Dear 2016: I promise to do better this year! To get healthier! Let the games begin!!!

[Lynn49]

Decided not to travel this week as I woke up completely light headed on Sunday, I know it is my sinus and since I am prone to infections decided it was better to stay here in case I need to make a run to the doctor. I am trying to avoid that route as the last few times I was on antibiotics they totally messed up my stomach and caused other infections but decided to be safe I should stay close in case I cannot control it with natural options.

Eating is going better this week as I am mainly at my desk catching up on my tasks which leaves me with time to eat and remembering to eat. I got in 4 meals yesterday which is better then the 2 I was averaging the week before.

Sadly since I spent most of the weekend feeling under the weather I did not get as much prep done as I would have liked but I am making it work. I just finished up the last of my Chia Seed pudding, made some cookie dough yogurt which I will have for the week.

This weekend I am going to attempt to make homemade yogurt, we go through yogurt at an insane rate and lately no one has had the type we like on sale so time to take it into my own hands. I actually find it really hard to find a vanilla yogurt with a nice flavour, some taste very fake or even have a bitter taste. So I will try to make my own and see how it goes. I got a pressure cooker last year with a yogurt feature (which is why the one I got won the pick me battle) so it does most of technical work, watching temps and so on. Should be a fun experiment. As well I learned I can use 1% milk which will make it better for us.

SassyAshley, that yogurt adventure sounds great!! You'll have to report the results. I'd just take the lazy way out and add vanilla to plain yogurt, lol. Have fun!

Mia001, I'm not sure that I'm not taking in enough food because generally I'm eating very well...for instance a nice pot roast tonight; what's missing are the carbs that I now keep to one serving a day and I think that's doing wonders for me. Iirc, this happened the last time I dieted; just felt chilly all the time. I may have to do a little googling and check to see if that's a side-effect of dieting. Seems like SassyAshley is experiencing the same thing, so it's all good!! We're losing!

Have a great day, everyone!!!

[TaraF]

Well I'm stuck at 3.5lbs lost since the start of the month. Nothing major but I won't sneeze at it. In fact, they always say "there's an app for that", but I think we should be saying "there's a meme for that". haha Just think of all of this icky fat that you all are melting away. AWESOME JOB!!!

[Lynn49]

Feeling cold, core body temperature research:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/225148.php

Hmph. Seems like it's okay to feel cold, in fact, quite normal..
http://www.lindora.com/faqs.aspx?faqID=125
I can identify with the blood-pressure issue; mine has dropped enough that one pill has been taken away by our doctor! One day I hope I won't need any at all!

[thriftygranny]

Warmer weather here today so I plan to do a 5k walk rather than my 20 minute walk.
I have prepped all meals for the week and froze, I did a roasted red pepper soup, a chicken tortilla and an Indain Dal Pak soup and a lightened up butter chicken (no butter!!), tonight is lean elk stir fry with mushrooms and peppers. I really need to plan meals to be successful so it should be a great week!!

[walkonby]

Warmer weather here today so I plan to do a 5k walk rather than my 20 minute walk.
I have prepped all meals for the week and froze, I did a roasted red pepper soup, a chicken tortilla and an Indain Dal Pak soup and a lightened up butter chicken (no butter!!), tonight is lean elk stir fry with mushrooms and peppers. I really need to plan meals to be successful so it should be a great week!!

what amazing prep tg!! Your menu sounds great! Have fun on your 5K trek!!

I did brunch once again today, because both DD and I slept in and JUST got out the door in time to get her to work on time....whew! After that I hit up RCSS ( for the Guiding Stars 1,000 pts ) and FB for 3 more bags of .88 onions. Decided to do Rexall while I was at it, used my printed email coupon to snag 40 BAM on a $20.00 spend. Wanted to try those Tylenol for Back tablets and they were on sale for $10.99 each.
I decided to have the stew that I made the guys but weighed out my meager 3 oz of meat and added all carrots, no spuds.
So freaking scrumptious!
I am like you @Lynn49 , I do not have many carbs in the day, ( I mean the simple bready carbs ) The only bread I've had is 1/2 of a bun with chicken, and really avoiding rice. The gf lasagna noodles cost me enough, and I cannot give up my lasagna....ha ha
Stay bundled and warm folks, it is so darn bitter cold out today!

[Lynn49]

Walkonby, have you tried ricing cauliflower to make rice? We did that once and it was a raving success! Hubby used the food processor to rice the veg, then I used it in the same way as any Oriental rice...scant oil to 'fry', lite soy sauce, grated ginger, peas..it was such a nice side dish, and no carbs. Amof, you only have to take in half the oil and soy sauce points...almost free!

I had a nice big whole wheat, 50oz of lean ham (1 point!), lots of lettuce, mustard..5 points! With my oatmeal this morning, I'm up to 10, so 20 points for pot roast (no carbs) and a snack!

I just cleaned out the fridge and if I thought I was chilly before...sheesh!! And it kept yelling at me to close the doors so I had to keep 'closing' the two little thingies to make it stop...for a while...yes, first world problems.

Keep up the great work, Thriftygranny! 5k!!! Wow, you are amazing! And you're so right about making certain everything is prepped, or in our case at least, on hand so that we're not having to search for the good stuff.

Enjoy your day, everyone!!

[walkonby]

hi @Lynn49 , no I have not riced a cauliflower before, only mashed it to use on top as a substitute for mashed spuds on Shepherd's pie. It was not great, just o.k. I know if I riced it I would be tempted to melt butter on it! ( gah!!) Maybe the stir fry way is better, a scant spray of Pam. For the most part I am not a fan of the taste of Cauliflower ( only when we have roasted it, and drool! that was good ) but my issue is with the yield of usable florets you get off of one head. Do you rice the stalks or just the tops?

[toronto166]

Fruit or no fruit? Alright ladies, here's my dilemma. I absolutely hate fruit however since January the 1st, I have been forcing myself to eat 4 to 5 pieces of fruit a day. Believe it or not, I'm starting to enjoy it. It's apples, oranges and bananas. So this past weekend, I watched a program where a woman was trying to lose weight and the doctor said "no fruit" as it's full of sugar. Now I'm confused!! Do I or don't I?

[walkonby]

Fruit or no fruit? Alright ladies, here's my dilemma. I absolutely hate fruit however since January the 1st, I have been forcing myself to eat 4 to 5 pieces of fruit a day. Believe it or not, I'm starting to enjoy it. It's apples, oranges and bananas. So this past weekend, I watched a program where a woman was trying to lose weight and the doctor said "no fruit" as it's full of sugar. Now I'm confused!! Do I or don't I?

I would say that 4-5 servings is different from 4-5 actual whole pieces of fruit and I agree that would be too much sugar ( well I mean for me ) but if you choose things like berries, and others that have the lowest sugar content then that might be better.
Here are 2 sites but you can research your own to see which fruits are the highest and lowest choices to make.
I was never allowed more than 2 servings a day on another eating plan when i lost 50 lbs but that was just me, you may not react the same to the sugar as I do.

Also just another note, with WW new Smartpoints Programme they say fruit is zero points, but I am not about to nosh on unlimited servings of watermelon or bananas and expect it not to impact my weight or health. They list them as a zero because they want to encourage more healthier choices over processed sugary laden carbs.


http://www.newhealthguide.org/Low-Sugar-Fruits.html

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/fruits-low-natural-sugar-content-1543.html

[Lynn49]

Toronto166, what Walkonby said is absolutely true. Fruit is full of sugar and although some stupid Canada food guide (guiding everyone to gain weight!) says it's okay, it's not. Like Walks, even though fruit is 0 Points for us, I limit myself to 1, sometimes 2 if I have a fruit smoothie. Just is also the devil...all sugar, no pulp to help your gut.

She's right: calculate the sugar in the fruits you're eating each day and you'll get a rough idea of how much sugar you're taking in.

Walkonby, we pretty much rice almost the whole thing! Makes no difference really, in the ricing nature of it and adding soy sauce, garlic, green onions, some Pam and stir-frying is a really satisfying side dish. As for using it mashed...we always toss in some 0 fat cottage cheese to bulk it up a bit and use a heavy duty stick blender to mash it all up...lots of pepper, some no-salt and it's very nice...we use it on shepherd's pie, too!

So I've had some very good meals today and only hit 20 points. I'd have ten to play with this evening but ... meh. I love my apple pie thingy so that, and a cuppa tea, and I'm fine.

Sweet dreams, everyone!!

[Lynn49]

[Lynn49]

[harbie]

Yesterday I did just over 5km walk and it was great. I even walked to pick up groceries. it helps me not buy garbage since it's just more to carry home.

I made spaghetti squash with roasted cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic and a touch of goat cheese. I served garlic shrimp with it and it was AMAZING!!!!! I am so beyond in love with spaghetti squash. It was my first time cooking with it and I ran out today to buy 4 more for later this week

Today has been a bit of a different story. It's been a rough day. I had maybe 1/2 cup of my morning smoothie as that was all I could stomach. So today I've had that and a handful of grapes and that's it. I only walked 3km today. It's that time of the month (this will be my last ever soon!) so I'm hurting and can't take my usual Advil because of the upcoming surgery. The biggest issue which has caused me to have zero appetite is that I had a rough "meeting" with a family member that turned into a total on sided bash on me and my husband and ended up with all ties being cut. This is especially hard since I only have a small family and my dad is going in for a cancerous lesion removal in a week. I've been in tears most of the day and have no interest in doing anything.

Anyways enough of the pity party. I have to pick myself up and move on with my life and worry about my mental and physical health. Tomorrow's another day. I may walk later with DH I'd the weather holds and I get the mental energy.

I hope everyone's having a great day and keep up the postive results going

[Mia001]

Fruit or no fruit? Alright ladies, here's my dilemma. I absolutely hate fruit however since January the 1st, I have been forcing myself to eat 4 to 5 pieces of fruit a day. Believe it or not, I'm starting to enjoy it. It's apples, oranges and bananas. So this past weekend, I watched a program where a woman was trying to lose weight and the doctor said "no fruit" as it's full of sugar. Now I'm confused!! Do I or don't I?

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yes fruits have a lot of sugar in them....

a medium size fruit (apple, orange, 1/2 banana, etc...) is 15 gr of glucides = sugar
and just as a tip info
as a T2 diabetic i must take 45 gr of glucides /meal
if i take a fruit as a snack, i must remove the amount fo sugar from my meal
and i love, love, love fruits, i would live only on those if i could

[TaraF]

Well I'm happy to report that my diabetes has totally come back into check and that I'm quite happy about it. Infact I am getting a lot of lows as of late, it went down to 3.8 tonight I didn't want to take any dextrose sugar tablets to bring it up so I rushed to make my dinner early instead. lol I was just having cabbage rolls and so I toasted a bagel to give me some extra carbs, that brought the sugar up! My Endocrinologist has been trying to get me to switch my insulin because "obviously it's not working for you, your levels are 10-15". "Well Dr the truth is *I* am not working with my insulin or my body, my own fault." This is proof. Eating properly and exercising has lowered my glucose levels to a MAXIMUM of 7.0 since January 1. WAHOO! That's a personal victory for me if nothing else. Well I'm taking my below advice. Goodnight all!