Great link!

I get emails from fitness magazine and most of them are trying to get you to subscribe but they also provide good articles to read. This particular article is how to cut calories everyday without even really being on a diet. I thought it was worth sharing. Hope it helps!

The No-Hunger Way to Cut 100s of Calories

Some of my favorite advice from this article:

• Use 1 tablespoon of mayo and 1 tablespoon of low-fat cottage cheese to make tuna salad.
• Toss your salad with 1 tablespoon of dressing until every lettuce leaf is coated. You'll get away with using half the usual serving size. Try this trick at dinner too.
• Making meatballs? Mix half the amount of ground beef the recipe calls for with half as much cooked brown rice.
• Measure out your breakfast cereal; overestimating by just 1/3 cup can add 100 calories
• Make your own salad dressing using low-sodium, fat-free broth in place of 2 tablespoons of oil.
• Having fajitas? Fill up one tortilla rather than three, then eat the rest of your fixings with a fork.
• Skip the small movie-theater popcorn and bring your own 1-ounce bag of Lay's.
• At the mall, curb a craving for a soft pretzel with a 100-calorie pretzel pack.
• Eat fruit before every meal. In a Pennsylvania State University study, people who munched apples 15 minutes before lunch ate about 187 fewer calories.
• When making mac and cheese, resist temptation and prep just half the box. Save the rest in a zip-top bag for next time.
• Use your grandmother's Joy of Cooking and you'll save an average of 506 calories over three meals, according to a recent Cornell University study. The secret: Smaller portion sizes and lower-calorie ingredients were called for back then.

Goal: 100 calories

Burn 50: Get up from your desk and take a 20-minute walk at lunch.
Cut 50: Skip the oyster crackers in your soup.

Goal: 250 calories

Burn 125: Shovel the driveway for 20 minutes.
Cut 125: Hold the cinnamon bun. Eat two slices of cinnamon toast.

Goal: 500 calories

Burn 250: Spend two hours making dinner for the entire week.
Cut 250: Mist a pan with cooking spray instead of pouring in oil.

Valuable lesson

So, I usually can do okay eating out as long as I look up the nutritional facts before hand. Today, we were out shopping and stopped at TGI Friday's for lunch. Big mistake! I thought I was making a good choice with the turkey burger but when I got home I found out it was loaded with calories. So the revamp on the diet was a bit of a wash today. I am not discouraged though. I am taking it as lesson learned and probably will avoid TGIF from now on because they really are not diet friendly at all.

Frustrations and Battle Cries

So Wednesday nights are official weigh-in nights. I am a little disappointed with myself because I gained a pound over the Christmas holiday. I will be revamping and rededicating this week. Lesson learned: weight comes on faster and easier than it comes off.  Although I have to say that I did ok today. I was reaching for a second biscuit at Cracker Barrel and a guy walked by with a shirt that said "Ireland". It reminded me of my mantra: Baby Ireland! I pushed the biscuit away. I guess every little step counts. Tomorrow is another day and all I can do is try to better tomorrow than I did today. Good night!

Day 1

Well, technically this isn't day one on my weight loss journey but it could be. It is just after Christmas and after trying to be good during the holidays I am back home and ready to revamp my lifestyle. The short term goal is to lose 40 lbs by March 7, 2012. The long term goal is to reach 180 lbs (the higher end of what is considered healthy for my height and age). That means I have roughly 105 lbs to go. The prize for reaching my goal is a promise from my husband to take me any where I want to go in the world. I have chosen Ireland. The more rewarding prize is hopefully I will be healthy enough to have a baby which is something I have feared would not be possible at my current weight. The biggest prize of all will be a better, more healthy, more active, and hopefully more rewarding life. Feel free to take the journey with me. I will be including updates on my weight loss goals. Sharing the highs and lows of it all. What works, what doesn't, good recipes and fun exercises along the way. I hope to learn alot about the world and myself on this journey. Here goes nothing!