Buddy has Surgery

Although I've never been a mother, I have to say that today when I left Buddy at Pendleton Vet Clinic so he could have surgery, I was as nervous and anxious as any mother would be with their child. I hate taking him to have surgery. I was glad to get the phone call at noon today telling me that everything went routine. Routine - now there's a word I don't usually look forward to hearing, but today it was music to my ears.

Just before noon these flowers were delivered to Buddy, wishing him a speedy recovery. I'm pretty sure he's going to share with me, since his take on the world is sniff it, chew it up and spit it out, unless of course it's food!

Thanks to my office crew for thinking of me and my Buddy dog.

26 Consecutive Weigh-Ins

Septebmer 25, 2007 - my cell phone rings. Caller I.D. shows Queenie (aka Renee). The conversation went somthing like this......

MJ - hellooooooooo

Q - ARE YOU WEIGHING IN TODAY?

MJ - NO!!!!

Q- Well that was a quick answer

MJ- Yep!

Q - Why not?

MJ - I cancelled my weight watchers membership, I haven't been going so why pay?

Q - So, rejoin

MJ - I don't think so

Q - Come on, you can do this

MJ - I'll think about it

Q - OK, weigh-in starts at 5:00 pm

MJ- I'll see what I can do

Q - OK, I'll see you there, gotta go.

MJ - OK, bye

So that call was 26 weeks ago. Today I weighed in for the 26th consecutive time. I lost 3.6 pounds this week. That's 43.6 pounds since I rejoined and 83.6 pounds since May 1, 2007.

Thanks Renee for making that phone call.

Thanks for ignoring me when I told you, NO!

Thanks for encouraging me.

More Pictures from the 40th Birthday Party

So the party was great. Both Rachelle and I had a great time visiting her family and our friends from Montana. The ice sculpture was just too fun, had to post another picture of it.

The food was good, the music was awesome and a good time was had by all.

Another Milestone

I did it! I finally got to 80 pounds lost! I lost 4.2 pounds this week. After last week, I would have been happy with a 2 pound loss. I'm keeping this short, will post later this week. Just wanted to share the good news.

Well the ol' weigh-in didn't go so well this week. I'm up 1.8 pounds! I guess my walk in the park yesterday wasn't long enough. Smile.

Weight Watchers offers two kinds of plans, a the flex plan and the core plan. I've never tried the core plan for any length of time, mainly because my lifestyle doesn't easily allow for such restriction or should I say discipline. For example, I have two lunch meetings this week and while I'm getting pretty good about making good choices off of the menu - I don't really think it's feasible to think that I could stick to the core plan diet for an entire week.

However, that being said I think that's what I need to do. I think it might be the jump start I need to get back on track. I feel myself slowly slipping back to old habits. It is so easy to fall back into old patterns. A little margarine on the muffin when before I've been completely satisfied without the margarine or drinking a diet coke before you have your water in for the day or my all time favorite - 1 bad day, 1 good day - it will all even out; even though I know that is not logical, I find myself thinking that way.

This blog is good for one thing if nothing else - true confessions. My weight gain is self-inflicted, I know that and having to put it on this blog is painful, but I'm guessing that next week I'll have a whole different post because I'm truly not having any fun posting my results this week.

Moving on, forgiving the bad choices from last week and making today the start of a new week! If anyone out there has been struggling with their goals this past week, don't fear, you are not alone.

A 1000 Whales

Do you ever feel like you just can't get full or the food you're eating just isn't satisfying? Well, today I woke up wanting everything bad for me and mostly in quantities that one should not have if they are trying to lose weight.

Does the blowing wind make you hungry? I can't say for sure but since it's blowing so hard today I'm going to blame the wind. It's the wind's fault that I want to eat everything in site today. It's that rushing sound when gusts of wind hit the windows. It makes me anxious and when I'm anxious I want to eat!!!! However, I've managed to get through most of the morning without eating everything in site. Maybe because I was in a 2-hour meeting or maybe because I immediately had computer problems throughout the entire office first thing this morning. Who knows - now I just need to keep up the good fight and make good choices for the rest of my day.

So, to all of you reading this and fighting to keep yourself satisfied with good choices, may you avoid the temptation of eating food in the quantity of a 1000 whales!

Happy Healthy Living to You All!

Healthy Heart Lasagna

So a very, very long time ago I promised a friend that I would share my recipe for Healthy Heart Lasagna. I got this recipe when I was going to a nutritionist for weight loss. Since that time I have calculated the points for this recipe. There are 6 points/serving. The recipe makes 10 servings. These are healthy portion sizes and so it makes you think you are getting away with something. Enjoy!

Healthy Heart Lasagna

6 oz ground beef, very lean
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic - minced

Brown the above ingredients and drain off all fat.
Stir in:
1-16 oz tomato sauce
2- 8 oz mushrooms (fresh can be used)
2 tsp. basil

Cook according to directions 8 oz lasagna noodles

Mix together the following and set aside:
2 eggs, beaten
2 c. cottage cheese
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese
2 T parsley

Thaw 10 oz of frozen chopped spinach. Squeeze out excess liquid and moisture using paper towels. You want to make sure you have this well drained.

Shred 12 oz mozzarella cheese.

Layer ingredients in this order.

1/2 noodles
1/2 cottage cheese mixture
1/2 spinach
1/2 cheese
1/2 meat mixture

Repeat. Top with 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes.
Let stand 10 minutes.

Another friend joins the ranks of 40

Rachelle's surprise 40th birthday party was first a very big surprise and secondly a BLAST! We had so much fun celebrating 40 together and giving all our soon to be 40 friends a bad time. The food was great, the dancing was fun and I enjoyed visiting with Rachelle's family, some I haven't seen for over 10 years.

I caught Rachelle long enough for her to pose (just call her Vanna) in front of the ice sculpture. How fun!!!!!