Whoweee!!!

I don't know about you, but I am so glad that the holidays are over.  I work in retail and it gets pretty hectic around the holidays.  Now it's back down to business as usual.  =)

I'm currently working on an afghan for my granddaughter who will be born sometime in March.  I can't wait for her to arrive.  I do love seeing the little girls all dressed up.  They are so cute.

I'll post a picture and comments when I get the afghan completed.  For now you can go to the Bernat website and look up Star Blanket #754.

My plans for tomorrow are to work all day on the baby quilt that I started for a friend of mine at work.  Well almost all day.  I've been avoiding it for way too long.  Pictures will follow....

As for my diet, well that's another story.  I went off the wagon around the holidays.  Only gained two pounds.  That's pretty good for me.  My plans are to get back on track tomorrow.

I saw something somewhere that if you cut out carbohydrates for two days a week it will help you lose weight.  That stands to reason because if you cut back the amount of carbs eat for even a day you will lose weight.

I tried counting points like Weight Watchers does, but that is just too much work for me.  I'm not that dedicated.  Not into watching the calories either.  Tried the diet where you ate nothing but protein and veggies as long as it wasn't a starch or a yellow veggie.  You also drank a cup of grapefruit juice with each meal.  Love grapefruits and the juice, but that was a bit much for me.

We used to eat cooked oatmeal or cereal(not the kind that has all the sugar in it) for breakfast when we were kids.  We had lunch at school and for dinner it was usually chicken, a veggie, and potatoes.  Us kids were active and we hardly ate junk food or drank pop.  Dad never kept that stuff in the house.  He did keep ice cream though.  We usually only got that twice a week.  Once in awhile he would split a bottle of pop or a candy bar with us too.  We were pretty healthy too.

Did you know that all of the fresh foods are on the outer perimeter of the grocery stores?   You need not go in the inner aisles.  That's where all of the processed foods are.  Granted there are processed foods in the outer perimeter too....there is also frozen veggies and fruits in the inner aisles too.  I like fresh or frozen veggies.  The canned stuff is just over processed and usually has way too much salt or other things added to it.  Yuck!!!

Thanks, to my friend from the land down under and the encouragement that she gives, I just might succeed in changing my eating lifestyle.  I'm hoping that I can be of some encouragement to her too.  =)

Day 5

Well, I've lost another pound since yesterday. I won't bore you with a list of what I ate.  Let's just say that some of it wasn't exactly good for you.  I'll try better today.  =)  Tonight we are going to make spaghetti.  Notice, I said we.  He is going to make the main course and I will be cooking the large pot of spinach to go with it.  I will also be chopping the mushrooms to be added to the sauce.  I forgot the canned ones that he likes, but I happened to have some fresh ones in the fridge.  =)  My plate will be filled mostly with my favorite salad, romaine and baby spinach along with cooked spinach.

Changing over to eating mostly unprocessed foods is hard especially when you are used to eating a certain way for 20+years.....here is a link to why you don't want to keep yoyo dieting and why you would want to lose the weight gradually and not all at once.  According to the site, even losing just a few pounds in a year can cause you gallstones.

http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/gallbladder/a/dietinggallston_2.htm

I'm not here to preach to you about how to eat nor am I here to force my opinion on you.  This is just a way for me to keep a journal of my progress.....

One of the toughest things for me to do is drinking more water.  Don't get me wrong.  I like water.  Not all bottled water is good for you.  Do the research.

I have a Brita pitcher with the filter in it.  I don't live in town, but we are on city water.  The filter makes it taste so much better.

Anyway, onto a different topic....

Here are some pics of the fabric for baby quilt that I am going to get started on as soon as I get off this computer.  LOL!!!!

Love the fish fabric.  I'll be adding a piece of it to my grandson's eye spy quilt......

Happy Quilting....

Day 4

Yesterday, I ate an apple for breakfast.  Went to town.  Found some bargains.  Had a late lunch.  6" meatball sub on a white sub bun(he won't eat the wheat) with 6 meatballs/Ragu spaghetti sauce(it's the garden combination kind), chopped olives, and 2 slices mozzerella cheese.  Throw in a few baby carrots on the side.  Yum!!!  Not the best of meals healthy wise even though there was a little of something from each food group sans the fruits.

Late lunch.  Late supper.  For supper it was a salad with a pre-chopped romaine salad, add two handfuls of baby spinach, some precooked fajita chicken, grated cheese, and ranch dressing.  I use Hidden Valley Ranch.  Most of the time it is the buttermilk flavor.  I don't care for the Kraft brand.  It doesn't taste as good to me.  I also like this kind that is made with yogurt.  You can usually find it in the produce area.  It's only around 60 calories +/- if you are counting your calories.  I'm not counting calories to lose weight. 

For dessert it was a chocolate covered cherry and a small glass of wine.

Jumped on the scales this morning.  170 pounds.  Another 3 pounds gone!  WOOHOO!!!

Ok, so, trying for 120 is a wee bit much for me.  I would settle for 130.  125 would be okay too. 

Day 3

I jumped on the scales this morning.  173....a total of 4 pounds lost.  Not bad for just three days of trying to eat better.  I did jump off the wagon the last too days.  =( 

Still trying to get myself in the habit of eating breakfast.  Hoping they don't schedule me to work until 8 or later at work.  It's not good to eat after 8 o'clock at night.  Have a bad habit of eating and then going to sleep or falling asleep.  Not good!!!

Thinking about eating the heavier meal for lunch and the lighter meal for supper.  Meatball sub and celery for lunch.  Change that to carrots instead of celery.  I'll save the celery for a snack.  Peanut butter with that makes a good snack.  =) Romaine, baby spinach, and chicken salad along with spaghetti squash for supper.

The other day I came up with a way to eat brussel sprouts.  It is so much better than when we the way we fixed it growing up....we used to boil it and just add salt.  It had a bitter taste to it.  YUCK!!!!

I chopped a medium onion and one garlic, heated up some olive oil in a pan, and sauteed them until they were soft.  I cut up the frozen sprouts while the onions and garlic were sauteing.  Then I too out half of the onion/garlic mixture and set it aside.  Added the sprouts.  Cooked them until they were heated throughout.  Added sea salt, cracked pepper, and Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy seasoning blend.  The spicy stuff gave the brussel sprouts a little bit of a kick.  I'll definitely fix this again.  It is so much better than what we ate as kids!


The rest of the onion/garlic mixture was saved for the spaghetti squash that I had baked.  Yum!!!

It is so much fun finding new recipes or creating your own.  It breaks the humdrum of eating the same old boring foods.....Don't get me wrong....I love veggies.  It's just that they need something different added to them or they need cooked differently so that you don't get tired of them....

Now it's off to eating an apple for breakfast.  Gotta get around so that I can go to town. 

Have a wonderful day wherever you are!!!

The Need For a Change....

My blogging is pretty sporadic lately which is okay by me.  I normally don't even post two times in one day, but today I've decided that I really need a change.  I really haven't felt all that well in a long time.  Bad eating habits and stress.  I'm hoping the stress factor will clear up as I go down the road of eating better.  =)

I started reading the book "The Raw Detox Diet" by Natalia Rose.  Very interesting.  I've looked at different sites and blogs.

So, now it's time to start my journey into feeling better....granted, it's going to take awhile, because I don't want to start all gungho right off the bat.  Losing a lot of weight all at once is not good for you.  It has to be gradual.  There is food that will have to be eaten up even though it is totally not good for you. 

I will still have to cook two meals.  One for him and one for me.  Not wanting to do that, but I can't force him to eat the way that I want to.  He has to have his meat.  I won't go totally vegan, but fruits and veggies will be the primary sustenance.  He is going to get so tired of eating the same thing for several days in a row.....

I jumped on the scales today.  I weigh in at 172.  Add about 5 pounds to that and you will get my true weight.  Our scale is really old so you have to add the 5 pounds.  LOL!!!

My goal is to get down to around 120-130 pounds.  I'm not obese, but overweight.  At one time I was almost 200 pounds.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night and catch myself not breathing.  Now that was scary.  Since then, I have tried to cut back on the amount that I eat in one sitting and be a little more physically active.  My job that I have is more physical than the previous two.  That helps a whole lot too.  Then there is the yard work.  Living on a hillside.  Major help.

My goals for the rest of this week are cut down on the coffee, drink more water, eat an apple a day, add more veggies to my diet, quit drinking whiskey and coke.  I've managed to cut down to one alcoholic drink per day which is very good for me.

Baby steps.....

ETA-It's going to a little rough embarking on this way of life.  Too many years of bad eating, bad living, and drinking a caffeine breakfast.

I didn't eat breakfast today, but I did drink a cup of warm water with lemon and cayenne pepper.  Waited a half hour and ate a large romaine salad with lots of baby spinach, tuna, and ranch dressing.  Not going to give up all processed foods, but the goal is to cut way, way down.  =)

Tonight it will be spaghetti squash with onions and garlic cooked in olive oil.  Going to try a little bit of feta cheese with that.  Brussel sprouts cut up and cooked with onions and garlic in olive oil.  Also, a little bit of hamburger veggie soup aka goulash to go with that. 

In regards to "the food that is not good for you".....I can't afford to waste it and throw it all out and replace it with all nutritional food.  My goal is to add lots more nutritional food with it so that I don't overload on all of the bad stuff.  Like I said, baby steps....

Lupita's Baby Quilt

My second completed quilt!  Woohoo!!! 

 I started on this quilt earlier this year.  Things kept on getting in the way.  You know how that goes....anyway it's finished.  I was able to give it to her mama yesterday after I finished sewing the label down on my lunch.  Whew!!!

Now off to starting others and finishing my long list of UFO's.  *SIGH*  No worries....

From this....

 
....to this

My dad bought the above dresser for my sister and I around the time Mom passed away.  I was 9 and my late sister was 11.  Dad was big into unfinished furniture.  It was cheap and all he had to do was varnish it.  I had the fun of stripping, sanding, staining, and applying 4 coats of polyurethane to the dresser.  I bought new knobs instead of refinishing the old ones.  I like these so much better.  It's a little bit dressier.  =)

I think that I found the color that I want to paint my little sewing room when I can afford to convert the front porch.  

It came upon me when I was putting up something in my closet.  I saw this pillow that was purchased for our 2005 bus trip to Seattle and then I remembered a picture that my online friend, Cyndy, had pinned.  Not sure if I'll go this bright on the walls, but it will be close....