Tips for Moving Past a "Cheat" and Chambray Does Valentine's Day

Hope your Super Bowl was happy! Hopefully if you decided to stick to eating thin last night, you were able to accomplish your goal, but if you didn't, here's some things to keep in mind.

1. You didn't cheat. Cheating implies that your healthy lifestyle has rules. Breaking rules makes you bad, and you're not bad for veering from your path. Think of it as not accomplishing a goal. Sometimes failing at something can be positive. When you fall short of a goal, you can learn a lesson from it and then move on and try again. And achieving after you've failed once, makes it so much sweeter.

2. That was yesterday. Today is today. Let it go. If you're angry at yourself, it's time to forgive and forget. Don't let that nasty voice berate you. You didn't murder someone. You ate a few too many chicken wings. No one got hurt. Well...the chicken did. But otherwise...everyone has all of their fingers and toes still. Focus on today and let yesterday go.

3. It was one day. You didn't gain the weight you wanted to lose in a day. You won't lose it in a day. And you won't gain it back in one day. One day is just a day. Keep it in perspective and keep pressing on. Unless you ate 3,500 calories more than you burned yesterday (unlikely) you likely didn't affect your weight.

4. You can do it. Don't give up over a bad night. You can do this. If I can, you can. So just keep going.

Now, onto some FASHION. I put together three more Chambray shirt outfits. These are romantic looks for a Valentine's Day date or any other occasion where you want to look flirty and sweet.

How to Wear a Chambray Shirt 1: Pretty in Pearl

1. Start with your chambray shirt! (Shirt, AE Boyfriend Chambray Shirt)

2. Tuck it into a suede skirt with a contrast elastic waistband or a faux leather one with a similar look. (Skirt, ShopRuche Central Park Pleated Skirt)

3. Pair it with black opaque tights. (Tights, Hue Women's Super Control Tights) 

4. Slip on black tall boots for a sleek look. (Black boots, Cole Haan Women's Adler Tall Boot in Black ) 

5. Add a pearl clutch with a splash of black. Vintage or current, you decide! (Purse, ALDO Exroiane Clutch)

6. Layer on the pearls in different lengths and hues. (Pearls, Vintage Chanel, Kate Spade Ready Set Pearl, J. Crew Pearl Twisted Hammock Necklace)

How to Wear a Chambray Shirt 2: A Rose by Any Name

1. Start off with a pretty lace dress with a flattering fit. I like this flirty skater style with the high neck and the sleeves. (Dress, Alice + Olivia Jayna Metallic Cotton Blend Lace Dress)

2. Slip your chambray shirt over top.

3. Add a pair of tights with a rose print. (Tights, Forever 21 Dainty Rose Sheer Tights) 

4. Pin on a pretty rose brooch. People don't wear enough brooches! They can really change an outfit (Brooch, Etsy no longer available)

5. Pick a pair of boots with a feminine flourish. I love these fold overs with the roses, but you could wear dressier boots in camel if you wanted. I might actually snag this pair for myself. They're under $40! (Boots, Wild Diva Whisky Fold Over Boot)

6. Finish with a rose purse, vintage or otherwise (Handbag, Michael Negrin Leather Handbag)

How to Wear a Chambray Shirt 2: Ballerina Beautiful

1. Start with your chambray shirt, of course!

2. Tuck it into a luxe tulle skirt. I love this one with its pinky taupe color and sequins. (Skirt, Coast Cordelia Skirt)

3. Layer on a corset belt, or another very wide style belt. (Belt, Alaïa Laser-cut leather corset belt)

4. Add some unexpected boots. I picked black cowboys, but something else a little funky and chunky will work. (Boots, Sendra Boots)

5. Slip on a black geometric statement necklace. I picked this funky little number that is sadly no longer available, but I've seen pieces like it other places.

6. Pick a sweet pair of studs. Don't overdo it with your earrings because of the statement necklace. I thought these stars were cute. (Earrings, Emanuele Bicocchi Star Clip Earrings)

7. Complete the look with a slouchy hobo in black velvet, corduroy or another bag with a wonderful texture. (Anthropologie Gustine Hobo)

And that's it! Three feminine looks with your chambray shirt! Got a favorite? Let me know in the "Comments" section. 

Join me tomorrow for a review of the Subscription Service ShoeDazzle and continuing coverage of what I just decided is called "Cheat Week" even though I dont' like the word cheat ;)

Have a fashionable day!

Tips for Eating Thin at the Super Bowl Party and What I Ate this Week

Happy Super Bowl Day! It is a holiday, right? Does Hallmark made a card for it? I bet they will soon if not already! If you're planning to watch the game tonight or watch the commercials and chat during the actual football part, there's a good chance you'll be doing it near FOOD. And football has been shown to make people overeat.

For real! A study in the journal of the Association for Psychological Science found that fans of NFL teams were more likely to overeat during games when their teams were losing and in the day afterwards. Apparently the angst and turmoil of cheering for a losing team makes Americans take comfort in food. It's really not that surprising to me, as I know part of the reason I became obese was due to emotional eating.

Even if you're not a die-hard football fan, being at a Super Bowl party can still lead to overindulging. Now, one night of splurging on calories isn't likely to make a big impact on your weight. Remember you need to eat at least 3,500 calories more than you burn to gain a pound of fat BUT feeling guilty over the fact that you overate could derail you from healthy eating.

Basically, you need to make your own decision today about whether or not you're going to allow yourself to splurge tonight. If you are, then go into it guilt-free. If you're going to try to stick to your thin eating plan, then the following tips can help you.

1. Don't go hungry! If you walk into the party with your stomach grumbling, you're more likely to pick foods indiscriminately. Have something to eat before you go. I personally have protein. A serving of nuts if I'm not famished, or one or two eggs if I'm pretty hungry. I find that protein makes me feel fuller longer than carbs. If I ate a piece of bread and went to the party, I'd be stomach growly the minute I walked in.

2. Start off healthy! When you first get up to eat, check out everything that's there. Look for raw veggies, fresh fruit, lean meats like turkey cold cuts, seafood like cocktail shrimp and other healthy fare. For your first round of food, eat the healthiest things that are on offer. Only put those things on your plate to begin with. If you make yourself fuller on the good for you things, you'll have less room for the bad for you ones.

3. Then let yourself have the bad.Yep. If there's something amazing looking there that you know is full of calories, let yourself have a little. A smart serving size. Eat that and see if it satisfies you. If you want more, make yourself wait 5 minutes. Sometimes, you'll decide you're full or get distracted and not need to overeat.

4. Listen to your body. When you feel full, stop eating. Throw your plate away or take it to where the dirty dishes are being collected.

5. Drink thin, too. Light beer, white wine, vodka or tequila with no mixers or diet ones--these are skinny drinks. But they're not free ones. If you're counting calories, don't give yourself a free pass on the liquid ones. And whether or not you're counting calories, please don't drink and drive </public service announcement>

6. Enjoy yourself. And don't beat yourself if you veer from your diet plan. One day won't make or break your healthy lifestyle.


So what will I be doing tonight? I'm not much for football, but we will be having some dips and more fattening food this evening. My personal choice is to stick to thin eating for Super Bowl Sunday. I plan to eat sauerkraut, cocktail shrimp, whole wheat crackers, raw veggies and olives. And a small piece of birthday cake--because my Dad's birthday is today! (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!) I'll be budgeting the cake and those foods into my calorie count for today, making a healthy choice for lunch.

Now, here's what I ate this week. Fewer pictures this week as some of the recipes came from a food blog, and I don't want to steal her pictures.

- For breakfast this week, I ate fruit-flavored yogurts for a change. Fage Strawberry and Cherry flavors. I put a half serving of pecans in for some extra protein.

- My favorite snack of the week this week was Brookside Chocolate Covered Pomegranate. I love these candies. A serving of them is 16 candies with 170 calories. I usually eat about 8 of them just to get a chocolate fix.

- Crock Pot Picadillo from Skinny Taste - Picadillo is a Cuban dish that is sort of like chilli. It's less tomato-y and has olives in it. The dish was really satisfying and filling, and 1 cup only has 340 calories.

- Easy Garlic Cheddar Biscuits from Skinny Taste - Do you like those biscuits from Red Lobster? Of course you do! Well, these are those...but healthified. At the restaurant, those biscuits set you back 150 calories. The Skinny Taste ones are just 97 calories, and they are YUM.

- Chicken Pot Pie Soup from Skinny Taste - This is what we ate with those amazing biscuits. The soup was equally amazing. It's VERY filling. 1 cup and a biscuit was all I could manage. Make them together for a treat :)

- Baked Tilapia Curry from Eating Well (picture below!) - This is like a Thai curry as opposed to an Indian one. A little coconut-y and a little sweet. There isn't a ton of spice so don't be afraid of it. I imagine it would be good with other types of fish, too, and probably with shrimp or chicken.

So that's it for this installment of the blog. Come back tomorrow when I do three more exciting things with a chambray shirt and talk a bit about CHEATING on your eating thin endeavors!  Happy Super Bowl Day!

What I Ate This Week and Portion Control Tips

First off, I have a Facebook page for the blog now. At some point, I will figure out how to get it in the sidebar of Blogger to make it easy to find, but for now we're linking the old school way. Make sure to follow the page! I plan to post helpful links and pretty things there from time to time and link to the blog posts.

So as I promised in my first post, I am going to post every Sunday about some of the things I ate the week before. My goal here isn't to give you a meal plan to follow. It's just to provide some yummy meal ideas.

Weight loss needs are very different for every person. My recommended calorie levels aren't the same as yours or any of my other readers', and there are other methods of weight loss out there that don't count calories that may work for you.

My goal with these posts is just to report--like Lois Lane. But with red hair. So anyway here goes--

With the cold weather and the snow, this would have been a good week for soup. Oddly, I ate some cold things for dinner. Here's a look at some menu highlights and snacks from this week. Photography is not my strong point, so I'll be using images from the sources of the food.

Nature Box Banana Bread Granola was my breakfast with a container of plain Oikos Nonfat Greek Yogurt most mornings. This granola is amazing. It has dried banana, raisins, coconut, sesame seeds and walnuts. I've already talked about Nature Box before, and I'm sure I will again. If you want to check it out, use this link and enter SHARE10 when you order to get a discount off your first purchase.

My favorite snack of the week was Pipcorn in White Truffle. Pipcorn is whole grain mini popcorn. It's light and it's every bit as good as the stuff you make in the microwave. One serving is a massive 2.5 cups, and it has just 120 calories. The White Truffle is very light. I couldn't have picked out that it was truffle. It just tasted like "Yum" and "Yes, please" to me. They have other flavors, too. Rosemary. Sea Salt.  Kettle. I think they had Gingerbread for the holidays. I don't think it's sold in stores. It seems to be an online thing.

So I don't always know what to make of Gwyneth Paltrow. She seems kind of all over the place to me with like country music singing and then having her GOOP project and being an actress and having a cookbook and practicing underwater basket weaving (one of those things she did not actually do--YET!). She kind of reminds me of when you're a kid and every day you want to be something new. I want to be a ballerina! I want to be a teacher!  I want to be a pilot! I want to be a dinosaur! Etc. etc. But one thing I'll say for Gwyneth, lady makes good salmon. The Salmon With Sriracha Sauce and Lime from her cookbook is amazing. Don't be scared of the sriracha. This dish has bite but it's not killer hot. We ate ours with broccolini, but you can put any veggie with it and have a starch too if you fancy. Click here for the recipe on Self.

That's Quinoa Pilaf and Seared Scallops that you're looking at. You can find it here at Eating Well. Okay before you think WUT. SCALLOPS. We very rarely eat scallops at home. This recipe just looked too good to pass up. It's scallops, oranges, almonds and herbs with quinoa. If you haven't had quinoa before, it's a seed that has all of the nutrition of a whole grain. You say it like KEEN-WAH. And if you're me you say it as if you're a ninja and everyone looks at you funny. Can't help it though QUINOA is fun to say! And this meal is a fun treat. If you're not up for scallops, make some chicken breast tenders and toss them in. Or just make the quinoa as a side.

 This is seriously one of my favorites right now. It's Chopped Ham & Apple Salad with Creamy Parmesan which is right here at Eating Well. It's got some greens, some radishes, some apples and ham. Save this one for when you make a ham or make a ham special for it. It's fantastic. I ate some for lunch and then there was a half serving left for lunch so I mixed a serving of shredded cheese in it and ate that with some whole wheat bread the following day.

Mediterranean Cauliflower Pizza! This unique one from Eating Well  is like pizza but with cauliflower as the crust. It's a really unique idea and has sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and black olives on top. I'm not sure it will pass for pizza for people who don't like cauliflower. Even with their magical powers to make healthy food taste like it's bad for you good, even Eating Well can't make cauliflower taste like a Pizza Hut pan pizza. BUT! It's still tasty.

And here's the thing about weight loss--you can eat the Pizza Hut pan pizza if you count the calories and eat what's available in your day. If you want it, eat it, but eat it in moderation. Sensible portions! Which leads me to the rest of this blog post....nice segue, eh?

The key to eating when you're adopting skinny eating habits -- I don't say dieting, dieting is something you do for a week and then say oh to hell with this and then eat a bag of Oreos --is to control your portion size. All of the foods I listed above have under 500 calories per serving. But you have to eat the serving size. A whole bag of Pipcorn, 3 cups of Banana Bread Granola, seconds of the ham salad is overeating.

Your body doesn't give a free pass to healthy food. It isn't like oh hey quinoa, you're full of whole grains come on in all you want. We'll make room here behind the spleen. Excess calories turn to fat, so it's important to control your portion size. Eat what you love. Love what you eat, but eat the right amount. Here's a couple of tips to help you out:

1. Get out your measuring cups. Yeah, it sucks to measure everything, but eventually you can eyeball it. I can pretty much tell what 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1 cup, etc of food looks like. I still measure things like whole calorie salad dressing and whole calorie mayo just to be safe because i used to drown my food in those things.

2. Put the bag away. Don't eat snacks out of the bag. Get your snack measured out and set aside and then put the bag away. You WILL eat more than you should if it's out of the bag. How can you ever know how much you ate?

3. Find out how big your utensils are. If you don't like to measure, get out your big spoons for serving and your ladles and so on and get out measuring cups and find out how much is in them all at once. You can pretend like you're doing experiments in a laboratory if you feel like it. I totally have.

4. Divide it up when you buy it. When you get home from the grocery store, open up your bags of pretzels, crackers, nuts, whatever you eat that's nibble sized and pre-measure it into ziploc bags or reusable cloth bags like an ecoDitty bag or a Lunchskins bag if you're eco conscious.  Then,  when it's time to snack or take something with you to go, you have it measured out to the perfect amount. You can even put your premeasured snacks back into the box bag, etc to make them easy to store.

5. Put color on your plate first. Colorful foods are your veggies and your fruits. Whatever you're eating, put those babies on first. Then put your protein on and your starch if you're having one.

6. Or just buy portion plates like these:

These Portion Control Plates from  Colors_Of_Life on Zazzle come in a bunch of different patterns from modern to traditional. Your big section is for your fruits and veggies and the little sections are for your starch and your meat. They also have a four section one, but I like the three better personally. Now remember, the goal isn't to see how much you can cram into the section. This isn't like a 1950s how many boys can fit in a telephone booth game

None of that on your plate! Use the markers as a sensible guide.

There's six to get you started. I am sure there are other tips I can pass along the way. Tomorrow we're going to start looking at the chambray shirt I promised you at the beginning of this blog. And we're also going to talk about not the importance of not being mean girls. It'll be

See you then. =)

TL;DR Version: I ate food this week. Quinoa is fun to say. Portion control is important. Don't make your plate into a phone booth full of men in white t-shirts and khaki shorts.

After 130+ Pounds

 Last year at this time, I weighed about 300 pounds. I don't have any great before photographs because I never let anyone take my picture. I felt awful about myself. And I felt powerless to change it.

Then, we made plans to go to Disney World as a family. I didn't feel excitement. I felt dread. What if I didn't fit on the plane seat? What if I couldn't fit comfortable in the rides? All I could think about was how being obese would spoil the vacation.

So I decided to try and lose some weight.

And I lost. And I lost. And I lost. By the time I went on vacation in November of 2013 I weighed 115 pounds less than I did when I started on this quest in February. Now, I've lost over 130 pounds. For the first time since high school, I'm just plain overweight and not obese. With just another 25 pounds, I'll be "normal" weight. Something I've only been for a very brief period in my life. What's best about it is that I know I'm going to get there.

Lots of people ask what I did. So here's a look:

What I Did

The short story about what I did is I ate less calories than I burned. Every day. EVERY DAY. I haven't gone over my daily requirements. Not on vacation. Not on my birthday. Not as a reward for something special. It was just consistently creating a calorie deficit every day that has done this. No weight loss surgery, no herbs, no nothing. Just the science behind weight loss that I never understood before. Now, specifically, here are some of the things I did.

1. I calculated my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). That's the number of calories you burn just by being alive and then I used a calculator to try and gauge how many calories I burn by doing the things I do. Want to find yours? Use this WebMD calculator.

2. I figured out how many calories I needed to eat each day based on my calculator number. You lose 1 pound for every 3500 calories of a deficit you create. I wanted to lose 2 pounds each week so I created a 1,000-calorie deficit every day.

3. I tracked my calories and ate the exact number every day. At first I used paper. Then, I got the MyNetDiary App for tracking.

4. I eat recipes from Eating Well and Cooking Light for dinner most nights. You can find the recipes on my Pinterest page.

5. I eat nonfat Greek yogurt and Nature Box granola for breakfast every morning.

6. All of my snacks are usually Nature Box foods. They taste great and they're developed with the help of a nutritionist so they're sensible, healthy solutions. If you head over to the site and check it out, use the promo code SHARE10 to save $10.

7. I ate sensible lunches. Salads, sandwiches on whole wheat bread leftovers from dinners and so on.

8. When we ate out, I looked up nutritional information before we got to the restaurant and decided what I would order.

9. I let myself have things like ice cream when I wanted them, but I found out their calorie content and added it to my day.

10. I walked 3 miles per day 5 to 7 days per week beginning in April until about November. With cold weather I've been walking less often, but I'm still losing.

11. I realized I was responsible for how I looked. I accepted that I was obese because I ate too much too often. When I realized I was the one who was making the bad choices, and I could control my weight easily just by counting calories, it became easy.


About This Blog


So now to this blog. Being that I'm getting close to my goal weight, I'm starting to build a whole new wardrobe as literally nothing fits me, having gone from a Size 26 to now a Size 12. I wanted to start this blog to help share some of my fashion finds and so on. Here's what you can expect:

1. Reviews of some subscription box and fashion stylist services I've hired to help me find the style that's perfect for this new body.

2. Bargain sightings on Daily Deals sites that I'm excited about and want to share.

3. Outfit and style ideas that use basic pieces and build from there. I plan to devote each month to a different piece. For the rest of January and February, it's going to the chambray shirt.

4. Vintage style icon outfits. Each month I'll toss in some vintage inspired outfit ideas based on some of my personal style heroes. For the rest of January and February, we'll be styling after Audrey Hepburn.

5. Weekly Favorite Things posts about what I'm obsessing over at the present time

6. What I Ate Last Week posts. These are merely meant to be informational because people keep asking me what I eat. I'll highlight a couple of my favorite recipes from the week and give you links to them.

7. Other things that strike my fancy. I'm probably not going to talk much about weight loss on this blog. I feel that I'm not a weight loss expert and really shouldn't be giving advice about how to lose weight to anyone else. I just did what worked for me.  I don't know what will work for you or for someone else.

What I do know is that anyone can do what I did. If you're overweight or obese, you have the power to make the healthy changes in your lifestyle and reap their benefits. I didn't believe I could for the longest time, and I think that's what made me gain weight more than the food I put in my mouth.

Anyway, that's it for this intro post. Sorry it's 1,000 words. For those of you who I lost:

TL;DR version: I lost some weight. Now I'm ready to find some new clothes and talk about it on the Internet. Yay.

P.S. I'm a professional writer so I spend all day writing stuff. This blog is for me. So I won't be proofreading much. Please excuse any typos. ;)