Welcome to May!

I realized that our one year anniversary is coming up.  How exciting.  We never celebrated an anniversary before since we really never had one.  We could never agree on when we actually started dating, but we do know it's sometime in the October/November time frame.  We will be celebrating our one year wedding anniversary in San Francisco on a family vacation.  When I say family I am not talking about the animals, but instead it will be us, Andy's dad, Shelley, Courtney and her fiance (they live in San Fran), Mackenzie, Ryan and Lisa. 

In thinking back on this past year nothing has really changed from being in a relationship to being married.  I guess our Facebook status was updated, oh, and I gained weight.  They say after the wedding you gain weight, just like the freshman 15.  I never experienced the freshman 15 before as I have been lucky to be blessed with the skinny genes.  Ok, so my skinny genes have depleted once I turned 30 and then definitely after we got married.  Hey, it's not easy being married to Mr. Skinny Man who can eat whatever he wants and not gain a pound.  It's not completely his fault since I have never been one to eat horribly, but I had to learn portion control.  My 20's were definitely more friendly to me when it came to portion size, but not so much in my 30's so this was something I never had to deal with.  I could eat whatever I wanted and in large sizes and it never mattered. 

With that said I have decided to do something about this weight gain.  I don't know how much I weigh or how much I have gained since I do not own a scale, which that is on purpose.  I like to go on how I feel in my clothes.  That is what I base it on and if I can look in the mirror and be happy.  So, my goal is not a number it is based on feeling.  I have been doing this for about a month now and I am finally starting to feel a little better.  Not 100%, but better.  The first thing I had to do is work on portion size. The old me would eat a small breakfast, small lunch and then a GIANT dinner.  I subscribe to the Cooking Light magazine and they provided some tips on portion control.  First, I had to improve my breakfast and not skimp on that, a small mid-morning snack, light lunch, mid-afternoon snack and then dinner.  I have been putting my dinner on a salad plate instead of a dinner plate as this keeps me from over eating.  Also, this magazine has some great dinner ideas.  The first one I tried was a Pork Tenderloin over Couscous with Pistachio-Lemon Vinaigrette.  I was kind of worried at first on how this would taste, but it turned out fantastic and was only 489 calories.  I put this on a side plate to control my portion size and I wasn't even hungry after dinner.  This was the first week of changing everything around about a month ago.

If you want the recipe let me know and I will copy it from the Cooking Light magazine.

I also found this turkey meatball over angel hair pasta with pesto sauce.  This was on Pinterest though and it turned out amazing!  I was worried that Andy wouldn't eat it because of the turkey meatballs, but he actually liked it and used the leftover meatballs the next day for sandwiches.  I don't know the calorie content, but figured it can't bee too bad considering what I put in the meatballs.  Next time I should use wheat pasta, but Andy really does not like wheat pasta.  I figured turkey meat balls was pushing it.

 Next on my list to try from Cooking Light is fish tacos with a mango salsa and grilled salmon with brown butter couscous served with yellow squash and zucchini.

So, I have changed up my eating habits and workout 4 - 5 times a week, so I am now on the road to start feeling better about myself.  My clothes are starting to fit better and I actually enjoyed shopping this past weekend.