Recipe Corner: Weight Watchers Pizza-Style Baked Pasta

I really enjoyed this meal, I feel the servings were a tad small compared to other WW recipes but it was yummy and I will def be making it again! 

Weight Watchers Pizza-Style Baked Pasta

Serves 8
8pp/6pts

Ingredients:

12oz whole wheat penne pasta, cooked according to package directions.
1/2lb hot Italian turkey sausage, thinly sliced
2 cups fat free marinara sauce
1 cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese
4 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons Italian seasoned dried bread crumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 7x11 inch baking dish with nonstick spray.

Toss together penne, susage, 1 cup marinara sauce, 1/2 cup mozzarella, 2 tablespoons of Paremsan, the basil, and oregano in prepared baking dish. Top with remaining 1 cup marinara, then sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella, 2 tablespoons Parmesan and the bread crumbs.

Lightly spray sheet of foil with nonstick spray; place sprayed side down over baking dish. Bake 20 minutes. Uncover and bake until sausage is cooked through and mozzarella is melted, about 15 minutes longer.

Per Serving: (1/8 casserole)
300 calories/ 8g fat/ 588mg sodium/ 40g Carb/ 2g Sugar/ 5g Fiber/ 17g Protein

WW Pizza Style Baked Pasta with side salad 

Side note: I cooked the sausage first and then added it to the pasta. I baked with foil for 20 minutes, then uncovered and baked for about 5 minutes longer to melt the cheese.

Source: Weight Watchers One Pot Cookbook
Facebook.com/irunbecauseiliketoeat

Recipe Corner: Staci's Chicken Salad

Looking for a fun easy and super tasty lunch?! Then try this recipe out!
I'm always trying to find ways to make the things I love be healthier, I love chicken salad, but I don't want to use light or fat free mayo to make it, it just never tastes right. By using mayo you take something that could be a very low fat meal and you turn it into this high fat salad. A few friends have asked me how I make my chicken salad and this is my new favorite way to make it. Tastes way better than the mayo version too!

Serves 1
2pts/3pp

2oz canned chicken breast
1 laughing cow light cheese wedge ( I use garlic and herb)
crushed pepper
1 oz avocado (some days I add 2oz and it ups the point levels by 1) 

Mix the cheese wedge with the chicken and add pepper to taste. I usually cut the avocado into chunks or strips and place on top of my chicken salad or you can mash them into the salad. Enjoy!

Chicken Salad on baked corn tortilla shells 4pts/5pp total 

**I am obsessed with putting my chicken salad on baked corn tortillas! If you want to try this out I use Mission Ultra thin yellow corn tortillas. Turn oven on to 425 and spray cookie sheet with spray place tortillas on cookie sheet and spray them with cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt, place in over as soon as you do this (it won't preheated) bake for 10 minutes....comes out perfect!
Sometimes I just eat the salad, or I will wrap it in lettuce like a wrap. There is always bread but that adds points and some days I don't want to use so many points on my lunch.

Nanny

The end of April always brings a certain sadness to it because it means May is coming and I don't care for the month of May. With the 8th anniversary of her death just a month away the weight of her being gone seems to come crashing down on me. Every day is hard, at least once a day I get that urge to call and tell her something and I can't. 8 years...8, and it still feels like yesterday I held her hand as her heart stopped. That terrible moment when the beating sped up and then slowly declined to one long hum. I'll never forget that, I stared at her face not taking my eyes off of her, she hadn't been responding to us for a few days at that point, they kept telling us that she wasn't getting any better, her body was shutting down but her brain was ok, she was aware we were there but she couldn't respond to us but in that terrible moment when her heart stopped....she smiled, she was free. I get goosebumps just tying it out, people can believe what they want, but I know, know beyond any doubts that she saw Jesus coming for her and she was happy. I was with her until the end, my favorite friend. She was always more than my Grandmother, more than a mother figure to me, she was an extension of me. There wasn't anything that I couldn't tell her and there will never be another person like her. I can only pray that one day I can have a relationship with my children's children like I had with her.

I have healed a good deal in these past 8 years, but the grief is still there. My life will never be the same without her in it. The day before her surgery I sat in her living room with her, she wanted to talk to me about the possibility of her not living through it ( I know now that she knew she wouldn't make it) I knew she was strong and a fighter so the thought that she wouldn't make it wasn't even an option. I told her I knew she'd be fine and I didn't want to talk about it. She turned my face towards hers and she said, " I will always be in your heart....always." I remember that clear as a bell, her last heart to heart with me. She hugged me a long time after that I remember laying my head on her chest and listening to her heart....I remember thinking why am I doing...maybe it was my heart knowing this was the end and trying to soak up as much of her life as possible. No matter what the reasons were why I did it, I am so glad I did....the steady beats of her heart. Those are the ones I try to remember.

Last year was the first year that I didn't live where she is buried and I couldn't visit her and that seemed to make it so much harder. But at 7pm on a moments notice a large group of my friends on Facebook banned together to join in a virtual tea party honoring her life and love of hot tea with me. It lifted my spirits so much that May 23rd in my mind is Tea for Nanny day. This year I am taking it a step further by holding a virtual 5k for her as well. Proceeds from the 5k will go directly to the American Cancer Society. I know she will be proud of that. It has given me something positive to look forward to, to focus on honoring her life and not thinking so much on her death. You can find information on both Tea for Nanny and Nanny's 5k on the links below. I hope you will join me for both events and lift my spirits on the darkest day of the year for me.
She will always be in my heart.....always.

My Nanny and me January 2003

Tea for Nanny
https://www.facebook.com/events/670738096315696/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Nanny's 5k
booster.com/nanny

Circles

I get this thought often...."WHY?! Why can't I just eat all the delicious food I want and still lose weight?" Oh the dream right?! Hi my name is Staci and I have a food addiction, I should be in a support group for it. I love food. Like seriously you guys, I l-o-v-e food. The taste, the smell, the happiness I feel when I'm eating....healthy food, junk food it doesn't matter....I'm always happier when I'm eating. That is a dangerous mix because it leads to me eating to feel better. I have a hard time balancing things....I am either crazy hard core with following a plan or I just keep goofing up over and over in the week all while beating myself up about it which leads to me feel terrible which leads to more eating. See that? That awful cycle?!  I really need to work on that and figure out how to walk a balanced line...after all this is a lifestyle I'm learning here. I've been at this for 15 months, I've come a long way in that time...I've learned not to make the terrible choices all the time and that is a big deal....and 9 times out of 10 I drink water or coffee before I eat when I know I'm not really hungry.
Everyone keeps telling me I'm too hard on myself, and in a way I am but in other ways I'm not...because if I stop worrying about it even for one day I go overboard. The past 5 months I've been working on not worrying as much about the number on the scale and more about making sure I stick to my exercise routines and trying to make the best choices I can when it comes to eating. That is really hard for me because that number has been a ruler in my life for so long and some weeks I do good about it not bothering me and other weeks its all I can think about. I think my biggest fear is I will stop worrying about that number and wake up one morning 200lbs again. I don't want that life....I don't want the feeling of being overweight, the hatred I felt for myself and honestly the embarrassment I felt from it. Being overweight is not something I'm ok with for myself, it's not something I ever want to be again. Ever. But I also don't think I want that "perfect body" either....in my mind I thought oh if I can hit the 130's my butt will be higher and my legs won't have cellulite and my thighs won't touch and I'd have that dream toned stomach but I'm pretty sure that will happen by a number. I feel pretty damn great about how I look in clothes right now and even when I was a teenager I didn't have this confident with my body and I was between 125lbs-135lbs in that time frame. I think a lot of it comes back to me and my confidence in myself. When I think about it, I have felt better emotionally about me these past 15 months than I have my whole teen/adult life. When I lace up my running shoes and I hit the pavement...even if its only for 3 miles....I feel amazing and super proud of who I am while I'm out there.
I'm working really hard on being happy where I'm at.....that isn't easy for someone like me who tends to find negatives before positives but I'm trying and in the end that is something I keep coming back to...as long as I keep trying....I'm never failing.

Maybe this is the part in my journey where I have to overcome my fears and get my brain in the right gear so that I can reach that finish line of my weight loss. Maybe now is my time to be in the higher end of my healthy weight range and learn how to make mistakes but how to come back from them. Maybe this is the emotional part where I learn to think differently about me....to learn that the number isn't who I am.....its how I live that makes me who I am.

 "The Secret of being happy is accepting where you are in life and making the most out of it everyday." My journey isn't a perfect one and I'm never going to pretend that it is. I make more mistakes than I should but I'm human and the temptation out there is hard. This time will pass and I can either give up and never reach that dream or I can keep pushing forward even if I feel like I'm going in circles.....and when it comes down to it I'd rather go in circles than go backward.


Facebook.com/irunbecauseiliketoeat

A peak inside the crazy mind of me.....enter at your own risk

Hi guys! It's been awhile, my daughter has been giving me a run for my money lately, she's two going on sixteen. My son has been struggling with some things and honestly my mind has been in twenty different places at once. I've felt like a complete failure in almost every part of my life and the past few months I've been in a fog about everything. Just trying to make it to bedtime everyday, I've yet to get the 10lbs I gained at Christmas off and that has depressed me so much, I just keep messing up and I have no one to blame but myself. I know the number on the scale isn't what defines me but when I look in the mirror I see so many things I want different and I keep fighting but I'm just going in circles. I've let most of you down I'm sure because I haven't been as present on my page. For that I'm sorry, I just have felt like I can't motivate you when I can't even keep myself from messing up. There is a part of me that just wants to stop trying, to just say this is as good as it's going to get, I mean I lost 70lbs over the past two years....50lbs of them last year but I am still not where I want to be. I see so many of my friends who bounce right back to that "bikini body" after having babies and I hate myself because I was never there....even before kids. I have never had any confidence in myself. Running gave me so much, I felt so proud to be me just 4 months ago. But then I gained that 10lbs and I can't get it off and now I feel like a loser again because it should have been off by now, I've been trying since January for crying out loud....I should be at my goal which is twenty pounds from where I'm at now. Ugh. I just want to stomp my foot on the ground and scream WHY?! Why is it so so easy to gain weight yet so incredibly hard to lose it?! I always hit this point, I've been at this weight game for 11 years now.....I always hit this 10lb range and I can't get any more off. I was so determined this time last year and since August I just haven't been as strong with my will power and every week I say this is it I'm ready to get me back and every week I screw up and spend the rest of my week trying to make up for it and failing most of the time. Sure I lost three pounds last week but I'm already up for this week and I know I have two days left but I sure it won't be good because I screwed up this past weekend. It's been a vicious cycle, I feel a relief when I say I'm just going to stop for a bit, but every morning I wake up and think I can't stop, I can't give up and then I keep trying. My knee has been keeping me from running and that has just put me further down in my hole, everyday I'm prepared to try and then I get nervous about it and stay home. The few times I've actually gone out it's bothered me and that scares me because I don't want to cause long term damage but I miss running so much. The freedom, the struggle, the power it gave me. I miss it and I don't know what I'm going to do if I really truly can't do it anymore.
My struggle continues......it's April and I hope with everything in me by the end of 2014 I will have reached my goals and hopes of running a half marathon. I guess I'll keep trying because I know me and my obsessive mind.....I won't stop, I'll just keep beating myself up and hopefully I'll get off this loop and start moving forward again.