Dukan – Day 160 – Awesome Vacation and I still have a week!

Posted on January 28, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Friday was a PV day 🙂

Daily weight loss: 1.3 lb/0.6 kg
Total weight loss: Will update when back in China on MY scale and with my progress sheet.

So to update everyone from the past week…
Wednesday…
The walk that I went on was at Devil’s Millhopper sinkhole in Gainesville. I went with my friend Mary and it was great! It is 220 stairs down to the bottom. So we walked to the bottom and then back again and hiked the rim twice. Nice morning for walking. Then off for lunch in Ocala with an old friend. Then out to Bronson to say Happy Birthday to my niece Tasha and meet her 3 year old, Abigail. Too stinkin’ cute! Then back to cook dinner for my mom.

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs and a slice of turkey
Lunch: 6 oz sirloin and asparagus
Dinner: Turkey sausage with onions
Snack: FF yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal

Thursday…
An early morning start at 555 am back to south Florida for a dental cleaning appt at 10. Got there with 5 minutes to share 🙂 A nice visit with my daughter, Jenni at Panero’s, then a long 2.5 hour hike with my friend Jamie in Johnathan Dickenson State Park. Saw an alligator, literally 2 feet away, in a retention pond very cool, but scary 😀 then met the crazy friends at Kona’s for Jammin’ Jensen.

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs
Lunch: Turkey slices and 2 small pieces of nearly fat free (1.5g) of sharp cheddar.
Dinner: Seared tuna on a stick and grilled pompano with mixed steamed veggies.
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal

Friday: up early, long walk through Stuart, across the bridges, down by the river walk, all before the sun comes up! Then I drove up to Melborne to visit my son. An evening visit with my friend, Tammy then to bed early.

Breakfast: 2 hard fried eggs and bacon
Lunch: turkey slices and a couple of small pieces of nearly fat free cheese
Dinner: chicken sausage (spicy and not, out of the cases), stir fried in a small amount of olive oil, with cumin, cinnamon, mushrooms, diced tomatoes and chilis. Then had 4 bites of bacon wrapped cobia nuggets at Tammy’s… Could not resist!
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal.

So, I’m apparently eating fine, since I’m losing. Still holding off on a total weight loss until I get home to my scale and progress sheet. I’m having a great vacation and nothing can beat that!

Ciao!

Quote of day: If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.

~ Virginia Woolf ~

Devil’s Millhopper

Me and Tasha

Abby

Fat Free Dairy Challenge – Guest Post by Charlotte

Posted on January 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

This is a guest post by Charlotte… We’re doing a Fat-Free Dairy challenge.

http://charlottesdukandiet.com/archives/the-fat-free-dairy-challenge#comment-1623

The Fat Free Dairy Challenge!
Jan 25 2012

Morning weigh in: 99.0kgs

Total days since last transgression: 9

Daily LOSS:0.7 kgs / 1.54lbs
Total loss since New Year: 4.8kgs /10.56 lbs

Today’s menu: PV

Watercheck: 2.9l – tea, coffee, 1.5l of water, and diet coke

Breakfast

mug of coffee
oatbran porridge with sweetener
microwaved eggs
Lunch

Stirfried chicken thigh with cabbage, XL philly and herbs & spices
Afternoon snack

handful of peanuts
Dinner

Roast chicken from Asda, refried with a little Nando’s piri piri sauce (J did that – simple and yummy!)
Fat free fromage frais with raw cocoa powder and liquid sweetener
Exercise

Again, no more than 20 mins walking (but my bike is back in action, yay!)
First things first – my bike is now repaired! New virtually puncture-proof tyres have been installed (via Edinburgh fabulous mobile bike-repair service, “2 Wheel Support”) and I plan to get back in the saddle from tomorrow morning – and I can’t wait! Taking the bus to work for 2 days has been SUCH a waste of time, literally. It takes me an hour to get to work on the bus, but just 30 mins on the bike. Plus, it’s cost me a fiver in bus fares and I’ve had next to no exercise. Hurray for bikes.

Diet-wise, I had another good day today – it’s funny how the longer I go without transgressing, the easier it gets! It also helps that I’ve put a column on my spreadsheet for tracking how many days I’ve gone without transgression. Yay!

So, Sandi and I were talking today (via email, her in Florida and me sneakily at work) about conducting an experiment, and we’d like to get you involved.

You see, she and I both independently come to the conclusion that sugar-free fat free dairy (ie fromage frais or yoghurt) is not only a tasty treat, but is actually actively beneficial for our weight loss. For my own part, I look back at when I was doing really really well on Dukan (basically June-September 2010) and the thing that stands out for me is that I was, almost without fail, having at least one serving of fat free yoghurt or fromage frais every day. It’s actually surprisingly consistent. I’ll need to go back and analyse each blog entry in more depth to try and work out whether it merely decreased my appetite and therefore I ate less, or whether it really has an independent effect.

Sandi has had a similar experience.

So. Perhaps it’s time for us to be a bit more scientific about this, and increase our sample size? You are all strong, dedicated women and men, fellow bloggers and dukaneers, all. And January/February are particularly difficult months for dieting. Sandi and I think that you should join us, and start taking a serving or two of fat free yoghurt, cottage cheese or fromage frais every day, like medicine! If we all do this together and compare our results, I reckon we’ll have some useful semi-scientific (rather than purely anecdotal) evidence to pass on to the rest of the Dukan community.

If you’re up for it, blog about it! Spread the word to your own readers who may also be bloggers! Or if you’re just a lurker, try this experiment with us and post your results in the comment section of whatever blog you read regularly. I’ll be setting up a page dedicated to this, so that I can keep a close eye on what’s going on with my own experience.

So who’s with us? 🙂

Dukan – Day 157

Posted on January 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Tuesday was a PV day.

No weigh in. My mom has a manual scale and if it’s correct I’ve gained about 2 pounds, regretting not packing my scale and hauling it to Florida.

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs and then off to pick my mom up from rehab to bring her home.
Lunch for both of us: Chicken sausage with sautéed onions and a handful of mushrooms.
Snack: practically fat free Turkey slices and what I’ve vowed to NOT eat today, 3 slices of low fat provolone cheese.
Dinner: Stir fried sirloin with onions, mushrooms and asparagus
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal.
Total water: 2.5 liters (1500mL with Crystal Lite added… No carbs, fat and barely any calories, my life has been changed, lol)

Its nice just hanging out, but I didn’t get enough exercise in today. I’ve done the research on the flax seed versus the oat bran and they are pretty equal. I can’t find the oat bran meal here and the stuff I bought made me feel like I could just go out and eat grass… Yuck! I think if I have true weight gain, it’s from the cheese. I’m trying to stay away from the Atkins mentality… I’ll be in search of a better scale on Friday, when I’m back in Stuart.

Now I’m off for a morning hike… Will tell ya all about it tomorrow 🙂

Ciao!

Quote of the day: Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
~ Ella Fitzgerald
My take… I’m loving my new look, I’m inspired by my fellow bloggers, the only thing that could go wrong is if I did give up… Not gonna do that!

Dukan – Day 155 & 156 – MDA Walk-A-Thon

Posted on January 24, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was a PV day and Monday was a PP day.

Daily weight loss: 0.5 lb

It’s been difficult tracking my weight loss as I didn’t bring MY scale, bought a cheap one that doesn’t seem accurate and now I’m on a non-digital scale… I will see the totals when I get back to China and post them, but I’m following the diet and feel like I’m doing fine.

Sunday was an early morning because I was going with Ken and Shannon to the MDA walk-a-thon in West Palm Beach. Had to climb over all the girlies sleeping on mattresses on the floor and try to sneak out quietly at 0600. Breakfast was a large coffee from Dunkin Donuts, 600mL water with lemon and a couple of bites of very low fat cheddar cheese.

The walk was great. We walked with Team Lea, an on air host with WZZR and the walk took us through the Palm Beach Zoo… Formerly called The Zoo at Dreher Park, this place was my play ground growing up, as we lived just down the road until we moved to Stuart when I was 8. And the best part… I ran into one of my families who I was blessed to assist with a water birth and breast feeding help… The Brown’s… Here is a pic of their family getting ready to walk…

Then we stopped at Ken and Shannon’s where I got to play in Ken’s amazing game room… My favorite video game EVER… GALAGA!!!! Here’s an awful pic of me playing, but I fell right back into the championship stance from all those years ago 🙂

Then back to Denise’s to watch 2 very disappointing games 😦 Nuff said.

Dinner: Chicken sausage and peppers and onions for me and Denise… Yum!
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with ground golden flax seed… Much yummier than oat bran.

Monday, another early morning (530 or so) strapped on my new Brooks running shoes and headed out for a lovely 5 mile walk over the bridges and through downtown Stuart. I love it out there in the early dark hours! Watching the colors of the horizon change, it really is a great way to start the day!

Breakfast with Denise and Jenni was bacon and eggs then off for a rental car and a trip north. First stop to see my son Nick in Melborne…

And his dog, Buttkis…

Cooked him lunch of pork chops and grilled onions, then the trip to Gainesville to see my mom who had back surgery on the 13th and is coming home Tuesday from rehab… YAY!

Coffee with Mary at Starbucks and then to my mom’s house for a reunion with my cat, Miss Kitty. She hasn’t left my side since I walked in the door!

Dinner: not real hungry so ate a couple of pieces of beef jerky. More than met my water requirements, but no bran or flax today.

Having a lovely holiday home!

Ciao!

Quote of the day: Cut not the wings of your dreams,
for they are the heartbeat and the freedom of your soul. ~ Flavia

Dukan – Day 154 -Slumber Party with my Girlies

Posted on January 22, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Saturday was a PP day.

Daily weight loss: +1.1 lb

Today was a fun day! Slept in to 520 a.m. Woo hoo! Denise and I went to the B & A flea market in Stuart, where I picked up a Life-Purpose-Passion t-shirt from Dave Williams.

Then had a burger at 5 Brothers Burgers with Denise. Then off to the party supply store for slumber party supplies and then up to Tiffany’s house to hang with the GRANDKIDS for a while. We went to a park where the kids ran around and rode their bikes and I got to see my pseudo-daughter, Ashley, and my pseudo-GRANDKIDS, Faelynn and Aireanna.

Then back to Denise’s to cook for the slumber party. I made Pork Lomo for dinner, using the recipe from The Hapa Couple, substituting the beef for pork. YUMMY! I am really enjoying cooking. There was tons of naughty food and I blessedly was able to resist. I even slept with a plate of THIN MINTS next to my head. The other thing I realized is that besides a cup of coffee in the morning, I drank nothing but water all day 🙂

There were 7 of us, and besides our new friend Shannon, we’ve all been friends for more than 35 years… How awesome is that? I started falling asleep at the beginning of The Sound of Music, and of corse got teased about it… Curled up on the couch surrounded by my girlies and slept feeling so happy and loved… I am so blessed to be able to hang with the best girls in the world!

Having a great vacation home!

Ciao!

Quote of the day: Best friends know all about you and love you anyway.

Dukan – Day 152 & 153

Posted on January 21, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Thursday was a PV day and Friday was a PP day.

Weight loss: Thursday I was down 600 grams from the Monday weigh in, today I’m up 400 grams from the Monday weigh in. All in all not bad for traveling 34 hours, on 4 planes and 13 time zones and I’m still trying to get my body’s time straight.

I left Hangzhou Tuesday morning at 140 pm and arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 1140 am Wednesday. 4 long flights including landing in a snow storm in Seattle and an overnight in New York City.

Wednesday, dinner out with friends and an amazing chat and a chance to see one of the women who blessed me 11 years ago by allowing me to midwife her, and then to bed by 11, up at 432 a.m… And out the door for a nice 4+ mike walk in downtown Stuart with a friend who is also an early riser. Some shopping and lunch out with my daughter and son-in-law at Longhorn where I had steak salad, then off to Jammim’ Jensen to hang with my besties…. So nice to be with friends you’ve known your whole life!

Friday… Up at 447 a.m., I guess this is better than 432! Out the door and a walk over the lower and upper Roosevelt bridges. A one hour 10 minute walk and then coffee with a friend while watching the sunrise… My home town really is a great place to visit! You decide for yourself…

View of the new bridge while crossing the old one.

View to the east while crossing the new bridge for the 3rd time…

Coffee and sunrise…

Bacon and eggs for breakfast and then early matinee watched the movie Red Tails good movie. Lunch was sausage and onions and a few peppers and by the time dinner rolled around I was falling asleep on the couch, so ended up eating hard salami, which although no carbs has too much fat… What to do? I think I was sleeping at 900! A big shout out to my best friend Denise for letting me crash on her couch… You are the BEST xoxoxo Now off to start my day (I slept until 520!!!!!)

Ciao!

Quote of the day: Everything will be fine in the end, if it’s not, it’s not the end ~ Unknown

Dukan – Day 149 & 150 – Fly Away!

Posted on January 18, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Monday was a PV day… Tuesday was a 37 hour day and lots of airplane food.

Daily weight loss: 0.4 lb/0.20 kg
Total weight loss: 65.1 lb/29.61

So I’ve reached 65 lbs off! So awesome and nearly 30 kgs! Monday was my final day at work before my holiday home. Things are really festive because this is the week leading up to Chinese New Year and all the big bosses are out of town 🙂

Breakfast: Two tea eggs, 500mL water
Snack: cup of coffe with Splenda and skin milk
Lunch: a beautiful piece of fish with diced peppers, onions, garlic and ginger… Yum! And 550mL water.
Dinner: yogurt with bran and Splenda… I just didn’t feel like making anything
Snack: tea with milk and Splenda

Finished my packing and headed to bed early… Setting the alarm for 0800 in hopes of a sleep in because my driver wasn’t coming to get me until 1045.

Tuesday… Up at 0555, LOL! So much for sleeping in! Slapped my shoes on and went out for a brisk walk in my jammies with my wool coat on. Took a shower and dressed and still how a long wait!
Breakfast: Sirloin chunks stir fried with onions and a bit of seasoning. 500mL water, cup of coffee.
Did the Internet and texted the driver to come get me early 🙂
I check in and then go through immigration and the buzzers go off. This, of course, gives me a heart attack! They pull me to the side and everyone is talking in Chinese… I’m doing my best to breathe and remain calm. They then drag me back to the ticket counter, where it is discovered some mistake has been made, I lose the plot, start shaking and asking them WHAT mistake, no one could speak good enough English to tell me anything but “we fix, we fix”!!! Next thin I know I’m in a Business Class seat (small 737) and all was right with the world. Except they couldn’t check me in for my flight from Osaka to Seattle or Seattle to JFK…
Lunch: 2 tea eggs (mine) and a piece of fish from the food served on plane and a tiny bit of salad. 350mL water and Pepsi Max.
1 hour layover And I have to find the gate to get checked in. Security doesn’t want to let me go through to onward bound area because I don’t have a boarding pass… Argh! And to boot, they want to pat me down, which I’m always happy to do… I prefer to be safe 🙂 Anyway, lady from Delta comes to security and says, “oh, Ms. Blankenship! We’ve been waiting for you” and they let me through… Just like that. And now I’m sitting business once again because of my troubles, LOL. At least I’m not breaking my resolution of traveling cheaper 😀
Dinner: Filet Mignon and asparagus, with a lovely salad of rocket greens and teeny pieces of feta cheese, which I ate… Now I’m off to lala land, while cruising at 32000 feet above the Pacific Ocean en route to my homeland 🙂
Lala land, not so much. Slept a grand total of 2 hours and landed in Seattle at 1045 am TUESDAY morning… I left China at 140 pm TUESDAY afternoon! This is going to be a long, long day…
I’m now flying over the midwest of the U.S., 5 hour Delta flight, no meal service, WTF? I could see if it was 2-3 hr flight, but seriously? I’m eating the free peanuts 🙂 And trying to stay awake so that when I get to New York City, I can hunker down into the hotel bed and pass out!

Ciao!

Quote of the day: I know how to do anything, I’m a Mom ~ Rosanne Barr

Dukan – Day 148

Posted on January 16, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Today was a PP day.

Daily weight loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight loss: 64.7 lb/29.41 kg

I had a crappy day 😦 I had a migraine all day and woke up with nausea that led to the “V” word and then I felt a tad better. I did, oddly enough, have a very productive day. I created and finished a flow chart in Visio and wrote 4 policies… just sat at my desk pounding them out and got them done. Ended up taking migraine medicine x 3 throughout the day.

Breakfast… none… I wasn’t in the mood for throwing up eggs!
Sipped about 400mL water through the morning
Had 2 cups of Chamomile tea that made me sleepy… LOL
Lunch: 2 tea eggs and 500mL water
Dinner: Tofu w/o seasonings stir fried with onions and garlic stems
Cup of mint tea

Finished packing my bags for my big trip and went to bed early. Tuesday can’t get here soon enough… I can’t wait to hug and kiss…

Celeste:

Celeste Alena

Sydnie…

Sydnie Renae

Sadie…

Sadie Rose

Shane…

Shane Cristian

Sofia…

Sofia

Jose…

Jose

And the rest of the gang… but especially those 6 munchkins who call me “Momma” 🙂

Ciao!

Quote of the day: Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Dukan – Day 147 – Packin’ and a WHOOSH!

Posted on January 15, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Saturday was suppose to be a PP day, but the leftover shrooms called to me!

Daily weight loss: 2.0 lbs/0.9 kg!!!
Total weight loss: 64.3 lb/29.21 kg

Wow! That’s all I can say about that! I have no explanation for that whoosh and I’ll be even happier if I stay the same and don’t gain for tomorrow morning’s weigh in. I got off and on the scale 5 times to make sure it was right. Took a battery out, put it back in, put my glasses on and then got back on… Same same.

I slept in until 804!!! Put on my yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt, slapped on my shoes and went straight out into the 42 degree air and did C25K. It was pissing down the rain, so I was cautious. But it felt good and there is no one around because they all leave the city and go to their villages for Chinese New Year. I picked up 2 pretty leaves on my path this morning… One is from the heart tree and the other one looks like a mini pot leaf, not sure what the tree is, but its tiny, too! Then back upstairs for hot coffee and warmed up left overs and a catch up on the computer.

Accomplished a ton of stuff during the day, finished packing, finished my first book of the year, “The Tenth Insight” by James Redfield. Got all my laundry done, ordered and downloaded books to my iPad for reading (going to try out Val McDermid and a detective series that she writes) and had enough time for painting. I’ve had a lot on my mind and painting was a nice distraction. I actually painted two today!

Lunch was yogurt with a tea egg. And late in the afternoon, so at dinner time I wasn’t really hungry and had a bit of dodgy tummy and a lingering headache. Made myself eat a quick stir fry of onions, mushrooms and cut up tea eggs with no seasoning and then crawled on the couch feeling even yuckier 😦 Cheered up by a couple of nice long chats with my girlies. To bed with some Tylenol on board, satisfied with all I got done… Still not sure why I whooshed 🙂

Ciao!

Quote of the day: If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it ~ The divine Erma Bombeck
I adored Erma Bombeck!

Dukan – Day 146 Tofu Stir Fry

Posted on January 14, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Friday was a PV day.

Daily weight loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight loss: 62.3 lb/28.31 kg

Started my day off with a lecture to the staff at work about the importance of putting ID bands on babies… Seems I take it a bit more serious than some people 🙂 I’m thinking a few people were not happy with being called out in front of their peers! I accomplished pissing off the first group of people of the day, i was on a roll!
I had a tea egg at my desk and then headed off with the marketing department and Kitty to a community center about an hour from the hospital. We set up in a multipurpose room and they were playing the movie The Apple of Your Eye. A 2011 teen love story… In Chinese, of course, but early in the movie the kids are reciting Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in their English class. I thought that was very cool and especially poignant given that his birthday is January 15th. Watched the whole movie, Kitty stunned by my ability to translate what was going on… It was teen angst, not hard to figure it out and it didn’t have the ending I wanted it to have!
Then off for a quick lunch at a local Chinese restaurant.. I had fatty pork and a couple of bites of cabbage, brushing off the rice that you simply aren’t allowed to refuse. I also had a tea egg and 500mL water.
Here’s where I pissed off/freaked out the next set of people 😀 I specifically said several weeks ago that I wasn’t going to do anymore marketing events if the men kept smoking in the van. Smoking is a NATIONAL SPORT here. You aren’t a REAL man unless you smoke. I’ll also interject here that I smoked, like a fiend, for 25 years and I’ve been nicotine free for 6.5 years and I’m one of THOSE ex-smokers 😀 Anyhow, the driver comes to pick us up in the COMPANY van and he’s smoking a cigarette WITH THE WINDOWS UP!! I proceed to scare the crap out of him by open palm banging on the window while simultaneously yelling “PUT THAT *^%#*+% CIGARETTE OUT”!!!!! Kitty of course is yelling at the same pitch and with similar inflection in Chinese… Bless her, she really is the best Personal Assistant/Translator in the world. He freaked out and burned himself trying to get the cigarette out the CLOSED van window, which then made me erupt into an evil laugh like, “Muhahahah, that’s what ya get for smoking in the van”. Needless to say, we rode back with the windows down and it was 42 degrees, did I mention they hate cold air? I think they were trying to make up with me, because they played American rock music most of the way back to the hospital 🙂
Back to the hospital and Vivien and I took a picture together…

Which got me thinking… I wonder if I could do a before and after from when I was in China in May… Couldn’t find a pic of Vivi and I, so had her send me one from her phone and here’s the side by side comparison…

I swear to God I will never, ever, NEVER be that fat girl on the left again… Did I say NEVER!?!? The best compliment I got was from a friend in Abu Dhabi, Caroline, who said she showed the picture to her husband and he said it didn’t look like the same person in the 2 pics! They’ve both been doing the Dukan and are looking great as well…

Took the long way home again and cooked up Curried Tofu and veggies for dinner.

Block of FIRM tofu, cut into bite sized chunks
1 Tbs
3 garlic cloves chopped
1/2 onion chopped
6 whole garlic cloves
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1 pinch cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
6 ginormous mushrooms 🙂
A handful of garlic stems (I would have loved this to have been asparagus!)

I marinated the tofu in the olive oil, garlic cloves, curry powder, cumin and cinnamon for an hour. Shaking the container gently every 15 mins. or so.

I then put a tsp of olive oil in the wok (you could substitute with cooking spray) and turned the heat on medium and sautéd the onions for 2 minutes and then added the garlic cloves for 2 more minutes.
I then turned the heat up to medium-high and threw in the tofu, stir fry 2 minutes.
Then add the mushrooms, continuing to stir for 2 more minutes, then toss in the garlic stems, turn the heat down to low, cover with lid and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

I eat my food on a side dish plate (measures 7″ across) what doesn’t fit goes in the fridge for breakfast or lunch the next day… I had lots of leftovers!

It was a yummy meal!

All in all a good day… I’m not usually such a tyrant, but I sure got my grouchiness spread all over today! I was also worried about my Mom. She was having back surgery as I slept Friday night and I was thinking about it all day (she’s fine, thank God) and I think the stress from that might have contributed a little bit to my crankiness… Can’t wait to get home! 2 more days of work and then I fly! WOO HOO!!!

Ciao!

Quote of the day: if we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living, growth demands a temporary surrender of security ~ Gail Sheely
From me: Change requires growing up… Physically, emotionally and spiritually, it’s time to grow up.