Meal Plan - Week of 2/2/2014

Hi Everyone!

I'm on the meal plan a little early for next week because I've got so much planned for the next couple days. As always, let me know if you want any of the recipes or anything.

Remember--a little planning goes a LONG WAY towards helping you accomplish those goals!

Sunday: Backstreets--Yay! It's my birthday dinner with my family!

Monday: Glazed Chicken w/ Creamy Mustard Sauce/Brussels Sprouts/Green Beans

Tuesday: Turkey Piccata/Sweet Potatoes/ Green Beans

Wednesday: Veggie Lasagna Roulades/Salads/Snow Peas

Thursday: Sloppy Joes/Cole Slaw/Sweet Potato Fries

Friday: Out to Dinner

Saturday: Will either do leftovers, chili, or something easy.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Remember...take a moment to refocusonlife!

a moment to refocusonlife ~ FRAb's

Happy Snowmp Day! (That's Snowy/Hump for those that don't speak doofus.)

Anyway, here's another one for you: FRAbs
Could you guess what that means? Probably not. But, I'm about to tell you.

Selfie! <yes, Mark could have taken this
picture for me, but then would it have been
a selfie????>
Don't laugh! I'm putting it all on the line! 

One night this past weekend, I was in the bathroom getting ready to go to dinner. I had just taken my shower and was blow drying what little bit of hair I have left when Mark walked in. He said, "dang, look at those ab's!"

Huh? Excuse me? Did you say "Ab's"? Like, as in abdominal muscles? Really? Son, do you need your glasses checked? I said, "honey, those aren't ab's, those be FRAbs!"

What's a FRAb you say? Well, easy, it's Fat Roll Ab!

I truly do not know what Mark thought he saw, but even after losing a significant amount of weight, my ab's are still firmly (or squishily) planted below a layer of other "stuff". You know the saying, "I have washboard abs, they are just busy doing a load of towels right now", right? You've heard that one, right? No, don't worry, I'm not going to give up my day job to become a comedian...yet...

FRozen---brr...is it Spring yet? 1/29/2014

Anyway, thought I'd put this out there. Yes, I've made huge, sweeping changes in my dietary life, but I'm still NOT a fan of exercise. I'm not sure I'll ever have visible abs, but I sure would like to consider it a goal. So, I'll add that to my list of goals. Remember, goals have to be SMART. So, is that a SMART goal? Nope. But it is a dream...and without dreams, what good are our goals?

I'm looking forward to a wonderful 2014 filled with many surprises. Maybe one of those surprises will be the emergence of my abs as I rescue them from the FR's. Speaking of...I'm ready for spring because I'm certainly FRRRRRozennnn right about now.

Later peeps.

Meal Plan - Week of 1/26/2014

Meal Plan - Week of 1/26/2014

Here's this week's plan, let me know if you have any questions:

Sunday: I have to go to Wilson this evening for work. Mark and I are skipping lunch and grabbing an early dinner. Not sure where, but I'm hankering for some grilled seafood, so most likely Red Lobster (we have gift cards).

Monday: Spinach Lasagna. We all love this. This week, I'm going to use a mixture of veal, beef, and pork as the meat. I do have half with Ricotta and Mozzarella and then I do half with no ricotta because Mark hates it. We always throw in a few layers of spinach. Yum! We'll have salads and a  vegtable as sides.

Tuesday: I have evening meetings and will not be home. Mark is going to make the dinner of Kielbasa's and Macaroni and Cheese. I let them slide a bit when I'm not here because they all miss the things like "real" macaroni and cheese. I don't understand why they don't just use the whole wheat pasta, but I give them an inch every now and then.

Wednesday: Fajitas. Yum. Christian actually requested this. We'll use boneless, skinless chicken and marinate it overnight. It's always VERY good. I'll add lettuce, salsa, tomatoes to round out the meal.

Thursday: Cubed Steak/Deviled Eggs/Brussel Sprouts. I hate cubed steak, but I'm hoping for a renewal of flavor. I hated pork chops too, but recently started eating them when I found a delicious new recipe. We have to be willing to try new things, right? I'm still searching for just the right recipe.

Friday: Ski weekend, so who knows?

a moment to refocusonlife ~ oh food, where art thou?

Happy HUMP day everyone! I hope this week is treating each one of you the best it possibly can! I'm having a great week...but I'm hungry. Ever feel like you just cannot get enough to eat? Well, that's me this week. For a foodie to be hungry is a problem!

But, I keep thinking about things I've heard and things I've read. The more I read about other people's journeys and the more healthy living information I read, the more I know I'm on the right path.

Little more smiling, little less eating! 

I recall hearing a podcast by Jillian Michaels a few months ago where she had a conversation with a lady that had lost some weight. This lady was frustrated because she had gained back a significant amount of the weight she had lost. Jillian started questioning and found out that the lady had been on a "low carb diet". After she reached her goal, she began eating food as she had before. She was done. She reached her goal and expected to stay at goal even though she was no longer eating low-carb.

I remember specifically, this lady told Jillian it wasn't fair that people all around her could "eat bacon cheeseburgers and french fries and not gain weight". Jillian asked her how she knew that people were eating bacon cheeseburgers and not gaining weight. The response was that she saw people eating in restaurants, at events, and all around her. Jillian told her that was not a good comparison. How did this lady know that the person eating the bacon cheeseburger hadn't just finished a 6 hour workout at the gym? How did she know that this person wasn't eating their one cheat meal of the week or month? How could she possibly know what was happening in that person's life?

Quinn Hatfield, Men's Health
Look at those Pizza eating legs! 

Last night, I was reading Men's Health Magazine (an EXCELLENT resource), and saw an article about Quinn Hatfield. He explained that he had a "cheat window" where, "I don't hold back. Pizza, cookies, ice cream--and lots and lots of it. It's important to remember how good it feels to just eat." If I saw Quinn eating this one cheat meal, which is possible because he is a North Carolina native, would I know that he is a Michelin-starred Chef from Los Angeles? More importantly, would I know that he is a member of the USA Cycling Team and trains his ass off most days of the week? Probably not. I would just be jealous that he is eating his weight in greasy food and delicious desserts and he has a ROCKIN' body. Yep, I would be jealous.

At that point, I try to remember, I did this to myself. My habits for the first 35 years of my life pushed me into early diabetes. My lifestyle is a work in progress. Lately, I've been eating a bowl of Edy's No Sugar Added Fudge Tracks ice cream nightly. It kind of grew over the weeks. It went from a half of a cup a night to a full cup a night with sugar free caramel sauce and sugar free cool whip. Fun times, right? Then I noticed a sneaky trend...every morning, my blood sugar levels were between 120 and 130. An alarming trend when my blood sugar had been running less than 100. So, even though I crave the ice cream (that's what sweets do to a diabetic), I have been actively avoiding the nightly treat this week. Guess what? My blood sugars have corrected themselves. With that in mind, I know what I have to do, but dang it, I'm hungry and I want my ice cream like Quinn Hatfield!

It's too cold for that! Where oh where is Spring?
NYC 1/3/2014 Central Park

For today, though, I am one hour at a time. For a foodie (read food addict) like me, that's what I have to do. Moment by every refocused moment.

Enjoy the cold weather and let's hope for a bit of snow so that we can welcome Spring and outdoor activities with a passion!

Peace y'all!

Meal Plan - Week of 1/19/2014

Here's this week's plan! Let me know if you want any recipes or anything!

Sunday: Cabbage Casserole: This one was left over from last week--I didn't make it. This turned out to be like a low-carb lasagne using cabbage instead of pasta. It was very tasty. Next time I will leave out the brown rice from the receipe.

Monday: Low Carb Beefed-Up Meatloaf: Probably my #1 favorite recipe ever. Delicious! We'll add some browned butter brussels sprouts and a salad.

Tuesday: Chicken Marsala: This is a new one for me. I found a good recipe in Cooking Light Magazine. We'll skip any pasta and have a salad and probably some stir-fried Sugar Snap Peas.

Wednesday: Leftovers: Almost nightly I have too much food. So, on Wednesday, we'll take some of things I've frozen and it'll be diner's choice from the items we have. We'll add some roasted asparagus.

Thursday: Chicken Enchilada's: This is a new one as well. I have some low-carb tortilla's I want to use. So, we are going to use chicken that we have cooked and frozen to shredded and make some delicious Enchilada's. I found a recipe for homemade sauce. I'm pretty excited about this one! We'll top it off with a Mexican Salad of sorts.

Friday: Lauren's Choice: She's been telling me to take her somewhere nice for dinner. This is her night! Choose wisely my child.

Saturday: Leftover Ham: Again, the freezer is overstocked. We're cleaning house! We'll top it with whatever veggies we have left from the week. Lunch will probably be egg salad or just salads.

Enjoy!

a moment to refocusonlife ~ negative nancy

First off, have you ever looked at Urban Dictionary? If not, I highly recommend you take a minute just to look at the definition of "Negative Nancy" on Urban Dictionary. The example listed in definition #1 is a MUST READ, but only if you do not get offended easily.

Well, we've made it to Thursday. That's something, right? It's been a tough day for me. I'm feeling very negative right now. Let me explain. You all know that I HAVE Type II Diabetes, right? No matter if I am completely cured, devoid of medications to treat, and am wholly maintaining my chronic disease thru diet and exercise, or what, I am still officially diagnosed with having diabetes. I always will be.

I feel like I'm trotting down a trail trying to make sense of this all, but stay with me for a minute...
As a responsible adult, I feel that it's important for me to have life insurance for my kid's sake. Truly, if something were to happen to me, I would just want them to have some protection. So, approximately, 10 years ago, I decided to take out a 10 Year Term Life Policy.

Jesus Saves you a parking spot!
(as long as he's a 5'10 Hispanic Man)

If any of you are aware of how term life insurance policies work, at the end of the term, your options are somewhat limited. You can convert that policy to a whole life policy, but you have to go thru the underwriting policy again and the rate is adjusted in a VERY steep incline. You can also renew the term life insurance policy, again adjusting the rate upward for the new term, whatever that may be. And, lastly, you can let the insurance policy just go away no harm/no foul.

Why did I choose 10 years? I was young and dumb, I guess. I should have covered my children until a minimum of 25 or so. I should have chosen 20 years instead of 10. Hindsight is 20/20. I didn't want my rates to be adjusted to far upward, so I started looking at alternatives and found that State Employees' Credit Union offered term life policies at very reasonable rates. Basically, I'm being a Negative Nancy today because recently, I went to SECU to apply for their policy. I was immediately denied because I was truthful about my Diabetes diagnosis. Basically, the underwriters do not care if I have "cured" myself or not. They look at facts. Fact is, I have the diagnoses. Fact is, I took insulin  and oral medications in my past. They don't care that I no longer take those medications.

Better days are only a blink away.

I call party foul, but probably as a general rule, people that lose weight, keep it off, and maintain their diabetes without medication is probably an EXTREMELY low number of people. I get that. I understand that. After all, insurance is a game of odds, right? They are trying to increase their odds of NOT having to pay out a term life policy. So, why would they take an old, worn out, diabetic-ridden, turkey neck of a man to insure? Yep, I'm being a Negative Nancy.

Ok, enough of that. You know what? I don't care what they say! I don't care what they think! I'm not going to let this affect me a second longer! It IS a new day. We all make choices. Right now, I'm not going to be a Negative Nancy! I choose to be positive. I choose to embrace the good things in life. I acknowledge the negatives, I may even try to correct those negatives, but I will NOT allow those negatives to control me or allow me to change my name to Nancy!

Peace out, y'all.

Meal Plan - Week of 1/12/2013

Here's this week's meal plan:

Sunday Dinner: Parmesan Dijon Pork Chops, Creamy Balsamic Salad w/ Apples & Strawberries, and Brussel Sprouts

Monday Dinner: Pee Wee Pizzas (I use Turkey Bacon, Turkey Pepperoni, Reduced Fat Cheese, and Whole Wheat Pita's for the pizzas)

Tuesday Dinner: Mark and the kids will have Hamburger Helper because I have meetings. They all love HH, but I hate it. Mark will replace the boxed pasta from the HH with whole wheat Rotini Pasta that I purchased separately. Even the "whole grain" version of HH is not acceptable.

Wednesday Dinner: Baked Skinless/Boneless Breaded Chicken Thighs (I will use 100% Whole Wheat bread crumbs and a mixture of Parmesan for the breading). We will also have Blistered Green Beans and Mark will have corn on the cob. I avoid corn due to it's glycemic impact.

Thursday Dinner: Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Sausage Marinara sauce, Salads.

Friday Dinner: Out to dinner (Finally! I get a break!)

Saturday: Layered Beef & Cabbage Casserole for lunch and leftovers.

If you want any of the recipes, just ask. I have almost everything in an electronic format.

Enjoy peeps!

a moment to refocusonlife ~ resolutions redux

Happy 2014! Can you believe it? Another year has come and gone.

Several times in the history of this blog, I have mentioned resolutions. I consider resolutions to be an important component of my lifestyle changes. Life is difficult. Things get messy. Isn't it great that we get the opportunity to start afresh every year? At least that's how I like to look at it...

So, with that said, let's take a look at how 2013 turned out, and then I'll tell you what I've got planned for 2014...

1. Fix Finance: Complete, but still a work in progress. I think this is something that everyone has to continue to work on at all times, but I can tell you we made considerable progress in 2013. 
2. Build Muscle Tone: wah wah wah (<----means it's a failure)
3. Take Classes to Build Knowledge: In 2013, I took some great classes and put some new techniques to use. 
4. Read 15 Books (1 Non-fiction): I read 20 total books! Complete. 
5. End More Prescription Medications: Complete and successful! I am off all my diabetic medications and have significantly reduced a couple others. 
6. Electronic Quiet Time - Dinner: Work in progress. We try hard, but sometimes you just have to check the phone during dinner, right?

a future resolution: LIVE in this building.
Working on those finances has never been so
danged important! 

So, 4 out of 6 is not bad, right? Unless it's for a grade. Then I'd be failing. Okay, so let's not put that on a scale of 100. I'm going with the fact that I got 2/3's complete! That sounds better, right?

On to 2014...

With my successes and failures in mind, I came up with a list for 2014. Drum roll please:

1. Fix Finances: if it's a work in progress, let's keep working! Maybe I'll have better news at my midyear review. 
2. Read 18 Books (Audiobooks count). 
3. Lower Blood Pressure Naturally: I think I need to work on my stress levels...so with that said, I plan to do some relaxation and natural methods here. I'll keep you posted.
4. Spend More Quality Time with the Kids: every parent should have this goal.
5. Let People I Love Know it More Often: <3
6. Maintain Weight Within a 3 Pound Scale: I've heard everyone's goal should be a 10 point scale, but I'm going with 3 because I did it in 2013 and I plan to keep that up! 
7. Increase Daily Steps to 8000 Average: I'm currently getting around 5000 per day. Not sure how I'm going to meet this goal with my job, but I'm going to work hard on it this year!  How many 40,000 step days can I get on the weekends? <blush>

That's it! That's my list. Don't judge. It's my list. It's very personal. I'd love to hear some of your resolutions and would love to have you all give me feedback about how you're doing when I do my review in a couple months! 

And, with that, ALWAYS remember that one of your resolutions should be to take just a moment to refocusonlife. 

Love. 

Meal Plan - Week of 1/5/2014

Hi Everyone! I've had a couple people express interest in our eating plan, so I thought I'd give you the lowdown on our meal plan for the next week:

Sunday Dinner: Steaks, Sweet Potato Fries, Brussel Sprouts

Monday Dinner: Pizza for the kids/Salads for the Men

Tuesday Dinner: Taco Tuesday! (I make the sauce myself and I do not use tortillas. We make it into a salad instead.)

Wednesday Dinner: 100% Whole Wheat Chicken/Spinach Lasagne/Salads

Thursday Dinner: Crock Pot Ham/Asparagus/Broccoli/Mashed Sweet Potatos

Friday Dinner: Chicken Fajitas

Saturday: Kidney Bean/Beef Chili

If you want any of the recipes, just ask. I have almost everything in an electronic format.

Peace and looks like some chicken grease above...

a moment to refocusonlife ~~ a hopeless foodie

Hey everyone!
As many of you know, Mark and I just returned from a trip to New York City. It was an amazing trip, but after a weird schedule since 12/20/2013, I'm ready to get back on my schedule. Not being in my routine sometimes causes me to trip up on my eating plan and my maintenance efforts.

All in all though, it looks like I am still in the "maintenance area", which I define as a 5 pound scale from my goal weight. A couple more ounces and I'm going to slide out of that area, so I'm going to work extra hard this week to make sure that I follow my plan. Looking back over the week we spent in New York, Christmas, and visiting Mark's family, I see some errors I made (I wrote about the buffet last time I blogged), but this past week in NYC, I did amazing! Plus, we walked an average of 20,000 steps a day (up from my normal 5,000 per day). One of my resolutions this year is to get more steps per day--but I'll save that for another blog entry.

We had some amazing meals in the culinary world that is New York. In our culinary experiences, even a foodie like myself discovered some things that I did not know:

Get the GD pinky down! 1/4/2014

1. Never eat/order food when mad. I more or less grudge <BLEEEPPP> my food at one particular meal. I'm quite positive that any of my dinner companions that night would be able to pinpoint the exact meal that I'm describing. Yes, I was mad. Yes, I overate (A LOT). Yes, I have processed both of those things with said involved party and within myself. 
2. I like hot tea! I never knew. We went to Jacques Torres (famous chocolatier) for hot chocolate. Of course a famous chocolatier wouldn't have any sugar free options, plus I'm not a huge fan of hot chocolate anyway. (If you are and are looking for a good sugar-free option, the skinny hot chocolate from Starbucks works). I was as cold as an arctic ice block, so I wanted something hot. I looked at the menu and decided on hot tea. BANG. Wow. I never knew. I'll be stocking up now. Almost every meal from that day forward, I've had a little hot tea to warm my insides. 
3. I really suck at eating lobster. I looked like a kindergartner covered in milk on his first day of school trying to figure out how to open a milk carton. It was a big mess. Another discovery at this same meal...I actually liked mussels! Who knew?
4. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's good. Today, Sunday, 1/5/2014, I went to the grocery store. I spent $196.00 for a week's worth of food. The same meal that I grudge <BLEEEPPP> mentioned above cost us $150.00. The meal was good, but trust me, it was NOT $150.00 good. Then, on the other hand, sometimes you DO get what you pay for...case in point: Mark and I went to The Little Owl for lunch on 1/3/2014. It was the best meal of our entire trip. I'm in love and will return to the Little Owl for lunch or dinner on our next NYC trip. 
5. Sugar Free Cheesecake (no sugar added) is delicious and divine and I need my 12 step program to get over it...

So, now we are back to reality. Tomorrow, I will return to work. The kids return to school. Everything is back on track...

With that, hopefully, I can fulfill my hopeless foodie by cooking my own meals. I might just have to hit Root & Vine for lunch one day this week. Oh, and yes, I'll be going to the Cafe at the Mall in Forest City. Oh, and maybe I'll do Tupelo Honey the day I'm in Asheville. Then, there's always Sweet Potatoes the day I'm going to Winston. 

Oh hell, who needs reality anyway? Later peeps. I'll leave you with a pretty snow pitcher (<----meant to do that!)

Run, Kevin, Run!    Central Park 1/3/2014