A life Style book for me

This morning I pulled out the life style book "Skinny Bitch" and the cookbook that goes with it. I also have to journal to finish the series, but only because it was given to me. She though it was a cookbook to. Guess sometimes it does help to understand English when buying things. ;-)
My gout is pretty bad. Yesterday was Hubby's birthday and I had some cake. Not even the sugar loaded kind. And a half an hour later my fingers swelled up and started hurting, and this morning my big toe hurts and cramps up. (insert roll eyes smiley here)
Since I need more inspiration about this whole change in my lifestyle thing again I started searching the interwebs. In my search I remember reading "Skinny Bitch". It was a fun read and they promote the vegetarian lifestyle. So off into the kitchen I went where all my food books are. If the book has anything to do with food in any way and I own it, it is in my kitchen.
I will reread the lifestyle book and look threw the cookbook for new things to try.
I also remembered one of my German diet books named "Brigitte Diät" has a vegetarien tip in the daily meal plans. If it isn't a vegetarian meal already. And luckly I don't have to give up my beloved coffee. So this isn't all bad. Now if I can only figure out how to be able to eat some chocolate without the pain spasms afterwards, I'd be one happy woman. Docs appointment is on thursday, maybe he can tell me.

Foodie Penpal and a sick baby

My baby has been sick for over a week now. Nothing bad, just a common cold, but she's to young to drink the apple vinegar, honey and lemon anti cold remedy. So she get's other helpful things done to her to help her get better faster, like chamomile steam, and Anis butter.
My foodie penpal sent me a wonderful organic honey from Belgium this month, and I'm using it in the anti cold remedy mentioned above, and in the weight loss remedy. It tastes wonderful!
She also sent me a St. Bieber. I thought I read her note wrong for Bieber translates to biever, a furry wood eating creature, but I was so so wrong. It was a spice cake simular to Lebkuchen here in germany but not as dark, with Marzipan in the middle.
Then there was 3 small bunting cakes with green mate as a key ingredient. Unusuall taste. Not queit mine, but I loved trying something new.
 Since she sent me a lot of sweet things and I can't have a lot of sugar I gave my hubby a chocolate bunny and a Ragusa blond candy. I kept the bunny in the hot pink wrapper, for although I didn't mention it it is my favorite color. :-)
The honey nuts will have to wait for better days, but the miso soup is today's lunch. I have a bad cold too thanks to my poor sick baby. We'll get over our cold soon.

Can't wait for the next foodie penpal. Next month is easter month and I want to send mine a easter basket.

Weight loss "remedies" on the cheap?

I've tried a few weight loss remedies and/or pills. A lot of them were not cheap either. From Chitosan to Alli, from Almaseed to Slim Fast :-P (yech by the way), they all cost a pretty penny.

That's why when I was browsing around on Pinterest I decided to try two home remedies that supposedly aid you in losing weight, exspecially around the belly where I have the most fat.

One is easy:

Well I am a Tea drinker, and I have a few very good quality green teas in my cabinets. I have no problems with drinking 5 cups of tea a day. So I started that yesterday after I discovered it. Let's see how this weeks weigh in will look like.
Number two is a little time intense, but nothing serious, and it costs a tad bit more money.

I discovered that little tid bit 3 days ago and started the "treatment" that evening. This one together with the green tea should give me a terrific weigh in Saturday right? Just in case I measured my tummy too. If the two remedies do not show on the scale. (Ha Ha from Nelson here)

Yes I am also critical.
A little background Info: I changed my eating lifestyle from a lot of meats to vegetarian a little over a week ago. No, not because of the animals, bless them for they do have to suffer, never should have watched that slaughter house movie (shudders), but because of my health. 
I've been having a lot of joint pain due to gout and possibly the starting of arthritis and that with 35 years of age! Changing my eating habits has cured the joint pain within two days! Yep it was that fast, and the pain was so bad I could hardly move my left arm, or lift my baby up.
Maybe it could also mean a big difference when it comes to my weight too. I wouldn't know for the last time I've eaten little to no meat was when my mom did all the cooking for the family. Back then it was cheaper than buying meat daily.  
I am also watching my calorie intake. Hey I have a lot of fat I want to get ride of. You can't do that if you keep eating to much. 
I am also doing something for my body and soul. My little girl deserves a happy mommy and every once in a while mommy deserves a break, so my little one stays with daddy or Omi so that I can do something for me for a hour or two. Most of the time I do something fitness related. I'm going to start a running program next week. 

So maybe in the end just like the big expensive weight loss cures it is me doing a lot of work that is the "trick" or "cure". Not the green tea or honey water. They do taste good though.
Not that I am  bickering or putting the "cures" down or anything. 
Green Tea is good for my health, full of cancer smashing antioxidants and so is honey, along with a load of minerals and vitamins that fight viruses and the like, cinnamon helps keep blood sugar levels under control. These are "super foods" by my definition.  
I also feel calmer and more confident, lack of sleep due to the baby waking me up at all hours doesn't bother me as much as before I started. A big plus. The cold I felt coming on hasn't broke out yet, just a slight stuffy nose that I can help with mint oil. I haven't had much of the usual sugar cravings due to lack of sleep either. 

So looking at all this even if the "cures" don't help with weight loss they have helped me in a few other ways. 

Still out of curiosity I will tell if I have a significant amount of weight off my body Saturday. When I just eat right and exercise I usually have a kilo per week off- if it's more this time I will tell you all.

Bye for now, Thanks for reading.

Foodie PenPal Febuary 2014

Sorry I'm late blogging this. I didn't get it until yesterday. Mail was a little slow.

I was excited when I came home late yesterday and it was sitting in front of my apartment door. One of two parcels, the other one was my repaired tablet, another story.

Opening up the parcel I was greeted by a note and fire kindling. LOL. After that was taken out I was greeted by. . .

Jamie Oliver!  :-D        And a few other goodies! My foodie PenPal sent me a whole lot of different flavours and textures to try,I had the fire cracker and Proper Corn this afternoon. Both where extremely delicious although I have to admit when I read Worcester Sauce and sun dried tomato I thought "ick!", but I was pleasantly surprised. 

Next I want to try the Jamie Oliver stuffing inside of chicken.The malteaser bunnies will be saved for a while later. The rest will be tried by and by. I think on the next rainy day I'll have a soup. 

It was a wonderful Parcel for rejoining the foodie penpals, and I really enjoyed what I've been given. Thank you very much!!

New Goals

This morning I've been planning new goals and how to reward myself for them.
I'm an unusual woman that looks for workout plans for men. I think that a woman should train like a man, after all we do not have enough testosterone to get the bulging muscles, but the men's training plans get results! That is what I'm looking for.
I am tired of the baby weight.
I am tired of being tired, and without energy.
I miss my workouts.
I really, really need some time for myself and myself only. This is the best and effective way to get it.

So starting March 3rd until March 30th I've put up a goal plan with reward system. I will pin it up on my motivation board in the kitchen. The only room where I will be seeing it daily. Every day after I have followed the workout for that day I will either check it off on the list or glue a star next to it. The weekly rewards are also written on the list so that I have extra motivation to complete things. My first reward is a Disney workout top that I've seen on pinterest. I think they are perfect!

At the end of the month if I have completed all workouts my hubby will get me a reward AND I will reward myself. Hey I need all the motivation I can get!
I also signed up my mom in law to help by babysitting on the days I go wandering and swimming.

I will also write regular blogs about how it's going here and I should reinstall twitter onto my phone and twitter about my workouts. Keeping all this a bit public will help me stay accountable. I think it would be slightly embarrassing writing about all these great plans then not following through.
On and I will look and see if I can post about it on sparks. I'm on that site often too.

So here's to a great March!!

Making your own Diet agenda, a rough how to

If you fail to plan then you plan to fail- Not sure who said that

A goal without a plan is a dream- have to look that one up too-

What I'm getting at is this: I finally realised what these saying mean. Yes really, I do.
I want to lose weight. And I have been going about it all wrong, and up until now I have hardly anything to show for it. You really do need to plan every little detail.
-Not only what will I eat and when. I tough that would be enough, but it wasn't.
-You have to check how many calories you need to maintain your currant weight, and every time you've lost around 3 to 4 kilos. Take maintenance calories minus 500 to lose.
-You have to plan when will I workout
-Who will watch my kid(s) (if you have any).
-You have to plan time for yourself/Friends/family/Partner
-You have to plan when will you do your shopping/errands/etc
-You have to plan EVERYTHING (OK at least I do)

Then there is the "emergency" planning:
-What should I do when I'm frustrated
-What should I do when I'm stressed
-What should I do when I'm bored
-What should I do when I feel like celebrating
-What should I do when I feel depressed
and so on and so forth.

If you really think about it it is a lot of planning and thinking that you have to do.
You have to really think about who you trust to support you. You don't need a saboteur. You have to realise that the one that is a big help now might be a drag later. (Here is the key word "might"). You have to remotivate yourself over and over again. You have to give yourself regular pep talks. You have to remember why you started in the first place. You have to think about your goal and what it means and what it might change in your life. You have to be realistic about it. Just because you reach that ultimate goal weight doesn't mean your life will magically change for the better.
You have to realise that losing weight is a lot of hard work, this isn't a easy task. You have to plan that it will cost money. Not a fortune but it will cost some. You need new clothes, shoes, underwear, etc, Healthy foods and some vitamins. For that you will also save money. You'll get sick less, you'll save on fast food, you'll save on insurance, in some catalogues you'll save because you need a smaller size etc.
You need to think up a reward system for yourself. At what stages you want to reward yourself and with what. It helps trust me.

After realising all of this, I sat down last night and started to plan things out. It took me a total of 5 hours thanks to my little girl to get it all done, but now I'm very happy with my results.
I choose a 2013 agenda that I had laying around. I bought it at the end of 2012 for the new work year, and didn't need it after all. You can use a notebook, spiral bound notebook, old diary or whatever suits you.
I grabbed a pencil and notebook, and started planning. Grocery shopping every Monday and Thursday, Friends and family visits on either Saturday/Sunday or Wednesdays. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays are fitness days, Saturday Nights are Date nights.
Next was agenda, wake up time, bed time, cleaning and daily cleaning chore, when to leave the house and for what I'm off for (Friends/errands/shopping etc), time to drive home, sports, dinner, TV time etc, etc
Then cleaning agenda, I made this a little easier on myself I checked pinterest and choose the best one for me on there and just redid a few things.
Sports agenda: at what time, list of sports I love, workouts I need to do, how long and shower afterwards, with babysitter.
Time for myself, I can't really plan this, I take the times when my little one is sleeping. For that I listed what I can do at that time. Blogging, knitting, reading, etc.
Next reward system. That was a little tricky. I figured I need to lose a total of 42 kilos for starters. I broke that down into 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% 25%, 30%, and end goal, then again into 3 kilo parts in between to keep motivation going. And again in U130, U120, U110 and U100 Kilos (U=under). Loads of reward possibilities. For small ones I have under 1 dollar ideas, for the major ones I have bigger things planned like small trips, massages, manicures etc. You need to figure out what rewards motivate you..
Last but not least meal plans and what day to make new ones. I choose Sunday to make new ones since I have all the food advertising and sales by then, that way I can choose stuff that is on sale to make.

Oh and a important day! When you week restarts and you weigh in! I choose Saturday for that. That way I can enjoy date night and make up for it the rest of the week. No guilt trips!

After doing all that planning I put it all into my agenda. Ignoring the dates just using the days that where listed I wrote it all down. Sometimes using a extra post it note to keep everything in the day needed. At the end where the addresses are usually listed I wrote down my goal list with space for when it was reached and rewards for that goal.

I set aside a part of the agenda for my thoughts, and my emergency contact lists. Who to call or talk to when I need support, what to do against boredom etc, breathing exercises against stress and frustration, and motivational quotes for those depressing times. (A little tip from me sparkpeople.com has a help button that is just great! I love it! Joining is free.)

Now all I have to do is decorate the thing as I go. Nothing more, nothing less. Stickers, magazine cut outs etc. You will go back and look at how far you've come from time to time. You'll want to look at the meal plans you've designed, the work outs you started, what really helped and what didn't. So take your time and plan well.

busy, busy

The perils of dieting.

I'm getting ride of the baby fat, and boy is it hard! I made something for my foodie penpal and every time I went into or threw the kitchen I was so tempted!! The must yummy smells! I am so very glad that all is now packed away and ready to be sent off today. My hubby will take it to the mail for me when he goes to visit a freind. I'm in no mood or health to deal with going myslef. I have a terrible migrane headache.

Today I will take it easy as far as possible. I will take care of my little one, do some cooking, and maybe some knitting or crocheting. I have a few projects I want to start. I found a few adorable toys that I want to make. And there is a tshirt that I want to do for a girlfreind. It's her birthday soon. I have a parcel I want to finish up for my mom and sis in the states. Oh and some sewing I want to do.
Then there are freinds that want to be visited, and trails that are begging to be walked, couple time, and family get togethers to be planned. I am never bored.

Today I will be trying a few new recipes. Broccoli mousse on a salad bed, and crunchy veggie lasagne. Both easy and cheap to make, your in the kitchen no longer than 15 minutes for prep work, and dinner is ready in 30 minutes. I hope they both taste good. If they do they are going in my make more often list.