Starting all over!

In case you were wondering what happened to my blog, I can't tell you.  All that I know is that Blogger had issues and had to put the system back to pre-Wednesday 5/11/11 (the day I created this blog) and therefore, my blog and many many others disappeared.  After numerous attempts to find out if I would get my blog back, with NO answers from Blogger, I've decided to just start over.

Of course, I don't have time right now to redo EVERYTHING I had already done, so this will be a work in progress over the next week.

Here is a brief synapse of what I originally posted, thankfully there were only 2 posts.

New Beginnings - As most of you know, I co-author a blog with my friend, Pam,  about trail running, titled Trail Turtles.   This blog will be my own and will cover everytihng else in my life, primarily, nutrition, family, quilting, golfing, and whatever else I feel like sharing at the time.

I have decided to take back control of my eating habits and go Nutritarian.  This boils down to eating as close to earth as possible.  Limit salt (sodium) and refined grains.  I'm following the book Eat Right America, Eat for Health by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  I am taking baby steps, as the book suggests, to reduce my bread (which I'm addicted to) intake and slowly cutting back on my salt (again, another addiction).

Weigh-In Thursdays - My official weigh-in days are Thursday mornings.  Last Thursday, after eating better for just a few days, I had actually dropped approx 2 pounds - woo hoo.

I also talked about my awesome granddaughter's Lion King performance the night before.  She was a bird.  No solo this time, but she was still as cute as can be and the whole show was just adorable.  I wish I had recorded it.

This week, I'm back in the gym with my trainer, Diane Cressey, at Breakout Fitness.  Last night was my first workout with her.  Boy am I really WEAK!  I have a lot of building up to do to get back to where I was before.  Again, baby steps.

I will be sharing recipes I have tried, that I feel are a huge sucess with taste, and the family.  I recently cooked up Fast Black Bean Soup from the book Eat For Health (page 170).  This recipe was a huge success with my daughters, Destiny and Stephanie.  They liked it so much they posted it on my wall on Facebook.  Wow.

As usual, I tend to change things up a bit from a recipe as I see fit.

Fast Black Bean Soup (Shannon's version)

2 15oz cans of low or no salt black beans or 4 cups of home-cooked black beans
1 15oz can of low or no salt sweet corn
1 16 oz package of frozen mixed vegetables
2 heads of fresh brocoli cut up in florets
2 cups of carrot juice (I found 100% carrot juice in the store, you could also juice your own carrots which I will probably do next time.)
1 cup water
1 15oz can of low or no salt prepared black bean soup (I used Amy's)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tbls Chili powder (New Mexican style is the best)
1 cup of chopped fresh tomatoes or I used 1 15 oz can of chopped tomatoes with basil.

Throw everything into a soup pot (except fresh tomatoes).  Bring to a boil and simmer on low for 30 min.  Stir in fresh tomatoes, if used, and heat through.

**Next time I think I'll throw some fire roasted green chilis in.  That should really give it some extra flavor.  Although, this is really flavorful already.

Let me know if you try this and what you think.

Stay healthy.