Wow, it has been a long time since I looked or thought of this blog.  Funny how easy it is to go back to your old, bad habits.  I am still struggling with weight issues, but once again, I am fighting the good fight.  Have lost about 22 pounds since December 2012, and slowly getting more off.  Just been cutting the carbs down to one serving a day.  For other meals I have vegetables and protein.  That seems to work best for me.  I think I might be getting my favorite walking partner back soon, so maybe I can get motivated to walk again. 
I don't really have a lot to say tonight, but hopefully the enthusiasm that I started this blog with will return now that I have revisited it.  Some of my friends and family have asked me to continue writing and so I think I will.  It may not always be about weight issues, but I hope whatever inspires me to write will some times be interesting to my readers, or maybe make someone laugh. 
Thanks for stopping by.....

Today I am happy to report that I have dropped 3 pounds since starting this blog. I have done this without really dieting. I have just been eating healthier, making better choices, and becoming conscious of what constitutes a portion. Portion control has always been a BIG problem for me. I have also been exercising for 30 minutes at least 5 to 6 times a week. This weight loss happened in spite of my slip-up at What-A-Burger. Yay me!!!

I want to tell my readers about this wonderful, free site I found the other day. It is fantastic. On this site you can do everything you ever dreamed of towards living a healthy, happy life. It is sparkpeople.com. It is totally free but it does everything! You can track your meals for the day and it calculates the calories for you! You can log in your exercise and it adds up what calories you burned. It also has a group of videos and exercises that you can follow and record, lots and lots of motivational articles, recipes, group discussions, trackers, etc. There is so much on this site that it is impossible for me to list it all here. You can choose whether you want to lose weight or just be healthier and it will personalize everything you need to do to accomplish your goal and keeps track of it for you. Amazing! I chose the healthier life style rather than the weight loss because that is what I am focused on but I am sure some of you may want to choose the weight loss option.

I really hope you will log on and explore this site. It is fun and easy to navigate. I am so excited about it. Leave me a comment if any of you log on to it and tell me what you think.

More later........

Well, I messed up yesterday.
I worked at the beach and packed a couple of boiled eggs and some celery for lunch. I had a good breakfast so thought I could get by with that much food till dinner.
I was wrong.
Around 3:30 I felt a mild sense of hunger, but nothing I couldn't handle. (Or so I thought) By 4:30 I was definitely hungry, and I was feeling a mild sense of panic. My brain was starting to obsess about dinner, and I felt vaguely uncomfortable and nervous.
As I started driving home at 5pm, all I could think about was what I was going to eat. I was feeling like I had to have some food immediately! I started thinking about what I had at home to eat and suddenly no food in my house was going to satisfy me.
Like magic, Good Leslie and Bad Leslie appeared. I started to think about McDonald's, Long John Silvers, Chinese restaurants and every other fast food joint that I was going to be passing on my way home. Good Leslie started to argue with Bad Leslie, trying to reason about how I should just go home, find something healthy and calm down.
It didn't work.
By now I was in the middle of what constitutes rush hour traffic for my area and traffic was at a crawl. I was pretty much in a full blown panic now. I didn't know at this point whether Good Leslie was going to go home and eat healthy or BAD Leslie was going to stop somewhere and pig out.
I'm sad to say that BAD Leslie won the battle.
Traffic was stalled right at the turnoff to What- A- Burger, my favorite fast- food restaurant. Suddenly Bad Leslie grabbed the steering wheel and turned it right into the parking lot that serves my favorite hamburger and malt. Bad Leslie convinced me as I was walking in that I was doing the right thing. While I was inside eating, all traffic would clear out and I would calm down and all would be well again. Once inside, all good intentions (If they ever existed) fell to the wayside as I ordered a DOUBLE meat hamburger, fries, and a LARGE vanilla malt! I am not going to lie to you. I ate it all, and I enjoyed it. I didn't feel sick or shaky or anything bad physically. I did feel a little bit sad that I had fallen off the wagon but I told myself that I could jump right back on it today, and that is what I have done. I also exercised for an hour today to try to make up for some of it.
What I wonder about is this: Why do I get so panicked when I start to get hungry? All reason seems to go out the window and I lose control. Logic tells me that I will get food again; that I am by no means starving to death, but the panic just takes over. Once that happens I am not going to deal with food in the right way until I have gorged myself on fast food and carbs. After I do that, I feel calmer and more satisfied for a while. I know that people who have control of their eating habits or who have never had a weight problem don't know what I am talking about but a lot of people will probably identify with me. What makes me get so freaked out sometimes and lose control?
I suppose the answer to this is when I am at work to never let myself run out of good, healthy foods to munch on every couple of hours. I will make that my goal for next week.
I would like to hear if any of my readers have ever gone through an episode like mine and what you do to avoid it. Leave me a comment.
On a happier note, this morning I wrote down a list of prioritized things I wanted or needed to do today and I accomplished them all. Yay for me! More later..........

Today is a beautiful day. I am feeling very happy and upbeat today, so thought I would share with whoever reads this.
I just saved $9.50 with coupons for things that I REALLY needed. It made me feel great! I have not done couponing since my children were little but with times as hard as they are now, if you can save a few cents on something why not? It is easy to do and doesn't take a long time. I have a wonderful son-in-law who loves to use coupons too. The way I look at it is this...If you found a quarter in the trash can, would you pick it up? What about seventy five cents, a dollar, or even five dollars? I know I would. (By the way, I color my hair and LoReal actually had a coupon for $5.00 off 2 boxes of their brand. Of course I used that.) I am by no means an extreme couponer; that requires hard work and dedication, but if I can save money on something I have to buy any way, why not? The trick to saving with coupons is NOT to buy things that you normally wouldn't purchase, just because you have a coupon. I find the coupons in the Sunday paper, and on the internet. I went to the local library to look for some but all of theirs were expired. I decided to put the money I save into a special envelope marked "Fun". I will figure out how to spend it later.

So that is one thing that makes me happy. Another thing that I really love is my somewhat unconventional relationship with my daughter in VA. We meet and chat on Facebook or text each other almost everyday and we have developed many inside jokes and crazy rituals that crack us both up. Some of our inside jokes are things that I would never have been able to express or discuss with anyone when I was younger. Getting older has somehow given me a less rigid view of things that I used to think were unlady-like to talk about. I find myself becoming a little more flexible about life and how things are changing. So, although the things that make my daughter and I laugh are not really very conservative or what you would expect a mother and daughter to talk about, we have a blast trying to out-shock one another. It is a unique and fun relationship and I really enjoy it.

Here is an interesting thing that I heard on the TODAY show this morning. Experts are now saying to eat fruit on an empty stomach, and only a minimal amount of water. Apparently this is because it causes a lot of stomach bloating when mixed with other foods and can make you look 7 to 10 pounds heavier. Their advice was to eat your fruit in the mornings and not with any other foods.
They also said it was not a good idea to drink a lot of water before any meal for the same reason. They are not saying not to eat fruit or drink water, just to change how you do it. It's funny how a few years ago all the experts were telling us just the opposite. They were advocating drinking lots of water before a meal. Well, I say why not try it and see how it works for us? If we don't like it, we can switch back to whatever we were doing before.
So, everybody, (or the one or two people who read this) that is all I have for today. Remember to take all your meds and supplements, get some exercise, cut back a little on the carbs and salt and have some fun. Don't forget to laugh. Would love to hear from some readers. I have had some friends leave comments, but they don't stay posted on this site. I have no idea why. If you leave a comment for me, don't forget to press the post button.
More later.........

Good morning, everyone. Had lots of positive feedback on my post from yesterday. I did not see any comments left on here though.
This morning, I decided to talk about one of my BIG issues; weight. Weight problems have followed me around my whole life. I had a brief period of one day in the 8th grade, where I had a perfectly proportioned body and weight. As I said, that lasted about a day. Since then, it has been a constant struggle, with one diet after another, success for a while, then weight would always come back plus a little more. My problem has never been losing the weight, it has been KEEPING it off. As a matter of fact, the picture I have posted to this blog was taken around a year ago. I have gained 20 pounds since then.
My plan now is to never go on a diet again. I am not trying to lose weight for looks any more. I like how I look, regardless of whether I am 150 pounds, or 200 pounds. I believe that if you want to, you can look good at any size. My goal here is to lose a few pounds for my health. I want to ward off diabetes for sure, that disease scares me to death. I also want to bring my blood pressure, triglycerides, cholestoral, LDL, and HDL to healthy levels. I take meds for my BP and for cholesterol. They don't work as well if you don't eat the right things though.
For the last month or so, I have been trying to slowly ease off the junk food and carbs. I am a carb addict. I love all things CARB. My body does not respond to carbs well at all though and the more I eat, the more I crave. I am NOT giving them up totally, just cutting back. I still want to enjoy a piece of birthday cake, a sandwich on a delicious tasting bread, some ice cream, or a piece of candy. My plan is to just not do this every day. I am going to try not to eat carbs today or tomorrow. I am hoping that this will help a few pounds to disappear. By carbs, I am talking about the really good tasting, bad for you kind, full of white flour and sugar. I am going to have some fruit today. As a matter of fact, I have found a really tasty way to enjoy fruit which satisfies my craving for ice cream. I will post it at the end of this installment.
Now, here is what I plan to do today to take good care of myself. 1.) Take all meds and vitamin supplements. (I always take my dr prescribed meds, I'm not too good at the supplements)
2.) Walk for one half hour. 3.) Eat protein for breakfast and dinner. I will have my fruit treat for lunch. 4.) Do something I enjoy, such as reading, watching television, shopping ect, whatever I feel like doing. I will enjoy whatever activity I choose and not feel guilty about it. 5.) Go to bed at a time that insures that I get at least 8 hrs of sleep. 6.) Talk to someone who brings joy and laughter into my life. By talk, I mean through FB or the phone, or in person. Laughing ALWAYS makes me feel better.
I would love to hear what my readers do to take care of themselves. Maybe it is something that I would like to try. If you have an idea, leave me a comment. I hope that if you took the time to read this, that it helped you in some small way. I know it helped me to write it. More later......


As promised, here is my delicious fruit ice cream recipe. It is easy to make but sooooo satisfying and delicious!
Take 2 cups of frozen fruit, whatever kind you like. (I do peaches and strawberries.) You can use fresh fruit but according to the experts, often times the fresh is not as nutritious as the frozen because of the days it sits in the store and loses nutrients. You can add a little more or less fruit. 1 cup of fat-free milk, a spoonful of greek yogurt for protein, and Splenda to taste. Put all this into the blender, and it will make a delicious, thick, nutritious milkshake. (I don't usually measure, so if your mixture is too thin, add fruit until it is the consistency you like.)

The Journey Begins

Having just had a milestone birthday last month, I started thinking about life and my own mortality a little bit. Common sense and a little bit of family history convinced me that at this point, if I took better care of myself, I could reasonably expect to live to at least 80, and if I got really serious, maybe a little more. The scary thing about this is....I don't have THAT many years to go before I AM eighty! So, considering that I have about twenty more years, barring anything catastrophic or an accident, I decided to start working on my health and well-being now. (Better late than never, right?)
I am a very healthy person other than high blood pressure, but along with high blood pressure comes the chance of heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure, so that is a biggie. In order to get your blood pressure down, it is pretty much agreed that you have to lose weight, and give up salt. WHAT?! Eating and salt are two of my favorite things! Unfortunately, I found out the other day that my body can't handle salt the way it used to. I ate several salty things this past Sunday and my feet and legs swelled up to the size of fence posts, and that happened even though I have a diuretic in one of my BP meds. It took me a day and a half to get back to normal. Sadly, I have to cut way back on my salt.
I have a loosely formed plan in my head for the things I want to do to achieve my goals of being healthy and happy. They include losing a few pounds, exercising and striving for ways to be happy. In other words, taking good care of myself. I think that is something that we as people and especially as women and mothers forget to do; take good care of ourselves. Our society kind of sees that as a selfish thing, although they (society) will deny it if you ask. But it is less selfish to take care of yourself than to burden others with the results that could happen if you don't, right?
So any way, this is why I started this blog. I want to share what I do every day to take care of myself and be happy and maybe hear from some of you about what you do to take care of yourselves. I could also use your support and friendship. This is not going to be only about eating right and exercising. It will also be about happiness, laughter, and good things. I am all about being happy now. It's all about the fun with me. I hope I get some readers and that they will enjoy what I have to say. I want to hear your opinions and stories too, so please take the time to share with me. More later.....