Yummy Santa Fe Chicken

A few people suggested a website to me that has a bunch of healthy recipes. http://www.skinnytaste.com/ I've only tried one recipe so far, but once I get some more groceries I will definitely be trying some more. I like to tweak some recipes I find online, mostly because I don't always have the right ingredients, or I don't have them period. This site seems like it would be really easy to substitute some things. I was just looking for some crock pot recipes, because cooking in our apartment makes it really hot. Which will be nice in the winter, but it's not winter yet. A recent favorite of mine and Nick's is called Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken. Here's the direct link http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/02/crock-pot-santa-fe-chicken-425-pts.html

I made some adjustments because I didn't have some things, and I had some other things I wanted to use up. Here is my version.

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken
Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 8 servings • Size: 1 cup • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 4 pts
Calories: 190 • Fat: 1.5 g • Fiber: 5.6 g • Carbs: 23.1 g • Protein: 21 g

· 1 frozen Kroger chicken breast thawed and cut into two pieces. (they're pretty big breasts :)

· 2 roma tomatoes diced

· 1 can pork and beans (I bought a bunch of these when they went on sale after the 4th of July)

· handful of dried cilantro

· 14.4 oz can fat free chicken broth ( used the powder mixed with water, it's the same thing)

· 1 whole jalapeno cut into medium sized chunks

· 1 tsp garlic powder

· 1 tsp onion powder

· Couple sprinkles of red pepper (to taste)

· dash of Chile powder

Combine chicken broth, beans, jalapeno, tomatoes, cilantro, chile powder,red pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder in the crock pot. Season chicken breast with salt, and pepper then lay on top. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Adjust salt and seasoning. Serve over rice (extra pts).

I don't do weight watchers or points, but I like healthy foods. I served it over rice and had it with a tortilla. YUMMM!

New Goals

I have not been doing well, as you can see. I stopped blogging for a bit. We had finals, and moving! Now that it is June I feel like I can focus more on my goal. Nick asked me if we made a goal to go to Hawaii and said we couldn't go until we're at our goal weight would it help? I of course said yes! I have been talking about going to Hawaii for a very long time, since before we were even married. Nick's family has a time share and so the idea of going there isn't completely out of the picture. We wouldn't have to worry about hotels when we go. So, the new goal is Hawaii! If ever we want to go eat out or not exercise we are suppose to remind each other about Hawaii. I'm am pretty sure this is going to be a great goal, and will work because I want to go to Hawaii so dang bad!

I have been exercising, just not as strenuous as my work out video, but I think it's helpful. We moved into a new apartment that has a pool. We've been swimming pretty much every other day, if not every day. Sometimes we don't swim very long, and other times we do. I honestly don't know how good of an exercise swimming is, but I'm hoping it will work. We LOVE swimming! We hate exercising, so this is a form of exercise that is fun. The only thing is I'm not sure what you should do to really get a work out while swimming. We do laps and what not but are there other exercising you can do? I would like to work on my tummy, but I'm not sure what type of movement or swimming exercise you can do that will help tone your tummy? I figure just swimming will help tone my all around body, and especially my legs. We've also talked about doing the Wii Fit again, to keep track of weight loss, and also Livestrong.com I also need to get more ideas of healthy recipes, yummy healthy recipes. If we could find a bunch of, easy, healthy recipes we could make every week I think that would help as well. I have also been really bad about soda lately. I think not drinking soda will help too. I hope we can do it, because we both really want to go to Hawaii!!

Week 1 Day 4

Today was killer. I don't know why, but today felt harder to work out than any other day. Maybe my body just wasn't up for it. I felt like working out was a struggle with every move. I persevered though, I decided to try on my motivation, my bikini, and I realized I have a lot of back fat. I didn't realize how much until I took a picture of my back and wow, I really need to work out a lot more, or eat a lot more healthy. Eating healthy is really hard for me. I just love food way too much. I don't think the things I love to eat will ever change, I literally could not give up things. For example, I could never give up chocolate. I can eat it less, but I am a woman and sometimes we just need a chocolate fix. I couldn't give up my favorite foods. I have read some places online that you shouldn't give up foods, but make better choices, and eat smaller portions. I did not do very well with the portions today. We decided to go to 3 Margaritas, yummy Mexican food. I honestly think beans and rice are good for you, and are healthier than say Italian food. Eating out is my weakness. I'm so use to eating out. Our original plan was to go and split a meal, but my eyes were very hungry and decided they wanted their own meal. I need more will power. I did work out today though, so I feel that I did have a little will power. I really, really, really did NOT want to work out today. I put it off for a while, but I kept thinking about my motivation and how I've done really good so far. I also saw that someone on my Facebook page lost 51 lbs, that is in itself a motivation for me. It says, "It CAN be done." I need to lose about 50 lbs to be at my goal weight. Sometimes, though, I just think, "that is a lot of weight, it can never be done." But, I see that someone else did it, someone I actually know! I just need to remember, baby steps. Keep working at it, even though the scale says I haven't lost anything yet, it will eventually. I want to do other forms of exercise. I want to go running, play volleyball, tennis, go bicycling, swimming. It's hard to do some of these things by yourself. My husband is not very good motivation sometimes. I don't think he would mind doing some of these things he just never wants to. How do I motivate my husband to do things with me? He likes to go hiking, so at least I have that, but that requires driving places sometimes. I can't wait until it warms up a little more so I can go out hiking. I think I will set a goal to go hiking at least once a week. We bought a pass for the Rocky Mountain National Forest, so we need to use that pass as much as possible. I really want to become a more active person. It is just so easy to sit on the couch all day and be lazy, why is it so easy to be lazy? Well when we move I will have a pool, and so I will also hopefully go swimming every day. I really do want to become more active.

Week 1 day 3

I have been slow, but luckily I did work out yesterday! I was not so good at healthy eating and going to my class did not help. We got an Olive Garden gift certificate from my parents so we decided to go eat out yesterday afternoon. I probably should have gotten something else but the thing I got was the only thing that sounded good, it was a lot of calories though, but I did only get water! Good thing I worked out before I went to eat. In my class we're all doing presentations on unit plans of various things, one of the requirements is a cooking activity you would do with your students. Most of the students who presented last night had some sort of food activity. So I had ants on a log, mud pie(chocolate pudding with oreos and gummi worms) and homemade ice cream. I had to make the ice cream. I have never made it before, let alone in little bags. It was all very yummy but did not help with counting my calories. I was a little over at the end of the night.

I bought something to motivate me. I decided I want to have a bikini looking body, basically so I look good in a bikini. I went to target and found a lot of bikini's on sale, so I bought one in one size smaller. It will be my motivation. I guess I feel that if I have something I really want to wear I will be more motivated to wear it, which means exercising. Every time I get tired and don't feel like working out I can think about this brand new, unworn bikini. It's a good motivation for people who like to wear new things.

Working out yesterday was easy and a little hard. I didn't think it was super easy but I noticed my legs hurting a lot more. I tried to pay more attention to some of the things that were mentioned while exercising. For example, focusing on the area you're trying to work, your stomach, butt, thighs. Its also very important to breathe. I don't know if I'm the only one, but sometimes I forget to breathe when I'm exercising.

Week 1 day 2

I think if I put down what day it is, then I will hopefully remember to work out. Yesterday I did pretty good, until the evening and I got very hungry and splurged on Wendy's. According towww.livestrong.com I did okay on my Calories because I worked out again, well played racquetball for about 45 min. I would highly suggest livestrong.com to anyone who is trying to loose weight but is having problems. I can work out as much as I want but if I'm not watching what I eat, then I'm pretty sure it's not going to do very much. I'd have to exercise like all day long to keep eating what I normally eat. I've also noticed that it helps my stomach as well. Sometimes I get really bad stomach pains, and I think it's from eating too much. I've noticed that because I'm watching how many calories I'm eating my stomach doesn't hurt as much. When I'm counting how many calories I'm eating I'm paying attention to how much serving size I'm giving myself. So instead of just dishing it out onto my plate I'm measuring it out and giving myself less because I want to stay within the serving size. When I do this I'm actually full when I'm done eating, not over full. I think that is a lot of people's problems with eating. They just don't look at how much they're really eating. Their eyes are saying oh yeah I can eat this but their stomach would really say otherwise. Sometimes it can be hard to calculate my calories. I like to cook my meals, and I really like to change up the recipe when I cook. A lot of online recipes have how many calories there are per serving, which is very nice. It is surprisingly easy to calculate your calories these days. In any case I think everyone should check out livestrong.com

Yesterday's work out video really worked, at least I think because I'm feeling sore today. I remember in high school when I'd play volleyball, we'd come back from summer break and everybody would be very sore. Your legs would hurt just to sit down, and you find yourself trying to sit down in awkward ways trying NOT to use any of your leg muscles. Usually you end up just falling down. So needless to say I am NOT sitting on the floor because getting up would be too much muscle effort. I just need to work out some more so my legs can get use to it.

I just finnished the video. It was surprisingly a lot easier this time. My legs still hurt and will probably hurt even more later on, but I feel good because I'm keeping at it. I can already tell though, that I want to do something different tomorrow. You are suppose to switch it up. I'm thinking 30 min on the Wii Fit tomorrow. I looked it up online, and I don't know that it's 100% accurate but it says that doing the Slim in 6 video burns 400 calories. The place I looked it up also said it's really based on your heart rate per min, and how intense you work out. I feel like I usually try to push my self as much as I can, so I said that I burned 400 calories doing it. I tried measuring my heart beat, but it's hard because my heart beat has always been fast even when I'm just relaxing. I could count fast enough, I kept missing a beat. So i just decided to base it on how hard I work out.

I think not eating after 9:00 pm is also a very good idea. According to the Wii Fit your body has a harder time processing food later at night because when you go to sleep you're not really burning the calories you just ate. This is one I have a hard time with. I get so hungry late at night. I think if I went to bed earlier then it wouldn't be so hard.

I have also read that you need to start out with a big breakfast. I've read that people who skip breakfast actually end up eating more than they would if they had ate a bigger breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it gets you going and keeps your body going throughout the rest of the day. Breakfast for me was frozen hash browns and bacon. It was very yummy and filling.

I kept the cooking simple today. I decided to make some slow cooker pinto beans. Pinto beans are easy to make, yummy, have low calories, and filling.

Workout Blog

I have decided I need some more motivation to lose weight. If I write in my weight loss blog then maybe I will be more motivated! So from now on I will write down what I eat, so I can track my calories, when and how long and what I work out. If I have to write in my journal then maybe I will be more motivated to actually work out! Lets hope this works. I think it would be helpful if I had encouragement. I would really appreciate helpful hints, healthy recipes, what works for you and what not. I really do need to lose weight. My goal is to have a lower BMI, and be at my normal weight, or weight at which I should be at according to my age and height. I should weigh 140, and my BMI should be 22. My current weight is above that :) and my BMI is 31.8. According to my Wii fit I am obese! I NEED to lose weight.

Today I did a Slim in 6 work out video. This video has two work outs. The first one is a little less extreme, so I did that one. You're suppose to do the 1st video for 3 weeks and the 2nd for 3 weeks. If you do it every day you should be "slim" in six weeks. I don't think that will happen, but I do think it is a great video for me. I've done it before and have felt my legs feel firmer, and I like the way I feel after I have done it, well not immediately after I do it, cause I feel like i'm going to fall over. It's been a while since I've done a high intensity work out. Today I felt like my legs were going to give out on me. I felt a little dizzy, which I know is probably not the best. When I start doing it more my body will hopefully get use to it, and I won't feel like falling over.

I had a lite blueberry yogurt and a piece of wheat toast for breakfast. I think drinking lots of water is very important. I have always felt that water really helps your body and you should drink tons of it. I have a 3 cup water bottle. I am a water bottle weirdo, I have bought many water bottles and am very picky about which ones I choose to use. I have found a cambelbak water bottle. It has this really cool spout that is like the other camelbak products you have to bit down a little to open it up. I really like it.

I want to know what some really yummy healthy snacks are. I get snackish a lot. I want to find something that is healthy. I'm not a huge vegetable fan, and I don't want to force myself to eat foods I don't particularly like. I don't that will help. But I will try to have more vegetables that I do like into my day. Its just so dang expensive!

Well I decided to play raquetball tonight and that was a fun way to excercise. I hit Nick though a few times, he was not very happy. I've done very well today.

A reformed blog

I have reformed this blog. It has undergone some changes. I first created the blog as a personal journal, or diary if you will. For some reason though, complaining online just doesn't make your problems any better. It helps you get your feelings out, but then you go back to life and you still have all the issues. I decided to change the blog to a Dream Journal. I have always wanted to write down all my dreams and talk about what I think they mean. I have been doing that lately but I haven't really been writing down all my dreams. Sometimes dreams are just absolutely crazy and weird, and honestly most people don't care about your dreams. Even my husband is probably tired of hearing about all my dreams, but I like to tell them sometimes because it's interesting what my mind thinks of while I'm asleep. I now have decided I want to turn this into a Blog/Journal for me myself and I. I have another Blog but the main purpose of that blog is for my husband and I's families to see what we're up to. I would like this blog for just me. Here are some reasons why I think I need a blog just for me:

I love to cook, and sometimes I'm actually good at it. When I cook I usually search the internet for some recipes that I think sound good. And since I love food and sometimes more than one thing sounds good, I combine the two recipes. Sometimes they turn out really good and sometimes not so good. I would like to post on here some of the recipes or just talk about what worked and what didn't.

I want to be more crafty. Not evil or anything, just I want to create more things. School helps me be creative and sometimes I have projects where I have to draw, paint, or sew something. I want to be more crafty on my own. I want to always have something to work on. If I have a blog that I can post my ideas and ask for suggestions then that will encourage me to make and create more.

Sometimes I am a person with feelings and I just want to complain. I need an outlet, and I don't think complaining to my husband helps our relationship...especially if I want to complain about him. I love my husband but sometimes I need someone to talk to, and if the internet is here I will always have a friend to talk to.

These are just a few of the reasons I have for starting a new and different blog. I don't know if anyone will even read this or even cares, but I hope that with my blog I can give people ideas and maybe let them know that it's okay to complain sometimes.