The Nifty Foodie's Life

I feel like I write about weight loss a lot. It’s a big goal of mine to live a healthier lifestyle, since I’ve been a larger gal most of my life. I’m at that age where it’s time to start thinking about starting a family, and it sort of hit me.

I can’t keep living like this.

This time, I can’t keep living like this, because one day, I might get blessed with a kid. And that kid doesn’t need to learn from Mom’s unhealthy habits. That kid needs to learn healthy habits, and the best way to do that? You learn from your parents.

Now, this isn’t a jab at my parents. In fact, I was eating fairly healthy under their watch. I love almost every fruit and vegetable, because of them. I CAN eat healthy, y’all! (They totally did things right!)

So what happened? Well, independence happened. Once I got the freedom to eat on my own, I made mistakes. Mistake after mistake formed unhealthy habits, and those habits led me to my current overweight/unhealthy status. Some of those mistakes included eating unhealthy every day, eating WAY too much food, and no longer exercising as much as I used to.

So, now that I’m at the stage where my husband and I have a TTC date in our heads, it’s gotten more real. I have to change for our kids. I must. I’m really good at deadlines, because if you remember, I lost a good chunk of weight before the wedding. That dress HAD to fit, and I made darn sure it fit comfortably.

Then, the bad habits reared their ugly head, and I gained back a lot of that weight plus some! So, I’m back. I’m calorie counting. I will be exercising soon, and I will make a healthy lifestyle my new habit.

Since the New Year, I’ve lost 9.5 lbs. (what??!) Yup. 9.5 lbs. So, I’m doing this. I really am.

Of course, I can’t do this without some motivation. I offered myself rewards last time I lost weight, and this time will be no different.

Once I lose:

• 5% of my weight (or 15 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a pedicure.
• 10% of my weight (or 30 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini $50 fabric buying spree.
• 50 lbs., I’ll treat myself to a pair of fun, fancy shoes.
• 20% (60 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini-makeover at Sephora or MAC. Once I lose 60 lbs., I’ll be back to my wedding weight.
•  75 lbs., I’ll treat myself to some new workout clothes. I figure at this point, I SHOULD fit in XL/XXL in regular sized workout clothes, so BYE BYE plus sized workout clothes!
• 30% (or 90 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a fun Victoria’s Secret trip. I’ve never fit in VS before, but hopefully once I”m 90 lbs. down, I can get a few fun things there.
• ONEDERLAND (or 99 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to my first designer handbag.
• 110 lbs., I’ll treat myself to my first pair of fancy designer jeans.
• GOAL, which is 40% (or 120 lbs.), WE’RE (my husband and I, obviously) GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!! 

Lots of fun things to work for, right? I’m a measly 5.5 lbs. away from my first reward, and my toes CANNOT wait!

This is our first house. We lived here about three years, and it was an amazing little starter home. So many memories here…to name a few:

• we planned the majority of our wedding here (lots of DIY projects)
• this was our home after our honeymoon
• we hosted our first holiday here
• this was Millie’s first home
• this was where I learned how to sew
• this was where we had a LOT of DIY house projects

After a lot of thought, we decided it was time to move to a different area of town. We wanted to live in an area that had great schools for when we start a family. We also wanted a newer home with a good backyard. So, we moved here:

Since we got such an excellent deal on our house (and we weren’t sure how long those awesome interest rates would last), we decided to just scoop up this house and wait for our old house to sell.

And wait….for about four months. (yuck)

Well, today we CLOSED on our old house. We’re back to one mortgage, y’all!

So yeah…BIG HAPPY NEWS for us!

(Ok, so I have to know….how many of y’all thought the big news was a baby?)

Things have been a little quiet here. Oops! With two blogs, I usually find my stride with one and the other kind of just suffers. Since it’s the holiday season (aka baking season), I’ve been a little busy in the kitchen, so I’ve had a good bit to share on the other blog because of it. At the same time, I’ve been working on quite a few things non kitchen-wise, which I want to share with y’all.

One of the biggest pieces of news I have is that I entered a recipe contest. It was a local one that my newspaper held, and I stumbled upon it sitting in traffic reading one of those billboards that seems to flash from one ad to another. I immediately started brainstorming in my car when I saw “Holiday Dessert Recipe Contest”. I had two ideas in my head and the idea I tested out was a peppermint bark cheesecake truffle.

I ended up making one batch and brought it to my coworkers. I thought it was a decent dessert, but I mean, you are your own worst critic…I just thought it could be better. However, my coworkers started raving about these truffles and quite a few of them wanted the recipe. So I thought, maybe this truffle is perfect just the way it is. So that evening, I submitted the recipe.

To become a finalist, you had to be in the top 10 popular vote-wise. The hard thing about it was that if you wanted to vote, you had to register on the website. So, that made begging for votes even harder. I was in 7th or 8th place with votes in the end, so I barely squeaked by as a finalist. Whew!  (Thanks to all of you who voted for me!)

After I was selected as a finalist, I had to bring my truffles to the newspaper’s office for a taste test. I can’t tell you how nervous I was to bring those truffles to the office. What if they all HATED them? I started to doubt my recipe. So, I thought…maybe if I put them in a cute tin with some paper shreds, I might get some presentation points? (I have no clue if this was part of the judging criteria, but to me, a pretty dessert never hurts!)

I was told that they were announcing the winners on Saturday at a furniture store, which was 40 minutes away from our house. H offered to bring me, since he knows that I ::really:: needed to know and waiting until Monday for a possible phone call would just KILL me. So, we went.

I can’t tell you how nervous I was. My palms were sweaty, I had butterflies in my stomach and I kept telling my H that there was no way I placed. No way. Listening to some of the finalists, you could tell they knew what they were doing.

They announced 3rd place (wasn’t me)….2nd place (wasn’t me)…so, at this point, I told H at least I tried. The 2nd and 3rd place winners won gift certificates to a local grocery store, which to me, would have been completely awesome to put towards the Christmas dinner we were hosting! But yeah, didn’t win 2nd or 3rd place.

They go to announce 1st place, and my H is just smirking. I was 99% sure I was just going home empty-handed, because the 2nd place winner made a cheesecake. Why would they choose another cheesecake-type dessert to win? However, they said “Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles”.

WHAT?

I WON?

I looked at H and started tearing up like a dork. I’m such a dork. I couldn’t BELIEVE I won!

The prize for 1st place was a $1000 for Paula Deen furniture at the store. I already discussed with H that if I won, I really wanted to get my family a new sofa for Christmas. He was totally on board with the idea since my family’s sofa is/was about 20 years old and had DEFINITELY seen better days.

Sadly, the store didn’t carry Paula Deen sofas, but thankfully, the clerk who helped me allowed me to use the credit towards ANY sofa. SCORE!

So, my H and I finally found this sofa set that was discontinued on major sale. Not only were we able to get a sofa, but we also got my family a loveseat. I tried to keep it a surprise from my Mom as long as I could, but in the last few minutes, I had to spoil it, since we had to clear the old sofa and the stuff around it before the delivery people arrived.

Blurry shot, but here is the new set!

My family absolutely loves the new furniture, which makes me so happy. When it comes to the holidays, I care more about giving gifts than receiving them. I truly love to see the reactions of those I give gifts to, and this one just had me beaming.

Thanks so much to The Advocate for having this contest! Winning this contest was one of the big highlights of 2011 for me, and I’m sure it was for my family too!

This isn’t a happy post. Just a fair warning.

Sometime over the weekend, I straightened my hair for the first time in months. Yep, you read that right. Months.

The whole not straightening my hair wasn’t a ploy to get my hair to be healthier, but rather, it was me just not caring anymore. I used to straighten my hair every morning, because I felt that it made me appear more polished during the day.

Lately, since the weight gain has happened, I just don’t feel pretty anymore. I don’t care enough to straighten my hair or even wear make-up to work anymore. I used to love make-up, but I honestly feel that I’m ugly, fat and make-up/hair won’t undo a 50 lb. weight gain. I’d just be fat with make-up and straight hair.

If you can’t tell, my self image of myself is at an all time low. I don’t really buy clothes or shoes anymore, unless they get holes and need to be replaced. I air dry my hair and pack it all in a hair elastic. I don’t wear make-up. Weighing in at almost 300 lbs. drains me (yep, I’m almost 300 lbs. at the moment…gained a LOT of weight), and I really just don’t care anymore.

I read fashion/beauty blogs, and I think man, those girls are gorgeous. Just gorgeous. However, they’re also thinner. I read plus size blogs too, but those girls are like size 14-18. I’m a size 26. I’m the second to LAST size that the average plus size store carries. Talk about a boost…yeah, right.

And yes, before you ask, I’m trying to lose weight. Starting C25K today, actually and have been logging my calories on MyFitnessPal. However, I’m 50 lbs. away from my wedding weight, where even then, I still felt fat. Not super encouraging, but I know I have to do something about this weight.

With the holiday season approaching, I want to so badly just be happy. I want to smile and it not feel forced. I want to walk in public without feeling like someone is watching me in disgust. So, I’m going to put in a little more effort this holiday season and see how things go.

I bought two sweaters yesterday. Two sweaters that were not replacing torn sweaters, mind you.

I re-organized my make-up and threw away the old stuff.

I have the straightener and blow dryer on my counter ready to go.

And today, for the first time in a long time, I wore mineral foundation, eyeshadow (one shade, mind you), eyeliner and mascara to work.

The effort took 10 minutes, but I find that I’m sitting up a little straighter today and also thinking about healthier lunch choices. Maybe it’s the first day drive to success or maybe, just maybe a little bit of make-up is making me care a little more about myself.

We’ll see.  

NaBloPoMo has had me brainstorming more post ideas and I thought that I could share some cell phone pictures that I’ve caught throughout the week.

For Halloween, Millie was a yellow submarine. I actually bought the costume last Halloween on clearance, and miraculously, it still fit her. Well, except for the length. Ah well. She was still adorable!

We had the fence on our house installed sometime last week. It was a huge goal of ours to find the next house with a great yard for our dog, and finally, she has room to run around and play! It’s so awesome to give her a yard to play in since the new place we moved to doesn’t have a dog park.

This is a picture of LSU’s campus, which I took on Saturday. The campus was so quiet…gotta love away game weekends.

This week, I ordered some new food coloring. My Wilton dyes were dried out and I’ve been really wanting some Americolor dyes, since I’ve heard such great things about them on blogs. I can’t wait to use them!

Does this photo even need a caption? And no, it’s not a cell phone picture, but it really needs to be shared. LOL!  GEAUX TIGERS!