Good Saturday Evening!!

Hello Everyone! Well, when I last posted I was almost finished reading Eat to Live. I finished it and started following the plan on Thursday. It has been easier than I expected and my family is doing this with me. My hubby and I discussed it and decided that we would try to to get our cholesterol in the normal range and hopefully get our blood pressure down so we can come off our medicine. Our daughter is sorta following it. She still eats some meat but understands that we are doing this for our health. We have been eating lots of salad, beans and fruits. I know we have had a couple things that were not on the plan such as one night for supper we had black eye peas over cornbread, salad and green beans. The cornbread would not be considered on the plan but I don't want to waste food. Today, for breakfast I had 1 biscuit and cantaloupe. So we are mostly following the plan but making it fit our family. Our main focus is getting our cholesterol down and off meds. Of course we will lose weight eating better but we want to make sure we are healthy. I bought some yummy stuff at the grocery store to fix this week. I got eggplant and zucchini to make vegetable lasagna. I am going to make Chili Mac with no meat!! I got some soy cheese for the lasagna. I am making veggie pizza. Then of course we have lots of fruits and vegetables. I weighed this morning even  though it's not the official weigh in. I have lost 4 pounds since Thursday!! Yippee!! In the book, it is stated that the weight will drop off and it has for me so far this week. Here's a couple of my days and what I have been eating.

Breakfast
cantaloupe and banana

Lunch
salad
chili beans
green beans

Dinner
salad
black eye peas over corn bread
green beans

Breakfast
cantaloupe
biscuit

Late Lunch/dinner
whole wheat bun
veggie burger
sauteed onions
homemade french fries
banana

Snack
popcorn
orange

I am enjoying the food and I can't wait to try new things. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Thanks for stopping by!!

I am still alive.....

Good Evening!! Sorry that I left you all high and dry....I have no excuse except I was too lazy to log on. I know, how sad is that. Well, the good thing is I have been logging my food into My Fitness Pal except for this weekend but I went back today and updated that. I had slacked on my exercise over the weekend too. I let my laziness take over. I just did a short but powerful workout on my new exercise bike. I bought it online from Walmart. It was $89.00 and I was worried about the quality. We picked it up at our local store today. My hubby put it together and I worked out. I am shamed to admit that my little ride about killed me. I rode for 1.02 miles which was like 7 minutes. I was huffing and puffing. I know I am fat and out of shape but holy smokes!! It is bad. My goal is to double my time to 15 minutes by next week. I can do this!! I eventually want to get to where I am riding it 30 minutes in the morning and evening so I have an hour workout. The quality seemed fine. It's $89.00 bike and it logs your time, calories and speed so I think it is fine for the money.

I have almost finished a new book. It's called Eat to Live. It is very good and makes you think about what you are putting in your body. Check it out. I bought it for my nook for like $10.00.

I have been taking my daughter to practice her driving. I can't believe that in less than 1 month she will be 16. She is improving but is still nervous.

I can't think of anything else that is happening. I will be posting some vacation specials later so check them out.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Friday Update

Good Evening All!!! I am so glad it's the weekend!! Yippee!!!!

Well, I had a great week. I think I stuck to my plan and goals great this week.

Today I had:

Breakfast: oatmeal and 2 slices of lean center cut bacon
Lunch: Salad and soup
Dinner: Chicken sandwich and waffle fries

Exercise: 20 minutes on treadmill and 20 minutes on the Wii Exerbeat

It's a short one tonight!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Thursday Update

Good Evening!! It was a great day!! I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. I am sleeping in on Saturday!!

Here's my goals for today:

Breakfast: chick filet a chicken biscuit
Lunch: grilled chicken salad
Dinner: chicken salad

I am on a salad kick right now. Hubby and I went to the grocery store after work and I bought a premade cobb salad for lunch tomorrow. I did buy some frozen meals for lunch next week. I am feeling good.

I just finished my 20 minute workout on my Wii Exerbeat. I really like this workout game. It is fun. Today I did a latin dance workout. It really works your waist and abs. It doesn't seem like you would get tired but you do.

I tracked all my meals and exercise today.
I drank my 4 glasses of water.
I did not cook today :-(
I did get in my exercise!!

That's about all there is tonight. I took a antihistamine for allergy symptoms I am having so I am getting very sleepy. hehe

Thanks for stopping by!!

Wednesday Evening Update

Hello!! I just wanted to complete my day. I did a 20 minute aerobics workout tonight and for dinner I has a chicken taco salad with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sauce. No chips or shell!! Yeah me!! It was very yummy!!!

I am struggling with the water but I am trying hard.

On with Disney update.... We are trying to plan or should I say that I am trying to plan our next Disney trip and the school hasn't released next year's calendar. I so need to know when Fall Break will be. I called today and it should be out Feb 1st so I hope I can book at that time. Also, we have decided that we want to stay at Port Orleans - Riverside in their preferred rooms. We really like the new renovations. I will keep you posted with all the updates.

Daughter and friends senior trip will be May 2014 after graduation instead of fall break. Our plan is to stay at Bay Lake Towers in a 1 bedroom villa. I will get it booked as soon as the dates open up.

That's all I have for tonight!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Wednesday Mid Day Update

Good Afternoon! Just a quick update. My day is going great!! It's hump day and I am so glad!!!

Breakfast was oatmeal and 2 slices of lean center cut bacon
Lunch was Chick-fil-a sandwich (no mayo) and cup fruit

I am not sure what dinner will be tonight.

Goals for today:

• Track Food -- yes, for breakfast and lunch
• 4 - 8 oz water -- still working on that
• cook 5 meals -- dinner
• lunch from home -- didn't make this one today
• 15 minutes of exercise -- will tonight

Thanks for stopping in!! I will be back on later tonight and I have some update on the future Disney trips.

Tuesday Evening Update

Good Evening!!!

I took my daughter driving to practice her night driving skills. She turns 16 next month so we are practicing for her test. She did very well!!

My hubby cooked us dinner while we were out. He made chicken breast tenders, mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls. It was very yummy!!

I am going to walk on the treadmill tonight while I watch Biggest Loser.

I feel good about my changes and sticking to my goals.

I can do this!!

Goals for today:

• Track Food -- yes
• 4 - 8 oz water -- yes
• cook 5 meals -- yes
• lunch from home -- today I had a salad
• 15 minutes of exercise -- yes, 30 minutes on the treadmill

Thanks for stopping by!!

Tuesday Update

Good afternoon!! Sorry I didn't finish my Monday post after my workout. My Internet went out and was out all night. I did a 20 minute Denise Austin workout tape and I drank a slim fast shake afterward. Then I drank 2 more glasses of water. I met all my goals!! Yeah.

Now on with today. For breakfast I had a cup of oatmeal and 2 slices of lean bacon center cut. Lunch was a salad with chicken. I have had 2 glasses of water and I am working on my next 2. I use a tervis cup that is 16 oz. It keeps my water really cold. I plan on cooking the tuna pasta dish with green beans for dinner. I will need to get in another snack of some sort today. I am under my calories per My Fitness Pal.

I will check back in later to let you know how the rest of the afternoon and evening goes.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Lunch update

Good Evening! Well, I ended up cooking Bear Creek Cheddar Broccoli Soup and I added some chopped up potatoes. Then I cooked some chicken tenders for some protein and rolls. I had a cup of soup, 2 chicken tenders and 1.5 rolls plus 2 glasses of water.

I am having a peanut butter sandwich with fruit cup for dinner and 2 glasses of water.

I have logged all my food into My Fitness Pal.

I also updated my goals on My fitness pal and I entered my weight today.

15 minutes of exercise  --- not yet but I plan on doing this at 7:00

Track food-- Yes

4 - 8 oz glasses of water -- will met this with dinner

Cook 5 meals per week -- I cooked breakfast and lunch today so 2 down

Lunch from home 4 days a week -- lunch was at home today since I was off so I will count that.

I will be back on later to cap the day!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Tuesday Update

Hello!!! It's chilly here today. It is 35 this morning!! I am so not going outside!!

I cooked pancakes and bacon. I had 2 small pancakes and 2 slices of Bacon with 1/2 mug of coffee with milk and sugar.

I planning on making a tuna pasta dish with green beans for lunch today.

I am not 100% sure what is for dinner but I will keep you posted on that.

I will probably do mini post to make sure I am following my goals for the year.

Here's my check off to make sure I am sticking to my goals. I have a word document with this over and over for every day til March 2. Then I will create a new set of goals. BTW -- yes, I am one of those people who love list!! hehe

Goal	Mon 2/6	Tues 2/7	Wed 2/8	Thurs 2/9	Fri 2/10	Sat 2/11	Sun 2/12
15 minutes of exercise
Track food
4 - 8 oz glasses of water
Cook 5 meals per week
Lunch from home 4 days a week

Thanks for sticking with me on my journey and feel free to comment. I know I have some visitors. :-)

Long time no see.....

Good Evening!! It has been a week since I posted and I am so sorry for neglecting my blog. Well, I hope that you had a Merry Christmas!  Here is a picture of my little family on Christmas morning.

We enjoyed all our gifts and got some laughs from watching our kitties play in the boxes and bags.

We also went to my parents house for lunch and presents. Here are my parents, brothers and their families.

Then we went to my hubby's parents for late lunch and gifts. Yes, I said late lunch. I was too stuffed so I couldn't eat anything but I enjoyed seeing everyone. Here's my daughter's great grandmother. She is wonderful and we love her so much!!

We went home after this and RELAXED. Christmas was over for us and it was time to enjoy our gifts and relax.

We have watched some movies while we enjoyed our long weekend off. We watched The Box and that was a strange movie. I don't know if I really liked it or not. It was just strange. We watched the Tooth Fairy too. I thought it was funny and really good. We laughed alot. Tonight we watched The Green Hornet and I really enjoyed it and recommend it. It has some cussing and fighting so beware for little ones.

My exercise and diet have not been the best lately. I got side tracked but I am back on the wagon and will continue this journey. I can do this.

So I have been planning for our Oct 2012 trip and I think we may be able to afford a trip in a value resort. We have never stayed in a value before so I am excited to try something new. I will keep you posted on which one we decide to book with.

I almost forgot. I have now opened an online store called My Favorite Things. There are all kinds of items. Please check it out. Here's the link:
http://www.cafepress.com/myfavoritethings2

I think that is all my updates for now.  I will be doing a vacation special update soon too.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Happy Wednesday!!

Good Evening!! I just have to share that last week I set a goal to exercise 90 minutes for the next week. I did it!! YEAH!! My next goal is to do 150 minutes. I feel better. My weight is slowly dropping too.

I am sticking with it and I will make it!! I know I can.

Our good friends welcomed their sweet baby girl this morning!! We stopped by and saw her at the hospital tonight. She is just precious!! I send out a big congratulations to Brad & Katya!! And I know Kaylee will make a wonderful big sister!!

I am ready for the holidays. All my presents finally arrived. I can now rest and enjoy the holidays.

Friday, I am going to have a spa day and I can't wait. I have a massage scheduled and a fiji scalp treatment that sounds heavenly.

Well, I don't have anything else.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy Monday Morning!

Good Morning Everyone!! I feel very good this morning. I hope everyone is having a good day so far.

For breakfast this morning I had 2 slices of Cinnamon raisin toast with butter and a cup of coffee.

Lunch plan is the 15 bean soup I made yesterday with crackers and an apple.

Dinner plan is the 15 bean soup and cornbread.

I brought a banana for snack today.

I will do my best to check back in later today to let you know how I stayed on plan and my exercise results. I have not been doing good on that lately.

Thanks for dropping by!!

End of Week and Saturday Update

Good afternoon!! I hope everyone is having a great Saturday!! I am so far. It has been busy. Sorry I am a couple days late on my blog. Life has gotten in the way again!!

Let's get started.

Thursday
Breakfast -- muffin and banana
Lunch -- hot turkey sandwich and baked potato from Danver's
Dinner -- chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuit

Friday
Breakfast -- muffin and banana
Lunch -- chicken, black eye peas, macaroni & cheese and cornbread muffin from Abbay's
Dinner -- homemade BBQ chicken pizza and sweet tea.

I am going to stop here and tell you about this pizza it is wonderful and low in calories!!! I buy the Kroger brand pizza dough that you make. It is so easy to do and the best part is is low calorie. The pizza feeds 3 (4 if you do a salad too). There are 640 calories in the entire pizza crust. Then I take 3 pr 4 chicken breast tenders and cut them up into tiny pieces and brown them in a skillet with Pam Spray. The chicken for all is 100 calories. Then I put BBQ sauce on the pizza dough which is 60 calories. Then I slice up an onion and put that on there. Then I put the cooked chicken and top with cheese. I don't have my cheese bag but it was low fat 2% cheese. So I think 1/3 of the pizza is like 400 calories at the most!! I think that is a great meal then add a salad.

Saturday
Breakfast -- eggs, bacon, biscuit, gravy
Lunch -- I haven't ate yet so it will be a lunch and dinner meal.

Jamie had some volunteer work today for Key Club selling some Christmas trees. She worked from 9-12 and had alot of fun.

Then we went and got our hair cut and brows waxed. I am now waiting on my color to finish. Hold on...

My color is now done and I have started dinner. I am cooking sauteed chicken with mushroom and onions, green beans, bow tie pasta and cheddar garlic biscuits. It smells so good!!

Well, that is about everything so far for today!!

Thanks for dropping by!!

Wednesday Update

Good Evening!! Let me start by saying that my roast last night was incredible. My husband said it was the best roast he has had in a very long time. I really don't know what I did different but it was so yummy!!

Today, We went to the grocery store and we bought lots of healthy things.

Here are some items:

• bag of apples
• bananas
• Cinnamon raisin bread
• 2% milk
• mixed nuts by planters called nutrition energy (very yummy snack)
• tuna
• lots of healthy soup for lunches
• mix to make some homemade soup
• beans to make 12 bean soup
• canned vegetables, beans, and peas
• fresh broccoli
• lettuce
• green peppers
• baby carrots
• pasta
• Alfredo sauce (I know it is not perfect but it is a quick meal and I add broccoli and mushrooms to it)

I can't think of what else we got but I was happy with my purchases. We are going to try and do some meatless meals. I got to work on my water. I have not done very well with that this week. In fact, let me go get a glass now.

Now with my water in hand. I can move on. It snowed last night and this morning here. We got a nice layer probably around 2 inches. I know that is not much for some areas but we are not use to snow. It melted on the roads so all was good there. It is almost all melted on the ground. :-(   I hope we get some more later in the month. I would love a white Christmas. I don't ever remember it snowing on Christmas.

I didn't get my work out in today since we went shopping so tomorrow will be a really good one.

Well, it's getting late so I am going to call it a night.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Mid Day Tuesday Update

Just thought I would do a quick update while I am on lunch.  Sorry I didn't update last night, I went to bed early. I ended up cooking chicken and biscuits (very similar to chicken and dumplings except with biscuits).

Here is my menu for today:

Breakfast -- wild berry muffin that I baked last night
Lunch -- BBQ sandwich and baked beans
Dinner -- I put a roast, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms with gravy in the crockpot this morning.

I am doing good on my no fried foods but I need to work more to get my fruit and veggies in. I am going to the store tomorrow to stock up on bananas, apples, sandwich stuff, etc.

That's all I have for now. I gotta get back to work since my lunch is over.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Rainy Monday Mid Day Update

Good Afternoon! I am at lunch so I thought I would post a real quick update.

So today I went and got my temporary crown. It was easy and feels fine. My real one should be ready in about 2 weeks so maybe before Christmas.

Today, food wise I have been a little bad. I need to go to the store for breakfast and lunch foods.

Breakfast was a chicken biscuit from Chick-fil-a and some coffee from home.
Lunch was a bowl of chili and baked potato from Back Yard Burger.
Dinner plan is spaghetti, garlic bread and corn. Then I will have left overs for lunch tomorrow. I am also planning on baking some muffins for breakfast tomorrow.

I will also exercise tonight.

I will post again tonight to let you know how dinner and exercise goes.

Let me know how you are doing on your weighloss plans or if you are in maintance let me know how you did it. I would love to hear from you.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Happy Weekend!!

Good Evening!! I hope you had a great weekend. I did. I didn't do a whole lot and it was just perfect. It rained all day today so it was a nice day to stay in. I have worked on some vacations and work stuff. I played a little Wii. I did a little laundry and I cleaned up the kitchen. Nothing too exciting. I go tomorrow to get my crown started from my root canal. I am ready to have this done.

We ate kinda bad Saturday and Sunday. We had some bad things in the house so I cooked them so we can get them out of the house. My plan is to make sure I buy very little to none packaged quick meal stuff. I know that stuff is so bad for us but I had relied on it for so long for quick meals. I am going to make better meals for us.

I still have some meat in the freezer. So here are some dinners that we will be having this week.

-- roast beef, potatoes, and carrots
-- spaghetti with meat marina sauce
-- sauteed chicken with mushroom and onions over bow tie pasta
-- chicken and rice
-- boxed dinner chicken and biscuits
-- oven baked fish with rice
-- grilled chicken with rice

I have the following vegetables to add with our meals broccoli, corn, and green beans.

I don't know what I will be doing for lunches and breakfast. I get paid this week so I need to run to the store to pick up stuff for those meals.

I plan on walking on the treadmill and/or doing one of my exercise games on Wii.

I think that is all I have tonight.

Thanks for dropping by.

Happy Friday!!

Good Evening! I hope everyone is doing good. It's been a nice evening. Jamie is off to a friend's house for the night. Al and I ate pizza and watched a movie. Nothing too exciting but it was a nice night.

I had to contact my doctor today for refill on my high blood pressure medicine. Well, they gave me a 1 month supply and said that I have to come in next month. I scheduled the appointment for Jan 17th so I have 6 weeks. Okay..I really have got to be serious this time. I am always saying tomorrow, next week, next month. If I don't get my act together I will be on medicine for cholesterol and who knows what else.

I know it's only 6 weeks but I want to lose weight and get my blood work numbers nearer to normal.

So I am setting the following goals:

• I will not eat any fried foods.
• I will eat at least 5 fruit/vegetables every day.
• I will exercise for at least 30 minutes every day.
• I will drink no more than 1 small glass or tea/coke a day preferably none.
• I will blog about my progress daily.

Okay. There you have it. I have my lab results from my physical earlier this year so I will compare them to my new results next month.

I can and will do this!!!

Thanks for dropping by!!!

Life Update

Good Evening!! Sorry that I haven't posted yet this week. Let me catch you up.

Monday -- I have honey nut cheerios and 2% milk for breakfast, banana for snack, turkey sandwich, chips and tea for lunch, stuffed bell peppers, corn and garlic bread for dinner. I did 25 minute work out.
Tuesday -- 1 egg, bacon and biscuit for breakfast, thanksgiving food for lunch at my work potluck and it was so YUMMY!!! Nothing for dinner because I am still full!!!

That is about all that is happening so far this week. Well, tonight is my TV night and not workout night so I gotta run.

Talk to you soon!!

Thanks for dropping by!!