Phat to Fabulous!

So here I sit in the office on Good Friday and I can tell you one thing for sure, it would be a better Friday if I wasn't here at all! How about this isn't a holiday for our company, but it is like a ghost town here and apparently everyone requested off, except me. FIGURES! Anywho all of them being gone, means one thing...more time for me to play! whoooo hoooo!

Yahoo! Group
If anyone is interested Caroline Jhingory started a group on Yahoo.com The group shares nutrition information, successes and struggles. If you are interested in joining the group, click the button below.

1. Drinking too much alcohol or pop
2. Too little exercise or less effective routines
3. A reduced metabolism
4. Skipping meals too often
5. Eating too much sugar and salt
6. Not drinking enough water
7. Incorrect portion sizes
8. Unrealistic Goals

Now a lot of this is pretty self explanatory, however sometimes we forget about a lot of the little things and if 1 or even more of these begins to become an issue, we are just making matters worse. One of my biggest struggles is skipping meals. Its hard there are weeks when I work 50-60 hours, plus go to the gym, plus deal with the family and kids. There are days I have gotten in bed and realized, wait, I fed the kids and forgot to feed myself. WTF! I have been trying and really need to try harder to stick to a schedule of sorts. Try to prepare and take with me each day 4 or 5 little meals, with healthy snacks for work. Smaller more frequent meals help to speed up your metabolism, faster metabolism means an easier time dropping those pounds. Here are a few snacks I have found that are easy on the hips:

Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs - These are pretty good, especially the Oreos. They are like little cookie chips. The Oreos are like thin wafers of the chocolate cookie, but they really taste the same, just no filling to lick out the middle. The Chips Ahoy are not that bad either. I have been warned by a friend to steer clear of the Ritz cracker 100 calorie packs. The good thing about these little packs is there is no thinking to it when it comes to figuring out how many calories you took in. They're 100 Calories!

Orville Redenbacher's SmartPop - I love popcorn, I could eat popcorn all day. The good thing about the OR SmartPop is you don't have to feel guilty about eating the whole bag. Lord knows I have eaten the whole bag plenty of times. Each bag has 2 servings at 110 calories each. That means the whole bag of popcorn is only 220 calories. That is less than the calories in a half a King sized bag of M&Ms. I know trust me! Plus SmartPop comes in regular, butter and kettle corn flavors, so you can change up and add a little variety every once in a while.

Baby Carrots and light/fat-free dressing - I love carrots, one vegetable I don't mind eating. The good thing about using carrots as a snack as is that they aren't bad when it comes to calories. You can have 15 medium sized raw baby carrots for under 60 calories, to give it a little kick add your favorite light/fat-free salad dressing. I like the peppercorn ranch or house italian. Gives me something crunchy to munch on when I am working at my desk all day long without the guilt of chips or vending machine crap!

Strawberries - Maybe my mother eating buckets and buckets of strawberries when she was pregnant with me has something to do with it, but strawberries are my absolute favorite fruit. You can have a cup of whole strawberries for under 45 calories. You are lucky if you get a batch that are already pretty sweet, depending on the time of year. If you get a batch that aren't that sweet try adding a little Splenda too it. I like to cut them up in the morning and put them in a plastic bag and let the soak in the Splenda until lunch, then they have a light syrup. YUM! The good thing about the Splenda is that it is a zero calorie sweetener, which means if you have another 45 calories to spare, why not have another cup of strawberries!

Those are just a few things I like to try to cut the cravings. Speaking of which, I need to go to the grocery store, I am running low on every single one of these! What do you use to stifle your sweet tooth?

The silence is deafening

There is no one here but me now, I haven't seen another human being for some hours. I think I am going to cut out of here. I have some stuff I could start on, but I don't want to do that when I get off in 20 minutes anyway. I will take care of that over the weekend, or on Monday, no big deal, its nothing urgent. I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Easter, I'll be back at the grind on Monday, until then....Holla at ya girl!