A Good Night's Sleep

I think I had the first good night's sleep since sometime before Thanksgiving. It's amazing what a new perspective that puts on a day! Yesterday, I went to my appointment with a pain management specialist - in this case, an anesthesiologist with a sub-speciality in pain management. I had to explain this to one of the kids, who couldn't quite figure out what he was going to do except tell me to buck up. Based on the history of hip and knee pain, MRI results, and physical exam, he knew exactly where the problem was (L4-5) and felt he could fix it. (So weird, since my back did not hurt. At all.) I came home with a handout:

I had the procedure done yesterday afternoon, and it really wasn't too bad except for about a minute when he told me I might feel a "little burning" in my back or butt when he injected the steroid. A LITTLE?!?! It felt like someone had PUNCHED me in my right butt cheek! Dr. B asked if it was where I had been feeling the pain, and it was EXACTLY in that spot, so he knew he had injected my back at the right location. And I feel really good today. YAY!

So Happy Tuesday!

I love this dish towel. My friend - and the best knitter I know - made this a few years ago. In addition to being a great knitter, she is pretty good at embroidery too! (Funny story: Nancy had knit this most gorgeous sweater/jacket, with cables upon cables of the most intricate nature, and when I saw it I fell in love with it. I asked her if I could ever make one, and -without hesitation - she said, "No." And I totally wasn't offended! When our friend Teri saw it, she said she wanted to be willed it when Nancy died. It's that wonderful.)

But anyway. Before I went to my morning appointment yesterday, I threw a little something in the crock pot. I had seen this recipe for butternut squash, chickpea, and red lentil stew, and since I had everything except the butternut squash, which I picked up on Sunday, I thought I'd give it a go. (Thank you, Jenna!)

Looks pretty, doesn't it?! I sauteed the onions, carrots, and jalapenos, then added the garlic. My kitchen smelled pretty wonderful around 7:00 a.m.!

I then added the garam masala to coat the veggies, and it REALLY started to smell good!

Then everything went into the crock pot, and I set it on low for ten hours:

And this is the final result:

It turned out thick and aromatic and incredibly flavorful - and it made a TON!! I measured it out so I could figure out the nutrition facts, and it made 10 cups. I froze about 2/3, and will be having some for lunch today. (If you're interested, in a one-cup serving, there are 167 calories, 1.4g fat, 36g carbs, 10g fiber, and 9g protein.)

My other meals were pretty unremarkable. Who am I kidding, they're all pretty unremarkable. But I do like to share a good recipe when I find one. I had the Abs Diet Mango Tango smoothie for breakfast, and for lunch I'm a little embarrassed to let you know that I had a banana and a Lean Cuisine pizza. I am really trying to get away from processed food, but I knew I had the epidural at 1:00 and just wanted something fast, and this was in my freezer from when I thought that was the way to lose weight. Oh well. Dinner was homemade and delicious.

So today is Tuesday - on to a few hours at the museum and then to knitting! Have a good day!

Weekends Are Tough

And by weekends, I mean Friday and Saturday dinners/evenings. Evidently I like to eat and drink too much. (Again, why do I need to lose weight?!)

Friday started off okay: breakfast was oatmeal (regular Quaker 1-minute oats, not steel-cut), with a glass of milk and a sliced banana. (Use your powers of visualization.) I did 20 minutes on the treadmill followed by 10 minutes on the bike. I know you're supposed to eat protein within 20 minutes of a workout, so I ate a hard-boiled egg.

Lunch was an Abs Diet Belly Busting Berry Smoothie: 1 scoop low-fat vanilla ice cream; 1/4 cup each frozen blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries; 1/2 cup skim milk; 1 tablespoon vanilla whey powder; and 3 ice cubes. Ice cream for lunch? Don't mind if I do! As with most of the smoothies I've made from the Abs Diet books, I had to add a little water so it blends well. Maybe it would work better in my Magic Bullet instead of the big blender - something to try...

While delicious, I got pretty hungry while running errands. So much so that after stocking up at Sam's Club, I ripped into a little treat that I picked up: Planters nuts single serving cashews at 160 calories per pack. We usually buy the big containers of mixed nuts or (my fave) Pistachio Lover's Mix and I just aliquot them out in small tins and keep them in my purse. These little portion-controlled snacks are perfect. After Sam's, I was on a mission to get some crumpets that my friend Jamie told me about. She found them at HyVee in the refrigerated section, and so did I:

While I usually try to go for the whole grains, I had to try these based on her recommendation. And OMG - pretty delicious for 60 calories! Thanks, Jamie! Just look at all the nooks and crannies, waiting for the peanut butter to melt into:

I didn't actually put peanut butter on it this time; just ate it plain. For some reason I was hungry AGAIN!!!

Dinner was pretty delicious. I made roasted kale chips for the first time, after reading how much everyone loves them. Now I know why the rave reviews. We are converts. Srsly (are you picturing that scholarly golden retriever?) If you have kale on hand, you will never need potato chips again!

We also had roasted cauliflower (we are big on roasting vegetables around here) and a 4 ounce filet. Since there were only four of us for Christmas dinner (*sniff*), I cooked half the beef tenderloin that I had bought, and sliced and froze the remainder into filets. I cooked them as my friend taught me: First, preheat your oven to 425. Then heat a cast iron skillet to HOT and add a layer of olive oil. Coat one side of the steak LIBERALLY with kosher salt and pepper. Put the steaks salt side down in the hot skillet for 2 1/2 minutes (for a one-inch thick steak), flip over, and immediately put the pan in a preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes. Take out and enjoy. The salt crust seals in the juices, but we learned you really need to scrape off the crust, otherwise you'll be consuming mass quantities of water. (Our youngest termed these "salt steaks.")

Okay, that is a pretty horrible picture for a delicious dinner. I've been reading about how to take good photos of food, and apparently taking pictures on your iPhone and then emailing them to yourself is not the preferred method to create "food porn", as I've seen it described. I promise I will be practicing.

We spent the night camped out catching up on our DVR'd shows and then watching the series finale of "Chuck." We've watched that show from the very beginning, but it was getting just so ridiculous that we almost stopped watching this season, except that we knew it would be ending and wanted to see how they wrapped it up. (Kind of like hitting your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop.) Of course, being it was Friday night, a little cocktail was called for: my new favorite vodka, Tall Blond over ice. Imported from Estonia. Yes, Estonia.

So even with all that, Friday was not too bad: 1465 food/beveragecalories; factor in 183 exercise calories, and the net was 1282 - just 82 over.

Saturday was another story. It started out well:

Look familiar? Well, I did pick up some beautiful fruit that went great with the peanut butter bagel thin!

Lunch was a wonderful salad with blue cheese crumbles, craisins, and 2.5 ounces of leftover steak sliced on top of mixed greens with my new favorite dressing: a spritz of olive oil and several shakes of balsamic vinegar.

Snack: not too bad. A few Triscuits and some string cheese.

Dinner was where it fell apart. We went to Maru, our neighborhood sushi/Korean restaurant. If you live here, you really need to go. The sushi is really good, but we hardly order it any more. The Korean is so wonderful I can't even describe it. The dishes are served with three sides: kimchi (almost makes my nose run thinking about it!), spicy cold potatoes, and spicy broccoli. I had what I usually order: the pork bibimbap. It's rice mixed with vegetables and spicy pork, topped with a fried egg and all served in a sizzling stone bowl, so that the rice continues to cook and gets crusty and even more delicious. (It should be, at a whopping 643 calories.) And did I mention the two- not one but TWO - spinoza martinis? I am a weak person: these had vodka, elderflower liquer, and two other liquors that I can't remember but must be amazing to make something so delicious. The drink tasted just like a lemon drop - the candy you had as a kid, not the lemon drop martini that I really don't like.

So anyway, the whole day was 1935 calories, with no exercise to offset the intake. When I post everything in My Fitness Pal at the end of every day, there is always a "If every day was like today, in five weeks you would weigh _____" Well, if I ate like that every day, in five weeks I would weight MORE. Thank goodness I don't. Anymore.

This morning started out with a good breakfast: 6 ounces of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt, a cup of mixed berries (love!) and 1/4 cup raw oats. And look how pretty this bowl is. How can you not smile?!

Lunch will be something small and healthy, since we're going to Pitch for dinner (another favorite restaurant) with some good friends who have been out of town for the past few weeks. I bought a LivingSocial deal for Pitch, which should just about cover the wine Dwight and Steve will be drinking. I will be having water. (waa-waa)

There's a Pattern Here....

So I got this in the mail yesterday:

Advancing Health? How do they know how old I am? Seriously? Or rather,

Thank you, Emily and Pinterest (source)

This totally cracks me up every time. I can't even say "seriously" without thinking of this scholarly golden retriever and his expression. Sorry - just had to have an excuse to use it!

But I digress. First I get the old lady mailer, and then today when I went to the community center pool, there was a new receptionist instead of the cute 19-year-old that is usually there. I told her I was there to swim and handed over my $4. She looked at me and asked if I qualified for the SENIOR RATE!!! She then said it was for over 55, and I was not too proud to admit that yes, I was 56, and was happy to pay only $3!

So swimming is a new and humbling experience for me. Turns out it's not like riding a bike - you DO forget. When I told my dad I was swimming, he said, "Oh, you're a really good swimmer." He forgot to add the WAS. I can ride my bike or walk forever, run for a little bit, but swimming is kicking my butt. The first day I was there, I talked to the lifeguard and told her I was new and to feel free to offer any suggestions. I knew it was going to be a challenge when, on my way back from the far end of the pool, she was waiting at my lane with a kickboard. Which I accepted gratefully. I've been swimming since the beginning of the year, and I keep waiting for it to get easier. I'm really struggling with the breathing part - that tires me out faster than anything. And talk about different muscles - who knew I had lats?! I was talking with my son, the marathoner and Half-Ironman triathlete, early on and he said his upper triceps were what hurt when he swam. I didn't know what he was talking about. Until the next day.

He also said that when he started swimming, he lost 20-25 pounds without changing anything else except adding swimming to his exercise routine. This is a kid who is in top physical form with no weight to lose, and he couldn't put weight on. I'm still waiting for that to happen!

That reminds me - FOOD. Remember, food is fuel, I keep telling myself. I had the rest of last night's salad for lunch, but added a hard-boiled egg, an ounce of blue cheese, and some grilled chicken strips.

I usually use a balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but decided to lighten that up a bit with just a spritz of olive oil from my mister and some balsamic vinegar:

It was delicious, especially made with this wonderful vinegar that Emily gave me for Christmas. She got it at a local shop in Des Moines where you can taste all the vinegars. She also gave me a chocolate balsamic that is a tasty topping for ice cream. (Why do I need to lose weight?) Anyway, if you're in the area or want to order, pick some of this up!

My afternoon snack was an apple and cottage cheese, and then I made the reuben again for dinner. It tasted as good as before, but this time the picture might be a bit better. The "chips" on the side are Special K Sea Salt Cracker Chips. Love them.

And that's all for today. Two posts in one day! I must have too much free time.

Mmmmmm...peanut butter.....

Once again, a day behind. I finally got to the grocery store yesterday and stocked up on all kinds of healthy food. I read that you're supposed to stick to the perimeter of the grocery store since that's where all the fresh, healthy food is; just think of when you stop in to pick up some milk - it's all the way in the back, isn't it? Usually past the bakery! I actually did most of my shopping on the perimeter, except for several cans of different kinds of beans that I'm using for chili later this week, and one of my all-time favorite foods: peanut butter.

source

A discussion has arisen with several different friends over the past few weeks: if you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? (This is different from your electric-chair-tomorrow-last-meal-tonight food). The answers to the first question varied from chicken and noodles, some kind of dessert (which would probably be my electric chair meal!), popcorn, mashed potatoes - pretty much all comfort food. Mine would be peanut butter toast. Since I eat it almost every day for breakfast (or some variation thereof, be it bagel thins or 100-calorie english muffins), it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

So yesterday started with a breakfast of - wait for it - peanut butter toast. And two clementines, a glass of skim milk, and coffee. All my days start with coffee. And Metamucil. Don't laugh; we started using it several years ago due to the cholesterol-lowering benefits of psyllium fiber, but there are some pretty great side effects. My husband would do a free commercial for this product. And our daughter is now a convert. For a hilarious dissertation on the additional benefits, you need to check out her blog.

I realized I haven't been mentioning workouts, but yesterday I walked on the treadmill for 15 minutes at a slowish pace (3.5 mph) and then got on my stationary bike for 15 minutes. I have been having some hip and knee issues, and when I got off the treadmill and onto the bike, my right knee would not have been able to bend had it not been attached to the pedal. But after a few revolutions it loosened up and I went 5+ miles. (You'll probably be getting more info than you wanted on my orthopaedic wreck of a body - after x-rays and an MRI, I'm seeing a pain management specialist on Monday. Ugh.)

I had a quick lunch of a Chobani blueberry yogurt, then ran some errands. When I got home, I knew I needed another smallish meal, so made one of my favorite quick snacks:

It's two pieces of Sargento Light string cheese, each wrapped in a piece of Canadian bacon. This is the before picture. Zap them in the microwave for 20 seconds and you get 130 calories total of melty deliciousness. Protein! Minimal fat!

Dinner was courtesy of the Abs Diet. These books seriously are wonderful. Like Cooking Light magazine, the recipes all use REAL ingredients. I keep referencing them, so if you're interested, here they are:

source

source

I made the Reuben Made Betta, and again I was skeptical. I am pretty much of a reuben expert; it's what I order in a restaurant if I can't think of anything else. We both agreed that we want it again (and I just might make it tonight since Dwight has a meeting.) It uses deli turkey instead of corned beef, the sauce is low fat thousand island dressing (I used Kraft Free) and crumbled feta cheese mixed with 1/4 cup sauerkraut, and you still get a slice of real swiss cheese. And real rye bread! The actual grilling was a novel concept to me - I would always butter the outsides of both slices of bread, but all I did was spray a non-stick pan and cook the sandwich that way. And it turned out!

I laughed when I looked at the picture (after I was done eating, of course). You can't see what the inside of the sandwich looks like at all! I must have been in too much of a hurry to eat it! If I make it for dinner tonight, which is pretty likely, I'll try to get a better picture. (And that salad was pretty good too - since there are leftovers, I think I'll just top it with some chicken and call it lunch today.)

I need to have a quick snack (most likely a mini Luna bar) and get ready to go to the pool. I'll tell you about THOSE workouts another time!

Tired Tuesday

I know this is Wednesday, but it turns out that the morning is the best time to write this, so you're getting yesterday's recap. I must have still been pooped from vacation - I guess I need a vacation to recover from vacation! I knew I'd need a nutritious and filling breakfast, since Tuesday mornings are my time to volunteer at our local art museum and I knew lunch wouldn't be till 1:30. So I whipped up a Kitchen Sink Smoothie, courtesy of the Abs Diet:

I know, it looks a little disgusting: plain non-fat unsweetened greek yogurt, All-Bran cereal, frozen blueberries, ice cubes, vanilla whey protein powder, ground flaxseed, and a handful of spinach. I needed to add a little water because it was too thick to blend. And this is how it turned out:

Looks delicious, right?! And check out these stats: 310 calories, 21 g protein, 29 g carbs, 10 g fat, and 19 g fiber. That much protein and fiber kept me plenty full all morning.

It was a slow day at the Joslyn, but we're gearing up for a big show. I think this is the calm before the storm. And it was pretty calm - in the three hours I was there, I sold two cards. One of which I bought.

I came home and made my favorite lunch, again courtesy of the Abs Diet: the Guilt-free BLT.

It's a whole wheat tortilla spread with just a tiny bit of light mayo and topped with two strips of turkey bacon, 2 ounces of chopped deli turkey, lettuce, and tomatoes. I can't tell you how good this is. And I was a little leery to try this because I HATE turkey bacon. Imagine my surprise when it turned out so yummy. Dwight was home for lunch the other week and I made him one, and he agreed. If a big guy thinks it's good, it's a hit in my book.

I spent the afternoon knitting with my girlfriends. Let me tell you about our Stitch-n-Bitch. Once the golfing season has ended, we get together on Tuesday afternoons at 2:00 and knit. There are nine of us when everyone shows up, but that's a rare occasion due to work schedules, vacations, etc. We alternate houses and people bring snacks and wine. The wine usually doesn't get opened until 4:00, but I'm not gonna lie - sometimes it's sooner. The husbands all come over after work for their own wine, and then we all go out to dinner. (It's pretty hilarious to hear the men ask each other during the week if they're going to knitting.)

We came home for dinner last night because I've eaten out for almost a week and needed to regain control of myself. Since I haven't had the chance to go to the grocery store yet, I made do with what we had in the fridge:

We call these "camping eggs" since it's what we used to make when we went camping at Lake Itasca: scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. In my memory, they were better cooked over a campfire, but these will do in a pinch. And the sausages are my new favorite Archer Farms find. These are the skinless chicken breakfast sausages.

So except for the very few munchies I ate at knitting (which I counted), that was yesterday, for a total of 1189 calories, 30% carbs, 38% fat, and 31% protein. The carbs and protein are on the low end of normal, and the fat percentage is just plain high. I need to work on that. I did manage ten glasses of liquid. **Disclaimer** My good friend ML told me that when she was talking to a dietitian, she recommended drinking half your body weight in ounces of water each day to avoid water retention. This wouldn't work for the morbidly obese, but for the average chubby girl like me, it is do-able. I'm going to have to give this a try.

Time to head to the grocery store!

Back to Reality

I have been absent, both mentally and physically. We spent four fun, sun, and wine-filled days in Ft. Myers, Florida with good friends. This is but a distant memory:

I really tried to eat fairly healthy, and, at least compared to how I would have done previously, I felt relatively successful. Wow. Just reread that last sentence. Maybe a little rationalizing? I know I did drink a bit too much wine, nibbled on too much cheese, and the half-order of fries I had at lunch one day was delicious! But balance that out with a fair amount of walking, and, well, I still ate and drank too much. I didn't weigh myself when we got home, because I remembered the words of an old Weight Watchers leader: never weigh in the day after a flight; you will always weigh more. I wonder when it's safe to step on the scale again!

So I woke up to snow and a windchill yesterday morning. Talk about an abrupt return to reality. After shoveling the inch-and-a-half snow off the sidewalks and driveway, breakfast was steel-cut oats, soy milk, mixed with chopped up mixed nuts. You really didn't want to see another picture of oatmeal, did you?

Lunch was an apple, Chobani black cherry Greek yogurt, and a chicken Italian sausage link:

I know - it looks like something you had for lunch when you were eight, doesn't it? But I have to tell you, these little sausages are delicious! And only 90 calories per link! You should go buy some right now.

A piece of string cheese (Sargento Light) was my afternoon snack because I was saving myself for what I knew would be a wonderful dinner with the Bitches. And we use this term endearingly: we have been friends for what seems like forever, and get together several times a year for laughing and drinking wine. As part of our Christmas present, Kim made dinner reservations and footed half the bill at Sage, the student-run bistro at Metropolitan Community College culinary school. I am only sorry that I didn't think to take pictures until my plate was ready to be licked (it was that good!) but maybe the descriptions will suffice. I had a glass of wine, then started with the Bistro Salad: fried sweetbreads, roasted sweet potato, George Paul apple cider vinaigrette, compressed apples, braised endive, maytag blue cheese. OMG. So delicious. I asked about the sweetbreads because I knew that was a name for some kind of organ meat - I was thinking pancreas, but it was actually thymus. Yuck, right? WRONG!! They were soaked in buttermilk, thinly sliced, breaded, and fried. (Seriously, bread and fry anything and it would be delicious!) Think about the size of popcorn shrimp, salty and crunchy. The flavors in the whole salad were wonderful - salty, crunchy, sweet, sour. It was perfection.

I ordered almond crusted halibut for my entree: with potato fondant, creamed spinach, roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted red pepper sauce, parmesan chips. It sounds like a lot, but it was a piece of perfectly prepared halibut resting on the spinach and potato fondant, with the red pepper sauce drizzled on the plate, a small side of Brussels sprouts, and a parmesan chip on the top. I hope you're using your powers of visualization. I really promise to be better with the picture-taking. (What I really need to learn is how to take good photographs of food!) Dinner was yummy, but even better was that I got to spend the evening with wonderful girlfriends!

The Numbers Game

Maybe it's because I had so much math and science in college. Maybe it's because I'm a huge dork. Or maybe it's because it just makes sense.

I should tell you the latest incarnation of my eating strategy. I hate to use the word "diet" because to me that implies something that you're on, only until you're done and than you can "go off." That just won't work for me. It needs to be a lifestyle change. This year started out with my oldest child more or less challenging me to eat according to the Abs Diet. (There's the D-word again!) You can follow her journey here. We decided on this when we saw the incredible results obtained by my future daughter-in-law's sister. She followed this way of eating and working out, and she looks fabulous. When we asked Aly what her sister had done, she said that she basically doesn't eat crap.

So I started this year on the Abs Diet, but upon doing some reading, I came across what was, to me, a conflicting point. There is no counting, just measuring and eating the appropriate foods at the appropriate times. But the author also talks about limiting calories to lose weight. So my dilemma was: how can a 600-calorie sandwich help me lose weight? I modified this somewhat and came up with Cathy's Diet. It's basically everything I've learned over decades of watching my weight (go up and down!). It boils down to this: three meals and two-three snacks a day, each meal containing a protein and a good carb, each snack being something real (as opposed to processed), at least four days a week of cardio and at least two of strength training. I'm trying to limit my calories to 1200; sometimes work better than others. Darn wine. Since I've been doing this, I've lost weight - not to obsess over numbers, but 5.6 (woo hoo!)

And you know the best part? I haven't been hungry. Seriously. And there have been a few days that have definitely been over 1200. For example, last week on the way home from a funeral visitation, we decided to stop at Smashburger and I had the bacon swiss burger and fries - a whopping 1340 calories IN ONE MEAL!!! Delicious? Yes. Worth it? Yes - that time. But I counted it, and while it was a lot, in the old days I would have figured that since I blew it, I might as well really blow it and anything would have been fair game. We came home, had a glass of wine (definitely needed after a visit to the funeral home) and I started over the next day. If this is to be a lifestyle, there will be side trips to Smashburger.

While I won't bore you with calorie counts and number (unless you want!), I will show you good, healthy foods that will fill you up. As I mentioned, my favorite place for new recipes is Cooking Light magazine. Along with the Abs Diet, they use real foods, real fats, whole grains, and lots and lots of fruits and veggies.

Dinner last night was just such a recipe - from the latest issue of Cooking Light. It's the Sautéed Chicken with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette. And OMG. (Find the recipe here.)

before

after

That meal was seriously one of the best ever. I didn't have shallots so used an equal amount of Vidalia onion, substituted baby spinach for the arugula, and was reading too quickly so used regular white vinegar instead of white WINE vinegar. (How did I miss the wine?!) It was so delicious that I had the leftovers for lunch today, only over romaine. Spinach was better, but this was more than satisfactory!

I know I have left-over steel-cut oats in my fridge, but I woke up hungry for the breakfast that I eat probably 90% of the time:

Yup. Peanut butter toast (or sometimes a bagel thin or English muffin) and fruit. And coffee. Notice the food scale: While I bet I can scoop out 16 grams of peanut butter 9 times out of 10, I always measure. Just an old Weight Watcher at heart.

Time to post and head to Stitch-n-Bitch. I'll have to tell you about my knitting group another time. I am so lucky!

OSHA

No, not the government agency. It's my acronym for my fitness program: Operation Smokin' Hot by August. That's when my son is getting married, and while I will be the "sturdier" of the two moms of the wedding couple, at least I want to be a FIT sturdy!

I found a great app to help with the food and exercise tracking: My Fitness Pal. The database is really extensive. What I really love is that it syncs automatically between devices. I've tried several others, but this seems to be working the best.

I got up way too early this morning, due to a hip and knee issue that tells me when it's time to get up. It happened to be at 5:30 this morning, but I DID have time to make a delicious breakfast. My friend has been telling me about her baked steel-cut oats. It's just one cup of steel-cut oats, 3 1/2 cups water, and bake at 300 degrees for an hour. And MaryLu adds almond extract and cinnamon, so I did too. Talk about delish - I added half a sliced banana, a Truvia packet, and a splash of Silk Light Vanilla Soy Milk to the one cup of cooked oats. And since the recipe serves four, guess what I'll be having for breakfast the next few days?!

I finished the other half of the banana for my morning snack. While I wasn't really hungry, I knew I needed a little bit of something before I went to the pool. This whole "food as fuel" thing is really a change in thinking. It makes so much sense!

I came home to leftovers of a delicious salad I made the other day. It's the Superfood Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette that I got from a blog I've been reading for awhile. All of the recipes I have made from her site have been wonderful. It has quinoa, avocado, pomegranate seeds, black beans, red onion, corn, and cilantro. What's not to love, right? (And yes, that is a glass of Diet Squirt. I'm really trying to cut back on pop. Just not today.)

Tonight I'm going to try the Sautéed Chicken with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette from the Jan/Feb issue of Cooking Light, my favorite source of new recipes. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Showing Up

Well, I did it. I've been writing blogs IN MY HEAD for years, but it took weeks of nagging by my oldest child to have me actually sit down and do it. She wanted me to start one so she could follow my menus. What I'm intending is to use this little piece of the blog world to help me keep track of food choices (good and bad), along with my workouts. Or non-workouts, although I hope those days will be infrequent. But who am I kidding. And really, I have no idea how it will evolve. But, as referenced by the title, and as Woody Allen said, "80% of success is showing up." And here I am.

So now I need to go write a blog post in my head, and I will start for real tomorrow.