Dukan – Consolidation Day 55

Posted on July 5, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I am really missing my daily blog posts! I still don’t feel like I’ve caught up from my vacation!

Daily weight: 147 lbs/66.8 kgs
Goal weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

Things weight and goal wise are going very well. I have to remind myself often that I am no longer in the Cruise Phase and can add a few things into my diet! Today (Thursday) is a PP day and so far I’ve stuck to that. On the Consolidation Phase (which for me will be 500 days long) you get to add some stuff back in to your diet, you get to have one celebration MEAL (not day) a week and you still have one PP day a week. Dr. Dukan suggests Thursday as that day, and I’m going to stick with that.

On Tuesday morning I got up early and went for a 2 mile run at sunrise. I then came back and did Chaz’s YOGAmazing 10 Minute Morning Flow workout. The combination of the two is a great way to start my day! Chaz has some amazing short yoga workouts that are easy to fit into your day and he also has workouts that focus on specific areas of your body, which I really love!

I then headed to work by walking and within the first hour was told I was being requested for a water birth. All day labor, difficult birth, as the baby was face up instead of face down, but this momma pulled energy from the universe and after nearly 3 hours of pushing had a gorgeous baby boy with a funny looking head… lol (it’s looking much better this morning!)

On Tuesday evening Alice came back for a night stay over. We went out to dinner with her son, Leon. Alice and I had the salmon with horseradish appetizer and we all three ordered mixed grill. The meat was DELICIOUS!

The waitress that took pics for us kept tilting all of our cameras… so none of us have a straight shot, lol!

Alice and I then headed back late to my flat and I was in bed at 1 a.m. (gasp!!! that is SO late for me!). And we were up at 6 a.m. to get a ride to the train station. Alice had a noon flight to Hong Kong.

Wearing Red, White & Blue on the train to Shanghai in honor of America’s birthday!

So off we went to Shanghai on Wednesday morning… the 4th of July. Not only is this America’s Independence Day, but it is also my little sister Nannette’s birthday!

Alice and I were suppose to be on the high speed train to Shanghai, which usually takes about 42 minutes, but we somehow got on the slow one… so between that and the subway ride on Line 2 from one end of Shanghai to the other to get to the airport, it was cutting it close… good Lord I was glad it was Alice traveling and not me, as we all know how bad my travel anxiety and time goes! We, of course, got there with plenty of time and from the pics that Alice posted on her Facebook wall of Hong Kong, she got there in one piece!

Bye Alice!!! It was fun hanging out!

I then got back on the subway and found my way to the grocery store that I shop at in Shanghai and found a restaurant that I hadn’t eaten in before. Sat down at a table with a lovely gentleman named Stern from New Jersey, in China teaching for a year, and had a wonderful conversation over lunch… we’re Facebook friends now 🙂 and then I got a little shopping done… mostly a backpack and sack full of groceries to sustain me through the week. I then took the subway back to the train station for the ride back to Hangzhou. I called Jerry, my driver (I love saying that… he’s a very cool dude!) and asked if he could pick me up… he said yes and told me to keep an eye out for the special way he was going to display my name at the train station…

You see MY driver uses an iPad instead of cheesy paper! 😀 Thank you, Jerry, for making me feel so special and important and for being environmentally friendly!

He then informed me that he was taking me to dinner to thank me for all the referrals that I gave him. He was taking me to the “best Chinese restaurant in town” and inquired about what foods I could and could not eat… the man pays attention! Too bad he’s married with a kid, lol! Just joking, his wife is one lucky lady!

So, he takes me to Nongtangli Restaurant near West Lake and he was not kidding… it was the best Chinese food I’ve had since I’ve been here! I decided right then and there that Wednesday, July 4th, was going to be my Celebration Meal of the week. Not that I ventured too far… I don’t do wheat, rice or potatoes… here’s what we had…

Spicy Black fungi and to die for pork… nommy, nommy pork, melt in your mouth, fall off the bone, better than sex pork 😀

And pumpkin with a creamed coconut sauce… now this was yummy!

And I had juice, which is something I haven’t had since August! It was fresh juiced green apple and grapefruit… cool and refreshing on this hot summer’s eve!

Awesome dinner, awesome dinner companion. Jerry then took me back to my flat and didn’t charge me for the pick up… such a great guy!

So my 4th of July food was:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee at train station
Lunch: Salad greens and a poached salmon steak
Snack on the train: about 2 ounces of aged cheddar that was crumbly and sharp!
Dinner: See above… Yum!!
Snack before bed: FF Greek Yogurt with Splenda and flax seed
Water: About 3 liters
Exercise: 1 mile walk after dinner and 20 minutes of meditation

So how was everyone else’s 4th of July??

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 52 – Monday Weekend Round-Up!

Posted on July 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I can’t believe I’m already 52 days into Consolidation! My weight is holding steady and I’m super excited about that. I’ve not had a moment to breathe much less blog since I’ve been back in China. Here’s the stats…

Today’s Weight: 146 lbs/66.36 kgs
Goal Weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

Last Thursday my friend and fellow Florida midwife, Alice called and said she was still in Hangzhou… could she come hang out… ABSOLUTELY! Nothing like staving off the “just returned from home vacation” blues like having someone to hang out with on my after work hours! We’ve had a good time playing catch up and eating some yummy food. Alice follows a Paleo life style, so our foods work well together!

Friday food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, 500 mL water*, 1 oz of Edam cheese
Snack: 10 almonds, cup of coffee
Lunch: 3 slices of beef, 1 tea egg, 500 mL water
Snack: 500 mL water, a few more almonds
Dinner: Alice made a duck soup with: duck (duh), broth made from the bones of the duck, carrots, garlic, ginger and red cabbage… YUMMY!!!!!!!!! She also made a very delicious salad with red cabbage, cukes and apple slices! We also had a plate of duck meat.
Snack: FF yogurt with splenda and flax seed meal and a pinch of cinnamon
Exercise: Walk to and from work x 2 (went home for lunch) Total: 1 mile/1.5 kms
Neighborhood walk in evening: 1 km with Alice
**I put a packet of Crystal Light in my 1.5 liter bottles (1 pkt is suppose to be for 16.9 ounces) It helps me get all my water in!

Duck Duck Soup

Gorgeous Salad

So good!

My guest chef, Alice!

I worked on Saturday and had a pretty good day at work. They are trying to get me to come up with a plan to continue working here after my contract is up. So discussions about that a lot of the day.

Saturday food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, 500 mL water
Snack: 500 mL water, 10 almonds, 1 ounce cheese
Lunch: Walked home and pan friend Tilapia coated with flax seed meal and Italian seasoning! Yummy! FF greek yogurt. 500 mL water and a Coke Zero (Alice is a bad, bad influence on me!!! LOL)
Snack: 500 mL water.
Dinner: Bus to the Mexican restaurant where I had a big bowl of guacamole mixed into my beef fajitas, minus the tortillas. Spicy as all get out tonite!
We then walked to 35mm Cafe for a cafe latte…

Mmmmm

We then had a nice walk back to my flat!

Sunday… off work and a planned run/walk with my friend Rory. I am writing a guest post on the blog AGoodRun, due July 16th and I needed to map it out and take my pictures for the post. Rory was kind enough to volunteer. We ended up not running at all, since it was 98F and 88% humidity. We had a lovely fast walk, with breaks to take pics and one break for water and refreshments at Starbucks… nearly 15 kms in 3 hours… it was AWESOME!

Hot but GORGEOUS day to walk along West Lake.

My walking buddy, Rory.

Bamboo forest… the point of A Good Run’s blog is to show thankfulness. So, You will see me holding a sign that says Thank You in both English and Mandarin.

This was the halfway mark… My goal was to go to the bull sculpture and back… and we did it!

We started and finished at The Vineyard, my favorite place to eat in town. I love it there because the chef Rueben a. Reminds me of my son, Nick and b. Cooks food to my order, so it’s gluten and sugar free… he’s awesome!

My favorite chef in Hangzhou!

I had a Chicken caesar salad without the dressing and some hot chicken wings, without flour and a gluten-free ranch dressing for dip… plus lots and lots and lots of water!

So, that’s my weekend round up! How did everyone else’s weekend go?

Ciao!

Results ARE typical – Dukan Diet

Posted on June 28, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Dukan Diet – Consolidation Phase – Day 49

Today’s Weight: 148 lbs/67.27 kg
Goal Weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kg
Weight loss Total: Well… the starting weight was 255 lb/115 kg!

This morning, it’s Friday morning here in Hangzhou, China, I woke up to an email from the Dukan Diet web site. They had posted my success story on their web page. I am honored! Here’s the link Sandi B. Success Story.

I want people to know that with the Dukan Diet RESULTS ARE TYPICAL. They really are. If you follow the principles outlined by Dr. Dukan in his book you WILL lose weight, meet your goals AND keep it off. I bought my book in Abu Dhabi at the urging of my friend Lucy, thank you Lucy! You can buy the book here iTunes or here Amazon. If you are thinking of following the Dukan Diet I strongly recommend that you read the book from cover to cover. I met Dr. Dukan’s True Weight 3 days after he told me I would… In other words, 8 months after putting my data into the Dukan site, I hit my TW 3 days after he said I would. Dr. Dukan knows what he is talking about!

The other thing that made me successful on this diet were following the blogs of Charlotte and Moonday and Mel and many others who share their ups and downs and their over and outs… LOL. There are many, many other blogs that I follow now (which reminds me I need to update that blog roll!). Constance at Becoming She Hulk has also lost more than 100 pounds and is keeping it off… great advise at her blog about Dukan, body building and more. She has been a true inspiration to me!

So go on over and read my success story… I’m so excited about it! I’ll blog later about the meals I’ve been eating in Consolidation and I promise I’ll get back to daily blogging about Dukan and running. I woke up this morning FINALLY feeling non-jet lagged! 🙂

If this is your first visit to my blog… welcome. Take a seat and stay awhile. For those of you that have been on this ride with me for a while… thank you 🙂

And the proof is in the pictures….

BEFORE PICS:

With mom in Dubai. Jan 2011

August 2011… 2 weeks before I started Dukan.

August 2011

I think you get the picture!

AFTER PICS:

Hiking in April… almost there!

Teaching Emergency Birth skills class – June 2012

With Bernadette – June 2012

And finally… dinner out with great friends a few weeks ago…

Awesome friends 🙂

RESULTS.ARE.TYPICAL… they really can be!

Ciao!

My How Your Gardens Grow

Posted on June 26, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Dukan stuff first…

I GOT MY SCALE… errrr, luggage delivered yesterday! So it was true… woo hoo!!!

Daily Weight: 147
Goal Weigh: 155

And now on to gardens… My friend Krystn posted this picture on Facebook this morning…

And it got me thinking… there are multiple gardens on my short, 1 mile walk, to work. So… I left early this morning and took pictures of my neighborhood… and how the gardens grow in this urban city of 7 million people.

These two pictures are taken from my kitchen balcony. I live on the 9th floor and this is on the roof of the 2 story structure in the front of and attached to my building…

When this first appeared, I thought it was a sandbox for the kids to play in… it’s a planter with a growing garden 🙂

I then bought my tea eggs and headed down the sidewalk that is on the street in front of my building. About 2 months ago, or so, some people set up a tent along this part of the land between the wall and the sidewalk… I had no idea what they were doing, but they were there for 4 days and were using a tiller… this is the result…

This is about a block down from my neighborhood… I think it’s pumpkin… maybe my gardening friends will know.

This next garden is wedged between a wall guarding a construction site and an alley. They’ve been growing stuff here all year long…

Corn and lots of greens

And finally these are 3 pictures from inside the walls that guard the construction site… there used to be a little village in here and the government buys them out, tears down the homes, sells the land to developers and the community is dispersed… it actually makes me really sad… BUT… the villagers continue gardening on the land until the construction takes over. They are building a mall on this property, but every night on my walk home I see the villagers in there tending their gardens and it’s a huge garden… often they come out with their veggies for dinner… it’s pretty cool to see!

You can see the cranes in the background… they are building the underground parking garage at this point. My guess is that the villagers will have 18 months to 2 years more with their gardens.

Lots of greens, garlic, onions and more.

Finally… I took two pics here at work this morning. One is my requisite monthly picture of me and Vivien, since it’s the 26th of the month and my 9 month anniversary of working here…

Vivien has on ridiculously high heels today!!!

And the second is the meal I ate this morning. It’s called Dragon Zongzi… it’s a special meal celebrating the Dragon festival from this past weekend. One of the doctors brought it in, and since I’m doing so well with my weight I decided to try it… O.M.G. was IT GOOD!

Dragon Zongzi… pork, sticky rice, peanuts and chinese dates… oh my!!!

Ooops and one more picture. My boss gave me this HUGE box of apples to celebrate the Dragon Festival. I had one this morning… good thing I ran this morning 😀

Locally grown apples…

How does your garden grow? Are the neighbors planting next to the sidewalk where you live?!?! I think it’s pretty darn cool!

Ciao!

Travel – Not Quite Back in the Groove

Posted on June 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Exhausted. Knackered. Achy.

Weight? Who knows, but the pants still fit… scale is missing in my “delayed” luggage. I did stick to my diet while on my vacation and since I’ve been back in China.
Exercise? Worry? Does that count? I can’t run, since my running shoes are also in my “delayed” luggage… along with clothes and underwear! I did walk all over Shanghai yesterday and to and from work on Saturday morning and to work, home for lunch and back to work so far today racked up 3+ miles.

That about explains the 3 ways I’m feeling right now. Even after having an 8 hour sleep
last night. Jet lag sucks… BIG TIME. So, I’m not quite back in my groove, but feel that an update is overdue, for sure!

I left Florida on Thursday morning at 1145 a.m. for a flight to New York’s JFK. As I blogged before, they actually have Wifi on flights in the States now… how cool is that? Nice 1.5 hour layover there then off to Beijing, except the flight is delayed and they are talking about me not making my flight to Hangzhou, blah, blah, blah… I actually said to the lady at the counter, “seriously, please don’t tell me that… I have travel anxiety related to timeliness!!!” I decided I was going to try not to fret over it… what will be, will be. They made up some of the time, but the transfer time was close in Beijing and I had to go through immigration, collect my bags and then recheck my bags and get on the flight. I had 47 minutes!

I sailed through immigration and went to the baggage carousel… one of my bags was the first one on the carousel!!! What luck! LOL… until after 25 minutes, the bags stopped coming and I realized that A. I had 15 minutes to haul my butt to my connecting flight and B. my 2nd bag was missing… PANIC set in. I ran to the missing baggage office and they put my baggage number in and found that my bag was still in New York… tears were shed, I’m a cry baby when I’m tired, and I ran to check my bag for the Hangzhou flight and actually made it on the plane… because it too was delayed.

I get to Hangzhou at midnight, collect my one bag and head to the lost baggage office to file a claim. It is now officially Saturday morning (I’ve missed all of Friday being in the air) and I have to be at work at 8 a.m. Through more tears I realize that the bag I have is NOT the bag with my clothes and my Brooks Addiction running shoes and MOST importantly MY SCALE… can anyone say MELTDOWN!?! She files the claim with the Air China office in New York and says, as she hands me the paper… it’s just “delayed” baggage, not “lost”… with the sweetest little smile. It’s hard to be angry with her 😦

I get a taxi home and fall into bed after loving all over Tits the Cat, who has apparently missed me immensely. He insisted I carry him around like a baby for half an hour! I got into bed at 3 a.m. and woke up at 558 a.m…. ugh! Made coffee, checked email and got ready for work… at work by 730 a.m. On my way to work I picked up tea eggs… I was so happy to see my favorite tea egg lady…

Those are the tea eggs in that ginormous crockpot!

I think the exhaustion hit me around noon. I felt like someone was sitting on my head! But I made it through most of the day. At 3 I decided to leave and called my friend Alice, a midwife from Florida who is visiting her son here in Hangzhou. They just happened to be at my favorite restaurant in town, The Vineyard, and I took a taxi there to meet them. It was so wonderful to see her. I think it’s been 15 years or so since I’ve seen her in person, but she is the one who inspired me to walk the Camino 2 years ago.

In bed Saturday night before 10 and up at 458… UGH! No problem, got up, made a breakfast of steak and onions and showered and dressed and headed out the door to get the train to Shanghai! A fellow blogger, Mona, was in China for a summer assignment and we were going to meet in person! How awesome is that? I love her photography on her blog and even though I was knackered as all get out, it was worth the trip to meet her!

Mona on the Bund… The Pearl in the background.

Walking to the Bund.

We met at her hotel and walked to the subway. We took that down to the Bund, which is the waterfront walk on the Pearl River. It was an overcast day, but we still had a good time! After walking the Bund we google mapped my favorite restaurant in Shanghai the Blue Frog. Unfortunately the address was incorrect and we ended up walking a heck of a lot more than we intended… no worries… the lunch and company was worth it!

On the walk we saw lots of cool things and some random things like the fresh piece of asparagus on the stairs of a walk over and this beautiful cherry in the gutter…

Cherry in the gutter… streets of Shanghai

After the trip back to Mona’s hotel, I taxied up to the subway and then took Line 2 to the Family Mart… the grocery store that I can get my Fat Free yogurt. Bought 8 containers and a few other items and then took the subway back to the Shanghai train station… it was a wonderful day!

Bye-bye Shanghai

Back to my flat… call to Air China “delayed” baggage office… “good news Ms. Blankenship, your bag is on the flight to Beijing! You should have bag tomorrow noon”… well, my assistant has just called and been told it’s still in New York… I’m trying not to panic. I’d like to have my clothes, my shoes and MY SCALE… my Vivien tells me it will come, “this is China, it’ll happen”… I take a deep breath, come back to my office and pray… yes… this is China… things do happen.

As I finish this post I am listening to the soundtrack of Rock of Ages… the music makes me HAPPY 😀 I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this movie. I know that it got crappy reviews, but they were wrong. It’s a funny, happy inducing movie and thinking of Tom Cruise (lovingly referred to as TC) singing and dancing “Pour Some Sugar on Me” gives this 48 year old giggles and smiles… If I was in the States… I’d probably have seen it 3 times already!

And now… Vivien has just walked into my office and said MY BAGS ARE GOING TO BE HERE, IN OUR OFFICE IN 2 HOURS!!!!!!!!!! OK, trying not to hold my breath, trying not to be too optimistic, but they asked her for directions to the hospital. Dear Lord, I pray it’s MY bag… lol.

With that… I’m outta here… if anyone has a secret to getting rid of jet lag quicker, I’d be ever so grateful!!!

Ciao!

“I’m hot sticky sweet, from my head, my head to my feet”… Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard… redone by the yummy TC 😀

RECIPE – DUKAN – THAI GRILLED CHICKEN & SHRIMP

Posted on June 20, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Dukan Consolidation – Day 40
Daily Weight: 148
Goal Weight: 155

DUKAN THAI GRILLED CHICKEN & SHRIMP

INGREDIENTS:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 pound shrimp
4 garlic cloves
Large bunch cilantro
2 Tbs GF Soy Sauce or Asian fish sauce (GF = Gluten Free)
**Use Coconut Aminos to make this Whole30 compliant**
1.5 Tbs toasted sesame oil OR 1.5 Tbs Olive oil and 2 Tbs roasted sesame seeds (I couldn’t find sesame oil, so made my own!)

Place all the ingredients, except the chicken and shrimp, in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth (took about 40 seconds in a blender using the pulse button).

Place chicken breasts in oven proof baking dish and pour the marinade over the chicken. Place in fridge for 15 minutes.

Prepare your grill or preheat your oven to 375 degrees. When done, the internal temp should be 165F.

I baked in oven as follows:
Cooked for 40 minutes.
Pulled out and spooned the juices on top
Back in oven and added the asparagus dish to the oven

Asparagus, 1 tsp of organic sweet, salted butter, 2 crushed garlic cloves

After an additional 15 minutes, pull out the asparagus, add the shrimp to the chicken dish, drizzle a teeny bit of olive oil on shrimp and put oven on BROIL for 8 more minutes.

Bernadette and Kevin loved it. Going to miss going back to china and being restricted to a burner and pan again.

I fly back to China tomorrow. I’ve had a wonderful time in Florida and North Carolina. 3 more months and I’ll be home for good!

Also, took mom to the train yesterday for her trip back to Newberry. Here’s some pics from our trip…

Love letter from my grandson Shane to my mom, his GiGi… He’s the sweetest boy!

Sydnie and Shane with GiGi.

Me and my mom… I feel so blessed to still have her!

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 31 – Celebration Meal

Posted on June 12, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Today was my first official Celebration Meal!

Daily Weight: 149
Goal Weight: 155

Started my day off right with a run through Sandy’s hilly neighborhood…

I then made a yummy omelet with onions and goat cheese Gouda and bacon for mom and I…

Then after catching up on emails and blogs I decided to go out for a drive in Hendersonville. Picked up a Dunkin Donuts coffee and rode around town while chatting on my cell to my peeps in Florida 🙂

I ended up at The Fresh Market and nearly cried with joy at the variety and choices and the fact that I could read the LABELS!!! Bought made to order Shashimi…. Yum! Then found my way back to Sandy’s house.

Diner at Mark & Eric’s. My first official Dukan Celebration Meal! It’s my first because I’ve been traveling and unable to make my own and I wanted it to be special, and it was! Mark made paella with scallops, chicken and pork… YUMMY!!! The picture does not do it any justice!

And Eric made goat cheese pudding… Good Lord have mercy, I can’t describe how amazing this was!! He put a few raspberries on top and served it with Godiva coffee… Mmmmm!

I got my doggie cuddles in with Sophie and Bella…

FANTASTIC DAY!

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation – Day 20/500

Posted on June 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Thursday was Consolidation Day 20 of 500 🙂

Daily Weight: 149 (please don’t yell at me, Mom!)
Goal Weight: 155

Early start for me because I’m going to Dongguan to one of our hospitals there to do a comprehensive health and safety audit and to give 2 lectures on International Patient Safety goals. I love visiting the hospitals in our group (my company owns 20 maternity hospitals in Southern China) and I always feel warmly received… This was at the main entrance when I arrived…

A big shout out and thanks to my Guangzhou PA Rose, who sent out this picture to the branding department at Dongguan so a more up-to-date me is on the posters 🙂

These hospitals have amazing branding and marketing departments and the are FINALLY using new pictures on the posters. Here’s a poster from April 2011. The pic is one that they were still using a month ago!!

That’s my Vivien in the picture above. She’s the Director of the Hangzhou International Medical Care Center… My home base hospital. Pic was taken April 2011. I’ve changed a lot, Vivi still looks awesome!

So, after getting a nice tour of all 7 floors of the hospital and enough tray brewed Chinese tea to have a good buzz going, I was off on my own to do the audit. These are some of the challenges that I came across. What I love about finding these things is that they are wonderful for educational purposes and a way for me to be a change agent. Having the support of the administration of the hospitals is key.

Can you guess what’s behind this picture frame?

You’re correct if you guessed fire fighting equipment!

Sure looks pretty, unless there is an emergency! At least they don’t have any hiding behind couches like this one…

One thing I really loved was that these posters were everywhere in the hospital…

And they take it seriously with a zero tolerance policy. This is the first Chinese hospital I’ve been in that I could not smell cigarettes! All of our hospitals have a no smoking policy, but the nurses are too polite to say anything. This hospital has empowered the nurses to say no! So exciting!

A big issue I have with H&S here is Sharps containers. I either find yellow bags in cardboard boxes or like this…

They put yellow bags inside the Sharps container and when it’s full, they take it out and put it with the medical waste. I can’t imagine the needle stick injuries that occur 😦 There is a very high Hepatitis B rate here and I shutter to think how high it must be in the healthcare practitioner field. I am currently trying to get our company to convert to snap on top Sharps containers. They are very good at complying with my suggestions!

This is another really cool thing I found today. One of the elevator doors…

After the inspection I did 2 health and safety presentations. The first was on patient identification and the other on the “time out” procedure. And then, as a bonus I showed them my Water Birth in Pictures presentation which is my daughter Tiffany’s 4th birth. A huge hit. Lots of questions, everyone loves that presentation 🙂 Heck I love it. I’ve presented it probably 20 times and I still beam with pride at Tiff’s beauty in labor and the moment she and Joey bring the baby up out of the womb.

This is right before I left to go back to Guangzhou. Me and the Admin from Maria Maternity…

Crazy drive back to GZ and I hurriedly changed clothes and ran to the subway because I had a 7 pm appt with Joey, ~~the torturer~~, errr my personal trainer. It hurts my triceps to type this post! Lol. We focused on arms and abs for an hour. I then went out to run. It was 84 degrees and 96% humidity… I didn’t get too far…

Note that the stadium I’m running around is to the southeast of where the GPS has me running in circles, lol? Anyway, I pooped out. I couldn’t get any kind of rhythm going, so I jog/walked/limped to the subway and went back to my room.

Food:
Breakfast: Low fat Greek yogurt with flaxseed and Splenda
Lunch: broiled fish, garlic stems, broccoli raub with big chunks of ginger
Dinner: 2 chicken sausages, low fat cottage cheese
Snack after workout: 20 almonds and 2 oz low fat sharp cheddar

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day???

Posted on May 29, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve lost count of the days since I’m in Hong Kong, but all’s well in the Consolidation Phase.

Daily Weight: 152 lb/69 kg
Goal weight: 155 lb/70.5 kg

Monday:
Early morning train into Hong Kong for shopping and rest 😀

Shopped until I dropped! I bought a pair of Nike running compression pants in Tight Fit. They feel SO much better than the freaking garment I’ve been wearing.

I had a 1 hour foot massage at Joy Foot Club…

And a 25 minute head, neck and shoulder massage. I then went and did more shopping 🙂 I also went for a 3 mile walk.

I finished my Monday with a Skype chat with Kira, Dan, Søren and Helena which made me very happy! 🙂 I love Skype! A few days ago I got to chat with both daughters, sons-in-law and all 6 GRANDKIDS!

Breakfast: Almonds and Edam cheese
Lunch: Street pork… Mmmmmmmm
Dinner: Rocket salad with artichokes
Snack: FF Greek yogurt

It’s Tuesday afternoon now. This is what I’m doing this very minute…

Typing 2 blogs while getting a pedi… Cheeky, I know 😀 I just finished a one hour full body massage… A light massage, cuz I’m still tender in spots!

This morning I got up at 545 am and went out and did this…

Those are from the entire trek… This is the run portion…

Great morning, followed by some shopping and now pampering… After my toes are dried I’m walking to the subway and getting back to mainland China… 6 days and I fly HOME!!!

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Days 11&12

Posted on May 24, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Tuesday was a gym day and Wednesday was an off night.

Daily weight: 153.38 lb/69.72 kg
Goal weight: 155 lb/70.5 kg

Tuesday was filled with rewriting PowerPoint presentations and then out the door at 5! I got to the gym and did 15 minutes on the treadmill and the a one hour BodyBalance class… It kicked butt! It is by the same people that do BodyPump, but it incorporates yoga, Pilates and tai chi into one pretty intense hour. I’ve decided after the class that I cannot wear my pressure garments during workouts. They prevent me from using my abs and I need to use them. I’m on the lookout for compression garments that don’t have hooks and aren’t s hardcore to wear while working out.

After the class I took the subway back to my side of Guangzhou and walked 1.2 miles to the Arabic restaurant where I had mixed grill and hummus with cucumbers to dip in it.

Then a 1.7 mile walk back to the hospital.

Wednesday was a great day, as evidenced by the water birth post 🙂 After the birth Jenny and I took the subway downtown so I could have western food. And I had my first CELEBRATION meal… Not that I did much different, but I had a burger, no bun, with bacon, cheese and mushrooms and a side salad. For dessert I had a créme brûlée and cafe latte. Nice dinner… I had the jitters from the dessert… Lol. Not sure I’ll do that again any time soon. I then hopped the subway back to the hospital.

Today (Thursday) is 2 weeks since my surgery… I can’t believe how fast it has gone by! I am still bruised, but feeling better. I have weird nerve ending kind of stuff going on and the back of my legs still smart, but they are healing. Rose, my assistant took this pic this morning. Oddly, I have bruises on the bottom nowhere near where the lipo was and they hurt!

Another odd thing I notice when looking at this picture is that my hip width is smaller than my shoulder width. I’ll do measurements when I’m back in Hangzhou June 3rd. And for those of you who don’t know… Shane, Sofia, Sydnie, Sadie and JR are my grandkid’s names. Celeste has a special place on my ankle 🙂