I recently came across this recipe for Dijon Shrimp.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly where I found it, but it’s quickly become a favorite of mine.  It’s so quick to prepare that it’s become one of my mid-week staple recipes since I’m generally crunched for time during the week when it comes to cooking.

I hope you’ll give it a try and that you enjoy it as much as I do!  Do you have any favorite shrimp recipes?  If so, please leave a comment with a link to it.

Resource:  SparkRecipes.com

]]> http://shrinkingjeans.net/2012/01/recipe-dijon-shrimp/feed/ 4 http://shrinkingjeans.net/2011/12/menu-plan-your-butt-off-weight-watchers-edition/ http://shrinkingjeans.net/2011/12/menu-plan-your-butt-off-weight-watchers-edition/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:00:01 +0000 Mel http://shrinkingjeans.net/?p=15765 In honor of the new PointsPlus 2012 program update rolling out this week from Weight Watchers (learn even more about the changes here from the CEO), we thought this would be a great time to share a Weight Watchers menu as part of our on-going Shrinking Menu Planning series.  I don’t think it’s any secret to anyone around here that Weight Watchers is my preferred food plan of choice, so I agreed to step up to the plate (pardon the pun) and share a menu for this week.  Enjoy!

Monday:  Taco Casserole – Per eTools, this recipe is actually 6 PointsPlus per serving.

Tuesday:  Cilantro Chicken Salad – 4 PointsPlus per serving

Wednesday:  Shepherd’s Pie, Lightened Up – 7 PointsPlus per serving

Thursday:  Spinach & Ham Mini Quiche Cupcakes – 1 PointsPlus each (I usually eat 4.)

Friday:  Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken – 4 PointsPlus per eTools.

Snack:  Baked Sweet Potato Chips – 2 PointsPlus

Dessert:  Honey Almond Bananas – 2 PointsPlus

I hope you can find some inspiration for you own menu this week regardless of whether you follow the Weight Watchers plan or not.  If you haven’t decided which food plan is best for you and are looking at options, I would encourage you to give a look at Weight Watchers.  It’s definitely come a LONG way from the program my mom followed back in the 70′s and is better than ever, IMO!

So, what’s on your menu for this week?  Please feel free to share in the comments.  If you are blogging your menu plan for the week, please join our Blog Hop by linking up!

Here we are on the Friday side of Thanksgiving.  I know for most of us that we’re still kind of at the beginning of a long weekend, but the Thanksgiving holiDAY is actually over and done.  It’s time to dust ourselves off, wake up from the food coma , and get ourselves back on track!

As I’m sure some of you may remember from my recent Struggling Edition of True Confessions, I’ve been off track for a while.  I finally decided this week that enough is enough!  I headed back to a Weight Watchers meeting on Wednesday night and faced the ugly music on the scale.

Since I have been on such a weight loss slump, I told my leader that I just wanted a fresh start.  I didn’t want to be riddled with guilt over the regained pounds staring back at me when I logged into eTools or looked at my weight record booklet.  She completely understood and hooked me right up!  She reset my weight in the WW computer system and gave me a new crisp and pristine weight record booklet.  It’s like I’m at Day 1 of Weight Watchers all over again which is exactly what I needed mentally right now!  I even read through my getting started materials again.   I’m ready to get back on the proverbial wagon and start working a plan again.

So, who’s with me?  Did you let the Thanksgiving holiday derail your healthy habits?  There’s no time like today to make a fresh start!  Perhaps you don’t need a complete fresh start, but just let yourself indulge a bit over Thanksgiving yesterday.  Well, don’t let the day turn into the long weekend!  Get yourself back on track right now.  If you need some exercise motivation, be sure to check out our 10k-a-Day challenge that just started.  There’s still plenty of time to sign up and join us.  It’s a great way to help make sure to fit in plenty of activity over the next five weeks of the holiday insanity season.

Hit us up in the comments section below and let us know how your Thanksgiving went yesterday.  If you participated in a Turkey Trot, be sure to give yourself some comment love for that, too!  If you posted a race report on your blog, leave us a link so we can all go by and take a peek.

The moral of the story:  I need to menu plan my butt off each and every week!

The Menu

• Sunday- dinner at Souper Salad, my kid’s favorite place to eat out!
• Monday- Pork Tacos, Spanish Rice, Beans, Salad
• Tuesday- Crock Pot BBQ Chicken, Buttered Noodles, Green Beans
• Wednesday- leftovers
• Thursday- Baked Chicken Parmesan, Green Salad, Garlic Bread
• Friday- leftovers
• Saturday- Mommy will be gone for the night so Daddy will have to fend for himself!

Whew, I did it- I menu planned my butt off and lived to tell about it- woot woot!  I hope ya’ll have a fabulous week.  Make sure to share to the link to your weekly menu plan in the comments section below.

When I realized that I had this post due and what it was supposed to be, I was relieved. I’m supposed to have a recipe and a recipe I have for you. Actually, it is one of my favorite recipes.

I love soup. I know that lots of people think of soup as a winter food, but not me. I eat it year round. One of my favorite soups is the Mexican Style Chicken Corn soup from the new Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook.

Mexican Style Chicken Corn Soup
2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can of fire roasted diced tomato
1 10 ounce package frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 4 1/2 ounce can chopped green chiles, drained
1 tsp chili powder
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1/2 avocado, pitted, peeled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
8 large baked tortilla chips, coarsely broken

1. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, bell peppers, and garlic. Cook, stirring until onion is softened and lightly browned, about 8 minutes.

2. Add broth, tomatoes with their juice, corn, chiles and chili powder to saucepan and bring to a boil. Add chicken, reduce heat and simmer till heated through, about 2 minutes.

3. Remove saucepan from heat: stir in avocado and cilantro. Ladle soup evenly into 4 bowls. Top evenly with tortilla chips.

Per Serving (about 1 1/2 cups soup and 2 tortilla chips)
295 calories, 7g total fat, 1g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 59 mg cholesterol, 851 mg sodium, 33g total carbs, 9g total sugar, 28g protein, 77mg calcium
PointsPlus value: 7

I had a picture of the soup, but it kept saying the file was too big and I’m too tired and it’s too late to mess with it now. Just trust me, it’s yummy!

Personally, I made a decision on Christmas day to give myself fully to my weight loss efforts on Weight Watchers.  For me, this meant finally committing to writing down my daily food intake rather than just trying to keep track of my daily points target in my head each day.  I decided if I really wanted to be successful, then I needed to do the things I know help bring me success.  I’m proud to report that I have tracked everything I’ve eaten since Dec. 26 without missing a single day.

I have to admit, my weight loss has been far more consistent since keeping my journal faithfully.  In fact, I truly believe I owe my success of losing over 13 pounds during the Power of One challenge to the fact that I was keeping my food diary every day.  I think one of the biggest reasons for this is because when I’m faithfully tracking, I’m also more likely to weigh and measure my portions rather than guesstimating them in my head.  Doing that really helps prevent that whole “portion distortion” phenomenon from creeping up on me.  So, the two really go hand-in-hand for me.

In this wonderful world of technology that we now live, there are lots of high-tech ways to track your food in addition to the old skool pen and paper method shown in the photo above.  I generally track my food using the Weight Watchers Mobile app on my iPhone. I love it!  It’s just so convenient because I always have my phone with me and it syncs right up with my eTools account on the Weight Watchers website.  Since I pay using the Monthly Pass option, both eTools and the mobile app are included free on my account.

For those who are following a plan other than Weight Watchers, there are plenty of high-tech options for tracking your food intake.  Here are just a few of the more popular free options:

• Lose It – This originally started as an iPhone app, but there is now a web-based version as well for those who don’t use an iPhone.  You can use it to track not only your calories consumed, but also your calories burned through exercise.  When you go through the initial setup of the app, it will actually recommend a daily calorie target based on your input.
• Spark People – This is an incredibly popular service.  It offers not only the ability to track your food, but also provides meal plans, recipes, workout plans, tons of informative articles on nutrition, exercise, etc.  They also offer a mobile app for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android platforms.
• Livestrong MyPlate (formerly The Daily Plate) – This is another incredibly popular online tracking tool.  It includes a huge database of foods that is constantly expanding since the user community can submit items for inclusion.  This is a site I use quite often to find the nutritional information I need to calculation the PointsPlus™ value of something I’m eating.  They do offer apps for the iPhone/iPad and BlackBerry platforms, but they cost $2.99.  Tracking on their website is free.

As I said, these are just a few of the vast array of tracking tools available online and for smartphones.  There are lots of others out there as well.  With a little research, I’m sure you can easily find one that’s the perfect fit for your program.

If you aren’t already tracking, perhaps this would be a good time to start.  Perhaps you could make that a goal for our new Spring In2Action challenge that kicked-off yesterday.  Have you signed up for it yet? If not, you can still go here to take care of that.

Do you keep a food journal already?  If so, do you think it’s helping your journey?  Do you track with pen & paper or one of the more high-tech options?  Do you have favorite online tracking tool or app that you love?  If you aren’t keeping a food journal already, have you ever considered it?  Please leave a comment below and share you thoughts on food tracking.

I am a cheese and crackers kind of girl. I’ll take salty over sweet any day of the week. Imagine my excitement when I found out I could still have my favorite treat. My new best friends are Wheatables Nut Crisps Crackers in toasted pecan and Laughing Cow Spreadable cheese wedges.

I have eaten Wheatables crackers for years. They are one of my favorites. The new Wheatables Nut Crisps are a real treat. They are only 4 Weight Watcher points for 16 crackers and so good. Just that touch of salt that I love so much.

The Laughing Cow cheese wedges are heaven on a cracker. The light version is only 1 Weight Watcher point per wedge. My personal favorite flavors are the blue cheese and the queso fresco and chipotle. There are several other flavors like creamy swiss and garlic and herb to choose from.

When I come home from boot camp or zumba and I am starving, I don’t feel the least bit guilty about serving up this snack. Most days I have the extra 5 points to spend and I love this snack. If I’m really hungry, I can add some green pepper slices which have no points.

You might like to give it a try. I promise that if cheese and crackers are your thing, this snack is for you.

How many of you follow Weight Watchers?  Officially?  Unofficially? Not at all?

I know there was some hoopla when Weight Watchers changed over to their Points Plus system, especially when all of their old cookbooks were on the old system.  I am here to share with you their NEWEST cookbook: The Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook.

Highlights include:

• Packed with 500 delicious and nutrition-conscious recipes, this new edition of the cookbook helps people stay on track and achieve their weight management goals, including information and values for those
  following the new PointsPlus program.
• Yummy recipes!  Home cooks will find recipes from the simple and satisfying Smoky Grilled Brisket and Creamy Mashed Potatoes to new classics like Carmelized Onion, Fig and Stilton Pizza and Tempeh, Sweet Onion, and Mushroom Chili, there are plenty of fresh ideas for breakfast (like the cheese quiche I made- DELICIOUS!!!!), lunch (French Onio Soup sounds good to me today), dinner (how about Island Chicken with Pineapple?)  and everything in between (Classic Guacamole? Italian-Style Stuffed Mushrooms? Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce?).
• A new chapter with slow cooker recipes makes preparing a healthy meal easier than ever, and all recipes include more whole grains and vegetables for meals that can help you stay fuller longer.
• Hundreds of tips throughout offer guidance in the kitchen and more detailed information on ingredients and preparation oHelpful how-to sidebars demystify techniques with detailed step-by-step instructions and images that demonstrate critical steps
• Complete nutritional information, including PointsPlusT values, included with every recipe
• New skill level icons identify which recipes are basic, intermediate and advanced
• A vibrant new design and over 80 full-color recipe photos and illustrations

Doesn’t that cookbook sound awesome?  Well it is and I get to giveaway a copy to ONE lucky winner.  Will it be you?!

TO ENTER:

1. Leave a comment and tell us if you have a favorite Weight Watchers recipe or pick one from those listed above that sounds good to you.
2. Follow the Sisterhoodon Twitter and Tweet about this giveaway! Be sure to mention @shrinkingjeans. Here’s a short link for you:
3. Like the Sisterhood on Facebook and tell all your Facebook friends about this giveaway for an extra entry. Come back here and leave a comment for the with a link to your profile so we can like you back!
4. Giveaway ends on Friday, February 18th at midnight PST. Winner will be chosen at random and announced on Saturday the 19th.

Disclosure:  Review product and giveaway provided by Weight Watchers.  We were not monetarily compensated for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

*Updated! The lucky owner of the energize your morning kit is in the comments!

Sweet or savory? I always go sweet, especially at breakfast time. Yes, I have a weakness for all things pastry and cake. Doughnuts, muffins, danish? Yum. But, unfortunately, most baked goods aren’t the healthiest way to start your day.

And diet baked goods? I’m usually pretty skeptical. Usually when you take out the fat, you hike up the sugar. Or you say bye-bye to taste.

So when Weight Watchers sent me some of their new Coffee Cakes from their Sweet Baked Goods line to try out, I went in expecting to like them, but not be blown away.

Boy, was I wrong. I LOVED THEM. It was hard to stop at one – and I had to hide them from my three year old son. These  cakes are not only delicious – they are moist and, to me, really taste like a traditional struesel topped coffee cake.

Each cake has a scrumptious cinnamon filling and is only 120 calories…with a whopping 5 grams of fiber. Paired with some fresh fruit, a veggie sausage patty and a steamy cup of coffee, it’s just about the perfect breakfast.

The new Weight Watchers Coffee Cakes became available nationwide in January and retail for $3.29 per package.

Weight Watchers also sent me an amazing kit to pump up my morning routine, containing:

·         a Yoga mat in a handy carrying case

·         $15 iTunes gift card for putting together an energizing morning playlist

·         Eco coffee cup

·         Instant coffee packs for on-the-go mornings

All in all, a wonderful kit to start my new year off right!

And guess what? I get to share an identical kit with one of our lucky readers! Want to know how this loot could be yours? There are two ways:

• Leave a comment telling us your favorite way to pump up your morning routine.
• Follow @weightwatchers on Twitter, then tweet about this giveaway using the hashtag #WeightWatchersCoffeeCake. Don’t forget to mention @shrinkingjeans! Leave the link to the Tweet in the comments.

Comments will close at 11:59 pm PST on Friday, February 11. I  will choose one lucky commenter via random.org and announce the recipient on Saturday, February 12.

Disclosure:  Review product and reader product provided by Weight Watchers.  We were not monetarily compensated for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

We’d like to thank Mary from Musings of the Sixties for being our Shrinking Guest Contributor and giving us her opinion on Weight Watchers new PointsPlus™ program! If you’ve never tried Weight Watchers, now is the perfect time, and if you’re a Weight Watchers veteran, this new program might have some growing pains, but we think it will ultimately be there best program yet!

What’s not to love about the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus plan? As far as I’m concerned, almost nothing.

I’ve been doing Weight Watchers on and off for over six years. One thing I love about Weight Watchers is that they save your stats so as you join and drop out and re-join, there’s a record of your weight. It’s rather sobering to look back and see the gains and losses and status quos.

I’m really optimistic that the PointsPlus program will go a long way toward eliminating these ups and downs. I think it will be an easier program to live with making the ‘ups’ a thing of the past.

As many already know, the new program allows all fruits and most vegetables without the penalty of a point. Not one. And I think this is something that a lot of people have problems with. It’s just hard to believe that we can eat all the fruits and most of the vegetable categories that we want and still lose weight. My theory is that it’s a little bit like drinking lots of water. Water, fruits, and vegetables keep things moving through out system. Without copious amounts of all these things, foods might have more time to dwell in our intestines where all the calories and carbs are fully absorbed into our systems. That’s my theory.

Weight Watchers says that they’ve factored the caloric impact of even the highest-calorie fruits into their calculations. In other words, they’ve calculated how our bodies process all the different foods – whether they leave us feeling full for a long time, whether they provide the nutrients we need in our day -to-day lives, and whether or not they the lead to cravings and cavings. Fruits (and most veggies) are so beneficial that they want us to eat all we need and want. And let’s be honest here. Most of our systems are not going to allow us to eat too many of these no matter how beneficial they are. There will be repercussions. So there’s kind of a self-limiting quota on how much we eat.

The glorious aspect is this. No matter what diet plan you follow or how carefully you plan your diet, there will be times when you think you HAVE TO EAT! And on the old plan, with just 20 to 23 points or so (for me) there was no room for a 2 point banana or a 1 point cup of grapes. When you start putting grapes in a cup, there just aren’t that many and I never wanted to waste my few points on something that seemed a little less rewarding.

Now, during those struggle times, grab a handful of grapes or an apple or a banana. It’s all good.

The new plan focuses on a couple of main points. One is Power Foods. They could not emphasize more the importance of this category. According to Weight Watchers PointsPlus Getting Started booklet, “Power Foods are evaluated on their ability to fill you up (provide eating satisfaction which keeps you fuller longer), on how much of a PointsPlus bargain they are, and on their impact on health (how their sugar, sodium, saturated fat, total fat, and/or fiber content stacks up against that of similar foods). “Foods are ranked within categories using a proprietary formula. Those that rank the best are deemed Power Foods.”

So we’re encouraged to eat these “good-for-you foods” and we’re given more points with which to do it.

Conversely, the “not-so-good-for-you foods” now calculate out to a higher point value. I used to eat one 100 calorie pack of Hostess Strawberry cakes every day and I likely will continue to do so. But more often than I’d like to admit, I’d have two or more thinking it really wasn’t THAT big of a deal. After all, one pack was only one point. Now one pack is 3 points and it’s very unlikely that I’ll waste six or more points on such a small volume of food. The same is true of the Quakes that I was once addicted to. The points value has gone up but those darn things are no more filling or better for you than they ever were. I’ll be continuing to leave those alone.

Basically, I feel like we’re leaving behind the manufactured and engineered foods (that may not be so good for us after all) and our future is with the high protein whole grains and lean meats – the foods our forefathers ate and the foods that will always be with us – eggs, grains, meats, fruits, vegetables, and nonfat and low fat dairy.

The new program also emphasizes exercise far more than I remember it being talked about before. It encourages everyone to get moving and keep moving. And ultimately isn’t this the secret to ongoing weight control? I love that they even advise the typically sedentary person to start slow but START! And to work into at least a half hour a day of exercise. I would suspect that everyone that habitually exercises at least a half hour a day, will start to edge into a little more. After all if a little can make you feel so much better, think what a little more will do.

The bad part of this wonderful new program is that all your old Weight Watcher calculators, Dining Out guides, and recipe books that list points values, etc. are obsolete. And, no, there are no refunds – even if you bought your tools JUST before the new program kicked in. Weight Watchers does offer a new points calculator at half price – $5.95 for this month only to help you get started; and, of course, the old recipes are still great – it’s just that the points values are probably different. If you’ve always just done Weight Watchers online this won’t impact you. You can look up almost everything and if it’s not there, you can use the online calculator to figure the points. However, if you attended meetings and have reams of pamphlets and cookbooks that include obsolete point values, it’s a bummer but for me that’s a small price to pay for a program that I expect to change my life.

Ultimately Weight Watchers is a reputable company with undisputed integrity. I trust them but I’ve done a poor job of maintaining with them. I’ve never felt the program was at fault – only my own weaknesses. Now they’ve given me a fresh start. I feel like I did back in ’04 the first time I started the program. Only now the tools are better and easier to use.

Thank you, Weight Watchers! I’m ready to soar to my new goals!

If you’re doing Weight Watchers, leave us a comment and let us know what you think about the new PointsPlus Program!