Dukan – Celebration Sunday & Mountain Hike

Posted on September 3, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was Consolidation Day 114 of 500.
Today’s Weight: 145
Goal Weight: 155

Sunday is my Celebration Sunday day on Dukan. When you enter the third phase of Dukan, the Consolidation Phase, you get one celebration meal a week. You can eat whatever you want. This is in the first half of Consolidation (mine is 500 days long and the rule applies until I hit day 250). In the second half you can have 2 celebration meals a week.

I’ve chosen to remain wheat, gluten and sugar free, so my celebration meals usually include something like french fries (i’m not eating white potatoes) or lots of fruit! That was the case today.

I started the morning out with a 2 egg omelet with onion, asparagus and garlic. I then went on a 5.59 km mountain hike with my friend Tatiana. This is the trail that I try to hike every Sunday morning when I’m in Hangzhou. I have to say that during yesterday’s hike up I realized that I was really going to miss this part of living in China. Moving back to Florida (which I love more than any place in the world) won’t include mountain hiking!

Burned off breakfast and then some!

runkeeper, mountain hike, hangzhou, china

286 meter = 938 feet… not a bad climb 🙂

Tatiana

mountain hike, west lake, hangzhou, china

And I wore shorts… in public. You can see West Lake in the background. It’s a beautiful view from the top of this mountain!

And this was my reward… a fruit salad for lunch, along with a iced cafe latte with Splenda and a TON of water… like 2 liters.

I shared this delicious fruit platter with Tatiana. So fresh and cool after a long hike in the heat.

My driver Jerry met us at the restaurant and took us to the wet market. I’m going to have to go back and get pictures… I’m always so busy picking out my stuff that I don’t pull out the iPhone and take pics! The wet market has the freshest veggies, fruits, meats and live poultry and fish to choose from. I get my veggies, pork and beef there. The stands that I purchase my pork and beef from both have range free farms. The meat is butchered the day before and I can pick my cuts. Tatiana picked out a 1/2 kilo of live jumbo shrimp to make us a late afternoon snack.

We got home, I separated out all the meat and spent time reading for a while. Around 4 Tatiana simmered the shrimp with fresh ginger, sea salt and pepper corns. I made a wasabi & tamari mix and we had some yummy shrimp!!!

Didn’t have dinner, as I was stuffed. I had a couple of bites of cheese and a handful of almonds to round out my evening.

What did you do on Sunday? Were you active?

Ciao!

Dukan Diet – Pure Protein Thursday

Posted on August 31, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Thursday is alway a Pure Protein Day. This Thursday was Consolidation Day 112 🙂 Dr. Dukan recommends that followers of the program in Consolidation pick Thursday as the one day a week you have a pure protein day and for the most part, I have.
Today’s weight: 147
Goal weight: 155

Before I could eat, I had my annual physical at work. It included blood work, EKG, chest X-ray, breast thermography (instead of mammogram, no radiation), ultrasound of my liver (no longer fatty… Yay!!!), pancreas, kidneys and spleen and a look over by the TCM doc. Waiting on the blood results, but everything else was perfect! It took less than 40 minutes for everything and cost $0! How awesome is that?

Breakfast: 2 Tea Eggs from the shop downstairs…

Lunch: A small plate of roast beef

Afternoon Snack: A tea egg

Dinner: 1 Chicken breast, roasted in that toaster oven, with a roasted 1/2 red onion. I marinated the chicken in 1 Tbs coconut oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp cumin and a dash of salt for 30 minutes in the fridge. Shook the container up and put it on the pizza pan to cook, pouring the marinade over it and the onion. Cooked in oven for 40 mins at 350 degrees F.

I then went for a 4K run and finished with about 20 minutes of stretches and yoga.

Bedtime Snack: Fat free Greek yogurt with 1 Tbs flaxseed meal and Splenda

What did you eat on Thursday?

Ciao!

Recipe – Dukan – Turkey Dinner

Posted on August 31, 2012 by flamidwyfe

So last Saturday I made a turkey dinner. I love cooking turkeys many times a year. It can be challenging, especially when living overseas. This time there was only one turkey to be found in all of Hangzhou! But we got him 🙂 He was a turkey grown locally, so very lean. Also, I don’t have an oven. I have something akin to a toaster oven. But Everyone knows I love a challenge!

Ingredients:
Turkey
Large pear – chopped in large pieces
Large green apple – chopped in large pieces
Large red onion – chopped in large pieces
6 garlic cloves – chopped in large pieces
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

First remove the innards stuck in the rear. Here in China, that includes the head! I couldn’t touch it, blech!! So I used wooden spoons and did a forcep delivery.

Then give your turkey a good bath… Inside and out. Place in pan you are going to use.
Stuff the turkey with the pear, apple, onion and garlic. The moistness and tenderness from simply using these 4 ingredients is amazing!

Generously rub olive oil all over your turkey, don’t forget between his legs and under his wings.
Generously douse with salt & pepper.
Put him breast up and in the oven.

Cook 15 minutes for every pound at 350 degrees F.

That’s IT!! Don’t put aluminum foil on his bits, leave him alone! He’ll be perfect!

Enjoy! Ciao!

Self Love Exercises – Part 7

Posted on August 29, 2012 by flamidwyfe

From the Feel Good Tribe:

7. I’ve said it before & I will say it a million more times: write a gratitude list every morning. It really is the best way to start your day. The simple act of sitting down & making a few notes on what you’re happy about builds up so much positive energy that you can’t help but do something amazing with it!

OK, so I started doing this a couple of weeks ago and it is working. Aside from the “postal” incident, I’ve had more positive days. I have also gotten more accomplished in my daily life.

Today’s Gratitude List… posted on my bathroom mirror:

I am grateful that I still have a living parent… MOM ♥ ♥ ♥

I am grateful that I am going home in 22 days!

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to travel.

I am grateful for all of the people that support me through encouragement!

I am grateful for the friends that I have met through my blog and the amazing cheering squad that I have, of people I’ve never met in person, but feel I really know!

So… that’s today’s list. I wrote it when I first got up this morning. What are you grateful for today???

Ciao!

Not on my list, but I was certainly grateful that my roast turned out far better than my turkey!

Oh my the flat smelled amazing and the roast was so tender!

Great Way To Start the Day!

Posted on August 28, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Check out this post from the The Healthy Home Economist… It’s all about the importance of a good healthy breakfast to start the day and some very interesting stats! I’m all about stats 🙂

This is MY kind of breakfast! This is a Paleo breakfast. To make it Dukan take out the fruit on a PV day.

My breakfast this morning was 2 slices of bacon, 2 tea eggs and a slice of cantelope. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Can you remember?

Ciao!

Recipe – Dukan & Paleo – Coconut Flaxseed Bread

Posted on August 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I tried to find a recipe with the ingredients that I had on hand, but couldn’t. So I took a bit from a few of them and tried this out. It turned out pretty well. It’s very moist. I think the next time I might add a couple of packets of Splenda to it. This is my very first piece of bread in over a year!!!

COCONUT FLAXSEED BREAD
Serves: 8
1 serving = 1 slice

Ingredients:
1/2 c coconut creme powder
1/2 c flaxseed, ground
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
5 eggs
1/4 c coconut oil
1/8 c water
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (not quite sure that’s what I used, lol… this is China, had to guess at it in the little store)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease a loaf pan with coconut oil.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, mixing well.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Cool completely before slicing into 8 pieces.

ENJOY!

Nutrition info per serving: Calories 150, Protein 5.5g, Fat 13.8g,
Total Carb 2.8g, Net Carb 0.4g

Dukan Update

Posted on August 16, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Been a busy 24 hours and wanted to get a post out before bed.
Weight: 149, bloated and well, more on that later in the post.

I have a wonderful midwifery student with me here in China, Aisha Al Hajjar. Aisha is from the States, but is married to a lovely Saudi man and has 8 kids! I met her in the UAE last year when she came to interview me about water birth at my previous hospital job.

At the end of the day yesterday (433 pm to be precise), my personal assistant came to let us know that there was a lady in labor wanting a normal birth, so upstairs we went to the birth room. First time momma and she had her baby at 533 pm… Nice, quick, fast and an easy delivery. Here’s the little guy a few minutes after I caught him…

Today was packed with working on skills that Aisha needs to do for school and working on a PowerPoint presentation about International Standards of Care. I started my day out with a yummy breakfast…

I am in Consolidation and I’m eating more Paleo like. Still low carb, but added fat. This is pork chunks, onion and garlic powder. Two eggs fried with low fat mozzarella. I cooked it in Macadamia oil… Mmmmm!

I’ve only run twice in the past week. It is very difficult to do in a city of 17 million! Too many people milling about, but I’ve made sure I walk 5K every night. I also haven’t had any yogurt with flaxseed meal (I use that instead of oat bran, zero net carbs, 4g fiber per tsp, same as oat bran but has a nice nutty taste). Anyway, I’ve been a bit ~~bitchy~~ grumpy the last few days, as I’ve been gassy (never gassy on Dukan!!!) and the plumbing isn’t working as per usual. You can’t buy yogurt here in China at the shops and I usually get it in Hong Kong, but I haven’t had the time to go down there.

So today I kind of ~~barked~~ at asked Rose, my amazing personal assistant here in Guangzhou to find me a western grocery store!!! So off I went on the subway to find The Corner’s Deli (yes apostrophe s) in the basement of the Citic building. The kind customer service desk girl pointed the way. Through that door, turn right, go downstairs to BM Street… LOL, BM Street?!? I was sure I heard her wrong… Well, actually…

So off I go, down this quiet stairway and find myself dead end at a Chinese restaurant! I point, I show them the name and address and they take me through the restaurant to an underground shopping mall… It was bizarre! But, tucked around the winding walkway, all the way in the back was a western grocery with FAT FREE GREEK YOGURT!!! And COTTAGE CHEESE!!! AND SALAMI!!!! And MOVIE THEATRE POPCORN, EXTRA BUTTER!!!! Ok, I bought ONE package of that, for my celebration meal on Sunday 🙂 I thought I’d died and gone to heaven… A REAL grocery store!

So I’ve just gotten back from dinner at my favorite Arabic restaurant and dished up a plate of that yogurt with a Splenda and flaxseed… My tummy will be happy again!

And yes, I eat my yogurt with chopsticks… I’m in china 😀

Parting shot… This afternoon I shot a commercial for the hospital to promote water birth. They even recruited one of our nearly due patients! What fun. I decided I wanted to get a shot of one of the camera people…

Exciting life I lead… 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!

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!