Doing A 180

A Weeks Worth of Random

2012-01-27T07:43:00.004-05:00

I woke up in the middle of the night Monday-Tuesday with a raging sore throat. It was so bad it felt like I was swallowing razor blades. Once I was up Tuesday morning, it started feeling like my tonsils were going to shut my throat down. Every swallow was agony. I called my doctor and of course, they wanted me to come in but I begged hard not to have to do that and asked for a prescription. Thankfully I have an eight year relationship with my doc and she did that for me. Have to say that even with the antibiotics I've felt off all week. But, of course, against advice I received, I didn't rest and as usual I pushed myself to do it all - get to work, get my workouts in, etc. My eating has definitely been off - I've either been really hungry or not hungry at all. Should make for an interesting weigh-in tomorrow. Have to admit, I'm tired and looking forward to the weekend, although I don't know if there's any rest there either.

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For the second year, I am going to take part in Lori's Bloggers' Heart Healthy Weekend. When she posted about it and I clicked the link for last year, I had completely forgotten I ran 10 miles. That is how far away I've gotten from distance. Not sure I can be back to a 10 miler by Feb. 10-12 but in any case I'll be participating and running. You can do any movement you want so I hope there are lots of bloggers who take part.

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True conversation between Mr. Helen and me this week:

Mr.: What size are you wearing now in case I want to buy you something for your birthday?

H.: Well, I'm wearing what I call large 10s and small 12s. Mostly because my midlife middle hasn't let me leave 12 completely behind.

Mr.: Does this mean when I go to look for sizes I look for 10L or 12S?

H: No there is no such thing, it's just the way they make women's clothing. Just buy me a 10 since I'm pretty much there. Otherwise I'll end up with pants that are too long or too big and too short.

Mr. I don't understand women's sizing at all! Why can't they just be like men's? I wear a 33x32 pants and if I buy 33x32 they fit!

H.: I don't understand either babe, it's one of life's great mysteries...

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My two favorite salads I had this past week, both spinach based - a nice change from lettuce. One is an old standby, the other was an idea I got from, where else? Pinterest. The Pinterest one called for candied Pecans but I felt I didn't need that sugar so I just pan toasted them. The dressing was supposed to be a raspberry vinaigrette which I don't care for so I used Annie's Naturals Lite Poppy Seed. I don't think I missed a thing, this salad was delicious.

3 cups spinach leaves, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries, 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion, 1/4 cup reduced fat Feta cheese, 3/4 oz. chopped toasted pecans.

3 cups spinach leaves, 1 medium carrot julienned, 1/3 cup chopped Granny Smith apple, 2 heaping tablespoons dried cranberries, 1/4 cup gorgonzola crumbles again with the lite poppy seed dressing.

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Running on the treadmill and watching The Biggest Loser. Got to laughing so hard I had to hold on for a minute. "Get your hands off my treadmill!" Ghosts of Dolvett...

Dolvett goes to visit the brother/sister duo who have the chance to earn their way on to the ranch next week if they've lost 50 lbs. on their own, at home. When he arrives the sister says something like "Oh Lord Jesus I don't know how I'm going to be able to concentrate on working out with this fine man standing here." Uh-huh, I feel ya sister!

Then I got serious as I watched Dolvett work with another contestant who was giving him a lot of lip. Finally he looks at the camera and says, "What is this? Talk Back to Dolvett hour? I don't need lip service, I need movement!" (And let me just editorialize that I LOVE that he kicked her out of his gym!) That got me to thinking how true that is for all of us.

Too often we just pay lip service to our diet and exercise plans when what we really need to do is move on them. No excuses.

What movement will you work on over the weekend? Will you plan meals? Will you commit to regular exercise - or even up the ante? For me one thing is going to be working at getting back my Saturday 10 mile runs. Saturday run used to be my favorite run of the week. I want that back..

Have Your Protein and Eat it Too - Without Meat!

2012-01-25T05:02:00.000-05:00

I had to put my weekly grocery shopping trip off to Sunday because of Saturday's snow. It actually turned out just fine and the grocery store was quieter than usual - probably because folks had panic shopped on Friday evening.

As usual I came home, put the groceries away and started working on some items to be eaten this week. For the first time in a while, I did not roast carrots or make a soup because I had leftovers and soups in the freezer.

Some weeks I am just stumped and I'm often faced with the dilemma that if I want to make things I really like, I have to cook twice as much because Mr. Helen ~~can be a stick in the mud~~ sometimes is hesitant about fully committing to new things. It's ironic because he really is a good, adventurous eater. But the man likes his meat so meatless meals are not his thing at all, whereas I'm fine with it.

His favorite football team, the New York Giants, was playing in the NFC Championship and the game was starting just about the time he got home from work so I knew it would be no use in trying to get him to sit at the dinner table. While it wasn't quite traditional football food, it was food that was easy to eat sitting in front of a TV: Salmon cakes, coleslaw and french fries. I also made a big pan of Chicken Tetrazzini for him to eat during the upcoming week.

As much as I don't mind certain types of fish, I am so not fond of salmon so I took this as an opportunity to make myself something that I didn't think he'd eat. Seemed like a perfect chance to make yet another thing I'd pinned on Pinterest.

For those of you who cook, have you ever looked at a recipe and thought that the proportions of ingredients just didn't seem right? That's exactly what happened with this recipe! But, I usually try to make things just the way they're written the first time so I forged ahead. Unfortunately, I was correct, something was very wrong, but with my mad cooking skillz, I was able to course-correct and the end result was fabulous.

Herewith are Mexican Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers based on a recipe I saw at Natalie's Killer Cuisine.

The first thing you have to do is roast the peppers. I cut the tops off and cleaned them out then put them in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Then I turned the broiler on and broiled them turning them every minute so that the skin would char and blister. Then set them aside to cool.

Try not to look at my "well-seasoned" pan, concentrate on the awesome roasted peppers...

Then you make the Mexican Quinoa Stuffing and fill the peppers. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the stuffing alone because I got distracted by the fact that it was the stuffing that was out of proportion, and that was after I changed the ratios. The original recipe just called for too much stuffing for two peppers and I had reduced the amounts! I still ended up having to go back and roast another pepper. Once I had the peppers filled, I put them on a plate and stuck them in the fridge. When it was time to eat, I baked one pepper in the oven at 350 degrees so that the filling would be warm and creamy.

These were so good! The original recipe said to serve with an avocado cream but I forgot about that and in the end, didn't even need it. I actually like this stuffing way more than a rice based stuffing and this recipe - or my version of it - is getting a permanent place in the favorites cookbook. Not to mention that this dish is vegetarian, if you're so inclined, and I'm sure there are acceptable substitutes for the dairy that a vegan could figure out. Definitely worth making!

My pepper drizzled with some Cholula Hot Sauce

Mexican Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers
(Makes 3 large peppers)

3 large bell peppers

1.5 cups cooked quinoa

1/2 cup cooked black beans

1/2 cup frozen corn kernels

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup chopped tomato

1/2 cup reduced fat cheddar or reduced fat Mexican cheese blend

1/3 cup light sour cream

1 tsp. sea salt

1/2 tsp. pepper (use black pepper or dried chipotle or red pepper flakes - whatever you like)

Cut tops off bell peppers (you can use any color pepper you want). Clean and put on cookie sheet cut side down(put tops as well) and cook at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Turn on broiler and roast the peppers until they are charred.

Cook the quinoa according to package directions. Put quinoa and all the other ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well. Stuff each pepper with 1/3 of the mixture.

Bake in a 350 degree oven to warm the stuffing and melt the cheese.

3 servings - 1 stuffed pepper per serving, 380 calories, 9.8g fat, 58.7g carbohydrate, 8.2g fiber, 8.6g protein.

Party Like A Rock Star

2012-01-23T07:04:00.003-05:00

The company holiday party was held on Saturday as it is every year - the third Saturday in January. It actually is nice to have the party after the craziness of the Thanksgiving to New Year's time frame, not to mention that it gets one out of the house for a nice evening during dreary January.

But more often than not, it snows. Last year I think we'd had so much snow by party night that we weren't even thinking about it. This year, the first big snowstorm of the winter season started in the early morning hours party night... and it snowed all day. We ended up getting record snowfall (for the date) because the storm decided to hug the coast where I live. Poor Mr. Helen started blowing snow at 9 am and didn't finish until 4 pm. He did our driveway, then went next door to our single neighbor, then up to the elderly couple, then to his dad's. By the time he got back to our driveway, another 3-4 inches had fallen and it was 3:00 and I was panicking because we needed to leave for the party a bit earlier than we normally would have. My panic drove me out to the driveway with a shovel. . Believe me, it wasn't the afternoon I'd been expecting.

In the midst of all this, while I was trying to stay really Zen, the hairdresser called and cancelled my hair appointment. I had a feeling that might happen and had lined up a friend who said they could do something for me but when I called, they had gone skiing. GAH! Stupid snow.

That meant instead of having my hair done and being able to just slowly sip a glass of wine and take two hours to get ready for the party, those last few hours ended up being a blur of shoveling and me cussing the snow. Followed by me desperately trying to get my hair into some sort of updo. It was bad people and the only thing that calmed me down was texts from a friend who saw my Facebook update in which I blasted the snow. Honestly, by the time we walked out the house, I was patting myself down to make sure that I had my underwear on, it was just that crazy!

Mr. Helen was sort of grumpy and I guess I would be too if I'd blown snow for 7 hours, so he wasn't super cooperative about taking photos of me prior to us leaving. Thank goodness, I had a back-up plan... Tall Friend's cute boyfriend who would come to the rescue at the venue. In the meantime, I tried to take some accessory shots on my own.

The drive that should have taken around 35 minutes, took an hour but we arrived in one piece thanks to Mr. Helen's Bluebelle and her 4WD. I arrived in style in my gorgeous dress.... and snow boots. When you see my shoes, you'll know why I didn't want to risk getting anything on them! I don't have a boot photo but everyone in the check-in area got a kick out of it.

After we were there and I finally got my martini!! I settled down and we really had a great time. Discussing it on the way home we decided for all the pre-party discombobulation it was one of the funnest we can remember.

Alright already, I know you are dying to see the photos so without further ado, here they are!

No closeup of my hair. I did manage to get it up but it really didn't look as pretty as I'd pictured in my mind. But I needed it up to show the gorgeous neckline of the dress and my beautiful earrings.

The other accompaniments. My bracelets and the beautiful ring on my finger is the black diamond ring Mr. Helen gave me for Christmas this year.

These shoes may be my favorite fancy shoes ever! They are high, high heels and sparkly as get out - what's not to love? I am sort of proud of these shots... on the left I was trying to show you how high the heels were and after I took the photo I noticed you can see my other foot on the floor. I also love the shot of the shoes alone because you can see just the corner of my handbag on the right.

Here's the one shot Mr. Helen took before we left. I don't like how this dress photographs (or maybe it's me?) - it really does look so beautiful in person!

A nice shot by the boyfriend (and you can tell how high my heels are... Mr. Helen is 5'11 and I'm 5'6 - I'm almost as tall as he is!)

Tiny Friend and her Mr. She has a corsage because she is a previous Employee of the Year.

Tall Friend and her Boy-Toy (we hope he'll be her Mr. we like him a lot!)

Three Shopping Friends - don't we look gorgeous? I say we do!

The Boy-Toy said, "Work it ladies!" We have so much fun together.

A superb time was had by all.

Foto Finish Friday

2012-01-20T08:26:00.002-05:00

It snowed a bit here last night. There seemed to be a layer of slickness under the snow as it began to accumulate but I was home safe and warm, worrying a bit about Mr. Helen who was Sensei Mr. Helen and had not gotten home from the dojo. As I sat on the sofa perusing Facebook and Blogger, I heard a thud. Got up to look out the window and this is what I saw:

I live on a hill that gets steeper as you come down. I don't understand why people try to go down the darn hill when it hasn't been sanded or plowed yet! That's my neighbors retaining wall. The car is stuck on a berm that's on the edge of the property and blocking our driveway. Long story short, the guy walked away and the neighbor finally called the police. They came, got Public Works to drive up the hill with a small plow/sander because the car was blocking the road and because the tow truck needed to get up the hill. The guy did show up just before the towed him... but they wouldn't let him have the car because the plates were expired. Adventures in living on a hill!

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Here's a preview of my party manicure. It's one of my favorite OPI colors that unfortunately has been discontinued. Of course I had it in my stock!

Purpleopolis

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Finally the most exciting development for me since November 7th. Have a great weekend!

Size 10 Jeans!!!!!!!!!

Relatives and Recipes

2012-01-19T08:07:00.001-05:00

Another sort of random post. I don't seem to have many cohesive thoughts this week for some reason. Maybe the winter weather that has finally settled in has frozen my train of thought.

I just have to show you guys this little person and her friend Murphy. This is my great-niece Emmeline Jane (she's a month old). The first "great" on my side of the family, making my brother the first of us siblings to be a Grandpa. I can't wait to meet her in person!

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Did ya'll notice the new reply feature in Blogger comments? I'll be using it. If you ask me a question that I feel can be answered publicly, I'll reply right back in the comment thread.

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In the what a difference a year makes train of thought, last year I was miserable getting ready for my Holiday Party (which is always held the 3rd Saturday in January). Not only did I feel fat and out of shape but I actually was not feeling well physically as I was fighting my SI joint and who knows what internally. Right at the last minute I found a dress that I thought was at least acceptable and I only bought it because it cost $30. I didn't buy a thing to go with it or do anything else special.

This year, I feel fabulous. I have a gorgeous dress, shoes, and accessories, I'm getting a manicure and pedicure and having my hair done. There's ~~something~~ a lot to be said for feeling better physically and mentally!

The only concern I have at this point is the snow that is forecast for Saturday. I'm not kidding when I tell you it always seems to snow on the day of the party and I find myself trying to negotiate salty sidewalks with high heels. I've already made up my mind if this snow materializes, I am wearing my boots to the door of the party and changing. The shoes I got to go with my dress this year are so fabulous there's no way I'm taking the chance of ruining them.

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Debby, I hope you're not disappointed by this week's recipe round-up. Since the two I wanted to share are already online, I decided just to link to them.

As I shared before, I have been making some sort of vegetable soup each week to compliment meals or to use as a snack. Yes, I snack on vegetables - more often than fruit actually. This week I went back to an old faithful, Roasted Zucchini Soup. At 95 calories, 6g fat, 9g carbs, 3 g fiber, 2.6g protein per one cup serving this soup is a superstar!

A new recipe I tried this week came from the latest issue of Cooking Light: Chicken Piccata. This came out delicious! If you don't want or like to use wine when cooking you could substitute more chicken broth. Their serving suggestion was to pair this with root vegetables and mashed potatoes. To make the meal somewhat Paleo, I skipped the potatoes and ate it with roasted carrots and roasted cabbage from Kayln's Kitchen - yet another new to me recipe. The lemon flavor on the cabbage really complimented the chicken. I do not have a photo because my cabbage did not stay together as well as Kayln's! Oh well, it tasted yummy!

Tuesday Ten

2012-01-17T08:00:00.002-05:00

10. I was woken up at 1:30 this morning by a loud rumble. At first I thought it was a thunderstorm because when I went to bed the temperatures had been rising away from the arctic numbers of the last few days. Then, with horror, I realized it was the sound of snow plows! I lay there for about an hour and finally got up to look out the window. Yep, snow. Went back to bed and finally fell back asleep around 3:15 only to have the alarm go off at 4. Got up and it was raining on top of the snow. Perfect for driving to work in ICE.

9. I have officially gotten so many new recipes online lately that I decided to make myself a homemade cookbook. I put tabs in a 3 ring binder and after printing the recipe out, I'm 3-hole punching it and putting it into it's appropriate category.

8. In the category of perspective, this morning as I got dressed I was again reminded that what at one time is painful can be joyful on the other side. When I last wore the outfit I have on today I was frustrated as my weight was going up. Today I'm happy because it fits again! While I still have not looked at my 'real' number I am certain I weigh less than I did this time last year. Maybe only by 7-8 lbs. but those pounds feel like a different person altogether.

7. Went to get my blood drawn for the all important "deciding if I have to go on Metformin" results. Because it was a fasting draw, I knew darn well I'd better be hydrated before I went as I've had issues in the past so I drank around 32 oz. of water prior to going. Long story short, the phlebotomist couldn't find my vein. I was seeing double after the doubles I went through: two different phlebotomists, two sticks and two digs in each arm, followed by two baby butterfly needles. At one point the tech exclaimed, "Look at that, not even any water!" Both arms were aching, throbbing to the wrists all day Saturday. I have to go back tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

6. I've already run over 50 miles the first two weeks of this year, putting me back in-line with my old 100 miles a month thing. Let's see if I can keep it going or if some dumb injury derails me like several of them did last year.

5. I have gone back to having Saturdays be an eat whatever I want day. I know some people can't do that but I really don't have an issue doing this then getting right back to my regularly scheduled eating. I tend to make excellent choices for breakfast and lunch and then splurge a bit at dinner. This past Saturday my splurge was a bit of baked brie, 2 slices of homemade pizza, and a Chocolate Pecan Pie Bar. I'm just going to tell you straight up these are phenominal and if you don't feel like doing a whole pie, this is the way to go. Mr. Helen said there were too many of them. Uh, yeah. I had one and yet they are already ~~half~~ three-fourths gone. That's all I'm saying.

4. Some of the things I've read on blogs lately have me wondering... do you feel as a blogger with followers that you should use discretion and be a good example? Or is it OK to let it all hang out so to speak.

3. I just got the renewal for my driver's license in the mail. Do you think I'm silly that I will wait until the last possible day to renew because I want my face to be as thin as possible in the photo?

2. Mr. Helen has suddenly appropriated one of my kitchen drawers. It's the drawer I use to put smaller kitchen doo-dads, like birthday candles, the rubber jar openers, the plastic scraper that you use on stoneware, my wine opener, biscuit cutters, stuff like that. The other night I went to get something out of that drawer and couldn't find it for all the *&^%$ tools! The baggy in this photo is filled with nuts and screws and hinges. Why???????

1. For those who have asked, yes, I'm still losing weight and still using the fabulous Zero Scale. I'll check back in on all this at the beginning of February, after I see my doc and get the results of my bloodwork (if they can find my veins)!

Composing Blogs While I Run

2012-01-13T07:26:00.001-05:00

As is known, I get up very early in the morning toexercise. Usually by 4:20 a.m. I amsitting on my sofa, cup of coffee in hand, watching the news and maybe browsingFacebook or Pinterest.

Around 4:40 I get up and proceed to do whatever strength andcore exercises are on the agenda for the day. This takes anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour. Once finished, I take my Garmin outside,start it and then come back in to gear up for my run.

These dark and cold mornings the gearing up requires earmuffs, head lamp, gloves, jacket, and reflective vest, one 6 oz. bottle ofwater tucked into pocket, phone and keys. Phew!

Once I take off on my run and get into a rhythm, I oftenfind myself reflecting and composing blogs while I’m running. Lots of myTuesday Ten tidbits come when I’m running.

On Tuesday morning when I was out, I found myself thinkingabout Marisa’s comment on my Shopping Extravaganza post. In part she said, “…And I hope your friend picked the red dress - she looksamazing in that, too!”

As a reminder, here are acouple of shots of her in it:

The reason I started thinking about this is because TinyFriend DID NOT pick the red dress. TallFriend and I tried every which way but loose to get her to choose it as shereally did look spectacular. But herpersonal demons got to her. That womanis an adult onset athlete (Triathlete, Adventure Racer, Boxing) who has taken her body from a size 14 to a size 4! She’spetite (5’2”) and just has the cutest figure. But do you know she thought the dress was too ‘form fitting’ and madeher butt and abdomen look huge? Wecouldn’t convince her otherwise, so we helped her find a different dressbecause after all when you’re going to be wearing a formal dress you do need tofeel comfortable and she just wasn’t.

That wholeshopping day was really a revelation to me as I shopped alongside these twobeautiful women. Tall friend? She has Marilyn Monroe’s figure. She is so gorgeous and curvaceous… and yet sohard on herself at the same time. I kepttelling her I wished I had her height and her curves. Same with Tiny Friend whose petiteness anddefined arms would make my day. WHY OHWHY DO I HAVE TO BE SO MEDIUM?!

Because I know I can be so hard on myself asto make myself miserable when I shop, I made them promise to be honest butnot to let me whine and spiral down into self-hatred. They promised and as I said before werefantastic shopping companions. As I picked myself apart,they were realistic about what worked and didn’t with my figure and in the end,I got a great dress.

On Sunday, probably fueled by my great dress, I finally decided I needed to do as Mr. Helen suggested and get rid of some of the baggy things I’ve been wearing. I have another co-worker who is in the midst of weight-loss – 80 pounds so far and wants to lose another 20ish. I texted her and asked her what size she is wearing right now and when she texted me back, it was the size of most of my baggy stuff. I asked her if she wanted a bag of clothes that were just a few months old and she excitedly said yes, please, and thank you I am desperate for clothes.

So I packaged up the baggy stuff and took it to work on Monday. She emailed me and said she was excited to get home and try things on. Later that evening she texted me and said almost everything fit and the couple of things that didn’t she’d be wearing in a few more pounds.

This made me reflect during my Tuesday morning run how some people’s agony (me buying my freak-out size) is another person’s victory. Which brought me full circle to thinking about my shopping friends and how hard they were on themselves and how silly to be that way. There's a lesson in that for me, for sure.

After all that reflection and thinking about blogging this I went off to work and around 10:00, my co-worker came to my office to show off her 'new' outfit.

My co-worker showing off how baggy clothes have become victory clothes,

how joy can be found in a previously painful blouse and pair of pants.

Whatever torture you are putting yourself though, stop it right now and learn to love yourself more. Treat yourself just like you would treat a co-worker or the friends you shop with.

Recipe Roundup: Soup's On

2012-01-11T08:17:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start a new "feature" on Doing A 180: sharing a favorite recipe, maybe once a week. All this Paleo/weight loss business has found me trying hard to be creative in the kitchen and I thought it would be nice to document that.

Mr. Helen claims to like soup but other than when I make it and put it in front of him as his meal, he never voluntarily goes back to have more. So, even though I love soup I sometimes hesitate to make it. Many of the recipes I've found just make so darn much even if I eat half of it I still have half a dozen containers of soup left to freeze.

I may have found the most perfect soup recipe ever. Not only does it make just a few servings, but after making it I see that it could have many variations. I did end up making some changes to the original recipe but all for the good!

I originally found the recipe, where else? On Pinterest. The blogger who developed the recipe, Peas and Thank You actually cooked hers in a slow cooker but my crockpot was busy with some beef so I did mine stove top and it was ready in 30 minutes. As it came together around 2:00 Sunday afternoon and I hadn't eaten lunch and it would be 5 or so hours until dinner, I ended up adding some shrimp to make it a complete meal. Without the shrimp, it's just a great soup to pump up your veggies (I'm looking at you Kelly) - or perhaps you've been participating in Meatless Mondays? Again, perfect for that. I've been taking it to work to have with my salad. Here is my version.

Coconut Curry Kale Soup
1 c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cumin
1/4 t. nutmeg
2 t. curry
2 1/2 c. vegetable broth
2 medium carrots, sliced
One 14 oz. can light coconut milk
One 14 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, with juices
One 14 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups torn kale
1 tsp. sea salt
Pepper to taste
Olive Oil cooking spray

Spray a 5-6 quart stockpot with olive oil cooking spray. Heat over medium heat then add chopped onion and garlic. Saute onion and garlic for a couple of minutes then add remaining ingredients except kale. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add kale and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until kale is tender. Season to taste and serve.

Serving Size: Makes 6 1-cup servings. Per serving: 97 calories, 4.5g fat, 13g carbs, 3.6g fiber, 3.4 g protein.

Variations: I added the kale then portioned out one serving into a smaller sauce pan. Then I added 6 large shrimp and cooked them with the kale. It changed the values to 210 calories, 6g fat, 13g carbs, 3.6g fiber and 27g protein.

If one didn't care for the middle eastern flavors of this soup (which I don't understand!) the spices could be changed to basil, oregano, etc. and the beans to cannellini to give it Italian flair. You could also substitute spinach for the kale, etc. In other words, so many possibilities!

This one is definitely a keeper!

(Shelley & Kyle, just try to imagine it without the shrimp...)

Shopping Extravaganza

2012-01-09T08:04:00.000-05:00

My two co-workers (who I consider friends because we socialize outside of work) and I put aside last Saturday to go shopping for dresses for our work holiday party which is always held in January. If you saw the 3 of us, we are quite the motley crew because we literally are small, medium and large when it comes to height. While one of the women is 2 years younger than me, the other is the same age as Little Helen. You wouldn't think that she would even want to hang out with us, but she does and we enjoy her too. We also could not be more differently shaped, which I knew would make this shopping trip interesting and fun.

The only problem with going to a mall that has so many stores, is, well, so many stores. There's just not enough time to get through 170+ stores even if you are there all day. Even if you eliminate the stores that have no appeal, there are still too many stores. But we gave it the college try.

We took off Saturday morning at 9 am because we wanted to be there at 10 am sharp when the mall opened. Little did we know that it would be 8 1/2 hours later (and $20 for parking!) that we would be leaving exhausted but happy.

Because we pretty much knew that we would probably get our party dresses at Macy's we started there. We were almost the first people in the women's dress area and it worked to our advantage. Tiny Friend immediately went bombing through the racks and had about a dozen dresses in her arms within in 10 minutes. One of the ladies working the dress area asked her if she'd like a dressing room and told her only 6 garments at a time. Tiny Friend replied that she was here with "those two" (pointing) and wanted to wait. The lady then replied, "Well, let me give you the big dressing room and all three of you can go in together." It really worked out fabulous.

I had taken my camera because I wanted to have photos for this blog, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise and from now on when I'm doing serious shopping, I will take it with me. You ask why? Because I took photos of us in our dresses and we were able to see ourselves from a completely different perspective and noticed things we would not have had we just been looking in the mirror. It was a great tool!

Here is my starting pile. Would I find the magical dress in this mess?

I tried and I tried and I tried... and I went and got more dresses and tried...

Tall Friend took this photo of me and Little Friend and she got hysterical over my knee highs. She was laughing and begging me to take them off - said she couldn't concentrate on the photo or the dresses.

Tiny Friend and I are nearly the same age - and we kept picking the same dresses! We both loved this throwback Jackie-O style dress but couldn't justify the $185 price tag.

Believe it or not, we found a dress that all three of us liked and tried on! Again, couldn't justify the $175 price... but if I had the money I would have bought it for Tall Friend. She look more gorgeous than this photo shows.

With the multiple trips back and forth to the dressing room, Macy's alone took us 3 hours just for the dresses! We ~~needed to refuel for power shopping~~ decided to take a break and go to lunch. We had about 8 restaurant choices plus the mall food court but ultimately chose the Cheesecake Factory. Did you know they have a new 'Skinnylicious' menu? We didn't order off it because all three of us consider Saturday our splurge day, but still it's there.

Fried Macaroni Balls that we shared as an appetizer. Oh my goodness, delicious! Not the best but not so bad when you share and we sent the 4th ball to Tiny Friend's son.

The Cobb Salad - lunch portion which is still huge!

After lunch we went back into the mall to look at everything we could cram in and to find accessories for our dresses. Tiny Friend and I left the mall decked out but Tall Friend did not buy anything at all, because she just couldn't find what she liked and she had ordered a dress that she thinks (and hopes) she will love. However, Tall Friend was a super big help and actually ended up picking out Tiny Friend's dress and my accessories and shoes. She's another tool I need to take on serious shopping expeditions. Purchases ultimately didn't matter because it was a day filled with fun, laughter, and lunch! Honestly, there's nothing like having a day with other women who like you just the way you are - who encourage you and root for you, and are proud to be with you - and vice-versa. Truly a wonderful day.

If you're wondering which dress I bought? That will have to wait until I'm ready to debut it for the party!

Week One Done!

2012-01-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

Can you believe almost a full week of 2012 is gone already? How did you find yourself doing with the resolutions/goals/promises you made?

For me it was a pretty good week of getting, and staying, back on track with eating and exercise. Not perfect mind you (a couple chocolate covered cherries come to mind...) but good nonetheless. I restarted the Zero Excuses exercise program using heavier weights and I have to admit, after the break I took, I was sore after the very first day. If you don't think you'd be sore, try doing 5 one minute planks after not doing them for over a week. I guarantee you'll feel your abs the next day! I also went into hard Paleo mode, which I am going to maintain at least for a couple of weeks. Lori's Banana Bread Breakfast Pudding (that I make with 3 egg whites instead of 2 to pump up the protein as I don't top mine with anything) has been my go-to breakfast this week. It's so warm and comforting with the cold weather we've had. Interestingly, I noticed that the minute I cut carbohydrates back, my running pace was affected. Not sure how I'm going to reconcile that. I also have to admit by Wednesday pretty much the only thought going though my head was, Sore, Hungry, Tired... it's what you get for having a week of fun. By today I was almost weeping with tiredness and soreness when I got up to work out but I know it will be better by next week.

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I know I have mentioned before that Mr. Helen doesn't really struggle with his weight. This sometimes makes it hard for him to understand my struggle although in the past few years as I've had the thyroid and insulin issues develop, he has tried. Honestly, in the entire time we've been together, he's never changed sizes except to go down a size in his slacks when he started martial arts 10 years ago. He's been a 33 waist ever since. So you can imagine my huge surprise when he turned to me at some point during the week between Christmas and New Year's and said, "Even I'm looking forward to January 2nd. Since the Black Belt Show, I haven't done much of anything except eat all the goodies that seemed to be out every day at work and uhhhhhh, I'm feeling it my pants." I'm afraid 'I' wasn't very supportive at first as my first reaction was to actually guffaw with laughter. (Sorry, honey). Of course in a week or two I'll still be working hard and he'll be back to having some room in his pants and I'll be totally disgusted. But for now, I feel a bit of satisfaction that maybe he'll have more empathy when I'm frustrated.

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Maybe the reason Sensei Mr. Helen's Muay Thai class was spectacular on Thursday night is because of the above-mentioned tight pants. Believe it or not, just like your gyms, our dojo has been packed this week. I've seen people that I haven't seen in months. I think the class last night had 40 people in it. The room is not huge so that number is challenging for the sensei. What I loved was that he kept us going just enough that I felt really worked out but not overwhelmed. What I did not love is that when he was making us do some particularly hard drills he kept yelling, "BYE, BYE CHRISTMAS PIE!" Just kidding. It was sort of funny actually.

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My favorite recipe this past week did not come from Pinterest, believe it or not. Rather it came about because of a photo a vegetarian friend posted on Facebook. It looked so good I knew I'd have to try it: Avocado and Grapefruit Salad from Ina Garten. Such a nice change from a green salad... and it's Paleo! This is definitely going into my rotation. Kristen, not sure if you like avocado but I know you love citrus. You should give this a try!

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday Ten on Thursday

2012-01-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

10. Tuesday, all day, the temperature dropped and dropped and thewind picked up. Wednesday morning when Igot up to have coffee and check the weather before my run, it was 11 degreesand -2 degrees wind chill. Hmmmmm. No thanks. Especially not when combined with darkness. So, I took my boyfriends, Bob and Dolvett, andwent out to the treadmill where I did a one hour run in my balmy, 20 degreegarage.

9. Believe it or not, I am generally warm and have a hard time wearing full boots because my legs get sweaty! With that temperature drop I decided to try a dress I haven't worn in almost two years and it fit! Bonus, I got to wear my boots! (Crappy iPhone photo):

8. Last Win = Best Win! That'sright, I won the football picks again this week. I really wanted to wintoo because with that win, Mr. Helen and I split the season with the samenumber of wins each.

7. For the past few years, Mama Helen has given each of us the same Christmas gift, usually based on gender. This year, I think she may have hit the jackpot as she bought all the ladies fleece vests. When we started opening our gifts and realized what had happened, we HAD to pose for a photo, tags still on and all - because we were stylin'!

L-R: Little Helen, me, Sister Hannah, Sister-in-Law April, Sister-in-Law Katharine

6. Shelley and I are going to meet face to face this year, come hell or high water. Even though we have not finalized anything yet, she knows it too, because she has begun making food requests in my comments. I need to start keeping a list of all the things she wants.

5. Though it seems odd, we still haven't had any snow except that freak Halloween storm. I'm fine with that. I can handle the cold, even the bitter like we've had. Snow causes all sorts of other complications that I can live without!

4. I am struggling with my clothing right now - not quite down another full size. Here's an outfit I wore to work this week. When I got home, Mr. Helen informed me that the whole thing is entirely too big and baggy. That sort of made me sad because I love this boiled wool jacket. What say you?

3. Speaking of clothing, I'm going shopping to a big mall in Rhode Island to look for a holiday party dress. Two of my friends from work are coming and we'll make a day of it. I hope I can find something pretty, that fits (see #4). Mr. Helen asked me why we were even bothering since all 3 of us would just come back with "another little black dress." And that right there explains a fundamental difference between a man's brain and a woman's. He thinks "another black dress" we think "200 stores! Shopping! Lunch! 200 stores!"

2. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I run/walk at a 2:1 ratio for two reasons. One, I want to do intervals as my cardio and two, those are Muay Thai days and I like to try to save my legs a bit. Since I've lost a bit of weight, I've seen my average pace on those go from an average of 13:15/mile to this morning's stellar 11:48. Same courses, same 5K distance. Weight matters for exercise performance.

1. The new season of the Biggest Loser has a theme: “No Excuses.” How crazy and appropriate is that? I guess it just rang a bell with me since I just got my mojo back using the Zero Excuses Challenge and Scale! My favorite quote from the first episode: "Make excuses or make a change." I'm choosing change, how about you?

Good Eats

2012-01-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

We are big fans of little plates - tapas - appetizers and that's what we decided to do for our stay at home New Year's Eve. Whileyou’d think that would be a lot easier than making a full blown meal, it’s notreally if you make everything from scratch, which is how I roll.

As my Pinterest food board is the one with the most pins (nosurprise there!) I went looking and actually ended up making four items that I'd pinned. With three of them I didn’t really make any major changes to the recipe, so I’ll share the links for those later in this post. The fourth one, Buffalo Chicken Bites, I made several changes to, based on whatI had on hand and what sounded better to me. Biz, when I made this appetizer I thought of you because I know you loveall things Buffaloed and all things Balls!

Buffalo Chicken Bites

(based on a recipe from www.sweetpeaskitchen.com)

18 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast

½ cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

4 oz. light cream cheese

1 ¾ cups reduced fat shredded sharp cheddar cheese

¼ cup chopped green onion (the green part)

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

½ cup dried seasoned bread crumbs

Put chicken breast in a medium saucepan and cover withwater. Bring to a boil over high heat thenturn down to simmer for about 20 minutes until cooked. Remove from broth and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350 and line a large baking sheet withparchment paper then spray it with Olive Oil cooking spray

When chicken breasts are cool, either finely shred and dicea bit or put into a food processor and pulse a few times to shred the chicken.

In a large bowl, put the shredded chicken, hot sauce, creamcheese, cheddar cheese and green onion. Mix until well combined (I used my hands).

Make an assembly line: the bowl of chicken mixture, a clean plate or baking sheet, a shallowdish with the flour, a dish with the beaten eggs, a shallow dish with the pankoand dried bread crumbs combined and the baking sheet.

Roll a heaping tablespoon or so into a 1-inch ball. Place on plate and repeat with remainingmixture.

Dip each chicken ball into the flour, then the egg, then thebread crumb mixture. Place on theprepared baking sheet. Place them closetogether. Spray with olive oil cookingspray.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until golden. Serve warm with blue cheese or ranchdressing. Makes 36 bites.

My family had shared appetizers on Christmas Eve so I made Southwest Egg Rolls, which are a knock-off recipe of the Chili's version. The recipe made more than I thought they'd eat, so I froze half a dozen of them prior to cooking. Mr. Helen requested that I cook a couple of them for New Year's as he loved them. I'm pretty sure these must be a lot less fat and calories as they are baked and not fried. The only thing I changed was using my own recipe for a creamy guacamole as a dipping sauce rather than the one in the recipe.

My favorite appetizer was this Bacon, Cheddar, Ranch Pull Apart Bread. Maybe it was my favorite because I've been a bit bread starved with the Paleo style of eating... or maybe because it was superbly yummy! The only adjustment I made here was to use the small size Boule(and therefore adjusting the ratios of the other ingredients) since it was just for Mr. Helen and me. This was also the least work to make yet with fabulous results. I suspect I'll be making/taking this to potlucks and events quite often.

Finally, I wanted to make us a little dessert and these individual Deep Dish Cookie Pies seemed like they would fit the bill. The only change I made was to use dark chocolate chips in place of the milk chocolate chips as I'm a dark chocolate fan. These are a dessert that I would serve to company, they are that good.

I had mine with a dollop of ice cream, Mr. Helen had whipped cream.

The bonus with this dessert is that I had so much leftover cookie dough, I put it out on a cookie sheet just like I was going to make cookies and then froze the dough balls. Once frozen, I scooped them up into a freezer bag. Now Mr. Helen can bake a couple of cookies anytime he wants to!

As you can see, we really enjoyed our year-end indulgences. All of these recipes will stay in the rotation and reappear on special occasions... after all not all eating has to be "diety" right?

In With The New

2012-01-02T07:38:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! First of all, because I know you've been waiting with bated breath...

I accomplished my last minute goal of hitting 800 miles by December 31, 2011. Not only that but the runs I had Friday and Saturday were the fastest paces I had all year. This bodes well for 2012 running.

I have had an extended weekend to ring in the New Year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Today is my last day off but I'm using it to get back into the swing of things - pushing restart on my workout program and Paleo eating style. The extra time off was productive as I managed to get the Christmas decorations down and get the house back in a bit of order. In doing so I decided that it is time for a major closet purge and dump run come Spring. Not just clothes closets either, as it seems every single closet in my house has become an unorganized mess where things are shoved to die.

We experienced a couple of firsts on the 1st, which I thought was appropriate. For the first time ever, Mr. Helen volunteered to take a walk with me. While Sunday is my rest day, I also like to move in some way on New Year's so I decided a good walk was the answer to not running. When I said I was going to go for a walk, he said he wanted to come! So we headed out and walked a 5K. He fussed about the fast pace - "I thought we were just walking not speed walking" but when we got back I cracked up because we had actually walked a full minute per mile slower than I normally would have. It was still a great walk and we talked about our plans for 2012 - way more important than pace, right?

After our walk we got cleaned up and did something we have never done in all our years together - we went to New Year's Day Brunch! I won the football picks on Christmas weekend but because of all the activity surrounding that holiday we never had an opportunity to go anywhere. I saw that one of our favorite restaurants, Dev's on Bank, was having a New Year's Day Brunch with a Bloody Mary Bar. They were charging $20.12 a person (get it?) which is a bit more than we would normally spend for our football meal but when I mentioned to Mr. Helen that I'd really like to go he said he thought it was a great idea.

Winner Winner!

Side note: While I am a long way from being skinny I actually didn't mind this full body shot photo because I can see my weight loss. That made me happy.

All in all an awesome way start 2012.

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Along the lines of "out with the old, in with the new," look at the deal I found at Macy's last week! I was actually walking through Macy's to get to another store in the mall and saw a rack that said 75% off which got me to browsing a bit.

Normally after Christmas I'm D-O-N-E with shopping for a while but besides not being able to resist a good sale, Mr. Helen and people at work keep telling me my pants are baggy.

Remember how none of my slacks from last Fall fit and and I had to go out and buy larger ones? Well, I've already packed those larger ones away and am back in last year's slacks. I have noticed that by the end of the day they are a bit loose but I also still have a bit of thickness in the waist that requires the size I'm in.

While I was looking around I saw a pair of really cute black knit slacks with sparkly details on the pockets and rivets. I picked them up and they were a size smaller than what I'm wearing. They were also "skinny" fit , i.e. fitted through the hips and thighs rather than relaxed. Not normally something I would buy. But I loved the sparkle and when I went to the price checker, they were marked down from $59 to $14.75! Then I found a pink shirt with some sparkle at the neckline that looked like it was made to go with the slacks, regular price $17.98 marked down to $4.49! Also in a smaller size than what I've been wearing. I decided right then and there to buy them (didn't try anything on) with the worse case scenario that I give them away if they never fit.

When I got to the register, the lady asked me if I had any coupons and when I said no she took one out of the drawer and scanned it so I ended up getting the ENTIRE outfit, including sales tax, for LESS than the original price of the shirt - WOOT!

Pretty and sparkly

To make my exhilaration even greater, when I got home, I tried everything on.... and the shirt already fits me perfectly right now and the slacks actually fit me everywhere except for being a bit snug at the waist. So I say in 5-10 more pounds these babies are mine! Shelley is always telling me I should reward myself for my hard work, so I am considering this a reward for sticking to my plan. Would you like a photo of me in the outfit once it fits?

Resolving Not To...

2011-12-29T08:23:00.001-05:00

Each year end, for years now, I have set goals and/or made some resolutions. I suppose the thought ofstarting January 1 with a clean slate of possibilities sucks me in.

I have never given much thought tothat process until this year, and only very recently at that. At the end of a recent Muay Thai class the Sensei in charge told us to turn to our partner andtell them one goal we had set for ourselves at the beginning of 2011 that wehad accomplished. This didn’t surpriseme because they often say to us “Goals You Set Are Goals You Get” during theend of class wisdom section. Mr. Helenimmediately turned to me and said getting his Third Degree Black Belt was thegoal he set and achieved. He then lookedat me and waited….and waited… and waited - until I looked at him and said, “Honestly and shamefully, I havenot accomplished one single thing I set out to do this year.” The minute the words came out of my mouth, Iknew something would change for 2012. Why spend time feeling bad about not meeting goals? Especially when no one but me is putting pressure on me to do so.

Not long after that was when I waschallenged to add up my running mileage for the year and did so, only todiscover how little I ran in 2011 compared to past years. Myfirst thought was “another failed goal” because I used to always have a loosegoal of running 100 miles a month, or 1200 miles a year. But as I reflected and reviewed thenotes in my running journal I realized that:

1. Ihad never actually set that as a goal this year.

2. Ihad run pretty decent mileage considering that I had a couple of months wheremy total mileage had been 15 miles or less because if the issues with my hip and SIjoint that I started the year with and which ultimately took until August toheal.

3. I did no racing this year andit’s race training that usually pushes my mileage up, and

4. It’s never too late to set a goal if you want to, and it doesn’t have to beJanuary 1.

After a bit more reflection, I began my quest to run 800miles by December 31^st. (I’lllet you know in early 2012 how this worked out.) In the meantime, I also notedthat I accomplished many other thingsthat I had not even thought about January 1, 2011. Such as really rocking the Zero ExcusesChallenge and finally seeing a weightloss trend that hopefully will find me in better health and smaller sizes in 2012!

Somewhere in the midst of all this I decided Iwould not set big resolutions or goals for 2012 but instead would let thingsthat needed to be goal oriented come as they may and work on them as needed. Then on December 23^rd, I testedfor my Muay Thai brown/green belt . Itturned out to be not only humbling but eye opening.

Showing pad striking skills - see my belt in motion? That's a good thing because it'means

I was rotating my hips correctly.

I am not normally a person who is afraid ofbeing in front of people but for some reason having to perform my Muay Thai combos and/or weapons in frontof others, really bothers me. Really,really, really bothers me. To makematters worse, I was the ranking belt testing that evening. Don’t you know the Sensei asked me to do something that put me front andcenter. Mr. Helen and Little Helen werestanding right there with cameras pointed. I knew the material backwards and forwards…. and I lost it. Ooooooh, it was bad, bad, bad. Isuuuuuuucked! It was so bad that if they were awarding the belt based solely onthat night, I am fairly sure I would not have gotten it. Fortunately, they also base it on what they see inclass, and in class I don’t have performance anxiety. To make matters even more stomach turning, when my name was called and I went forward, my Sensei said, "There are probably a lot of you who don't know this but this amazing woman is the one who keeps Sensei Mr. Helen going." Which immediately made everyone scream and yell and clap because they love Sensei Mr. Helen and immediately made me feel bad because I'm sure he was embarrassed by my poor showing. In any case, I am officiallyone year away from getting my Black Belt – assuming I can get the material downand actually show that I know it.

Smiling in huge relief that it is being handed to me...

Now I find myself having decidedthat I was not going to set goals or make resolutions, needing to makeone. So here it is and as simple as itsounds it is going to take hard work and dedication, which ironically is my2012 motto:

In 2012, I don’t want to suck.

That's it, and it's not just Muay Thai related either. It's also my wish for all of you. 2012 the Year of Not Sucking.

Happy New Year!

Tuesday Ten: These are a Few of My Favorite Things

2011-12-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

10. This tea tin sent to me by a great friend who knows I love all things royal!

9. Mama Helen and Little Helen with our guest dog for Christmas Day, Bugsley.

8. The slippers Gracie picked out for Little Helen & me to wear on Christmas morning - Santas for me and Penguins for Little Helen:

7. My sister-in-law Margaret (long-time peeps know she's the one who introduced me to Mr. Helen) with her three handsome boys. The middle one in the striped shirt is my godson.

6. My new enameled cast iron dutch oven!

5. The look on Gracie's face as I opened the gift that she insisted that her mother buy me just from her. She kept saying, "You're going to love it! It's going to be your favorite gift!"

4. My Twelve Days of Christmas Waterford Crystal champagne flutes. My boss (who passed away) and his wife started the collection for me 6 years ago. I have them all now and it has become a Christmas tradition to have a champagne cocktail. This year it was "Rudolph's Nose." Also, my Christmas china which you can see in the background.

3. Mr. Helen and his siblings. Pam and David were very much missed this year but as it goes with grieving it was a bit better than last year.

2. The granddaughters and one great granddaughter (the little one in front) on Mr. Helen's side.

1. The fact that I'm on a roll - and I plan to keep it going right into 2012!

Festive Wrapping

2011-12-22T08:06:00.001-05:00

This week has turned out so differently than I expected. The good thing is that because I pushed myself to get things done just in case my White House Tour did not get cancelled, I will end up having some free time, which is a nice thing. Maybe I'll get out and treat myself to my once-a-year Skinny Peppermint Mocha at Starbucks!

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My nail tech says that when it comes to me, old OPI colors never die, they just go to my house to retire. My holiday color: Ruby for Rudolph (which is a retired holiday color that I had at home). So pretty!

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I had completely decided not to bake at all this year - a combination of lack of time and the thought that we really did not need any junk in the house. Mr. Helen acted so disappointed when I told him that I have to admit I felt a bit guilty. To make matters worse, in years past he has been given boxes and boxes of cookies from people at the dojo and work - not this year. The poor man is cookie deprived. Ya'll have seen him, he can "afford" a cookie no problem.

Then Marisa wrote a post about all the cookie baking she did and asked "What is your favorite holiday cookie to bake?" I told her it was our rolled sugar cookies that we frost and decorate. After I answered I realized I enjoy making those cookies not for how they taste - although they are delicious - but rather for the memories associated with them.

For all of Little Helen's life, right up until she moved far away, I would make those cookies and have them cooled and ready to frost and decorate when she got home from school. Then she and I would sit down and put on The Carpenter's Christmas Album and decorate and sing at the top of our lungs. We actually did that so many years that the "album" changed to a "cd."

Anyway, all of these things came together like a big ball of Karma and now I'm thinking that on Christmas Eve I will make Mr. Helen those cookies. Little Helen will be home by then... maybe she'll want to help.

The 2010 Snowmen
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This is the first week that I haven't been eating strictly Paleo since I started the Zero Excuses Challenge back in November. I have tried to keep in mind that I should try to have those things after working out hard, so my first foray back into grain world was some of this on Wednesday morning after my run (which was my 3rd workout within 24 hours so I think that qualifies as hard enough!):

Oh my goodness, this blend of whole grain oats, wheat, rye, barley, triticale and flaxseed is just delicious. With 120 calories and 5 grams of fiber per serving, it's nutritious as well. I also think it would be spectacular as a substitute for oatmeal in an oatmeal cookie recipe, or for granola. I ate it with a scrambled egg and it kept me full for hours.

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You people are crazy. I tell you I've been fussing about my haircut and almost every single person who commented asked for pictures! Is this a misery loves company thing? Seriously. But I'm a good blogger friend and if my hair makes you feel better then I guess you should consider this your gift from me this year. I had to go lock myself in the ladies room at work to attempt this so forgive the backgrounds - and the blurriness because someone started knocking. See the sacrifices I make for you guys?

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Speaking of gifts, I hope everyone who celebrates is having a wonderful holiday season and realizes that the best gifts probably don't come wrapped in festive paper. I'll be taking a blogging break for a few days to enjoy time with my family - and to bake those cookies. Peace and blessings to you and yours.

Tuesday Ten

2011-12-20T08:26:00.002-05:00

10. One of the recent searches that led someone to my blog was "big ass in pantyhose." I can't even imagine which post provoked that and probably don't want to know!

9. .... and miles to go before I sleep. On a friend's dare I recently added up my running mileage for 2011. Since I didn't have any set goal I hadn't been keeping track of the total. I discovered that if I push myself I might just make 800 miles for the year. But it's going to require me to be a running fool between now and December 31st.

8. Mr. Helen got his 3rd Degree Black Belt on Saturday. (See the 3 stripes on his belt?) Here he is with our Kyoshi - the woman who has been the "other" woman in our lives for the last 10 years. She went into martial arts when women were few and far between and put up with a lot of grief but mostly just shut the boys club up by being a world class martial artist. She's a Sixth Degree and yep, she's only about 4'11" tall but you can bet nobody messes with her.

7. The show was fabulous as usual... and we had the most unusual thing happen when the belt presentations were going on. The 1st degree candidates were being called up to be given their belts by the Shihan. One of the recipients went up and they bowed to each other and all of a sudden he pulled the belt back and stepped backwards. She didn't move a hair - even from my view I could tell she was stunned. Then this happened:

Her boyfriend arranged to surprise her with a proposal! It worked, she was shocked as all get out and the crowd went wild. I can't believe I managed to get these photos but I did - I'm a sap for romance! We saw them later when we were out to eat and she told me that the day would go down as one of the biggest life changing days of her life.

6. Monday morning when I got up at 4:15 (hit the snooze!) and my toes hit the floor I thought, "huh, it feels really cold." Turns out it was 14 degrees. I went outside and decided that I think 20 degrees is going to be my limit for running in the cold and dark. So my running partner Pitbull and I went outside to the treadmill in the 22 degree garage and did 3 miles of speedwork at a 3% incline.

5. This morning I got up and it was 45 degrees, which was warmer than it had been all day on Monday. I hit the roads for a 5K which I managed to finish in 32 minutes. Still not my best speed but I can see that 10 minute mile on the horizon!

4. I'm probably way too old to wear a dress like this but boy is it gorgeous... it has everything I love - pink and bling.

3. As of today it's looking like my planned trip to see the White House Holiday decorations is off. Poor Little Helen called me crying last week saying she got an email stating that the two times we picked were probably being cancelled and offering her other times. Of course, I was flying down so it's all messed up. I tried to talk her into going but she said she doesn't want to go without me. While I'm disappointed, for once I'm going to be a glass half full person and believe this has happened for a reason and there will be another opportunity in the future!

2. This is what I've been going through since last Friday:

The funny thing is Mr. Helen keeps talking about how much he likes my bob and how bouncy it is. OY.

1. I don't know about you but I've spent year after year after year setting goals and probably failing at reaching as many as I made. My resolution for 2012? No goals. Simply, I will do the best I can in whatever circumstances arise. I will however, have a motto (thanks to my boyfriend Dolvett): Hard Work, Dedication.

Zero Excuses Challenge Week 6: The Finale!

2011-12-19T07:32:00.004-05:00

I started the Zero Excuses Challenge with no particular goal in mindbecause really, I didn't expect anything at all to come from it. As I'd already been trying fairly diligently to lose weight for almost 2 years, I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment once again.

So I just sort of stumbled in and gave it the college try if you will. Now, Ifind myself here at the end of week 6. Time sure does fly when you're hungry and sore all the time - ha! Just kidding. Well, mostly kidding.

I had another week where I just sort of automatically did the program - but I didn't feel like I was losing weight. Maybe because I had 2 dinners out - 1 unexpected and 1 planned. For the unexpected one I order a big salad that fit right in with my eating plan. For the planned dinner, which was my annual office outing, we went to one of my very favorite Italian restaurants. I gave myself permission to have whatever I wanted, and I did: a square of foccacia bread dipped in olive oil, a salad and this: Fettuccini si Ettore: Fettuccini with fried eggs, roasted red peppers and crispy pancetta. A napoletana favorite. It wasn't actually fried eggs in it either. The eggs are whisked and then blended with the pasta to create a sort of glaze - almost like a carbonera without the cream. This was my first taste of pasta in over 2 months and it was delicious. I had no regrets at all.

That was on Wednesday and Thursday morning I got right back on plan and carried on. Still, I wasn't sure what to expect when I stepped on the scale. So, I focused the camera, stepped on and closed my eyes, only to open them and see...

Another 2.2 pounds lost this week and a total of 12.4 for theentire challenge. I was so happy and emotional I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

I want to give some credit to my doctor because she adjusted mythyroid medication and if it is acting properly, I should lose weight. I will also give credit to the Paleo foodplan. For me, with the insulin resistance they discovered, eating muchlower carb than I had been was something my body liked and has responded to. Even with one meal a week for three out of the six weeks, that wasn't Paleo, I continued to lose - and I found it extremely easy to go right back on plan.

But I give the most credit to ME. Because I jumped in with both feet and stuck out both the food and the exercise plan. I love cardio, I do not lovestrength training… yet this plan with a couple of ST exercises a day worked forme.

Tami asked me if the eating plan got easier and if I foundthere was enough variety. Yes, theeating plan got easier and the variety is whatever you make of it. As with any eating plan, whatever you decidedto put into it is what you’ll get. Because I am not one to buy prepared foods a lot, I spent a lot of timeprepping and cooking food so that I could grab and go during the week and staysuccessful. Just last week I tried Lori's gluten free, grain free, sugar free Paleo-style Banana Bread Breakfast Pudding and holy yum! That sucker is delicious. The only change I made was to add an extra egg white to up the protein a bit more. Every eating plan I've ever tried, I've kept something. That recipe will definitely be the something from this challenge... although I have to admit I am thinking about adding a tablespoon or two of mini chocolate chips to it and making it a dessert pudding :)

Debby asked me how I will proceed from here. I am goingto say that my plan right now is to reintroduce some carbs from grains – but Iwill be eating low-glycemic. To behonest, I have never stopped missing my oatmeal, or brown rice, or evenspaghetti. I also miss various kinds of beans and low fat cheese. Not that I crave those things, but I do missthem. Adding them back in will be realistic for me to create a long-term planfrom this. I also think some of the hardcore Paleo stuffis nutty (sorry, Rich). Personally I’mnot a fan of using lots of artificial sweeteners or other crazy ingredients. So some subtle changes with the intention ofstaying lower carb.

I also have been mulling over doing something similar towhat Lori does: Paleo weeks, i.e., grainfree, alternating with the low glycemic weeks. A girl has to have the occasional cupcake after all!

I will also continue with the exercise plan. Rich's recommendation after this six weeks, is to take a week of rest from the six-days a week strength exercises. Then you start the plan again at week 3 using heavier weights. I have decided to extend my plan through the end of this week because next week I will also be on break from Muay Thai so I figure I can give my body a really good rest between Christmas and New Year's and then go at it again.

The main destination for me from here is that I want to keep the weight losstrain rolling right into Goal Station.

Happiness List (in no particular order):

Lost 12.4 pounds in 6 weeks
Started the program using 5 & 8 pound weights, ended using 10, 12 and 15 pounders.
Started the program doing walk/jog or jog/run intervals, ended doing jog/run and run/sprint intervals AND saw my steady state run times go down.
Stuck to the food program for a full three weeks before I took an indulgence meal on Thanksgiving. Went right back to the program for another 2 full weeks before I had another indulgence.
Went down 1 full size in clothing!
More importantly, fit into smaller JEANS.
My waist is making an appearance again!
Started to see some definition in my arms that wasn’t there before.
Last Friday, someone walked up to me at work and said, "Are you losing weight?" WOOT!
Got to work with Rich Kreps, who really does have a great program.
Shelley. What I haven't said before is that the Zero Excuses people originally contacted Shelley and she told them no thanks and to get in touch with me. Maybe she knew this was just the push I needed? In any case, I can’t say enough about having someone or finding someone who is in maintenance mode - who has been there, done that - and can help get you through the freak out moments. Everyone needs to have their own Shelley – but you can’t have the original, she’s mine!
The Zero Scale: seriously I do love this product, especially the total weight feature. Even though I haven’t used it yet, I also love that it does have the ability to give me my actual weight… which one day I will see when I think I’ve hit goal!

I’m also hoping to report sometime in early February that all ofthis has kept me off Metformin. I’ll definitely keep you posted on that.

Ultimately, I can sum up this challenge and life change by echoing our dear Pam: "IT'S ALL GOOD." This challenge is not the end for me, it's just the beginning!

If you’d like a Zero Scale of your own, this is the lastweek you can use the discount, which expires at the stroke of midnight onDecember 22, 2011. When you get to thewebsite to order, just put the word ZERO in the promo code box to get that 15%off.

Who knows? Maybehaving a Zero Scale would be just the push you need to reach your own goal in2012!

The Zero Scale was given to me for participating in the Zero Excuses Challenge.
All opinions of this product are my own.

Zero Excuses Challenge Recap

2011-12-16T08:05:00.001-05:00

In 2009 I arrived at blogging as a 49 year old hypothyroidwoman approximately 30 pounds overweight and pretty miserable. I spent the next two years fussing around andtrying every which way but loose to get some weight off. It worked – for a bit – but I guess when youkeep gaining and losing the same 5 pounds you can’t say anything isworking. Then, from October of 2010 toNovember of 2011 I gained 15 pounds – while trying to lose weight - which mademy doctor send me for extensive testing and to a specialist. The news was discouraging: my thyroid had shut down again and I was showing insulin resistance.

Here I was, a 51 year old hypothyroid woman with insulin resistance, now approximately45 pounds overweight – blech! In a caseof serious karma, I had been contacted by the PRfirm for the Zero Scale and asked if I would be willing to participate in a sixweek challenge run by Rich Kreps, of Zero Excuses Fitness. They sent me some information about Rich andhis clients and when I replied in the affirmative, they overnighted me the Zero Scale.

The Friday before the challenge was to begin, I received theexercise and eating plan and had a phone conversation with Rich that resultedin him decided that ‘I’ was going to be his challenge. But what Rich didn’tknow is that while I’m a stubborn hard headed lady it would work to his advantage (and mine!). Once I said Iwould do his silly little challenge, there was no way I wouldn’t give it mybest try.

I’ll admit I emailed Shelley to whine and told her I wasterrified of the diet. I knew from pastSouth Beach Diet experience that I would miss my carbs from grains. In a way that only Shelley can, she calmed medown and I moved forward into the first week.

Much to my delight, the exercise plan was easier than Ithought, which I give full credit to Muay Thai for. All that functional fitness had made mestronger than I realized. Even the dietwasn’t that bad, though my legsdefinitely could feel the lack of grain carbs when I ran. At the end of that week I was rewarded forthe hard work and diligence with a 3.6 pound loss!

Week two rolled around and motivated by the first week’sloss I charged forward, but soon ran head first into cravings that were literallymaking me feel crazy and like I was going to jump out of my skin! I left the mall and stores several times dueto food smells or displays that were so distracting I could not concentrate. Really, I was miserable and wanted to giveup, but deep down, I’m not a quitter so I soldiered forward. Imagine my complete dismay when I got on thescale and my loss was .2! I cried andstomped around my house for a while then I texted Shelley and emailed her. Thank goodness she had the forsight to remindme that even the contestants on The Biggest Loser, who do nothing but live in acontrolled environment have terrible week 2 weigh-ins.

I decided I’d give it one more week and not a minutemore! Imagine my surprise when, in week 3, I seemed to hit my stride. Even with the Thanksgiving holiday and my first non-Paleoindulgence, I lost 2 pounds! Maybe there is something to the theory that ittakes 21 days to create new habits?

After that, I really was on a roll, right up to this week,the last week of the challenge. So howdid I do? Well, you’ll have to come back Monday for the final resultsand some answers to the questions you have been asking.

Have a great weekend – with Zero Excuses - and don't forget, if you want to have a Zero Scale of your own, just type the word ZERO in the promo code box when you order for a 15% discount. Don't delay, the discount is only good until midnight on December 22, 2011.

The Zero Scale was given to me for participating in the Zero Excuses Challenge.
All opinions of this product are my own.

Winner Winner Football Pick Dinner!

2011-12-14T08:03:00.000-05:00

When we started doing the Football picks I made a list of restaurants I wanted to go to. Most of them were either restaurants that we don't go to often or ones we've never even tried. The restaurant that we went to for my win was one we'd never been to before. We kept hearing rave reviews about it and several times when Little Helen came home she told us we should try to place just based on the type of restaurant. Though she's never been there she guaranteed us the food would be good. Now here's the really sad thing about all of this: this restaurant is literally about a 1/4 mile from our house!

When I won, I decided the time had come for us to go there and told Mr. Helen I wanted to go for a late lunch. We got up Saturday morning and while I worked out he went to the rehearsal for his black belt show. Once he was home we tackled the house cleaning together and then got cleaned up and went grocery shopping. I was trying to get as much done as possible so I'd have Sunday free for wrapping gifts. Finally, around 2:15 we headed out... and we walked! While the area we live in is considered a city for this area, it really is sort of a suburban city and it's not very often that we walk to dinner. It made me feel very cosmopolitan.

We arrived at our destination and the first thing I noticed is that they have decorated a bit for the season.

Pollos a la Brassa is a Peruvian restaurant and their specialty is Peruvian style rotisserie chicken along with many other items as we would soon see on the menu.

I had to remind him I was the winner!

There was very simple seating inside but it was super clean and decorated to the hilt. In fact I was greatly amused by the mixture of Peruvian and Christmas decorations.

This guy watched me eat.

Once I perused the menu, I decided I would allow this meal to be non Paleo - only the second one since I started the challenge. I chose the half rotisserie chicken with rice and beans with a side of plantains, because Mr. Helen and I decided we would share our food. He chose a dish called Bistec Encebollado: top round steak thinly sliced and smothered in garlic. Topped with onions and tomatoes and served with white rice.

HOLY PORTIONS PEOPLE!

So yeah, even though we shared and even though Mr. Helen ate all that beef except the couple of bites I had, we came home with a full meal worth of leftovers All for $26.00, including the Diet Pepsi I drank. This was quite the find and as we strolled home we wondered why we waited so long. We will definitely go back as we've already picked out other items we are wanting to try.

I'm glad I enjoyed this so much because I lost the picks this week, siiiiiiiigh. Seriously, Mr. Helen picked every single game correctly except 1! I suppose it's only fair for me to pay this week since he's getting his 3rd Degree Black Belt on Saturday and wants to go out to dinner to celebrate afterwards. I just hope he picks something as yummy as this.

Zero Excuses Challenge Week 5: Deja Vu All Over Again

2011-12-12T08:15:00.000-05:00

Five weeks in and I'm rolling peeps. I won't lie, the five day-a-week 4 am wakeups (I sleep in to at least 6 am on Saturdays) so that I can get my coffee and be working out by 4:45 are tough but the results have been worth it! It's deja vu all over again with another 2.2 pounds gone - woot!

I have to tell you though, I had two victories over the weekend that almost made me happier than seeing those numbers on that scale. The first was that I ran my 5 miler on Saturday morning in 53 minutes! I know for a fact that the increase in my speed is a direct result of the weight loss. I am working on getting back to a 10 minute mile and under - something that is totally doable as long as I keep the weight loss train rolling.

The second thing was that I fit back into my one size down jeans! JEANS! Jeans that I couldn't even button 5 weeks ago. When I pulled them out just to see, they slid right up and buttoned. I didn't even have to lay down on the bed lol! To me jeans are an even bigger victory than last weeks slacks.

So now I head into the final week of the official challenge excited about the victories I can look forward to this week.

Speaking of excitement, I have some BIG news to share with you guys. You know how I keep telling you that you can have your own Zero Scale with a 15% discount as long as you order by December 23rd? That still holds true but if you really want a scale you shouldn't put it off because this product is about to blow up nationally! Last week, Rich Kreps of Zero Excuses Fitness, our trainer and nutrition consultant for the challenge, drove to LA for a taping of The Doctors. The Doctors chose the Zero Scale as a product to be featured in their two part show on having a healthy New Year and the scale was given to each audience member. If only a small percent of the people who ultimately watch the TV show order the scale, they will sell out. Now obviously with that sort of nationwide promotion, they don't need to offer a discount. So don't delay! The discount that I am able to offer you will go away as of December 23rd. Get your Zero Scale 15% discount by typing in the word ZERO in the promo code box.

The Zero Scale was given to me for participating in the Zero Excuses Challenge.
All opinions of this product are my own.

Busy Till I'm Dizzy!

2011-12-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

The upcoming weekend will be jam packed with events and trying to finish up my Christmas shopping. Mr. Helen will be giving his speech tonight at the dojo, talking about his black belt journey and what it means to him to be receiving his third degree belt. There is a potluck following the speeches.

Saturday will the the usual craziness of exercise and house cleaning followed by finishing up the shopping if it's the last thing I do, and best of all, my football pick winning meal! We are tied for wins now and I can't help but brag that I beat his butt by 4 games this time.

Sunday, I must wrap. I must just sit down and do it until it's done because it's the only chance I have without Mr. Helen being ~~all up in my grille~~ at home. He took the following Sunday off and the Sunday after that is Christmas - ACK!

I'll leave you with a laugh. You've seen this Nativity before when I showed you some of my decorations last year. I always put it where the little nieces/nephews can touch it because it's made of resin... though Gracie did manage to break one of the angel's wings when she was around 2.

Conversation when she was at my house last week, in which Gracie shows that evidently she does not remember this set...

Gracie (in the sweetest cooing voice): Oh Auntie Helen! You have a baby Jesus!
H: Yes. Who is that with the baby?
G: His mommy and daddy.
H: And who else?
G: The good fairy!

Hahahaha! Close enough. I hope everyone has a great weekend, doing whatever makes your heart happy and light.

Reader Recipe Request

2011-12-08T08:07:00.001-05:00

When I wrote the post about our Thanksgiving weekend, I mentioned an overnight breakfast casserole and noted that most of you probably had such a recipe. Kristen, from Low Fat Dressing commented and said she'd never heard of such a thing and requested the recipe.

This is not a low fat or 'diet' recipe by any means - nor is it Paleo lol! Even though I make some concessions and use low/lower fat items in it, we consider this a special occasion recipe therefore I have never calculated the nutrition facts. It is yummy though and worth the occasional indulgence.

Enjoy!

Overnight Breakfast Casserole

1 pound turkey breakfast sausage

8 slices thick white bread (I buy a bread called Texas Toast but you could buy a loaf and slice it thickly yourself)

4 T butter

2 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar (I use reduced fat - NOT fat free cheese)

6 eggs

3 cups milk (I use skim or 1%)

1 tsp. dry mustard

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

If the turkey sausage is in casings, squeeze the sausage out into a non-stick skillet and brown, making sure to crumble so you don’t have lumps. Set aside to cool.

Cut the crusts off each slice of bread and lightly butter each side. Cut bread slices into cubes.

Spray a 3 quart casserole dish with cooking spray. Then layer bread cubes, turkey sausage, cheese. Repeat. (I get 2 layers in the dish I use.)

In a large bowl, whisk together the spices, eggs and milk, then pour it over the casserole.

Wrap casserole with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 350, remove the wrap and put casserole in the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the dish is puffy and golden brown on the top.

Let rest for about 10 minutes, then serve. Makes 6-8 servings, depending on how big your eaters are!

Tuesday Ten

2011-12-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

10. Thinking about the holidays and reading the laments of some of the single bloggers made me laugh out loud. They're crying over spending New Year's Eve on their couch with Nutella, watching Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve. Are you kidding me? That's like my dream date!

9. Thing that makes me happy: this dress. Bought it about a month ago as a goal dress. Nowhere near the size I was wearing but it was on a clearance rack for $20 and I thought that maybe I'd be able to wear it before next spring if I did OK during the Zero Excuses Challenge. Saturday morning while trying to decide what to wear to the wedding, I thought, "Try it on and see how much further you have to go..." IT FIT!!! (And it prompted Mr. Helen's lovely comment to me too!)

8. It has been around 60 degrees every day since Thanksgiving here in Connecticut. Yesterday, it snowed in Texas. Methinks the weather is upside down.

7. Thing that makes me happy: being at the wedding of my flower girl. I'm a sap for romance!

6. I wish the department stores like Macy's would do late evening door busters instead of early morning. The early morning ones are from 8 am to noon and that makes it near impossible for those of us who actually have to be in our offices to take advantage of the good buys.

5. Thing that makes me happy: my Zero Scale, specifically the total weight loss feature. I just find seeing that total number so motivating. Don't forget, if you want to be motivated the same way, you can get your own scale for 15% off by typing in the word "ZERO" in the promo code box when you order. But this offer is only good until December 23, 2011.

4. December 21st I am taking a tour of the White House Holiday decorations! Little Helen got 2 tickets and asked me to come. I am flying down, doing the tour and then she and I will drive back together for her trip home for Christmas. When she asked, my planning/administrative mind couldn't fathom doing anything so crazy. Mr. Helen insisted telling me it was the chance of a lifetime. That's what makes us such a good pair - his fly by the seat of the pants personality knows how to tame the planner in me.

3. Thing that makes me happy: Gracie trying ice skating for the first time... look at that face!

2. Mr. Helen's family has decided to do away with the Christmas gift exchange. Instead, everyone is going to put the money they would have spent into a pot and half is going to be donated to the Alzheimer's Association in honor of his mother and the other half is going to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in memory of Pam. Love this idea!

1. Thing that makes me happy: PROGRESS! When I got home from work, Mr. Helen told me my slacks looked baggy. I told him no they were just a bit stretched out from wearing them all day. He replied that NO they are baggy. Take some money and buy yourself some new slacks. He doesn't know that I don't have to do that because I have several sizes waiting. This morning, I got into my next size down bin and I'm wearing a pair of those slacks today! Happy. So Happy.

Zero Excuses Challenge Week 4: Feeling Fat

2011-12-05T07:54:00.000-05:00

Fat is a state of being. There is no doubt at all that someone who is carrying 100 extra pounds is fat. In fact, recent statistics show that the United States is one of the fattest countries in the world – whatever the reason. We see it on the Biggest Loser all the time when the doctor in charge of the contestants goes over their tests with them and shows them the inner fat that is crowding their vital organs, making them much older than they are in reality and threatening their very lives.

There is, however, a complete difference between being fat and feeling fat. As you know there are fat acceptance groups in which the members who are overweight have great self-confidence and do not suffer from the feelings of inadequacy that feeling fat can give. Feeling fat carries so many burdens with it, you have to wonder why we'd even entertain those feelings. Additionally, my personal belief is that feeling fat is once of the greatest obstacles not only to losing the fat itself, but also to maintaining that loss once at goal.

Many of us read the lovely Lori of Finding Radiance who has lost well over a hundred pounds and kept it off. She posts her exercise and her eats and her recipes and makes the rest of us sit there and think that we too want to be the well-oiled machine that she is one day. Last week she had a tremendous post about accepting the mirror that shows just how much feeling fat can play with our heads - and our reality. Go ahead and click and read it if you haven’t. When you see the photo she posted you’ll be shocked that she would even begin to think that somehow she thinks – even temporarily – that how she looks right now isn’t quite right. She had lots of great responses on that post too because we all understand that exact feeling.

While I am still fat statistically I have been losing weight of late. (Woot!) I work out hard and have been following the eating plan given to me by Rich Kreps, the trainer for the Zero Excuses Challenge. Why then did I struggle from Wednesday-Friday with feeling fat? I’m not weighing myself but once a week so it wasn't a scale thing. Besides with the awesome ZeroScale I don’t even know what that number is right now, only whether I’m losing or gaining. Still, I struggled. I thought it calmed down a bit on Thursday but that evening at Muay Thai I got partnered with someone quite thin and when we stood in the mirror side by side I felt like ~~a moose - a cow - an elephant -~~ GIGANTIC. By Friday this feeling was full blown and I literally spent the entire day talking myself out of over eating because “I’m fat anyway, who gives a carp?! I’m going to gain and be the cow that I was before and…..” Well, you know the drill. But I did not succumb even though it required me literally powering through by gritting my teeth and telling myself over and over again that I was not hungry and I would not feed my emotions. Hunger feeding = Yes! Emotion feeding = Hell to the NO!

Wouldn’t you know Friday was the night Mr. Helen wanted tacos and while I was angelically fixing my Paleo taco salad he kept saying, “Don’t you want cheese? Don’t you want tortillas? Don’t you want a hard shell” Finally after saying no thank you several times I told him that “Yes ~~@#$%$##@!$#%^&*^^%!~~ I want all those things. But I am choosing not to have them right now. Thank you.” He said, “Oh, sorry! I forgot you are trying not to eat that stuff. You are one of the strongest women I know Helen. So proud of you!” Which made things a bit better.

But back to that fat feeling. It’s the craziest thing that can totally sabotage everything you’ve done… all the hard work you’ve put in for a week straight… unless you refuse to back down and acknowledge that it IS JUST A FEELING.

With a pounding heart, I got on the scale for my weekly weigh in and got my proof that feelings don’t last but hard work shows itself out:

The truth will out as Mama Helen used to say. And one day I will also no longer be statistically fat.

When we were leaving for the wedding we had to attend Saturday morning, Mr. Helen said, "You look gorgeous. More beautiful than the day I married you."

That's me he was talking about.

Friday Randomness

2011-12-02T07:52:00.000-05:00

I feel like blogland has hit the proverbial holiday slowdown lately. Actually I noticed it a bit before Thanksgiving but it seems to be picking up this week. I suppose it's a good thing that bloggers are out living their real lives, right?

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I showed you guys a small photo of my outside decorations. I thought I'd back up and try to get the whole view so you could see what it looks like when driving down my hill.

When we first moved there, the only thing we put up was the snowflakes around the porch. Then a couple years ago I found the little trees to line the retaining wall. Then this year I got a great deal on the two deer and Mr. Helen found the garland with the colored lights tucked away so he added that. It's not much, but I think it's festive.

The only issue is that I really don't think anyone but us really sees or enjoys our little light display. Why you ask? Well, we live on a one way street and exactly two houses before mine, this is what people see:

And I'm not even showing you the driveway here people. That's full of animated snowglobes and the trees along the side have flashing candycanes.

Yep, there's only 1 house inbetween me and that guy lol! The neighbor inbetween says why bother and puts up a simple wreath on her door. This year when Mr. Helen was putting the decorations out Christmas Wonderland Neighbor walked down the hill and said, "Oh, I see you're adding deer this year. Are you trying to compete with us?" HAHAHAHA!

This is the only time of year we actually have a bit of traffic on our little one way street.

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Another busy weekend for us here at the Helen household. Friday night I have got to try to do some Christmas shopping. Got to. Never before have I been this late getting started!

Saturday morning Mr. Helen has to go to rehearsals for the big Black Belt Extravaganza being held on December 17th. That's when he will formally be presented his Third Degree Belt. Before they get their belts, the candidates put on a show.

Then, we are attending the wedding of the young woman who was our Flower Girl. How is it even possible that she has aged enough to be getting married and we are exactly the same?

Saturday evening is yet another annual fundraiser that we have been going to for a few years. Called Giving is a Gift, it's like a holiday party with games and great food and the price of admission is a donation that goes to one of the local non-profits. We generally try to buy things to be used at the Women's Center in their domestic violence shelter - body wash, deodorant and other personal hygiene items. We also like to put together a couple of bags of groceries for the food bank. The event is great fun and we always leave feeling happy and vowing to do more the next year.

In between those events we hope to get some shopping done for Little Helen. Sunday will be more shopping, specifically for Mr. Helen since he'll be at work and I'll be able to get the stuff in the house without him seeing anything.

Can't believe it's just a bit over 3 weeks until Christmas. Not only is it the most wonderful time of the year, it's the busiest too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Wednesday I had Amazing Gracie for a couple of hours because she kept asking her mama if she could come over. She said she wanted to pick what we did so we went shopping at Target (where I spent about $35 on her, sigh), I did her nails, we examined every. single. ornament. on the tree, ate shrimp cocktail and then we watched Elf. All between 5:00-7:15!! While we were watching Elf she picked up my iPhone and said, "Let's take pictures!" Herewith is our crappy iPhone camera photo session:

"Let me stand by the tree first."

(Note the slippers on her feet: $9.99 at Target)

" Now I want to do a crazy pose!"

"OK Aunt Helen now YOU do a crazy pose!"

"Now show everyone we're watching Elf."

"It's my turn to show Elf!"

"Show me your favorite ornament."

"I can't Gracie, I love them all."

"Ok, then show all of them."

"Now I'll show you my favorite one... it's this birdie one with the birdies going round and round. Can I please take it off and put it on my tree at home?"

"No Gracie, but you can look at it every time you come here."

If that doesn't give you a smile and put you in a better mood for the season and the weekend, well I don't know what will!

Food and Exercise, Exercise and Food

2011-11-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

Since I have still been getting some questions about the food and exercise program I am following during the Zero Excuses Challenge, I thought I'd share just exactly what the program is like.

Each day we do 3 exercises: one for the upper body, one for the lower body, then one for the core. That is followed by any type of cardio we choose, but done in interval style where you go hard for a minute then easy for a couple of minutes.

As the challenge has progressed, the number of reps and how we do the exercises has changed up a bit. The first two weeks we did the upper immediately followed by lower body then rested for 45-60 seconds. Repeat for the prescribed number of sets. Once that was all done, we did our core work.

Week 1 we did 2 sets of 25 reps for the upper and lower and 4 sets of 10 reps for the core.
Week 2 we did 3 sets of 20 reps for the upper and lower and 4 sets of 12 reps for the core.

Last week it changed so that we did the upper, lower, core one after the other as 1 set then rested and repeated. We did 4 sets of 15 for upper and lower and core. This week it has gone to 5 sets of 12.

I have to say, I'm already using much heavier weights than the first week and my planks have gotten to the point where Monday morning I did 5 one minute planks. Proud of that. I'm also extremely proud that I'm sticking to it. As ya'll know, I am a cardio queen. I think the reason I'm finding it easy to stick with this is that it only takes 15-20 minutes to do which still leaves me plenty of time to run 3-4 miles when I'm done.

If you'd like to see the exercises in action: Here are the links to the videos Rich did for us. If you watch even a portion of them you'll see he did them fron his own couch. Even if you don't have access to a gym, there are Zero Excuses!

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday - no link because Wednesday is a cardio only day and we shoot for 45 minutes.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Also, I find the stretch from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning and then again from Thursday to Friday really hard. I've been pushing the morning workouts and with the addition of the Muay Thai classes in the evenings, I wake up Wednesday and Friday feeling ~~too pooped to pop~~ very tired and really hungry. Those are the days where I have to just gut it out and get the workouts over with.

I have to say, if you're a person who says I don't have time to strength train and do cardio, you should try this program. It takes less than an hour a day - even if you choose to do 30 minutes of cardio at the end. The bonus for me is that this week I am finally feeling my clothing a bit looser and I noticed in the big mirrors at Muay Thai last night that I'm developing some definition in my arms that wasn't there before. Bye, bye grandma jiggle!!

As for the food, other than my Thanksgiving indulgences I am really sticking to the Paleo style of eating. I do try to make things for the dinner meal that Mr. Helen will eat and he adds carbs from pasta, potatoes or rice. Here's what I've eaten so far this week:

Monday
Omelette made with 3/4 cup egg beaters, 1 cup mushroom pieces, 1 cup chopped broccoli, 1 tsp. evoo
Banana
1 cup homemade tomato basil soup
Large tossed salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper, lettuce) with 3 oz. lean ham and 2 T balsamic vinaigrette
Apple
6 oz. Swiss Steak over 3 cups baby spinach, 1/2 cup roasted carrots
Tangerine
About a gallon of water

Tuesday
Omelette made with 3/4 cup egg beaters, 1 cup mushroom pieces, 1 cup chopped broccoli, 1 tsp. evoo
4 oz. grilled chicken breast, 1/2 cup roasted carrots, 1 cup roasted zucchini, 1 cup roasted asparagus, Tangerine
Banana with coffee
Creamy chicken curry (a recipe I've made for years and it's made with coconut milk so its very Paleo!) over 3 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup 0% Fage with 3/4 cup blackberries
Another gallon of water...

Normally if I'm going to eat a higher carb fruit like banana, I try to do it in the mornings. However, on Tuesdays, I've been eating one in the afternoon because in addition to my morning workout, I'm taking a Muay Thai class at 5:45. I feel like I need the little bit of extra carbs as fuel for that class.

I'm not saying that's perfect, but it's what I'm doing and it's working. I have to say it has been a nice reprieve from the calorie counting I'd been doing for years. I still haven't stopped missing grains, but I am no longer craving them the way I was. I will definitely reincorporate a few things (my beloved oatmeal!). Once this challenge is over I am becoming more and more sure that low-glycemic eating will be the way for me to go with a Paleo week or two every month mixed in until I can get all my weight off.

Weight off or no, the real test of all this for me is going to be that bloodwork in January - that's my real goal.

Tuesday Ten

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

10. This past long holiday weekend was just about the best holiday I can remember in recent years. The actual day was hosted by my sister and her boyfriend. It's nice to see her genuinely smile... and I'm not sure whose eyes are bluer - hers or his.

9. Serious games of chess were played

8. The littlest niece is a teensy bit afraid of dogs. I think some of it is because she's such a peanut that most dogs are bigger than she is. But my sister's boyfriend has a tiny little pug. So Sammy tried to be friends with Bugsley - which worked mostly. The only problem was that Sammy would get excited and skip across the room and Bugsley would think she wanted to play so she'd bark and run after Sammy with her tail going a mile a minute. Which would promptly cause Sammy to burst into tears. Hey, when you're 2 it's a learning process!

7. Amazing Gracie was waiting for me to get there as she had very very important and exciting news! Did you know the Tooth Fairy gives $3 now? And sucker Uncle Mr. Helen gives $5?!!

6. Little Helen got a belated birthday gift, one worth waiting for - a new Coach bag!

5. Friday we avoided all retail outlets and went to get our Christmas tree because we realized with our schedule we literally did not have another free time to do it. Mr. Helen was the tree cutter, while Little Helen and I were the tree pickers, She was quite excited as, since she left home, she rarely gets to take part in this tradition.

Where are you going? I thought you girls wanted this one?

Are you SURE this is the tree you girls want?

Glad to have her home!

4. Little Helen and I left the tree farm and went straight to the Princess Diana exhibit. Worth every single penny we paid to get into it! It was really well done - a mini story of her life. There were even home movies of when she was growing up. The wedding gown was displayed with the train fully extended, along with the shoes and bag she wore that day and the little flower girl's dress. One whole room was dedicated to some of her most iconic outfits. Those gowns were so gorgeous and classic that they could be worn today! I wish I had photos to show you but no picture taking allowed. But I did get a nice memento - an ornament for my tree.

3. Saturday was a day of tree and house decorating. Even though I was super busy all day it felt good to just hang around the house! I think it all came out looking pretty good.

2. Saturday evening we went to our friend's fund raiser for the scholarship they established when their 27 year old son was killed in an accident several years ago. They give out two $500 scholarships each year to a graduating senior. Since they are from St. Martin, they threw a big party that included Caribbean style food, a comedian and dancing. It was so much fun and a great way to cap the weekend!

1. Best of all? Wonderful to have Little Helen home and not even a drop of extended family drama. Just good times and great memories!

Zero Excuses Challenge - The Holiday Mix

2011-11-28T08:04:00.000-05:00

This is the end of the third week of the Zero Excuses Challenge. Starting in the second week, Rich kept warning us that the third week would be the hardest. The warnings continued with him mentioning it several times in emails and in our exercise videos. Sorry, Rich, but I disagree. Last week (the second week) was almost unbearable mostly due to what I felt like were out of control grain carb cravings. No amount of fruit or vegetables ever satisfied that and I truly felt miserable. Then of course, to top it off, I lost only .2 pounds. Frustrating and discouraging.

But I have a stubborn streak that won't quit and I'm also the type who, once they commit, sticks. Pretty much there was no option except for me to hang in there - at least for the prescribed six weeks of the challenge. Much to my pleasant surprise it ended up being a week where I felt like I was cruising - finally getting into the rhythm of the exercise plan and the eating. The urge for grains backed off a bit and I knew I'd make it until Thanksgiving, my planned "off of plan" day.

The Thanksgiving Holiday was everything I hoped it would be... a wonderful time with family! Of course the best thing of all was seeing Little Helen. It had been far too long and it was like chicken soup for the soul having her home. Errrr chicken soup with no rice or noodles that is!

I also did as promised - to Rich and to those of you who read - partaking of some indulgences that I carefully planned out.

Thanksgiving morning I got up and did my three exercises and then went out to do my cardio. I decided that I would do intervals for at least 45 minutes or longer since I normally would have taken a Muay Thai class that night. Plus, I figured the extra burn would only help with the calories later to come.

It was unusually warm and sunny here so I hit the pavement and enjoyed getting my exericse outdoors, with hills, which made it even more challenging.

While I was gone, I baked a breakfast casserole that had soaked overnight. You've probably got a similar recipe of buttered bread cut into cubes, crumbled turkey breakfast sausage, shredded low fat cheddar and eggs and milk whipped together then poured over the top of it all and left overnight. When I got back, we all had a portion of it for breakfast. I ate probably around 3/4 of a cup of it. As I ate I thought about how the turkey sausage and eggs made that thing semi-Paleo - HA! Can't we justify when we want to?

Our main meal was not eaten until 4 p.m. and consisted of the usual suspects. Prior to the meal I chose to have 1 glass of wine instead of eating appetizers. I had another glass of wine with my meal. The items I chose were about 4 oz. of turkey, 1 cup cornbread stuffing, 1 homemade roll, 1 1/2 cups roasted brussels sprouts. It filled me up both physically and emotionally. Everything tasted so good that I was satisfied and really did not want more.

We waited for a while to have dessert and that was my real dilemma. The dilemma being that I was choosing to have just one thing. Out of everything I made, just one. Very hard to choose since I made the desserts and knew they would all be good! Mama Helen requested my homemade Chocolate Cream Pie. The chocolate cream is made from scratch and of course I use real whipped cream for the topping. Mr. Helen asked for Pecan Pie and Brother Helen asked for Pumpkin Pie. No one else requested anything but I wanted to make the Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake that I had made last year, which had been a smashing success. So I did. Here's a picture of this year's version:

When Little Helen walked through the door and saw the cake she exclaimed, "Oh Mom! I can't believe you made that cake. It's my new favorite Thanksgiving dessert!" This is coming from a kid that doesn't eat sweets. Then, as soon as I arrived at my sister's house and she saw the cake she said, "I just told Eric (her boyfriend) that I wasn't going to eat dessert today because I'm always too full and never enjoy it, and really the only dessert I'd want is the cake you made last year. Now that I see you made that cake, I'm having dessert today and I'm keeping a piece for tomorrow!"

I chose the cake too as did my sister-in-law and of course, Little Helen. It was amazing. Seriously, this recipe is a showstopper.

On Friday, I got right back on track and even tried to drink a lot more water. Surprising to me was that I had not triggered any cravings by partaking of my indulgences on Thanksgiving. I found it easy to get right back in the swing of things. A nice surprise, indeed.

Still, when I stepped on the scale Saturday morning, I have to admit a feeling of nervousness. Because you know I lost only .2 last week and there had been no indulgences. But I knew if it was terrible, Shelley would cheer me up somehow lol!

So I stepped on the scale and saw

Holiday indulgences and all - I LOST 2 POUNDS! This is unheard of for me... I would have been thrilled with 1! What made it even better?

Seriously, this is still my favorite thing about this scale! I love seeing that total progress. 5.8 lbs. in 3 weeks - not too shabby! And I have to tell you straight up that I feel so much more motivated just seeing these numbers rather than the 3 numbers of my weight. I'm not sure why, but being the person who lost 2 lbs. this week makes me feel like a rock star whereas being the person who weighs ___ and it's a weight I don't want to be makes me feel not so good.

At this point I say, the Zero Excuses Challenge is working for me. When I see results like this, I have to admit, it has been worth the effort of putting in the work, doing the exercise and following the eating plan!

If you would like to own your own Zero Scale, go here: http://thezeroscale.com/, click "buy now" and in the promo code box, type in the word "Zero" to get a 15% discount. This offer is only good until December 23rd so why are you waiting?

Midweek Mix

2011-11-23T07:38:00.000-05:00

Mr. Helen was as amazing as I thought he'd be during his testing. The testing took place during 3 two-hour sessions. The second session was 6-8 am on Saturday morning. They started off with many boot camp style exercises - 500 Jumping Jacks, 250 pushups, 300 crunches, running in place, etc. Then it was light outside and they went out for their run. It is about 2.25 miles and they tell the students they need to do a 10 minute mile so about 22 minutes. Mr. Helen did it in 16:50.

Once everyone was in they made them run over to a bank parking lot that has a hill and proceeded to drill them with hill sprints and bear crawls - forwards and backwards! - for 45 minutes. Then the Shihan told them they had to run again, only the route they did this time was 2.5 miles. He actually gave them 30 minutes to complete it since their legs were worn out. Mr. Helen did it in 19:15. Holy speed batman!

He passed.

I'm scared though. In a year I'll be going through those same drills. I don't care that I won't be near that fast, although I am hoping over the next year to get close to the 10 minute mile. What scares me is the sheer physicality of it all.

Unlike Mr. Helen, I am a mere mortal.

Perfect pushup form!

Hundreds, maybe a thousand situps done

Coming in from the first run. He took it easy (16:00 minutes - ha!)

Cheering on the other candidates.

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I was recently given the most unexpected, nicest gift. One of my coworkers approached me and asked me if I would like a really nice, brand new running jacket. Well, that's a silly question! The next day she came to my office with this!

This is a gorgeous jacket. It is mesh lined so that it breathes while you run along with wicking and reflective properties. One of the really cool features is on the back. There's a switch inside the jacket that turns on a flashing bar so that people/bikes/cars approaching from the rear see you better.

Alas once I had it home and looked carefully this is what I saw:

Sigh. I am not a medium right now peeps. My first thought was that I'd ask Little Helen if she wanted it and if she didn't then I'd send it off to Shelley. Then I thought, why not keep it and use it as a reward for making goal! Because when I get to goal (~~hopefully~~ sometime in 2012) I will be a medium again! Sorry Shelley, that's what I decided to do.

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Don't have much more to say. I'm off work today baking and making pies and prepping the sweet potatoes for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. I will be making this again. I have a feeling it is going to become a regular holiday dessert.

I won't be blogging anymore this week - my Little Helen is coming home and it has been 11 months since I've seen her! She and I have some fun things planned and ultimately, cherishing time with family is the most important thing.

I am thankful for all of my blogging friends - I don't care what anyone says, you're real to me! Happy Thanksgiving!

Zero Excuses But Lots of Frustration

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is a long post cram packed with information and not a lot of photos.

Don't say you weren't warned!

Before I get to the weigh-in, which is what I know ya'll are dying to see, I wanted to expand a bit on Thursday's post.

The only reason I said that I wasn't sure I'd made the right decision is because I was still really craving grains when I got up. Sometimes I wonder if it's not better to just give in to a portion controlled amount of the item one is craving?

I can futher expound on that thought by saying that again all day Thursday I was having a very difficult time. I had to return an item to TJ Maxx and they had put out all the holiday candies. Some of these candies are items that are found only during this time of year. I usually buy a package or two, just to have around. But that day I was so distracted by the candy that I couldn't even browse the store and once again decided I just needed to leave. No, I didn't buy any - yet - because I honestly felt I might cave and eat some.

Thanks for your comments and support though - I especially love how Shelley reminded me that a buttery pretzel probably wouldn't be something I'd eat no matter what diet I was using. So true! Do you know how many times I've been to the dumb mall and may not even have noticed the smell. I also loved what Lori said when I referred to my Thanksgiving cheat day:

And I would not call it a cheat day. I don't like that term. You are making a conscious and informed decision to eat off of your prescribed plan. You aren't being deceptive about it.

You are correct Lori and I'm hoping that my conscious decision is going to help me with conscious, controlled eating as well!

Now to answer a couple of your questions:

Debby asked: "Are you planning to try baking with the coconut and almond flours?" My answer right now is "I don't know." The challenge lasts for six weeks and after that I am planning on eating more of a low glycemic style which wouldn't require those items. Sometimes I think about buying some and experimenting and other times I think it's just easier to do without baked goods for now. That's why I'm wishy-washy!

Kelly asked: "Do you allow yourself splurge meals or days?" Right now, other than Thanksgiving, I have not planned any. I did splurge on Saturday night and have a glass of wine to toast Mr. Helen's new black belt. But honestly 1 glass of wine per night is Paleo-allowed. However, my personal opinion is that wine and alcohol stall metabolism so I've chosen not to imbibe. Additionally Rich Kreps tells us that in order to lose weight we need to eat 95% Paleo 5% non-Paleo at most. Assuming 21 meals per week, that means 1 meal per week that could be non-Paleo. More on this in a minute.

On to the weigh-in.

This photo shows my loss for the week.

The reason the scale shows 6 days instead of 7 is because it has a clock that starts when you install the battery. The days do not reset at midnight so if you weigh yourself at 9:00 am one week and at 8:45 the next, it will show 6 days instead of 7. Make sense? I've already suggested to the scale manufactureres that they figure out a way to change that so the scale runs from mindnight to 11:59 as that is how most people perceive a day.

This photo, which is the next screen that flashes shows my total days using the Zero Scale and my total weight loss in that time frame. As you can also see it shows the total days as 14, because this feature calculates differently. I would like to say that I LOVE this feature of the scale, Especially when I have a weigh in like this week's.

Sadly, I lost only .2 lbs. Very, very frustrating considering the massive grain carb cravings I had that I did not give in to. Nor did I overeat last week with my average caloric intake being 1423, including the day I ate the extra nuts. FRUSTRATING!! IT'S NOT WORTH IT!!!

I texted Shelley with an "I'm sick of this crap" attitude. As you know, not losing weight even when I've been picture perfect with my exercise and eating has been my issue for over 18 months.

Prior to the weigh in, I had been tossing around whether or not to eat a whole grain hamburger bun with the burgers that Mr. Helen chose as his victory meal for passing his third degree black belt testing. The minute I saw this .2 lb. loss, I decided right then and there I was going to eat it. But of course my brain also said "screw it" and I started thinking about how to not only have 1 non-Paleo meal but how to have a complete non-Paleo day. So I ended up having that 1 non-Paleo meal last week after all, even though that wasn't my original plan.

Bless Shelley's heart, she reminded me that even on The Biggest Loser, the second week weigh-ins are notoriously terrible. I don't know why, but that simple statement immediately cheered me up. It also kept me from just throwing in the towel altogether and sticking to a simple hamburger bun - 1 non-Paleo meal.

I am grateful that it still was a LOSS and Rich is going to work with me to see if there is anything I can tweak in my eating as he knows just how much I exercise. My goal now is to focus on other gains I am making and wait to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Now here's the exciting news: I am happy to tell you that I can now offer anyone who wishes to own the scale, a 15% discount on the Zero Scale. You're seeing it in action right here and if the idea of simply seeing your progress rather than your weight appeals to you, well, you need one of these, right? All you have to do is go here: Zero Excuses Scale, place your order, and on the left side of the page where it says PROMO CODE type in ZERO. It's that easy to get a 15% discount! Plus the scale is on sale right now and you get a free pedometer when you order. This offer is only good until December 23, 2011 so you'll need to act by then.

Maybe your perfect gift this year?

The Zero Scale was given to me for taking part in the Zero Excuses Challenge. All opinions on the scale are my own.

Joy and Pain

2011-11-18T08:17:00.000-05:00

Brrrrrr! It was c-o-l-d this morning when I went out to run - 34 degrees! I had to pull out my winter running gear. But at least there was no wind and honestly, there's something to be said for running by moonlight as dawn is breaking. Here's a skyline shot from the patio just as I got back home:

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Interesting how things I see in everyday life now remind me of blogging friends. In the last week, I saw this, on the car of a person who keeps parking next to me at work lately - have no idea whose car it is, but I immediately thought of Lori!

On Monday, I was making a salad for lunch so I pulled out the fixings and saw something that made me think of Fran.

For some reason, it amused me greatly that my mini cucumbers were from Holland! What the heck are they doing all the way over here?

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As I stated earlier in the week, I have been looking for the lusciousness factor with my Paleo food and boy oh boy did I score with one of this week's meals!

To begin with, I made this beef that Biz had mentioned on her blog. I cooked it in the crockpot while at work on Monday - no fussiness about that at all. Once I got home, I shredded and chopped it a bit. Hmmmm how to eat? I decided to do a lettuce wrap. A butter lettuce leaf, some beef, some chopped tomatoes, and some guacamole. Hands down my favorite meal of the week. Let me tell you, no matter how you intend to use the beef once it's cooked, it's so good. In fact as we ate dinner Monday night, Mr. Helen kept looking at my plate and talking about he was going to make it using a real tortilla style wrap. This is definitely a keeper! Here's a photo of all my stuff ready to assemble:

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Tomorrow we will attend the memorial service for our brother-in-law who passed away. Not so much with me, but with members of Mr. Helen's immediate family this seems to have dragged up some of their feelings about losing Pam. I don't expect it to be easy and I'll be glad when it's over.

This also happens to fall right smack dab in the middle of Mr. Helen's Third Degree Black Belt testing, which up to this point had been our planned focus of the weekend. He has three sessions to get through: 7-9 pm tonight, 6-8 am tomorrow morning and 1-3 pm tomorrow afternoon. The memorial service is at 10 am. Maybe it's a good thing that he will have to go back to testing and sweat it out.

I am awed by him and his mad skillz so I'm sure there will be photos/videos next week. The man is 56 years old, fit and healthy, but more so he really is a super athlete. Do you know what he did last weekend? He tried to simulate what he would have to go through this weekend! Friday, after working all day he came home and ran 2 miles as fast as he could (that's the run requirement). Saturday morning he got up and went to the special prep class from 7:30-9 then came home and proceeded to work out THREE more hours. During that three hours in addition to going through all his weapons and katas, he lifted weights, did umpteen sets of pushups and situps, and ran 4 miles. He finished the workout with 22 - yes that's twenty-two - sprints up our hill. He's ah-mazing!

Joy and pain. Sunshine and rain. That's my weekend, how about yours?

Come back Monday for my second update on the Zero Excuses Challenge, and I'll answer some more of the questions I've been asked this week.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

2011-11-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I had a very grain carb craving day but fought it off all day long the best I could with fruit and veggies - easier at work because options are limited to what I've brought. After work, I had to go to the mall to get moisturizer and hairspray. (The kind I like is only there.) I thought maybe I'd look around a bit too as Christmas is fast approaching and I haven't done a darn thing towards gift buying.

I entered through one of the anchor stores and went to buy the moisturizer. Then I proceeded out into the mall to go buy the hairspray. As soon as I got out into the mall area, my senses were ASSAILED with the fragrance of freshly baked bread. Oooooh....

You see, we have not one but two pretzel places at our mall, one on each end. The buttery goodness wafting around me was calling my name, begging me to pay attention and give in to the cravings that were now making every nerve in my body stand on end. At this point I was glad that both places were on the floor below me.

I walked quickly to the store, bought my hairspray and as I came out, decided right then and there that there was NO WAY I could stay in that mall. I couldn't even concentrate because I wanted to run straight to one of the pretzel makers and buy a cup full of the soft little warm pretzel pillows that pop in your mouth and delight the senses with their buttery goodness.

So I left.

I went home and after doing a couple of quick chores, I had a sensible dinner. But that feeling? That feeling of wanting something.... something..... something BETTER never went away. Finally around 8:00 I ate an ounce of almonds and 2 pieces of dried fruit which put me over my calories for the day. Then I went to bed.

This incident is exactly why I plan to have a "cheat" day on Thanksgiving where I will be eating my family's famous cornbread stuffing, one of my mother's homemade potato rolls, and some dessert. This is also why I will eventually shift to low glycemic eating over Paleo.

This morning, I'm still not sure if I made the right decision or not. Time will tell.

Staring Down the Challenges

2011-11-16T07:58:00.001-05:00

Last week during the first week of my Zero Excuses Challenge, I had the additional challenge of eating out a couple of times. The idea of eating out initially filled me with dread. Especially since I so badly wanted to really give this challenge a good chance. However, these plans were made before the challenge and I did not want to back out because then I would have missed out on a fun time with friends!

Friday evening we met two other couples out for dinner - at an Italian restaurant. Yes, I was in the land of pasta, bread and grain type carboliciousness. Our friends were very generous and even offered to change the restaurant but I told them no, I was up for the challenge, so off we went.

Of course, the very first thing that arrived at our table after the drinks (I stuck to ice water with lemon!) was oven hot homemade foccaccia bread with flavored olive oil. OY. I determinedly ignored it and Mr. Helen said thank you he'd eat my piece. I sat there perusing the menu trying to figure out what to do since most of the items had cheese and/or pasta or both. Even the baked fish was wrapped in potatoes. Then I came across this: Penne "Jack" Style: Grilled Jumbo Shrimp, Sauteed With Sweet Sausage, Roasted Peppers, Basil With Marinara Sauce.

I knew I could make this work if they would just serve me the meat and sauce with no penne! I didn't even look for a substitute for pasta as ya'll know I don't believe there is any and would rather just do without. (No fake spaghetti squash Rich!) I did however ask if they would serve it over sauteed spinach to up the veggies in the dish. Everyone else ordered pasta and fish and you know what? When my meal came to the table, several people were oohing and aaahing and saying they were going to get the Penne "Helen-style" next time they visited the restaurant!

My second eating out experience came on Sunday afternoon. My friend Em texted me on Friday and asked if we could get together for lunch. She's in the midst of dieting to get into her wedding dress so she requested I find a place with Big Ass Salads! I knew just the place: it's actually a pizza place but their salads are really yummy. I chose the Grilled Vegetable Salad: Mixed greens, grape tomatoes, black olives, topped with grilled summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, red onions and feta cheese.

I asked them to remove the feta cheese and add a grilled chicken breast. It was delicious. Since I forgot my camera, Em took a photo so I could share:

Doesn't it look yummy! I have to admit, I honestly did not miss the cheese because this salad was so flavorful.

Overall I am just pleased that I was able to go to dinner, have fun and fellowship with good friends and also enjoy good food.

The other challenge that I haven't talked about yet, well, it's a bit hard for me. You know I went to the specialist last week. What I really wanted was to walk in and have them say this is what is wrong, this is what you should do and this is when you'll be all better. Unfortunately, no such luck. In fact, in addition to having to submit to even more testing, I got some upsetting news, though I had suspected as much: It looks like I am pre-diabetic. Because my numbers are just over the top of the range, I am not being given medication but I am being encouraged to eat a very clean diet and continue my exercise and see if in a few months the numbers - both my weight and my sugar - will come down. All fine with me since I didn't want to have meds anyway. But I have to admit, Wednesday was a hard day for me - I was very upset and disappointed, feeling once again as if my body has betrayed me. I mean really, isn't being hypothyroid enough to deal with?!!

Then on Monday I went back to my GP (who has managed my healthcare very well according to the specialist) wherein she informed me that in the report she received from the specialist and in looking at the bloodwork I had done in September, I am also insulin resistant (the specialist never mentioned this!) and she wanted to talk to me about Metformin. Additionally it seems that my thyroid levels are trending upward. (Both of these things would explain my unexplained weight gain of late.) I could feel my brain starting to shut down and I just wanted to lay down on the exam table and cry. We spent a few minutes talking about it, with me telling her about the challenge and the Paleo style eating I'm doing. I told her I lost 3.5 lbs. in the first week and I ~~begged~~ asked her to let me try this for a few weeks.

As she was listening she also seemed to be skimming the specialist's report and suddenly said, "Dr. Gonzales tested your insulin and thyroid again?" I answered yes but that I'd only gone on Saturday. She told me to wait that she wanted to see if the results were available in the lab's online system. A few minutes later she came back and said, "I have good news and so-so news: it seems like maybe this Paleo thing is doing for you what Metformin would do because your insulin has dropped 1 1/2 points since September. So I will agree to hold off on the Metformin for now. (HURRAY!!!) However, since September your thyroid has climbed 2.5 points and right now you are in complete thyroid shut-down. Also, your irons levels are terribly low. Both the iron and thyroid would explain the fatigue you keep mentioning. So, we are going to up the meds for that and you'll have to start having bloodwork done every 2 months again." (SIGH. SIGH. SIGH.)

A mixed bag for sure. But I'm going to deal with it and face it down like I am facing down the Zero Excuses Challenge. I will not let these things get the best of me! What I'm proud of, is that even though I cried a little and whined to Shelley and to Mr. Helen, I did not turn to food of any kind, not even "good for me" food.

Eating out, not eating for comfort - little challenges met with victory. I'll take them!

Zero Excuses Challenge Update 1 and a Weigh In

2011-11-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

This is the end of the first week/beginning of the second week of the Zero Excuses Challenge I am participating in.

It has been an interesting week for me. As per my life-long pattern, I had no problems at all with the working out, but a myriad of interesting things to deal with and learn when it came to the Paleo-style eating that Rich Kreps, our trainer/nutritionist, has challenged us to follow!

First of all I should say that I am not a person who craves various foods. I like lots of foods but I've never been one who specifically craved anything. Perhaps because I've always eaten a large variety of things, I don't crave sugar or sweets or wine or even bread. I'm just not a cravy person. So, while some of my other fellow challengers have noticed that their cravings for sugars and grain type carbohydrates have decreased, I actually felt myself develop cravings. It was a bit unusual for me to feel like if I could just have one little piece of whole grain bread I'd feel better.

By Wednesday morning my body and mind were so sick of hunks of meat and chunks of vegetables I felt like every nerve in my body was standing on end. Not to mention that while I had not had a lot of stomach growling hunger during the daytime, I'd been waking up to gnaw on my bedpost hunger.

I have the additional challenge that I cannot eat a drop of food before I've taken my thyroid med a full hour before eating. This makes it difficult for me during the week when I get up at 4 so that I'm able to be exercising by 4:45 or so. Even if I take the med, I don't have time to eat before I work out, etc., etc...... aaaaarrrggghhhhhh!

As you guys know, I generally watch Biggest Loser while I run on my treadmill on Wednesdays and that's exactly what I did last Wednesday morning. However, instead of quickly stopping the treadmill while I went to write down something inspiring, I stopped it because about 10 minutes into my intervals my brain was going crazy to the point where I wanted to get into the freezer and eat a piece of frozen bread. (The freezer is in the garage with the treadmill.) Yep, it was that bad. My solution was to get off the treadmill, run into the house put the oven on 400, scrub a small sweet potato and pop it in. When I finished my run 45 minutes later, the potato was cooked. I ate that and 2 hard boiled eggs for breakfast that day. Sweet potatoes are actually allowed in moderation in the Paleo diet, mostly as a great post workout food, which is exactly what I did!

I truly believe that the reason my cravings were so strong is that my carb intake on Monday and Tuesday was extremely low not to mention that on Tuesday I had done both the assigned workout and attended a one hour Muay Thai class that evening. It turned out to be one of the hardest MT classes I've ever had. My body really did need a carb boost. In addition I tried to eat extra fruit on Wednesday and not only did it seem to do the trick of settling my cravings down, it also made me feel better on Thursday.

So, I feel like the food part of this challenge is going to continue to be a bit experimental for me. I need to figure out how to eat to prevent the cravings that I'd never had before! I also need to figure out how to eat on days when I have a double workout: mornings with the assigned challenge workout and evenings with Muay Thai. Additionally, I continue to struggle with the sensory side of the eating thing. Don't get me wrong, I am eating very good food, seasoned well, etc. I'm just missing the "oooh this is luscious" factor and I need to figure out how to bring that back. I'm also missing (a lot!) my cheeses and oatmeal.

Now for the part I know ya'll really want to see: the weigh in. I need to apologize in advance for the photo - it's terrible. I forgot my glasses upstairs and didn't realize it until I had the camera pointed at the scale and once that number pops, I need to take the photo because of the way this scale works. Between my poor vision and my excitement, it's a very blurry photo that I had to crop due to all the backflash - sigh. BUT WHO CARES?

BOOYAH! 3.6 lbs. down!!

Thanks to my fabulous photog skillz, what is sort of hard to see is the word "loss" under the 7. The 7 is how many days since I weighed myself. A full week in other words. Unlike some people I know, I don't have a hard time at all staying off the scale.

How did this weigh in make me feel? Encouraged is the best word I think. Because it wasn't a huge, huge number (like 7 or 8 lbs.) I don't feel it was as much water weight as I thought it might be. So I feel encouraged that it's 'real' weight loss. I'm also encouraged because it's been a loooooong time since I've seen any downward movement on the scale. Additionally, I have to admit, I LIKE not knowing what I weigh. In the past, when I saw the 3 digits the fact that the numbers was so much more than I want to weigh discouraged me to the point where I could not concentrate on the truth:

I lost 3.6 pounds!

Pretty good for a hypothyroid, menopausal 51 year old, right?!

Never Enough Ways to Say Thank You

2011-11-11T09:08:00.001-05:00

I have run the Marine Corps Marathon twice. It's my favorite race because you basically run through American history. Plus I get to see my favorite monument of all, based on this photo:

Here's a photo of me with the monument and a friend who had come to support me when I last ran that race in 2008.

I also live in a military community with a Naval Submarine Base. Mr. Helen is a butcher in the commissary at the base so he has daily contact with military folks of all ages - from the baby 18 year olds who are there for the submarine school to the 90 year old retirees. You know what he says they appreciate more than anything? A simple "thank you."

So today I salute our veterans, active duty and retired. Thank you for all you have done to secure my freedom. I also want to say thank you to their families who send their fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, sisters and mothers into the battle not knowing if or when they will return.

If you know a veteran, please make an extra effort to thank them today. If you don't, you can always say your thank you silently to the universe. I'm sure they'll feel it.

I Expect Weight Loss

2011-11-10T08:52:00.004-05:00

As promised I'm address some of the questions and comments I've gotten this week over the Zero Excuses Challenge and the Paleo diet I am trying in conjuction with it.

Fran asked: do you have to do your fitness exercise 7 days a week or do you get a "day off"?
The exercise program is set up so that we exercise 6 days a week. M, T, Th, F, Sa we have an upper body exercise, a lower body exercise, and a core exercise, followed by cardio. The daily strength training alternates between pushing exercises (like a chest press) and pulling exercises (like a chest row). Wednesday we get a break and get to do cardio only and Sunday is a complete day of rest. I have to admit I'm looking forward to Sunday.

Karen asked: Are you going to work your Muay Thai kickboxing workouts into the challenge's workouts...or will kickboxing be in addition?
I will be doing my Muay Thai in addition to the other workouts. When I did my very first workout I was thrilled to discover that I'm much stronger than I thought I was and I give all the credit to Muay Thai. Having said that, I thought I was going to D-I-E at Muay Thai on Tuesday night. I didn't realize how much that extra hour of exercise Tuesday morning would affect me!

Lori said: And strength training every day? I don't think I could do that.
Yes you could Lori! Because it's only 3 exercises per day and they work all different areas... not at all like the strength training you usually do! This morning I did supersets of Dumbbell Shoulder Presses, Standing Calf Raises (1 set of 25 each then rest one minute and repeat). Finish with 5 sets of 10 Seated Knee Raises with 20 seconds of rest between each set.

And many of you are looking to find out more about the Paleo food plan. I think the best way for me to share with you will be through some of my recipe experiments, but basically, Paleo does not include grains, dairy, gluten, sugars of any kind. If you really look around the internet, you'll see most Paleo eaters use coconut flour, almond flour, etc. No wheat! The emphasis is on lean meats, healthy oils, fruits and vegetables. In my search to find more definitive information, I came across this website which actually has lists of foods to eat, to be moderate with and to avoid. Click there if you'd like some more information.

Again, while I know this will not be something I want to do forever, I am hoping that by trying it as strictly as I can for a couple of weeks, it might jump start my weight loss. Having said that, I am not willing to buy odd ingredients that I won't use in the future nor am I willing to substitute certain things (I'm talking to you, spaghetti squash). Honestly, I'd rather have no pasta at all until I'm ready to re-incorporate it.

Based on how I've been feeling these past few days (~~cranky~~ ~~and grouchy~~ extremely hungry first thing in the morning), and from the carbohydrate restriction alone, I definitely expect to see weight loss this first week. Carbohydrates help to retain water (that's why distance runners carbo load prior to a race!) and without them, water flushes out. I think the hook for me will be to see continued weight loss in the weeks that follow.

Look for my first weigh-in on the Zero Scale on Monday. As curious as I am even today, I'm going to keep my weigh-ins to once a week. Before the end of the challenge, I will be able to offer a discount for anyone who wants to purchase the scale so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Tuesday Ten

2011-11-08T08:10:00.002-05:00

10. If you have questions regarding the Zero Excuses Challenge I started this week, ask away! A couple of people asked in yesterday's comments so I decided I'm going to do a post on Thursday answering questions.

9. My 'last supper' on Sunday night before I started the Zero Excuses Challenge was Braised Short Ribs, Crockpot Smashed Red Potatoes, Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Homemade Biscuits. Of course the ribs and brussels sprouts can be eaten again during the challenge but Mr. Helen is in biscuit heaven because he doesn't have to share!

8. I think I've already found one way I'm going to "cheat" the Paleo diet: salad dressing. I use Newman's Own Light salad dressings, mostly the balsamic vinaigrette and the honey mustard. Technically, on Paleo, I shouldn't use them because they have a bit of sugar in them. But you know, they're organic and have all natural ingredients so there you have it.

7. In some ways I think "cheating" a bit might be good for me overall. I have the tendency to be such a rule follower that I can end up trapped by things I don't even like. Then I'm resentful and nothing good comes of that.

6. As I stated, this Paleo thing is going to make me a creative cook. With all the veggies I'm actually chomping on, I wanted to come up with some sort of soup to use as a starter for dinner time meals. What I came up with is Roasted "Cream" of Broccoli Soup. I'll share the recipe in another post but here's what it came out looking like - pretty good, huh? Tasted good too.

5. Every diet I've ever tried has left something with me that I've kept as I've moved on. For example, Weight Watchers taught me about portion sizes and to use a scale in the kitchen. That was 15 years ago and to this day I keep a food scale in my kitchen. I wonder what Primal/Paleo will leave me?

4. Here's a tip we got from Rich yesterday - a tip everyone can use! To lose weight, take your "goal" weight and multiply it by 10. That's the approximate number of calories you want to eat in a day. So easy to remember that.

3. I've not been hungry at all but neither have I felt satisfied, even though the food I'm eating is very good. I feel like "something" is missing. I'm also sure that the satisfaction has something to do with the emotional part of eating.

2. Yesterday's breakfast: an omelette made with 1 egg, 1/2 cup egg beaters, 1/2 tsp. olive oil, 1/2 cup mushrooms pieces, 1/2 cup chopped asparagus, 1/4 cup scallions, 1 cup baby spinach. It was delicious and kept me fairly full but I have to admit, I missed the whole grain English muffin I would have normally had with it. There it is...there's what I'm missing: grains!

1. Just for giggles, I tracked yesterday's food mostly because I was curious about the carb level. I had only 59g of carbohydrates! Mmmmmm, I don't think my running legs are going to like this very much at all. In fact I'm wondering if my running will be slowed to a walk by week's end!

Zero Excuses Challenge

2011-11-07T08:05:00.001-05:00

Today is the first day of my six week challenge. Prior to beginning this, I received the Zero Scale at no cost to me to use for the challenge as they are the sponsors. As this challenge progresses, I promise you that any opinions I post about the scale will be my own.

So, let’s get started and let me share what the next 6 weeks will include. First off, I had to weigh in. Yes, I know! I haven’t weighed myself in ages because I got so frustrated with working hard and not seeing those 3 stupid numbers change. Then, if you recall, I went to the doctor and she informed me that I’ve gained 15 pounds in the last year and promptly sent me for the blood tests that resulted in me being referred to the specialist, who I see Wednesday. But I digress. Here is my first weigh in:

How awesome is that?! I WEIGH ZERO! My dream finally came true…. Of course you know I’m kidding. But, the fact that my weight would start at zero is one of the reasons, I agreed to even try this. From this point forward, when I weigh in the number on the left will be how many days since I last weighed in and the 0.0 will change to number of pounds lost/gained. Since I have no idea what my total weight is I’m hoping this will help me to stick this challenge out and not be discouraged.

The second component of the challenge is a fitness program. This program was designed by Rich Kreps, who is the personal trainer/nutritionist working with the challenge participants, and who also has his own website with fitness and nutrition information. When I spoke with Rich and he told me that this program is based on one that celebrity trainer Harvey Pasternak used with Halle Berry when she was in training to get into the suit she wore in Catwoman. Not that I think I’ll end up looking like Halle Berry but jeez who wouldn’t want to try?!

The fitness program consists of 35 minutes of cardio and 3 strength training exercises per day: one upper body, one lower body and one for the core. For example, this morning I did 5 minutes of walking on my treadmill to warm up then I did 2 sets of 25 of chest presses and squats (no gym so I had to sub for leg presses). The core exercise was planks and that was followed by 30 minutes of interval running. Since I decided to just run for 3 miles. Three miles of intervals is hard! But I got it done in 34:15. Not too bad.

Now to the food. As I’ve mentioned many times I do not like restriction and it makes me want to stomp my foot and yell “no way” like a 2 year old. When I first got the information Rich sent us, that's pretty much exactly what I did.

The preferred diet for the challenge is Primal/Paleo which means eating protein, vegetables, some fruit, and nuts – NO beans, grains/gluten carbs, or dairy to speak of! While I know that people who follow a very low carb diet to lose weight seem to lose successfully, I honestly do not believe this is something that I would do long term. Therefore, this truly would be a diet for me, not simply a lifestyle change. As the secret to success for weight loss maintenance seems to be finding something you can do the rest of your life, I am concerned about this. While I am not a huge consumer of grain/gluten carbs or dairy, I do like a portion or so each day. No dairy means eliminating even cheese, which Iis where I almost exclusively experience dairy and I do like pasta and whole grains. Eliminating those items is not at all something I would do forever. When Rich and I spoke about this, I was quite honest about how I felt:

Rich: How about using spaghetti squash in place of pasta?

Helen: No. I don’t like spaghetti squash in place of pasta. I like spaghetti squash but when I want pasta I want pasta. Also? Don’t call turkey bacon. It’s not bacon. If I eat bacon, I’m eating pig bacon, okay?

Rich (laughing): OK, I see you are going to be my nutritional challenge.

Ultimately my concern sent me out hunting around the world wide web for more information to see if there was some things I could do that would help me stick to this at least for a couple of weeks. Based on what Rich sent, I was wasn't feeling very confident that I would last more than a day or two. In my surfing I came across Robb Wolf's website and by the time I finished reading the information he has there, I felt a lot better. As it turns out, since I generally eat low glycemic, my current eating is not very far off of Paleo with the exception being that I eat desserts! Based on this new information, my plan is to eat more Paleo than Primal and to try to stick exclusively until Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving? Well, right now I'm thinking I'll have some stuffing and pie. We'll see. Anyway if you go to Robb's website and look at the FAQ page, you'll get an idea of how I will eat.

I will say that doing all this thinking about how NOT to eat beans, grains and dairy made me sit down and write out a meal plan for myself that I could then add some things to for Mr. Helen. Look at these pretty Prosciutto Rolled Asparagus I made to eat as snacks!

I’m planning on posting a weekly update on Monday telling you honestly how I did and how I feel about the challenge and the Zero Scale. I hope you’ll follow along.

Now, let’s rock and roll!

Attitudinal

2011-11-04T07:33:00.000-04:00

I so appreciate the thoughts and kind words on my Wednesday post. It felt like hugs from around the world. We are doing fine but still in a bit of shock and denial that David is gone.

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As usual on Wednesday morning, I watched the Biggest Loser while running on my treadmill. This weeks lesson came from something I saw rather than what was said.

Attitude matters.

The oldest female contestant on the show, Bonnie, has been training with Anna Kournikova. For whatever reason these two just did not mesh. (I'll admit I've wondered if she resented being told what to do by a person so much younger than she?) Even considering her age, her weight losses have been OK, but not the usual spectacular results that are generally achieved. Something always just seemed off and I know even out here in blogland a lot of people put the blame squarely on Anna, the trainer.

This week's episode included a trainer swap so that almost everyone ended up with someone new, including Bonnie. She made no bones about letting everyone know how happy she was about the switch. So the new teams (no longer divided by age but made up of teams with one each of young, mid, and older) work out like crazy with their new trainers and go for the weigh in. You would think that since Anna was such a "terrible" trainer her team would suck once again, right? I mean, even the people on her new team barely gave her the benefit of the doubt at the beginning. Surprise! Her team actually won the weigh in overall. However what or maybe I should say who was really telling was Bonnie. With the switch, her attitude towards the training did a 180. Nothing that she was being given to do was any harder than anything Anna ever gave her to do - in fact, some of it might have been harder. But her attitude towards her trainer (my new boyfriend, Dolvett) was completely different. In the end, she lost 7 lbs., which I believe is her largest weight loss to date. The only thing that changed was her attitude.

Needless to say with my upcoming challenge which starts on Monday, I've been thinking a lot about that. As I said before there are some aspects of this challenge that indeed are going to be a true challenge for me. I've spent a day or so having the hissy fit Mr. Helen thought I would but I think I'm mostly over it. Come back Monday for a play-by-play and honest opinions. In the meantime, I think I will spend the weekend working on my attitude as well as my meal plans. I want to have the best results possible, after all.

Attitude matters.

graphic credit

Life is Shorter than You Think

2011-11-02T08:38:00.000-04:00

Over the last week or so I've been thinking a lot about how time seems to fly by as you age. While my favorite times of year - summer, early fall, go by in a blink, winter and spring drag on and it should even out. But it doesn't and each year seems shorter than the 365 days alloted.

Yesterday morning, I was sitting at my desk when I recieved a phone call that made time stop but also reminded me that our days are numbered and life is short.

My brother-in-law, David passed away unexpectedly. David, as you remember was married to Pam, Mr. Helen's sister who died last June. He was only 56 years old. We don't have many details yet, only that some sort of fall was involved, that he some how got to the hospital and died there. He was making plans to come back to Connecticut because literally all of his family - his only sister and only cousin, as well as most of us - his in-laws, live here. I can only hold on to the belief that he is at peace and reunited with his beloved Pammy, as he called her.

Taken in 2008 at their 25th Wedding Anniversary party.

Thank you David for your presence in our lives. Thank you for being such a great uncle to Little Helen... for taking her out for dinner every single time you went to Washington DC on business. For calling her weekly to make sure she was OK. I'm sorry you were alone but I hope you know how much you were loved.

Rest in peace with Pammy.

Tuesday Ten

2011-11-01T09:06:00.000-04:00

10. I can't believe that three weeks from Thursday, it's THANKSGIVING. I haven't even begun to plan for that. Where did 2011 go? I am beginning to believe that time really does pass by faster as you get older. Not sure I like it though.

9. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving because Little Helen will be home! We haven't seen her since last December.

8. Last Saturday, Mr. Helen was once again willing to show that I won the football picks that week.

7. Here's my meal: Penne pasta with grilled chicken in a pesto alfredo. It was soooooo good. You know what else I loved? It was at max a cup and a half of pasta. Along with the bread and flavored olive oil that was served with it, there was plenty of food. Supposedly since we were taking advantage of the restaurant week deal and lunch was 'only' $10.11 for appetizer or dessert plus an entree, the portions were downsized. I thought it was perfect! I wish more restaurants would lower their prices and serve smaller portions!

6. I was so excited to find this item at BJ's. It's our very favorite cheese that we only find in St. Martin as it's a French cheese. I didn't even care how much it cost (in fact I didn't even look), it felt like I was bringing St. Martin home.

5. We've been talking and dreaming a lot about St. Martin lately, I think because of the freak October cold and snow. Trying to generate warmth through warm thoughts, you know. My part of the state only had a dusting and we never lost power. Just forty-five minutes drive north or north west of me there are towns with 100% power outage and a FOOT of snow! It has been in the twenties at night.

4. Last night at our celebaration of the 25th anniversary of our first date, we went to Mystic to take advantage of the restaurant week deals - $20.11 for an appetizer, main course and dessert. Appropriate also because our first date started in Mystic. Towards the end of our meal, a couple was seated at the table next to us and we started chatting. They had come to Mystic and checked into a hotel because they had no power and no water since they have a well. Their power isn't expected to be on until the end of this week. Again, it has been in the twenties at night.

3. Dinner was delicious: I had a mixed salad, hangar steak that was served with spinach - yum! - and mashed potatoes but I swapped Mr. Helen for some of his risotto, with pumpkin bread pudding for dessert. (Mr. Helen had spring rolls, duck breast with risotto and bread pudding). Again, smaller portions but plenty of food.

2. All of the food related socialization over the last couple of weeks got us to talking about food and what sort of role it plays for us individually. He very much enjoys good food - but it really is so much more of a basic I'm hungry my body needs fuel so I'll eat thing with him. I thought it was hilarious when Mr. Helen said, "This new challenge thingy you're doing? I hope they don't restrict you because if there's one thing I know about you is that someone telling you that "You Can't" makes you stomp your foot and tantrum like a 2 year old." Actually I think he's afraid my foot stomping is going to destroy his peace lol! He knows me pretty well after all these years.

1. Ironically when we got home, I had received some preliminary information about the challenge and, well, it looks like it really is going to be a challenge for me. But I'm trying to keep a few things in mind. Stay tuned.

Twenty Five to Life

2011-10-31T08:29:00.000-04:00

Twenty-five can mean so many things.

The number of pounds you want to lose
The number of years you've lived
A sentence that would put you away until you are old
A typical temperature in the winter
Quarter of a century
The Twenty Five Pullup Program

I could go on but I wanted to share that for me today, the number 25 is a bit magical... It's the number of years that has passed since Mr. Helen and I had our first date. (Sharp readers will remember that our 'second' first date was 20 years ago, also on Halloween.)

October 31, 1986. When I write it like that it seems longer than 25 years ago. I think back on that and realize I was only 26 years years old when I met him and then I wonder where the years have gone. In many ways, especially when it comes to our relationship I still feel 26. On the other hand, there are ways in which I know we've been together a while - unspoken words across the room at a party, comfort in sometimes knowing exactly what will come next.

Saturday evening, I handed Mr. Helen his football pick sheet and Sunday morning when I looked at it, we had chosen all the same teams. I think that was appropriate for this week. A perfect match.

Tonight, while others are out trick or treating, we are going to go out for a non-football pick meal and 'treat' our relationship with kindness. I'm sure we will spend some of that time reflecting on what twenty-five means to us today.

Friday Stir Fry

2011-10-28T08:58:00.001-04:00

Today post brought to you just like a stir fry... a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Almost every single day I bring a salad to work. It's just the easiest thing to bring plus it helps me get in a few good servings of vegetables. Yesterday, I ended up making a chef's salad, all brought on by the fact that I had a little bit of tuna salad left - but not enough for a sandwich. This is 1 oz. of lean ham, 1 slice of reduced fat cheddar, 1 boiled egg and about 1/3 cup of tuna over mixed greens. It was every bit as good as a restaurant salad.

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I woke up this morning to news that we are going to be having a Nor'easter Saturday that is expected to bring snow to 75% of the state. This time of year, the shoreline is generally warmer than inland so even though it's coming we probably will get heavy rain and perhaps some sleet here. Come on though! It's only the end of October. There is a very good reason I don't live further north and snow is its name. Blech.

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All this talk of ice. sleet and snow made me glad that I bought these to have on my desk. Just looking at them makes me feel better.

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Restaurants in Mystic are having a restaurant week where all lunches will cost $10.11 and dinners $20.11. While the menus will be limited to special items that each restaurant have chosen, what a great deal for a nice lunch or dinner out! I am going to have my football winner meal as a lunch at one of the participating restaurants - very excited about that!

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One of the ladies in my office recently went through a divorce and relocated. She is having a get-together Happy Hour at her new place after work tonight. I am bringing this appetizer which was so easy that it may be my go-to appetizer for many parties to come. It's Antipasto on a stick. Shelley found it for me on Pinterest and even though I changed some of the ingredients from the original recipe, I think it came out looking beautiful and gourmet. What do you think?

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I have been invited to be part of a Fitness and Weight Loss Challenge that is running for 6 weeks beginning November 7th. I had to think about it for a bit when I was contacted because of all the issues I've had, not to mention the fact that because of those same issues I haven't been weighing myself for a while. The scale has not been my friend. However, the beginning of this challenge happens to coincide with the timeframe I will finally be meeting with the specialist. While I am very, very afraid that I am going to be put on a strict diet - and even though I know I will need to do what the doctor says - I thought maybe being part of this challenge would help me focus and not be so worried about what I may or may not be able to eat. The challenge will provide me with contact with a personal trainer, which I thought might be nice as well. Finally, they convinced me because of one of the tools I'll be using, pictured here. Stay tuned for more details and updates. Who knows maybe some of you might like to follow along!

Dream Big

2011-10-26T09:35:00.001-04:00

I have recently become fascinated with Pinterest. If you haven't been there, it's a site that functions as an online bulletin board. When you join you are given several blank bulletin boards with various categories - or you can make your own - to fill. All the recipes I posted on Monday? I found them on Pinterest.

As I am not a very crafty or artistic person, this site has been a bonanza for me. In addition to my food bulletin board, which I think has the most pins so far, it has been so much fun going through other things that people pin up and think that Yes! I would like to have that in my dream house... I would like to go there.... How inspirational, truer words have never been spoken. It's like a great big craft fair for someone like me. Hey - the world needs people like me to buy their crafty stuff, right?

It's also an amazing social experiment in some ways. My sister and I keep picking the same pins. We are 15 years apart in age and don't consult but it was so ridiculous last week that she finally told me she should just hand over her food board to me and I should pin all the stuff I've chosen on to her board too. I've also seen sides of some friends that I really never knew about - for example one of my friends has a darn crafty streak - keeps pinning crafty things to try around her house, etc. That suprised me for some reason. Maybe because I am so not crafty (see above).

While it could become quite addicting, I've found it pretty easy to stay off the site until I truly have a few free minutes. As you know I'm rarely on my computer in the evenings due to being on one all. day. long. and that has remained the case even as much as I am enjoying the pinning.

A couple of things that I found and pinned have really stuck with me. First was this one. It's true you know, I really do look like the bottom girl and honestly, if I'm having a bad run, I feel like a chubby 5 year old too! I like this so much I printed it out and put it on my refrigerator. Even Mr. Helen thought it was funny and admitted I sort of do look like the little girl :-)

Another funny but oh so true one is one I can't stop thinking about. Literally just thinking about this makes me crack up!

Man can I relate. How many days have I started off thinking I was going to be perfection modeled with my eating and exercise only to have cake by the end of the day. Sigh. What made this one even funnier to me was when Mr. Helen said, "I don't get that but I bet lots of girls do." In his world cake isn't an issue.

But one of the first things I pinned has gone from me thinking that it was beautiful, to me becoming a tad bit obsessed, and then dreaming of myself in it.

Everything about this is me. The hot pink accessories, the style of the dress... even matching fingernails and champagne. I can't stop thinking about it to the point where I contacted the website that it came from and asked them where to find that dress. Turns out it's actually a short bridesmaids dress, which might make it even more appropriate for what I'm thinking. And I have been thinking, a lot, about feeling better and getting this darn weight off - probably because my appointment with the specialist is only 2 weeks away.

My 20th wedding anniversary is May 2, 2012. I want to wear this dress in a size a bit smaller than where I am right now and accessorize it just like that for my anniversary.

Wish me a good doctor, with a good plan. Wish me well. Wish me good luck.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

Friday night, as soon as I stepped through the front door, I changed into grubbies and started cleaning my house. Usually I would like to just sit down and unwind from the work week but with a busy weekend ahead I knew I had to change things up. Generally it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to do a basic cleaning (vs. a major scrub down) but when I asked Mr. Helen to bring the vacuum upstairs, he ended up doing all the vacuuming and then going to the Family Room and vacuuming there too. Score! So, an hour and a half later I was 99% done and relaxing.... ahhhh. At the end of the weekend, I decided I should try to do this more often as I really enjoyed having time free of chores on Saturday and Sunday.

I spent a great deal of Saturday Mr. Helen focused. He had his last pre-test before testing for his third degree belt in November. It's a two hour check on skills that one should know for receiving their belt. They started off with a 2 mile run, which he managed to do in around 17 minutes. I was all way to go! and he informed me that he had decided not to push it because his knee has been bothering him all week. Alrighty then. He did a great job performing his weapon and kata. He's always very picky about his performance so I videoed him so that he could see just how well he did.

After the pretest we went home, he cleaned up then we went out for his football picks meal. We went to a favorite place On The Waterfront because he wanted a giant burger. I ended up getting a burger as well, but they really are so big I could not finish mine. We were glad we went as early as we did because by the time we left - around 6:30 - the entire dining room and bar were completely filled and walk-ins were being turned away.

The obligatory Loser Shot

The new obligatory Winner Shot!

(which will be mine next week because I won the picks!)

On Sunday, because I'd gotten my housework and grocery shopping all done, the day was mine! It was exciting to wake up knowing that I didn't 'have to' do anything if I didn't want to but that I had free time to do things I love. Of course, you know I love to cook so I ended up spending the morning making a few things. To start, I made these Bacon and Cheddar Scones. If you want the recipe, just click on that link because I made them exactly like that. Next time I will cut the dough into 10 pieces because these are monster scones -- although Mr. Helen really enjoyed their size. These will definitely be made again.

Then I made some Chicken Cordon Bleu to eat at some point during the week. No photo as it's not cooked off yet.

I also made the Pumpkin, Cranberry and Apple Baked Oatmeal that has been going around blogland. The sweetness of this is a switch up for me because I have been eating my oatmeal savoury for a long time. Even if you don't like oatmeal you might want to give this recipe a try. I didn't eat any until after it had cooled completely and it actually came out more like a bar. I did reheat it and splash a little milk on top.

Lastly, I put together this jambalaya to cook while I went out shopping. I used chicken breasts instead of thighs and smoked chicken sausage as my choice for that meat. We had that for dinner and it was so delicious! Again, this one is a keeper. (This is their photo because I forgot to take one.)

I love being productive in the kitchen. I would say next to the beach, the kitchen is also a happy place for me.

When I went out shopping, I saw something that made me wish I had special power to teleport things. I would have sent this candle straight to Lori!

I did manage to finally find the autumn scented candle that I've been wanting and believe it or not, I did not buy any shoes.

Once I got back home, the day was winding down and it was almost time for Mr. Helen to get home from work. Before he did, I went next door to meet my new neighbor. I'd like you to meet her too.

My doggy by proxy - Ruby!

Is there any better way to have a pet when you don't really want to have a pet? I think not.

Love Your Body Day

2011-10-19T08:39:00.001-04:00

In yesterday's comments, Janell informed me that today is Love Your Body Day. I didn't know that so her comment made me go off looking around the internets to see what she was talking about. The Now Foundation has put together a whole website fighting back against the unrealistic standards against body and beauty that we are faced with on a day-to-day basis, in print advertisements and on television.

I know for a fact that the images that have been presented to me over the years have definitely affected the way I view my own body and its worth. I've even been aware of it for enough years that I determined when Little Helen was born that I would do everything in my power to convince her that she was beautiful just the way she was and no matter how much she weighed. It's something I think a lot about and wonder if I was successful. She and I have never really talked about it, maybe becuase I'm afraid my own years of self-destructive thoughts and dieting have influenced her in ways that I really don't want to know about.

I did recently have a conversation with my sister talking about what years we considered to be the best years of our lives. Ironically, the years of my life that I've always said I loved the best are the years that had me at the age she is now. Yet if I'm honest, those were very difficult years in many ways and I now believe the only reason I've felt that way is because at that time I was truly satisfied with my weight and body. I actually loved myself a teensy bit. I came to that conclusion because of a statement I made to her -something I said without reflecting too much but that came straight from the heart.

"All these weight issues I've had over the last years make me angry. I've now aged to the point where I've lost my chance to be truly beautiful and sexy. It really does make me sad that my husband will never have a gorgeous, sexy wife ever again."

I enjoyed those years, the years before age, hormones and bad thyroid destroyed the little bit of love I had for my body.

So now I must look for body love in other ways, because not only are those days forever gone, but you really cannot cry over spilled milk. No focusing on the past, nor on current regret. I must clear my vision and look toward the future.

The one thing I do know, is that I will figure this out... and I won't allow the anorexic standards of print and Hollywood to determine where my future takes me. There's nothing attractive or sexy or loving about that.

Tuesday Ten

2011-10-18T08:02:00.000-04:00

10.

Pumpkin, Picks and Pizza

2011-10-17T09:15:00.002-04:00

Even though it seems we won't be having much of a foliage season, due to too much rain and Irene taking the leaves away, it felt more like autumn this weekend than it has. It was cooler and for both of the weekend days, there was a brisk wind stirring things around.

Saturday I didn't get too much done other than a 5 mile run and going to my flower girl's bridal shower. The shower also had a fall theme which probably contributed to the overall feeling of the weekend.

Shower Table Setting

The bride to be received many, many lovely gifts - mostly household items that she had registered for. She will be moving in to her future husband's apartment after the wedding and evidently he does not have even some basic things like a good set of knives. What I found interesting is that she did not recieve one single piece of lingerie... perhaps because both her father and her grandfather are pastors at the church where the shower was held?

Here she is with one of her beautifully wrapped gifts, which happened to be from Mama Helen. Her sister - the family comedienne (to her right) - saved the big bow and said she would make her wear it during the rehearsal.

After the shower I went home to spend the afternoon with Mr. Helen not doing too much of anything. There was a BBQ contest being held at our downtown waterfront park so we took a stroll down there. The grand prize winner got an invite to the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational BBQ which is a pretty big deal. We were especially pleased to see our local fire department placed in the ~~brisket~~ pork butts category, though they didn't win any money. Not too bad for the local yokels.

Because I lazed around on Saturday, Sunday was a whirlwind of activity, non-stop from the minute I got up. In fact, I had so much to do that I was going to skip my usual Sunday walk but the sun was out and the sky was clear blue so I decided I'd do only a 3 mile walk. Ended up doing a walk/jog as my legs felt good and I just wanted to go a bit faster.

Pumpkin pancakes were eaten in the sunshine on the patio after my wog. These were the first I've made this season and they were as good as I remembered. Made me wonder why I waited so long.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of housework and meal prep for this upcoming week. I literally did not sit down until 5:00 p.m. and then only for about an hour before I had to finish dinner! Definitely not a 'day off.'

While I was cooking, I did manage to watch the Bills and Giants play. I'll admit it was a good game but I got burned again. This week I had picked the Bills to win and.... they lost. I ultimately ended up losing the overall football picks and I'm blaming the Giants. Everytime I've picked them to win, they've lost and when I've picked them to lose, they've won. They have messed with my picks for the last time. I have now become their enemy, or as I yelled at the TV (with apologies to The Princess Bride), "My name is Helen. You killed my football picks. Prepare to die."

To add insult to injury, I had done my meal planning before realizing that I was going to lose the picks and I had planned homemade pizza for dinner - one of Mr. Helen's top 5 meals. So now, I made him one of his favorite dinners AND I have to pay for his dinner one evening this week. Sigh. Needless to say, he was in heaven and as usual a gracious winner and did not rub salt in my wounds. While I know I can't win them all, I am not a good loser and it's time for me to win. Dammit.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza

Bacon and Mushroom Pizza

Skeletons in the Closet

2011-10-14T07:29:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday, the second day of my very busy weekend, I tackled the dreaded straighten up the closet job. I say dreaded because I just knew that many of the things that fit me last fall/winter were not going to fit. Even when things fit it takes me at least an hour to make the swapover. With the added task of trying things on I knew it would take longer. Not to mention that my closet is not a traditional closet. It is built under an eave of my house so it's larger than most. I am actually able to store off season clothing on one side of the closet, in addition I also store our seasonal bedding and window treatments there.

As I got into the job I got a surge of energy and decided to really clean my closet out. I went through all four of my totes, plus a steamer trunk. I organized everything by what fits now and 2 sizes down that I decided to keep. Everything larger or smaller went into bags for donation. I also got rid of things that I haven't worn in a season or two, regardless of size. In the end, I took 4 bags of clothing and 2 bags of shoes to a donation bin.

Three and a half hours later, it looked fabulous and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders! Amazing what happens when you get rid of the skeletons in the closet, which is basically what all those really small sizes were. Everytime I opened the closet door, I felt like those clothes were taunting me.

Here's a photo for you. Shoes and clothing on the left all the way to the end - and yes, besides the shoes on the floor rack, that entire top shelf is boxes of shoes.. Steamer trunk at end (it's holding all my goal size clothes!), along with a tote full of various handbags. Other totes (hey - Mr. Helen has some totes too!) and storage on the right. But doesn't it look so neat and organized? Ahhhhhh....

The only issue was between getting rid of things that were too big, or small, or plain old worn out (I threw that stuff away), I was left with only 2 dresses and 2 shirts and 1 pair of casual slacks that fit me. This left me with the task of quickly finding some slacks, shirts, blazers, etc., as our weather is finally making the turn into full-on Autumn. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to spend a lot of money because I'm hoping once I get going on whatever plan the specialist will have for me, I will quickly be able to transition to the next size down tote which is full of things. I decided I would buy 2 pairs of black slacks, 1 grey, and 1 brown; 5-10 shirts/tops, and a couple of sweaters and blazers. That is what I have been working on this week. Sunday, I had to make a run to BJ's which is our warehouse store. They have clothes there. There is one particular brand of Diane Von Furstenberg slacks that I know fits and when I went there on Sunday, I found just one black pair in my size - yay! Monday evening after work I went out and lucked into a sale at Macy's where I found grey and brown, then walked over to JC Penney and found another black. Slacks done.

Wednesday after work I went out on the hunt for blouses and tops. I decided to go to Burlington Coat Factory as I've had good luck finding blazers there. This is a store that is definitely hit or miss but if you hit, you'll hit the jackpot. I was lucky and did just that. I didn't pay more than $15 for any one of the tops I found. Hurray for bargains! I also scored one black blazer which I did not photograph. Since I wear so much dark base colors I try to find tops with zing. And may I just say after taking photos of all these things, I have newfound respect for catalog clothing stylists!

I also found a couple of silky tops... the pink one is actually more of a dark rose color but all the color correction in the world couldn't seem to fix it - and look at the detail on the neckline of the purple one.

I also had to breeze through the shoe department - naturellement - and found 2 pairs of flats to replace some of those I had gotten rid of. I actually wear flats quite a bit in the winter with jeans and with dress slacks, depending on how much I'll be on my feet. I liked this one style so much I bought it in Pewter and in Black Suede.

All in all I think I had a very successful week and believe it or not, all of these new things cost me just under $200. While it doesn't thrill me to spend money on things that are a size I don't want to be and I hope are temporary, I feel so much better mentally having things that fit well and also look professional for work.

To top it all off? A great fall manicure.

The Grape Lakes, by OPI

(unfortunately a discontinued color but one of my favorites so I have 2 bottles set aside)

Happy Friday and Happy 32nd Birthday Little Helen!

Obstacle Course

2011-10-12T08:35:00.001-04:00

I feel so stuck and lost right now – a strong feeling of being unfocused and in limbo. This month of waiting to go to the specialist is working my nerves for sure. While I know it does me absolutely no good to sit and worry about it, sometimes my mind just goes there. And, of course, I am impatient too. I want to be there and find out what they are going to do with me so I can get on with things. Get unstuck.

As I tend to be a very careful planner, goal setter and schedule oriented person, it is hard for me to just wait. I know there’s going to be a plan and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure out what the plan could possibly be so I can get a jump start on it instead of waiting out another entire month.

Even Dr. Google (as my boss calls it) is not helping. I do have some knowledge as to why I have to go to this specialist but all the Googling in the world is not getting me much more information than I already have in hand. Plus the good doctor is making me quite worried that the end result of this is medication. I do not want to take any more pills! No more pills!

So, here I sit: unable to set goals, start a program, or do anything more than exactly what I’m doing right now and having to learn to live with that. Stuck in a rut, rut, rut.

As I watched Biggest Loser this week I kept thinking so much of what was being said must have resonated with many people. Other things said felt like they were aimed directly at me. I try not to take it personally per se but rather to take it as empowerment for the upcoming week.

The whole episode seemed to be themed around overcoming obstacles – no matter what they are. We all have them and it seems that real and final success comes from getting around them.

Bob gave his team a pep talk in regards to their nutrition – because he knows no matter how much you exercise, eventually you have to deal with the nutrition side. I can vouch for that because there have definitely been times in my life where I out-ate my exercise. What was so fascinating to me was when he told them that foods that they love wouldn’t be forbidden if they took the food’s power away. In other words, if you know you can eat anything, there’s no reason to sneak food, be it in a vehicle that you’ve taken through a drive-through, or be it right from your pantry while you’ve waited for the household to be gone or go to sleep. When you take the power away, there’s nothing left. If you know you can occasionally have a burger or a pizza or whatever it is that you love, why would you care to hide the fact that you’re eating it? It simply doesn’t matter.

Then my new boyfriend, Dolvett worked with a contestant on overcoming her mental obstacles so that she would stop quitting. (Side note: he might possibly be the only man on earth – that can make capris on a man look good… okay maybe Bob too and did you see Bob’s chesticles region during the pool session? Holy carp.) When I started doing distance running, overcoming mental negativity really was the first lesson I learned. The fact is, at mile 22 of a marathon, your left brain will kick in and try to get you to quit. It will point out all your aches and pains and give you a list of the reasons why you shouldn’t finish. The ONLY thing that pulls one through at that time, is exercising the right side of your brain to shut that down. I always did it by using my running mantra, “Just Keep Running” because I knew if I just kept running, the finish line would be in sight.

I was really struck by this because I have not yet been able to kick in that same way when it comes to health and wellness. I’m not talking about being on track for a while. I’m talking about staying on course when the going gets tough – like it is for me right now. I’m most certainly not doing as well as I could because the truth is, I’m tired. I’ve been fighting my thyroid, and now evidently there are other factors, for 5 years. I lost some weight but never quite made it to goal. I’m really tired. Instead of using my running training, I have stopped and started and stopped and started until I am now like a dog chasing its tail in a circle. Never ending.

My lesson learned this week is that I have to find a way to see the forest for the trees, the light at the end of the tunnel and Just Keep Running around those mental blocks.

Photographic Memory(s)

2011-10-10T07:49:00.002-04:00

I promised myself I wouldn't complain that the weekend went by too fast but it's so hard not to when it was absolutely fabulous! We had a round of summer weather for both Saturday and Sunday that made me want to cry with joy. I got a lot accomplished but if I share anything more than Saturday this post will be way too long.

The day started with a 5 mile run followed by the usual hurrying up to get a little housework done so we could enjoy at least a part of the day free of chores. As I stood scrubbing my kitchen sink down I looked out the window and saw Mr. Helen putting his protective headgear on top of his Wavemaster - which is a practice bag. I thought, "Is he going to try to kick that off there? That's really high." Then I stood there and Watched. Him. Do. It. Unbelieveable. And I'm not even going to say it's because he's 56 years old. He would put some 20 & 30 year olds to shame. Plus, of course me. He puts me to shame. It's my own darn fault though becuase I do not practice the way he does.

Since I thought you'd like to see, I went outside and took some snapshots as he did it over and over again.

Here he is setting it up and then measuring to see how high he thinks it is.

The next two photos show his leg halfway up and right at the top

just before contact with the headgear.

Contact! If you look closely, you'll see the headgear is flying straight at me and the camera!

I also ~~made him~~ asked him to do it again and took a video. Forgive my exuberant commentary (and the fact that the sound is off by a smidge), but it really was amazing to see this!

Saturday afternoon we went out for Mr. Helen's chosen football pick winner meal. He was as gracious in his winning as he was in his losing. When he told me what he wanted my reaction was, "Are you kidding me? Do you have to be so darn nice?" Yep, cranky, that's me.

I gave him the loser sign that I promised. Gave him two to make up for not doing it the first week.

Here was his choice: a charity cookout by our local firefighters for burn victims. It was held in the parking lot between two of the restaurants in our downtown area.

Mr. Helen waiting in the food line. It was cookout food: hamburgers, hotdogs, sausages, chicken wings, rice, potato salad, beans, cookies, brownies and soft drinks.

Mr. Helen's friend's band played. You might recognize him (on the left) from our St. Martin trip.

They even had a special guest - this little guy was about 10 years old and really did a great job on the saxophone.

Lots of dancing took place, but I think this couple had the most fun of everyone!

Then the firefighters pipes & drums corps gave us a show.

This guy was amazing. He was using what looked like felt covered balls on a string to hit the drum. He would come down with his hit then twirl the balls up and hit again.

He never missed a beat!

It was a fun, fabulous afternoon. Gorgeous weather, great company - of course we ended up running into many people we knew - and best of all? Inexpensive! Even in losing, I ended up being a winner. There was a $10 suggested donation per person. That included all the food and softdrinks you wanted. They were having raffles so since I got off so inexpensive on the meal, I decided to buy two arm lengths of raffle tickets - another $10. Around 4:30 Mr. Helen decided he wanted to have a glass of wine - $6.50. So all told for afternoon $36.50. Not bad. And then I won a raffle! My prize was a $25 gift certificate to Tio Rodrigo's (one of the sponsoring restaurants). When we left I left my extra raffle tickets with a dojo friend we had run into. She Facebooked me on Sunday to let me know that I also won the last raffle of the evening - some t-shirts and hats - which she gave to some of her guy friends who were there. That probably means the net cost to me for losing the football picks was ZERO! I bet I won't get off that easily again.

What If?

2011-10-07T08:44:00.000-04:00

As usual I watched the Biggest Loser this week while doing a run on the treadmill. I find it very motivating to stay on the treadmill, and of course, not hold on as my new boyfriend Dolvett gets upset when you do that.

As it was NFL week there were several guest trainers both current and former NFL players. To be truthful, this is not necessarily my favorite type of episode but the eye candy was enjoyable if you get my drift. My goodness, if you think you're in good shape, you probably won't after you see those guys!

This season has been different in that they have divided the contestants into three groups, split by age. There is an under 30 group, a 40-something group, and an over 50 group. Of course, I am always interested to see what the over 50s will do, even though really most of them are 60 and up. What has been very interesting though is the fact that the 40-somethings are kicking butt and taking names in the challenges and in the weight loss. Statistically that probably should be happening, right? The 20-somethings should be winning. But they're not. I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that the 40 year olds have Bob, the experienced trainer, on their side or if they have a better work ethic and life discipline in general. Maybe a combination of both.

In any case, each time I watch this show there are things said that strike me. Perhaps even things I heard before but maybe they're being said in a different way. Sometimes I am so struck by something said that I quickly pause my treadmill, jump off and write it down so I won't forget it.

As you all know I have been struggling for sure. While so much of it is medical, all of it together affects me mentally. After the never ending testing I had a few weeks ago my doctor referred me to a metabolic specialist but my appt. is not until November 9th! I am grateful that answers will soon be forthcoming (I hope) but in the meantime as I wait, I can't help but mull things over, you know?

This week as Football Hall of Famer, Eric Dickerson worked with the over 50 age group, he said something that made me stop the treadmill:

Once you get to a certain weight, you have to do a lot more
to burn that weight back off.

Why would that make me stop? Because he did not say once you get to a certain AGE; he said weight. I have heard hundreds of times the theories, etc. regarding weight loss as you age - especially for women with our huge losses of muscle and hormonal issues. Never have I heard anyone refer to the number of pounds vs. the number of years.

It''s like a double whammy being in my 50's and also having reached a certain weight. Plus I have that triple whammy of medical issues. This has left me pondering for sure. I am certainly not taking this as a life sentence that I will not be able to get where I want to be but it sure does make me reconsider what I have to do to get there.

I've also heard the phrases "live as if" and "fake it 'till you make it." I've actually used that many times to get over and around the humps and bumps that life sets up. For some reason, though I would like to I've never been able to successfully apply that to my weight. Wednesday morning as I ran, I heard those sayings in a different way.

One of the contestants, Antone, is an actual ex-NFL player. Even if you didn't see the show, you can imagine his distress at having to work with current players - with them knowing he used to be in top form. His player/trainer , Shawne Merriman, pushed and pushed and pushed him and kept telling him that he'd never lost "it." By the end of that session, Antone said, "I'm not a former NFL player, I AM an NFL player and I can do this."

What if I approached my issues the same way?

I am not a former skinny/in shape/healthy person.

I AM a skinny/in shape/healthy person and I can do this!

Tuesday Ten

2011-10-04T09:23:00.000-04:00

10. Listen up peeps. I have been having all kinds of trouble commenting on blogs. With Wordpress I'm finding that the comment box is missing and no matter how many times I click on the comment link, it won't come up. With Blogger, I write the comment and when I hit post, it just vanishes into thin air! Soooooooo.... if I normally comment on your blog and haven't been, that's why. Trust me, I'm still reading and if anyone acts up, I'm taking notes so that the minute the comments open up I'm going to tell you about yourself!

9. I lost the football picks by one lousy game this week. You know why it hurt? Because I did my picks during a lunchtime last week. Then I promptly went home on Friday and left them at work. So, I had to recreate them at home. When I came to work on Monday, I looked at my original sheet and I had picked only 1 game differently and it's the one that made me lose! Otherwise we would have had a tie. Ahhhh well. Next week is mine!!!

8. It has cooled down enough over the past few days that I keep thinking I need to face the music and do a big closet switcheroo. Besides the whole process of trying on clothes, which is a job unto itself, it really does take me several hours to do it properly. One of those I sure am dreading it but glad I did it once it's done sort of chores.

7. I'm not crafty - at all. But I am the type of person who buys what other people make.
Since crafty people need people like me, I figure I serve a good purpose! Look at the cute decoration I found when I was out looking for the candles.

6. I was looking at my running journal over the weekend and realized that I'm still running between 20-25 miles a week. What is ironic is that this has felt effortless lately. My running had not been feeling all that good so I did what I've done in the past and that was to take off all the pressure. No racing, no training, no worries. Get up and run and if you feel crappy, turn around and go home. Yet, the end result is that I'm doing lots of short 3-4 mile runs and a longer one on the weekends and it has been feeling better and adding up mileage!

5. I also realized it has been a long time since I took a full day off of exercise. For weeks and weeks I've been doing 45-60 minutes of something every single day: running, walking, Muay Thai, yoga. I don't know it it's good or bad that I am not yearning for a day off. Maybe I'm not pushing myself enough? On the other hand, winter is coming and winter weather alone will stop me sometimes.

4. Biz made a comment asking me if the new boots were my 100th pair of shoes. I haven't counted in a while, but maybe. What made me laugh though is that she confessed to owning 5 pairs of shoes. Biz, I would probably bring at least 5 pairs of shoes if I was coming to visit you for a long weekend!

3. Mr. Helen accuses me of being a magazine junkie. He says I have the same problem with magazines as I have with shoes - never seen one I won't consider buying. It's not true! But I had to crack up when I got home and found this on the counter:

Of course he was trying to prove his point. But if you look closely, only the top two are actual magazines. The others are catalogs that were sent to me. I'm innocent I tell ya!

2. I got an invitation to my flower girl's wedding shower the other day. She's getting married in December. I can't believe it's even possible!

1. In the circle of life irony, one gets married and another one bites the dust. If you don't hear from me on Thursday, it's because I've been subpoenaed to testify in my bosses' divorce trial. Not even as his witness - his soon to be ex subpoenaed me. So you can imagine what a fun time we're having in my office these days.

Blink and It's Over

2011-10-03T08:02:00.001-04:00

That would be the weekend. Never, ever long enough for me. Not ever.

We started off by going to my sister's to celebrate Jacob and Gracie's birthdays. Hers is Sept. 28th and his is Oct. 1st so we've always had a combined family get together for them. This year the family time was abbreviated to cake and ice cream and gifts. I can't say I blame my sister because she let Gracie have 3 friends and go to Chuck E Cheese and made a guitar shaped cake for that party. Then she make cake pops - literally cake on a stick and sent them to Jacob's class. Saturday, she let him have a sleep over with 3 of his friends and had made a cake for that as well. She did however use cake mixes for the kids parties but the family got a homemade triple layer chocolate cake. It was so rich, it ended up being my dinner that evening! I guess blink and it's over applies here too... I can't believe Gracie just turned 5 and Jacob 8!

Saturday was our usual frenzy of Mr. Helen's special Black Belt Class, my workout, and house cleaning. I decided to give running a 10K a try, which I haven't done in a long, long time. I managed to do the 6.2 miles in 66 minutes. While that's still at least a minute per mile slower than my best 10K times, I'll take it! When we finally had a chance to catch our breath we decided to catch up on our TV shows that we hadn't watched and enjoyed a couple of hours just sitting together quietly.

Saturday evening we finally went out for my football picks winning dinner. Here's a photo of what I wore: My Butt is Too Big Jeans and a really cute sweater I found at TJ Maxx to cover that big butt.

I chose 2 Wives Brick Oven Pizza for two reasons: it's been open several years and we've never been (it's literally 1 1/2 miles from my house!) and even though it's pizza, Mr. Helen doesn't love brick oven pizza - which would explain why we've never been up until now. The area of Connecticut where we live is a melting pot of pizza styles. We have just about every sort except Chicago deep dish. Greek pizza places are in abundance around here. They make delicious pizza which is sort of a medium crust with the various toppings, mostly red sauce. That's what Mr. Helen grew up on and considers 'real' pizza. We also have New York style thin crust places and a couple of gourmet places like 2 Wives. Gourmet would be my choice all the time and since it was my choice, voila! I have to say he was a really good sport about losing...

Going in to the restaurant

When he asked me why I took his photo and I replied, "I'm putting it on my blog." He asked, "Does this mean you're showing it to Shelley?" I replied, "Ummmm, yeah, Shelley will definitely see it." He said, "OK, I'll prove I was the loser..."

See what a good sport he is?

Then we toasted my win.

I loved the ambiance of this place. Not a typical pizzeria at all and shame on me I should have taken more photos but I was busy having fun. Mr. Helen did not order a pizza off the menu but made his own pizza with red sauce, mushrooms and bacon. Mmmmmmm bacon. I ordered a Buffalo Chicken Panini and a Wedge Salad with Bacon and Blue Cheese Dressing. We shared everything and everything was delicious! Except for the pasta salad that came with my pannini. It tasted like cold ziti with red sauce, sort of weird. Oh, and they brought me the wrong pannini which I didn't even notice until I bit into it. It was replaced with the correct one, but when Mr. Helen ordered a second glass of wine, we were told it was complimentary due to the screw up, so score! And peeps, this is how sweet and genuinely nice Mr. Helen is. When the waitress said the wine was complimentary he said, "If I had known it would be complimentary, I would have ordered you your wine." None of the photos really came out that good but I promised Lori, so here goes:

Ooops! We forgot to take a photo of the pizza until it was almost gone Can you pick it out? Because the design on the plate was a pizza.

Correct Pannini and another portion of pasta salad... you can see the first pasta salad I got to the right.

It was good people. ~~We'll~~ I'll be back.

Sunday is my day to do whatever since Mr. Helen works. It was pouring rain when I got up but then the weather cleared and I went out for a walk to move the lactic acid in my legs. I was going to walk a couple of miles but then I got going, felt good and ended up walking 4 miles!

When I got home I made some meals/items for the upcoming week: Chicken Cacciatore, Roasted Zucchini Soup, Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf, Roasted Butternut Squash, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, (ummm, yeah, I'm in my autumnal veggie roasting phase). Finally in the afternoon, I went out looking for Autumnal Scented Candles. I'm having the hardest time finding something I like this year - in candles anyway. To soothe my disappointment, I ended up buying the baddest pair of boots! I am now on the hunt for the perfect pair of skinny jeans (to tuck in) or perfect skirt to wear with these. Go Carlos Santana!

Like I said. Blink and it's over.

Midweek Mix... the Running Late Edition

2011-09-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

WHY must other things interfere with my blogging? Why? These other things are what keeps me from hitting publish and then here I am wondering why my blog is not updating!

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I had another great run this morning. I ran on the treadmill so I could watch my new boyfriend Dolvett Quince on Biggest Loser. I have to say the contestants were cracking me up talking about their trainers, especially when the black team said working out with Bob so early in the morning was a whole new experience with regular Bob turning into Bizarro Bob. I liked Bizarro Bob and giggled my way through that segment! But I did not hold on to the treadmill because I was afraid Dolvett would yell at me. I'm really liking the change in format this season. And if you don't watch, this entire paragraph made no sense to you at all!

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I am not a big fan of pre-processed/frozen meal. To me at least, most of them taste like the same thing no matter what the package flavoring is supposed to be so I don't want them even if they are convenient - I'd rather have a sandwich. However, when I find a great deal, I'm willing to consider keeping a few on hand. When I was out grocery shopping Sunday I saw that the Lean Cuisine's were on sale for 2/$5.00. I had a couple for $5 off four so that meant 2 would be free! As I looked in the case I saw that they had some new things since I last perused them (a looooong time ago) so I took a chance and bought 4 packages of their 'new' spring rolls - two of the Garlic Chicken and two of the Thai:

By the time I got home from grocery shopping and started in on the cooking and prep I needed to do for the upcoming week, I realized it was already 3:00 and I was really hungry as I hadn't had anything to eat since the boiled egg and yogurt I'd eaten while planting daffodil bulbs. As we eat dinner around 7 I didn't want to eat anything too heavy so I decided to try the Thai version. I have to say, they were unlike any other Lean Cuisine I've ever tried - they were actually very, very good. In fact, they were so good that I would even say I prefer them over anything I've eaten from take-out. They were flavorful and light - not greasy the way take out versions can be. Each package contains two servings so at $1.25 a serving, I say SCORE!

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I promised I'd show you some of the other decorations I put up for Fall so here you go:

These two are some old favorites. I especially love the cutout fabric wall hanging. Usuallly I hang it on a windown but this year decided to put it in the living room.

The rest of these are new decorations I found and put up this year for the first time. Sometimes I wonder if I'll find a way to use the new stuff I can't resist but I always manage lol!

Now if the weather would cool down a little - but only a little! It has been sort of odd coming home everyday with the unusual heat and humidity we've had (September is normally a clear blue skies no humidity month here), to a home decorated for Fall!