Just Me

It was my first day back at work today and we had a meeting day which means sit on your butt and listen to someone else talk all day. It's a nice way to come back after vacation because my mind doesn't have to be 100% sharp. Anyways, I knew I would be doing lots of sitting so I wanted to be cozy and comfortable.

Sweater: Martin and Osa
Top: Forever 21
Pants: Gap
Boots: Naturalizer

It was very freeing confessing my weight gain to you a couple of day ago. Last night while picking out today's outfit, I felt great. I popped 5 outfits together within a half an hour. Before Christmas vacation, I would debate on clothes for a loooong time. I was so worried about looking thin and good for my blog picture. Like seriously, an hour to pick out one outfit. That's sad and a major waste of my time. It's feels nice to just be me.

What's For Supper? Meatloaf!

Clean meatloaf that is.

This recipe is one of my favorite clean eating recipes from Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Cookbook. As I made it tonight, I'd thought I'd share it with you.

Now, be forewarned, this recipe takes a bit of prep. It's not something you can quickly whip together after a work day. I usually save it for Sunday dinners. Why? Because two ingredients have to be made before. One is cooked brown rice. I made a big pot of it on Friday as it takes forever to cook and I throw it in a lot of stuff (my favorite - tuna and brown rice sandwiches). The other ingredient that needs to be made beforehand is yogurt cheese.

Yogurt cheese is just yogurt with a lot of liquid drained off. It looks like cream cheese. To make it, set a strainer lined with 4 layers of cheese cloth in a bowl. Dump some yogurt in there and let it sit overnight. Tada, you have yogurt cheese. It should look something like this.

Notice all the liquid in the bowl. I made this up Saturday night so I was all set to make meatloaf today.

The rest of the ingredients.

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey
1 c. brown rice, cooked
1 egg
3/4 c. yogurt cheese
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. chopped bell pepper, any color
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp tamari
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano

I also sneak some mushrooms in there but don't tell RDog (he doesn't like them).

My tip for chopping onions . . .

. . . a Cuisinart Mini Chopper. This was a wedding present and I use it all the time.

I have a confession; I hate to touch meat. For this recipe you really have to get up close and personal with the meat to mix it all up. My solution; latex gloves.

All ready to go in the oven. Bake it at 350 for an hour.

To go with the meatloaf, I cut some sweet potatoes in half and brushed them with olive oil.

I cooked them for an hour too and then scooped out the yummy potato. I do this to avoid doing a lot of potato cutting. Sweet potatoes are hard to cut! I also steamed up some frozen veggies.

The end result.

And then I topped it all off with desert; a square of dark chocolate.

Mmmmm. . . my belly is happy tonight.

A Weighty Issue

It's the new year and all around the world it seems that people are focusing on losing weight and eating healthier. I, too, am going to jump on the bandwagon.

Over the last six months or so, I've gained about 10 pounds. It's enough to make most of my clothes not fit right and to make me not to want to post my outfit of the day pictures. It's rare that I get an outfit I feel "pretty" in any more. Notice that my monthly post count went way down hill last August - that's why.

Maintaining a healthy weight has been a struggles of mine over the past 8 years, but it wasn't always so. When I was growing up, I was stick thin and I could eat whatever. Don't you just hate people like that. Then I graduated from university the first time with a degree in history and found that I had the least employable degree ever. I was saddled with thousands of dollars of student loans and had no job. I sat on the couch for a summer, depressed, and ate chips to comfort myself. At the end of the summer, when I put my sun dresses away, I realized that none of my pants fit me. I had gained a lot of weight (and had the stretch marks to prove it).

I finally did find a job. Actually RDog did. He got me a customer service job at his former office for the grand salary of $10/hour. The unhealthy eating continued. Looking back now, I realize that I was really depressed. This was not a high point in my life.

Two years after graduating from university, I got my shit together and decided to go back. I enrolled at the University of Maine to get my teaching degree. I can't believe I am going to show this picture. This was when I first visited the campus in 2005. I am 5'10" and I think I was about 200 pounds.


It really grosses me out to look at this.

The combination of being happier with my life, eating regular, albeit, cafeteria meals and starting to use the gym, caused me to lose about 20 pounds. By the time I was finished my degree I was weighing around 175 pounds.


Here I am being a goof on one of my last days at university.

Flash forward to January, 2008. I was getting married and needed a dress. I don't know what I was thinking but I ordered a wedding dress on EBay. Actually I do know what I was thinking; I found the designer dress of my dreams (Pronovias white lace) for a steal ($400). I heard wedding dresses run small so without looking at measurements, I ordered a non-returnable dress in a size 12, one size larger that my normal 10. When the dress arrived, I realized that in Pronovias dress land, a size 12 is really like a size 6. I couldn't even get the dress up over my butt it was so small! This gorgeous wedding dress gave me the motivation to get my butt in gear and really get healthy.


I mean, look at the lace and beading. So beautiful.

So I had the motivation to get healthy, all I needed was the knowledge. Step in this book

I discovered how to eat clean and boy did I eat clean. Lots of oatmeal, tuna, chicken, egg whites, veggies and fruit. I was so hard core I gave up cheese - CHEESE (I love me some cheese). I also started using an elliptical about 5 times a week. Before I knew it, it was May and my bridal shower and I looked like this (and weighed 147 pounds!). And I loved it.


I love this picture because you can see my pretty white smile. All my life I never smiled in pictures because I had one very crooked tooth. It stuck in and made me look like I was almost missing a front tooth. I was NOT going to let my tooth ruin my wedding pictures. One veneer was all it took. Best money I ever spent!

Anyways, our wedding day arrived and it truly was the best day of my life. Oh, and the dress fit. :-)


Excuse the goofy pose, it was hard to find a picture without someone else in it. RDog prefers to remain anonymous.

After my post wedding feed of pizza (I ate it while wearing my wedding dress while my groom was passed out beside me - romantic eh :-) and a feeding frenzy during our cruise honeymoon, I kept on with the clean eating, but on a lighter level. I ate cheese and butter once again. I was able to keep my weight in the low 150s and was happy with that. Remember, I'm 5'10'. But over time, I forgot more and more of the eating clean principles and ate more and more junk. I knew I was gaining weight but didn't really want to deal with it besides drowning my sorrows in a bag of chips.

It all came to a head this past week when I stepped on the scale and was shocked. I can't believe I am going to tell you this (I am really getting up close and personal with this post) but I weighed 166 pounds. I went to the closet and took out the stack of jeans I haven't worn in months because deep down I knew they wouldn't fit and well, I tried them on. And there it was staring me straight in the face. My jeans wouldn't fit. I had gained too much weight. Enough, I thought. This is enough.

I dug out my eat clean books and sat down to have a good read. It came back pretty quickly. I made my grocery lists and hit the bulk barn for my oats and spices and other odd things that the checkout girl didn't recognize. I started cooking instead of reaching into the freezer and popping something processed into the oven. And I posted this to hold me accountable. Yes, I've gained weight but gosh darn I'm going to lose it!

So there's my story. Thank you for sticking with me through it. I plan on posting regular updates on my clean eating to get my on task. And hopefully the outfit pictures with start to return once I start to feel better about the way my clothes look on me.

Best of 2010

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and posting my top ten outfits of 2010.

1. I pretty much copied this outfit from Kendi Everyday. Maybe that's why it's so good.

2. I felt like a movie star for this one.

3. In my hair growing out saga, this was one of the first times I managed an updo.

4. Who says teachers can't dress up for prom too. This was also my first non-headless picture posted on my blog.

5. This has everything an outfit needs; a bow, lace and a cardigan.

6. I do wear pants sometimes.

7. Easy breezy summer wear and a really good hair day.

8. I like this one because I finally got things together and wore one of my scarves. I have a huge collection but rarely wear them.

9. A few of my favorite things; my bow belt and a Jackie cardigan.

10. Another day, another Jackie cardigan.

Thanks for sticking with me and happy new year blogging world!

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone is having a great holiday week. Here is our very bare living room decked out for Christmas. The living room now features my Christmas present, ghost chairs! All I wanted for Christmas was ghost chairs and my house painted. I got the ghost chairs but the painting hasn't arrived so I'm still slaving away at it. There are no outfit shots for this week because I am either in my painting clothes or my juicy pants. Not very fashionable stuff!

It's a Wet Christmas.

Cardigan: J Crew
Tank: Banana Republic
Skirt: Ricki's
Shoes: Naturalizer - They're not the same old black or brown ones. These are new and they're gray!

It's been a crazy few days weather wise in my part of the woods. Sometimes during this time of year, buses come early to take kids home from school because of snow and bad roads. Today the buses came early because it has been raining so much that bridges and roads were flooded out. Is it possible to get a rain day? I might find out tomorrow. . . It's not looking like a white Christmas for us.

Pretty Tree

Cardigan: J Crew
Skirt: J Crew
Shoes: Naturalizer

I'm not sure what I'm looking at in this picture. Perhaps the empty spot on the top of the tree. I"m not sure what to put up there for a tree topper. It has to be white and sparkly.

We finally got our real tree this weekend. The fake one is in the basement with colored lights and mismatched ornaments. It has been up since November. This is the "pretty tree". I love the smell of real trees. It's making me start to get excited!!!!