Saturday, February 25, 2012

From the Good Ole Blog Roll


I haven't done a blog roll post for a long time. This is a post where I share some of my favourite posts from the last week or so. Some of these will be from my blog roll and others will be from across the Web. Enjoy!

  • Here's one for a recipe for homemade pita bread. It looks so delish! I confess that I probably won't make it myself, but for you bakers out there, it looks sooo good: Home Made Pita Bread Recipe

Well, over and out. Have a great weekend, girls! 



Friday, February 24, 2012

To The Gym, Young Lady!

I am so excited today! We went to the gym! By we, I mean my amazing husband and I. We had kind of a slow day and then out of the blue he asked me if I felt like going, and I responded that I did. It was so great to go and I appreciated him initiating it so much. I find it so hard to go and exercise again, after I fail to do it for a while. Once I'm in the groove, it's so much easier.

So anyways, it was great. I did an hour on the treadmill, my old standby. And my time wasn't too bad, considering. And one more exciting thing: I started a new tracking system! I have been very faithful to Sparkpeople for a long time, but I just wanted to wander around and see what the other systems had to offer. And I wandered over to FitnessPal, and I'm kind of in love!

I can definitely see advantages of both systems but FitnessPal is much faster on my computer, so this is what I am going to use for now. I find tracking is SO time-consuming and this will definitely save me time. And it also has a very easy-to-use recipe calculator, which I will use A LOT because I cook very frequently. So, it feels good to be back on track for losing weight. The thing is, I know it works, when I stick to it. I just have to keep going, and it will happen. I know that.

Goodnight, everyone. Thank you to Leah and Mel for your comments. I am having troubles with this commenting system again, and haven't been able to reply, so thank you!

Supper Tonight: Scrambled Eggs Plus, with turkey sausages. Yum!


Sunday, February 19, 2012

What To Do With an Old Wok?

Image by Innonate
What has me wanting to write today is a topic I was curious about. Can you recycle or re-use an old wok? I have an old wok that is getting all rusty and nasty, and want to get rid of it. I was going to throw it out in a garbage bag and then felt terribly convicted. How could I throw out such a big item. So that left me wondering: what to do? 

Being the all-around research gal that I am, of course I Googled it. And I found a few good ideas. First of all, some pots and pans can be turned into scrap metal.  I found a place quite close to our home, so that's one idea. I would have to call them on Monday to see if they would actually take a wok.


And another couple good ideas I read were to use it as a container for melting candles, or as  a flower pot. Interesting! I think the idea that would be most realistic for me, would be to make it into some kind of flower pot.


Here are some links on the topic: 

From Earth911: How To Recycle Your Old Cookware. 

Recycle or Reuse Old Pots and Pans


How about you? Have you ever recycled or re-used your old pots and pans? How so? What did you do? Do you have any ideas for this wok of mine? Thanks! 

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Learned Helpless and Weight Gain -- VERY DEEP STUFF ON LOSING WEIGHT

Thanks! 
First of all, I am so, so grateful for the positive comments in the last few days on this blog. Like I said before, I am having trouble with this commenting system, so I just want to thank you on this post. THANKS! :)

And after I had such a victorious feeling on Sunday, I hate to bring up my next topic, but this is life. It has its ups and downs! I have good news and bad news. First the good news. I no longer have job stress. And now the bad news. I no longer have a job. As of today.

So,  I am back to deciding what to do with the rest of my life. Career decision. I need to go back to work again, but I am not sure where to go from here.

I saw something on Dr. Oz that was really interesting. You may have seen the show: it was about women who are very obese, and about some who were happy with being fat, and some that weren't. I'm not getting into the show itself, which was interesting, but one thing that the psychologist said on the show. He said that these women had been told they could not do anything. And I don't necessarily agree that all overweight women feel that they can't do things, but that is something that I struggle with: that feeling of helplessness.

I have just done some research on this. Before this, I had never made the connection between learned helplessness and being overweight. But there is a connection! Wow. This is a BIG revelation to me.

And this is very deep stuff. That's what this blog is about: some very deep stuff on losing weight. It obviously might not apply to many people, but it does to my healing and journey to wellness. And I found these articles on this topic:

  1. From a site on eating disorders: Learned Hopelessness. This article says that women with eating disorders often feel helpless, and tend to default to "I can't, it's impossible," when things go wrong. And this feeling is connected to overeating.

  2. Another article from the Institute of Psychiatry in London says that a study showed that women with eating disorders had a higher level of "learned helplessness" during childhood. Learned helplessness was the opposite of "childhood mastery."

  3. And this is from another article from the same site on eating disorders. This article about natural eating, from the Cedric Centre for Counselling talks about how this feeling of learned helpless is the number one thing that leads people to disordered eating, whether it's binge eating, or anorexia, or bulimia. All of these disorders have a similar makeup. 
This last article talks about learning these attitudes a child: why bother? what's the use? Why try? I'm going to fail. I won't do it right. These are exactly the feelings that I struggle with, in my life, in many areas. And it is this feeling that leads to binging, and overeating, in many cases. These kind of feelings also lead to excessive stress, because so many situations make us feel that we cannot handle them. Hello! This so much applies to me. This is the root cause! I can't tell you excited I am to realize this. I will post more about this as I learn more, and ask the LORD to apply these truths to my heart and life.

I am going to learn more about this, and I thank God for this revelation. I don't know if anyone can relate to this, or not, but if you can, I'd love to hear from you. This is really hard stuff to talk about but it's real.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Tacos with Ground Turkey and Low-Fat Cheese

Calories In: 1177   Calories Out: 2185

Yesterday, I had 1177 calories! And I did not feel hungry at the end. It really seemed like another cleansing day from too high of calorie days during the week. It's funny how my body is starting to just regulate itself and to really want the calorie limit that I am trying to reach. 

I made tacos yesterday and managed to make them into a pretty healthy meal. Upon the suggestion of Susan at A Little Nutrition , I made them with ground turkey. I swear to you, I don't think my gorgeous husband even noticed! (They were spiced up quite a bit with the spice package.) And upon the suggestion of my coworker, I used the partly skimmed mozzarella cheese. I had 1/6 cup and it was only 58 calories. So, cheese, once in a while, is a possibility.  The whole meal, with sour cream, cheese, meat, salsa, two hard shells, salsa and veges was 398 calories. And I was full after two tacos! 
Tacos with ground turkey and low-fat cheese. Yay! 
To me, this is nothing short of miraculous because tacos ... man ... I can usually eat no less than four. I love, love, love tacos and anything Mexican that comes on a plate!  But my g.h. finished his portion, and then said, "no, that's enough for me. If I eat anymore, I'd be eating for taste." So, he inspires me! So, another binge trigger food is back. I now know I can eat tacos without blowing my day. It's just nice to have options. 

ONE bad thing, though! I woke up this morning and felt bloated. I didn't understand it, because I had only eaten 1177 calories yesterday! I thought maybe it was MSG, but I checked the package today, and there is no MSG in this package. So, I don't know what is causing the bloatedness. But I can eliminate over-eating from the causes. 

And to those who commented yesterday, thank you for the encouragement! I am having trouble with this comment section, so I didn't comment back in the comments.