Mystery Spice Monday! #4

Today is rainy, and I'm still feeling the effects of my cold. I'm improving, but I'm certainly not 100% yet. So I'm taking my vitamins, drinking lots of water, eating chicken noodle soup, and basically taking it as easy as I can with twin toddlers. Right now it's nap time, and as soon as I'm done posting this I'll be curling up with a good book. Can't hardly wait!

And since I've been taking it easy this week, I thought I'd post a super easy chicken recipe that is full of flavor, but not full of fat or unnecessary calories. Perfect for those of us who are doing the 30 Day Shred and trying to cut back on our eating. Yup, I'm very proud of myself for sticking with my work out routine while I'm still on the mend. I'm on day 4 of the Shred, and goin' strong! I will admit that after the first day was when I came down with this cold so I did yoga instead, but I'm ok with that. Better to do something different than give up altogether. :)

The recipe comes from one of my absolute FAVORITE cook books, Quick & Healthy Recipes and Ideas: For People Who Say They Don't Have Time to Cook Healthy Meals. If you're stuck in a rut and you really are determined to eat healthy, then get this book. It will save you SO much time, effort, energy, stress... plus it'll get you eating healthy in no time flat. I've made a bunch of recipes from this book, and all of them take roughly 20-30 minutes to prepare and are downright delicious AND family friendly!

Each recipe also has a nutritional breakdown, this particular recipe I'm about to share has.. check this out... 205 calories per serving!!! You really can't get much more low-cal than that!

Chicken Breasts in Mushroom Sauce
Adapted from Quick & Healthy Recipes and Ideas: For people who say they don't have time to cook healthy meals

Preheat your oven to 350.

First you sautee 2 cups of sliced mushrooms and 2-3 green onions. If you're really trying to trim the fat you can use cooking spray as a medium, but I used a tablespoon of olive oil.



While your mushrooms get goin' get out some sort of plasticware with a lid, you're going to shake up the sauce. Add 2 T of flour to 1/4 cup of water.



Put the lid on and shake it up to mix.



Then add 2 T of wine. I used red, but I've made this before with white and it's also really good that way. If you don't like the way wine tastes in food then you could always use chicken stock or balsamic vinegar, either option would be good.



Then you add 1/2 cup of non-fat plain yogurt.



Add some salt and pepper to taste, if you're like us you'll use quite a bit. Feel free to omit the salt if you have high blood pressure.





Then you add 1 t of instant chicken bouillon or 1 cube crushed.



Put the lid back on and shake it all up.

Be sure to check your mushrooms while you make the sauce, stirring as needed until they look like this.



Then pour in the sauce... ooooooh yeah...



Let it simmer, stirring constantly, until the sauce gets thickened and the flavors get all happy with the mushrooms.



Place your chicken in a baking dish, I only used 2 chicken breasts because... there's really just 2 of us. But the recipe in the book calls for 4 breasts, and there is plenty of sauce to cover 4, so make however many chicken breasts you'll need.



Then pour the mushroom sauce on top of the chicken, and sprinkle the Mystery Spice: Paprika generously over it.



I know... Paprika isn't really a mystery spice to me. Just check This out. But I've got a lot of it hanging around that I'd like to use up and part of the goal of this challenge is using things in your spice cabinet that need to be used.

Like I said, I'm takin' it easy this week. :)

If you don't like paprika, or if you're like a friend of mine who is allergic to it, then you can certainly leave it out. You won't hurt my feelings.

But it really does add something to this chicken... and it is scrumptious!



Even if it is only 205 calories!

Chicken Breasts In Mushroom Sauce

2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 T flour
1/4 cup water
2 T dry sherry or wine
1/2 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1/4 t salt (optional)
1/8 t black pepper
1 tsp. instant chicken bouillon or 1 chicken bouillon cube crushed
1 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp. paprika

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Sautee mushrooms and green onions in a non-stick skillet that has been sprayed with cooking spray (or use 1 T olive oil). Shake flour with water in plastic container with lid. Add next 5 ingredients to flour/water mixture, shake again. Pour into mushrooms, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens. Place chicken in a baking dish, pour mushroom sauce over the chicken. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until chicken reaches 170 degrees on an instant read thermometer.


Have a Mystery Spice recipe that you'd love to share? Then Link up and tell the world! And be sure to visit other linkers to get more great meal ideas!

Diet: Day 3

I know it's surprising that I'm on a diet, especially since I just posted that amazing Chicken Enchilada recipe yesterday. Here's the explanation: I made those enchiladas like... 5 days ago... and didn't get around to posting it until recently. That's just how it goes!

I've had several people ask me about my diet since I posted it on my Facebook status. So I thought I'd write this to answer some questions.

So question #1: Why do you need to go on a diet?

Answer: Because I'm Fat! Duh! lol Nah, actually I USED to be fat, now I'm just sort of squishy around the edges instead of sleek and hard bodied. I really don't expect to ever be sleek and hard bodied again in this lifetime, that would require working out and possibly plastic surgery, but I figure I should at least do my part to keep the lbs. and inches at bay.

Question #2: But... didn't you have twins or something?

Answer: Why yes, my initial weight gain was due to this:



Yup! That'll do it! Click Here for all the gory details. For most of you mommies out there you'll recall how your Dr. told you that you NEEDED to gain at LEAST 20 lbs. for your one baby? Well when you're carrying 2 they want you to gain 40 lbs. And since a typical pregnancy lasts 40 weeks they say you should really aim for a pound a week. And even more if you can because the typical twin pregnancy doesn't last the full 40 weeks and they want you to have gained 40 lbs. before they're born. Yikes! Well, I did it, but just barely, and my girls were born at 34 weeks. I actually had to work hard at eating for the first time in my life because I also had gestational diabetes which made my food choices fairly limited; ie. I couldn't just chug milkshakes for 34 weeks, I had to gain on things like eggs and avocados. So I tried to be healthy about it, but even though I was carrying over 10 lbs. of babies (plus twice the blood volume, 2 placentas, etc.) 40 lbs. doesn't just poof and disappear after the babies are born.

Question #3: So what happened after they were born?

Answer: Well, I lost about 20 lbs. within weeks of their birth. And that was simply from my body adjusting to it's postpartum state and lactating. I gained about 10 lbs. back after that adjustment, because lets face it, I didn't have time to shower let alone cook with 2 newborns in the house and we were running out for fast food most nights. So around the time when the girls were 9 months old, and we were finally adjusted to our life as new parents of twins, we both decided that it was time to do something about our weight (I wasn't the only fatso at that point!).

Question #4: So what kind of diet did you do?

I have a friend from a business networking group that I used to be a part of when I was selling real estate. She was a personal health coach for Take Shape for Life. TSFL is a program using Medifast products. She lost her baby weight using it, and her hubby lost over 100 lbs. in 9 months using it! They are a very inspiring couple! I decided a long time ago that if I ever needed to loose weight I'd give her a call, so that's exactly what I did. I won't lie, it was somewhat expensive to buy all that diet food, but we decided that it wasn't that much more than our monthly grocery expenses (and certainly cheaper than eating out every night!). Plus we decided that it was an investment in our health, which we think is totally worth every penny.

Question #5: What kind of food is Medifast?

Well, it's pre-packaged dehydrated foods. Add water, possibly toss it in the microwave (depending on what it is) and voila! A meal. Most of the foods we tried we really liked so it wasn't hard to keep up with it. If you're interested let me know and I'll tell you my favorites, as well as some I thought were not so great. To give you an idea, there is shakes, bars, hot drinks, soups, oatmeal, pudding, cold drinks, etc. You eat 5 Medifast meals a day plus 1 lean & green (meat & veggie).

Question #6: Was it easy?

In a word, YES! Granted the first few days are the hardest. I won't lie, I was hungry. But by day 4 I was feeling great! In fact, it gave me tons of energy! The best part is that it fit in really well with our lifestyle. The foods are easy to take on the go for the most part, so there's no reason to "cheat". Plus since you're eating Medifast meals most of the day there's no questioning yourself, "Is this ok for me to eat?" The line on what's in your plan, and what's cheating, is crystal clear! And it's still very possible to eat out and be social, you just stick to meats and veggies and that's it. Very simple!

Question #7: Did it work?

Yup! I lost 30 lbs. in 4 months. Hubs lost about 35 lbs. in 3 months. Dang men and their easy weight loss!

Question #8: Have you kept it off?

Well, not exactly. You're supposed to transition off the plan back to regular foods gradually over time. Well, with the holidays and all I pretty much just lept right off that wagon and stuffed my face with Christmas cookies and loaded mashed potatoes. I'm sure that if you follow transition like you're supposed to you won't have the same problem I did. At this point I've gained back 10 lbs, which isn't terrible, I'm no where NEAR where I was! But I want to nip it in the bud before I end up back in a place where I don't wanna be.

Question #9: Do you have before/after pictures:

Sort of. I have this picture. The girls are 9 months old here, and I'm at my heaviest weight ever. I have a love/hate relationship with this photo. I love it because it's the first professional photo of the 4 of us as a new family, and there's certainly something beautiful about that. The girls are absolutely adorable that's for sure! But me? I look terrible. This is really the first time I've put it out there for people to see... so look quick before I change my mind and take it down. :P

As always, you can click on the photo to enlarge. Ack!



And here's me the end of August. As you can see, quite a big difference!



But here's me at Christmas, clearly I'd already slipped up on more than a few occasions. But dang did I enjoy it! Thank you Pioneer Woman!



Ugh... that shirt is totally unflattering. Oh well... live and learn!

Question #10: So how are you doing so far this time?

Answer: Well, it's Day 3. I'm hungry. But I know it'll be much better tomorrow, that's pretty much how it worked out last time I did TSFL. I feel happier and more confident about my eating choices, because this time I've already sorted out what I like and what I don't like out of my food options.

... Ask me tomorrow about how I'm doing! I'm sure I'll much more enthusiastic about it! Ha ha!

Any more questions? Just toss me a comment! If you're really interested in TSFL I'd be happy to pass on my friend's name and number.

11 Month Update

I know it's only been 2 weeks since my last blog entry but I'm trying to get back on schedule! lol

Anya & Ziva finally had their last Synagis injection, WOO HOO! No more going to the Dr. for shots every month! We still have to take them in for their annual exam next month, but after that we should finally have a break from the Dr.'s office. The billing has been such a headache for these injections. Seems like I'm on the phone with the insurance company every week trying to get things sorted out... it's become like another job and I'm going to be very thankful when the last billing is taken care of. Oh, I guess I should say that the injections are supposed to prevent RSV infections which can be very problematic for preemies.

I had a very nice Mother's Day. We went out to dinner w/ my parents, my grandmother, my aunt's Charlotte & Sharon (who are also twins) and their families. My sister and her family were also there briefly but they had to leave early. The girls were very well behaved the whole time.

Anya has started crawling! We're so happy for her! She's also started to get her two bottom teeth just within the past couple days. Now that they're both mobile they tend to follow each other around the living room. They smile and laugh at each other a LOT! It's very cute to watch. Anya has also stopped nursing as of a week ago. I kind of have mixed feelings about it. I'm glad because nursing can be very inconvenient but I'm also kind of sad because it was such a wonderful bonding experience for both of us.

DJ and I have decided to start this weight loss program called Take Shape for Life. If anyone is interested the web site is www.kennedy.tsfl.com. Basically we'll eat 6 meals a day, 5 prepackaged meals and 1 lean & green meal. We've ordered our food and we're waiting for it to arrive. I'm really looking forward to loosing weight, but I'm kind of scared of what my skinny post-babies body will look like. I guess there's only one way to find out!