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| Baking on Vacation. |
Weekly Update:
Exercise: Brief moments of walking to the kitchen and back to the couch.
Weight loss:To be continued!
The hubs suggested, and I agreed, that I not get on the scale for three whole months. "But the scale has always been such a good motivator for me!" I would say. The truth is, though, that it isn't right now. Right now it has taken control of my every thought - most of which turn self-loathing, if they don't start out that way.
So, this weight-losing chick did some thinking, and pondering, as Pooh would say, and decided to give it a try. Here's my main thought: if I can't enjoy the lifestyle of losing weight (eventually the same lifestyle as maintaining with a few more calories per day), I will never stick to it. If the overall feeling of better health isn't enough - nothing ever will be. I will yo-yo diet until the end of time. Or at least until I decide that I'm old and want to eat whatever I want because I can. (I'm pretty sure this will happen when I have a good enough excuse to hang out on a porch for the majority of the day.)
And I know for a fact, now, that I feel WAY better when I am being healthy. Working out, eating well, having pizza once in a while. You know, pizza is so much more fun when it only happens every couple of months (and wasn't dug out of the trash can - that's a story I'll save for another time)! Even if I don't lose a single pound, I feel better. I know I'm healthier. Isn't that the point?
In fact, I tested some of this while on vacation. I didn't track anything, didn't weigh, and pretty much ate whatever I wanted. While I wouldn't say that I binged or ate mindlessly (I still thought every thing through, each bite was a choice), I did feel uncomfortably full most of the time. My stomach isn't used to that much food! Or that much junk! I have no idea if I gained, but I do know that I'm retaining water and feeling dehydrated. If I had weighed this morning, I would be thinking only of the number the scale screamed in my direction. (And yes, it always seem to scream. Anger issues.) I wouldn't be thinking about how to feel better, healthier, I would instead be figuring out how to get any potentially added weight off as quickly as humanly possible. That kind of singular focus is actually hurting me, not helping.
So for three months I will put away the scale, still focus on losing weight, but keep track based on how I feel and how my clothes fit. After three months, I will weigh and see where things are. Hopefully I will be able to move over some more marbles at that time! If not, well, we'll see about that when we get there!
In the meantime, enjoy our second attempt at a delicious treat:
The hubs suggested, and I agreed, that I not get on the scale for three whole months. "But the scale has always been such a good motivator for me!" I would say. The truth is, though, that it isn't right now. Right now it has taken control of my every thought - most of which turn self-loathing, if they don't start out that way.
So, this weight-losing chick did some thinking, and pondering, as Pooh would say, and decided to give it a try. Here's my main thought: if I can't enjoy the lifestyle of losing weight (eventually the same lifestyle as maintaining with a few more calories per day), I will never stick to it. If the overall feeling of better health isn't enough - nothing ever will be. I will yo-yo diet until the end of time. Or at least until I decide that I'm old and want to eat whatever I want because I can. (I'm pretty sure this will happen when I have a good enough excuse to hang out on a porch for the majority of the day.)
And I know for a fact, now, that I feel WAY better when I am being healthy. Working out, eating well, having pizza once in a while. You know, pizza is so much more fun when it only happens every couple of months (and wasn't dug out of the trash can - that's a story I'll save for another time)! Even if I don't lose a single pound, I feel better. I know I'm healthier. Isn't that the point?
In fact, I tested some of this while on vacation. I didn't track anything, didn't weigh, and pretty much ate whatever I wanted. While I wouldn't say that I binged or ate mindlessly (I still thought every thing through, each bite was a choice), I did feel uncomfortably full most of the time. My stomach isn't used to that much food! Or that much junk! I have no idea if I gained, but I do know that I'm retaining water and feeling dehydrated. If I had weighed this morning, I would be thinking only of the number the scale screamed in my direction. (And yes, it always seem to scream. Anger issues.) I wouldn't be thinking about how to feel better, healthier, I would instead be figuring out how to get any potentially added weight off as quickly as humanly possible. That kind of singular focus is actually hurting me, not helping.
So for three months I will put away the scale, still focus on losing weight, but keep track based on how I feel and how my clothes fit. After three months, I will weigh and see where things are. Hopefully I will be able to move over some more marbles at that time! If not, well, we'll see about that when we get there!
In the meantime, enjoy our second attempt at a delicious treat:
Cake Pops!!!
Kevin and I made cake pops while on vacation. Having a full kitchen in our suite was so much fun! These were our steps:
After we made our plain white Betty Crocker cake, we put half of it in a bowl, smashed it up, and added some Pillsbury frosting. This is our second time making cake pops. This time, I think I put in a bit too much frosting. The finished product had a slightly mushy center. (I only used half of the cake so that Kevin could frost the other half to have as plain cake. He much prefers plain cake to the pops. A great way to both get treats we love!)
I went with the Funfetti frosting so that I would have sprinkles to put on the candy coating.
Our double broiler to melt the Reese's Peanut Butter chips. Delicious, by the way. A bit of salty flavor to balance the sweetness of the cake pop. Our first bag of chips went to crap. Either we got it too hot, added the Smart Balance too late, or just breathed wrong. We don't know. No matter, though, because we used the hardened melty chips to make a peanut butter bark of sorts.
For the second bag, we added vegetable oil (the only thing we had on hand) to keep the chips melted and thin enough to coat on the pops. As we went along, we tried different ratios of chips to oil. The more oil, the easier to coat. However, I like the thick layer of peanut buttery goodness on the outside. This worked much better than our first attempt. And having the actual sticks this time made it much easier to spin under a spoon dripping with the melted candy.
Now, I forgot to mention that we rolled the cake/frosting mixture into balls and put them in the freezer for about an hour before we started coating them. We put the sticks in about halfway through the chilling. I think next time we would dip the ends of the sticks in the melted candy, or maybe even water, before sticking them in the balls. A few of the pops fell off the sticks in the dipping/coating process. Also, we could not find a way to twirl the pops in the bowl of candy. It was much easier to have Kevin pour the melted candy while I spun the pop underneath.
I kept some of the pops on a plate on the counter; I prefer the room-temperature flavor. Kevin's batch were left in the freezer; he likes the ice-cream-like texture.
There are many YouTube videos, websites, and blogs about how to make these. Most of them give different advice, but the basic steps are pretty much the same. Give it a try! Let me know how it goes!
So tell me: How are your goals coming? What are you baking? Do you have any sign of spring?? (We're still gettin' lots of rain.)
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