Dukan – A Year Goes By in the Blink of an Eye!

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

One year ago this weekend was my 30th class reunion. A turning point for me.

One year ago yesterday, on Friday, August 5, 2011… I met with a fellow high school alum, John Geraghty to chat about steps to take to change my life. John is a life coach… to me, a life saver. The tools that John gave me that day were stored in my iPad memo section. Books to read, ideas that he gave me… sage advise. I admitted to John that I weighed 255 pounds. No one else knew. You can read more about starting my Dukan journey here and how I felt about my meeting with John.

The following night, Saturday, was the night of our big dinner. My dear friend Denise’s daughter Aleisha was our official photographer and took this picture that seriously changed my life…

Yes… that’s me in the purple.

When I saw this picture the following day, well I can’t even begin to tell you the myriad of emotions that it brought up… and still brings up.

And so my journey on Dukan begin… not quite a year ago, that anniversary is August 20th, but this weekend… exactly one year ago, changed my life.

With Terri and Michele August 2011

With Leslie – February 2012 – 50 pounds lighter! Half way there!

With Teri at my first 5K – June 2012 – 100 pounds gone!

With Denise, Bernadette, Jennifer and Kevin – June 2012

I consider myself very blessed to have the wonderful and amazing friends and family that I have! You all have made this journey much more fun! See you all in September!

And to all of you who follow this blog… THANK YOU… your support has been awesome! I love how supportive our community is 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 85 – Aussie Football Rocks

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wow… 85 days on Consolidation! And you know what… I’m sticking to the plan and my weight is stabilized… I will be in Consolidation for a total of 500 days so I’ve got 415 to go!
Since starting in Consolidation I went from 155 down to a low of 144. I have consistently been between 144 and 148 for nearly 2 months now. Awesome! This morning 146.

Breakfast: Cream cheese pancakes ** without syrup, not able to find sugar free here! Ate them in bed with a cup of coffee before getting ready for work.
This is Titters, my cat, wishing I’d share some of that pancakey goodness with him…

He put his back to me because I wouldn’t share!

Lunch: A yummy salad with red cabbage, cukes, tomatoes and bacon and edam cheese!

Before I carnivored it up 🙂

Afternoon Snack: 2 tea eggs
Dinner: Philly cheese steak without the bread and a small side salad.

Exercise:
Walked to and from work twice as I walked home for lunch.
Ran 5K in record time the night before… loving that I can breathe again. It’s been 12 weeks since my surgery and I’ve only been able to take full breaths for the last 2 weeks… general anesthesia is the culprit, me thinks.

After work I went with Vivien to an Aussie friends house to watch Australian Rules Footie… I am totally into it and the commentary during the game from those watching is great fun and instead of running 10 feet and having a time out, they just keep going and going and going… it’s going to be hard to go home to the States and enjoy the NFL… lol! The end of this game was AMAZING!!! Tom Hawkins (Tomahawk) #26, kicked the winning 6 point goal with 0 seconds left on the clock!!! Bringing them to their 9th victory in a row… I guess Cats really do have 9 lives! So, Rory, my partner in fun for the guest running blog I wrote a few weeks ago, presented me with my official fan Geelong Cats T-shirt! I totally feel like part of the gang now 😀 Thanks, Rory!

I AM A FAN!!

The Tomahawk

At the end of the night my local daughter, Vivien, walked me downstairs and I talked her into a self pic… lol… I’m going to miss this girl when I move home!

ViviMokaLaka – August 2012

I look a little different than I did a little more than a year ago when I took this pic…

ViviMokaLaka – April 2011

Ciao

**I bought the amazing cookbook from this blogger. Her recipes are awesome and easy to follow! I highly recommend the book and can’t wait to get in a REAL kitchen with a REAL oven and make more of the stuff in the book!

Recipe – Dukan – Pan-Fried Moroccan Pork

Posted on August 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

This recipe is for Consolidation Phase. You could make this with chicken or beef, as well.
To make this cruise compliant leave out the orange… it’s that simple 🙂
It is also Paleo, Whole30 and Atkins compliant.

PAN-FRIED MOROCCAN PORK
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 chilli, seeded and diced
1 tsp chilli powder (I used medium heat)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp lemon or lime juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 TBS olive oil
1 TBS coconut oil
1 lb. pork, cut into strips
1 orange, 1/2 sliced, 1/2 for juice
4 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped

In a large bowl place the olive oil, chilli, chilli powder, garlic, limon juice, cinnamon and cumin. Mix well.
Place the strips of pork in the rub mix and put lid on and shake, shake, shake to coat. Put in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes.
Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan and cook the pork on medium heat for 3 minutes.
Flip the pork strips over, squeeze the juice of 1/2 the orange on top of the meat and add the slices from the other half. Cook 3-4 more minutes, until the pork is done.
Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.
Enjoy!

August Commitments, Goals, and Promises

Posted on August 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I love the SMART steps outlined in this post for setting goals. Great idea! Constance lost more weight than me on Dukan! She is now working on fitness. She is an inspiration!

An Ongoing Transformation:

Goal setting, so very important. I have touched on this before but whether you are making goals for yourself subconsciously or taking the time to think and write them out for yourself… they are there, they are what pushes you forward and make you successful at achieving your dreams.

Short-term goals, long-term goals, promises to yourself and commitments, they are key to getting healthier, and to staying or becoming FIT.

I see it all over other blogs, mini goals, you might not have thought to yourself that you are really ‘goal setting’ or gone through, consciously, the steps to creating a solid goal, but you did. Setting goals for weight loss is very easy because all the components to weight loss are easily tracked and can be calculated.

You want to drop inches and see that scale drop. You want to drop body fat and visually see yourself get thinner…

View original post 665 more words

Running, blog stats and random stuff

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personal perspective. I set two personal records running in the past 3 days. The first was my fastest run at 8:26 avg. min/km or 13:34 avg. min/mile. This is a full 1 minute per mile LESS than before I had my surgery in May! The second was that I ran more miles in July than any previous month! Below is my RunKeeper stats…

The brick color is walking, the green is running and the purple is hiking.

I’ve either walked, ran or hiked 544 kilometers since March. That’s 338 miles 🙂 Woot!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! And I’ve logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many people have stopped by. I started regularly writing this blog in August to share my journey with family and friends and it has become so much more and that makes my heart swell with happiness!

And that leads to the awesomest things that have happened this week. Actually it happened today… 4 people that I personally know, all of us on 4 different continents, contacted me today (yesterday for some of you) to tell me they are starting the Dukan because they want to be healthier and they’ve seen my success. All 4 have read my blog and I only knew that one of them was. I wish all 4 of you luck!!! I know you will succeed because I know all of you put your mind to something and accomplish it! 4 amazing women… starting on this journey… Good luck and remember that I’m here if you need anything!

I’ll finish by saying that August brings in the last month of summer. It also signals that I have 51 days left in China. I can’t believe I’ve been here nearly a year already! I get one more trip to Guangzhou where I get to hang with my Int’l crew down there, Rose, Jenny, Liza and Dianna. And get to mentor a friend from the Middle East, Aisha! And then back to Hangzhou to finish out my contract… I’m going to miss my ViviMokaLaka so much! She’s the one that brought me here in the first place. I’m going to try to take as many photos as possible in the next 7 weeks.

But I miss home and my kids and my grandkids and my mom and my family and my friends and the beautiful sunrise over the Roosevelt Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home. I’ve had a fun 4 years living abroad 🙂 But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!

Ciao!

Dukan – Recipe – Steak Stir Fry

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I had some veggies in the fridge that needed to be eaten so I threw this little dinner together!

STEAK STIR FRY (sorry, I live in China, have a teeny kitchen and a wok, stir fry is what it is!)
Serves 2

1 pound steak (500 grams) – cut in chunks, strips, however you like it!
1/2 large onion – chopped
1/2 carrot- sliced thinnish
1/2 red pepper – chopped
Asparagus- chopped
2 Tbs Coconut Oil (see the * from yesterday’s post)
2 tsp Italian seasoning
Salt & Pepper to taste

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Put 1 Tbs of coconut oil in pan. Put in onions and carrots, sprinkle with Italian seasoning and cook on medium low for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Put your steak on top, add the rest of the coconut oil and stir. Put on the lid and simmer for 6 minutes. Stir occasionally. Take lid off and stir fry the red pepper and asparagus in with the rest of it… Stir fry for 3 minutes. Put lid on for 2 minutes. Serve. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Sautee those carrots and onions gently!

Throw that meat in there!

Add in the rest of the veggies!

ENJOY!

Ciao!

MTV Debuts August 1, 1981!

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I was 9 months pregnant with Nicholas and remember it well… We had Perry Cable back then and they advertised the start of this crazy music channel… Too bad it barely has any music on it anymore 😦
What is your favorite MTV memory??

Craig Hill

On August 1st 1981, MTV: Music Television went on the air for the first time ever, with the words (spoken by one of MTV’s creators, John Lack): “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.” The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video to air on the new cable television channel, which initially was available only to households in parts of New Jersey.

MTV went on to revolutionise the music industry and become an influential source of pop culture and entertainment in the United States and other parts of the world, including Europe, Asia and Latin America, which all have MTV-branded channels.

In MTV’s early days, its programming consisted of basic music videos that were introduced by VJs (video jockeys) and provided for free by record companies. As the record industry recognised MTV’s value as a promotional vehicle, money was invested in making creative, cutting-edge videos.

View original post 208 more words