Dukan Recipe – Goat Cheese & Bacon Deviled Eggs

These are amazingly yummy! I got the idea from Health-BentΒ and modified it for my own needs. This recipe is good for PP, PV, Consolidation and Stabilization Phases of Dukan. PP and PV if you take out the bacon… there are NO carbs in the recipe, but the bacon has fat. I allowed myself 2 days of bacon a month the entire time I was on Dukan… I lost my weight πŸ™‚ Β So it’s up to you. The bacon MADE the recipe… just sayin’ πŸ˜€

Goat Cheese & Bacon Deviled Eggs
Servings: 2 (I ate some last night and the rest for breakfast this morning!!!)
Prep & Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
6 eggs – Hard boiled *Instructions below
2 ounces of goat cheese
4 ounces of bacon
3 Tbs. Dukan mayo **Instructions below
Few pinches of Paprika
Salt
4 scallions, thinly sliced

Hard boil the eggs.
Cut your bacon width wise, into very thin strips and cook them until they are crispy in a pan. Place on paper towels to soak up the grease and let sit.
Peel your eggs, cut them length wise and scoop out the yolks into a bowl.
Mix together the egg yolks, Dukan mayo, goat cheese, 2 pinches of paprika and salt.
Use a spoon to scoop the egg mixture back into the egg whites.
Sprinkle with a bit more paprika.
Sprinkle with green onions.
Sprinkle with the bacon.
EAT… nom nom!!!

Check out my pics below. I want to preface the pics by saying I don’t have a camera. My Canon broke and these are iPhone pics… I’m also not a photographer, LOL… so these will have to do!

*How I hard boil perfect eggs:
Put 6 eggs in your pot. Put in cold water, just enough to cover. Put on the stove on High. Once it begins to boil time it for 8 minutes. Remove from heat and start running cold water over the eggs for 2 minutes. Allow to set for 5 minutes, then peel. The peels should come right off!
**My Dukan Mayo:
2.5 Tbs of Fat Free Greek Yogurt, 1 Tbs. Dijon Mustard. Stir… Simple… I love simple!

LOL… I forgot to mention that I ate salmon shashimi while cooking it… Mmmm, Mmmm good!!!

My Dukan Mayo

Lick the spoon… it’s worth it!!!

Holy Goat Cheese, Batman… these were GOOD!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 56

Thursday was a stressful day 😦

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

I sure don’t like stressful days. Makes me want to nosh around on food… thank goodness I only have healthy choices around me, but even too much of a good thing can be a not so good thing!

My stress centers around changes to my work schedule without consulting with me. They just toss me to the wind sometimes and see where I land. I am about the easiest going, “fly by the seat of your pants” kinda gal, but when it seems to be changes made with the wrong intent, it gets my hackles up.

Then after the schedule change stuff, I went on morning rounds and had to stop due to the stress of dealing with people who give misinformation. Formula (baby poison in MY humble opinion) is passed out like candy here. Women being told that they don’t have any milk in their breasts… it does my head in.

So… two things I’m concentrating on to get me out of my funk…
1. My job ends here in 10 weeks and 5 days and I will go home, for good… maybe, at least for now… and…
2. Β I won’t be doing birth work full time when I go home. I will be starting my own diet and fitness business. I am very excited about this.
Oh… and a 3rd thing… because they’ve changed my schedule to go to Guangzhou July 12, I will be near Hong Kong and being near Hong Kong means I can go to a movie theatre and watch ROCK OF AGES… now THAT will make me happy and get me out of this funk… I saw it in the States last month and I want to see it again! I’m listening to the soundtrack to ROA as I am typing this post!Β 

After work I walked to the grocery store to pick up some veggies for the dinner I made for Vivi and Olivia. Vivi is my new personal assistant, having replaced the amazing Kitty, and Olivia is a translator in our office. I wanted to have them over for dinner for helping out with Tits the Cat while I was at home on vacation. Their request… an American dinner. So I made them steak, carrots with splenda and cinnamon and mashed potatoes with aged cheddar… I didn’t eat the carrots or the potatoes… although they both appeared to be big hits, given the fact there was nothing left over! I also made a nice salad with greens, red cabbage, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

Vivi and Olivia

An American dinner for my Chinese friends πŸ™‚

While the carrots and potatoes were boiling, I showed the girls how to use the wii for bowling. Neither had bowled before. They did pretty well for their first game. While I was finishing up supper, they bowled their second game and Vivi scored a 201!Β She did almost as well on game 3… note to self… stop teaching people how to play, they’ll beat you! LOL

All in all a very nice night. The girls cheered me up. I walked them down to the corner and got Vivi in a taxi home. I then did a walk around the neighborhood.

Food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee
Snack: 10 almonds
Lunch: left over pork from the dinner out with Jerry… when I heated this up in the staff canteen here at work, the chef came over with chop sticks and had a few bites… lol. I’m working REAL hard on the lack of personal space… real hard!
Snack: 1 ounce aged cheddar and 10 almonds
Dinner: Steak w/ onions, salad and a tea cup of wine
Water: 2.5 liters
Exercise:
10 minute morning flow yoga, Walk to work (1 mile) Walk from work to grocery then home (1.9 miles), Β walk around neighborhood before bed 1.2 miles)

So… deep breaths, positive outlook, awesome soundtrack, meditation… in and out… 10 weeks, 5 days… ahhhhhh

Ciao!

One last pic… my little baby from Tuesday… his mommy IS exclusively breast feeding… that’s a rare thing here! Β πŸ™‚

Cute lil thing!

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

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

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! Β 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 hereΒ 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 CharlotteΒ and MoondayΒ and MelΒ 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 HulkΒ 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! πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

RESULTS.ARE.TYPICAL… they really can be!

Ciao!

 

Dukan – Days 261 & 262 – Epiphany

Well, it’s been a couple of days since I wrote a post. Mostly because it’s very difficult to write posts on my iPhone… which I have to do at my flat. C–hina has a problem with ba—-logs and πŸ˜€ -book πŸ™‚ And blocked my V — P — eN on my home IP. So the only place I can use it is at Werk πŸ™‚ Β Talk about paranoid… hehe. So on my days off I only have access through my iPhone. Anyhoo…..

Saturday was a half day at work and a PV Day πŸ™‚
Sunday was a day off from work and a PV Day πŸ™‚

Over the course of those two days I GAINED 1.1 pounds/0.50 kgs
Total Weight Loss: 90.7 lbs/41.21 kgs

Not worried. I ate everything right, so it wasn’t that. And I’ve gotten plenty of exercise, so it isn’t that… I think it’s just a fluctuation. I do have to say that these last 10 pounds are going to be the hardest to lose… oh wait… i’m getting the fat sucked out this week… YAY! πŸ˜€ Β Liposuction is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, I have to do a marketing event for the hospital in Wenzhou in the morning… gotta “pay” for that free plastic surgery.

So, after Thursday morning’s weigh in, I won’t weigh myself for 10 days. I don’t want to freak out. I know that with the natural inflammatory response of surgery, I will gain, that is the bottom line. Kitty (who will be with me throughout my surgery and recovery, bless her heart) has already said I want the fat that they take out of me WEIGHED… LOL. Kitty will also be taking pictures through the entire surgery and after AND she’ll write the post for Friday and possible Saturday… with pics. She’s such a good doobie!

The bad news 😦 Β Sadly, May 15th will be Kitty’s last day with me. As per Chinese tradition, she is “old” at the ripe age of 25 for not being married. Her mother is making her go back to her village and hook up with this guy she met over Chinese New Year. She promises me she won’t marry him if she doesn’t fall in love with him… and I believe her. She’s a smart girl and has learned a lot from her American momma (me)… LOL Β I am going to miss her like crazy. Vivi (not to be confused with Vivien aka ViviMokaLaka) is my new personal assistant. Nice girl, lots of experience, rolls her eyes at my sarcasm, because she gets it… she’ll fall in love with me… they all do πŸ™‚

Saturday… INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE MIDWIFE. Since I was being a right shit about the fact that the Director of Nursing canceled our activities, I boycotted morning handover and rounds, did some PowerPoint work and left at noon to go hang out at the Vineyard with ViviMokaLaka and watch Aussie Football. I am a Geelong Cats fan, by association. And I really enjoy watching the game. I’ve stopped yelling things like “offsides” and “that was holding”… because those silly rules DO NOT APPLY!

Me on International Midwives Day:

I AM A MIDWIFE πŸ™‚

I spent so much time at the Vineyard on Saturday that I ended up having lunch and dinner. Reuben, the chef, is from Boston and he reminds me of my son Nick. He also makes me whatever I want to stick to the Dukan Diet, which is awesome. I had an amazing grass-fed steak on a bed of gorgeous greens for lunch and then for dinner he made me a hamburger with sauteed mushrooms and onions and a wee bit of low-fat mozzarella… YUM!

**Added after post was completed, but before I published it… Ironically, while previewing my post, Reuben and his wife came in to my office! So we took a pic:

Notice the Chinese soda in his hand… he didn’t bring me anything 😦

Sharing lunch with the Vineyard cat:

She lives in the restaurant… I think it’s pretty cool… other people, not so much.

It’s all about the presentation… look how gorgeous this burger plate is!

Simple burger… plated perfectly πŸ˜‰

Made it home around 830 and went out for a 35 minute run… in bed, sound asleep by 1030!

Sunday was my day off. I woke up bright and early at 535 a.m… WHAT THE HECK??? Tried to tell myself that this was a day off… we could sleep in Β until like 630, but nope, I was up. I hit the ground running. Made a cup of coffee and went nuts in the house cleaning. I finished up organizing Lucy’s boxes, which she is shipping back to Dubai, put myΒ refrigeratorΒ magnets and pictures back on my fridge, LOL. Packed up two big suitcases full of stuff I don’t need here in China, to take back to the States in June when I’m home on vacation, cleaned out my closet… AGAIN… I barely have any clothes left, NOT COMPLAINING, did every piece of laundry in my house, including the sheets on both beds and remade with fresh “summer” linen (anyone want to come hang out? There’s clean sheets on the bed!!), packed up for my trip to Wenzhou this week (most underwear and PJ’s since I’m going to be down… and hey, PJ’s on the train ride back are appropriate in this country… lol). I also packed up my wok and the stupid hot plate I used for the first 4 months I was here, until I realized the gas stove worked… lol. I will use these to cook for myself in the hospital in Wenzhou… yes, I’m sticking to my damn diet! I swept, mopped and wiped everything down… and that was all BEFORE 9 A.M.! I slipped down and bought a few tea eggs from the tea egg lady and went back upstairs to check emails and FB. Phew! What a morning. In the afternoon my groceries were delivered from Shanghai and I separated out the meats, cut them into chunks for stir frying, and packaged up some for taking to Wenzhou. And at 430 Kira and Dan came over for a visit with the kids and Velina and Robin popped in with their baby, too. Kira and Dan are headed back to the States in a few days and I’m trying to get my fill of them before they go! Soren totally wrecked my immaculate house, lol, but he’s so stinkin’ adorable, I don’t care… here he is after drinking down his 2nd yogurt of the evening…

So cute I could eat him!

Soren… Momma Sandi’s gonna send you the Ayi bill for this week, buddy πŸ™‚

After they left, I checked emails once again before bed… I had 2 emails from people who follow my blog (I AM SO AMAZINGLY HUMBLED THAT YOU ALL FOLLOW THIS BLOG). One of them was asking advise and the other one thanking me privately for a “put on your big girl panties and stop making excuses” comment I put on one of their blog posts. And this, is what I went to bed thinking about… excuses. And a long-time friend talked about starting her hcg injections AGAIN and I told her to start eating and stop using injections. And then this morning, a fellow blogger MJ, from emjayandthem, wrote this quote on a post from a couple of days ago:Β β€œif you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always had.” And then one of my favorite momma’s I delivered a million moons ago had this to say on Facebook:

Edited…. Sue sent me this link to the article that this quote comes from:
“Fat looks on the surface as though it is about a failure of restraint. It isn’t actually any more an issue of restraint than it is for many thin or medium-sized people. Most eating problems don’t show. Fat, which may or may not mean an eating problem, does. That doesn’t make it immoral or contemptible. It doesn’t mean the fat individual has faulty judgment or inferior leadership skills. It certainly doesn’t sanction discrimination. What it does demonstrate is that cruelty and stupidity arises when we are pressed to make our bodies into uniform shapes. This creates widespread body anxiety, and makes us search for a scapegoat to feel secure. We know from other forms of discrimination what a fruitless and lousy deal that is.”
And my reply was this:
“I have to disagree with this, Sue. Having lost more than 90 pounds over the past 8 months from learning restraint, I have to say that fat is just that… FAT. It comes from improper eating and from improper movement. When I started my journey to get rid of the fat I walked just 20 minutes a day. I hear people use the excuse all the time, that they don’t have time… my answer… shut off the computer for 20 minutes and take a walk. That was MY answer. My friend John is a life coach, we had a serious talking in August, before I started my quest to lose the fat and the one thing that I took away from his teachings is that we just use excuse after excuse for the way we look… how unhealthy we are. Fat is Fat… Fat is not healthy. A certain amount of fat is healthy, but not obesity. We get fat from poor choices. And once we stop making excuses and recognize obesity for what it is, instead of coddling each other to make us feel better, our nation will get healthier. Love you and hope you’re feeling better soon β™₯”
And collectively that should be an epiphany to all us… FAT IS NOT HEALTHY. OBESITY IS NOT HEALTHY… STOP MAKING FRIGGIN’ EXCUSES AND DO JUST TWO SIMPLE THINGS… EAT BETTER AND MOVE! It really is quite simple! The first person who really, really pointed this out to me was John Geraghty, in August, during my life coaching session with him. And at the time it made sense… but now… 90+ pounds later… IT MAKES SENSE! REAL SENSE!
The bottom line is you have to realize that being fat and obese is not healthy and stop making excuses… NOPE, it’s not your thyroid, NOPE, it’s not your diabetes, NOPE it’s not PCOS or any other malady you have… it’s your life style. It’s the crap you eat and the fact that you aren’t MOVING. And if you simply… SIMPLY change those two things, it will make all the difference in your world. Stop saying you DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME to cook… I cook every single meal in UNDER 15 MINUTES… stop making excuses you DON’T HAVE TIME TO EXERCISE… get off your butt and walk out the door and get in 20 minutes… that’s ALL you need. 20 minutes… Turn off your computer and go do it… that is after you’ve finished reading my post… LOL.
SIMPLY…. STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND GET HEALTHY!
Ciao!
I’ll leave you with this quote from Mel at wwangel… she inspires me to get off my ass and run… Thank you, Mel for pushing me harder than you probably know you do πŸ™‚ I am proud to know someone who is running the NYC marathon this year… You Go my Kiwi Friend!

S.T.A.R.T.!!!

Dukan – Day 258

Wednesday was a PV day πŸ™‚

Daily Weight Loss: 0 – stay the same day
Total Weight Loss: 91.8 lbs/41.71 kgs

I’m going to keep this short… my momma always said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”… LOL

Breakfast: 2 tea eggs
Lunch: 1 tin of tuna and 1 tea egg
Dinner: Shrimp with mushrooms and garlic stems with cumin and curry powder
Snack: pot of FF yogurt with bran and Splenda

Exercise:
1 mile walk to work
1.5 mile walk from 35mm coffee house to home
3.66 mile/5.97 km run in the evening…

May 2nd run… B210K Week 1 Day 2

And as easy as that, my blog is done for the day. Here’s hoping the week ends on a high note!

Ciao!

 

Dukan – Day 248 – I DID IT :)

Sunday was PV (Protein/Veggie) Day πŸ˜€

Daily Weight Loss: 0.9 lb/0.44 kg
Total Weight Loss: 90.2 lbs/41.01 kgs

So in 8 months and 3 days I’ve reached Dr. Dukan’s True Weight for me.
I also COMPLETED COUCH 2 5 KΒ last night. So I reached TWO goals in less than 12 hours! πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€

Breakfast: Bacon and egg omelet with bran
Lunch: Green salad with grilled chicken breast
Dinner: Ground beef, onions and mushrooms cooked Vietnamese lemongrass sauce. YUM!

Exercise:
2.15 mile mountain hike in the morning
3.11 mile run in the evening

I wanted to upload a couple pics, but the internet here in China is NOT cooperating 😦 I’ll see if I can upload them directly from my iPhone…

Bigger and better update coming soon with lots of before and after pics from the past year… should be fun!

Ciao!

Quote of the day:Β Β I’m determined to not die with millions in the bank, but memories in my heart! ~ Sandi Blankenship, in response to MJ πŸ™‚

Pic I couldn’t upload earlier…

Dr. Dukan's True Weight met πŸ™‚ I'm going 4.5 kgs less (10 pounds), as my own goal, but reaching this... AWESOME!

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

Monday was a PP day πŸ™‚
Tuesday was a PV day πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

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! πŸ˜€

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 219 – Off to Marketing We Go!

Sunday was a PV (protein/veggie) day πŸ™‚

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 πŸ˜€ 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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ˜€

Ciao!

Street food from Saturday night... new meaning to the words Fish Sticks πŸ™‚ 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

Thursday was a PP day πŸ™‚

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! πŸ˜€ 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 πŸ™‚ 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 πŸ™‚ Cheeky little bint I am πŸ™‚

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!