I'm back, I promise - Weigh-in Thursdays

I'm still alive.  I promise!  I guess my last post really hit home when I said I was on sensory overload.  I've also been on life overload as well.  However, I recently stumbled upon a blog, The Pioneer Woman, that had a posting about blogging rules, and the 2nd one reminded me that it is time to get back here and do the best that I can to keep this blog active.

So where have I been?  Well, it's summer time and I'm busy doing what I love to do most - be outside, not sitting at a computer.

A LOT has happened in the past 2 months and I hope I can bring you up to date, slowly.  I won't do it all in one post as I think that would be overwhelming for me and you.  I will post about my adventures atop Half Dome, white water rafting, buying a car, my current weight loss, and what life has thrown at me over the past 2 months.

So what should I talk about first (today) - HHHMMMM.  I think I'll bring you up on my weight loss journey as it's positive.  Although, it hasn't been positive over the past 2 months.  I believe that was another reason I backed off from my Weigh-in Thursdays as I had negative results for a while and it was frustrating.

I am back on track.  I've been working with my trainer, Diane Cressey, at her new studio, Breakout Fitness in Folsom, and as usual, she's working her miracles.  I don't work with her privately, but in a group format.  I also signed up for her Breakout Body Fat Loss Challenge which is an intensive 12 week program.  The key to the success of this challenge is by going to her workouts 5 days a week, well I can only commit to 4 days a week, but it's still working.

In the first 2 weeks of the challenge I lost 2.2 pounds of body FAT.  How cool is that?  At the same time, I'm getting stronger with the workouts. Since my last Weigh-In Thursday I am down 3.2 pounds total.  I hope for bigger numbers soon.

I continue to run, bike, swim, and hike whenever I can.  I signed up for a triathlon, my first ever, in September, so I have been doing some tri training as well.  Next week we start our open water swim training, yikes.

As I continue on my Nutritarian path, slowly, I AM eating one huge salad a day and I've definitely incorporated a lot more veggies and fruit.  However, since I'm cutting back on my fat intake, I've had to knock my almonds out for a while



Thanks for your patience and understanding, but I plan on being a better participant in my quest to blog my life.

Sensory overload & FOMO

I have decided that I receive WAY TOO MANY emails and, therefore, don't read them all right away. 90% of them are from websites that I have signed up at for either newsletters, sales, recipes, coupons, tips and whatever else I thought might be of use to me at the time.  Of those 90% I typically delete 50% of them immediately.  I don't even open them.  How stupid is that?  I asked for them, yet I don't want to look at them.  Then the 50% that's left, 40% of them I say "I'll look at later because the title looks intriguing", but typically I forget and they get pushed down.  To show you how bad this is in my Yahoo inbox I have 1127 unopened emails, with an additional 750 emails that I have opened and decided I needed to save for whatever reason.  That's a total of 1877 emails in my inbox.  Do you think I have a problem?  I do!

I AM A PACKRAT!  I admit.  I've been saving things for years.  I've got STUFF everywhere.  I try to let things go, but I go through anxiety because I just know I might need it someday!  It's a disease and it's called FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.

I'm afraid I'm going to miss something really important from one of these websites, so I subscribe to them.  It's got to stop.  I've decided that the ones that I really like, if it's a blog, it will go on my blog roll on this page.  If it's a website for one of my quilt sites, I already know where to go and therefore don't need to be receiving all of their sale emails.  It just makes me want to buy when I really don't NEED to!  I have enough fabric to last me quite a long time!  It's sad!

As I believe apart of becoming healthy is taking control of my nutrition and to stop being the victim, I believe it's time I take control of my FOMO.  I believe this is disease that can be cured.  Like with my nutrition, I will take baby steps to take back control and reduce my sensory stimulation and start unsubscribing myself from 99% of all the websites that I've subscribed myself too.  I will also do a mass email dump!  I'm going to not even look at the emails from 2008 (yes that's how far back they go) and I'm just going to delete, delete, delete.  I have to!  Sometimes you just have to make a clean break.  Just say enough is enough.

So this week, I will focus on purging my email.  Next week I will work on purging the insane amount of magazines I have.  I have so many magazines from quilting, running, veganism, vegetarianism, etc, etc. that I can't read them all.  And when I do, I see a recipe or a pattern that I might like to make one day and then I save it so I can scan it.  Ya, the piles of magazines that need to be scanned is out of control and I'm tired.  I'm so overwhelmed by it that I don't do it.  So they pile higher and higher.  It's time.

Do you have something you need to purge from you life?  Do you have something in your life that is out of control?  We all have something, I may just have a lot more than you, but I'd still like to hear.  Share this process with me.  Are you ready to let go?  Are you still playing the victim?  Do you too suffer from FOMO?

Stay healthy

Tastey Tuesday

I have two recipes to share and a progress report.

In my attempt to go gluten/package free - I've succeeded, so far, to stay gluten free.  Staying package free has been more of a challenge.  Not that staying gluten free hasn't, but the packaging thing is tougher.  First real bomb was on Saturday night when I had ALL my girls at home (Destiny, Skyla, Stephanie, and Justice).  They all wanted speghetti.  So I obliged.  However, I didn't eat flour speghetti, I had brown rice pasta (gluten free) but it was still a processed item from a package.  Then I had one small piece of pizza (oops, I guess I haven't been 100% gluten free - gggrr) on Sunday night after Destiny brought home pizza - phooie!

I'm ok with my slip ups.  Even though I've slipped, I've made healthy choices and my body is detoxing itself.  I am feeling better, but I know I can do better.  Last night's dinner also included some packaged items, that I will explain in my recipe.  Oh and I really slipped when I had some cheese last night.  But I can explain.  I bought a package (I know package) of Gluten Free Brown Rice Tortillas and I wanted to try one.  So I threw one up in the microwave, heated it a smidge and then tasted it.  Let's just say, boring!  Well I didn't want it to go to waste, so I cut up some pepper jack cheese (my fav) and melted it on the tortilla.  WOW not bad.  It's amazing how cheese can fix everything - GGGRRR.

Ok, onto the recipes.  First up is for my carnivore friends and family.  I made this last week and it was a huge success with the family, that I decided to do it again because Stephy was there.

Southwestern Chicken (adapted from Eat For Health - Book 2)
Serves 4

1 cup Salsa (low sodium) (I used the kind that's in the refrigerated section, whole container) (You could also use homemade salsa)
1 cup black beans or red kidney beans, low or no sodium (I used a whole can)
1 cup of fresh or frozen sweet corn (I used a whole can)
2 Tbls fresh chopped cilantro (I used more like a half a cup - the fam loves cilantro)
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (I used a whole family pack - 6-8 pieces)

Preheat oven to  350 degrees (I actually used 400 degrees, I suppose it would depend on your oven)
Mix salsa, corn, beans, and cilantro together
The recipe says to spoon 1/2 the salsa mixture over the chicken and marinade for at least 1 hour - ya I didn't do that and apparently it wasn't needed.
What I did was place the chicken in a slightly greased baking dish and poured the whole salsa mixture overtop of the chicken.
Bake chicken for 30 minutes or until cooked through (at 400 degrees in my oven, 30 minutes was the exact time to cook the chicken through, yet keep it moist)
Recipe says to slice chicken breasts and top with remaining salsa (however, since I used up all the salsa in the baking process, the salsa was already there :) )


Served it with salad and steamed brocolli and asparagus - the family loved it!

Recipe #2 for my fellow vegetarians/vegans (also enjoyed by my carnivore family)

Lentils with Chickpeas and Couscous (adapted from Vegetarian Times)
click on the recipe title to go straight to the recipe as written.

Shannon's adaptations

I used red lentils, because that's what I had in my cupboard
I did not use raisins
I used a gluten-free brown rice couscous (packaged, I know) (next time I will use quinoa)
I didn't use carrots, not sure why
I didn't use mint
and I forgot to toast the pine nuts - LOL - oh well

All in all it turned out good.  Everyone liked the lentil/chickpea sauce that they stuck it on top of the chicken (of course Mark picked around the garbanzo beans - LOL)
I believe I overcooked the lentils, but again, overall it's ok.  Next time I think I'd spice it up a bit more, maybe some fire roasted green chilis.

Let me know if you try either or both of these recipes and what you think.

Today I golf with my league, Twilight Club, at Rolling Greens GC in Rocklin.  This is a nice little 9 hole course, with a couple of really tough wholes.

Stay healthy!