Weight Loss Diary 6: Week #3 -- beat new goal

Another week passed by. The very first goal I set, when I started, for end of this month was down to 149lb. And that goal was achieved on June 17, 1.5 weeks ahead. So I set the new goal for end of the month to be 147 lb. Now, happy, and proud to say, end of 3rd week, today, I am at 146.5lb -- beat the goal again!! That's 1.5 pounds melted away since last Monday.

grape

DIY: painting bedroom

Everyone can paint :) I was told painting is probably one of the easiest projects everyone can do and almost all home owners should have done this at least once.

So we got all the painting tools from Home Depot, and bought the paint from Benjamin Moore. Spent a day, then the bedroom has a fresh new look.

Before:

In progress:

After:

Do you like it?

How to make kids like pancake

It is hard to convince my kids that those round shaped pancake is yummy, and in fact, I agree they are a bit dry and boring to eat.

Then yesterday, I made this, they ate them all.


Today, they asked for more. With some cookie cutter, not a problem anymore to make different shapes and kids are entertained.



Now, breakfast has one more option. :)

Handmade Beaded Pendant

Beaded cross pendant, it is more beautiful than I thought. And it was easier than I thought to make.

Gift: Pendant Earrings Set

Have some blue glass beads left, I made a beaded pendant, didn't follow any instruction or pattern, it was just afflatus/impulse of the day. It uses 12 beads.

Take a closer look:

Then wrapped in this purple gift box. It was made of a purple folder :) I have shown how to make gift box before.

I hope my friend would like this gift. Would you? :)

Simple and Healthy Dish -- Green Bean

Same way to cook the healthy Asparagus , green bean is as yummy and healthy.

Tips: To keep the green bean green while cooked, adding some sugar would help -- don't ask me why, my dad told me years ago.

Today's lunch - Stir-fry Beef

This is my typical lunch I bring to work while I am on weight loss plan now -- it is under 500 calories.

And coincidently, Martha Stewart's Dinner Tonight posted the "same" dish -- it looks alike, but mine is more simplified :)

This is Martha's:

What do you think?

:)

Weight Loss Diary 5 -- 2nd week, on right track

Another week flew by. I feel confident I am on the right track to reach my ultimate goal of my weight loss journey. In the past week, I walked 35 - 45 minutes every day. Did the fat burn pilates couple times (each 20 minutes).

After reaching the end-of-month goal in advanced, my lowest measurement was 147.5 on 6/20 morning. Then there came in the guilt, I went to buffet with the family on Saturday night! (That's part of the life of being a mother of two young kids, buffet has been our only choice when we dine out, simply because ordering dishes have limited chances for our picky kids to like). And I see how bad buffet is now -- next day measurement up at 148.5!!! So all Sunday, I felt so guilty and trying to find a long term solution to balance my need and my family's.

Even so , after these "ups and downs", my goal is proven to be achievable and my plan is realistic. End of this 2nd week landed at 148. Keep it up! Cheers...

P.S.:

Measure is daily, may have deviation, but the trend is there.

Rabbit Sandwich

It was fun to make food with kids. They were always pround to make food themselves :) and would eat what they made.

Sweet Dinner Rolls 2: Transform --> Bread Stick

The same well rated Sweet Dinner Rolls recipe, you can have your imagination and be creative to transform into many other shapes. :) How do you like my bread stick and bread bear?

10 years old photo -- taken from Canyon, TX

Totally different from Boston, Canyon is a small town in West Texas. It leaves me very good memories of the student life in a very peaceful and nice town with a lot of friendly people.

Sweet Dinner Rolls

Found a wonderful sweet dinner roll recipe. It has almost 1000 reviews, all 5 stars. So many people have said good about this recipe, and I have tried it too many times, there is no reason you can't do it or not coming out well. :)

And you can do any shapes, they all came out great.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1/2 cup warm milk
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup butter, softened

Crab Apple Tree Blossom

I was organizing some old pictures and found this lovely one.

Beautiful crap apple tree in the back yard. It blooms early May of every year.

Weight Loss Diary 4 -- Joy of first goal achievement

This time of weight loss determination and plan came with a lot of research and book reading – to make sure plan is achievable in a healthy way and can be carried out successfully.

The first book I read cover to cover is “THE 4 DAY DIET” by Dr Ian Smith. Amazon has 4.5 start on this books review. My take away from reading this book is:

• · Make realistic goals – this is where my joy of first goal achievement came from. I have 30 pounds to lose, I don’t expect to achieve this in 2 weeks, or 2 months. After plenty of research, I know it is recommend to lose 1-2 lb a week. My goal is 1 lb a week. My first goal is to get below 150 lb to reach 149 by 6/29. And I MADE IT today! 1.5 weeks ahead my schedule. I feel happy, I feel more confident, it is just a lot of joy.

• · Every bite counts – some food is really high calories, I used to not care about small bites and give myself excuse for those snacks. But now each time whenever I think of a 2x2 inch brownie has 200 calories, I stop the craving. J

• · Resist temptation – I have done it, and will continue resisting temptation.

Now, continue working hard toward melting away 1 pound a week, and stick with my schedule/calendar.

Recommending children's reading website starfall.com

One of my friends just told me about this website http://www.starfall.com/. My to-be-kindergartener son and pre-schooler daughter just fell in love with this website.

Tonight, we read the Chinese Fables (http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/chinese-fables/load.htm?f) together. They just love all the stories and I am so surprised they fostered the interest of Chinese culture/stories in this way, via this website. All Chinese fables/idioms were just directly translated to English, it is a bit funny, but it just worked great and lead the kids raised a lot of questions and had a lot of chuckles along the way.

How many of these Chinese Fables do you know about?

Draw Dragon Dot Eyes

Dung-Shi Copies Eyebrows

Yay-Gung Loves Dragons

One Rice Thousand Gold

Morning Three Night Four ------->My son's favorite :)

Cup Bow Snake Reflection

Thanks to starfall, and highly recommend to all moms with school age kids.

Simple & Elegant Pendant Necklace

I came across to this pendant the other day, just like it and decided to make it into a pendant necklace.

You will need the following materials and tool -- leather cord is very inexpensive too.

After 10 minutes crafting work:

Enjoy!

Weight Loss Diary 3 - First week, good start

A lot of tempation in the past week -- a number of company conf events, where food and drinks were provided all day long. Being determined, I didn't eat a bite of any of these food!

Now I also pay a lot more attention to nutrition labels. And surprised how much calories I take everyday in the past and how I gain all the weight!!!!

One bowl of instance noodle -- 400 calories

1/2 peanut with shell -- 170 calories

2 chocolate cookies -- 220 calories

2in X 2in brownie -- 200 calories

1 can of coke -- 170 calories

1 smallest bag of chip -- 80 calories

And now I know I only burn 100 calories by brisk walking for ONE MILE. Then conclusion is sipmle, I am NOT going to eat any of these junk food ANYMORE!!!

Okay, what's after 1st week? I did fast walk every morning for 2.4 miles -- that's about 30-40 mimutes. I don't know how much calories I have everyday because a lot of Chinese food don't have label or hard to calculate, but one thing for sure is that I take at least 300-500 calories less than before by skipping snack and soft drinks. So, as a result, I achieved the first week's goal -- lost 1.5 - 2.5 pound!!! What a good start! Most importantly, I feel happier and more confident for my looooooooooong weight loss journey!

Weight Loss Diary 2 -- Say No to temptation

Starting my weigh loss journey by no means to say I stop cooking :) I just need to be a selfless mom who cooks the food but not the one to eat it. :)

Home made fries -- for the kids (including husband) in my family.

Fried dumpling

First 3 weeks blogging

Time flies, before I know it, it has been 3 weeks since I started blogging -- All about things I like to do -- crafting, cooking, baking, gardening and whatever a busy working mom can do.

From the Garden

Nothing is healthier than home grown :)

DIY: Handmade Gift Box with Cards

We have quite a few Valentine Cards left, I am going to show how to use a greeting card to make a cute gift box.




Divide the card into two piece, score 1 inch edge and cut the 4 corner like the pic below, then fold along the scoring mark. then glue into a box shape :)

Put all your little pressures inside.

Then a nice ribbon.

Enjoy.