Never Perfection...Always Progress

This weekend was better than the last in the way of eating and exercise and I'm damn proud of that.  Last weekend I had 3 restaurant meals out.  This weekend I had 1 lunch out, eating 5 out of 6 meals on Sat and Sun at home.  Last weekend I did one walk on Sat and none on Sun.  This weekend I did 2 walks on Sat and 1 on Sun.  I took a few food pics to show the delicious meals I had.  Last weekend the meal plan was in my head, not solid and written down on paper as it should be.  This weekend I wrote it, edited it, re-wrote it and hung it on my fridge.  I even took into account the fact that Dwayne will be home this week on Thursday and Friday, and scheduled breakfast and lunches for him as well as me.

Saturday's lunch was the most delicious wrap I've ever made.  I mixed up some solid white albacore tuna (1 can) with some mayo, onions and dill pickles.  I put it on a Joseph's flatbread (10 net carbs) with fresh spinach, tomato slices, cucumber slices and sliced orange bell pepper.  Oh my goodness was it delicious.  It had just the right amount of crunch with the peppers, cucumbers and pickles.  I found something at the store I'd never bought before...Pepperidge Farms Pretzel Thins.  I had a handful of those with my wrap instead of the Doritos I served to Dwayne.

About 3pm or so I finally made it to the park to walk.  Dwayne downloaded the Runtastic App to my phone that Biz uses and it's pretty cool.  It measures your time, distance, calories burned, etc.  I've been doing 4 laps around the track (3 laps is 1 mile) and said I would bump it to 5 laps on Monday, but I decided since I was by myself with no dogs and no Dwayne that I'd go ahead and do 5 laps.  It took me 35 mins, was 1.75 miles and said I burned 499 calories.  When I got back home I had a snack plate of turkey slices, a cheese stick, baby carrots and baby tomatoes.  The dogs helped me eat 1/3 of this plate.  They're always willing to help Momma shave some calories of my daily intake.  :)

I decided to make jambalaya for dinner.  The only traditional item I leave out of it is the green bell pepper.  Dwayne will tolerate SOME tomato based dishes once in a while, but anything green is out of the question.  I used andouille sausage and some cajun spice and it had just the right amount of heat.  I also cut up and sauteed 2 boneless chicken breasts and shrimp.  I cook the shrimp separately and then add it to the whole pot when it's totally finished cooking.

You'll just have to forgive my crappy pics...I have zero photography skills.  Just trust me when I tell you this was AMAZING.

After dinner I decided to take Boomer to the park and walk with me.  Boy was that difficult for the first couple of laps.  He finally got the hang of "heel" about 2.5 laps in, and we ended up doing 5 laps altogether.  The app said it took 38 mins and I burned 533 calories, so just a little longer and more difficult than the earlier walk that day.  It was another 1.75 mi for a total of 3.5 miles for the day.  Go me!  Who am I??  I don't even recognize myself!

When I got back home I checked out my meal plan for the week and saw that I had lasagna soup scheduled for Sunday's lunch....time to make the soup!  Now I made this last week for the first time after getting the recipe from Biz and I followed it almost to the "T" last time.  This week I decided to make it my own.  I wanted a chunkier soup.  Last time I cooked the pasta separately and stored it that way in the fridge, only mixing the soup and pasta into an individual bowl when I was ready to heat some up.  This time, I decided to buy a bag of smaller pasta at the store (not the rotini I used last week), and mix it in with the soup.  I measured out 6 oz. of ditalini.  I used petite diced tomatoes instead of the fire roasted tomatoes (smaller pieces) and I used chicken broth instead of chicken stock (cheaper).  I also used about 5 TBSP of tomato paste instead of the 2 TBSP it called for, because I wanted a richer, deeper flavor this time.  Oh, and I used about 3x the amount of oregano it called for.  I only had 2 of the hot Italian sausage links left in the pack from last time, that I had in the freezer.  I knew I needed more meat, so I used 2 of the Andouille sausages I had leftover from the jambalaya.  I sauteed these 2 meats together and it added just enough heat to my pot.

I had a small bowl when it was finished and it turned out just as good as I had hoped.  I believe I'll be making it like this from now on.  I was supposed to have it for lunch today but those plans got trashed.  We went out to buy new shoes...

And then Dwayne wanted to go see that new Jurassic movie.  Well that was 2.5 hours away from the house I wasn't planning on, so we had lunch out first before we headed to the movie.  The movie was decent.  We headed home afterwards and hung out a bit before grilling pork chops for dinner.  I also had him grill some veggies while I roasted some corn in the oven.  Everything turned out so tasty...grilled is my favorite way of cooking, but Dwayne is way better at it than me.  I really need to learn...Biz is my grilling hero, lol.  I need to ask her for some tips. :)

I was seriously thinking about taking a rest day from the walking...I figured 6 days in a row was enough reason for a break.  Then the guilt set in.  A break from what?  It's not like I did anything strenuous or grueling today.  No reason not to walk.  I love walking at the park, although the scenery is growing a bit boring.  But tonight I decided we'd walk around the neighborhood with my new app.  I wanted to know the distance, but was also curious to know if the GPS in the app would measure elevation and difficulty based on that.  There is a horrible part of the walk that I call the Hill from Hell and I absolutely hate it.  I can walk up it now without stopping but it is the slowest walk you have ever seen.  I am putting one foot in front of the other the whole time I'm trudging up, without stopping, but it's so slow I'm pretty sure a turtle could pass me and leave me in the dust.  It is so hard to breathe and I'm just huffing and puffing the whole way.  Dwayne just walks straight up it w/ no obvious effort or pain (I so hate that) and I fight and claw my way up, many feet behind him.   So we were doing it this evening and about 10-12 steps before I reached the crest of the hill, teetering on the brink of death, the app says out loud "GPS Has Lost Signal".  Without missing a beat I blurted right out loud "F*CK YOU!!!"  I didn't stop...I kept on going just in case it recorded ANY part of the walk, but man was I pissed.  I nearly wanted to cry.  We made it on home and the app said it was .94 of a mile, it took 22 mins and I burned 324 calories.  Well that calorie burn is just about the same as it as walking laps at the park, with no hills, so apparently it does NOT measure difficulty based on elevation.  Therefore I see no need to ever walk that hill again.  EVER. 

When we got inside I fixed a small bowl of cottage cheese with blueberries to take my 5th pill for the day.  I dislike having to take so many meds.  I'm hoping by focusing on eating better, fewer carbs and exercising regularly that some of the meds can be reduced or cut out after my next lab appointment.  At least that's my personal goal as well as the goal I set for Biz's Summer Challenge.  Hope everyone had as nice of a weekend as I did.  It really feels great when you make the right choices MOST of the time.  Never perfection....always progress.

Wobbly Weekend

Well, I had a plan.  It just didn't work out.  Unexpected things happened on both Sat and Sun that led to one lunch eaten out as well as two dinners.  We did manage to get ourselves to the park on Saturday evening and get a walk in.  I finally saw a little sign that said 3 laps around the track is one mile, so at least now I know how to track how far I'm going.

I've got a new plan to start walking one mile in the morning with one of the dogs, and another mile in the evening with Dwayne and both dogs.  I'm looking forward to getting started with that tomorrow morning.  I've got a jam packed day planned for tomorrow so it will be nice to start it off right with a walk at the park.

Friday's lunch was the best I've had in a long time.  I had a few things to use up in the fridge, so I put them together and came up with this...

I had a couple of squash and a little bit of asparagus and a handful of fresh mushrooms.  I sauteed them with a new Tuscan spice I picked up a couple of weeks ago when the McCormick spices were BOGO at the store:

In a separate pan I sauteed about 8 oz. of shrimp with some fresh basil and then combined them.  I had some fresh fruit on the side and the rest of my baby carrots.  Sooo good!

One of my favorite snacks continues to be the cottage cheese and fresh berries:

Friday's dinner was chicken fettucine alfredo.  For myself, I took 2 oz of noodles and tossed with an entire bag of steamed broccoli and a few mushrooms.  I topped it with a sauteed chicken breast that I cut into pieces.  This was delish but I left at least half the broccoli on my plate.  Silly me forgot to put half of the bag in a separate bowl to use for another meal...I shouldn't have dumped the whole thing in this dish!

Last night I made my batch of egg muffins for breakfasts for the next few mornings.  I sauteed some yellow squash, mushrooms, onions, a couple of pieces of deli ham and few little breakfast chicken sausages I had opened earlier in the week:

I am not a big cheese person, but decided to buy something new and try it on sandwiches last week.  Turns out I do not care for havarti cold or "raw" as I like to say.  However, I didn't want to waste the whole pack so I broke up a couple of slices and put a little square on top of each cup of goodness for my egg muffins.  This cheese tastes MUCH better melted.  It was the perfect touch!

After adding the cheese, I used one of the small cartons of Egg Beaters and poured over top of all 12 cups and voila!

Baked at 375 for 20 minutes....breakfast perfection. :)

As I said, all plans fell apart this weekend and a lot of unexpected stuff had to be taken care of, so I didn't get my meal planning OR my grocery shopping done.  I haven't even had time to look at the sales ad yet.  Those 3 of the things on my list to do tomorrow morning after my walk....check the sales, meal plan for the week and grocery shop.  Hoping this week goes a lot smoother than the weekend did, and I look forward to doubling my exercise this week from last week with adding in the morning walks.  Hope everyone else had a lovely weekend. :)

Weekend Re-Cap

Good news on the last post about flaxseed oil tasting like poo.  I added 4 drops of liquid Stevia to the next bowl and it tasted just fine.  Yay!

So...the weekend was pretty busy.  Our spare truck that we bought from my mom about a month ago had been in the shop for a couple of weeks.  The a/c needed to be fixed, finally was, and I took Dwayne to pick that up.  After dropping him at the garage on Saturday, I headed to mom's to pick her and my niece and nephew up to go get the rental car.  They were headed to Florida Sunday morning to meet up with one of my sisters, bro-in-law and their 3 kids for a little vacay. 

When I finally made it back home I wrote up a grocery list and went back out to get that chore done.  Back home to do the regular household chores and then cook dinner.  I made shrimp lo mein that I found on Biz's blog and it turned out ok.  I have to leave certain things out so Dwayne won't freak...like anything green (goodbye cilantro), so it wasn't as good as it could have been, but he was happy and cleaned his plate. 

Sunday I did the grocery errand for an elderly lady that I've been doing for a couple of years.  I have a side business called The Errand Fairy and she is currently my only monthly customer that I work for on a recurring basis.  Every Wed. and Sun. morning is spent buying her groceries.  After that I met up with a friend who has a membership to BJ's Wholesale Club so I could get a few other things.  Dog treats, meats, etc.  With Mom and my sister being out of town together, that left me to take care of Dad.  I'm staying with him from late afternoon, spending the night, and then headed back home each morning to take care of my dogs, do my Ebay listings, etc. 

While in BJ's yesterday I got a call from Dad who was having a mini emergency and needed me to drive up right then.  I had Dwayne meet me at the store to get the groceries and take them home and put them in the fridge while I went to help Dad.  Then back home to do a few things, cook dinner for Dad, etc. and then back up to his house to feed him dinner and spend the night.

I got home this morning to find out the a/c in the house was out of order.  Frozen up.  Running constantly.  So I called someone to come out and fix it and thank God in Heaven it was only a $210 repair.  I just knew they were going to say it was dead for good and time to replace it....$3-4000.  We've been waiting on that to happen.  But not today.  The part that went bad has been replaced but the a/c is still turned off so the lines can thaw completely.  It's a bit uncomfortable but Dwayne will be able to turn it back on when he gets in from work this evening, so tomorrow it should be much more comfortable when I get home in the morning.  Today I have to leave at 4pm to stop by the store and pick up sandwich fixin's and then head back to Dad's.  Was going to cook him a ham, potato salad, veggies, etc. but there's no way I'm turning on the oven today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Mom bought and left me 3 books at her house to read about hypothyroidism.  I told her that I think there's another medicine I'd like to try instead of the synthroid I've been on for 13 years.  I've been reading a lot on FB on this page called Stop The Thyroid Madness and it talks about a natural treatment called Naturally Dessicated Thyroid?  I still don't fully know what that means, but I started reading one of the books she bought last night.  After I get through all 3 of them, I should be better informed on what I need to do to fix my thyroid.  It just doesn't make any sense to be on meds for 13 years, be told you're in the "normal" range, and still have all the symptoms of hypothyroidism, like you're doing nothing at all to treat it. 

I've also found out through my reading that many of my symptoms/issues/pains that I deal with on a daily basis are symptoms for both diabetes AND hypothyroidism.  I never knew a messed up thyroid could make your feet hurt.  I also didn't know that constipation was a problem caused by both diseases.  TMI??  Get used to it, lol.  If I'm going to journal about my health and my goal to fix myself, there's bound to be a ton of TMI in this blog.  :)

I'm off to finish a few more things before heading to Dad's.  Oh, and I joined a challenge on Biz's blog.  101 Days of Summer or something like that.  You had to choose a goal of something you want to accomplish this summer.  My one and only goal is to improve my diabetes enough with my food that I have better lab work numbers in 6 weeks when I have my blood drawn again.  That's where 90% of my focus is going to be.  The other 10% will be keeping the bills paid around here.  :)