Let us eat SOUP!

Here’s a tasty soup recipe my good friend, Nicole, gave me a few years ago.  I’ve tweaked it a bit, so get your veggies a’ choppin and enjoy!!!

Ingredients:

One package/roll of Jimmy Dean low-fat sausage (mild or hot, depending on how you like it!)

1 16 oz. can of low sodium, low fat chicken broth (can be more or less depending on how thick you want soup)

1 14.5 oz. can Hunt’s diced tomatoes, basil oregano garlic flavor

2 small cans Hunt’s tomato sauce, basil oregano garlic flavor

1 package of frozen vegetable soup veggies (or, if you wanna do it yourself, go with some green beans, carrots, corn, peas…whatever you would like in a soup!)

2 zucchini, diced

2 yellow squash, diced

8-10 small red potatoes, diced

Dash of basil, to taste

Dash of oregano, to taste

Salt & pepper, to taste

Chili powder or cayenne pepper (my favorite), to taste

Dash of sugar

Parmesan cheese, shredded

Directions:

- Brown sausage in frying pain until fully cooked.

- In a large soup pot, combine all ingredients except the sausage and parmesan cheese.

- Once combined, add sausage to the mixture and let simmer on low for several hours.

- Add parmesan cheese to soup before serving, or in individual bowls (amount depends on taste desired).

**This recipe stores well in the fridge and makes a decent helping, so there’s plenty of leftovers to enjoy!

(this makes roughly 10 average size bowls of soup with each serving being around 285 calories…to cut out a lot of calories – 80 per serving – eliminate the potatoes!) BON APPETIT!

To tag team on Leigh’s previous post, I had to share about this food alert I received on one of my health blogs.  I’ll copy and paste from the blog:

Scary Meal #5
Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt with wavy fries and marinara
1,260 calories
63 g fat (21 g saturated, 1 g trans)
3,010 mg sodium

CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 18 T.G.I. Friday’s Frozen Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins

Apparently, Denny’s deemed the classic grilled cheese too boring for our novelty seeking taste buds, so they fixed it by driving four deep-fried cheese sticks into the core of the sandwich. So what you end up with are cheese sticks with extra cheese between slabs of buttered bread and a pile of fried potatoes on the side. If Denny’s was serious about improving the grilled cheese, they would have skipped the novelty and brought in big-flavor ingredients like sautéed mushrooms or sliced figs. But, of course, if they did that, they might not be able to sell this entire meal for $4. Here’s to cheap food and expensive health care!

*************

So, here is where I comment.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Do I need to say anything else?  Who actually EATS this kind of crap?!  And lives?!

Today I bring you a new feature on the blog.  I lovingly refer to it as “WTF World!?!?”  This feature will cover those things in life that make your brain bleed.  From food monstrosities, clothing disasters, nonsense fads and general Shenanigans that give you a reason to question the existence of the human race.  I can’t garantee that this new feature will always be family friendly or safe for work, but I do promise to warn you if it pushes those boundaries.

Today we present:  The Friendly’s Ultimate Grilled Cheese Burger Melt!!!

“This is what happy tastes like”

*Crickets chirping*

WTF Friendly’s?!?!  This is what HAPPY tastes like?!?!  At what point of your life do you hit rock bottom, and then…THEN…get handed one of these sandwiches to make it all better?!?!  And I ask you…have you tried Xanax?  Weighing in at 1500 calories and 94 grams of fat, a slight dependence on Xanax is looking better and better!!!

You are essentially eating THREE sandwiches PLUS french fries and a milkshake in one sitting!!!  It’s like a sloppy food orgy in your mouth!

The ONLY time this would even remotely seem justifiable is to a stoner with the munchies…in fact, I bet if I did a search to find out the origins of this sandwich I would probably find a reference to someone boasting about the creation this sandwich while stoned out of their gourd using a hotplate in a college dorm at 4am.

UPDATE:  Curiosity got the better of me, and I found my evidence…I give you the “Hamburger Fatty Melt”

I rest my case.

Friendly’s you should be ashamed of yourselves.  Atleast college kids can be excused…I mean how many of them actually have the food budget to make three sandwiches at one time?  But you, Friendly’s, have made this available for mass consumption and that is shameful.

Yet another seat in the quest for the perfect booty support for my rides…I know I declared the Schwinn hornless saddle the winner, and I still stand behind that…for short rides.  When I was doing 5-10 miles the seat was perfect.  But once we started to go for longer rides more frequently I started to have hip pain so you traded one pain for another.

Finally I threw in the towel and went to the bike store where we bought our new bikes and asked for their advice.  I mean lets be honest…after buying 4 seats on my own it was probably time for professional help…FROM THE BIKE STORE…don’t give me that look… 0_O

They pointed me in the direction of this seat.  The Bontrager Cruiser with what I like to call the “butt cut-out.”  The seat is very comfortable, the cut-out provides relief for your tailbone and the short horn doesn’t irritate your lady-bits like a normal seat. It also has deep shocks which helo with bumps.   I’ve now logged about 40 miles on this seat, one trip was 17 miles and I didn’t have any pain at all.

I think I might have found a winner.  Cindy and some random lady at the marina tried it out today as well and both liked it.  (I know, I know…you are probably saying to yourself “Well if some random lady endorsed it then it must be true.”  I know.  I thought the same thing.)

It’s more expensive than the Schwinn, it was $50, but you can just tell it’s a better seat.  Most of the accessories I bought for my bike so far are made by Bontrager, a company owned by Trek, and they all seem very durable and get high reviews.

About 2 weeks ago we lost a very important part of our family, our dog, Ozzy.  Ozzy was a bad bad dog.  He, in his earlier years, ate my Charles David shoes apart, chewed my pillows and peed on my bed.  As he aged, he scaled down to just peeing in the house and humping the pillows.

But no matter how bad he was, he was still my dog.  I miss him everyday. He was there for me when I needed him most.  He always kissed my tears away.  Even at the end, as he was sitting on my lap as we were waiting for the doctor to come in.  He looked up at me, as the tears were running down my cheeks, and kissed them away.

I will miss you, Oz.  You were a great friend. RIP.

This past week and a half has been BRUTAL for me.  I’ve been feeling like DOO DOO and it’s been all I can do to move, let alone work out.  I’ve managed to go on a couple of bike rides, but that’s about it.  What in the world?  Why do I feel like I’m 80?

I guess there is the good news that I’m not packing on the pounds.  Maybe my metabolism is cooperating and allowing me to be sick/feel ill/whatever and not feel ridiculous and fatty.  But, man, this has to stop.  I have NO energy.  I think I might try and go for a swim this evening.  Anything that doesn’t require intense impact on my body.

I wish I had some extra fund to buy a Wii fit board right now because it would be nice to do some sort of workout where I could crash on my couch afterwards!!! :O)

This afternoon we fly home to MD for the weekend.  This weekend will be filled with Family visits and great food at awesome restaurants so I have to be sensible about that haha.  I am not planning to work really hard at it.  We only get to eat at restaurants like this when we visit Mom & Dad so I am planning on enjoying myself.  LOBSTER GET IN MY BELLY!!!

The *good* news for all of the food shenanigans that will happen this weekend is that mom and dad live right across from the community fitness center, so even if I splurge I can just go pound the treadmills and elipticals for an hour to help make up for it. I’m packing my workout clothes and HRM so I have no excuse!

If I gain a pound, I gain pound.  Its worth it to enjoy my vacation.

So Sunday I leave for a week vacation with my parents and the kids (Mark for the weekend) to Villa Roma in the Catskill Mountains.  This place makes MTV’s Jersey Shore look like it was filmed at a library! The guidos will be out in full effect!

I am really looking forward to this vacation. I get to spend time with my parents and a TON of my cousins, aunts and uncles. BUutI am very aware that I need to prepare for this vacation. I am packing my wii and all the fit essentials. My workout clothes, my sneakers.  I am also bringing food for breakfast and lunch.  I know that dinner is going to be out for 7 days straight which worries me a little.  I know I am going to have to make the best choices I can.  It will just be hard surrounded by all that yummy goodness!

I also realize that I am on vacation. That doesn’t mean throw these past almost 2 months of hard work out the window.  However, it does mean I can live a little. I am afraid of stopping. I am afraid of failure.  BUT I have to swallow the pill that this is lifetime.  There is no finish line. I will be going on vacations, going to parties and having birthday cake. I just can’t live like I am on vacation for the rest of my life either.

Jillian Michaels Water Cleanse:

Follow for 7 days:

60 ounces of water

1 Dandelion Root Tea Bag

1 Tablespoon of no sugar added cranberry juice

2 Tablespoons of real lemon juice.

That’s it. I started yesterday. Since I am not getting on the scale till Friday, I don’t know if it is working, I do no I haven’t stopped peeing yet! LOL!

You know, when I first started on this whole healthy train, it was AWESOME to see those high calorie burn workouts.  Especially when I got my heart rate monitor and would bike 18 miles or so.  Seeing 1000+ calories exiting my body was fabulous!!!!

Now, what the heck?!  I am pushing myself just as hard (I think) and am riding just as much (I know, I have an odometer) and yet I’m barely touching the 800 mark on the same distance rides.  And forget the 10 mile daily rides.  I’m lucky if I can hit the 400 calorie mark that used to be easy to get in a good day’s workout.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the more you get in shape and the more weight you lose, the less your body wants to burn.  What a BITCH!

Therefore, I am making this declaration to my body.  ”Body, if you are going to treat me this way, you will no longer be able to get frozen yogurt as much as you used to.  Yeah, it sucks.  But, you will have to settle for 2-3 times a week instead of 4-5.  That’s just the way it is.”  And, if you want to hear that the way it should sound, just say it in Peter Griffin’s voice from Family Guy.

In addition to cutting back some on the frozen yogurt, I guess I will also be upping my workouts a bit.  I can’t just stick with the same ol’ same ol’ and expect different results.  I’m not going to kill myself, but I’m going to have to continue to push myself a little bit more each time.  The beauty of the HRM is that I can at least SEE that I need to push myself more in the moment, instead of just thinking I should.

So, here’s to stepping up my game a bit.  I’m going to give it a go after work today in the gym and see if I can rip through the treadmill a bit more than normal.  I’m also going to add some weights to my circuit routine and maybe another set of reps.  We all know that these arms need it, anyway!