Salt is my "Frienemy"

"Frenemy" (alternately spelled "frienemy") is a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy" that can refer to either an enemy disguised as a friend or someone who's both a friend and a rival.

(OR IN MY CASE......SALT!)

I love salt, but I hate what it does to my body! Friday I took part in enjoying beer and Pizza. I may have over indulged a bit, but made great choices on Saturday and consumed ounces and ounces, and then some more ounces.......of water to fix what I had possibly broken. I then spent a better part of the day in the ladies room. At the end of the day I noticed my hands and feet were still a little swollen, but I felt I did the necessary things to regroup from Friday.

Sunday was a full day of fun!

The morning started off with all good intentions. I was out the door at 7:30 am for a good one hour power walk, then I came home and ate this.......



Egg White Scramble with cheese and a bowl of blueberries......

I then made this salad..........




........at the grocery store to eat before we headed out to Arrowhead for the next 12 hours to hang with friends and jam to Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney. Well, the morning got away from my daughter and I and we simply ran out of time and headed out the door without eating that beautiful salad! Huge mistake on my part! I did take a large tray of fruit to share with the gang.....




But I also took that large tray of meat and cheese beside it, and those trisciut crackers behind it! And a cooler full of BEER that I managed to put a pretty good dent in, which gave me the courage to take THIS picture of random stranger! Egads! Ouch!




It was a great day of photos and fun! This is Steph and her sis, Maggie! They let us tag along in the family RV!




Here is my date.....I love a good date with my daughter!



Here's a few of the girls!










Trying to show our muscles!


In the end, I really had a great time, but completely regret the food and drink choices I made. I would have had just as much fun snacking on veggies all day, and drinking half the beer. I even drank a bottle of water in between each beer. Thank goodness the RV had a potty!




I felt puffy all day on Monday and super tired. It is amazing to me the energy I have had with all the smart choices, and what an incredible difference a few bad choices can make. I can't believe how close I came to actually NOT going to Bootcamp Monday night! But I did go, and I "upped" my weights again! :) I may have messed up my six week in a row weight loss. :(

I'm not sure where I'm at on points for the week, so I wont give my usual total at the end. I know I'm over, but not sure by how much? All I can do is make great food choices, and earn lots of activity points, and keep my positive attitude and charming personality! Ok, so maybe that last part is debatable.

Yesterday's eats.....

Kashi and skim milk....3 PPV




Lunch...the salad that got left behind.....6 PPV




Dinner....to tired to cook, so a breakfast scramble did the trick....13 PPV




Here's to keeping it real!


"love the life you live, live the life you love"

Good Morning Mrs. "Robin"son!

There is the cutest little mommy Robin in this tree sitting in her nest each morning. I am sure you can't see her in this picture, but she's our new morning friend.




It is literally five feet from the deck. So each morning the dogs and I come out for coffee and a treat (coffee for me, treat for the dogs), and we all say/bark....."Good Morning Mrs. "Robin"son! She gives us a little chirp and a tweet back (bird tweet, not Twitter tweet).

Yesterday morning at 8:00 am I had been to "Boot Camp", WalMart, put in a load of laundry, watered the flowers, then outside for some coffee on the deck. I had an hour to go before weigh in. I was really hoping for happy results. Hope this weight class didn't bulk me up! :) I had an awesome week. I always eat my EXTRA points, and this week I did NOT, and I had several activity points earned that I did not use. But I did a lot of activity and three days of a one hour weight class had to of added some muscle.

I get to WW feeling fairly confident I was going to get my next FIVE POUND AWARD! So, I go through all the steps......

1. Visit the potty. (drank lots of water after that kick ass workout)
2. Shed all the extra's I can.....shoes, watch, ring, etc. (silver is HEAVY!)
3. Exhale. (I feel certain air in your lungs adds weight, don't you?)

Step on the scale. I really worked my patuuuteee off this week and only needed a 0.6 lb loss to achieve this weeks goal. I lost 0.2 lb. Urg. I think the weight class really did bulk me up a bit! The really cool thing here is that I went from 168.0 to 167.8, which technically means, I don't weigh 168 anymore, I weigh 167! (I'm ALL about seeing the positive here, and the number did go down.) I also have been taking my measurements lately, and the mid section is certainly getting smaller. If my butt and thighs would reduce themselves a bit to catch up with the waist, pants buying would sure be easier!!

Small or large, I have had a loss for the last five weeks in a row for a total of 6 pounds. I know I will have good results on the scale next week as well with week 2 of boot camp. I did "up" my weights a bit on Friday and that felt awesome too!

Now for yesterday's eats. I was really craving pizza, beer and cheese! WHAT? I know. So yes, I dipped into those 49 points yesterday! I didn't get any food pictures in at all, but here's what I did eat.

Refresh...I can eat 26 points a day.
I can earn Activity Points by doing exercise.
I have an allowance of 49 points that I can dip into if I chose.
I should drink a minimum of 6 (8 oz) glasses of water each day.

The food I ate today and it's PPV.

Breakfast (banana) = 0
Snack (left over salmon, cottage cheese) = 3
Lunch (salmon salad) = 12
Snack (pretzels, carrots, hummus, cheese) = 8
Dinner (pizza) = 20
Drinks (beer, lunch, happy hour, dinner) = 20 (don't judge, I was thirsty!)

Total = 63

Activity Points Earned Today = 3
Remaining points from my 49 Points Allowance = 12
How many glasses of water I drank today = 12

I LOVE this!


"love the life you live, live the life you love"

It's All Greek To Me! (my daughter.......my salad)

Tess came home for a long weekend visit, and I was so happy to see her! She is in the picture above, in case you didn't know that. She will graduate from Pitt State this December, and this is her last "college summer". She found a paid internship in Joplin, Missouri, so isn't coming home to live for the summer. :( She has lots going on this weekend. She likes to keep busy, like her mother!

Friday a haircut, then shopping with me for a shower gift for her sister-in-law to be, and my daughter-in-law to be! Happy hour later. She also likes a Happy Hour like her mother. She makes me so proud!

Saturday to the pool in the late morning for some chill time together (lots of sunscreen for me and maybe even an umbrella! I had some skin cancer removed on Tuesday! Yikes!), then to the shower.

Sunday we have a date with each other for the Kenny Chesney-Tim McGraw concert at Arrowhead! Whoop! Whoop!

Tess is a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, and since I did not belong to a sorority (I think college is required for that), she will often discuss things that are sorority related, most of which goes right over my head! That's when I say things like....."It's All Greek To Me!" then I snort and giggle, and she gives me the eye roll. Never gets old. Mike and Tess and I had a great evening getting all caught up on her life and I'm super happy to have her home for a few days.

Today was a crazy one! This morning I took Tucker.....seen here......in his own chair.....




.....on a super long walk with my friend, Steph, and her lab, Josey. Tucker tried his best to keep up with Josey! Including jumping into every little weed and wild grass he could reach while still on the leash. An hour and a half later, we were home. We were BOTH "Tuckered" out! Get it? His name is T U C K E R! I'm killing myself here people! The walk was really a good workout in that the dogs kept us moving at an awesome pace, and with Tucker on his leash and a little all over the place, Steph and I were playing a lot of "jump leash", you know.....instead of "jump rope?". I saw you smile. I realized after we were home, Tucker had about 200 little balls all over in his fur! I am going to try conditioner tomorrow, but the poor little guy might need a shaving! They are TINY! I guess bichon fur is NOT made for the woods! :)

I have a favorite pair of readers I use more and more often. I was trying to leave the house in a hurry today and couldn't find them, so I went for my second favorite pair (not really the right strength). I took a potty break before leaving the house, yes it is relevant to the story, then washed my hands, and here is what I saw in the bathroom mirror. Happens WAY more often than I'd like to admit.




Ok...now to the food!

Breakfast? Overnight Oats? "What's that?" you say. Check out my morning blog from today.







Snack...I was trying to find my glasses, I was in a hurry, I was hungry! Check out how I had to tear into that friggin box! Don't mess with hungry Julie! I eventually made a peanut butter banana smoothie. It totally calmed me down.




Lunch....leftovers.....tilapia....


Green beans.......


Dinner? Marinated flank steak. Simple. Soy sauce, worcestershire, liquid smoke. Poke the living daylights out of the meat. Marinade over night. Grill 6 minutes each side. Cover with foil for 10 minutes. Slice across the grain. Boil leftover marinade, then pour over meat. This is so easy and so delicious every time! Promise. Tonight we ate it Greek style. I made a big salad with really leafy greens, made some Greek dressing, added feta, tomatoes, cucumbers, and tzatziki sauce on the side. We dipped the meat in it and I put a little in my salad. It was a hit!












A few roasted potatoes on the side. Also deeelicious dipped in the tzatziki, but what isn't?




Refresh...I can eat 26 points a day.
I can earn Activity Points by doing exercise.
I have an allowance of 49 points that I can dip into if I chose.
I should drink a minimum of 6 (8 oz) glasses of water each day.

The food I ate today and it's PPV.

Breakfast = 6
Snack = 3
Lunch = 3
Dinner = 14

Total = 26

Activity Points Earned Today = 6
Remaining points from my 49 Points Allowance = 17
How many glasses of water I drank today = 12

Super excited for weigh in tomorrow! I should get my next 5 lb award!

This was a doozie of a blog. Sorry.

"love the life you live, live the life you love"

Overnight Oats??

I have been blogging about attempting to eat less processed foods. I really like oatmeal and have been trying to eat it a few different ways, rather than just a bowl of oatmeal, and I would like to try to get away from the packets.

I have been following this blog called Peanut Butter Fingers. She's a cute little thing.....young, chipper, lives in Florida, and always has something interesting on her blog. Maybe a trip she took with her husband, or a hike she took with her husband and their dog (seriously, the dog is ADORABLE!), or a book she read (I think she has a book club?) or a simple meal she threw together. She likes to eat Overnight Oats. I always think the pictures of it look good, but you eat it cold, and I think it just sounds weird??

The recipe has 2 T. of Chia Seeds in it. Well, that just makes me giggle. Cha Cha Cha Chia! I can't get the little clay figures out of my head, green chia stuff growing all over??

But here are the chia seeds, fo real!!! Apparently rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. The GOOD fat.







Well, you know I had to try it......so I did. You make it the night before, hence the "Overnight Oats". I made it just like she said too, but only ate 1/2. I think she eats all of it! The entire recipe is 12 PPV, and I can NOT eat all of that for breakfast, so 1/2 was plenty. And I was full. Peanut Butter Fingers (her name is Julie, how cute!) works out like a crazy woman and always blogs her workout. Explains her killer bod!!! Maybe she eats a big breakfast to prepare for her workout later???

Go to her site for the recipe.


Overnight Oats from Peanut Butter Fingers


Mix all this together, cover and stick it in the fridge.


Take it out in the morning and it looks like this........kinda the same, but when you stick your spoon in it, the spoon stands up!!!


The recipe says add more milk now, so I did......Then gave it a stir.



She always tops it with strawberries and bananas, or peanut butter, so I tried the fruit.........it just wasn't sweet enough for me, so I added a packet of Truvia. Better.







It's one of those foods I keep taking bites of and trying to decide what I think? The texture is chewy, and it's cold? I mean.........I ate it all.



I really can't throw away food. Momma always said, "There's starving children in China!" I have half left, so I will try again tomorrow with different toppings, but you have to keep trying new things. You just might find a new favorite!


"love the life you live, live the life you love"

Accidentally Delicious!

I'll just start with the accident. I was craving salmon. Mike is golfing tonight, so dinner is on my own. Mike isn't really a salmon fan, so I knew the menu was easy. Grilled salmon, in a little olive oil, and fresh sautéed green beans.

I made the green beans, they turned out great! But my salmon wasn't cooking through at all. I love salmon, but only like a little or no pink, but not over cooked! That's not good either. Usually I get it just right. Well, each time I checked it, a piece would break off a bit! Then more broke off, then more. I ended up with a skillet full of pan fried salmon, and IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! I am going to give a good hearty guess on the points for the olive oil. I didn't measure it, and I know I had more than the 2 PPV I was going to count it as. Thank goodness I didn't get any lunch in today. I had lots of points left! :)

I started off the day rolling out of bed at 5:30 am to prepare for the 6:30 am weight class. Who IS this person invading my body? I had coffee on the deck, took the dogs on a short walk, and off I went. Class was awesome! I am so glad I had the opportunity to sign up for this. It's really gonna kick my ass, but I think I like it!

Then home for breakfast.......Greek yogurt with Kashi cereal. Lots of protein after all that weight lifting!




Then more coffee.......I stalked up yesterday! Today's choice? Donut House Cinnamon Roll......so good!




Then out and about for the day.....some work, some errands. I ate breakfast early, so before leaving the house, I had a little low fat cottage cheese. More protein! After I had been gone for a few hours, I stopped at a grocery store salad bar for a small bowl of fresh fruit. Lunch wasn't going to happen, and if it was, it was going to be really LATE. While at Hy-Vee, I discovered these.......




This is the same company that makes the Peanut Butter powder I like to add to my smoothies! You can buy the peanut butter powder in chocolate too!



The little bag of cookies were great with my fruit, and only 3 PPV.

When I got home, I had lots of kitchen prep to do! Eating healthy is SUPER time consuming! I wonder how many calories I burned off working in the kitchen today? I cleaned a ton of strawberries, snipped the end of the beans, washed the grapes, then cut off little groups of grapes to make it easier to grab and go. I ended up freezing half of the strawberries for smoothies. They were on sale, and I couldn't pass them up!





Grapes, clean and snipped for easy snacking.....




For my beans, I sautéed some fresh garlic and onions in some butter flavored olive oil, then added my beans that I boiled for about 4 minutes. Sauteed a little longer. Then I added last night leftover potatoes and onions. There were just a few left. I made Mike potatoes and onions to go with his tilapia last night (I ate an experimental sweet potato).

I'm giving these few bites of potatoes 1 PPV.





Here's my accidental salmon..........fine so far.




The flip went fine.......



Uh.....oops.




I did weight it out. 7 PPV. I'm calling the Olive oil 5 PPV.




It's an accident I'd totally repeat! Assuming I have that many points left. Next time, Olive oil cooking spray. I make it that way too, and it's equally tasty and crispy!




Refresh...I can eat 26 points a day.
I can earn Activity Points by doing exercise.
I have an allowance of 49 points that I can dip into if I chose.
I should drink a minimum of 6 (8 oz) glasses of water each day.

The food I ate today and it's PPV.

Breakfast = 6
Snack = 2
Lunch = 3 (fruit and cookies)
Dinner = 13

Total = 24

Activity Points Earned Today = 4
Remaining points from my 49 Points Allowance = 17
How many glasses of water I drank today = 11

The scale was very nice to me this morning! I hope we don't get into an argument before Fridays weigh in!


"love the life you live, live the life you love"

I feel yesterday's Boot Camp!

I felt great this morning, and most of this afternoon, but tonight the pain is coming on! I can totally feel yesterdays weights in my legs! My next class is at 6:00 am tomorrow! Egads! I did cardio tonight, with one of my team members, Ashli. We walked to the middle school down the street, did our cardio on the track, walked back home. Duh, how else are we going to get back home? (Mike is watching swamp people. I really wanted to say....."bro.....how else we gonna get back?" Sorry...got sidetracked. I am not a big fan of running, never have been. I have mastered getting my heart rate up on the treadmill using an incline, but it's hard on a level surface. I knew in order to achieve what I wanted out of this cardio tonight, I needed to run, well, jog. Running, I mean jogging, the straights and walking the curves seemed to work just right. I got the heart rate exactly where it needed to be, and walking the curves gave me just the break I needed without getting my heart rate down too low. So glad I have this handy heart rate monitor, or I really wouldn't be able to gauge where I'm at.




Here's today's eats!

Pumpkin Pancake

Pumpkin Pancake



Lunch.....Taco Soup, celery and Better N Peanut Butter, fresh peaches.




Snack......





How cute is this?? "That crunch is the sound of croutons getting jealous."

These little tomatoes really do crunch!




More snacking........I can't totally rid my pantry and fridge of the processed foods. I like my ranch dressing, but I hardly ever eat it anymore. It sure did make a great little before dinner snack!





Dinner....tilapia and sweet potatoes.....

I baked the sweet potatoes, then sliced them and cooked them in the skillet in Olive Oil cooking spray, just for something different. I was in the mood for crunch. A few gotta a little over done. Not bad, but my sweet potato fries are better.






Refresh...I can eat 26 points a day.
I can earn Activity Points by doing exercise.
I have an allowance of 49 points that I can dip into if I chose.
I should drink a minimum of 6 (8 oz) glasses of water each day.

The food I ate today and it's PPV.

Breakfast = 7
Lunch = 5
Snacks = 2
Dinner = 12

Total = 26

Activity Points Earned Today = 5
Remaining points from my 49 Points Allowance = 17
How many glasses of water I drank today = 8

Hope I can get outta bed in the morning!!

"love the life you live, live the life you love"

Aiming for less processed foods

No, I'm not going vegetarian or vegan or 100% organic, or even clean (I think that's what you call it), but I am trying to be more aware of what I am putting into my body and how it makes me feel. I am certainly reading more labels, and not just fat and calories. I'm actually reading ingredients. I hate it when I don't know what I've just read. Must be bad for you if you don't even know what it is??? I am going to eat less processed foods. I don't think I've ever really been "in tune" with my body before, and what I am eating and how it affects me. Mike can eat something, then later have a headache, or feel tired, and immediately blames it on what he ate a couple of hours earlier. I used to just roll my eyes. Well, now that I'm paying attention, I totally get it. Sorry, honey. My bad. I think I'm interested now, because I feel so much better, and If I can feel even better? Well then, why not?

Here are a couple of labels I looked at today. Then ate the packet of oatmeal anyway. I CAN NOT waste food! :) WelI, I lied. After looking at the ingredients on the syrup, as much as I like it? I am tossing it.

Good bye old friend.....



In comparing the oatmeals, most of the Nutritional Facts were very similar, except when it came to the Sodium. The Rolled Oats and the Steel Cut Oats had 0 mg, and the tasty delicious Maple & Brown Sugar High Fiber had a surprising 260 mg. I'm one of those people that really needs to watch my sodium. I look at a chip and swell instantly! I am going to play with some oatmeal recipes and try to eliminate the packets from my pantry.




Syrup? Alternative's.........

I also need to look at 100% maple syrup. I think I just was always staying away from the calories without thinking about the actual nutrition of the product.

Honey is honey. Nuff said. No extras. Same with the Blue Agave. It's growing on me. The Aunt Jemima? Eeekkkkkk!!! The first ingredient is High fructose corn syrup! I don't even really know exactly what that means, but I've just always heard it's BAD!! But because it was in my pantry, I guessed I was in denial and ignored the ingredient. I tossed it right after I took this picture.



So, just a little food for thought. No pun intended. Okay, fine. Totally, pun intended. How could I pass THAT one up?

Read labels, try alternatives if you don't like what you read. The key here is really to just make the healthiest choices for you and your families so everyone feels good, inside AND out!

Make great choices today!

"love the life you live, live the life you love"

Pumpkin Pancake

I keep playing with this recipe. I really want to perfect it without using my packets of instant oatmeal, but I just can't seem to get it sweet enough. So here's the way I made it this morning. I was very pleased.

1 packet Cinnamon Swirl Oatmeal (4 PPV)
2 egg whites (1 PPV)
1/4 C canned pumpkin (0 PPV)






Combine all. Pour onto a heated griddle coated with cooking spray. Best results come from cooking this on medium low heat.




Wait about three minutes and flip. I like to divide it into 4 parts for easier flipping. I have tried to just pour 4 cakes, but they don't seem to cook as evenly on this particular pan for me. Do what works for you. Cook about 2 more minutes.




I topped mine with 2 T Lite Syrup. (2 PPV) Drizzle, it goes further.




"love the life you live, live the life you love"