This group is for those dealing with the challenges of having a significant amount of weight to lose and being fit which becomes harder after age 40. If you're an old or new friend and not over 40 and feel this is the place to post, jump right in.
I'm being bad and called in sick today. I have a allergy headache and Monday morning depression. Tomorrow is the last day of my best friend at work. We've been buds for several years and he is a victim of the integration.
The weekend was okay. I should have been more productive but wasn't. It wasn't so much that it was hot out; it was the humidity and oppressiveness of it that was a bummer. I did get in the pool both days as both relief and exercise. Food was okay; however I was more relaxed with being OP.
DH have had such a bumper crop of cucumbers that we've learned how to make freezer bread and butter pickles. Love' em and DH thinks its so cool. I need to figure out what to do with all the roma tomatoes. He's been buying fresh corn and got a bunch in the freezer.
Too bad DH is trying to sleep. I'm sitting on the couch in the TV room. Daisy is barking at Duke and Duke is baying. It is so cute. Oops, DH is up now.
I've got to get caught up on my journal for the weekend. Today starts my new week and back to my focus. I've got a couple of new recipes to try this week that are healthy. One is scallops with cous cous and the other is whole wheat pasta with tomatoes and white beans.
Julie - The nacho and cheese sandwich sounds yummy. Sounds like you've been having fun this summer. That's good news about the lab results; not so good about the hair.
Charlotte - How are you doing with the leg? I forgot now what happened. That sure wears you down when you're dealing with a health problem that won't heal. Hang in there! How's the journalling?
Heather - I may have to try that protein shake. I need something new for a breakfast change.
Stacey - How close are you to a WW center? They have some shake packets (or used to anyway) that are pretty good. I've done a whey protein, peanut butter, strawberries, 1/2 banana and milk that is good. for being down 14 pounds. That is fabulous. I love the American Royal. I haven't been in a couple of years but told DH that I want to buy season tickets this year. I love it all - draft horses, bull riding, horse shows; jumpers etc. We live down southeast of Louisburg on the MO side so it will be a long drive for us but I want to see it this year.
Lilion - How was your weekend? Get any rain? Hope you have a better week at work and that the hateful director leaves you alone.
I better post this as I've almost lost it. to all. I'm sure I'll be back later in the day.
Terri -- Fresh produce can be a blessing and a curse, huh? I just discovered how to make pico de gallo... maybe you could make that or salsa.... do you can?? Or maybe I should ask CAN you CAN??
I should have been more productive this weekend too... oh well!
I had a good weekend ladies - well, about everything but food. Friday I took off work early and ran home and colored my hair. Then I ran to the salon and had the horrible haircolor corrected! I am completely gray at my temples and brown everywhere else mostly and I went dark auburn. When you put red over gray - you get no color known in nature. Big pale purpley-orange stripes on either side of my face! But now it's all fixed.
After that we ran to the in-laws, dropped off the boy and the dogs and visited a bit. Finally went to the casino at about 9 p.m. We played together for a bit, but DH and I are just bad luck for each other when it comes to gambling. We go anywhere near each other and we lose. So we ended up with him in the poker room and me at the $5 blackjack table and had a great time. DH was up $300 TWICE, but ended up losing $120. (He got greedy and didn't walk away!) I actually went in with about $120 and walked out with $180 - AFTER buying drinks - so I did pretty good.
The only bad thing was we literally played ALL NIGHT LONG! DH works graveyard and I guess he didn't get my subtle hint at 3 a.m. so we didn't leave the casino until 5 a.m. at which point we ate a HUGE FATTENING Waffle House breakfast and went to gather up our dogs and go home. Of course we had to visit a bit more so I actually got to bed at 11a.m. Saturday - 29 hours after I got up Friday morning! Slept the day away Sat. got up at 5 p.m. and was back in bed again by 11 p.m. Didn't accomplish a whole lot on Sat, needless to say!
Sunday I did some shopping. Not much to speak of, although I found a top I may have to go back and see if it's still there. It was 100% silk, dry-clean only, so I didn't buy it, but I LOVED it. I picked some more veggies, gave green beans to the neighbor lady. And basically lazed about.
So that was my exciting weekend! Hope you all had a good one!
Terri Roma's freeze beautifully. That's my plan for mine. Then I'll have them for cooking with all winter. My cucumbers are just now coming in. I picked my first 4 this weekend. YUM! I'm trying to figure out what to do with my zucchini. I may be making zucchini bread and freezing that. It's time to plant my fall garden with turnips and carrots and spinach and such, and my garden is still so full of tomatoes and zucchini plants that I have no space! Not sure what to do about that. So sorry you are losing your work friend. That downsizing thing has sure been rough on you.
Well, I must say that since I've been on Zoloft (two weeks) I seem to finally, after a lifelong problem, have mostly kicked the nighttime eating habit. I did some research before I asked my doctor for it and saw that it was supposed to help with nighttime eating addiction, and it did. Now, whether I convinced myself that it would work, or whether it really does work, is debatable, but that doesn't matter. What a relief! When I wake up, I am starving! I've gotten up at 5 once to eat my oatmeal, I was so hungry. This morning the scale said I've lost three pounds, but I noted only two on my tracker...I need a couple more days before I confirm that. I can't wait til I can exercise regularly--I think that may be the missing link. Anyway, it's thrilling not to wake up four times a night to eat!!
Terri~~So sorry about losing your best friend at work. That's so hard. Hopefully with your day off your allergies will improve. Does it seem to help to stay inside in the air conditioning? Can you share (or pm me) your recipe for the bread and butter pickles? I do love them. We usually have an old fellow here in my little burg sell tomatoes and homemade bread and butter pickles in August. I'm hoping he'll be here this year. His pickles are delicious!! This leg is so painful it's nearly unbearable. I should go in today to have this wrap changed, but the only nurse that seems to know how to wrap it is, of course, off today, so I may as well forget it. I have venous insufficiency disease--basically, unless I exercise regularly, my leg will swell up and get hard and eventually the skin will break and it will start festering. I let it go for waaaaaaay to long which is why I'm suffering so much right now. My own dumb fault. It is just frustrating beyond belief. I'm not doing well on my journal, of course. I guess when I go home from work I'll catch up in it. Are you still faithfully writing in yours every day?
Heather~~What a lovely evening it sounds like you had with dh!! Much better spent that way once in a while to keep connected, you know?
Lilion~~What a funny story about your hair! Thank goodness a salon was open to get you out of trouble! I can't imagine how you stayed up for so many hours without sleeping. After about sixteen hours I just about drop! How do you freeze your Roma tomatoes?
Julie~~Congrats on the good checkup at the doctor's. What a relief, eh? My ddil has been wanting us to go to Mackinac Island with her. Her dad's family lives up around there, and she just loves it there. I'm afraid I'd have trouble on that big bridge, though. I don't do bridges very well at all. There's no other way on the island, is there?
I've been told you can just literally pop tomatoes into freezer bags and toss them in the freezer, but I've always taken the skins off mine.
Blanch them in boiling water for 30 seconds or so.
Pop them directly from the boiling water into ice water.
The skins should be loose and slip right off after that.
You can leave the seeds in, squeeze them out, chop or freeze whole. Just stick them in a freezer bag, remove all the air you can, and freeze. Then you can use them all winter for cooking. They won't be good just raw though, the texture changes.
Thanks Lilion for the info on the tomatoes. Didn't know you could do that with the tomatoes. I found a couple of freezer salsa recipes and DH wants to try that as he loves salsa. He's off to the store now to get serrano peppers.
I have been cleaning carpets. DH's oldest son stopped by and we had a good visit. He's a good son; i.e. he's not high maintenance; requires no money and and he's been our Ford connection for several years (A plan prices). He is going to come out and take out a tree in the back yard for us. I don't want to cut it down but its a bradford pear and it will take out the pool if, and when, the wind or ice take it down.
Not much else going on. Still have a headache. Hmmm, maybe I should go find more allergy meds.
I guess I'm more depressed by all the goings-on lately than I thought. My DPEH told me I was talking in my sleep the other day, and he says I said, "I'm already dead." Yeesh. And I keep dreaming about my other core family members who have died recently--my dad and grandmother whose house I grew up in. During the day I don't think I'm depressed or overly upset, but as I said, I just keep dreaming about the family who are gone, and in the dream, sometimes I remember they're dead, and then I think I must be, too. We're always in my gram's house, where I grew up, and which was the family home until three years ago.
Anyway, that's awfully blue sounding. I really don't feel that bad most of the time, but I'm very busy, too.
The rehab needs to either send my mom home Friday or ask for an extension, but they could only get 5 more days if they asked for the extension. But she needs 24-hour supervision, and there's no one who can really provide that. Of course, she shouldn't need 24-hr supervision permanently--they still expect she'll continue to regain strength--but there's no way to tell how long she WILL need it. Even if I moved her here--which I hate to do for all kinds of reasons--I can't be with her 24/7. Sigh. Tomorrow I have to call and talk with the "case manager." What ever happened to doctors talking to patients?
August is going to be a challenge for me. I really want to step things up. I've been going gradually, trying to increase exercise and develop some healthier eating habits, and I think I've done that pretty well. I'd really like to try to be more consistent and see if I can't lose 10 pounds in August... which would, of course, still leave me above 300. I get so depressed when I consider that I was down in the 260s when I moved to Illinois 7 years ago, and now I'm higher than I was when I started losing that time around. Yeesh.
Anyway, I was trying to say that August will be challenging. I'm leaving this Friday to go to Ohio and spend time with my mom. I'll be gone a full 2 weeks. I find it hard to exercise there--if mom's at her house, I'll feel incredibly awkward leaving her in order to take a walk. Also eating is always hard in that setting, since my aunt (who THINKS she's all about healthy eating) always has to make meat and taters kind of meals, and would think me very rude if I ate something else. But I'll do the best I can to plan for all this and see how it goes.
I'll post some more this week, I'm sure, but then I'll be gone while I'm in Ohio.... no internet connection.
Terri--You can make plain sauce, too, and season it up anyway you like when you're ready to use it. Use Lilion's technique to peel, rough chop and seed, cook it down to about half volume, and freeze. When you thaw it out you can season however. Hope you kick that headache!
Lilion--Glad you got the hair color corrected... once I found a colorist I really liked I swore I'd never do it myself again.
MTM--That's great news, as long as you're comfortable with the zoloft otherwise.
I'm up and off to work this morning. I've spent some time working on bills and writing a blog so this will be short. We did make salsa last night and DH was thrilled with it. No more giving away tomatoes! Although he got a little carried away with the hot peppers and its more his level than mine. Which is okay, this was for him anyway more than me.
I did get up and exercise this morning. I didn't do much yesterday. I rambled on about depression in my blog this morning. Inactivity contributes to depression. Depression contributes to inactivity. At least for me. So I'm trying to recognize that and getting focused on being productive again. In addition to too little activity over the past three days, I also sabotaged myself by not drinking water. So the scale is up this morning and I can see the water retention in my hands and feel it too.
Angela - for you. Sorry that you're going through some down times too and face a challenging couple of weeks. I hope that everything gets worked out for your mom's care. Always hard to deal with and even harder when you can't be there to help more. Take care of you!!
I guess we've all been busy--the thread is going so slowly.
Angela~~So sorry about the troubles with your mom. Ohio is very warm and muggy right now, so beware! Good luck on your trip, and I hope things go well.
Terri~~Allergies better today? What all do you put your salsa on? I really only have ever eaten it on tortilla chips, so I don't want to go there!
Everyone else~~
Had a good day yesterday, aside from this blasted leg. Will see the doctor Thursday morning and intend to tell him I can't go through another week like this week was. I've just been miserable and nasty to most everyone, and I hate being this way.
Hey all! Been really busy today and no time to chit-chat. But wanted to post this for everyone since the salsa sounded SO good!
Spicy Tilapia and Veggies
From the kitchen of LADYLILION
Servings | 2
Estimated POINTSŪ value per serving | 5
Course | Main Meals
Ingredients
2 tsp canola oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 med red bell pepper cut in thin strips
1 medium zucchini thinly sliced
2 large fresh mushrooms thinly sliced
2, six oz tilapia fillets
1-2 T fajita seasoning
1/2 cup chunky salsa
1 T lime juice
Instructions
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Stir-fry onion and pepper until crisp-tender, then add zucchini and continue to cook for a short time. Finally add mushrooms. Push veggies off to the side. Sprinkle Tilapia with fajita seasoning on both sides. Add to skillet. Cook about three minutes and turn. Stir lime juice and salsa into the veggies. Then cover and continue to cook until fish is done, about another three minutes. Serve.
Special Notes
This was a variation on a recipe I had that called for chicken breasts. It would be wonderful with either. You could use any veggies you like and make it as spicy or mild as you wish!
Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone. Things will get better, I'm sure.
The scale was down a pound this morning. I'm sure it will go back up tomorrow--that seems to be the pattern, up and down a few times with each pound I lose. But I moved my slider anyway. I want to use 320 as my starting point for August, with a mission to LOSE 10 POUNDS. I don't usually set specific goals like this, but I've lost 10 pounds over two months, barely trying. So I'm going to really try this week and see what happens. If I do anything better than 5, I'll be happy. But I'm shooting for 10.
Terri--I know exactly what you mean. I get blue and I don't want to do anything, then I get disgusted with myself for not doing anything. If I come up with anything beside awareness that helps me with this, I'll pass it along
Charlotte--Hope the doc has something good to say! Nothing worse than being miserable and sick at the same time.
Lilion--Recipe looks very yummy. I won't be cooking for a while, I don't think, but if I do, I'll try it out.
Wow, can you believe its August 1st already? The summer is flying by.
Duke and I had our second obedience class last night. He did really great considering he's the youngest in class. I can tell that he's listening and processing and then I can also tell when he's reached his boredom threshold too.
I did my weekly WI. I'm down to 259.4. Its been a while since I've had the scale dipping below 260. A long while.
I did pretty good yesterday on food. Up until the point where it was 8:00 and I was starved on the way home from class. Sonic called my name. I meant to take peanuts to eat on the way to class and in my rush to get everything together and out the door, forgot them. Actually, its DH's fault. He said he had a cold diet coke for me and I said I wanted to take nuts too and figured he would get them for me. Stupid me, he never does anything to gather stuff to go anywhere.
Angela - Congrats on being down to 320. You've got a great goal and its doable. I'm figuring out that the way to help with the blues is to force myself into activity. Which is hard because the blues cause inactivity. One foot in front of the other.
Lilion - Thanks for the recipe. I have tilapia in the freezer. I'll get DH to try that for me. He won't eat it but he'll fix it for me.
Charlotte - Good deal with the zoloft. I'm learning that a little help taking the edge off life is not such a bad deal. for all that you're having to go through with your leg.
Goodness-- I forgot to mention the exercise thread!!!
This is for everyone! We are trying to make exercise a regular part of our lives. What we are doing is coming here and reporting how much exercise we do (in minutes) and tracking that as a group. The exercise can be any kind you like!
Our goal? To exercise 200,000 minutes this year!! That's pretty amazing if you ask me. And, while we ARE on track to meet that goal, we need everyone who is interested to participate! (We tend to lose steam the last 2 months of the year, what with the weather and holidays...)
Many of us set goals for the month (I personally don't do well unless I have one), but others just report. So, it's really really easy!! And I officially invite each and every one of you to find the thread stickied at the top of the page and report your exercise minutes!!! You'll help yourself AND us!
Well the scale was actually down even more today, but I'm not moving the slider yet. Too good to be true. I'll wait and post whatever the scale says on Friday, then I won't be able to weigh for 2 weeks, so we'll see how that goes.
300+ and Gettin' Fit after 40 #120 (Was Old Hens)
for being down 14 pounds. That is fabulous. I love the American Royal. I haven't been in a couple of years but told DH that I want to buy season tickets this year. I love it all - draft horses, bull riding, horse shows; jumpers etc. We live down southeast of Louisburg on the MO side so it will be a long drive for us but I want to see it this year.
to all. I'm sure I'll be back later in the day.
Friday I took off work early and ran home and colored my hair. Then I ran to the salon and had the horrible haircolor corrected! 
But now it's all fixed. 
for you. Sorry that you're going through some down times too and face a challenging couple of weeks. I hope that everything gets worked out for your mom's care. Always hard to deal with and even harder when you can't be there to help more. Take care of you!!
