Dukan – Day 233 – Easter

Posted on April 9, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was a PP day 🙂

Daily weight loss: 0.2 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight loss: 85.8 lb/39.01 kg

Back to my normal weight loss 🙂 Still plugging along. I had the morning off for church and had a great time. A few things to note… people think that China is an atheistic country, when in fact, most people here are religious. The largest percentage being Buddhist. It is estimated that there are over 50 million Christians in China. And I have to say the church was rockin’ Easter Sunday morning. And yes, it’s a REAL church with a big ole cross on the top of it… just across the street from the Buddhist temple 🙂

The music was gospel with a bit of reggae and blues... totally awesome!!!

The really awesome thing about attending church outside of my home country is the diversity of the fellow church goers… you don’t see that so much in churches in the U.S…. it was the same in Al Ain… people from all over the world in church with you… it makes it so much more fun!

The kids group... rockin' the house at Easter services.

I then walked 2 miles to the bus stop for Bus 900 to take the 1 hour and 18 minute ride to work. Wasn’t too bad… I love people watching.

I then had another marketing event to ~~live through~~ smile through 🙂 Steve, Romina and I got up and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”… the crowd loved it and the kids sang it in Mandarin… pretty cool.

I then went home and got another run in… I’m really trying HARD not to overdo it, but I love it so much! I can’t explain it better than that… took my time, worked on pacing, since I am now running for longer periods without stopping… I think I’m doing pretty well…

http://www.runkeeper.com

Breakfast: One baby bell low fat cheese roundy thingy, 2 tea eggs
Lunch: 1 tea egg, tin of tuna
Afternoon snack: 1 tea egg
Dinner: Stir fry pork loin with onions and garlic cloves… yum

Exercise:
1 mile walk to and from work
2 mile walk to the bus stop
2.98 mile/4.79 kms Run

I hope everyone had a nice Easter Sunday or Passover weekend!

Ciao!

Parting shot… PJ’s AND high heels in the tea egg line this morning!

PJ's and High heels at 651 a.m.

Dukan – Days 219 & 220 – Dukan Recipe Cuban Flank Steak

Posted on March 27, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Monday was a PP day 🙂
Tuesday was a PV day 🙂

Monday:
Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total Weight Loss: 81.2 lb/36.91 kg
Tuesday: No change – same, same

Tuesday food (since I have no recollection of yesterday… LOL, I DO know it was PP)
Breakfast: 2 Tea Eggs
Lunch: Green leafy salad and tin of tuna
Dinner: Cuban Flank Steak… recipe below.

I have to say, this is YUMMY!!! And if you leave out the mushrooms and only add onions, it’s a PP meal.

I got the recipe idea from although I didn’t use flank steak and mine come cut in chunks already, which is how I have to eat them, given I don’t have an oven or a grill.

Serves 1

8 oz. of Top Round, flank steak or in my case Chinese Beef Top – Cubed
Marinade:
Juice of 1 large Lime
1/8 cup of Olive Oil
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
**To make this Whole30 compliant use Coconut Aminos**
1/2 tsp favorite hot sauce or chili powder… I used Daddy Mac’s Awesome Sauce (my son-in-law makes this with his home grown habanero peppers!)

With dinner:
1/2 Large onion chopped in chunks
And if a PV day, handful of mushrooms

Prep time: 2 minutes
Put meat in bowl or zip top baggie.
Put the rest of the marinade ingredients in there.

I thought about this marinating in my fridge ALL.DAY.LONG!

Shake, shake, shake and put in the fridge for 8 or more hours.

Cook time 11 minutes
Remove marinated meat from fridge.

When I took the lid off… yum… the smell was incredible!

Put 1 Tbsp Olive Oil in skillet or wok.
Heat to Medium-High.
Put the meat in and cook for 5 minutes.

Turn meat over.
Put the onions in and cook for 3 minutes.

Notice that lime is still in there 🙂

Toss the mushrooms in, if you’re making it a PV dinner, and cook for 3 minutes. I used Enoki mushrooms which are kind of like al dente pasta when cooked… sorta. And they basically have NO CARBS!!!

Plate and Enjoy!

My pics may not be stunning or artistic, but you can tell this food is GOOD!

I’m off to Hong Kong for 3 days tomorrow (Weds – Friday) to renew my visa and get a little R & R. I’ll try to keep you updated from there!

p.s. C25K is moving right along… I am running 2 nights on, 1 night off and not having any problems with it… I’m enjoying it! 😀

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 219 – Off to Marketing We Go!

Posted on March 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was a PV (protein/veggie) day 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg (this is actually 2 days)
Total Weight Loss: 81.2 lb/36.91 kg

I’m nearly recovered from my birthin’ babies week. Oh how we get used to 8 – 5, going to bed at 10, waking up at 6… SLEEP 😀 It almost feels a bit like jet lag. I can’t imagine what it must be like for the woman going through labor!

It’s been a glorious weekend here in regard to the sun. Shining, warm, bathing this lovely, polluted town in light. I even saw the moon last night! It was the first time since my last night in Florida back on February 8th! It was what I call a cradle moon… pretty in the sky!

I had to speak at a marketing event yesterday afternoon. Our branding and marketing department actually have MORE STAFF than we have NURSES… I’m not joking. But they do a great job putting on big events, at least once monthly! I spoke about “The Enchantment of Water Birth”… same PowerPoint I’ve been using for months now… we just change the title and sub-titles… the last event was “The Magic of Water Birth”… LOL… my Personal Assistant, Kitty, doesn’t even ask anymore… she just changes it.

And speaking of Kitty… here she is…

Seconds before I snapped this shot, Kitty was SLEEPING on my shoulder... she's too cute, popped her head up, smiled for the camera, laid her head down and went back to sleep 🙂

Random funny thing that happened yesterday afternoon. We were stuck in traffic coming back from the marketing event and stopped in front of the Chlitina shop (the one next to Slavery.. I’m not makin’ this stuff up!) and the staff were all outside doing line dancing. I tried to snap a picture, but the video was on instead… you can view it here: Chlitina Dancers it’s only a few seconds long, but you’ll get the point… I was listening to music on my iPhone at the time and in my ear was David Cook’s “Life On the Moon”… totally describes my life in China to a tee 🙂

Day ended with a visit to the hospital to check on K and Baby H and then home for dinner, which was Pork, mushrooms and asparagus and then a nice run around the neighborhood, where I even got a shot of yet another neighbor out strollin’ in his pajamas (call me a PJ stalker, but it humors me and keeps me sane in this crazy place, LOL)…

Out for a stroll in his jammies... Tough to get clear shots in the dark and while running, but you get the idea 🙂

Running is getting easier and easier for me… I’m totally loving it now. Running 2 nights in a row, then take a night off… on that night I go to the gym for 30 mins and have the muscle head help me work on my arms, abs and thighs.

So that’s the weekend update. I’ve added some other pics from along the way this weekend… Enjoy 😀

Ciao!

Street food from Saturday night... new meaning to the words Fish Sticks 🙂 YUMMY!!!

Our yoga instructor did prenatal yoga with audience participants.

The Emcee wore a gold suit and was quite the comedian! The orchestra was lovely!

Chiara and Alessaundro (aka NuNu) were there. Chiara gave a speech about her wonderful water birth... She was the first water birth in Hangzhou, and I was lucky enough to be her midwife! NuNu will be 1 on May 6th!

Dukan – Day 216 – Eating on the Run

Posted on March 23, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Thursday was a PP day 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: 0.9 lb/0.40 kg
Total Weight Loss: 80.8 lb/36.71 kg

And MY BMI IS NOW NOT IN THE OBESE CATAGORY!!! WOO HOO! 😀 Cart wheels… well, not really, I’d probably hurt myself! My BMI is now 30… DOWN FROM 45. Nevermind the fact that I’ve lost over 80 pounds in 7 months, I’m not OBESE anymore… OK, a couple more cart wheels!

Yesterday was a true midwife day and thus the loss on the scale… I will write about it in a different post… but lets just say that I’m knackered, sad, happy, ecstatic and exhausted all wound in to one midwife!

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Late lunch: Grilled chicken chunks
Later dinner: left over grilled chicken chunks

3 coffees, 1.5 liters of water

Exercise: Well a funny thing about that… I went out for my run (in the cold rain… again) and did the whole C25K segment and I hadn’t moved it to the NEXT DAY!!! So it just showed that I had finished what I did 2 days before 😦 I went back inside and thought about it and went back out and ran it again… getting credit for it. And I shaved more than 2 minutes off the run from just before 🙂 That made me very happy. What I really love about C25K is that even though I thought moving forward would be insurmountable, it’s not! It was at first, and I was stuck on Week 4 FOREVER (my own screwed up head), but now I’m running and I’m not out of breath… winded a bit, yes, but not GASPING FOR AIR, like I was before. And, in fact, my legs start getting tired way before my lungs do, how cool is that???

I’m not sure how it will be when the real spring finally arrives here in Hangzhou, China and the pavement isn’t wet… LOL. I’m so used to running in the rain. I would say it has rained 8 out of every 10 times I’ve run. I’m still running past the gym every night… three times and each time I go past, all the people are on the treadmills and I just think out loud… treadmills are for wussies 🙂 Cheeky little bint I am 🙂

Ciao!

Oh… and a before and after shot today… I am wearing the same shirt in both pics… The first couple were taken in 2008 when my precious granddaughter Sofia was born… I bought the shirt at a MANA conference and they didn’t have my size 2XL or even a 1XL… only a large and I wanted support the organization represented on the shirt, so I bought a large, and forced it on… LOL.
The second pic was today. Midwives, do indeed, help people out, and nothing could be truer in regard the birth I was blessed to attend last night/early this morning. I think the shirt is a little big now… but I’ll keep wearing it!!

OMG, I can't believe I'm actually sharing this pic!

The white pants were outrageous!

I think the shirt fits a lot better now!

Blogger Awards – Part 2

Posted on March 20, 2012 by flamidwyfe

So this is the 2nd Blogger Award that I was nominated for this past week. It is called the Very Inspiring Blogger Award and looks like this:

I searched for nearly an hour for the origins of this blog award and could not find anything. So I’m going to tell you what it means to me. To be a Very Inspiring Blogger you write posts that inspire others. Pretty simple, if you ask me. I was nominated by MJ at emjayandthem … thank you, MJ… MJ told me that my blog inspired her to begin the Dukan diet this week… how awesome is that?!?!?

There are 2 things you must do if you ACCEPT this award: 1. Tell 7 things about yourself that others may not know and 2. Nominate 7 people that inspire you. So here goes:

1. I am a midwife that is tired of being up all night waiting on babies 🙂

2. I am a mom to 3 terrific kids Nick, Jenni and Tiffany… I wasn’t the best mom, but I did the best I could and they’ve turned out to be pretty awesome adults! I also have an “adopted” daughter, Ashley, who I love like my own kids and who lived with us for a time in her teens, she’s a pretty awesome adult, too!

3. I am the “Momma” to 2 grandchildren from Jenni, 3 from Tiffany and 2 from Ashley. I am only 48 😀

4. I actually look forward to turning 50 years old in 21 months. I keep getting better with age!

5. I took up running in December and LOVE IT… “Run” was NOT in my vocabulary 7 months ago.

6. I adore my mother… she is my biggest fan in ANYTHING I do… I thank God on a daily basis for giving me to her or her to me… either way I am BLESSED!

7. I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers… most of whom I don’t communicate with… LOL That is balanced by the fact that I have some of the very best friends a girl could EVER have and I am so fortunate that most of them still live in my home town. They are closer to me than most sisters and brothers!

Now for the 7 people I am nominating and why. They are not only inspirational to me, but they will be inspirational to YOU. I encourage you to take the time to click on every single one of their blogs. Here we go…

1. Mel at http://wwangel.wordpress.com/ Mel is a runner and a Dukaner… she is just a couple of kilos from her goal weight and even though the scale has been up and down for her the past month or so, she keeps plugging along!!! She doesn’t give up. Her posts about running give me the inspiration to lace up my Brooks and go out for a run… now if I only had a dog as cute as her Millie!

2. The DukanDietress She lost over 100 pounds on the Dukan Diet and looks TERRIFIC! She is in the Consolidation Phase (Phase 3) of the diet and her insight is invaluable! Lots of very inspiring before and after pics on her blog!

3. Cyn at the ChunkyGoddess. Cyn tells it like it is and I like that. She’s awesome, she’s close to her WW goal and she’s raisin’ hell. Her brutal honesty is refreshing!

4. Sonia at My Dukan Diet . She has lost 83 pounds and is doing GREAT! Her posts inspire me to keep going and they’ll inspire you get started!

5. Brett at NoTimeToW8. Brett has lost 64.8 lbs and is still going. He is also doing the C25K and has just finished Week 3… WOO HOO!!!

6. Russell at TheEaglesNest. Russell has lost 96.4 lbs on Weight Watchers… he is now a mentor to many… his blog is incredibly inspiring to me!

7. And Pat at i~Nurse Educator. Pat is a Nurse (obviously) and an educator and an advocate and a dieter. He’s lost 23.4 lbs so far and his advocacy for nurses is one of the things that drew me in. Go Pat!

So there you have it… 7 more very deserving bloggers getting an award. I have 2 more to pay forward this week… maybe tomorrow 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 213 – Dukan Recipe – Chicken with Olives

Posted on March 19, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Monday was a PV day 🙂

Today marks the 7th month since I started this life changing journey on August 20th.
Here are the stats: (you have to read all the way to the bottom to get the final stat) 😀

Aug 20, 2011 / March 20, 2012
Chest: 42 / 36
Waist: 45 / 33
Hips: 56 / 42 (LOL, my HIPS are smaller than what my WAIST was!)

Daily weight Gain: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight Loss: 79.0 lb/35.91 kg

😀 I knew that would happen… LOL… 2 steps forward 1/2 a step back… Hakuna Matata, I had a pretty good day. Worked 1/2 a day to make up for working all day on Sunday.

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Lunch: Citrus Pork and Onions (recipe posted yesterday)
Dinner: Chicken with Olives – recipe posted below

Water: 2 liters
Exercise: Walk to and from work 2 miles roundtrip
C25K run: 2.13 miles

RECIPE: DUKAN CHICKEN WITH OLIVES
This recipe comes from my favorite Dukan recipe blog Hapa Couple. I changed it up a little bit to make it Dukan Cruise friendly and because some of the items on their list are not necessarily available here in China. Additionally, I don’t have an oven, so mine was cooked on the gas burner. Also, their recipe is for 4 Servings.

Servings: 2
Ingredients:
1 Tbs Olive Oil
2 boneless/skinless chicken breasts – cut into strips or cubes
1/2 large Red onion – I cut mine chunky
5 cloves of garlic – minced
1 green pepper – I cut mine chunky
1 14oz can of whole tomatoes – chopped
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth (mixed 1/2 c hot water with 1 cube and stirred)
2 Tbs of Skim milk mixed with 1 tsp corn starch
8 – 10 whole green olives (stuffed) *couldn’t get these, so I sliced mine off the pit

Place 1/2 Tbs Olive oil in pan on med/high heat and add chicken. Brown on both sides, remove to a bowl.

Place 1/2 Tbs Olive oil in pan on medium heat and add onion, garlic and pepper, cook for 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes to the pan and cook for 2 minutes.

Pour in chicken broth, stir and cover for 2 minutes.

Add cooked chicken into mix and reduce temperature to low. Simmer 7 minutes.

Pour in the cornstarch mix stir, Add Olives, stir. Simmer 2 minutes.
Enjoy!

You could put this over zucchini pasta it’s zucchini cut to resemble pasta and parboiled… OR you could put this over shiritaki noodles.
We ate it as is, kind of like a stew and it was delish! I also prepared a fresh, organic green salad that had the yummiest combination of greens in it… and a splash of olive oil… Yum

Delish dinner!

And the final stat that I promised at the top. I haven’t mentioned on my blog my starting weight OR my current weight at any point. Few people knew (up til now) how much I weighed when I started on Dukan.

WEIGHT:
AUGUST 20, 2012 = 255
MARCH 20, 2012 = 176

I still have 11 pounds to reach Dukan’s True Weight of 165 lbs and 21 pounds to MY goal of 155.

I can’t say it enough times… the support I get from all of you; my family, friends and new blogger friends has been the key to my success. I am humbled by your kind words and cheering!

Blessings and Ciao!
Sandi

Blogger Awards – Part 1

Posted on March 19, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve been nominated for several blog awards the past couple of weeks. It is humbling to me that others think what I write is worthy of such things. Part of receiving these awards is giving back and in honor of that I am going to take my time nominating others so that each one receives the attention it deserves.

I want to thank MJ from EmJayAndThem for the nominations. Her post the past week The Look will give you an idea of her sense of humor 🙂

Today’s featured Blogger Award is the Hope Unites Globally Award (HUG Award).

This is an excerpt from the web site:
The HUG Award© is for people with an expectant desire for the world, for which they: Hope for Love; Hope for Freedom; Hope for Peace; Hope for Equality; Hope for Unity; Hope for Joy and Happiness; Hope for Compassion and Mercy; Hope for Faith; Hope for Wholeness and Wellness; Hope for Prosperity; Hope for Ecological Preservation; Hope for Oneness

I have 3 blogs that I follow that I feel truly deserve this award. Each one gives me hope in different ways and I encourage you to follow the links to their blogs and have a little read.

First up is Olive from OliveTwist. Olive has lived a very rich life, has lived through a lot of adversity and has an amazing and powerful positive outlook on life. She is also a gifted writer and I encourage you to spend some time going through her blog… her latest post Gandalf: A Sketch of a Lunatic is one of my favorites!

Next up is Alpha Miguel-Sanford of Aspire.Motivate.Succeed Her blog features daily inspiration, success stories and is motivating on many levels! I look forward to her posts in my mailbox in the morning to get me going!

And last, but certainly not least is Talin from TalinOrfali
Talin writes from the heart. She loves to travel and tells you about it from a really neat perspective. She also loves to blog about her homeland of Armenia and I’ve learned so much about it’s rich history!

There are 3 more awards to go… I will spread them out over the next week. I have so many awesome blogs that I follow that I want to spread the love ♥

Ciao!

Dukan – Days 211 & 212 – Whooshing

Posted on March 18, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Well, I had a blog break yesterday due to a momma calling in labor while I was typing out the morning blog 😀

Saturday was a PP day on purpose
Sunday was a PP day because I was at the hospital until 9 p.m.

Two whooshes have me elated, yet worried… LOLl
Saturday:
Daily weight loss: 1.3 lbs/0.60 kg
Total weight loss: 78.1 lb/35.51 kg
then Sunday:
Daily weight loss: 1.3 lb/0.60 kg
Total weight loss: 79.4 lb/36.11 kg

Saturday food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee
Only worked 1/2 a day so had a yummy lunch: I stir fried 2 tea eggs, 1/4 onion, 5 garlic cloves and 3 slices of bacon with some Italian seasoning… life doesn’t get better than that (I trimmed most of the fat from the bacon, and only allow myself bacon 2x a month… it’s my favorite food GROUP).
Dinner: Chicken breast stir fried with onions and garlic stems
Snack: 2 egg omelet with 2 TBS bran and diced onions

Water: 3 liters
Exercise:
Walk to work 1 mile/1.5 kms
Walk home from work 1 mile/1.5 kms
Walk to 35mm for 2 cafe latte’s with skim milk: 1.61 miles/2.6 km
Walk home from cafe the scenic route along canal: 2.6 miles/4.18 km
C25K run: 2.14 miles/3.44 km
**I think I got my exercise in on Saturday 😀

Sunday food:
Breakfast: 3 oz of steak and 2 eggs (I ate instead of blogging, once the patient called!)
Lunch: 2 tea eggs
Very late dinner: Chicken leg and 2 tea eggs (patient’s hubby got for me)… Spicy!
Snack at 11 p.m.: 2% Greek yogurt… My food order came from Shanghai and they didn’t have fat free in stock, so sent 2%… in all actuality, the 2% has less carbs than the fat free… I’ll sacrifice!

Water: 1.5 liters
Exercise:
Walk to work: 1 mile/1.5 kms
Supporting a woman in labor for 10 hours (walking her, massaging her, supporting her… it’s work!)
Ran with 2 year old in arms about 50 yards to hail taxi at 9 p.m., with my backpack and his overnight bag on my back!!! I’d say this was more exercise than running a 5K … lol

Lovely baby girl born at 535 p.m., all happy and well and then Soren’s mommy came in with some tummy trouble and I took him home with me for a few hours so she could be treated and I could have fun! We played games on the iPad and read… as stated before, he’s a pretty cool 2 year old to hang with!
Here he is playing Animal Safari, you can see Bert and Barbie the bunny snuggling behind him…

So… that was my 2 days… going in an hour late this morning since I worked all day and then some on my day off and I have a bit of a headache 😦 The weather is getting better, for the most part… it is raining out there this morning, but in the last 7 days we’ve had 4 sunshiny days, and that makes me a wee bit happier!

Ciao!

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
~ Maria Robinson

How Did That Happen??

Posted on March 17, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Tonight, while on Facebook a pic popped up on my friend Michele’s Timeline… it was a pic with both of us in it, taken by our friend Bernadette… This was Sunday, August 7, 2011, 13 days before I started the Dukan Diet… I will never, ever look like this again… How the hell did I get that big?? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way… I was lacing on my running shoes when I saw the picture and it gave me even more incentive to run tonight!!! Here it is…