Christmas Eve morning

And it just happens to be a friday which means, weekly weigh in. I am 195lbs!!! wooohoo!!! I love it!

warning: fierceness

i just cut my hair. now i have the new dress, the new shoes, the jewelry, the headband, the nail polish, and my lovely friend Natalie (who was also sleeved) is doing my make up tomorrow. and i have to warn you, i'm gonna look hella fierce. so much so that i might not be able to look in a mirror. just too much fierceness.

but because you're my girls, i'll give you a small preview. just so you can see the cut. but when i'm all dolled up tomorrow...oof honey...i'll have to share those pics. this is after all my big coming out party. many ppl don't know i had surgery and haven't seen me in 60lbs. and i am after all in Onderland! time to celebrate!!

my face looks hella drab i know. but wait till the make up is on honey.

Thanks Ladies :)

Just wanted to thank you all for the lovely comments on my last post.

I want to start this off with my daily confession. Today I went to dinner at my parents house and served myself a spoonful of everything. Turkey (which was dry so I only ate a couple bites), apple salad (with marshmallows. so good), mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and this cornbread casserole my sis made. The best thing on the entire table was the cornbread casserole and i ate like 2 heaping spoonfuls. I hardly ever eat bread, and almost never eat cornbread. So i enjoyed every bite!! yum yum! But between the potatoes, marshmallows, cornbread, it felt like carb city. even though it wasn't big portions.

also dessert. cookies and ice cream. i didn't eat the cookies but i had like 3 or 4 spoonfuls of ice cream. i haven't had ice cream since before surgery. it had these tiny peanut butter cups in it! lol i've never seen that before. again not alot so i don't feel bad about it. also i really don't eat these things regularly. still they all have to be accounted for. can't eat like that every day. i've been doing great so far this holiday season. :)

anyway i know some of you were asking for the recipes from the last post so i wanted to share them.

The orange chicken recipe I got here. Just sub the brown sugar with splenda brown sugar blend or Ideal Brown. Deelish. If you wanna go that extra mile and get the chicken crispy and more authentic chinese, do what i did and bread with flour then dip in egg and bread in corn starch. its a little more work but if you really want that wow factor i highly suggest it. :)

The cauliflower fried rice I got from another site but I adjusted it to the way I think is just right. It comes out perfect every time. That recipe is here.

And I got the mini cheesecake recipe from the lovely Jamie a.k.a Carbarella over at YourLighterSide blog.

For more pics/details check out my tumblr page.

WARNING! FOOD PORN!

Today I had some friends and cousins over for dinner. I made orange chicken (from scratch) and cauliflower fried rice. I also made sugar cookies and red velvet cookies (using sweeteners) as well as mini cheesecakes (sweeteners again). Everything was a hit! I loved being the hostess with the mostess. I sent them home with goodie bags containing the cookies. And I looked super cute. We took a couple of pictures and i was blown away by how i looked in one of them. wow. amazing.

oh and i confess i ate 1 1/2 red velvet cookies today as well as the frosting from one sugar cookie. but i'm done with baking. i was on some baking kick. but i think i got my fix. i cooked for 3 diff groups in the last 2 weeks. and after working on everything all day since last night I have decided i'm donezo. i'm just gonna kick  back and enjoy the rest of the holidays. i'm on vacay. no more working in the kitchen.

you know what the funny part is? i only ate about 3 pieces of chicken. thats how it is all the time these days. i hardly eat any of my meals, i just can't get much in. but the slice of gouda i had later on tonight was so much more satisfying. i have to tell you i'm so much happier to just come home and have a yummy slice of cheese. its also comforting i guess. since its so gentle and goes down so easy. when i'm starving a slice of cheese will hold me till i can find something more substantial. or if i just want a snack, a slice of gouda is the best. being busy (whether its shopping, cooking, baking, cleaning) the last couple of weeks has really reeked havoc on my routine. when i'm on the road i just can't stop to eat and i can't drink water because i'm afraid to have to pee while i'm on the road. so i'll be happy just to chill out. that way its easier for me to get my protein in. while i have been keeping up with vitamins and water my proteins have been suffering man.

anyway enough about all that. i fixed the picture problem by deleting a bunch of pics so i'll share some with you.

orange chicken

cauliflower fried rice

sugar cookies with almond frosting

red velvet cookies with cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans

mini cheesecake with caramel and toasted pecan topping

mini cheesecake with strawberry topping

this is the picture where i was like wow!!

this is what we like to call our sitcom pose

just me hamming it up for the camera

and just so you can really see the change, here's me in May

i must confess

today i made my husband nutella pancakes.  normally it doesn't phase me but today the moistness of the cupcakes was just calling  too me. i was in a mood for moist sweet pancakes swimming in syup. lol so i took about 1/3 of a pancake and ate it with some sugar free syrup and it was deeeeelish! i never eat pancakes. even before surgery that wasn't really my thing. i'm more of a hot and salty breakfast kind of gal. but every once in a blue moon you crave that sort of thing. anyway i enjoyed the hell out of it. and to be honest, i could have eaten an entire pancake. but i didn't. i did still eat my regular breakfast, 1/2 an egg and cheese sandwich. thats kind of a lot of food...compared to the fact that the sandwich usually fills me up and pancakes are all carbs. i'm surprised. i must have been hungry.

anyway just wanted to put that out there. holding myself accountable. i'll keep tabs of all the indulgences i have the next couple weeks. i'm making french toast for christmas breakfast for the family (french toast sticks) and i will probably have a stick or 2. yup!

don't bring me down man

went to my 4 month follow up. their scale usually weighs me higher but today i was .5lbs less. their scale read 198lbs. also the blood pressure machine used to always hurt so much and it would never give an accurate reading and they always ended up having to do it manually. but today it didn't hurt! and it read an accurate reading! woohoo! i was feeling great about myself. then my doc came in and said, ok well, you're doing ok. i'm like (to myself) just ok?? geez give me a little credit. i'm doing awesome. how bout some encouragement? sheesh! she was like telling me that the first year is the easiest to lose weight so i have to lose as much as i can now. and if i cut out all carbs i could be losing more weight. i hardly eat carbs now. but i don't get any credit. listen, i didn't get this surgery to live a life of deprivation. fuck that and fuck you very much. i'm not in a race. and most doctors would say that losing 1-2lbs a week is ideal for maintaining weight loss. its like they're encouraging huge weight loss in a short time.

you know that kind of shit really fucks with my head you know? i don't want to be sabotaged by other ppl's stinkin' thinkin'. i know i'm doing well and i'm just gonna keep doing what i'm doing.

thanks for being here for me and encouraging me you guys. it helps so much to have a support system when everyone around you is waiting for you to fail.

CAN YOU HEAR ME??? I'M WRITING ALL THE WAY FROM ONDERLAND!!

Thats right!!! w00t w00t! I weighed myself today and i was 198.5lbs. Wow. I can tell you that I have not weighed that since high school. That was my weight senior year. That was 12 yrs ago!! When I met my husband a year later, I had lost some weight and i was 186lbs, so thats my next goal. To weigh what I did when we met. But still...

amazing...

I reached my goal. Be in Onderland by Christmas. I'm so proud of myself!! I worked hard for months. And while I've been slacking off since thanksgiving with the gym, I have been active and busy (the holidays are no joke!). I have also been eating well, but i'm starting to slack on my protein. sometimes i just don't feel like eating. sometimes if i could take a pill to take away the hungry feeling i would. those are the days where i'm on the road and totally off my routine. hunger just gets in the way. But I have to pick it up and get more protein in because my muscles are starting to get weaker and I don't want that. I'm pretty sure I won't have time for the gym till after Christmas. My schedule is so packed. But thats ok, keeping busy is good. And I know come jan I wanna hit the gym hard and get back on my routine. But for now I'm going to enjoy the holidays, enjoy being busy, enjoy the feeling, enjoy seeing family, enjoy cooking and baking, and enjoy other things in moderation.

WOOHOOO!!! Onderland baby!!!