Scallion-Tofu and Vegetable Stir-Fry by WW

As promised, here's the WW recipe that I prepared last week for my lunches...


Scallion-Tofu and Vegetable Stir-Fry by WW
6 points per serving, 4 servings

ingredients:
1sprays cooking spray (5 one-second sprays per serving)
1 tsp canola oil
1 pound extra firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 medium scallions, green and white parts chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper, seeded and diced
1 medium green pepper, seeded and diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup cremini mushrooms or button mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 cup cooked brown rice, regular or instant, kept hot.

directions:

Coat a large nonstick skillet or Wok with cooking spray and set pan over medium-high heat. Add oil and tofu and stir-fry until tofu is browned on all sides, about 2 minutes.

Add scallions, peppers, carrots and mushrooms and stir-fry until vegetables are tender and mushrooms release juice, about 3-5 minutes. Add soy sauce and cook 1 minute more.

Serve tofu mixture over rice. Yields about 1 1/2 cups of tofu stir-fry and 1/2 cup of rice per serving.

you can't see it very well but the rice is there - on the bottom of the bowl :)


I've done this recipe often and I find that you can easily change it up by using other veggies, so long as you use the same amount of tofu, rice and oil. I often skip the cooking spray and replace the oil with sesame oil (2tsps instead of 1 if I skip the spray... a bit heavier in point but not too bad...)



Here you go - lunches for the week!! :)

27 weeks and 2 days + Weekly exercise 2/3

Whee!!!! I've successfully accomplished days 2 of my weekly exercise and I have another couple days to do my 3rd day - we can do this!

I did the Tracey Mallett: Fit For Pregnancy DVD again, but this time I did the 'cardio and weights' section for the 2nd trimester as well as the Core and the Flexibility sections. A good challenge - I definitely felt like I 'worked' at the end! :)

Food wise - after I'm done with this post I'm going to cook a Tofu and bell peppers stir-fry with brown rice (one of my favorite WW recipes - super easy to prep and healthy - I might post about it tomorrow...) I prepped all the veggies as soon as I got back from the grocery store this weekend - my fridge freezes all my veggies so preparing them and cooking them as soon as possible really helps me to avoid wasting them... It's going to provide me with lunches for the week!

We made a lot of progress with the baby room this weekend too - well I should say that S did the majority of the work. We took everything out of the room and then he sanded all the walls, fixed all the cracks, sanded the room again, and did a first big clean up. All that's left is to do a deep clean and paint the room!

Big scoop for family members who might be reading the blog: we picked our color - 'crisp green' from Benjamin Moore. It's from an old set of colors so you won't find it on their web site anymore, but it's like a very light pastel-ish green. Our furniture will most likely be 'espresso' color, and the accessories (not our final decision) will potentially be 'cream'.

In other news, I went for the glucose test this morning, to find out if I have gestational diabetes - it's a routine test since I have diabetes in my family.


The test goes like this: you go to the lab in the morning on an empty stomach. They take blood from you once, give you an extra sweet orange juice to drink in 5 minutes, then they take more blood after 1 hour, and after 2 hours.

I tend to have nausea pretty quickly in the morning if I don't eat, but I was ready for the challenge. I got up extra early to beat the usual crowd of older people who are always there first thing ;) Success! I was 8th in line which is pretty good for this location... S came with me as the midwifes suggested - I was so happy that he came!! :)

I started to drink the juice and thought - wow, this is not too bad! But after a few sips I realized that 'Orange Crush' for breakfast is and ideal (that's what it tasted like to me - orange pop) The bubbles leave an after taste that's not so good... But I drank it all and got to go back to S in the waiting room.

The first 15 minutes were great - I was on a 'sugar buzz' chatting with S, moving and laughing. Then slowly nausea came to the party and by the 30th minute, I was pretty miserable and counting down the minutes... I thought - stop looking at the clock and focus on not being sick - if I get sick I'll have to take the test all over again - and we don't want to do that!!

After the 1 hour mark, they took some blood again and the nausea slowly went away. I finished the test without problem - SUCCESS!! :) And I got to eat some Tim Hortons right after - what a treat :)

The results should be available at my next midwifes visit - on July 6th...

Weekly Exercise - 1/3

For the first time in a long time, I finally was able to get up early this morning and exercise!!

 I did the Tracey Mallett: Fit For Pregnancy DVD.


I probably have done it 5-6 times so far and I like it. She has a program specifically for the first and second trimester, as well as one for the third trimester. There are also a few bonus sessions for flexibility, core and postpartum.



The intensity is perfect. A thing that she repeats a lot during the sessions: you should never go above 70% effort (100% = exhaustion). At the start, it seems a bit easy, but by the end of it, it turns out to be a pretty good workout!

I also like the way that she split the main part of the workout in 3 x 6 minutes parts, with a running time on the bottom of the screen. I like knowing how much I can push based on how long I have to push for :)

Workout # 1 this week - completed! :)

26 weeks and 3 days...

translated from my french blog

Yeah... I've been thinking of writing a blog post for days - but I'm out of ideas... I decided to just start writing and see where it takes me...

So I am 26 weeks and 3 days pregnant today. I have gained - watch out! - 40 lbs so far during this pregnancy (that's on top of the 7 lbs I had gained before becoming pregnant...)

On my wedding day, I weighted 150 lbs.
When I started WW I weighted 186 lbs.
Today? I weight 197 lbs - yup...


I'm not sure what to make of this... I mean, I still have 13 weeks to go and, depending on the source, people say I should gain anywhere between 0.5 and 1 lb a week from now on. So it's inevitable, that big scary number is coming - 200 lbs. (Well, I'll go up to 210 lbs if I really am going to gain a pound a week...)

oh la la...


I have to admit that I have not been all that disciplined in these 26 weeks. I didn't exercise as much as I should have (once a week on average) and as for food intake, I pretty much ate without paying too much attention. I tried to pick healthier stuff at times and other times, not so much...


I think I need to take care of this now. Pregnancy definitely surprised me with all its 'side effects' - I have had to let go of some of my 'control'. But there's only 13 weeks left, it's time to make an effort, it's going to be worth it in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm going to try and lose weight right now - not at all, that would be unhealthy - but rather I want to make healthier choices, I will:

1. Exercise 3 times a week minimum.
2. Prep more food at home.
3. Count/Track what I eat - be it healthy or not, to at least get a better picture of what I'm doing...

I started to use this website again: Daily Burn. It's free (you can also pay if you want to access more options...) and what I like about it, compared to other similar sites, is that they have a lot of search-able food items in their 'library'. Also, you get a daily personal nutrition tracking page that gives you info on your intake of calories, fats, carbs and proteins. IT really gives you a good picture of what your eating in a reasonable way, and what you lack - i.e.: I try to eat lots of protein in my days now because I know it's very important for the baby and me - it turns out it's a big challenge for me and I didn't even know it was until I tracked with this tool!

The only thing is that it is not meant for pregnant women, more for people who are trying to lose weight for instance. But it's still interesting and it still gets me back in the habit of tracking...


There is a similar website by Spark People that is meant specifically for pregnant women: BabyFit, but I don't like it as much because I find that they don't always have all the items I want to track in their system, the way that daily burn does. It's annoying when you want to track something and it just doesn't exist on the site... And I came across a lot of 'missing' things. It's also free + they send you daily newsletter with useful info on pregnancy subjects if you want them to.