Crock Pot Meals for Busy Days!

This week in the meeting room we talked about how to manage our time so we can take good care of ourselves and not ditch our weight loss efforts just because we are busy. Meal planning and utilizing the crock pot are essential this time of year! Here are a couple great recipes to get you back on track and for those days you have no time to prepare dinner when you get home!! Thanks to Deb for sharing the recipes!
Remember to always double check all point values...

Crockpot Chicken Stroganoff - this is one of my favorites...

Serves 6, 4 Points

1 # boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can 98 fat free cream of mushroom soup

16 oz. Fat free sour cream

1 pkg. Onion soup mix

Place frozen chicken breasts on the bottom of your crock pot. Mix swoup, sour cream and soup mix. Pour over chicken. Cook on low at least 7 hours. Stir sauce well before serving.

Serve over rice or noodles. (Add 3 more points per cup).

CROCK POT BARBEQUE CHICKEN

(And the points are???)

1 frying chicken , cut up (organic or free range if possible)
1 can tomato soup, condensed
3/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup vinegar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. sweet basil
1/4 tsp. thyme

Place chicken in crock pot. Combine all other ingredients and pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Crockpot Italian Chicken & Potatoes

(FABULOUS!! From Julie Parkansky, Leader from Wausaukee)
Serves 4, POINTS per serving, 6

1lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup of fat-free Italian salad dressing
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 large peeled potatoes - sliced or cut into wedges

Put chicken breasts on the bottom of the crockpot. Put half the salad dressing, Italian seasoning and parmesan cheese on top

of the chicken. Add the potatoes to the top of the mixture - top with the rest of the salad dressing, Italian seasoning and parmesan

cheese. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours.

Have a great week and we'll see you in the meeting!

Patti

My Weight Loss Journey

It felt like I had tried everything over the course of the past 30 years.

The hotdog diet.
The cabbage soup diet.
The cleansing drink diet.
Counting calories.
Cheap hypnosis.
The not so cheap hypnosis.
PhenFen - the magic pill that made it all melt off...until you stop taking them and it all comes back.
Nutri-System
Even Weight Watchers a couple times.

I even tried to tell myself that it didn't matter and that I didn't care. But the truth is I DID care. As I look back over my prayer journal that I started on Christmas 2003 my repeated, consistent and earnest prayer was for God to put the desire to want to eat healthy, want to drink water and want to exercise on my heart. I prayed and waited. Occasionally I'd start a "diet" or "exercise plan" but it usually didn't last long and my heart wasn't in it.

In January 2006 my co-worker, Pam, came to me and said, "I joined Weight Watchers, do you want to come too?" My first thought was, 'Do I want to do this AGAIN?', my second thought was, 'She's going to lose all this weight and I'm just going to be mad at myself!' and my third thought was, 'YES, I want to join with you!'

So on January 19, 2006 I started down a familiar, yet very different road. The first thing I think made a huge difference is that my prayers were heard and God was ready for me to do it.

There are several additional factors that I believe also made it different this time:
1) CORE program was a big hit with me because I wasn't required to track everything I ate which fit perfectly with my personality. In the past I'd be little Miss Perfect and track everything for a couple weeks, then I'd get busy and the tracking (and thus the weigh loss) would fall by the wayside. Then seeing no results I'd get discouraged and quit.
2) Somewhere along the line I stopped thinking of it as a diet and instead thought of it as a lifestyle.
3) My leader, Deb, was awesome.
4) The support and ideas I got at my weekly meeting was wonderful.
5) The support from my family and friends was great. (I'd pull out of the parking lot after a meeting and be on the phone to my daughters, mom and husband to tell them, "I lost 8/10's of a pound this week!" or "I lost a pound this week!"
6) The accountability and support of going the whole journey with Pam was key.

On September 28, 2006 I hit my goal weight with a loss of 50 pounds! On November 9th I made lifetime status and now as long as I stay within no more than 2 pounds over my goal weight I will never have to pay to go to meetings again!

I have many ideas and thoughts on weight loss and maintaining healthy eating habits. However I'll save them for future posts.

For now, let it suffice to say that this has been a hard fought journey and I know my weight will always be something I'll have to pay attention to, however now feel like I'm well equipped to keep on top of the battle!