piping hot bowl of soup! The fine people over at Progresso sent me a huge box with variety of soups. For me, the vegetable soup hit the spot, especially after I paired the soup with a turkey sandwich.

AND the best part...less sodium per serving than other soups I purchased in the past. I plan to keep my pantry stocked with Progresso low sodium soup for those days when I indulge and go over my daily points total. Check this out...one serving of the vegetable soup...1 point!

Just a reminder...

All entries for my Progresso soup giveaway (my 1st giveaway) must be received TONIGHT by 11:59 P.M. CST. Leave a comment on the post titled MY DAY to SHINE and you're entered to win these fabulous prizes pictured below (The giveaway pictured below is courtesy of Progresso).

PROGRESS SOUP CONTEST
Celebrate the New Year and a new you with Progresso Light and 100 Calorie Soups. From January 4 through March 15th you can visit http://www.progressosoup.com/souperyou/ to enter the Progresso "Souper You Debut" contest for the chance to win a full makeover in New York City.

Three grand prize winners will be awarded a trip for two to New York City from May 21st-23rd. The prize includes round-trip airfare, a two-night stay in a NYC hotel, a full makeover, a $1,000 wardrobe shopping spree and personal consultation at a New York department store.

"You Sank My Battleship!"

First, let me apologize for not posting sooner. I needed a couple of days to compose myself after a disastrous Saturday weigh-in! Additionally, I want to thank y'all for participating in my first Aloha Friday. I learned something NEW! I discovered I can auto-post my blog posts! Who knew!?!?

So, in a nutshell, weight loss reminds me of the old school game Battleship. Let me refresh your memory...

In the game of Battleship players STRATEGICALLY place their ships on the game board. While engaged in play, each player STRATEGICALLY calls out out coordinates in effort to sink the other's ships. When your ship(s) sink, you shout, "YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP!"

Well, last Saturday I jumped on the scale, cringed when I read my results of a 3.6 gain, and for some odd reason I wanted to shout to the top of my lungs, "WTH!! YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP SCALE!"

Like the game of Battleship, weight loss relies on making STRATEGIC MOVES a.k.a. STRATEGIC healthy lifestyle changes. Obviously, when I make the wrong moves...BAM, my ship starts sinking like the TITANIC!

So what happened? I contribute many factors to this monumental gain:

• #1 culprit...ME!
  
  
• My uninvited guest...TOM
  
  
• Impromptu happy hour with co-workers on Thursday
  
  
• Unplanned lunch with co-workers at Casa Ole' during last Friday's Staff Development Day (Yes, I bought my lunch but still went to Casa anyway!)
  
  
• Way too many snacks: WW Roasted Almond Bars, graham crackers and milk, cereal and milk (and not the healthy cereal either...I was a Kellogg's Corn Pops eating fool!), etc.
  
  
• going to bed late which in turn opened the door to many midnight snacks
  
  
• and so on, and so on, and so on...

So how do I plan to remedy this situation...with my GLOWS and GROWS weekly evaluation.

GROW...NO SNACKS!
This week I placed myself on snack restriction: no almond bars, no low fat version of my trigger foods (e.g. chips, crackers), no sugary cereals, etc. Unfortunately, I must learn to be satisfied with eating filling foods (i.e. fruits, veggies, nuts) for snacks.

GROW...EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE!
I will make every effort to retire to bed no later than 10:00 PM, 10:30 PM at the latest. Hopefully, the early to bed part makes the early to rise easier. Every morning I struggle with waking up due to my current bed time of 12:00 AM and sometimes later. In the grand scheme of things, I plan to use the early rise to squeeze in an extra 30 minute workout.

GROW...TRACK EVERYDAY!
I seem to think that if I conveniently forget to track the bad days, the bad days never happened...WRONG! Whether I track or not, the fact still remains that I pumped my body full of crap (which tasted good as I ate it).

No GLOWS to report. Instead, I decided to learn and grow from last week's catastrophic weigh in! As I type this I still struggle with trying to regain my WW footing. That 3.6 gain knocked the wind right out of me, and to make matters worse, I continued to make bad choices after the weigh-in. Unfortunately,I possess an ALL or NOTHING type attitude in certain situations. And after my weigh-in, I chose the NOTHING and ate almost ALL of my extra weekly points.

And the sad thing, I know better than to let one weigh-in break ME down. The digital devil, a.k.a. the random number generator only tells part of my weight loss story. What about the new smaller wardrobe my Mom purchased for me over the holidays? What about the compliments from friends and family? And I received one of the best comments on FACEBOOK when I changed my profile pic to the pic below (and I quote...)

"CAUTION!! Dangerous curves ahead! 'Me' so HONGRY!..."

Woo...that comment still makes me smile :-) Well, I choose to end this post on a good note...until to tomorrow...

Aloha Friday #1

Welcome to my first Aloha Friday post. What's Aloha Friday you ask? Well... In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is a day to celebrate the end of the week and the beginning of the weekend... basically a day to just chill. So with that being said (well, written), on Fridays I plan to chill and take it easy on posting by simply posing one question for you to answer. After you answer the question, ask one on your blog, and then link up to Kailani's blog. So, here goes nothing...

My head hurts just thinking about my busy day tomorrow:
6:00 AM Workout??
7:00 AM Weigh-in
7:45 AM Take boys to the convention center to perform with the dance crew
8:30 AM-10:30 AM (not really sure of duration of time at the convention center) Fun Run Fly Crew Performance

Fast forward

4:30 PM Drop son off at friends party
5:00 PM Meet Mom at her house and leave for birthday party at Grand Lux Cafe
5:30 PM-8:15 PM Arrive at party, PARTY, then leave to pick up son
9:00 PM Pick up son from party
9:15 PM Arrive home and collapse

At some point during the chunk of time sandwiched between the performance and dropping my son off to his friend's party, I need to go to the grocery store for my weekly menu food purchases. Saying all that to say, I doubt time will permit a Saturday post. And I really want to catch up on some of favorite blogs. So my friends, my question to you:

How often do you post on your blog?
and
How often do you read the blogs of others?

Glows and Grows

One afternoon while picking up my son, I sat in my vehicle mean muggin (mean muggin a.k.a. the evil eye) another parent for halting the flow of traffic in order retrieve her small child, who somehow unbuckled his seat belt and jumped over the seat into the back of the minivan. As I watched the parent wrangle her child, my mind began to wander and SHAZAAM...an idea hit me like a thunderbolt.

Since our WW leader, Karen, constantly reminds WW members to learn from our experiences, I decided to do just that! Each Saturday after my weigh-in, I plan to evaluate my lifestyle change hits and misses. My weekly evaluation aptly titled GLOWS and GROWS, will examine strategies attempted to help me successfully reach my goal weight (this year).

GLOWS: I confess. I still inconsistently track my daily food points. In the past I tracked my points in my head and never wrote anything on paper. I refer to this lackadaisical method as Wing-It-Tracking a.k.a. Keep-It-Up-And-You-Ain't-Gonna-Lose-Weight Method. My usual pattern consisted of routine tracking starting on Saturdays, and by Wednesday or Thursday any traces of tracking became non-evident. At our last WW meeting, Karen stated several times, "Those that fail to track eat 30% more food." To help me get on the right track (get it...never mind), I received this little toy(which I picked out) for Christmas: BAM!!

So, did I track everyday using my iTouch? YES I DID...EVERYDAY! My iTouch made tracking convenient and accessible. And of course the information I entered automatically synced to the eTools online program.

I used the calculator to determine points values and create new foods to be stored as my favorites.

I even tracked my activity. And what I appreciate the most about the WW App...the price $0!

GLOW: The Couch to 5K(C25K) App.
Last summer I started the C25K training program, but I must admit I never finished the program and I never ran my first 5K. On my first go-round with C25K training, I downloaded Suz's podcast to my other older generation iPod.This time, I downloaded this bad boy (bad boy: a term used to mean anything...in this case, my new app.)

What I like about this app...I can listen to my own music rather than the music provided by the podcast creator.

Needless to say...I LOVE MY iTOUCH!

GLOW: Back Up Meals
I decided to plan one freezer meal (e.g. soup or chili) each week. The freezer meals serve as back-up for times of laziness , on-the-go moments, crazy scheduling, etc. Last week I cooked Turkey Taco Soup...

and this week I made chili. A few times I arrived home exhausted after work and popped a bowl of chili in the microwave instead of cooking or running through the drive-thru.

...added some homemade chips, chives and cheese!

GLOW: I purchased this water jug from the dollar store. I previously owned a 17 oz. cup which I refilled about 4 or 5 times a day. Well, at some point refilling the bottle became a chore, resulting in me not meeting my daily water requirements. My solution to my new lazy habit of not filling my water bottle....BUY A BIGGER WATER BOTTLE!

GROWS...Okay, so I need to work on these things.

My Mom gave me the P90X Extreme Home Fitness Program. Ummm...the word extreme fails to do the P90X justice. On day 1, Arms and Shoulders (which consisted of completing 2,431,675 push-ups), I spent a majority of my workout time face down sniffing carpet fresh. At one point I just stopped and cried! After day 2, I decided to dropkick the P90X box under the bed and move on with my life. But then my Mom gave me a pep-talk and I agreed to continue torturing myself.

On the Plyometrics DVD, one of the P90X "graduates" completed the entire workout with a prosthetic leg. I said to myself, "Self. If this dude with the prosthetic leg can rock this plyometric workout, then I need to shut it and MOVE!" Curious about torturing your self? Check out the P90X video or mosey on over to YouTube

Believe me when I say, you have NOT heard the last about this P90X!

GROW: "Fried" Chicken
This fried chicken dinner, so not a winner. For the first time I made the famous cornflake fried chicken. I think my first mistake was purchasing generic cereal rather than Kellogg's. For the most part my "fried" chicken tasted like chicken covered in cereal...gross. But we ate it...all of it!

Order Up. . . Today's Special!

Tonight's post may lean a little towards the bootleg side.

Definition:
Bootleg: Although the real word means pirated music/software and illegal alcohol, anything that is "bootleg" is fake, unfashionable, or lacking in any way.

Used in a sentence:
" Lisa told me to see that movie, but the bootleg special effects left little to be desired."

Yesterday my internet gave me the blues, and tonight I mismanaged my time. So, this post may lack my usual je ne sais quoi (French for...I don't know what) that keeps some of you coming back for more.

Just a little preview of the goodies nestled in my jazzy lunch tote:

Breakfast: Eggsters

85 g of Potatoes O'Brien
3 egg whites

Directions: Mix together egg whites and potatoes O'Brien. Season to taste and then pour into your Redi-Set-Go! Wait 7 minutes and BAM...EGGSTERS!

Lunch: Chicken Charm-esan

And of course a salad...

Snacks and Back-Up Snacks
Since I eat lunch at 10:15, yes 10:15, snacks are essential to my survival for the rest of the day.

Fresh Berries courtesy of price matching at Wal-Mart. I paid $2 bucks for these blueberries originally priced at $3.48!

An orange and 2 Clementines

I love the new Weight Watchers Roasted Almond Sensation bars...on sale this week for $3.50! When times get hard and my tummy starts talking, I bust out the PB and 1/2 a sandwich thin. I keep a measuring spoon in my bag as well. Also pictured my 0 point salad dressing which also comes in Raspberry Vinaigrette.

Tonight I intended on writing a post reflecting last weeks hits and misses. Tune in for tomorrows post...Glows and Grows.