Cheeburger, Please Burger!

A couple weeks ago, my hubby had gone out to lunch with some co-workers to a restaurant named, "Cheeburger, Cheeburger". From his description of the malt shop feel to the fact that they served real vanilla cola, I knew that I wanted to eat there AND SOON! We decided to head there on a Saturday night for an early dinner.

The restaurant was packed! We were seated in the very back. There wasn't enough room to pull our chairs out. As annoying as the crowded seating situation was, I also figured that there must be something to their food for all these people to be here so early on a Saturday afternoon.

Before even stepping through the front doors, I knew what I would be eating. My thanks to Cheeburger, Cheeburger for having nutritional information available online. They even have a nutritional calculator on their website so you can build your own meal, customize it how ever you may want and then have all the caloric info you need right there in front of you. It made ordering and sticking to my diet easy.

This restaurant is pretty neat. First, you order your drink. They have Cherry, Vanilla and Chocolate Colas. Mmmmm. They also have Flavored Teas and Lemonades, Shake-a-Sodas, Ice cream Sodas, Rootbeer Floats, Egg Creams, the usual suspects (like hot tea, coffee, milk, juice and boring regular ol' sodas) PLUS a massive lists of milk shakes. There are so many flavors. And you can combine as many flavors as you want to make your own creation. In fact, their menu boasts that there are over 350,000 flavor combinations! My hubby and my daughter shared a Strawberry and Cream Milkshake.




I had a Diet Vanilla Cola for 3 POINTS. It was delicious and well worth the point sacrifice!


Next, you order your sandwich. You start with burger size. They range from THE CLASSIC up to OUR FAMOUS POUNDER (which if you complete, earns your picture a spot on their wall of fame). If you'd rather something else, there are plenty of other things to choose from like chicken sandwiches, grilled cheese, wraps, platters and salads.

The next step is to order your cheese. Whether you are a traditional cheeser or the more daring cheese enthusiast, they have a cheese for you. After you pick your cheese (or opt to have NO cheese), you then pick your toppings. The list they have for free toppings is outrageous. You can have anything from peanut butter to artichoke hearts added to your burger. If you want bacon though, it'll cost you a little extra. There is almost no limit to the number of toppings you can add to your cheeseburger creation.

You can order fries or onion rings to go with your sandwich. According to their nutritional info, the onion rings were significantly less fattening then the fries. They have four different kinds of dips that you can order with your fries or rings. Since I am dieting, I opted for none. My daughter and hubby stuck to traditional ketchup.



I ordered a Veggie Burger without the bun, which they happily accommodated. On top of my burger, I had American Cheese, Salsa and a side of pickles. It was huge AND DELICIOUS! I savored every last bite of it.

Those onion rings made me feel like I was cheating. I hate biting into an onion ring and having the rubbery onion refuse to snap. You end up with the onion in your mouth and the breading in your hand. Not with these onion rings! They were light and crispy. The breading kind of tasted like funnel cake to me.

The Veggie Burger sans bun with salsa, cheese and pickles clocked in at 7 POINTS.
The Cakey, Crunchy Onion Rings cost me 3 POINTS for a small serving, which was plenty!

I left full. Satisfied. Still on my Diet.

~~~~~
Side Dish:
They cook all the food to order. It takes a little longer to receive your food, but it is worth it to know you are getting fresh food!

You're No Good, Baby, You're No Good

I was flipping through the Woman's Day magazine that is delivered to my house every so often. It comes to me because my mother-in-law subscribes to it each year. She received two free subscriptions for other gals so she signed me up for one of them. I usually just glance at it before throwing it in our pile of recyclables. This most recent edition was full of interesting info for the dieting populace. I had my pen out, I was circling items like crazy! Ooh, and I found a $1.00 off coupon for 0 POINT Jello Snack Packs. Score.

I thought this article was worth sharing:

"JUNK FOOD = DRUGS?
If you've ever thought 'I'm addicted to this stuff' after eating candy, potato chips, doughnut or other junk food, you may be on to something. Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in Florida fed rats cake, candy bars and other empty-calorie delights, then exposed the rats to light (a sign of danger) to see if they would stop eating the treats. They didn't, possibly because eating the junk food may have activated pleasure centers in the rats' brains much as an addictive drug would. It isn't clear if the study, recently published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, will translate to humans, but the scientist believe that highly processed junk foods may disrupt hunger and satisfaction signals in the brain and cause people to keep seeking them out- even though we know that they have few nutrients and eating too much of them can cause weight gain"
from "Be Well News" by Abigail L. Cuffey for Woman's Day (July 2010)

I knew those yummy potato chips were no good! I sure miss snacking on them though.

~~~~~
Side Dish: Although I posted this article for all of you to read it, it does not mean that I condone testing on animals.

PB + J = A Love Story

Better'n Peanut Butter meets Sugar-free Blackberry Jam through fate and human hunger in the kitchen.





Arnold's Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins meets up with the new couple.





Better'n Peanut Butter spreads two tablespoons on thick. Arnold's is impressed.





Sugar-free wants to join the fun. She adds a tablespoon of her wisdom into the conversation.





Always late to the party, Organic Carrots Chips and her best bud, Walden Farms Ranch Dressing round out the crowd. Of course, old reliable, Iced Tea is there to chaperone these crazy kids!

Let's rewind back now:

I hadn't craved a PB+J since I was a kid. However, I'm a fool for peanut butter. I hate chocolate, but would find myself eating peanut butter cups (pre-diet, of course) just so I could get to the creamy PB goodness.

A couple weeks ago, my kid hit the pre-determined age where the pediatrician deemed it safe for her to have it. Well, we went PB+J crazy! For at least a week, my poor daughter had one everyday for lunch. Don't get me wrong, she loved it, but I try to give her more variety in her meals. This PB love fest left me hungry.... for the all-american kid's sandwich. I knew I couldn't eat a regular, full-fat one so I started to look around for a way to make a diet-friendly, but full-flavored version.

Ta-Da!

As we speak, I'm blowing off cleaning up the usual havoc my toddler has wreaked in our living room. I normally reorganize the house while she naps. Not today. I'm still sitting at the kitchen table with my empty plate beside me! I just ate this sandwich about an hour ago and had to share this news immediately with my fellow dieters. It was fab-u-lous!

Here's the POINTS breakdown:

Better'n Peanut Butter - 2 Tbsp= 2 POINTS
Sugar-free Smucker's Jelly - 1 Tbsp = 0 POINTS
Arnold's Sandwich Thin = 1 POINTS

There you go, a yummy Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich for 3 POINTS! This peanut butter (Better'n Peanut Butter) has got to be THE best PB that I have ever tasted. No joke. It is a little pricey (at about five bucks per jar), but it is worth it. I'm frugal and even I would have paid that much for a tablespoon or two of it! Ok, well, maybe not five bucks, but still, it is delicious.

I do have to warn you though, this sandwich can get messy. If you want less mess, try it with some Weight Watcher's bread to avoid altering the POINTS value. I haven't tried it with the bread yet so I cannot say much about it.

Add Carrot Chips instead of Potato Chips for a 0 POINT add-on. If you are a dipper like me, try Walden Farms dressing. I'm partial to the Ranch, though they have a variety of flavors. The dressing is 0 POINTS. So there you have a whole meal for 3 POINTS including the beverage, 0 POINT Iced Tea.*

I know what I'll be having again for lunch tomorrow!

~~~~~
Side Dish:
* Iced Tea is only 0 POINTS if it is unsweetened or diet. If you add sugar or flavoring to it, it will have a POINTS value. See my earlier post on Iced Tea to see how I coped with it.

Extra Helpings (aka Editor's Note):
I made another PB+J sandwich this afternoon for lunch. You will have a drastically less messy sammy if you only put the PB on one side of the sandwich thin. Smear the other half with the jam or jelly. I guess having the jelly directly on the bread makes it stick in place instead of sliding onto the plate with each delectable bite!

The Breastfeeding Momma

As of last night, our breastfeeding days are officially over. I'm sad. It means my baby is growing up. It was the last vestige of something I can't quite fully put into words. The tough pregnancy? Her miraculous birth? The awe of my newborn baby? Her complete dependence on me? Maybe it is a little bit of all of these things.

She is two years old. Yes, I was one of THOSE moms. Breastfeeding has tons of benefits for mother and child. I believe that it is an amazing gift that mother can give to child. I lost support from many people when she turned one. I started to hear the questions like "When are you going to quit nursing her?" or "Don't you think she's a little old for that?" or even "She doesn't need that anymore. Give her REGULAR milk". While I usually ignored them, that last comment made me mad. I guess cow's milk is the normal milk and my breastmilk was supposed to be the scary, crazy bad stuff. Whatever.

We weaned for two reasons. Both are personal. One of those reasons involved my health. Unfortunately, it became necessary to finish up nursing. I'm coming to terms with it. I am confident that I have given her the best start possible. I'm glad that I was able to give her two years of it.

Here comes the diet tie-in:

This morning, I weighed myself. The scale and I meet on Thursday morning. We meet in the bathroom. I bring myself in all my naked glory. Scale brings her harsh reality spelled out in little electronic numbers. I'm only down 0.2 pounds this week.

I expected the teeny tiny weight loss this time since we had been weaning this past week. Weight Watchers allotted five extra points to me each and every day while nursing. That was a great buffer. My safety net of POINTS to cushion me from dieting disaster.

Now that it is real, that I adjusted my daily POINTS total to reflect my shiny new non-nursing mother status, I'm nervous. What if I can't make my diet work with less points (even though each time you hit a new weight bracket, you loss another daily POINT)?

We eat out often in my household. I am not much of a cook. I've tried and tried, but it just isn't me. I envy women who can look at the contents of an almost empty fridge and make a delicious feast. Those women who can whip up meals with little effort are seriously amazing gals. I'm just not one of them.

I guess I'm scared that going out to eat might not work with my new, lower daily POINTS amount. I'm fearful the medicine that the doctor prescribed will cause me to gain weight. Unfortunately, that can be a side effect of way too many meds. I don't want all of this work and weight loss to be for naught.

I'm just in that scary readjustment phase. I can do this. Yes, I can. I am woman. Here me...

~~~~~
Side Dish: The beautiful picture is titled "Mother and Child" by Harold Gilman. 1918.

Time Keeps on Spinning, Spinning, Spinning

Sorry about the two month hiatus, folks. You might have thought that I fell off the diet bandwagon. Honestly, I thought I'd written a little bit in my bloggy blog back in April, but I guess the post never got any further than the inner workings of my mind. That's an easy place to get lost.

April and May were busy for me. In some good ways and some horrible ways. None of which were diet related.

HOWEVER, I AM STILL ON MY DIET!

And doing fabulous on it. In April, right around my sister's thirtieth birthday, I hit the THIRTY POUNDS LOST milestone! I was down to the weight I had been when I married my hubby eight years ago.

In May on another special family day, I stood on the scale as I do every week. I had reached the FORTY POUNDS LOST goal. I was shocked.

I stood in front of the mirror (something I've avoided for years) in nothing more than a bra and panties. I took stock of myself. My body looked different than it did six months ago. Other than my 'mom' belly, I have the body that I did back in high school again. Well, except for the fact that I'm in my early thirties and my body has put a few miles on itself since then.

There are some wrinkles peaking out from the corner of my eyes that weren't there fifteen years ago. I definitely have, ahem, a few more tattoos than I did at eighteen. The nose, tongue and bellybutton piercings may now be gone, but little tiny scars are left in their places. The evidence of life lived left on my physical body.

BUT....

I feel good. My self-esteem and confidence are making a comeback which has not only benefited me, but my husband as well. The lucky bastard! I am not embarrassed to show myself in public. I finally feel like a normal person. At least on the outside now.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Side Dish: I was going to post a pic of me at the 35 pounds down level, but honestly, it was a cell phone photo that I took by myself. It was NOT a great quality shot. I promise to post before and after pics when I hit my goal weight. I'm down 42 pounds so I'll be posting them in another 8 pounds! Yay! :)