How to Cook Pumpkin

After a modicum of success making chicken pumpkin black bean chili, I decided I was ready to hit the big time. I was not only going to make this fantastic chili, I was going to cook the pumpkin for it, instead of using canned. I thought that someone out there might find my instructions helpful, so I am posting them.

Steps:

1. Go to PCC or Whole Foods and get organic cooking pumpkins. Not the kind you carve faces into, these are smaller. You might be unsure of how many to get, so do like me and get 5 of them, then choke on your own tongue when you realize you've just spent $14 to make your own pumpkin (for sale at Safeway, 2 cans for $4).
2. Take pumpkins home. Fret about where to store them. (House is too warm, porch might freeze- can they freeze? Is that bad? No space in fridge, etc.)
3. Threaten your children within an inch of their lives if they color on/mess with/are seen gazing for too long at cooking pumpkins.
4. Tell everyone you know that you are going to cook your own pumpkin, tell a few people you don't know. Really commit.
5. Think about looking up instructions, but don't actually print any or even decide which method you are going to use.
6. Get advice from superchef friend about how to boil it.
7. Spend 45 minutes looking up ways to cook it, with frequent side trips to Facebook and Etsy.
8. Decide to boil it.
9. Forget that your last soup debacle ended up with you in tears throwing your giant (cheap, crappy) soup kettle into the garbage can outside because after the exhaustion of making (then burning) the soup you just couldn't face cleaning the pan.
10. Dig out your great grandmother's old dutch oven style pot, which is always half as big as you need it to be. Remind self to buy a new large pot.
11. Cut pumpkins in half, remind self to buy Miracle Blade Knife set for Christmas.
12. Scoop out seeds and stringy crap, both of which you will find remnants of for the next 2 weeks in places you never dreamed of.
13. Begin wiping hands on pants and shirt, curse self for not having an apron.
14. Drop pieces of cut pumpkin into boiling water. Forget about them until sizzling sound of pot boiling over reminds you.
15. Set timer for 30 minutes. Go into living room and immediately begin fighting off the deepest sleep that has ever come over you.
16. When timer goes off, stab pumpkin with fork to see if it is tender. Accidentally break off several pieces of pumpkin, mumble under breath about needing a new pot, and check cupboard for canned pumpkin (just in case).
17. remove pumpkin from hot water, forgetting to put on a hot pad so Great Granny's metal pot handle is sure to sear your hand. You'll need something to remember this by when all the dried slime and seeds finally disappear.
18. let pumpkin cool on counter.
19. Begin second batch (I *said* the pot was too small) and chuckle to self about how easy this is. Begin picturing self making large batches and freezing this to use until next summer. Decide what color label will go on jars of your Homemade Pumpkin that your friends will surely want to try.
20. When pumpkin is cool, scrape meat out of skin. Drop several pieces, immediately wasting good pumpkin and about 800 paper towels to clean it up.
21. Say quick thanks to the Tupperware Gods that you somehow acquired a giant, wonderful Tupperware just the right size for all this pumpkin.
22. Curse whoever left 'giant' Tupperware at your house for not getting one size up, because it turns out that you suddenly have a buttload of pumpkin.
23. Remove second batch of pumpkin from stove when stray seed catches fire on burner, filling house with smoke and testing fire alarms.
24. Continue scraping pumpkin out. Drop large chunk down front of dishwasher, and onto the floor. Consider kicking air in disgust but think twice because you know this will land you in the ER with a bruised coccyx.
25. Burn hand on piece of pumpkin from most recent batch, nowhere near cool enough to touch.
26. Begin throwing pumpkin-y dishtowels into the wash, realize you have now only 1 dishtowel clean and tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
27. Start load of laundry.
28. Finish scraping out pumpkin meat, grin cleverly at bag of pumpkin guts, seeds and skin as you realize you have FINALLY remembered some food waste to put in the yard waste bin, and the trash company has only been begging you for 2 years.
29. Place Tupperware containers into refrigerator, wonder where you'll get the energy to make the soup you cooked this for.
30. Grab shopping list, add "Canned Pumpkin" to it, so next time you get an idea like this you may save you from yourself.
31. Look down, realize clothing is covered in pumpkin. Consider going to bed fully dressed in pumpkiny clothing and contemplate how hard you'll clobber your husband if he comments.
32. Pick pumpkin out of hair, change into jammies and hit the hay. After all, tomorrow you've got to mash all that pumpkin and get started on the real recipe.

The chili turned out great (again) but I am going to be honest, I do not think I preferred the fresh over the canned. It tasted great, but so did the canned, and it's worth saving the time because who knows, I might find another great recipe one of these days.

Here comes Thanksgiving

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

The fattest holiday of all.

Go away.

I have kinda been dreading Thanksgiving. You see, usually we spend it at my brother-in-law's house, he is an amazing cook and every year I eat until I can eat no more, then I have seconds and thirds and end up in a state that requires Alka Seltzer to even stand up straight by the end of the day. As always, we were invited to go over. But we said no.

Now naturally you are thinking, " WHAT? Are you avoiding it? You can't avoid food forever, you know. Why not bring your own items, and drink a gallon of water before mealtime, and---"

This is when I jump in and cut you off with my answer. "Because I don't want to."

I have had a particularly stressful past few weeks, and I am exhausted. I've eaten well for the most part, but I've been on a plateau and frankly I am tiring of up/down weigh ins. And honestly, I am not sure I want to (not can, want to) deal with trying to dodge the tantalizing cakes Lee and Irma will bring, nor do I feel like marching past the stuffing with a mouth full of celery. For that reason, staying home sounds wonderful, and low key.

There will come a time when I can do this (heck, I've been to a number of events over this past several months and made great choices) but I think sometimes success doesn't mean suffering all day and eating healthy, sometimes it means doing what you know is right for you at the time.

So tomorrow I am making more pumpkin soup (with fresh pumpkins, kinda exciting) and I've got some of my favorite healthy foods to eat- fresh green beans, berries, etc. And I am going to enjoy my Thanksgiving meal with a side dish of relaxation.

No Parking

On the days I don't have training sessions with Woodstock (Tues and Thurs) I like to do long fast walks or walk/jogs. In summer, I did these at home around my neighborhood and I love those walks. But now its crummy cold wet Seattle fall, and my wonderful walking route is a dark and dreary cement drudge in the dark by 5 pm.

Now I have never shown signs of melting potential, so I know that I am capable of going in the rain, but sometimes these walks take place on my lunch break at work. I do not like to return to work all rained on and looking like something the cat dragged in.

So today I had this conversation with myself

"Hey, what about the parking garage?"

"Ew. the parking garage is very ugly and cold. And dreadfully boring. I won't walk there."

"Fine, go walking in the dark rain alone when you get home from work, you'll probably slip into a ditch and get stuck and drown. If a car doesn't hit you and leave you for dead."

And that was how Garage Walks were born.

Our Parking garage connects 3 buildings, and even has some ramps. I was right, it is pretty boring out there but I didn't have my Zune so I was kind of prepared for some quiet walking time. But hey, I survived and I found a new place to exercise where I don't get my head wet. No more parking!

Orange you glad you like Carrots?

"One man, aged 40, from UK, had started to eat carrots when he stopped smoking. He ate more than five bunches of them per day (but nobody says how many there were in each bunch). He said that when he was not eating carrots, he thought about them all the time."

more here

Thinking about carrots is not a big issue for me, but I do eat a lot of baby carrots, and now hands are orange. No joke.

I tried to deny it- my husband noticed first and I denied it. "I don't eat that many!" I howled, afraid he'd try to step between me and the baby carrots. He patiently just shook his head. I'm happier and healthier, maybe it's worth being orange.

But today I showed Woodstock and she agreed, they're orange. We laughed so hard. She had another client who had orange hands after lots of carrots and some pumpkin...

Ahhh, so this is where the pumpkin soup comes in? I have no idea, but maybe it was all the carrots and the pumpkin soup that tipped me over the edge of paleness (into the orange). Sounds like it's time for me to determine what a healthy serving of carrots is, and how many I can get away with before I glow.

20 Week Check In- Scorecard

Not sure why, but Blogger doesn't want to let me edit old posts (grrrr) so here I am dropping a new blog post in just so I can talk about bloodwork. And inches. And BP- oh my :)

Inches

I have lost 21.75 inches. A few examples:

• I've lost 4.75 inches off my waist
• 4.5 inches off my hips
• 1 inch off my neck.
• 4 inches off my bust

Blood Pressure

• My blood pressure was 151/104 to start with. And I was on blood pressure prescription medication at the time. Yikes.
• At 20 weeks it's 119/81. Much better, and I've been off the medication for months. My BP goal is 110/70...

Blood Test

• Cholesterol - went from 238-154
• HDL - went from 52 to 54 (this is the good one- think Happy DL- so we want it to go up)
• LDL - went from 141 to 88

So I am feeling pretty good. No, not just about these numbers (though I did consider getting a t-shirt with them on it to show them off) but I really FEEL GOOD. I got so used to being sick and tired and going to the doctor constantly trying to determine what was wrong, it feels good to feel great. Not to sound like a commercial but as Thanksgiving approaches I am thankful for 20/20 every single day.

Getting Some Class

Exercise class, not classy class.

This week I only have two appointments with Woodstock, so I needed to find something challenging to do for my Wednesday workout. I figured I'd get in trouble for following her around with her Wed am client this week, trying to copy whatever they did, so I found a class. (Okay, she suggested one).

It's called Circuit Training and it starts at 6:15 am. Perfect! Here's the description:

"Blend energizing cardio with serious muscle strengthening. Get variety and the motivation you need to finish your workout strong."

Now I've seen this class take place, because the room it's in is right behind the warm up bikes where we watch our 20/20 videos. (Photo above from ProClub website) People come out looking pretty sweaty, so I knew I was in for a workout.

And was I ever nervous. I raced in there, and people were stacking weights all over the ground. Each in his/her own space. What the heck? I thought this was mostly cardio with a few weights around. I met the instructor, grabbed a few weights and hopped onto a treadmill. The first 15 minutes or so, we did cardio and then we all came into the middle for weights.

Music is playing the whole time, thank goodness I've been listening to some pop music lately (so I can keep up with my teenagers) so I recognized Lady Gaga and a few other songs.

The weight part is hard- I can't remember how many of each exercise we did, but I think it was 4 sets of 8. The instructor is very clever- she counts forward and backward and talks about technique while you forget that you've done so many reps you won't be able to raise your water bottle at the end. I know this because I picked mine up and sprayed myself in the face halfway through.

Every so often, we all get on a machine (they have elliptical, treadmills, bikes, and this thing that looks like a horrible climbing machine) and we stay there for 4 or 5 minutes. Then back to weights.

I really liked this class, it is something I could see myself doing long-term to stay in shape. It lasts just over an hour including stretching (she takes you through a lovely stretching routine) and you leave knowing you got a great workout.

When I got to the locker room, I checked my heart rate monitor. Here's what it said

Total time: 1 hour, 12 minutes

Average heart rate: 120

Peak heart rate: 177

Pretty good workout, if you ask me. I'll be doing this for the next couple weeks on days I am not with Woodstock. (Now that I am in Phase 2, I only see Woodstock 2 times per week for workouts).

20 Week Check In

Right now I am working on my 20 week check in. I got blood drawn for lab work, measurements done, and another Dexa Scan (the last one was at my intake).

My starting body fat was 41.8% (gross!)
Current body fat is 27.4%
I've reduced my body fat by 14.4 % in 20 weeks

My BMI is 25.4 today (it was 31.8, it has come down 6.4)

I've lost 42 pounds total
I've gained 5 lbs of muscle

I used to have 85 lbs of fat on my body, now I have 46 lbs of fat on my body.

So what now....

I still want to lose about 28 pounds, and further reduce my body fat (I have my goal number somewhere, I need to find that). Right now my goal is to get to a flat 25 BMI by next Friday (day after Thanksgiving). That's about 4 pounds away, not sure I can make it but I'll try like heck!

Needless to say, I am proud of my progress. There are times I wish I was losing the pounds faster, but seeing these numbers help me remember that it's about the overall picture.

I can't wait to see my blood work results because I was just 1 point from pre-diabetes when I started the program and that was frightening as I have a family history (on Mom's side) of diabetes. Did I just say that I am excited about bloodwork results? My hubby is right, I am turning into a HealthBot!!! The Lord of the Diet would be so proud!

A "right now" List

Here's a list of things that are motivating me right now:

• No more large lady sizes. You know how awesome it feels to know that I can't even shop at Lane Bryant anymore? Not won't, but CAN'T! Sorry, Lane, but there's no better feeling than leaving you behind.
• Way more energy- it's amazing. I stay much busier because I don't feel sick and tired all the time.
• Speaking of sick, I get sick way less often.
• New goals- next goal: learn to knit. I started this a few years ago but now that I
  need my hands busy more often, it's a perfect time.
• Not so camera shy- I can just snap a picture now and not immediately detest it.
  Changed my driver's license- it had expired. You know how amazing it is to have them
  take 40 pounds OFF the weight they show on the license? Feels great!
• Ready for another 5k- this time we're doing the Resolution Run which ends in (yes IN) the waters of Lake Washington, the Polar Bear Dip. Crazy fun.

Sometimes I just jot down a few things to remind myself to keep on keepin' on....

Soup's On

Today I made Pumpkin Soup. Who me? Yep, me. And I daresay it turned out deeeee-lightful. Huge thanks to Woodstock, who gave me the recipe. (I am bringing her a cup of it to the gym tomorrow).

Okay, so here's the recipe:

In a soup pan, saute (in 1 tb canola oil)
1 medium onion
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 green or red pepper, diced

then add in 1 lb of ground chicken or turkey
and cook until browned.

now throw in
1 can of pumpkin
1 can of low/no- sodium tomatoes (or a couple medium size chopped tomatoes)
1 can of black beans (drained and rinsed)

Cook on medium for 20 minutes

Serve with nonfat sour cream or nonfat green yogurt and some low or nonfat shredded cheese. Superb!

I need to use a calorie counter to get the specifics, from my estimation it's about 325 calories per serving (which is a good size cup). I'll edit this post with the nutritional info when I get it.

Feelin Groovy

Not sure Groovy is the right word, but I am back in the groove. Positive self-talk, working the program the way I know it works and trucking along. My weigh in today was much better than I expected- I removed the 1.4 lbs I was up last week. (if you recall, I had been sick and probably had some water weight).

I am guessing that this week I maintained (considering how off track I was until Tues) and the water/whatever from being sick left. Either way, I am back to 6.6 lbs away from a BMI of 25, and that's my goal by the end of Thanksgiving week. I feel really positive about this goal, it will put me at a place where I have just 20 lbs to lose total.

Next week I am only with Woodstock for two training sessions instead of 3, so I am going to try my first Class- it's a cardio circuit class. I'm nervous but excited about it. If I see Woodstock or the Eagle Guru or SkinnyBuns walk by the room (all windows to the main gym) I am afraid I am going to be tempted to scream "LOOK AT ME, I AM DOING IT!!"

Which makes me think of this:

Digging into the Issue

Sigh.
This has been my toughest couple weeks. I was had a challenge I was trying to meet- to reach a certain BMI/weight by a specific time (not a program requirement, just a challenge by someone I admire- the 20/20 program has never number challenged me) and I freaked. And I hurried up and failed so that I wouldn't have to risk not succeeding.

And it stunk.

My past couple weeks has been an up/down affair- last week, up 1.4. The week before, down. The week prior, barely down. Basically since this challenge was verbalized, I started to quake in my boots. And it wasn't a challenge like a threat. Or intimidation- it was an offer. "Hey, if you can get here, I'd love to give you a gift to reward you". How nice is that? But I freaked. I balked. I prepared for failure and I hit the mark.


But this journey is not about failing and quitting. There is no room for spiraling back into hopeless overeating and miserable habits- I have an amazing team who is right by my side the entire way. So I opened up, admitted how I was struggling, and you know what? It's okay. Lesson learned.

But not the easy way. No lesson is learned the easy way, or I would never have ended up so overweight and unhealthy. It was time to unearth some issues.... this is where the brilliant lifestyle coach/counselor component of 20/20 helps so much.

Once we identified that I seem to have an adverse reaction to specific challenges (when they come from other people, I do fine if I set the goal) we dug in. I do fine with these when it comes to work, I relish a challenge there.... but somehow this had to be tied to my weight/personal successes.

The ridiculous part is that I have set goals for myself over the past 4 months and never freaked out like this- and the goals I set myself were no easier than this one.

I realized I was filtering things in a manner that was very black and white- I win, or I lose. No 2nd place. But life just isn't like that- sometimes you come in second and you are proud of the fact that you even made it to the finish line. Some days you should be proud you even showed up to the race.

So my "challenger" was kind enough to extend the offer- letting me know that if I can meet the goal 3 weeks from now, I can consider it a win (and get my prize). I feel confident I can meet this goal (same time frame I was given the first time) and frankly I am excited to stomp all over my fears this time.

I am so very grateful for 20/20, for helping me dig in and figure out what is behind my health/eating/exercise choices (good and bad) so I know that when I finish this program I will have a toolkit - resources, experiences, challenges overcome and victories. These are the things I will take with me.