A Different Kind of Exercise

I'm on the winning side of fighting off a cold. I woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and I felt awful! My head was pounding, my throat felt drier than the Sahara desert and my nose...oh my poor poor nose!

Rather than lay in bed and toss and turn and keep Ken awake, I got up, started using Zicam, sipping honey lemon tea and taking Advil.

Being sick tends to bring out the drama queen in me. Maybe because three years in a row I ended up SO sick, I had to miss work for six weeks. The past few years I've been healthy and I'm hoping to continue the healthy streak this year but the memory of the body aches, uncontrolled coughing and ruptured ear drums lingers and pushes me to quick action when I start to feel sick. 

So in true drama queen style, I convinced myself that I had to go early vote on Thursday morning because I could be SO sick by next Tuesday I'd miss the election. I had watched the news and saw that in some areas people had to wait in line 2 hours to early vote. Surly this wouldn't be the case here. So I called my sister at 7:45am knowing she would have left work by then and would be on her way home and I told her WE MUST EARLY VOTE TODAY!!! She tried to talk me into early voting with her on Tuesday but I told her that I want wanted to wait to the "real election day" to vote, I wanted to walk up that hill to the voting station and cast my vote!  So she waited too. 

The closest early voting station was our local library o off we went to vote and there was ZERO WAIT!! We were in and out of there in under 10 minutes.

I'm happy to say that my cold is 90% gone this morning. I'm still taking the necessary precautions and sipping Tropicana light and healthy orange juice, which is totally yummy by the way, and getting lots of rest.

So now my message to you for today and the next four days!!! Be sure to VOTE!!

Early voting is available in many states through Saturday. 

Poles are open from 7am to 7pm on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. 

This is the kind of exercise 

you can't afford to miss!

Celebrate freedom 

Exercise your right to vote!

Happy Halloween everyone!

A little bit of cheesecake and PUPPIES!!!

Mmmmm cheesecake! This one has chocolate chips because it was my "birthday cake" but typically I make it plain, no crust and sugar free. A few years ago I was on my little quest to make the perfect sugar free cheesecake. Poor Ken had to sample so many cheesecakes. I'd package it up and take it to the office, send it to work with Ken or give it to my sister so I wouldn't be tempted to eat it all.

With the holidays coming up, I'm trying to give people other options to make for dessert so I'm sharing my basic recipe over on the cooking blog. You can click on the photo above or HERE to read all about it!

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Last night when I closed my eyes I dreamed of puppies. There were puppies EVERYWHERE and why you might ask? Well lets back up to yesterday morning and you'll get an idea of where this imagery came from.

Tuesday morning I headed out for a walk with Sadie and Max. We did the 2.5 mile loop and we made it past the cranky people without incident. The dog that had been lose on previous days was happily tucked behind a fence so we headed past the lake and turned down the block towards our final 1/2 mile.

We passed Sadie's favorite tree and she was feeling so happy, she picked up a pinecone intending on leaving it somewhere on the block. We walked past a lawn maintence truck and we no sooner got past it when out between two of the houses came a BIG DOG followed by 6 or 7 PUPPIES!!

The dog was a boxer and she quickly started snarling at Sadie and Max who attempted to bark and snarl back but they were quickly surrounded by puppies. They were black and white, tan and white, brown and white little blurs that looked to be about 8 to 10 weeks old. My head was spinning and so were theirs.

At one point I looked over and saw three puppies on the other side of the street chasing a black dog...OMG I thought another dog and then I realized the black dog was SADIE! She had slipped out of her harness.

I'm standing there yelling "YOUR DOGS ARE OUT" and no one comes out of their house. The man in the lawn truck wouldn't budge from his seat to help me.

Within two minutes, the Mom dog took off between two houses and several of the puppies followed her.

Now it was just me and Max and Sadie scrambling to get back to her harness and oh yeah... THREE PUPPIES who forgot to follow their mommy!

I turn around and with force I tell them...GO HOME! Oh yeah, who am I kididng. I tried to walk away from them thinking they would realize their Mom was gone and take off after her. But they didn't. Not only didn't they leave. I had the mouthiest puppie of them all walking in front of us, backwards, barking at us.

Sadie and Max looked up at me as if to say "get rid of them, they look like they'd steal our toys and eat all of our treats and do stuff that we'd get blamed for"

I kept walking and the three of them kept following me. With ever step I took, the mouthy black and white puppe would bark at me and then run up to me and jump on me to pick it up.

My main concern was getting Sadie and Max home and away from these dogs. I know that sounds cruel but I didn't know where they came from, I didn't know if they were healthy and if they were sick, I didn't want Sadie and Max to get sick too. We rounded the corner and two of the puppies took off down the street when they saw their Mom...except the mouthy brat.

So put Sadie and Max in the house, scoop up the mouthy brat and head back to where I found them to start knocking on doors. This little dog nuzzled into me and decided I was his/her most favorite human of all. My heart was melting and I wanted to just go back home and keep him/her forever but common sense and reason won out over puppy breath and nuzzles.

As luck would have it I rounded the corner and there were two more puppies, I put down my new best friend and said "there is your family, go get them" but instead of running to them, he ran back to me and so did his siblings. Now I had THREE puppies to contend with.

I started knocking on doors. Mostly no answers, a few just yelled go away. One younger guy opened his door and as I said "do you know where these puppies belong" they went scrambling into his house. "NOT in here" he replied. So with the three of them in tow I went off looking for their home and their Mom...

Suddenly out of the thick bushes and they followed her through. I couldn't follow so I started to head around the block when here come three more puppies....

Can I just stop here and say my head is spinning.

The puppies came bounding to me as if to say "we know you!" and I headed down the block once more with three different puppies in tow...

Yes eventually I found where the puppies belonged but not before adding at least another mile of walking to my morning.

When I returned home, Ken was there and he opened the door for Sadie and Max to come out to greet me. Max peeked around the door as if to say "are they gone?" Sadie stuck her head out and looked around and then came out to say hi and started sniffing all around. They both sniffed me and knew I had been cheating on them with those puppies.

I told Ken the whole puppy saga and he laughed at Sadie and Max being so good and not barking at the puppies. They were outnumbered and they knew it. I have to say that when I collapsed on the sofa to recover they both jumped up on me and snuggled up to cover me with their fur. They made it clear that I have two arms, two hands, one for each of them, no room for another dog.

Is it any wonder I had dreams about puppies??

Healthy You Challnge Check-In Week 43

Welcome to week 43!! Lets make a plan to stay out of that Halloween candy and fulfill our skinny dreams. Yesterday I took all of the Halloween candy and bagged it up into cute little bags and then tightly twisted the silver twist tie sealing it forever...well until the sweet little kids from the neighborhood break into them. 

 

I hope everyone is having a fabulous week so far. My week has just started but its already been quite interesting. I've done a few things I've never done before but I'll tell you more about that later in the week.

WELCOME!!

Seriously...
http://seriouslyjc.blogspot.com/

A Blob Blog
http://www.tallensweightloss.blogspot.com/

Reviews and a walk on the wild side

As you may have noticed (or not) I added a section for reviews in my navigation. Sometimes companies will contact me and ask me to review a product. Depending on the type of product (and my mood of the day) I sometimes say yes on the condition that I can share my opinion good or bad. 

I've posted two reviews so far, one for Yoplait's new flavors of yogurt and another for a product called Fullbar. So if you want, you can follow the links and read all about them.

As I might have mentioned I've been walking around the neighborhood every morning with Sadie and Max. We have a 2.5 mile route that has become our favorite. Along this route we've encountered good people and bad people. Yesterday every crazy person was out. One man stood at the foot of his driveway and screamed at me to stay off his lawn...clearly he must have had a vision problem because I was in the middle of the street, not even on the sidewalk but in the middle of the street. We've had encounters with several really nasty people and I have to admit, it upsets me when people yell at me for walking on a public street. I always clean up after my pets. We walk and we don't harm anyone or anything along the way. But still, its upsetting when they just start yelling at you, I'm out there with two dogs, its my job to protect them and yes sometimes I feel a bit vulnerable. For the most part our route feels quite safe but there are a few areas where they have large dogs and fences that don't seem that secure and a few areas where I encounter nasty people. Let it be known that  If you upset me, I'm going to use that anger to fuel my walk and push me harder. I won't back down. Its NOT your street and everyone else on your block likes us! (yeah ok, that sounded childish LOL) I'm doing this for my health and for the health of my dogs. Not for them. I have to remember that for every angry person I meet 10 nice people. I'm just saying it here, for the whole world to see...I will NOT stop walking because of a few nasty cranky people!!

Now with that being said, do you recommend that I carry a golf club, a cane or another type of stick to use to defend myself should that pack of dogs chase after us? 

Last Call For Breast Cancer Support Comments

As I posted in this post, my friend Heather and her friend Amy are walking 60 miles in the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk in Dallas Texas in November.

I'm putting the final touches on the "card" I'm sending to them that will arrive at the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk camp to cheer them on.

If you'd like to write a few words of support, encouragement or share your story, please do so in the comments below and I'll add them.

Thanks for your support!!

Perfect Day

Last night when Ken finally got home from work he asked how my day was. I told him all about it. He asked if I had looked at my blog…Well I’m not in the habit of just going to scalejunkie.com but perhaps I should start.

Then he casually asked me to log into HIS email address and check his messages for him…WOW! That sneaky little…So as YOU know, he posted and announced to the world it was my birthday and then he forwarded the comments to HIS email box so I wouldn’t get email notices of his post and see it before he wanted me to see it. Oh but wait, you all knew this already didn’t you because all of you were in on this with him!

Yes I got an overwhelming number of birthday greetings yesterday and I just wanted to say thank you all so much for your good wishes and kind words. You truly made my day!

Which brings me to a segment I'd like to call how weird/cool is that?

On Tuesday I got a chuckle out of the Healthy You Challenge being on week 42 on the week that I turn 42. Then yesterday I get 23 comments on the 23^rd of October. Yes the time stamp says that a few of them were after midnight on the 24^th but they really weren’t because I have my time set to London time so I can post the HYC stuff on Monday night and have the Tuesday date at the top of the post, yes I’m sneaky like that. Oh yes, other number coincidences this week. My total at the store yesterday was $4.58, 458 was the house number where I lived during my teenage years. I had another total of $1.68 and 168 was the route that my Dad lived on and where I lived for the first 11 years of my life. I know its silly but I called those totals “birthday wishes from Mom and Dad”

All in all I had a pretty good day. I started the day with a 2.5 mile walk around the neighborhood. Yes it sucked that Ken had to work late but he was able to come home in the afternoon for a few hours. My sister Debs and her daughter JabberJaws called to wish me a happy birthday; I talked to Debs for 20 minutes and to JabberJaws for 1 hour and 40 minutes so yes the nickname Ken gave her of “JabberJaws” still fits. I ended the day with a lot of wonderful messages from all of you....a perfect day!

I first heard this version of Perfect Day when I was living in the UK and it has a great compilation of artists that BBC put together to show the diversity of artist featured on BBC.

Its such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you...

Squashed tomatoes and stew

Hi everyone, Ken here. Diana said she wasn't going to blog today because she felt like taking a day off.

While I do agree that she deserves a day off, I have to work today but I wish I could be home to help her celebrate. She wasn't going to tell you it's her birthday, she said she wouldn't even look at her blog today so I thought it would be fun to log on and blog for her and have all of you wish her a very happy birthday.

Can you help me out here?









From the Birthday Calculator

23 October 1966

Your date of conception was on or about 30 January 1966 which was a Sunday.
You were born on a Sunday
under the astrological sign Scorpio.
Your Life path number is 1.

Your fortune cookie reads:
Grand adventures await those who are willing to turn the corner.

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 9.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 8.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 6, 11 & 22.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2439421.5.
The golden number for 1966 is 10.
The epact number for 1966 is 8.
The year 1966 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 1/21/1966 and ending 2/8/1967.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Horse.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Snake; your plant is Thistle.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Choiach, the fourth month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 9 Heshvan 5727.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 10 Heshvan 5727.
The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.13.2.17 which is
12 baktun 17 katun 13 tun 2 uinal 17 kin
The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Sunday, 8 Rajab 1386 (1386-7-8).
The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 10 April 1966.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 10 April 1966.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 23 February 1966.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 29 May 1966.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 5 June 1966.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Thursday, 15 September 1966.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Tuesday, 5 April 1966.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 22 February 1966.

As of 10/23/2008 6:11:56 AM EDT
You are 42 years old.
You are 504 months old.
You are 2,191 weeks old.
You are 15,341 days old.
You are 368,190 hours old.
You are 22,091,411 minutes old.
You are 1,325,484,716 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Masiela Lusha (1985)	Al Leiter (1965)	'Weird' Al Yankovic (1959)
Martin Luther King III (1957)	Michael Crichton (1942)	Pel‚ (1940)
Johnny Carson (1925)	Frank Rizzo (1920)	Gummo Marx (1893)

Top songs of 1966

I'm a Believer by Monkees	The Ballad of the Green Berets by S/Sgt. Barry Sadler
Winchester Cathedral by New Vaudeville Band	Soul and Inspiration by Righteous Brothers
Monday, Monday by The Mama's & the Papa's	We Can Work It Out by Beatles
Summer In the City by Lovin' Spoonful	Cherish by Association
You Can't Hurry Love by Supremes	Wild Thing by Troggs

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.00430528375734 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

Your lucky day is Tuesday.
Your lucky number is 9 & 11.
Your ruling planet(s) is Mars & Pluto.
Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.
Your opposition sign is Taurus.
Your opposition number(s) is 6.
There are 365 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 43 candles.

Those 43 candles produce 43 BTUs,
or 10,836 calories of heat (that's only 10.8360 food Calories!) .
You can boil 4.91 US ounces of water with that many candles.


In 1966 there were approximately 3.7 million births in the US.
In 1966 the US population was approximately 179,323,175 people, 50.6 persons per square mile.
In 1966 in the US there were approximately 1,800,000 marriages (9.3%) and 479,000 divorces (2.5%)
In 1966 in the US there were approximately 1,712,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1966 the population of Australia was approximately 11,704,843.
In 1966 there were approximately 223,731 births in Australia.
In 1966 in Australia there were approximately 96,061 marriages and 9,859 divorces.
In 1966 in Australia there were approximately 103,929 deaths.


Your birthstone is Tourmaline

The Mystical properties of Tourmaline

Pink Tourmaline promotes female balance and protection. Green Toumaline promotes male balance.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Opal, Jasper

Your birth tree is

Maple, Independence of Mind No ordinary person, full imagination and originality, shy and reserved, ambitious, proud, self-respect, hungers for new experiences, sometimes nervous, many complexes, good memory, learns easily, complicated love life, wants to impress.

There are 63 days till Christmas 2008!
There are 76 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was waxing gibbous.

Copyright © 2006 Paul R. Sadowski (http://www.paulsadowski.com)

Wonderful Wednesday

Typically on a Wednesday I tell you all about my latest recipe and do a biggest loser recap. Well there will be no biggest loser recap today because I haven't watched it yet.

But I have a yummy beef stew to share! It makes six servings and the calories are for 6 servings however you can do what I did and have half a serving over a cup of steamed green beans...oh SO yummalicious!

Beef Stew

This morning the guppers and I went on a three mile walk. Every morning we come across this yard with a happy looking dog about the same size as Sadie. She barks at us but never leaves her yard. This morning I realized why. They have the invisible fence and her collar won't let her leave the yard. I won't have one for our dogs and this is why.

It reminded me of a story my friend Laura told me about a year ago. Laura is a highly educated, intelligent woman. She lives in a log cabin on a few acres in Tennessee with her dogs. She has the invisible fence system for her two dogs because putting up a real fence just isn't practical on her size of a lot. If you aren't familiar with the invisible fence, you mark off the perimeter of your property and the dogs wear special collars and should they get to close to the perimeter, they get a warning tone, should they attempt to cross the perimeter they get an electrical ZAP! Yikes!

One day Laura realized her dogs were in the yard and they didn't have their collars on. She picked up their collars and went to the yard to put them on and just about then they saw a squirrel and gave chase. She ran after them with their collars in her hand, yelling their names and a stern "You come back here"

Just about then she crossed the perimeter and ZAP!!! Right in her hand. It stung but she caught up with the dogs and after a stern warning they went running back to the house and she stopped to talk to a neighbor and then headed back up to the house and as she entered her yard ZAPPED AGAIN!!

And this is why we never got the invisible fence system for the guppers.

Healthy You Challenge - Week 42

Happy Week 42 everyone :-) I hope everyone has a fabulous week.

Welcome!

Confessions of a Wayward Diet Goddess
http://www.waywarddietgoddess.blogspot.com/

fat.mum.slim
http://www.fatmumslim.blogspot.com/

Sylvie the Procrasknitter
http://sylvietheprocrasknitter.blogspot.com/

Dragon's Haven
http://haven4dragon.blogspot.com/

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

Yet to come

I was in the store over the weekend and A Christmas Carol was playing on the TV’s. I know, I know, its not even Halloween and they are ready for Christmas! The scene that was playing was the visit from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and it really made me stop to think about life and the future and where I'll be in a few years. I've decided to invite or tag ALL OF YOU (even the lurkers) to play along.

Imagine you’re sitting at home and your future self appears in front of you, what advice do you think he/she would give you? It can be future you from a year, five or even ten years from now. You can’t ask questions so forget about asking for stock tips or lottery numbers, you can only sit and listen to what he/she has to say.

Really think about it. Where are you now? What path are you on? Does it match where you want to go? Will future you be filled with regrets or say GREAT JOB?

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

My future self would tell me to stop stressing over every little thing, not only is stress bad for you, it causes wrinkles. Learn to RELAX and meditate. Let go of the hurt of the past and enjoy the times to come. She would also tell me that the time is now to take action to improve my health and that I must stay on a healthy path at all costs and results will follow. She’d probably demo how easy it is to do tasks that seem so simple to others like jumping jacks, she'd show off and do a few push ups and leap back to her feet instead of struggling to get back up. She’d point out to me that my knees no longer ache and that I’m able to push myself harder and further without fatigue.


I’d like to think she’d reassure me that I’ve worked through my emotional eating issues and that I’ve managed to come out on the good side of things. She'd show me how strong I am and that I can learn to treat food as simply fuel for my body. She’d show me a glimpse of the inner peace I’ve reached and then she'd stop and tell me to listen...and all would be quiet. The negative voices would be silenced and replaced with self confidence.


Finally she’d show me that I still have the unconditional love of my family. Ken loves me no matter what, I don’t think I’d need reassurance on that but it would be nice to see how proud he was that I accomplished my goals and that because I reached my goals he kept his promise and he finally quit smoking. She’d show me that I don’t have anxiety about going places. I no longer have to fear the size of the seat in a restaurant, airplane or amusement park. No more humiliation because I don't fit in a seat. No more avoiding things because of fear. She’d show me photos of all of the wonderful places I was able to visit because I wasn’t encumbered by my size. She’d show me that I’ve broken out of my self-imposed isolation and actually made a few new friends. She might even show me my new wardrobe and say hey, look how sexy we are now, we can shop anywhere we want!

Most of all I think she’d tell me that it’s up to me. This can be my future, the choice is mine but the sooner I get started the better. She’d remind me to always believe in myself and to never ever give up.

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

I encourage you to let your Ghost of Yet to Come pay you a visit. I'd love to hear all about it. You can either leave your advice from your future self here in my comments or you can write a post about it and then come back and leave a link so everyone can read it.

Living Light with Irene - No Gym Workouts

I survived the radio show! It was so much fun talking with Irene from Losing Irene and Sahar Aker from Fat Fighter TV. I knew Irene from the Healthy You Challenge but I hadn't found Sahar's site until I read about it on Irene's blog. So if you've never heard of Sahar, she has an amazing site that you'll want to check out!


Yes, I sound like I'm 12 years old LOL. You can click below to listen. Be sure to tune into Irene's next show on 11/1/08 to hear all about setting reasonable goals. Visit Irene's blog Losing Irene for more details!

on the radio...

As some of you know, Irene Robertson of Losing Irene has an internet radio show called Light Living with Irene. 

On Saturday October 18, 2008  between 9am and 10am eastern time I'm going to be her guest along with Sahar Akar of FatFighterTV.com.  The topic will be gymless workouts.

About “Light Living With Irene”

“Light Living With Irene” is an interactive, live Internet talk-radio show that focuses on healthy living, eating right, fitness, and organic lifestyles. Callers are encouraged to call (718) 766-4025 to ask questions or make comments. The stream and archives are available at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LosingIrene. The show is live every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern/ 6 a.m. PT. The show is hosted on BlogTalkRadio.

Please join us if you can! 

The Haunting Season

Yes, its October and we're gearing up for the Halloween holiday. Is it a coincidence that I've discovered that I have a haunted garage?

Seriously…I’m hearing voices coming from the garage. No Ken didn’t leave on the TV or radio in his man cave, in fact when I told him I heard the voices, he listened carefully and said he didn’t hear anything but there they were plain as day for me to hear. He said if there were voices or a haunting, Sadie and Max would sense it and they would growl or be fearful of the garage. But I heard it clear as day. To make it even scarier…they were calling my name and saying...Diana, Diana we're here, come to us, Diana eat us...Eat us?

The other day I did something very foolish. I took advantage of a sale and purchased a massive bag of Halloween candy to pass out to the trick-or-treat crowd on Halloween. What the hell was I thinking? Yes I sealed the bag and put it in the spare refrigerator in the garage, all the way in the back of the fridge certain I’d muffle their voices but still, they speak to me.

Oh sure I should buy candy to hand out to the kids in the neighborhood. I see them every morning on our walk as they head to the bus stop and I see them in the evening as they are playing in their yards. They are great kids and I want to give them candy, that’s not the issue. I’m the issue.

When it comes to candy I’m missing the self control gene. My willpower goes out the window. I’ve read a lot of motivational articles on willpower. Some people say willpower is a mythical thing that it simply doesn’t exist. So what is willpower exactly? It’s the ability to exert your will over your actions to reach your end result.

The ability to exert my will: the desire to be thinner and healthy
Over your actions: binge eating, cheating, choosing to eat off plan
To reach my end result: healthy weight, healthy body

Those three little lines don’t seem so difficult do they?

When it comes to willpower and when I say I’ve lost my willpower I’ve learned a very important lesson: Willpower isn't something you can lose but it is something you can choose to give it away.

You make a conscious choice to take your willpower and give it away or throw it away in favor of another choice. With that in mind I intend to do as I planned and give away the Halloween candy, not my willpower.

Honey We're Killing The Kids

Yesterday I took Sadie and Max to the vet for their comprehensive exam. We go through this every six months so they can get any necessary booster shots as well as routine screening to ensure their continued good health. I drop them off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. I’m not sure who its more traumatic for, them or me.

Max was a superstar champ through it all. He takes it in stride and doesn't mind one bit as long as I'm there to comfort him through it all. On the other hand, I just can’t express how much Sadie hates going to the vets. She knew where we were going as we pulled up the hill towards the office and the whimpering started. By the time I parked the car she was thrashing around like a wild banshee jumping from the front seat to the back seat while encouraging a very calm Max to join her. I put their leash on them and as soon as we got out of the car she attempted to gnaw through it to make her great escape for freedom, all the while yelling at Max and nipping at him to encourage him to join her in the uprising. Max decided he wanted no part of her crazyass and put his paws up on my legs as if to say "hold me"

We enter the vets and our friendly vet nurse asks me to put each of them on the scale. Max, the typical boy doesn’t mind, he hops up there and sits down and waits for me to tell him to jump down. Sadie…well, Sadie is truly my daughter. She hates the scale…and with good reason. You see, Sadie is overweight just like me. Now I know what you might be thinking. I over eat and in turn I over feed my dogs. This simply isn’t the case. I reward them with love, praise and the occasional treat. My thin and fit husband, aka sucker number 1, gives them a treat every time he walks by and they look up at him with cute puppy dog eyes. We won’t even get into my sister, aka sucker number 3, who is incapable of walking through the door with empty hands. No she doesn’t just bring them a treat; she brings jumbo Sams Club sized containers of treats.

I ask the woman at the check in counter for the earliest possible pick up time and she says 3:15 and as if on cue and as if she understood, Sadie began to alternate between hyperventilation whimpering to room penetrating YIPE/WHIMPER/SCREAM at the thought of being locked up in jail for so long. I can't even adequately describe this display of protest and fear, next time I'll bring the video camera and capture it for the world to see. The woman looks at their charts and slyly said “they aren’t having blood work, do you want me to see if they can just let you wait?” Excellent idea.

From the weigh station I was assigned an exam room. It has a small bench seat with room for two adults to sit comfortably, a table that folds against the wall and a computer station, supply station and sink. I sit down and Sadie jumps up next to me and sits down, burrows her head under my arm so that my arm is wrapped around her and holding her. Max believes his place is on my lap. Yes, I have a 50 pound, correction, 49.8 pound lap dog. He maneuvers and with a leap of faith, springs from the floor and into my lap and I catch him. Jealously Queen Sadie decides that she should be on my lap too, all 62.8 pounds of her, while she continues to whimper and cry. For a brief moment I find myself staring off into space asking myself why I’m not shopping right now and letting them deal with these two? I could be sipping Starbucks right now but instead I’m stuck in this fur filled little room with 112 pounds of dog on my lap. Oh yes, because I love them, that’s why.

The nurse and the vet entered the room and Max took his protective stance between me and them and barked. Where was Sadie in all of this? She dove behind my back to hide. I kid you not, she was hiding behind me. I stood up to shake hands with the doctor Sadie attempted to dive down behind me and her paw caught in the pocket of my elastic waist pants and as she jumped down from the bench, she took the side of my pants with her…yes, both the vet nurse and the vet caught a quick flash of my underwear and leg. I wanted to dive under the bench but Sadie jumped from the bench and to the wall where their leash was hanging and with her teeth she attempted to remove it from the wall by thrashing all around, when it fell she dropped it by me feet and said “lets get the hell out of here, before they stick something up my ass! ”

I apologized and said that I’m glad I was able to wait and spare them a whole day of Sadie because I’d hate to think we were responsible for the excessive alcohol consumption that would surly occur after spending the day listening to THAT all day.

The good news is, they both have strong hearts and lungs and they tested negative for glaucoma. The bad news…well you can guess the bad news already. They are overweight. We knew this from the last visit but they have moved from just a little bit over weight to seriously overweight.

Vet: I can’t really feel their organs too well, they need to lose some weight and….

Before he can go any further I blurt out…

“It’s my skinny husbands fault! He’s the one who over feeds them, not me!”

:::: Insert obligatory eye roll here ::::

Its bad enough I have to get the overweight lecture when I go to the doctor but to have to get it at the vets too…

The vet gave me some pointers for decreasing their food intake by 10% and suggested long walks to make up for the over feeding that Ken and my sister do that I can’t control.

Last night we decreased their food as instructed and when Ken had his bedtime snack of peanut butter on toast, much to their shock and amazement, he did NOT share a single bite with them. I was left to clean up the puddles of drool on the floor but we stood fast in our determination to help them achieve a healthy weight. I understand their battle and their love of food. The one thing I’ve argued with Ken over is that he feeds them too many snacks. I never wanted them to have a weight problem but now that they do, we are going to battle it head on.

This morning I’m a little late posting because we walked 2.5 miles in 45 minutes. In the spring we could walk three miles in under 45 minutes. Of course our time varies greatly depending on how many potty break/sniff breaks we take along the way but we’ll get there.

Tale of Two Cookies and a Biggest Loser Recap

The Cookie Recipe

With the holidays approaching, I’m looking for alternatives to high calorie cookies. I love to bake but unfortunately, I love to taste what I bake and because I’m a damn good baker, I do a lot of tasting. My mission is to provide you with a few good cookies to get you through the holidays.

First up, the Peanut Butter Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Cookie, also known as the Holy Shit I Can’t Believe They’re Only 98 Calories Cookie or HSICBTO98C Cookie. I’m really not good at naming my recipes and clearly neither are my friends. Anyhow…this was round two, round one was good but I’ve found that baking with Splenda leaves too much of an after taste in my mouth. The original attempt left out the banana and used splenda. It wasn't bad but I thought I could do better. Honestly, the banana taste is so faint. I think that next time I might try leaving out the milk and adding an additional banana for more banana flavor. With sugar and 70% cocoa chocolate chips, these cookies are not sugar free but they are lower in sugar than a traditional cookie and hey, they only have 98 calorie!  You can click HERE to view the recipe and step by step instructions.

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Biggest Loser Recap Below ~ Spoilers ahead!

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Was it just me or was last night’s episode particularly annoying?

Of all of the people left on the ranch, Heba and Ed were my least favorite so I wasn’t sad to see Ed leave last week, after last night I wish Heba would have gone too. Last night they had a challenge where they were placed in a dark room filled with bakery items and the person who consumed the most calories got to pick the new teams and trainers. Heba volunteered to “take one for the team” and eat a donut and pick the teams. Purple team Amy and Phil both decided to eat as well and Heba started to demand to know what Phil was eating. First of all let me say something here, Phil…how could you not speak with a peanut butter cup in your mouth? Get real buddy! We know your silence was intentional so why sit there and say you couldn’t talk because you had a mouth full of peanut butter and chocolate. I wouldn't have answered her either.  Do you have any idea how many peanut butter cups I’ve had in my life? And your excuse that you couldn’t unwrap them quietly…OMG don’t lie to this fat woman because I know for a fact that it’s possible to simultaneously unwrap two at a time and jam them in your mouth AND answer the phone and sound only slightly muffled while doing so. You say you were trying, yeah right! If I wanted to stay on the same team as Ken, I would have “taken one for the team” and devoured two of those brownies and a few Reeses cups.

In the end Heba won and Heba, you can say what you want and that it wasn’t retaliation but it’s crystal clear to the world that you punished the two people who ate against you in the competition by switching up their teams. If it was only about game play, you should have kept both of the guys on your team because even with Phil AND a two pound advantage, the black team still lost to the blue team.

Yes I found last night’s episode to be a little bit annoying but for once it wasn’t because they weren’t working hard enough at their workout! Honestly this season has been a bit annoying because there have been so many times, like the Grand Canyon episode, where I’ve wanted to yell at them for not working hard enough when they have an opportunity so many people would have given anything for. Did they make up for that last night? WOW did they ever! I do have to say that they really kicked ass during the mountain climbing challenge. It was over 100 degrees by afternoon and they were going up and down this mountain over and over again for 14 hours. They called a truce and took a break for a few hours but wow, high 90’s and they did fabulous! Brady ended up completing over 20 miles….20 miles of walking/jogging in one day, up and down the mountain in 90 and 100 degree temps. Amazing!


Michele (pink team daughter) contemplated quitting and going home ended up being the biggest loser for the black team and won immunity. Honestly Michele, you’re 26 years old, stop crying about your parents’ divorce and being put in the middle already. It sucked for your Mom to leave you, we get that but here you are on this journey of a lifetime together, enjoy the ride. Maybe I’m a bit harsh because I was put in a similar situation at age 11, yes it sucks to get put in the middle of a messy divorce but you have to move on at some point. Clearly there are more issues here, we don't know if the producers aren't sharing them or if you aren't sharing them but enough already.

Honestly I was a bit shocked that Colleen voted off Shellay because they seemed like they were so close. I think I would have taken the opportunity to split the alliance of the only “couple” still left on that team, mother/daughter Renee and Michele. I thought for sure Renee was going home simply because she’s been so quiet through the weeks. She hasn’t really been that memorable and it seems that when the producers focus on someone, you can tell they will go far in the competition. I suppose it was good game play on her part because Shellay didn’t have as much to lose but bad game play because the Renee and Michelle would vote her off over Phil if they used the weight to lose method of picking.
 

So in the end, bye bye Shellay :-( They showed Shellay how she looks now and I just have to say WOW!! Shellay not only looked fabulous, she looked so much younger with her new haircut.

Yes at the end of the day I am aware that it’s a TV show and the producers edit things to show us what they want us to see but so far this has been a disappointing season. I know they can't all stay together forever and that someone has to go home and its all about game play. With all of that being said, I'm still going to watch next week.

Healthy You Challenge - Week 41

Welcome to week 41! I hope all of our Canadian friends had a wonderful and healthy Thanksgiving.

Don't forget to make your suggestions for Healthy You 2009! You can email them to me or leave them in the comment section.

Welcome


Running Actuary's Weblog
http://runningactuary.wordpress.com/

Shapely Woman
http://shapelywoman.blogspot.com/ 

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Lets sign in! For those of you who are a part of the HYC, please sign in below and leave a comment too if you want. For those of you who aren't participating, please cheer us on! Remember, its never too late to join, just click on the Healthy You link in my navigation section to the right. 

and miles to go before I sleep

12 weeks ago after realizing I had gained enough weight to put me higher than I was at the start of the year, I announced that I was moving out of the land of Denial and as far away from Crazytown as I could get. I outlined a 12 week plan to dump the baggage and move forward with weight loss. I thought it would be a smooth journey, full of sunshine, roses and incredible weight loss. I was going to be a workout and dieting machine. Who the hell was I kidding?

A lot has happened in 12 weeks. I find dream job, apply for dream job, get interview for dream job, and think I’m going to get dream job and then REJECTION. Husband loses job, husband searches for new job, husband finds new job and has to go out of town for a week for training. I’ve realized I still have binge eating issues. Oh GOD, I said it out loud, I said binge eating. Oh sure it would be easy to wrap it up in a neat and tidy little package wrapped up in glittering paper and a big bow and call it a special gift to myself, a special lesson learned but it’s so much more complicated than that and I’m realizing I’m just scratching the surface. Correction, I’ve more than scratched the surface this year, I’ve made one hell of a dent, but I’m not done yet and maybe I never will be, and that's ok too.

I keep learning over and over again that I’m not done dealing with the emotional baggage. I can’t move full speed ahead away from Crazytown because I haven’t been ready to leave. Maybe part of me will always want to visit.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made progress and I’m quite proud of that progress because its progress you can measure and progress that can’t be contained by mathematical parameters.

Weight Loss: 12.8 pounds
Inches Lost: 15.5

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
~ Robert Frost

Save the best for last?

Kelly at US PharmD has put together a list of her 100 top weight loss blogs and has thoughtfully included me in the top 100 list. She has categorized them in different sections, girls losing, guys losing, already lost it, moms losing, collaborative blogs, nutrition blogs, exercise and fitness, weight loss programs and it comes from within. You’ll see a lot of familiar faces and some new ones too. You can click HERE to check it out.

One of my friends emailed a link saying she had seen it on another blog and she said “save the best for last” so I’m borrowing that from her.

Thank you Kelly for including me In your 100 top weight loss blogs. 

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FYI: Weigh in and measurement updates coming tomorrow.  

the accent wins again

The other day we were at a little store and there was only one check out open and the queue was quite long. There was a couple in front of us with two small children about ages 4 and 18 months. Mom was holding the four year old and had proceeded to the front of the cart. The 18 month old was in a baby seat directly in front of us, the Dad moved to the front of the cart as well and it was just us standing side by side looking at this little boy. You could tell he was quite sleepy but fascinated by the strangers looking down at him, his eyes shifted from me to Ken and then fixated on Ken. He was barefooted and I could see Ken looking at these cute chubby little toes and grinning from ear to ear remembering all of the times he’d tickle the toes of his nieces and nephews.

Me: Don’t DO IT

Ken reaches forward and starts to tickle the toes..

Ken: what....I can’t help it.

Me: You aren’t suppose to touch babies without asking first

Ken: but the toes are right there, you know what I mean, just look at them, all cute and pudgy, they’re saying tickle me

Just about then the Dad hears us and says “is he laughing?”

Ken: Yes (laughing) he is. Sorry, I didn’t realize that touching his toes was such a big deal

after hearing Ken talk, the Dads face lights up...

Dad: Are you from England?

Ken: Yes

Dad: I’m English too! I’m fram Jamaica

Ken: alright!

Dad (to me) its okay that he touch the toes, we’re both English, we’re practically family mon

a lesson on how to cya

Saturday is our anniversary. My birthday is later in the month. Ken always pretends to get these dates confused, especially when I ask about them. It’s a little running joke we have. The other day he came home from work and put three cards envelops on the little shelf above my computer….

Me: whats that?

Ken: (grinning from ear to ear) Its one card for our anniversary and two for your birthday

Me: Why two?

Ken: I couldn’t make up my mind

Me: Oh ok….

I look up at the envelops and notice he has put little “AN” letters on the corner of one card to signify anniversary.

Me: You did this because you can’t remember which date is which didn’t you, this is your way of (cya) covering your ass (laughing)

Him: (laughing) uhuh

We laugh about it for a few minutes and of course when we are laughing Sadie and Max always want to come over and see what’s going on and get in on the attention.

Him: Oh by the way, I’m not working on Saturday so call and book a table for our ANNIVERSARY dinner...
 

Tell a different story

Before I get on with today’s post I just want to share this week’s recipe. High protein pudding. Sometimes we want or need a source of protein other than meat. This is the perfect choice. It satisfies the sweet tooth while giving you a thick, rich and delicious treat.

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I've quoted part of a conversation from the Biggest Loser last night but this is one small portion of the show that lasted less than two minutes. The last hour of the show is being shown on Wednesday night so no spoilers here....

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On Monday I talked about making a little bit of progress. Last night while watching the Biggest Loser, Jillian said something to Shellay (purple team Mom) that really hit home and reminded me of a post that I wrote back in February about making a choice but took it to the next level for me.



Jillian and Shellay were working out and had an emotional moment when Jillian told Shellay that she didn’t hear anything “real” from Shellay that nothing gets through her façade of oblivion. She went on to tell her that she was selling herself short and asked her what she was defending against. Shellay said she always had to be the strong one on the outside…WOW, did that hit home with me. All of my life I’ve had to be the strong one. Today would have been my Dad’s 83rd birthday. He died ten years ago. You know  even at his funeral, I had to be the strong one for my older brother and sister. I had to lead them by the hands through it. Did I know what I was doing? No, but I had to stand up and take charge. I didn’t cry the entire time I was up in Pennsylvania for the funeral. I didn’t shed a single tear. I remember thinking after the funeral that there was something wrong with me. My strong older brother cried like a baby and there I was, unemotional, flat, cold, all the while keeping this strong front so that I could get through this most difficult time. It was only after I returned to Florida I let myself cry in private.


Jillian went on to tell Shellay that “I see a strong and sexy woman who told me she wanted to be here, that wanted to have MORE but to have more you have to give more. You’re only one breath away from being anything you want to be, that one breath is a CHOICE, chose it! Make a choice and tell a different story.”


Wow, just wow.

It all comes down to a choice. Everything we do is a choice, the rest is just little lies we tell ourselves. “I was at work and they brought pizza in for lunch, I didn’t have a choice” “I was out shopping and I got hungry so I grabbed ____, because I didn’t have a choice”, "its only one candy bar, I'll start fresh tomorrow" Most of the people reading this live in countries where we have choices. We always have a choice. One of the most important choices we can make is planning. There are so many healthy snacks you can keep on hand to tide you over until you can make a better choice.


My Dad always wanted me to lose weight because he worried about my social acceptance and my health. When I was growing up he’d say “you need to push yourself away from the table kid” and then as I got older he’d say “you need to think about your health and your life” He knew that being overweight made it difficult for me to find acceptance, socially, professionally and romantically. Dad has been gone for years but still I struggle. I only wish he could have met Ken, I wish he knew I found love.

Now it’s time to work on the rest of it. I’m ready to make a choice; I'm ready to tell a different story.

Healthy You Check In - Week 40

Week 40...12 weeks left in 2008. Several people have asked if I plan on continuing the Healthy You Challenge in 2009 and the answer is YES! I've already started working on new pounds lost badges since I made the flaw of putting 2008 on the current ones...yes thats a LOT of badges to redesign but its worth it. I'm also taking requests for badges with other sayings you'd like to see. I also plan on making a small badge for those of you who don't have a lot of room or don't want a big badge on your blog.

But for now we'll deal with the rest of 2008...12 more weeks to make a difference. 12 more weeks to start 2009 better off than you started 2008. We can do this!!

WELCOME!

Hot Mama: Losing Weight and Feeling Great

http://homemakingcottageweight.blogspot.com/


24 Steps To Go

http://24stepstogo.blogspot.com/


Fit, Healthy Hips

http://fitheretic.blogspot.com/

Lets get signed in! For those of you who are a part of the HYC, please sign in below and leave a comment too if you want. For those of you who aren't participating, please cheer us on! Remember, its never too late to join! 

Hard Core

What an amazing few months this has been. I’ve seen highs and extreme lows in my personal life and in my weight loss efforts. Unfortunately right now I’m at a low in the weight loss efforts and not a good kind of low. My eating has strayed somewhat from controlled and healthy to “oh whatever” Whatever just doesn’t get results. Years and years of “whatever” has landed me where I am right now and while I suppose I could look on the bright side of things and say that if I have to fall on my ass again, at least I have a sizeable ass to fall on but I think most of you know exactly where I’m coming from. So many of you have been there too and have landed right where I’ve landed.


I repeat the same pattern over and over again. This may sound like insanity at its purest form however I have to report some positives in all of this.

• I’ve gained accountability
• I’ve formed a support network
• I have a written history of my success and failures
  
  

I have to admit that I struggle with the latter.


Here we are in October, a week that typically starts the beginning of the viscous cycle of mind games I play with myself. Our anniversary is in October and so is my birthday so of course I need to “reward” myself and “celebrate” and yes those involve foods…oh and then why bother because it’s almost Thanksgiving and oh more yummy feast of food that lasts the whole month of November instead of just one day and then its December and party after party after party….oh wait, didn’t I have this post LAST YEAR? Hmmmm. Do you people get tired of me saying this is my moment? This is a new start a new beginning. Do you think to yourself FFS woman just get on with it already and lose some weight! Because I think all of this and more. 



As you can see in my last post, I’ve accounted for a few days and I plan on working in a few special “meals”. Do you hear that DIANA…they are single MEALS not all day binges!


But enough of the bashing, enough of the slapping myself around and enough of the pity party. If I were looking for optimal timing this certainly isn’t it. If I were looking for an excuse I’d have to say I’m out of them.


So far today I’ve had a health breakfast of protein pancakes  and I’ve taken the guppers on a 1.5 mile walk around the hood. I’m off to a fabulous start! Honestly, I've found that is one of the big keys to my success, starting the day off right. Its so hard to recover from a 1000 calorie breakfast.


Right now the theme song playing in my head is a hard core techno mix, the kind of music you’d hear in a movie when everything is chaotic and unsettled. I feel chaotic and unsettled and I think its a good thing, its pushed me out of my comfort zone and into a place where an almost fear has taken hold.


Less than a week til weigh in, after that I’m weighing in weekly through the new year because I’m NOT going to let myself slide. I refuse to start 2009 the same way I’ve started the past 25 years. I won’t start it with regret. I just won’t.