I had a great turkey day! It was my first year and it went pretty good but there are always those things you can only learn by trial and error lol.

I woke up to my alarm at 6am and it felt like I had just shut my eyes. But I HAD to get a 26 pounder so I had to wake up early enough to get it in the oven so it would be done by 1:00. I could have done it the night before but there is some sort of tradition in the process of running yourself ragged on Thanksgiving. I got up and started on my stuffing. I could have asked my Mom for help but I really wanted to do it on my own (THANK GOODNESS FOR GOOGLE!) I prepared everything besides the salad and pumpkin pie.

I was really trying not to make typical rookie mistakes and I didn't have too many! I forgot to buy string to tie the turkey legs together & I was really upset I forgot to get taper candles for the table but other than that I think my new take on green bean casserole could use some tweaking and I really need to learn how to roll a crescent roll lol - I made my great Grandmas finger rolls and just in case they didn't come out right I made crescent rolls and let's just say they looked pretty sad! I'm glad the finger rolls came out just right...

Now... to get the heated part of my day...literally. I was boiling my potatoes in a big pot I borrowed from my Mom for the mashed potatoes and after 10 minutes of the burner being on Michael comes in and says it's on fire! The freakin' pot was so heavy it pushed the burner on my stove down and it ended up catching fire to something that was under the burner! I am just glad I remembered that trick my Mom taught me in case of a stovetop fire and that is to pour salt on it until it goes out. I always keep a big container nearby for that reason and it saved the day for me. It made a salty mess and in the end I ruined my Moms pot and the potatoes came out lumpy but they were tasty & that's all that matters! That's another thing; I don't have a mixer. I just have a hand masher but the stupid thing was the same height as the potatoes I was mixing up so it was a fun time. (Note the sarcasm)

Anyhow.... That was my Thanksgiving in a nutshell! I hope you all had a good one too!

PS: I still have yet to hear from the Dr.Oz show about an air date/time. I looked online and it said after a show does it's taping it can take up to a month or more for it to reach the air.

OK! So I'm going to spill the beans with my exciting news that I was talking about in one of my previous posts for it is now official!

Last week, out of the blue, I got notified from the DR.OZ show. They came across my weight-loss video on YouTube and want to use part of it for one of their upcoming segments! I am BEYOND thrilled! If you guys could have only seen me minutes after I got the news; Michael wouldn't let me stand up I was shaking so bad with excitement! It took me a good hour & a shot of vodka to compose myself before I contacted them back. As of right now I do not have the airing date or time. They are going to notify me with that information & from there I will let you guys know so you can watch too! My 5 seconds of fame! LOL - UNREAL! :-D

So there it is, I spilled the beans! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried that Cauliflower crust for dinner tonight. I took a head of cauliflower, chopped it up and microwaved it for 10 minutes until it was soft. Then I put it in my blender with 2 eggs, onion powder, mozzarella cheese, 2 minced garlic cloves, pepper & salt. I mixed it up to a mashed potato consistency and then smoothed it out on a pizza pan. I baked it at 450 for 30 minutes and then sprinkled some more mozzarella on top and let that brown for 5 more minutes. In the end I didn't like it! I think I pureed my cauliflower too much. The end result looks better than it was. It was really hard to hold up a piece and it wanted to fall apart to mush. I ended up making myself a mixed green salad and had that instead for dinner. The next time I attempt the cauliflower crust I'm going to bake it a bit longer and try to not blend it so smooth lol. Doesn't that final product look appetizing though?! I wish it would have come out right!

Well I went grocery shopping today for Thanksgiving/just in general. I got lemons, sweet potatoes, boneless skinless chicken breasts, lettuce and everything that I needed for Thanksgiving. I got a 26 pound turkey! It's a doozey! As I mentioned in my previous post, this is my first year doing Thanksgiving dinner at my house. I am all set! Just waiting on Thursday.

I still have been great! I feel good and I have been making better choices. I had a cheat day this past Friday. Michael and I ordered out pizza. I have been keeping up with my workout routine and feel back on track. I just have a few pounds left to lose from what I had gained back.
 
When I went shopping earlier I got some cauliflower and I am going to try this cauliflower crust that I have been wanting to try forever. Now there is a recipe floating around on how to make a cauliflower crust garlic bread sticks and I think I am going to try it. I will let you guys know how it turns out!

I also have some exciting news to share but I am not going to say just yet. I am waiting for things to be more finalized then I will spill the beans! I'm just dying to tell!!!!! (And NO, I'm not pregnant or anything like that)

Things couldn't be going better. I have had a couple cheat days this past week but have been doing good with keeping up with things. I have been busy so I have put off posting.

This year is my first year I am doing Thanksgiving. Growing up I have helped my Mom but have never been the one fully in charge. It's going to be at my house and I have been all other the place with what I want to do. In the end I think I might just do a traditional dinner for my first year. I don't want to stress myself out any more than I need to lol. So far I'm thinking I'll just do a stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, a bread basket, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes & I have assigned my Mom to do the salad & pie. I'm still on the hunt for a good stuffing recipe! I still have to go shopping!

Here is to starting this week on a good note!

It's only been a little over a week since I've been back in the swing of things and I am already noticing weight-loss in my face! Like I have said before, face fat is the first to go for me. I'm excited!

Yesterday I finally cozied up my workout space in the basement. We moved a TV down there and hooked up surround sound so I can really jam out now! It's more inviting and my workouts go much smoother since I'm not as anxious for it to be over and head back upstairs.

I missed breakfast and lunch today. I had baked chicken for dinner & had 2 cups of coffee this morning. Once again I forgot to do my lemon water. I even got it all ready to go the night before! I have been keeping up with my water jug but not with my green tea. I also have not been taking my apple cider vinegar tablets that I have talked about before because I am completely out and have to order more. I still have been taking my daily multivitamin.

Yesterday was tough for me. I ended up cheating with a Hershey bar that Michael had bought. He had 2 and it's that time of the month for me so there was no stopping me. Once again I stuck Michael in a hard place. I tell him to NOT let me cave and cheat on stuff but yet I hold a knife to his throat for a candy bar. Totally joking about the knife part...... It was the death stare that won the battle. I didn't have to go that far.

I missed breakfast and cleaned through lunch, and then the DIRECTV guy came. I had a baked boneless skinless chicken breast for dinner with a baked sweet potato cooked with extra virgin olive oil. I rolled the chicken breast in bread crumbs. It was pretty good! 492 calories including; egg wash, bread crumbs and olive oil.

I fail on the workout front today and I have yet to get back to drinking my 5 cups of green tea. It's tough! Especially for me on the weekends. I hope you all are enjoying your weekend and I will not be posting tomorrow. Talk at ya on Monday!

I had a scare there for a couple days! The site I go through for my blog must have been doing some updates. I wrote an entry the day before yesterday and when I posted it came up page not found?! It also automatically sends a link to my Facebook and it didn't. I could see my main page on my phone but when I went on my desktop EVERYTHING was gone. My heart sunk for a moment but it's all good! If I lost everything I would be devastated! Now I'm looking into seeing if I can back it up so if it were ever to get lost in cyberspace I would still have all my entries. So in saying this I couldn't get on yesterday to write a post.

Today is my cheat day. I have earned it! I have been so good this week with everything! I'm going to have Fridays be my cheat days like I used to. I have today off, normally I work Mon-Fri but one Dr. at the place I work has been out of the office so they have given days off. The Dr. will be back next week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do today. I might go out of town with my Mom but I know I need to clean. I still have Halloween decorations up (which I don't mind) but I'm waiting to take most of them down for the fact that I bought a lot of new stuff this year and have no idea where I am going to store it all! If I go with my Mom today I'll have to hit up Wal-Mart and get some storage bins or something. We have a DirecTV guy coming out tomorrow between 12-4 to install our new upgrade! We already have DirtecTV with one receiver and are upgrading to 2 and getting the Genie DVR. We are pretty excited! No more missing our shows that overlap each other and no more fighting for shows with Michael LOL.

Yesterday I was in such a rush in the morning that I didn't do my lemon water OR coffee. I had a grilled chicken salad for lunch and for dinner I had a veggie sub from Subway on 9 grain honey oat. Today I am not sure what I'll cheat with. It all depends if I go out of town or not because I'm sure we'll grab lunch somewhere but I am going to try and avoid junky fast food. I love how when I get all into this again that McDonalds comes out with new crap! Every time! I am jealous but I need to get over it! I know it will not be good if I give in to that because I will become just how I used to be! Even on my cheat days I need to avoid it. Keeping that will-power strong because Mickey D's is my weakness! I did get my grilled chicken salad from there yesterday but I really like them! I know people say getting a salad from there is ridiculous but whatever, they whip together a good one and it's low in calorie so shut up! :-)

I hope you all have a good weekend!

I woke up 15 minutes early with the intention of eating a quick oatmeal breakfast and have my lemon water. Well I got the lemon water down but I just could not find the appetite to eat first thing this morning so I ended up skipping breakfast. I then made myself a cup of coffee that I took to work and had another cup of coffee later on. For lunch I went to Subway again. I am going to try to do that often because I enjoy their veggie subs and it's easy. I figured I would spend more money in other junky fast food anyways. I got a foot long veggie sub on 9 grain honey oat bread. I ate half for lunch and then I had the other half for dinner. I also had some pretzels with the half that I had for dinner. I get every veggie on it besides jalapenos and banana peppers. I like that I get all my veggies in and it keeps me feeling full for a while. I got 9 grain honey oat bread today but I usually get it on flat bread. Calorie wise flat bread is the lowest. Which I find crazy because it feels so indulgent! If you go on Subways website you can put together your own sub with everything you get on it and it will tell you how many calories it is. I found it handy. For my ENTIRE foot long sub today it was 360 calories. That includes pepper jack cheese & my condiments; light mayo and yellow mustard. If I get it on flatbread it is 10 calories less. Also I don't even realize the meat is missing.

Today I am slacking with my workout. My basement is clean but it isn't cozy yet and I hate it! This weekend I'll get on that. I know I should have sucked it up and did a full workout but today I have that "I don't care" attitude. I ended up bringing Michaels bow flex weights upstairs and did different lifts with those. I almost caved today too on the food front. For one I was ---> this <--- close to grabbing candy at work and for two I almost got chips instead of pretzels at the gas station. I'm glad I didn't. I'm surprised I even lifted weights! I know when I was walking into Subway earlier I was getting whiff's of yummy greasy food from a restaurant nearby. I had to stop myself from wanting to go in the wrong direction!

I also weighed myself this morning and I have lost some weight since I weighed in a couple of days ago! I was surprised! So far, so good. I just gotta keep it up!

In the end of cleaning out my kitchen from junk food I ended up with FOUR paper bags (1 not pictured) FULL of junk food! All the way from canned sliced potatoes & black olives to pancake mix & syrup. A bunch of bad choices if you ask me. I gave all the bags of food to my Mom which she was happy to take :-) It wasn't easy but I needed to get rid of it all in order to proceed with this process.

Today I woke up and made a cup of coffee that I took to work with me. I have yet to get back into the groove of my green tea and lemon water but it's only a matter of time because I'm getting myself a thermos and am going to make a pot of green tea and drink it throughout the day at work. I have no excuse for not doing my lemon water this morning. I do have a couple lemons in the fridge, I just didn't do it. I have plans to start that tomorrow. For lunch today I had raw broccoli and for dinner I had a veggie sub on flatbread from Subway. I need to go shopping and get some healthy stuff but only to a bare minimum! I will only buy what I need to survive LOL.

We have this candy bowl at work from Halloween and I am proud to say my fingers came no where near it today! I was tempted many times but stayed strong ;-) It's the little things....

I also got my workout in! I need to make my workouts a priority and feel the need to have to do them before my head hits the pillow. Today I did a workout in the basement after work. I did a half hour on my elliptical/recumbent bike and lifted weights and I feel really good. These past couple workouts have been pitiful but I know as time goes on I will only get stronger and stronger. I AM DETERMINED.