Eating Good for Us Food!

Many of you know that I have been a diabetic for almost 20 years and for the past few years have dinked around with trying to lose weight.  I say "dinked" because I would start a diet, start to exercise, start to drink more water, lose a few pounds, was at my highest weight in Summer of 2011 and so started to take things a little more serious.

Yes, I know I am a slower learner :)

I lost 26 lbs :) but slowly began gaining the weight back, gained 10 of those pounds back.

Earlier this year as I started having problems with my blood sugars, stressing over how I am going to get my medications.  Two of my medications costs over $1200 every three months and the rest of them are about $75 a month.

If I can get my eating under control, exercise every day like I know I should I know I can cut down if not eliminate some of the diabetes medications I take thus saving us money.

So once again I decided to get back on the bandwagon of getting healthy.

First I got myself an accountability friend.  Many of you know her as my bestie.  I started out writing down everything I eat.  I use My Fitness Pal to record everything I eat.  I mean everything, even all the candy I ate last week when I was having a very hard day.  By putting in my height, current weight and my goal the program helps me figure out how many calories a day I can have each day.  I log all the food I eat, the water I drink and any exercise I do.  I have a little ticker that lets me know how much weight I have lost and my overall goal.

And another great friend got me this great workbook:

I am now on Day 15...because of the rough couple of days I had last week I repeated a couple of days.

It is not a magic book but a tool, one of many that I am using.

Another tool I am using is a Facebook group I started called "Getting Healthy One Day at a Time."  And believe me, it is one day at a time, some days it's half a day at a time and sometimes for me it is get through this hour at a time.  We are a group of ladies who are trying to get healthy, being accountable to each other, encouraging each other when we slip that we can do this and cheering each other when we reach a new goal!!  We are a closed group and after a couple of glitches we are going strong.

Another tool that a friend is helping me with is using protein shakes as a meal replacement.  It is full of nutrients and tastes yummy.  Actually I have used Beachbody Shakeology and Body By Vi protein shakes before and if you are interested in either of them I would be happy to connect you to two great health coaches.  Or you can buy this

or something similar.  Use it as a meal replacement for one or two meals a day.  I am doing one shake a day.  I do it for my breakfast and it keeps me full for a good three to four hours.  I have been encouraged to eat three to six small meals a day and so far it is working for me.

And I have set small goals for myself.

Yesterday my goal was to walk for 5 minutes around the park.  Ron and I measured the distance of the roads inside the park and the perimeter distance.  One lane is 1/4 a mile so the shortest distance I would walk is half a mile because if I go down one lane I have to come back to the rig up the other lane :)  Yesterday I felt so good I decided to do the perimeter and walked a mile in 13 minutes ~ yeah me :)  Got back to the rig and realized I had forgotten to take a letter to the mail box, umm Ron had the Jeep at work, guess what I walked another mile.  Our rig is parked as far from the mailbox as possible here in our campground.  So back out I went and did a second mile.  I felt good.  I slept well last night.

One thing about my walking...I would say I was going to walk but then would get busy doing other stuff and never get out for my walk, well night before last as I had trouble going to sleep I was talking to God about my NOT walking.  He said, umm, do it as soon as you get up...don't get "BUSY" doing other stuff, just do it!!! Right away in the morning and that is how I did my first walk yesterday.  

This morning I had Malachi come over for about 6 hours and so I told him after breakfast and the sun came out we were going for a walk.  He asked me where?  I said, you will see.  So about 10 a.m. we got our shoes and socks on and went for our walk.  He would run ahead of me, walk with me, lag behind me but he talked to me the whole time and we had a great walk.  Came back and sprayed the weeds around the patio area of our campsite...yes, I even did a little yard work.....what is getting into me?

Another thing I am doing is cooking at home.  In fact, we have not gone out to eat except twice since we have been here in Liberty/Coffeyville, KS - once when we were on a six hour drive that we took to Oklahoma to see some sights and one day when we had gone into town and it took longer than expected and my blood sugar started dropping so we pulled into Sonics.  Even that day I made a pretty good choice compared to what I used to eat: a grilled chicken wrap, half an order of tots and NO soda pop.  And if you have known me for any length of time you know how I love my soda pop.  I could check my food journal but I think I have had 5 soda's in the last 20 days ~ yeah for me :)

For dinner last night I made mini pizzas w/pepper jack cheese for Ron and mozzarella cheese for me, pepperoni, red/white onions, red, green, yellow & orange peppers, mushrooms and FAKE shredded cheese for the topping - not because I intended to use FAKE cheese but because I saw it was $4.99 for 2 lbs and I thought what a great deal :) :) :) next time I will read the label that is for sure.  You know that stuff does not melt.  Ron and I usually split a medium pizza - last night I ate one mini pizza!!  yeah me :)

And a fresh fruit salad with apples, bananas, peaches, strawberries and oranges and I did not put any Cool Whip on it!!!

And I added a green salad with mushrooms, onions, carrots, peppers and lite Italian dressing.  Yeah for me :) I did not eat the fattening blue cheese dressing that is my Favorite!!!

Here is a peak at our dinner last night.  Hope you enjoy looking at it as much as we enjoyed eating it.

Ingredients for the pizza.

All put together  except for the shredded cheese.

And before it went into the oven.

Looking good in there baking.  This is when I noticed the cheese wasn't melting so pulled it back out of the fridge to see what it was ~ it was FAKE!!!!

The fruit salad!

And Ron patiently waiting for me to present him with his dinner.

And voila ~ dinner: healthy, colorful and tasty.

I forgot to get a picture of my green salad.  Ron had two mini pizza's and fruit salad.  I had one mini pizza, fruit salad and a green salad.    And it was ALL good.

So be prepared to see what's cooking in the Wander Lodge in the days to come!!!

Oh and I am down 4 lbs in 20 days!!!