Chobani is my favorite ingredient...

Today is casual Friday at work.

I LOVE casual Fridays!!

For a number of reasons that are work related, but one of my top five is getting to wear jeans. I HATE wearing professional clothes to work. The type of work I do, I don't interact with customers—EVER. So casual clothes would do me just fine all week long. But alas, I have my beloved casual day but once a week.

The coolest thing right now, though, is that even though I'm still up 3 pounds since before vacation, I feel PERFECT in my jeans!! They're not snug—AT ALL. They fit me like the jeans fairy made them especially for me.

Dear Blue Jeans,

I love you! Thank you for being so kind to me this morning.

Your pal, Cara

I thought I'd share something with you I made this past week that I REALLY like. I got the recipe from a southern magazine but then tweaked it a bit to my liking.

Of course the major change was taking out the cream cheese and substituting plain Chobani Greek Yogurt. It added a ton of protein to the dish, less fat, and I think added a bit more flavor to it overall.

I don't know if you guys have ever had Polenta, I hadn't. For me, it tasted kinda like a grits or cream of wheat type of dish. It's definitely a breakfast item.

The recipe was called Creamy Pumpkin Polenta but I changed it to:

CHO-Pumpkin Polenta

Here's how to make it:

• Boil 5 1/2 cups water with a tsp of kosher salt then add 1 1/3 cups corn meal. Stir until the mixture is nice and thick and creamy. About 10-15 minutes.

• Remove from heat and add one 6-oz container of vanilla Chobani Greek Yogurt (or you could use plain), 1 cup of pureed (or canned) pumpkin and 1 tsp nutmeg. Stir until well blended.

That's it!

Super easy to make and very, very yummy!! I totally look forward to eating it every morning. The recipe says it makes 6 servings of 3/4 cup each, but mine made seven 1-cup servings. Weight Watcher's points(R) value = 3 pts per cup. The recipe said it was 190 calories, but I'll bet it was less than that once I took out the cream cheese and substituted the Chobani.

This is a great breakfast. Tons of protein. Tons of fiber. Loads of flavor. And something different than your morning oatmeal.

Let me know if you try it. I'm curious how you like it.

155

Okay, so it's been a MONTH since my last post. I'm a total blogging dead-beat!

A lot has happened since then, but then again, not so much. Since then, I've lost a total of 5.2 lbs. But if you remember, I had just come back from vacation where I'd gained about 8.2 lbs (officially, according to Weight Watchers--unofficially I gained 12 lbs on my scales at home because there was a no-weigh-in pass that I took the week I got back).

I still have 3 more pounds to lose to be back to the weight I was before vacation--before the week of Sept 18-26.

Okay, now that I got that outa the way. I have to say that I am as determined as ever to lose these last few pounds to make it to goal. Right now, I'm at 164.8.

If you remember last time, I'd resolved to change my goal weight to 160 rather than Weight Watcher's goal of 155 (the heaviest I can weigh (according to their charts) for my age and height). Well, I have to admit something to you. I secretly want to make it all the way down to 155.

I can't help it. It's something I still want.

I haven't gone to the doctor yet to ask him to write me a note saying that 160 is a healthy weight for me (which I'm SURE he'd do in a heart beat). But I really DO want to make it to 155.

I know I had made up my mind to not be defined by a number but be instead be defined by how I feel in my skin and in my clothes. And don't get me wrong, I still do want that. In fact, I want that SO badly. But I still cant get that figure outa my head--155.

It haunts me still.

This is why...

It's 10 pounds less than where I am right now.

Well...

Over the past 4 weeks, I've lost 6.6 lbs.

Pause for dramatic effect...

That tells me that I'm doing this right and I CAN lose the weight. It's all in my head. Sure, there's metabolism and eating the right foods (low sodium, low sugar, low fat, high fiber, high protein, low carbs, etc., etc., etc.). But more importantly is my mental ability to will myself to lose weight.

I swear, for the past 4 years, it's been more about the battles I've had in my head than the battles in the numbers and on the scales. Sure, those are the outward evidences of it all. But the internal--both mental and emotional--has been my real struggle.

So, yea, I do want to feel good in my skin and be proud of my body. And I am. But I do still want to get down to 155.

I know it's a total contradiction and I don't know what to do with it.

Maybe that's why I haven't blogged in so long. I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of the road with a fork in front of me asking me to decide which road to take and I just keep digging at the ground in between the two paths so I can take both of them.

The thing is, sooner or later, I'm gonna have to choose... and I just don't know how.

.