Dukan – Days 243 & 244 – Eight months in!

Posted on April 20, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wednesday was a PV day and Thursday was a PP day 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: 1.5 pounds/0.70 kgs (2 days)
Total Weight Loss: 87.8 pounds/39.91 kgs/6.27 stone

Wednesday was a work day. And after work I had dinner with friends at The Vineyard. It’s run by an American guy named Reuben from Boston. Weds. night is game night, and if you play a game you get 10% off! We played UNO… I won 😀

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Lunch: 1 tea egg and tin of tuna
Dinner: Philly cheese steak and a side salad

Wednesday was an off night from running, so I walked 5 kms instead.

Thursday was my hospital’s spring walk. I’m going to do a completely separate blog on my adventures with lots of pictures.

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Lunch: In a small village, pork, tofu and chicken… I didn’t have the rice that was placed directly on front of me!

Dinner: Stir fried pork curry with onions and garlic cloves. I also dipped it in some kick ass hot sauce that I bought on the field trip! Hot as all get out, but yum!!

Exercise: 3.47 km cave hike, up and down & 4.75 km mountain hike, that was pretty challenging… Here’s how we got down from the top of the mountain… The Flying Squirrel…

Fun day… Just 1 kg exactly to be at Dr. Dukan’s True Weight!!! ONE KILOGRAM! That’s 2.2 pounds. It’s really crazy to think that I’ve nearly lost 90 pounds in 8 months! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… THIS DIET WORKS! IF YOU FOLLOW IT TO THE LETTER, IT REALLY WORKS!

I’m off to bed… I’ll post all about cave hiking, mountain hiking and wishes coming true n about 10 hours 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 242 – Back on Track

Posted on April 18, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Tuesday was a Pure Protein Day… #2 out of 3 🙂

Daily Weight Loss: 1.1 lb/0.50 kg (that’s actually from 2 days)
Total Weight Loss: 86.3 lb/39.21 kg
Still 100 grams over my lowest weight which was last Tuesday.
I have 3.74 lbs/1.7 kgs to be at Dr. Dukan’s True Weight… but I’m going to drop 10 pounds below that, so I actually have 13.74 lbs/6.2 kgs to go… so doable 🙂

Breakfast: 2 Tea Eggs
Lunch: 2 Tea Eggs and a tin of tuna in water
Snack: 2 ounces of low fat cheddar
Dinner: Stir fried Chicken breast with onions and garlic cloves, seasoned with curry powder… yum!

Exercise:
0730 – 1.5 km walk to work
1200 – 1.5 km walk to home for lunch
1315 – 1.5 km walk back to work
1715 – 1.5 km walk back home
2015 – 5 km run around neighborhood in 43:27… my best time… I haven’t been able to get this number under the 44 minute mark! While doing this I completed C35K Week 8 Day 1.. just 2 days to go!

Finished a FABULOUS book called HeartSick by Chelsea Cain… recommended by my friend, Betsy… thanks Betsy!!!! I’ve already started on her 2nd book SweetHeart.

Sound asleep by 1015 p.m…. the weather has been very nice in Hangzhou!

Ciao!

Quote of the Day: “Learn to listen, instead of desperately wanting to be heard” ~ Ma Jaya

From RunKeeper iPhone app:

I had to keep reminding myself to pace...

My gated condo community has a loop road that just happens to be exactly 1 mile/1.5 km... how convenient 🙂

Dukan – Changes

Posted on April 17, 2012 by flamidwyfe

So yesterday, Kitty my Super Duper Personal Assistant, commented that my “bottom” looked very nice in my new jeans… so of course, we had to take a picture 😀 First the picture of my big behind that made me really think about how badly I needed to take control of my health…

Seriously???? UGH!

For those of you who don’t know… I’m the one with my back to the camera with the purple sweater “hiding” my big bottom!

Here’s the pic that Kitty took… I think there’s a bit of a difference… LOL

Yeah... that's my backside 🙂

Kitty also mentioned that you could see all my tattoos through the shirt I was wearing, she’s so observant!

I was down 200grams/0.7 lbs… but still up from my low weight last week… not stressing over it… well, maybe a little!

I’ll do a running update when I can figure out how to do it… Brett told me, but I can’t find the saved notes… LOL

Ciao!

Something a little different… Tagged!

Posted on April 11, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I am WAY behind on many things in blogdom. I’ve had a fairly busy travel schedule this past 3 weeks and I apologize! I was given several blog awards that I still haven’t been able to get around posting (blogging on my ancient, ornery lap top is much easier than, my shiny iPad or worse, iPhone!)… I also want the blogs that I follow know that I read every word in your blogs and always, at the least, click the LIKE button… That is my WordPress peeps! Blogger makes it VERY difficult to acknowledge you’ve been there OR leave a message 😦 But, I’m reading those, as well!

Today I opened an awesome post by http://laborofwonder.com/2012/04/09/fine/
She’s a young busy mom who cooks homemade gluten-free food for her beautiful family. I like getting to know more about others, so here’s some stuff about me : D She tagged me in her post, and this is my response…

1. What is the worst advice you’ve ever been given? Did you take it?
To switch professions (midwifery)… Heck no… Once a midwife, always a midwife, you just figure out better and different ways to do it!

2. What are your top-3 favorite meals?
Steak & Asparagus
Salmon & Asparagus
Shashimi with LOTS of wasabi

3. What fact about you are you most embarrassed about?
I could have been a way better mom.

4. What’s the worst name you’ve ever given a pet?
~~None is~~ Miss Kitty, not very original. She lives with my mom now, she renamed her PITA (Pain In The Ass)… Seriously… Lol

5. What is something you do that drives your significant other crazy? If you have no significant other, substitute a parent or friend.
No significant other… I used to drive my friends nuts by answering questions with song lyrics… It was a Hard Habit To Break! 😀

6. What was the last thing to really make you laugh out loud?
Reading this guy’s blog… The Sandy Tongue
He’s rude, he’s crude, he’s says the most politically incorrect stuff, but I love reading his posts!

7. What was your worst first date ever?
Egyptian guy in Abu Dhabi, told me after one hour that he wanted to take me home to Egypt to meet his mother! Um, no… LOL

8. What is the rudest thing a stranger has ever said to you?
Drawing a blank… I usually tell people to eff off and then remove it from my mind.

9. What was your favorite childhood toy?
My Salty Dog… He was made of jean material, I have no idea what happened to him.

10. What was the last stupid/crazy/un-you thing you’ve last done?
Do I *have* to answer this one? Let’s just say my reaction to the lady who blew her nose on my EFFING HIKING BOOT in the taxi que at the Hangzhou train station a few weeks ago, will probably never do that again. I’m lucky I wasn’t taken out by the mob… Instead they parted and let me and Kitty through… I’m NOT proud of myself 😦

11. Pick your own question… What is your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
This is a toughie for me… But I’d say my family’s village in Italy. Pennapiedimonte. Nick and I traveled there in August 2009 and it was amazing!
The village hugs the side of the mountain…

This is what we saw from our bedroom every single morning… The sun coming up over the Adriatic Sea… Breathtaking!

OK….
Post the rules (and here they are:)
Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.
Create 11 new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
Tag 11 people and link them to your post.
Let them know you’ve tagged them.

Questions I want to know about you:

1. Why do you blog?

2. What is your biggest accomplishment?

3. What is one awesome place you’ve visited and would like to go back? Why?

4. Tell me about your 7th grade English teacher…

5. Describe your living room…

6. What is your dream vehicle? Why?

7. What is one thing your momma doesn’t know about you?

8. If you could change one thing, what would it be?

9. Three wishes…

10. What is your favorite day of the year? Why?

11. Why do you follow my blog?

Who I’m tagging and who you should check out… I follow these bloggers cuz they’re awesome!

Susan at A Promise To Dad

OK, have at it! I’m off to teach a class… I have 3 minutes to get down 5 flights of stairs 🙂

Ciao!

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!

Dukan – Reflections of Spring

Posted on March 22, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wednesday was a PV day 🙂

Daily weight loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight loss: 79.8 lb/36.31 kg

Wednesday started out at 39 degrees and rose to 57! And this afternoon(Thursday) it is a glorious 72!!! I’m sitting on the balcony basking in the sun 😀

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Lunch: grilled chicken breast
Dinner: Citrus Pork and a yummy mixed green organic salad.
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and bran.

Spring is a time to clean things up and reflect… I have thought a lot about reflecting lately and today on the way back from getting coffee I caught my reflection in a storefront window and I’m starting to like what I see!

Eating right, exercising, running and a good attitude (most of the time) have brought me to this place.

Life is good.

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 214 – Cruisin’ Towards the End

Posted on March 21, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Tuesday was a PV day 🙂

Daily weight loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total weight loss: 79.4 lb/36.11 kg

Tuesday was cold and dark, definitely ushered out winter in a harsh way! Started my day out by a nice 1 mile walk to work. I also did something I don’t do very often…
Breakfast… wait for it… Yogurt! 🙂 with Splenda and bran
Morning Snack: Tea egg
Lunch: 1/2 can tuna and 2 tea eggs

I then took a public bus (I know, shocking!) towards town and walked the remaining 2 miles to The Vineyard, which is run by a guy named Reuben from Boston. He cooks me Dukan friendly meals 🙂 How cool is that? I had naked chicken wings with hot sauce and a Philly cheese steak w/o the bread, with extra onions and low fat mozzarella, just a tiny bit.

I then walked 1.4 miles to a friend’s flat for a 2 hour visit and then I started walking home. I had my jeans on, my back pack and in my back pack I had stuffed a yoga ball… after 5 or 6 minutes of walking, I decided to run… I did a warm up of a 3 min run/90 sec walk/4 min run/90 sec walk… then I ran for 36 minutes… I really focused on pacing myself and breathing. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep going I’d get a burst of energy and just keep going… I ended my run by going up and over a bridge (just a little one, lol, but an incline none the less). I then walked the remaining way home, about 5 minutes. The total trip is 3.6 miles, I have no idea how far I ran in that 36 minutes… what I do know is that oddly, I wasn’t out of breath… my legs were definitely fatigued after all was said and done, but not too bad. I woke up this morning expecting to be sore, nada… I definitely felt some twinges, but really no pain… tonight is a “night off” from C25K… I’m going to make myself rest my legs 🙂

Ciao!