My Weight Loss Kryptonite

We all have it. It's the ONE thing that we just can't resist. The one item that makes our mouths water and our memories drift back to a fatter time. It's our weight loss Kryptonite.

For some, it's chocolate that does it.

Others it's fresh baked brownies.

Unfortunately very few of us find that it's a nice light salad with just a little light Italian dressing.





For me - it's a left over turkey sandwich with lots of mayo and crushed sour cream and onion Lays chips on it.

Don't ask me why. I have no idea. Heck, I didn't even know that it WAS my weakness until this past weekend. Holidays are always tough, but I walked into the weekend thinking that I was going to do alright. Turkey is healthy and we didn't buy any deserts. Heck, Lisa skipped the birthday cake this year and opted instead for mini strawberry shortcakes. I was going to have one of those holidays that other dieters can only dream about.

I won't go into the gruesome details, but let's just say that it wasn't pretty.

I think that the other members of my family may need counseling and one of the cats it's curled up in the corner quietly weeping. The police may or may not have been called.

Okay, so it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't even that much overeating, though I have to admit to being a bit uncomfortably full right now which is not a common feeling lately.

But now is not the time to panic. I've realized what one of my weaknesses and that's been a good, if not slightly heavy, lesson to learn.

Tomorrow I'm quitting cold turkey sandwiches cold turkey. OR at least I won't be putting quite so many crushed chips on them.

How, my dear audience, did your Easter holidays go? Did you discover your dieting Kryptonite this weekend? What is it and how will you deal with it next time?

THIS TIME! The SECRET to weight loss

I'm going to tell you the SECRET to weight loss.

Not just the secret to losing weight, but also the secret to keeping it off for good.

It's not complicated. It's not magical. It's not even a secret.

But it is REALLY REALLY HARD to do.

It's an IF/Then proposition:

Super Quicky Healthy-ish Brownies

When I suddenly walked into the room and informed my wife that I was baking brownies, she didn't bat an eye. I've always loved to cook, but I don't think I've ever voluntarily tried to bake anything. Other than the fact that I had to ask how the old toothpick in the cake trick is done*, I think I did pretty well. But I figured it would get SOME sort of rise out of her. Maybe the thrill is gone.. maybe she's getting woken up by an air horn tomorrow. That will show her to not take my normality for granted!

I saw a similar recipe on Facebook but wanted to make it a bit healthier so I substituted a couple of the ingredients. I went half and half with the sugar splenda because I'm just not quite convinced it will taste the same. Next time I'll try all splenda. I'm sure it will work. If you make them with all Splenda, let me know how it turns out. I also didn't quite have enough applesauce to equal a half cup so I topped it off with a bit of canola oil.

For your taste-bud's enjoyment I present to you Super Quicky Healthy-ish Brownies:

Enjoy!

*For Reference - to check to see if a cake/brownies are done, you can poke them with something thin (toothpick is the standard test, but as I have no idea where our little box of toothpicks, I just used a fork) and see if any of the cake sticks to the toothpick/fork/really thin finger. If it comes back clean, their done. If it comes back with cake gunk on it, it's not done. If it gets sucked down into the batter, you're oven is possessed.

Chicken Cheese Steak Wrap

I have to admit something. Anytime I walk into a restaurant and order a cheese steak, if they ask me if I want chicken or beef I change my order.

I've learned that if someone calls something a "cheese steak" and then uses chicken, they probably don't really know what a cheese steak is. Cheese Steak has STEAK. Using chicken makes it a "Cheese Chicken," which really doesn't sound near as tasty.

Of course, if you read the title of this post, you'll probably realize that I'm kinda going against my own beliefs.

Yes, this recipe is called "Chicken Cheese Steak Wrap." I'm aware of the irony of complaining that a restaurant can't cook a good cheese steak if they ask if you want chicken or beef.

But I don't run a restaurant.

Call it what you want. It's pretty tasty.

I present to you my Chicken Cheese steak Chicken Wrap:

Here there be Treasure!

A beautiful day in early March? They have to be enjoyed. So the wife and I got the puppies and the boy into the Jeep and we headed to the park for a nice walk.

Of course, a beautiful and snow free day on top of the hill where we live isn't always going to mean a beautiful snow free day at the bottom of the hill.

Don't get me wrong - it was still gorgeous and most of the paths were dry and perfect for walking, but as we went deeper into the trees down by the river we quickly found ourselves in some pretty wet snow. We weren't in danger of abandoning the boy if he ended up knee deep in quicksand-like slush or anything like that, but I will say that the boy was the smartest of us by wearing his snow boots while Lisa and I slugged it out in summer weight sneakers.

Even with wet feet, it was a great day and the puppies had a blast with Pandora happily splashing through the wet muck and Penny attempting to stay as dry as possible around the puddles.

About half way around I remembered a little app I had downloaded called c:geo. I booted it up on my phone and 5 minutes later we were on our way to find the closest geocache on the map.

Wait - you know what Geocaching is, right? It's like a treasure hunt - you get the coordinates for a cache and then go find it: