Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potatoes

My first ever experience making St. Patrick's Day dinner was a complete success.  The corned beef was juicy and flavorful, and the vegetables were cooked to perfection.  There are only 7 ingredients, and it all went straight into the crock pot, which made for very easy prep.  The hardest part was chopping the veggies!  The original recipe I used is here.

You will need: 

4 large carrots, peeled and cut into matchstick pieces 

10 baby red potatoes, quartered  

1 onion, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

4 cups water 

1 (4 pound) corned beef brisket with spice packet 
6 ounces beer (I didn't have any at the time so I omitted the beer and it still came out fine)
1/2 head cabbage, coarsely chopped 

Look at that beautiful hunk of meat!  And what a wonderful job of chopping veggies someone did...

Directions: 
-Place the carrots, potatoes, and onion into the bottom of a slow cooker, pour in the water.
-Place the brisket on top of the vegetables. Pour the beer over the brisket. Sprinkle on the spices from the packet, cover, and set the cooker on High. 
-Cook the brisket for about 8 hours. An hour before serving, stir in the cabbage and cook for 1 more hour. That means total cook time is 9 hours, so be prepared!

Nothing says Irish like corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes

Perfectly cooked corned beef

Delicious veggies

Ta-da!!!

Pesto Ranch Crock Pot Chicken

I'm excited to share my first crock pot recipe with everyone!  This recipe that I made during week 5 was so easy and so yummy.  There are only 4 ingredients, which was what initially drew me to the recipe, and using a crock pot just makes everything so much easier in general anyway (original recipe here). 

You will need: 
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs (I used 6 breasts and it worked just fine)
6 ounce jar of pesto 
1 package Ranch Dressing Seasoning Mix 
1/2 cup chicken broth (use the low sodium kind if you can find it!)

Raw chicken, chillen

Directions:
-Turn crock pot to high setting.
-Place chicken thighs, pesto, ranch dressing and chicken broth into crock pot.
-Stir gently to combine all seasonings.
-Close with lid and cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8 hours.

Finished product!

I served the chicken with some rice and it was just so moist and juicy, I got great reviews from my friends/taste testers!

Nutrition info generated from livestrong.com for 6 chicken breasts (the ones I used were about 9 oz each so they were pretty big), per serving: Calories 455, Fat 16.3g, Saturated Fat 2g, Cholesterol 151.7g, Sodium 1257.8g, Carbs 6.8g, Dietary Fiber 0.7g, Sugars 1.4g, Protein 61g.

The sodium content is pretty high thanks to the ranch dressing packet, and if you had a homemade pesto recipe that might also bring down the fat and cholesterol counts.  Important to note also that 9 oz chicken breasts are pretty big so you could really eat a half at a time like I did and that would be plenty.  Let me know if you try out this recipe and what you think!

Week 5 Update

Week 5 was a very interesting week, so let's just get right into it shall we?

Physical Activity:
-3/2/13: ran on the treadmill for 45 minutes, then 30 Day Shred level 1
-3/3/13: 30 Day Shred level 1
-3/4/13: ran on the treadmill for 30 minutes, then 30 Day Shred level 1
-3/5/13: BODYATTACK
-3/6/13: 30 Day Shred level 1
-3/7/13: swam laps freestyle for 30 minutes, 800 meters total
-3/8/13: 30 Day Shred level 1

In honor of March Madness I wanted to kick up my workouts, so I had decided that in addition to the exercise I was already getting, I would start a workout DVD that my friend let me borrow: the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred.  The DVD focuses on very fast, intense workouts (about 25 minutes including warm up and cool down) consisting of a mix of strength training, cardio, and ab-specific exercises.  My plan was to do the DVD every day for the month of March, and I was going to do each level for 10 days (there are 3 levels), but about 6 days in I found out that you're not actually supposed to do the DVD every single day, you're supposed to include rest days to allow your muscles to rest and repair, which was such a blessing because that DVD was seriously kicking my butt!  So now I'm going to do the DVD 3 days a week and see if that changes anything.  Also, working out every single day for 7 days was so exhausting, and definitely not a maintainable routine, and in the end it wasn't as effective anyway (see weight loss results below), so I'm going to have to tone things down again.  So much for March Madness...

Food:
Food and alcohol both became an issue last week, since it was one of my bff's birthdays and the festivities included a nice dinner out, followed by a night of drinking and dancing, as well as a Drag Brunch Buffet the next morning, and then a pasta dinner complete with red velvet cake for dessert that night (If you've never done a drag brunch, you need to!  This is the one we went to).  Needless to say, I was faced with a lot of temptation, and I may not have made the smartest choices.  I broke my 3 drink maximum rule for going out, and I also couldn't resist some of the less healthy food options on the brunch buffet.  My self-control definitely slipped, and unfortunately it had an impact on my results for the week.  I tried to make really healthy choices throughout the rest of the week, but in the end I don't think it balanced out.

Cooking:
This week I decided to break in my new crock pot, and the recipe I made was for Pesto Ranch Chicken that I found, of course, on Pinterest.  It was a bit high in calories and sodium due to the large portions of chicken and the sauce that I used, but it was delicious and I only ended up eating half a serving so it wasn't too bad.  The chicken literally fell apart and was super moist thanks to the long, slow heat of the crock pot.  Recipe to be posted separately later this week.

Raw chicken, yum!

Weigh-In:
So here it is, the moment of truth.  The results of my weigh-in for week 5 are:

I gained 1 lb!!!

As bad as it made me feel to actually gain weight instead of losing or at least staying the same, I realize that there are a few different factors that went into this.  The first, and the one that I'd really like to think is the biggest, is the fact that I was doing the 30 Day Shred DVD almost every day last week, and that is a very strength-training intensive program.  That means that I was probably building muscle by doing those workouts, which would lead me to gain weight instead of losing.  The trainer that I met with at the gym a few weeks ago recommended 75% cardio and 25% strength in order to lose weight, so I'd like to keep that in mind as the weeks continue.  Another factor might be that I had more drinks than is usually recommended for weight loss when I was out last weekend (Jillian Michaels advises no more than 2 drinks per WEEK when you're trying to lose weight!), and the fact that I ate out a few times and let myself have more of a cheat weekend than just a cheat meal or cheat day.  I'm trying not to get too discouraged, though, and I plan on going back to focusing more on the cardio aspect of things in order to drop the weight I want to.

All in all, I'm now at a total loss of 6 pounds in 5 weeks and 1/3 of the way through my program with 10 weeks to go and 9 more pounds to lose.  I'm still  slightly ahead of the game in terms of my original plan for 1 pound per week, and I am positive that I can get back on track and still reach the goals I originally set for myself.  Now I need to get to work!

Week 4 Update

Officially 1 month into my weight loss challenge, I hereby declare Week 4 the Week of the Heart Rate Monitor!  I finally received my new toy and I had so much fun testing it out all week during my different activities.  It's even waterproof so I was able to wear it swimming.  Here's a photo!

Yes, you're reading that correctly, I burned 643 CALORIES in an hour!!!  That's thanks to the super intense BODYATTACK class I take on Tuesdays at my gym.  Speaking of the gym...

Physical Activity:
-2/23/13: ran on the treadmill for 45 minutes
-2/25/13: swam laps freestyle for 30 minutes, 700 meters total
-2/26/13: BODYATTACK
-2/27/13: walked 2.8 miles in 45 minutes (from work to the gym), then walked on the treadmill at a steep incline for 20 minutes
-3/1/13: Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD, level 1

I used my new heart rate monitor during all those activities, and it's so helpful since it tells me exactly how many calories I burn, what my average heart rate was, what my max heart rate was, and how long I had my heart rate in the right zone for maximum effectiveness.  This is one of the best purchases I could have made, especially for calorie tracking purposes.  

I also had a free fitness assessment at my gym on the 27th.  I met with a trainer and we went over my weight loss goals (which she said are totally doable, yay!), she weighed and measured me, and then we had a short personal training session.  She gave me a lot of useful information and now I can do a lot of the exercises she showed me on my own.  Out of all her measurements, one was my body fat percentage (yikes).  I remember having this done when I was in college and worked at a gym, and when I was 20 years old my body fat percentage was around 22%.  Unfortunately, that number has increased since then, and now I'm at 28%!!!  Apparently a healthy range is between 15-20%.  Because of that, I now have another goal to add to my challenge:  decrease my body fat back down to 22% by the time this challenge is over (there are 11 weeks left).  That means I have to undo 5 years of carelessness in 11 weeks.  I can do this!

Food:
I don't believe food was really an issue during week 4, but my roommate and I decided to throw a party last weekend, which meant that I had to pay attention to my alcohol intake.  During the first few weeks I have been really good about keeping my alcohol consumption to a minimum, since drinking too much is one of the WORST things you can do when trying to lose weight.  It's such a huge factor!  However, I was actually very well behaved at the party.  I let myself indulge with my friends, but I didn't go overboard and kept good track of how many drinks I had.

Cooking:
My new recipe for Week 4 was a Turkey Chili recipe that one of my best friends sent me.  It was such an easy thing to make, it was super healthy, and I had plenty of leftovers to take to work for lunch throughout the week.  

Here it is, burbling away!

I'll post the recipe separately later on, but this was the perfect thing to eat on a chilly (ha ha!) winter evening.  Chili is also super easy to make, since you just throw everything into one pot and let it cook.  

Another of my recent purchases is a Crock Pot, which is another super simple way to cook, so I'm excited to start experimenting with some Crock Pot recipes in the coming weeks.  Stay on the lookout for those!

Weigh-In:
I am pleased to report that my good results have not stopped coming, and after week 4 I lost

1 POUND!!!

That means I've lost 7 pounds so far, and I still have 11 weeks left in my challenge.  Who knows...at this rate maybe I'll lose more than 15 pounds! 

Weekly Tip: Buy New Gear!

Buying new workout gear can have an immediate and significant impact on your desire to stay fit since you get excited to try it out!  Obviously we're not all rolling in dough and can't afford to be constantly buying new stuff just because our motivation has dwindled a little, but every once in a while spending a little money on things that will encourage you to continue can be very helpful.  My recent purchases include:

New workout capris!  (You can find really inexpensive ones at Target)

New Swimsuit and Goggles! I blend right in with the water ;)

A Heart Rate Monitor, the Polar FT4F (yes, I burned 643 calories in an hour! I AM SUPERWOMAN!)

A Crock Pot!

 All my new swag has encouraged me to keep going.  In my opinion, you can never have too much workout gear, especially since it takes away the excuse of "I can't go workout, all my workout clothes are in the laundry."  The swimsuit was actually a necessity, I can't exactly glide through the pool when I'm worried about my bikini falling off.  The Heart Rate Monitor is one of my favorite purchases because now I'll be able to track my heart rate to make sure I'm in the right zone for burning fat and have a more precise idea of how many calories I burn during all my different activities.  Last but not least, my new Crock Pot will motivate me to learn how to cook even more delicious, healthy meals.  Hopefully my next purchase will be a new pair of sneakers!

What are some things you've bought recently  or want to buy soon to contribute to your health and fitness goals?