Sorry, been away...

Sorry it's been awhile. I was sick last week, and I've had a sick animal that I've had to hand-feed the past two weeks, which takes up a lot of my time in the morning and evening. So I really haven't had any time to make bentos, nor have I been very good at even planning my meals for the last two weeks either.

The good news, is that I've made my goal Weight Watchers weight! Which is really exciting. When I did Weight Watchers a few years ago before my wedding I didn't come close to my goal weight, but I was happy to lose 15 pounds none-the-less. This time around, I therefore thought it would take a lot longer and be extremely difficult to get even withing five pounds of my goal weight. But that didn't turn out to be true. Mainly because of a few things I did differently:

1) I planned, planned, planned this time. I would sit down every Saturday or Sunday and plan out ALL my meals (snacks too) for the week. I would usually leave dinner on Friday open because my husband and I usually go out that night. But even then I would have an idea of a restaurant we would go to and look up points values of potential dishes I could get so I would be prepared.

2) I didn't try to obsessively stay within my allotted daily points value every day. I did that the first time around (I'm sure if I went to meetings they would have told me this, but I only do the online version). Instead, for the most part my daily points was usually 20, so I usually used about 21-23 points a day.

3) I paid attention to the Momentum plan's filling foods list (this wasn't available my first time around, but it really helped this time). The snacks I planned for the day were always filling foods instead of just any low points food. So instead of the Hershey's 100 calorie snack bars (2 points), I would have 10 baby carrots, 1 cup of edamame, and 1 Babybel cheese (3 points) which would fill me up for a much longer period of time.

4) I packed bento lunches almost everyday. Because I planned everything, it made it very easy to quickly pack bentos and to make sure I had a packed lunch available to me everyday to prevent eating out. The last time I did Weight Watchers I rarely packed my lunch and still ate out a lot. No matter how healthy I would try to eat out, I would still get tempted and cave into a sandwich special instead of a salad.

All of these things helped me lose 24 pounds in 4 months. Which is something I never thought I would be able to do. Of course, since I never thought I would get close to my goal weight, I set my goal weight a little high. I would like to actually lose another 5-10 pounds, so I will continue on my weight loss plan. I do need to figure out how to maintain the weight I have lost, though. Has anyone done this? Do you stay on plan? Or just stay observant of what you eat?

What has helped you lose weight? What have you learned from trial and error? :)

A Light Tuesday Lunch

I was surprised when I added up the points for my bento today. I usually try to keep my lunches between 5 and 6 points, but then I realized that my daily points allowance just dropped to 19, so I guess a smaller points lunch is in order. We'll see how much it fills me up, though. My bento comes to 3.5 points.

This bento contains:
1 cup Ginger Sesame Cabbage Salad (1 point)
1/2 filet of Ginger-Wasabi Glazed Talapia (2 points)
1/4 serving of Beet & Orange Salad (.5 points)
1/2 cup green beans with garlic and soy sauce (0 points)

My husband's bento comes to points 6 points.

This bento contains:
1 cup Ginger Sesame Cabbage Salad (1 point)
1 oz hard salami (2 points)
1 slice Cheddar cheese (2 points)
10 baby carrots (.5 points)
1/2 cup edamame (.5 points)
1/4 of an apple with sugar and cinnamon (0 points)

While I have been very very good at planning out all of my bentos for the week, the fact that my husband now wants bentos has thrown me off. I find myself scrounging around for things to put in his bento, while trying make sure that it's well-balanced. Doing this adds about half and hour to my prep time, which is just way too much time. I usually make mine while I'm making dinner, and then finish it up in maybe 5 or 10 minutes after dinner. But last night, I was still in the kitchen half an hour after dinner trying to find things to put into his bento. Of course, looking at his bento, you probably wonder why it took me so long. :) I just need to find a better, and faster method for making both our bentos. Any tips or suggestions?

Thursday's Bentos

I was sick yesterday, so today's bento was actually supposed to be for lunch yesterday. But everything should still taste fine. :) My bento comes to 5.5 points.

This bento contains:

1 cup of Cabbage Salad with Ginger and Sesame Dressing (1 point)
4 oz Tuna Steak with Wasabi-Ginger glaze (3.5 points)
1/2 cup asparagus sauteed with Sesame Oil & garlic (1 point)

My husband's bento comes to 8 points.

His bento contains:
1 oz ham (1 point)
1 slice of colby jack cheese (2 points)
2 tsp. Horseradish mustard in the strawberry (0 points)
1/2 serving of Alessi Rosemary Potatoes (1 point)
1 tbsp. Ketchup (.5 points)
10 baby carrots (.5 points)
1/8 cup Edamame Hummus (1 point)
1 1/2 cups Cabbage Salad with Ginger and Sesame Dressing (2 points)

Tuesday's Bentos

My husband liked his bento so much last time that he now asks me when I'm making mine, 'So, what are you putting in mine?'. I actually wasn't planning on making him one for today, but luckily we had still had some leftovers from last week. So he was happy. I'm going to keep counting points for his bentos because: (1) he is trying to lose weight, though he's not doing Weight Watchers, and (2) that is the purpose of this blog. Does anyone know of any men doing Weight Watchers? I know they have a new program for them, but I have no idea what the target points for a man would be.

My bento for today comes to 4 points.

This bento contains:
4 Cheese & Spinach Ravioli (2 points)
1/8 cup edamame hummus (1 point)
3 small sweet peppers (0 points)
1/2 cup asparagus with garlic & sesame oil (1 point)
Not pictured:
1/2 cup Classico Fire Roasted Tomato Sauce (1 point)

My husband's bento comes to 8 points:

This bento contains:
1/2 serving of Soba Noodles with Garlic Tofu (2 points)
1 slice Colby Jack cheese (2 points)
2 oz lean ham (2 points)
Asparagus with garlic & sesame oil (1 point)
1/8 cup edamame hummus (1 point)
3 small sweet peppers (o points)

Making his bento was actually a pretty big deal for me. I'm vegetarian (well, pescetarian, because I eat fish), and I don't cook any meat for him. If he wants chicken or something, he makes it himself. So the fact that I actually handled the ham to make the roll-ups was a pretty big deal. I guess my compulsion to make it pretty outweighed my avoidance of touching meat.

Breakfast Bento for Tuesday

Pretty much the same old, same old. I mixed it up with raspberries this time. I make breakfast bentos almost everyday, I just don't post them because they all look the same. :) This breakfast bento comes to 3.5 points.

This bento contains:
2 oat-nigiri [1 cup oatmeal, 1 tsp dried cranberries, & 1 tsp golden raisins] (2 points)
2 Morningstar Breakfast Links (1 point)
1 tbsp. Lite Syrup (.5 points)
1/2 cup raspberries (0 points)