Pumpkin Cupcakes

My friend Stacey posted a recipe for "skinny" pumpkin cupcakes recently and I decided to surprise her with them. The recipe and the website (www.skinnytaste.com) they came from have instantly become favorites! Here is the recipe with some slight tweaking from me, I have made 3 batches in the last week! :)

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

Cupcakes-

18.25 ounce vanilla cake mix (look carefully for this, some cake mixes are only 15 ounces)

1 cup pumpkin puree (I used canned)

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (expensive... ouch)

1 cup water

Cream Cheese Icing-

8 oz. cream cheese frosting

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp cinnamon (I only did 1/2 tsp as I did not like how strong the taste was in the first batch)

1 tsp vanilla (be careful not to go overboard)

6 tbsp brown sugar (I added more to take bitterness out)

Mix cake ingredients until well blended, pour into 24 cupcake liners. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Usually our oven bakes things quickly, but these cupcakes truly need the 25 minutes or they will be undercooked.

Mix cream cheese icing ingredients at highest speed until well incorporated (on the second batch I didn't blend well enough and ended up clogging my piping gun with a chunk of cream cheese). I believe if you simply use a knife to spread a small amount of icing it would make it to 24 cupcakes, however I like mine to be pretty with a piping gun and needed to double the icing recipe.

These cupcakes are absolutely delicious and much healthier than a regular cupcake since there are no eggs or oil. According to www.skinnytaste.com they are 121 calories a piece, but because of the extra icing I used they may have been a smidgen more. These have been a total hit!

Weight Loss Journey

On December 26th 2010 at 267 pounds I was unhappy. I was also unhealthy. My blood pressure was through the roof. It was only a matter of time before I was put on medication. It was so high that I had to get renal artery testing. I had also been diagnosed with arthritis in my knees and it was an almost daily struggle just to walk. I actually was taking two naproxen pills a day just to get by.

I was looking for some before shots and honestly there really aren't many. I didn't like my picture being taken! Here are a few any way:

This was the winter of 2009-2010 at a concert.

This was late in September of 2010. I had the once in lifetime opportunity to go backstage to meet Mercyme. I believe my jeans were a size 26 or 28 in this picture.

This was October of 2010. My shirt was a 2x.

Here is my after picture! 199 pounds (though I'm down to 197 at this moment). I am wearing size 14 pants and an XL top. However the XL tops are getting baggy and I think it's time to go down to an L. My blood pressure had dropped dramatically, in fact I had to giggle at my last check up when they said it was a "tad on the low side." My knees don't bother me 99% of the time. The only time they do bother me is after an intense workout.

I've gotten a lot of emails and facebook messages asking me how I have done this. Here are some ideas! First and foremost and I had to work on the inside before I worked on the outside. My Christian faith delivered me from a lot of my insecurities. For the first 6 months I did everything entirely on my own. In hindsight this was most likely not the best approach, but I needed to build some confidence before I was ready to ask for help. I did lose the first 50 pounds this way.

There are two important components to losing weight, exercise and what you eat. I enjoy listening to Jimmy Page on Shine FM. He summed it up well when he said "Losing weight is simple, but it's not easy." A great tool in balancing both of these aspects has been the website www.myfitnesspal.com. If you are one of my facebook friends you probably see my daily posts about being under my calorie goal/exercising. This website is completely FREE and it is amazing! Not only does it help you lay out the calories you eat but other important aspects such as sodium, carbs, and fats. It is also set up like facebook in that you have friends. You and your friends get to see what each other is eating, provide each other pats on the back for a job well done, encouragement when things aren't going well, and you get to share what is working/not working. I can't recommend this site enough! If you decide to join, my screename is mrsament and I would LOVE for you to add me as a friend!

As for exercise Planet Fitness has been a God send for me. Seeing as we are on a limited budget with two small children I could not afford other pricey gyms. It is truly $10 a month with no catches. They also provide free personal training which has been valuable for a person like me that has no clue what they are doing. When I started last December I could only do about 10 minutes on a treadmill and 10 minutes on a bike before almost passing out. I couldn't even handle an eliptical. I now do 45 minutes on the eliptical or the 30 minute circuit several times a week.

Another recent exercise that I have started to LOVE is Zumba! I had heard about it for months but felt too self conscious about dancing in front of other people! I heard the singer Mandisa talk about how it had helped her lose 100 pounds and at the same time classes began to be offered at my church. I stepped way out of my comfort zone and went! Now I can say that I "live it, love it!" (What the front of my Zumba shirt says!) It's a faced paced 60 minute cardio challenge. I have an absolute blast and the time goes by so quickly! For my current weight I burn anywhere from 700 to 1,000 calories in an hour all while having a great time! See the website www.zumbacalories.com to see how many calories you would burn. If you are one of my Baltimore friends and you would like to join me, I would love it! I go every Saturday at 10 a.m. to Di Bobrow's class at Community Christian Church. I also go occasionally (it's harder to fit into our schedule) to Mary Ellen Fromm's classes. Send me an email if you'd like to come! You won't regret it!

Finally, I would be wrong not to shout out my husband Jason. Through his new Christian faith he has completely transformed himself and our marriage in the last year. As a result he has been extremely supportive of my weight loss journey. Exercising does take time and has taken me away from home (on top of my full time job). I don't like losing any more time with my two little boys than I lose from working, so I tend to go early in the morning before they get up or at night when they are asleep. This means I haven't had as much time to take care of household chores and Jason has stepped in a major way to fill in this gap. For example this week he took care of all cleaning and laundry. Amazing!

My biggest fear right now is gaining weight back, hold me accountable people! For those of you who are messaging me, keep them coming. You can do it too and you are worth it!