Weigh In and Grocery Shopping

We got a scale today, and tonight was our weigh-in.

Quinn-
Current Weight: 184.0 
Goal Weight: 160
Percentage to lose: 13% 

Joanna-
Current Weight: 131.2
Goal Weight: 120
Percentage to lose: 8%


Went grocery shopping today. My Sister-in-law, Toni, went with me to Sam's so I could use her membership for some essentials. I got a lb of salad greens, 5 lbs frozen green beans, a 3 lb beef roast, 3 lbs almonds, 5 lbs mozzarella, 5 lbs chopped broccoli, 2 lbs of shrimp and a quart of heavy cream. Here's why I love Sam's. By getting these products at Sam's, I saved $60. Yes. $60. $26 of that was in almonds, which I priced at $6 a half lb at WalMart after picking up the Sam's 3 lb bag for $10.  Another $10 saved was in the cheese. At $2.00 a pound, I got it for half the price of any of this week's grocery deals.

After that I went to Wal-Mart for the rest of my groceries- including peppers and zucchini, chicken breast, bacon, low carb tortillas and snacks. I got vienna sausages (eww) for Quinn, as well as a jar of green olives (yes, he snacks on those kinda things) sugar free werthers and reeses, and sugar free jello.

From there, I came home and made dinner for Quinn, who came home from work after 3 hours because he was sick. I made a monster pizza that we only managed to eat half of, then my brother Aaron picked up the other half on his way home from work so it wouldn't tempt us tomorrow.

After dinner I put Gavin to bed then Quinn stayed home while I ran to Target for diapers (GREAT deal there. My sister in law, Becca, gave me half a box of the Target brand to try side-by-side with my highly favored Huggies. While I won't say they're equivalent, the Target Brand does do a pretty darn good job, and the price difference is phenomenal. Size threes are  $14.70 for a box of 96 vs $19.80 for a box of 72.) and a bathroom scale. While I was there, I checked on Atkins protein bars and found that they had their 19g bars on sale for about 75cents apiece, so I got two boxes of 5.

I think we're set, and I stayed very close to grocery budget....I'm pleased.

My Atkins Adventure

The Atkins Diet has always worked for my family, and since I'm sick to death of the extra baby pounds on my hips and belly, and since Quinn has been griping about his few extra belly pounds for months, I figure it's time to put us into Atkins induction for a couple weeks, then see if we can keep dropping pounds until we hit goal.

I generally would just go at it and make sure that I didn't eat carbs, but Quinn needs to know that he will have something to munch on, and that he will have real meals, or the concept of giving up sandwiches and cold cereal is far too depressing for him.

So here's the menu for the first 14 days of March. A couple of the soups have 10-15 carbs per 16 oz, so I've got them on days where there are absolutely no carbs in the rest of the meals. The goal is to stay under 20 carbs a day.

I have a feeling it will run quite a bit over my grocery budget, and I'll end up supplementing with private lesson pay, but that's okay. I plan to post each day's recipes as I make them, so if you're interested, come back on the forecasted day and look for my pics/recipes. :)



Clarification; Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are Quinn's work days. He skips breakfast and I generally just find something to munch on, which means we only have lunch and dinner. On his off days we eat a 10ish breakfast, a 2ish lunch and an 8ish dinner, or an early lunch, early dinner and a fun snack in the evenings.

Snacks:
Mozzerella cheese sticks
almonds
atkins protien bars
vegetables with Hidden Valley ranch
Braums carb freedom ice cream
beef jerky
sugar free hard candies


Tuesday; March 1st.
Breakfast; Cheese and veggie omelet
Lunch; Salad with meat and cheese
Dinner; Beef and mushroom soup with (6)  crutons

Wednesday, March 2nd
B-Veggie eggs and Bacon
L- leftover soup with side salad
D-roast chicken and steamed broccoli

Thur, 3rd
L-chicken, broccoli and bacon stir fry
D-Salad with boiled egg, bacon and cheese

Fri, 4th
L-BLT on low carb wrap
D-Salisbury Steak

Sat, 5th
L-Salad with meat and cheese
D-Broccoli Cheese soup

Sun, 6th
B-Eggs
L-Leftover Soup
D-Low-carb jalapeno poppers

Mon, 7th
L-Crustless asparagus quiche
D-Shrimp and veggie skewers

Tues, 8th
B-Spinach and mozzerella omelet
L-Salad with cheese
D-Roast Beef with steamed vegetables

Wed,  9th
B-Eggs with Bacon
L-Green Bean stir fry
D-Beef and Veggie soup with side salad

Thur, 10th
L-Salad, Meat and cheese
D-Leftover soup with croutons

Fri, 11th
L-Salad with egg, tuna and cheese
D-Stuffed peppers and grilled chicken breast

Sat, 12th
L-Chicken Lentil soup
D-Baked zucchini

Sun, 13th
B-eggs
L-Leftover Soup
D-Stuffed Mushrooms and fried mozzerella

Mon, 14th
L-Salad
D-Monterrey Chicken and grilled vegetables.

Tues, 15th
B-eggs
L-Cheese, Chicken and veggie casserole
D-Beef Patties and cheesy Veggies.

Wed, 16 !!MY BIRTHDAY!!
End of Induction Period
Breakfast- PANCAKES
Lunch-PIZZA
Dinner-APPLEBEES

Tomorrow we'll weigh in and I'll post our goals. We also plan to be going to the gym three-four times a week for some cardio and weight lifting.

Here's to goals!

Spoiled Silly

My husband loves to spoil me. We don't get a lot of opportunities to spend money, as we're trying to pay of school debts and save for a house, but this week he made an exception to the rule, and I ended up with two dozen roses for Valentine's Day and a trip to the mall this week. I got a couple new dresses, a new pair of ridiculously high and cute heels, a new leather jacket for this spring and I got to buy that music last week! I'm feeling sooo pampered.

On top of that, we got our HSA card in the mail, and I get to start going to the chiropractor on a regular basis again. I've been missing my appointments. It took a lot of work for him to get me straightened back out yesterday- one of my legs was about an inch longer than the other due to my hips being misaligned, and my lower back was such a mess that it took three different types of adjustments to get it corrected. Eeesh. I was seriously sore after that.

Anyway, just a shout out to my wonderful hubby for knowing how to make a girl's life beautiful. <3

I love my man.


And on another note- Gavin refuses to recline in his little rocker- if I put him in it he pulls himself forward and sits straight up while propping himself on his elbows. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth when I put him on the floor, and he was 6 months old last week! I weighed him for his 6 month day and he's 17 pounds, 11 ounces. He's a chunker!

Update!

It's Friday night. That means that both Quinn and I are pretty shot, and Gavin is beside himself with delight over the simple delight of being home. We picked up Chinese and I made chocolate chip cookie dough that I'm too full to think about baking. We watch a little bit of NCIS and we're now waiting for an episode of Stargate Atlantis to load so we continue our journey through Season 3.

Had a long, but productive day. I didn't have to wait around after my last class at orchestra today because my private student was home sick, so I ran to the music store and got a piano book of 50 praise songs (something I've been wanting very much to invest in) and ordered the Mephisto Waltz sheet music.

I decided when I was 14 that I was going to play the Mephisto Waltz for my high school graduation. I ended up settling for Leibestraum and haven't ever yet even seen the music for the Waltz. I'm really excited about getting my hands on it at long last. It will takes me months (if not years) to learn, but I can't wait to get started! I'm gonna start on my Hanon again to prep for it...

Quinn is sitting on the floor with Gavin and I'm desperately wishing I had a camera...but I'm between cameras and missing so many moments that ought to be captured. *sigh*

The Beauty Of Holiness

I have another blog that I used to maintain. It's called "The Beauty of Holiness" and it's something of a monthly devotional that's directed to 12-16 year old girls. I quit writing there shortly after I left home because I knew that the choices I had made were not in accordance to the pattern that I wanted any of my sweet young readers to follow. Since then I've been to busy to re-start it....

Until Now.

I just posted the February edition, and I hope you all get a chance to hop over there and check it out. Maybe send it to younger sisters or friends and let me know what you think!

Happy Birthday To Him

(2009, Summer)

Sunday night we went out to dinner with Tim and Anne to celebrate Tim's 17th birthday and Quinn's 26th. We had too much fun. The Applebee's crew sang "Happy happy birthday, from Applebee's to you!" in the classic "Emperor's New Groove style and gave them free shot glass desserts. We had more shrimp than we could eat and laughed until our throats hurt.

(2010, First Wedding Anniversary, AR)

Monday morning Quinn was out the door early for work, but I made a mini chocolate cake and put 6 candles on it for his lunch break and we (Quinn helped) sang  Happy Birthday again. Last night when he got home from work I had his gifts for him; a new programmable coffee pot for his early winter mornings when he has to head to work in the cold, a coffee grinder, a bag of Starbucks coffee beans and Rocky 6. (I looked for 4 so he'd have the complete set but havent' been able to get my hands on it yet. I'll just have to order it off of Amazon when I get a chance.)

(2010, July, Quinn and Tim)

After that we went to Buckle in the mall and he picked out a new cross necklace. The one he wore for years broke a couple months ago and he's been wanting a replacement. On the way home we drove by numerous car lots and peeked in the windows of SUVs and mini vans that fit our price range. We found a beautiful Toyota Sienna with gorgeous leather that had the windows down the and the moon roof open in the slow winter drizzle that was coming down. Sad. They'll have to take $1000 off the price when they get the snow cleaned out of it.

(2010, Fall)

From there we stopped by KFC for some hot wings to sample (nothing special there, sadly) and came home to watch RED. Originally we had planned on dropping the little man out at my Mom's and going to a movie, but the forecast made us chicken out of that. RED was very cute and we got a big kick out of it. Maybe a 7.5 out of 10ish...would have been more if there had been less language, but I don't think Willis can do a movie without a few foul lines.

(2010, Timberlake Wedding reception, OK)

This morning we kept celebrating by diving out into the 6 inches of snow that was on the ground and driving to Hemingway's for their breakfast buffet. They have some seriously kick-butt french toast casserole that I will kill for, and their fried catfish was absolutely spot on this morning. On the way home we were having a hard time driving so we figured we'd be thoroughly stuck once we made it home, so we stopped for a few movies to get us through the next three days.

(2007, Quinn and Cory)

I *was* going to make a huge lasagna and have my three brothers and their wives, Quinn's sister and his husband and his best friend and his wife over for dnner and cake tonight (I have a massive, 4 layer chocolate cake and a gallon of ice cream here) but nobody's willing to venture out, so we've postponed until Friday night.

I'll have to make a new cake....



Happy  Birthday Quinton- My darling hero. I love you.