Happy 2013!

Wow… what a CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY year! 42 Take offs and Landings… 91,000 air miles logged. From huge airplanes (Boeing A380) to a small 9 seater. China, Hong Kong, U.S., Japan and the Bahamas.

I completed the Dukan diet in May, having lost 111 pounds! And for the most part have kept it off. I bounce up a few pounds, readjust and it comes back off.

I went from not being able to run for 45 seconds to running 5K and completed one. I am now training for a triathlon next August with bloggy friends Cindy, Sandra and Anna and can’t wait!!!

I’ve also done yoga and a program called D.I.R.T. regularly… D.I.R.T. kicks my ass!

Last year I brought New Years in with my dear friend Lucy in Hong Kong…

New Years Eve in Hong Kong Dec 31, 2011. With Lucy Rowney.

New Years Eve in Hong Kong Dec 31, 2011. With Lucy Rowney.

Crazy how much has happened in the past 12 months! Crazy how blessed and fortunate I am to have the people in my life that I do. Crazy how lucky I am to have an amazing job with two crazy women that I adore and love working with!!

December 2012Lorie, Me and Miri

December 2012
Lorie, Me and Miri

The next adventure? Planning a conference for birth workers in Ecuador for July this year and planning my own little trip into Peru to visit Machu Picchu afterwards. It’s going to be an amazing trip!

What are your plans for 2013?

I hope all of you have a blessed, amazing, healthy and prosperous 2013!

Ciao!
Sandi 🙂

 

Dukan – Consolidation Day 222 – Recipe

Wow!!! 222 days since I met my goal weight… time sure flies. I’m nearly half way through the 500 days of Consolidation (it is 5 days for every pound you lost to your goal weight, which for me was 155, so 100 pounds lost… that said, I actually lost an additional 11 pounds for a total of 111 pounds, but I’m not counting those in my Consolidation #)… clear as mud?

Since Thanksgiving I had gained 3.5 pounds. This brought me dangerously close to 150 pounds… On Friday I was 149.8. So I took action. I decided to do 4 Pure Protein days in a row this week. I started on Monday.

Breakfast:
2 boiled eggs and 2 slices of sharp NY cheddar (yum!!!)
Lunch:
4 slices of deli roast beef and 4 slices of deli sliced turkey with 2 slices of muenster cheese
Dinner:
Pork Chop baked in the oven with onions

Tuesday…
Breakfast: 2 egg omelet with cheddar and 3 slices of bacon (yes, i technically know this is not Dukan friendly, but it is low carb!) 😀
Lunch: OMG Crockpot Tuesday… recipe below
Dinner: Stuck at the birth center assisting a birth…. 7 olives and 6 squares of feta cheese… low carb, but NOT the dinner I was hoping for 😦
Snack: FF Greek Yogurt w/Splenda

Should have taken a picture BEFORE it was nearly devoured!

Should have taken a picture BEFORE it was nearly devoured!

Dukan Spicy Chicken
Serves: 8 (I feed the crew here at the Palms Birth House lunch on Tuesdays)
Ingredients:
1 TBS coconut oil
4 pounds chicken thighs (boneless/skinless) You could use breasts, but thighs are WAY CHEAPER!!!
2 large onions, chopped (I like big chunks)
4 garlic cloves (crushed and chopped)
Grated zest of a lime
Juice of same lime
6 TBS apple cider vinegar
3 TBS water
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp crushed chilli flakes
2 TBS splenda
Dash of salt
I also added a TBS of my son-in-laws homemade Awesome Sauce (think home grown habenaros!)

Turn your crockpot to HIGH.
Heat a skillet on medium with coconut oil. Brown the chicken in the skillet, 3 minutes each side. Add to crockpot.
Sauté the onions for 2 minutes and then add the garlic and sauté two more minutes. Add to the crockpot.
In a small bowl mix the rest of the ingredients. Add to the crockpot.
Cook on high for 3 hours.
Eat and enjoy!

This lunch was FANTASTIC! The entire birth house smelled so yummy! It was very much a winter dinner. Let me know if you try it!

Ciao!

Work Christmas Party

I’ve been in a bit of a funk the past few days. I had a lovely 5.5 days in Abaco, Bahamas and came back to Florida on Wednesday. Thursday morning had me weighing 149.8… Too damn close to 150 for my liking! So I’m going to do 3 PP Dukan days Monday-Wednesday and my regular PP Day on Thursday and should be back on track.

Last night was my company’s annual Christmas party. I had a blast!

The bosses, Lorie and Miri know how to throw a party! We started the evening by getting our hair “blowed out”. Angie calls this the southern sweet potato look.

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Here’s Angie singing. She’s got the voice of an angel…

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That’s me, Lorie and Miri.

And me and Dr. Barry…

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Zach and I …

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Had a fabulous time!

On a sad note, my heart hurts for all of those affected by the shootings in Connecticut yesterday. Unfathomable 😦

Day 6 – National Health Blog Post Month

Today’s Topic: News-style post

Breaking News!!

You can eat and eat and eat and lose weight or maintain a healthy weight and lower your cholesterol! This is excellent news for people who like to eat real food!

No more berry pills, no more hCG shots or liquid, no more fasting, counting “points” or 500 kcal diets. REAL, clean, healthy food.

How is this? Well it’s been discovered that it isn’t meat and eggs that are bad for you. It’s wheat and other products with gluten. That wheat has a higher glycemic value than sugar! That it converts to glycogen in your body then stored as fat! Gasp!!! You get fat from wheat? How could this be!

We interviewed Sandi Blankenship, a woman that lost 111 pounds cutting wheat out of her diet. She said, “I couldn’t figure out why, after just losing 20 pounds, my knees weren’t hurting and my arthritis went away. Thankfully someone told me about Wheat Belly”. Ms. Blankenship has maintained this weight loss for 6 months.

For more info check out http://www.wheatbellyblog.com.

Travel – Life’s A Beach

Life really is wonderful. The way that things come together always seems amazing and miraculous to me!
My bloggy friend Mona is in Miami Beach for a conference and invited me for a night at the Eden Rock Hotel. I met Mona when she was in China this summer and now here. I love how blogging has introduced me to so many awesome people!
We went for a walk on the beach as the moon rose and I didn’t get a single picture, lol. Left the iPhone in the room. We had a lovely dinner beachside and I got this pic of the moon light glittering in the rough surf…
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Then a long chat about all the taboo topics and then a wonderful nights sleep listening to the waves crash and the winds blowing in through the open slider.
Up before the sun and down to the beach…

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Here comes the sun little darlin’…

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And finally, it doesn’t matter how much crap life throws at you, sitting on the beach makes it all better!

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Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 165

Today is the 165th day of Dukan Consolidation for me… I will be in this phase for 500 days and the point of Consolidation is to teach your body that this is the weight it is suppose to be. And I have to say I’m duly impressed with how well this phase works!

I’m following the principles of the Dukan Diet, but eating Paleo, as I do not want to add wheat or any other gluten back into my diet. I also am eating more good fat in my diet (from nitrite free bacon, coconut and macadamia oil, etc) and dairy (full fat) which isn’t technically allowed on either diet, but I’m a cheese girl. The result? My weight has maintained between 143 and 148 the entire time I’ve been in Consolidation!! I’m having celebration meals once per week, but keeping wheat out. Most of my celebration meals consist of a teeny bit of sugar, my one treat. And most weeks, it’s a normal healthy dinner and a dark chocolate bar for dessert. I have no cravings for crap food… Except for the 3 minutes I mourned the loss of crispy spicy KFC chicken. I whipped out my trust iPhone pics and looked at the KFC me and decided I am better than that!

I strongly recommend reading the book Wheat Belly, Mel from NZ recommended it to me in January and I devoured every word. It explained A LOT! And the subject has come up on a couple of my favorite blogs this past week (Shannon and Sonia) 😀 I never want to have that OMG my stomach is going to explode feeling again. EVER and since quitting wheat, I don’t! It’s that simple.

In regard to exercise, I’m still restricted from running for another 5 days, but I’ve been walking daily and last night did my first yoga class since my surgery, hoo boy did those over the head stretches feel tight! Speaking of surgery, I’M LOVIN’ my arms!!!

Here’s a peek at what I had for brekkies and dinner this week. Pretty typical of my daily intake. Lunch has been broiled chicken or meat and cheese roll-ups.

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Bacon and eggs with veggies 🙂

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Sirloin Steak and stir-fry veggies… Mmmmm!

Now I’m off to practice a tricep move mentioned on Anna’s blog. Kaye has challenged me to take a pic and post it 🙂

How is everyone else doing weight and fitness wise? Happy hump day 😀

Ciao!

Crazy 3 weeks!

What a crazy 3 weeks! I don’t even feel I’ve been home that long, but on the other hand I feel like its been a whirlwind!
Lots of ups and downs and all arounds!
I got home after midnight on a Friday, surprised by my daughters who both came to pick me up!
I left Saturday morning and drove across the State to Sarasota to pick up BeBe…

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From there I drove north to Tampa for lunch with my friend, Tammy and then another 2 hours north to my mom’s for an overnight.
We left early the next morning for North Carolina. My mom’s best friend Sandy was our first stop and I left her there and went to stay with Sandy’s son Mark and his partner Eric. We had 3 days packed with mountain hikes, shopping, awesome food and hanging out.

So I’ll end this post with a gazillion pics of that trip…

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Gluten-free chocolate torte!!!

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Now rushing out mom’s door to head across State to see friends and then back to Stuart… Waiting to get off the roller coaster… WEEEEEEEE!

Update and Standing while Eating

So, I’m wiped out, as a lot of you have noticed (thanks for the emails) and I’m still healing. My arms hurt, but look awesome… I’m pleased with my decision. I’m still too exhausted between recovery, working my new job and homeschooling my amazing granddaughter Sydnie, to blog. I’m hoping to get a good blog in. I haven’t run since my apparent 13 km run in the middle of the night my first night post-op… I’ll post that story, as well… Sigh.

In the meantime, here’s some interesting info from one of my favorite Paleo blogs… She advocates sitting and eating while thinking about what you eat… I don’t necessarily agree. I KNOW what I’m eating and I stand while I eat. Good food. My last meal was stir fry organic chicken breast, sautéed in coconut oil with squash, mushrooms, onions, peppers and asparagus. That was 5 hours ago and it was delish and colorful and healthy… eaten while standing 🙂 I believe if you are being intentional and aware of what your are eating, standing is good… Burn more calories, lol.
Ciao!

Paleo RD Tip of the Week
By Amy Kubal, MS, RD

Get off your feet when you eat
Quick – what was the last thing you ate? No really – what was the VERY LAST thing you put in your mouth? Most of you are probably envisioning the last meal you ate; the one where you were sitting down and actually aware of the food on your plate and going into your mouth. Now, think about it again; what was the LAST thing that you ate? Were you sitting down?

image credit: guardian.co.uk

These days much of what we eat is actually consumed ‘in motion’ – standing up, running between appointments, on the way to work, you name it. Sometimes we just grab a bite of something, (or a piece of candy from the office candy dish), on the way to or from somewhere. Maybe we have a couple bites of something we’re putting into a meal, or into the kids’ lunches. Don’t forget the grapes you grabbed when you opened the refrigerator or the leftovers you nibbled on while clearing the table. How many meals, snacks, bites and samples have you eaten all while on your feet? Do you even remember all of these ‘foot feasts’? Did you actually taste or even enjoy the standing snacks?

My guess is that we are ALL (yes, even me) guilty of mindlessly putting something into our mouths without really even realizing we did it. One of the rules that I made for myself and my clients (because I’m mean like that), is that if you’re not sitting on your butt you can’t eat it. I don’t care if you are mid-way through a bite – sit down – right there on the floor, until the food is chewed and swallowed. Let me tell you, it makes you think. After having to pick my butt up off the floor about 20 times (I’m a slow learner) I figured it out and I’m betting you will too.
If you want to eat – you must take a seat! Are you sitting down?

Amy Kubal is a Registered “Paleo” Dietitian and the ring leader of Robb’s RD consulting team. She works with a wide range of clients from competitive athletes to those dealing with complex health problems. Check out her bio and consulting options, and her blog Fuel As Rx to get your Paleo nutrition fix.

And to finish things off, this is my new baby… BeBe. She’ll be 5 October 21. She’s a cat poo eater, so now she’s mine. I’m so glad her former mom and dad picked me 🙂

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Dukan – High School Skinny

I found this in my email tonight…

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A high school friend pointed out on Facebook the other day that I weigh less now than high school… Not only is that a cool thing to say, but after thinking about it, it’s true 😀 When I became pregnant with my son at 17 I weighed 155, I was 146 this morning. I didn’t do it, however, with magic coffee beans, hormone shots or diet pills. I ate lots of good, wholesome food and never counted a single calorie 🙂 Good food and exercise… The key to successful weight loss and keeping it off 🙂

Ciao!

Recipe – Low Carb – Yummy Lunch

EGG ASPARAGUS OMLET WITH SALAMI
Quick and easy and nutritious! It’s what’s for lunch!

Serves 1
Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 4 minutes

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 tsp chili paste
Couple shakes hot sauce
2 tsp Coconut oil
5 stalks asparagus
2 Tbs shaved Parmesan
* Omit the hot stuff if you want, but boy does it amp it up a bit! 🙂
**Dukaners add oat bran or flaxseed meal to egg mixture to get your fiber in.

Salami – read the label!!

Heat oil in pan on medium. Toss asparagus in. Stir. Cook 2 minutes. While asparagus cooking whip eggs in bowl. Stir chili paste into eggs, whip well add to asparagus. Covering the bottom of the pan. Put the lid on for 90 seconds.
Take lid off, shake some hot sauce on and add Parmesan on top. Cook another 30-60 seconds.
Plate the salami the the omelet & Enjoy!

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