Just a quick teaser as I’m walking out the door for work… the scale was VERY good to me this morning, I’ve hit a goal and I’ll walk to work with a smile on my face..
Updated blog when I get home from work!!! Sleep well my U.S. friends and family xoxoxo
And good morning to the rest of you!
Ciao!
I’ve had a very creative and busy day… this makes 2 recipes in one day for me 🙂 I got the idea for this meal from A Hapa Couples Dukan Recipes specifically their Dukan Asparagus Chicken. But I had a big piece of pork in the fridge that needed to be cooked so I used that instead… I followed their recipe to the letter… Oh My was it GOOD!
Pork marinating and cut veggies.
Marinated meat simmering
Veggies cooking.
Instead of just asparagus, I added in 3/4 of a large onion and some garlic stems.
It was a fabulous dinner… it’s for PV (Protein/Veggie) days, Consolidation and Stabilization
I also had a nice long run in the 41F rain! And even after my C25K was done, I did 4 more reps of running/walking… just because… I’m really, really enjoying running.
Ciao!
Today was a PV day.
Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.20 kg
Total Weight Loss: 73.3 lbs/33.31 kgs
Just cruising along here. Little tiny bits at a time. When I’m out running I imagine it all flying off of me and getting fitter and healthier.
It’s been a rough week, but I’ve hung in there. Usually when I hit a rough patch I eat things that aren’t good for me. That was the old Sandi… the pre-August 20th Sandi… I am so proud that I haven’t back slid into the bottomless pit of feeding my rough patches. To be honest, it feels good not to do it!
Overheard, by me, while running last night… “You’ve got this girl”… “Woo Hoo, that’s 5 minutes!”… “You WILL be fit and healthy”… “Yes, Yes, Yes… I think this is the last patch of run for the night”… “oh wait, nope… this one is… ugh”… “Put on your big girl panties and get on with it”… and finally, “Yes… I DID IT!” When the C25K lady tells me “1 minute to go” I rejoice and last night shed a few tears, during the cool down… last night I was pounding it out in the pouring rain in my waterproof jacket and a crocheted hat that Sandy O’Connor Huntley made me and loved that I was soaking wet. Running in the rain is cathartic… as I passed the gym in my complex for the 3rd time and the people were in the heated room on treadmills I thought, “girl, they ain’t got nothin’ on you”… LOL A bit cheeky I am these days.
So awesome workout… I preceded my run last night with a 20 minute yoga routine on the wii and 20 minutes of balance exercise, then a kick ass game of wii bowling… I scored a 172 🙂
Breakfast: 2 Tea Eggs (what else would I have??)
Lunch: 3 ham slices and a tea egg
Dinner: Pollo Saltado… damn was THAT good… I’ll do a recipe blog while on the train tomorrow night… don’t ask… part of my rough week b.s.
Snack: Didn’t get my yogurt in… it was too late when I realized it and I wasn’t hungry
Water: 2.6 liters… woot!
Ciao!
Quote of the day: “Put on your big girl panties” ~ First heard by me years ago by my midwife friend Deb Wage of Nashville.
Wednesday was a PV day.
Daily weight loss: 0.9 lb/0.44 kg
Total weight loss: 72.8 lb/33.11 kg
Well, that has me feeling a little bit better! I was beginning to think that I was going to be in a plateau for a week or two. Phew!
For those following the visa saga… it looks like I’ve been granted a 30 day extension. I will get final word next Wednesday, and that’s good enough to get my 2 ladies to their due dates. Everyone is very relieved and a little less stressed 🙂
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee, lots of water
Lunch: 3 slices of ham and a tea egg, lots more water
Dinner: Stir fry steak chunks with zucchini and onion
Snack: FF (Fat Free) Greek yogurt with flax seed meal and splenda
I did 30 minutes of yoga and 25 minutes of bowling, both on the wii. It was pouring down rain last night and I didn’t want to get soaked while running… hopefully it’ll be drier tonight!
Dinner recipe:
Sauteed 1/2 a red onion and 1/2 a zucchini in 1 tsp sesame oil (ran out of olive oil 3 days ago, none to be found in the little shops, will get some on my trip to Shanghai tomorrow). I added Italian seasoning, ground garlic and cumin. I sauteed for 2 minutes.
Sautee onions and zucchini for 2 mins. in 1 tsp of oil
I then placed those to the side and stir fried steak chunks for 5 minutes, about 2 1/2 minutes each side. I didn’t add any more oil, I did shake on a little Italian seasoning.
I then tossed the veggies back in, simmered together for 2 minutes and done!
Fast, simple, tasty and Dukan Friendly!
Total time to prepare: less than 15 minutes!
I hope you all are having a good Leap Day!
Ciao!
Quote of the day: Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement ~ Brian Tracy
Final word: RIP Davy Jones… you were the silly Monkee 😀
Saturday was a PP day.
Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.20 kg
Total Weight Loss: 71.7 lb/32.61 kg
Truly… the water makes all the difference in the world! I got in 2.5 liters of the stuff and I lost. Went into work 90 minutes later than usual, which was nice because I got a couple of loads of laundry done and the linens changed on my bed… left the house feeling as if it was fresher!
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs and 500 mL water.
Lunch: 2 tea eggs and 3 thin slices of ham and 500 mL water.
Snack: 1 tea egg (listen… I had my cholesterol checked and it’s lower than ever!!! LOL) and by the time it was 4 p.m. I had completed another 700+ mL water.
After work, I walked 2.6 kms (1.5 miles) to the MySweet cafe for coffee with Velina. I had 2. Which amped me up BIG TIME. On the way home I speed walked, with the Black Eyed Peas “I’ve Gotta Feelin'” blasting over and over and over in my head set for 61 minutes. I did just under 5 kms (according to my pedometer it was 3.03 miles). Not bad for a walk. The pedo says I averaged just over 3 miles per hour. I didn’t slow down for a second, and my pulse rate was 132 when I arrived home…. It felt great!
Dinner: Curried pork stir fry with onions and 300 mL water.
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with bran and splenda and a cup of tea.
Lovely day, I feel accomplished and happy. I hope everyone has a fab weekend! I’m off on Sunday… YAY!
Ciao!
Quote of the Day: Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~ Dalai Lama
Take Action!!! ~ Sandi B.
“I make small steps daily toward the vision for my life. You may not notice the change now, but over time it will be undeniable” ~ Marc Payan
April 2011 AND December 2011
When you start out dieting, especially when you’ve dealt with obesity for most of your adult life, you don’t envision yourself at your goal weight, or close to your goal weight. I started out in August because of a lunch meeting with a former classmate and a picture of me at my 30th class reunion, from behind. Not a glimpse you get very often. I had pretty much “accepted” myself, as is. I could not have been more wrong. A series of events occurred while I was home in August that showed me how wrong it was to “accept” me for who I was… who I had become was obese, sluggish, out of breath and not healthy. My lunch meeting with John Geraghty was an eye opener. He set me straight on the fact that it’s not OK to accept yourself as unhealthy. THANK YOU, JOHN!!! What I loved about our meeting is that John LISTENS, and he listened to me and let me reason myself into reality. I took notes, I bought the books he recommended and I took what he told me to heart and brain.
Then the reunion and the picture from behind… of my BIG behind. And then THE BOOK. My friend Lucy encouraged me to buy the Dukan Diet book in Abu Dhabi, and I did, and I threw it in my luggage and IGNORED it for my entire time at home. Then I saw the picture of my big behind and put the book in my carry on. I read the book on the flight from Miami to London EVERY.SINGLE.WORD. And then I read it AGAIN on the flight from London to Abu Dhabi… it was like a light bulb went off!
Then I started doubting myself… was I setting myself up for failure? Then my brain kicked in and said, “um yeah… HEART FAILURE!”… So I did it… starting August 20, 2011… and took small steps… one step at a time, one day at a time… and it took a while to notice the changes… but now…
THEY ARE UNDENIABLE 🙂
Friday was a PV day.
Daily Weight Loss: +0.9 lb/+0.40 kg… a gain 😦
Total Weight Loss: 71.3 lb/32.41 kg
So here I was up early on my day off to go to Shanghai. My friend Lucy shipped some boxes here and I needed to go clear them with Customs. I know, I know, I’m a glutton for punishment!
Driver here right on time at 730 a.m…. grabbed a couple tea eggs and then off to pick up Kitty. Kitty is my personal assistant (at work) and accompanies me to deal with paperwork because I have little patience to deal with stupid people (read: people who don’t want to do their job) and she keeps me out of jail 🙂 So here we are in the taxi, bright and early…
Hangzhou Taxi
It took us 45 minutes to get to the train station across twon here in Hangzhou (I might add that this is 3 minutes longer that it takes to get to Shanghai on the train 190 kms away!). Purchased tickets, got coffee and jumped on the train, as it was boarding when we purchased the tickets! Here we are in our 1st class seats. First class costs $5.71 more than 2nd class… worth every penny!
Kitty and Sandi
It took 42 minutes at 304 kph to get to Shanghai… I read my novel “The Wire In the Blood” by Val McDermid while Kitty napped… the girl can nap anywhere, at any time, it’s amazing!
Subway to our first destination and because Kitty is so amazingly efficient we got there without getting lost and she had all the paperwork ready, it was forthwith stamped (the Chinese stamp everything 457 times!!!) and money was exchanged and then we were cleared to go to customs.
But it was lunch time, so on to the subway to go to my favorite hamburger joint, The Blue Frog … woo hoo 2 times in 1 week! What a lucky girl I am. The server actually asked if I wanted what I had on Sunday and repeated it verbatim… am I really in China?!? I was pretty darn impressed, and yes, I wanted exactly what I had on Sunday 🙂
Lunch at the Blue Frog
Kitty had a HUGE burger, which she deconstructed and ate with a fork and knife. She also tried ketchup for the first time… and liked it… poor girl is getting Americanized by me.
After lunch a quick stop off at the City Shop grocery to pick up fat free yogurt (can’t get it in Hangzhou anywhere, and the City Shop online delivery warehouse didn’t have any last week. I got 10!
Then off to the customs office where the lady didn’t want to do her job (no big surprise) and as I wound up to start running my mouth, my sweet, naive, soft-spoken Kitty says, “I’ve got this” and lays into the lady, with a sweet smile on her face, but an angry voice and the lady did her job. We were in and out of the Customs office in under 30 minutes.
Back to the train station by way of 3 different Lines and train headed back by 436 p.m… The sad part, it took 1 hour and 17 minutes to get to my flat from the train station.
Dinner was stir-fried steak chunks with onions, squash and garlic stems.
I’ll tell you where the 0.9 lbs came from… I had NO WATER, at all. I had 1 cup of coffee in the morning, 1 latte in the train station in the morning, 2 diet cokes with lunch (something I rarely drink anymore, and don’t miss to be honest), a latte at the Shanghai train station, and 2 cups of yellow label tea at home. NO WATER… it makes a huge difference. And I noticed my urine was concentrated last night… hmmm, do you think that could be from drinking no water!?!? 😀 I also didn’t get in my yogurt and bran. I had no appetite for it last night.
Exercise… Kitty and I walked up and down every single stair there was in the subway system. We didn’t take the escalators, even with my back pack full of yogurt and a few other groceries, I climbed the stairs. It felt great and accomplished… Kitty, ever the trooper, went along with it, but told me on the train that her legs were tired. Bless.
All in all a good day. Here’s one last pic… a family sculpture in Shanghai that we passed, and as my driver Jerry reminds me FAMILY = Father And Mother, I Love You… pretty cool, huh?
FAMILY
Ciao!
Quote of the day: “You don’t always get what you wish for, you always get what you work for”
Today was a PP day.
Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.20 kg (4th day in a row that I’ve had 0.4 lb loss, strange!)
Total Weight Loss: 72.2 lb/32.81 kg
So off to work I go this morning… no confrontation at the tea egg line, this is a good thing for me and you can see the relief on the lovely, smiling faces of the tea egg ladies 😀
After morning rounds I am told that I’m going to help with bathing babies as they are short of staff (for new comers, I’m the Quality Manager for a maternity hospital in China, helping them improve to international standards and I’m a midwife by trade, not practicing here (or at least that’s what it’s suppose to be… LOL). Anyway, bathed a lovely baby boy while the marketing department snatched dozens and dozens of pictures of him for the parents. He also had a swim in the tank, settled when I sang him The Rose (my go to song to make babies stop crying) and then I gave him a lovely massage. Taking my time so I’d only have to care for one bambino!
After that, Kitty (my personal assistant) and I went back to our office and she comes into my inner office with a 4 page document to show me which events next month I have to attend and which ones I’m speaking at. Speaking at?? “Yes, she says, You’re giving two speeches”… “What do they have to be about”, I ask. And she replies, “Oh, don’t worry, they will make for you”… Lovely. So someone will write my speeches in Mandarin and then Kitty with translate them into English for me, then I will read them out loud in English and Kitty will translate verbally to the audience in Mandarin. I love this place. I am their marketing doll and I really do enjoy it! I have to do very little, but show up, look pretty, speak and smile. I imagine this is kind of like being a beauty queen 🙂 Kitty has informed me that this is all in honor of our hospital being open for 1 year and we will be celebrating from March 3 – April 4th… The Chinese know how to party it up!
Lunch at my desk, 2 tea eggs and 3 slices of ham.
Dinner… funny thing, I forgot to take meat out of the freezer, something I rarely do, and ended up stopping at the street vendor on the way into my apartment complex. She sells what looks like chickens and I thought I’d get one, sans the head (they serve it with the head here), and have that for dinner. She explains that they are free range ducks, this is why they are smaller than what I’d be used to from the U.S.. Well, ducks and Dukan don’t go together because of the fat content, but I need to eat so I buy one. She expertly shaved the meat off the bone and presented it to me in 2 little containers. It.Was.Yummy!!! Really yummy! But my tummy felt heavy for about an hour after I ate.
I went for a run, did 35 minutes and 17 seconds in the pouring rain, but I’m really starting to enjoy it. Kept up my 7 mins. run/2 mins. walk ratio and it seemed easier this time around.
Yogurt with bran and splenda for snack and off to bed… trip to Shanghai on Friday!
Ciao!
Quote of the day: “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness” -Edward Stanley
It is so easy to talk yourself into eating something you shouldn’t to satisfy an immediate need. It is heroic to say NO! If you don’t have the crap in the house, you won’t be able to eat it. Throw it out. Don’t wait to start your diet until you’ve eaten it all… donate it, just get it out of your house. You’ll feel good about it… I promise you 🙂
Sunday was a PV day.
Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.20 kg
Total Weight Loss: 70.9 lb/32.21 kg
So it was six months ago today that I began my Dukan Diet journey. And I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that I did! By sticking to this diet and by not straying (with the exception of a rare few times) I have managed to nearly lose 71 pounds in 6 months. I feel GREAT! Great doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. My knees don’t hurt. I bound up and down the stairs at work. I use the stairs everywhere I go (like in the Shanghai subway yesterday). I walk 1 mile to work, clock in and take the stairs to the 4th floor. In August, I would have been winded before getting to the 2nd floor. Now… no problem!
Yesterday I woke up early, caught a ride to the train station and spent the day in Shanghai. It’s a 42 minute bullet train ride and worth it. I had lunch with Federica and Will and did a little shopping. Picked up a couple of pair of jeans (one size 12, one size 14) and then coffee with them and the trip back. Makes for a long day. Makes for a short night of sleep, but through the yawns this morning I feel as if it was worth it. Worth it for my mental health and worth it to get a couple of pairs of jeans in normal size for a bargain 🙂
Speaking of jeans… I promised before and after butt pics. This first picture was what really made me realize I needed to do something immediately about my weight. This is at my 30th Class Reunion in August 2011, a couple of weeks before I started the Dukan Diet… I’m in the purple sweater… Good Lord!
Oh My!
And this was this morning… We took a couple of shots from a distance but because I’m wearing all black, they just didn’t show anything. Vivien insists I use this one… it’s a close up, but I’m loving my waist definition. And… in the pic above my hips were 56″ (cringe)… they are now 44″… that’s TWELVE INCHES LESS! And my waist has gone from 45 1/2 inches to 35 1/2 inches… TEN INCHES LESS… All I can do is 😀 So here’s my close up… LOL…
Dukan Diet = Smaller ass and waist 🙂
I have received so much encouragement from family, friends and fellow bloggers that I am amazed and humbled on a daily basis. It really is what has pushed me to continue down this amazing path of wellness.
Again… thanks for all the encouragement and for those of you on this journey… YOU CAN DO IT!
Ciao!
Quote of the day: It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect it’s successful outcome ~ William James
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