Sorry! I am a very neglectful blogger!

Hi All!

Sorry its been almost three weeks since I last posted! Just wanted to let you in on a few of my discoveries this past few weeks!  Oh - and I am still holding steady at 195 - 20 lbs lost.  HOWEVER, I have incentive to get busy again!  My amaing sister is getting married in 2 months and I want to look good for her wedding.  So I have set a big goal of losing 15 lbs before she get married!  That would put me at 180  - it figures out to about 2 lbs a week.  I can do this! 

Now on to my discoveries -

1 - We use a LOT less oil, margarine and butter now. Since October, we have only used about 7 cups of oil TOTAL.  And only 2 big tubs of margarine.  For 6 people.  We used to go through a big tub of margarine a month and a quart of oil and 1/2 a container of shortening.  That, my friends, is a lot of FAT!  Most of the oil that we've used recently is actually for items we have made for other people.  For our family, we've maybe used 2 - 3 cups of it.  We replace it mostly with applesauce.  Or we simply cut it in half in the recipe.  For pizza crust, we use 1 T instead of 2 - that sort of thing.

2 - We use a LOT more cooking spray.  We use it for everything.  We spray in on the  frying pan before making eggs or pancakes.  We spray it over potatoes cut like french fries, sprinkle them with salt and bake them until they are crispy.  But I'd much rather get a trace of fat from a 1 second spray than a whole bunch of fat from 1 T of oil used to oil the pan!

3 - My children have officially made the switch to whole grains!  IT CAN BE DONE!  I didn't think it was possible!  Even my pickiest expressed his disappointment when I served white french bread one night for dinner because he wanted to try the "brown" kind!  It made my day!

4 - There are so so so many dieting/healthy eating ideas out there.  I have realized that since every person is different, every person most likely has something different that works for them!  My version of healthy eating is different that someone elses.  What matters is that it works within what your doctor recommends and it makes you feel better. 

5 - I have to have a Hershey's kiss and a glass of chocolate milk every day.  As long as I have those, I can go without just about anything else without feeling deprived.  And as long as I eat either the dark or the coconut cream kisses, one is usually plenty to satisfy my need for chocolate.  I do only buy the low fat chocolate milk as well.  I am not a plain milk drinker but I know I need to get my calcium in somehow. So I drink a 7 oz cup of chocolate milk every morning.  If I don't have my milk and my Hershey's kiss, I have found that I way over eat through the rest of the day. 

6 - Once again - I have found that exercise is the key.  Just eating right helps me to maintain.  Exercise is what helps me lose weight.  And although losing weight is not the main goal, I know that I can't be as healthy as I need to be at my current weight.  So I need to get motivated to exercise again.  I will be starting from scratch AGAIN.  I'm hoping that the better weather and warmer temperatures and sunshine will encourage me.  When it is cold and gray and snowy or rainy, I just want to cuddle up in blankets and hibernate!

7 - And the final one - Mondays really STINK as the weigh in day!  I am fairly sedentary on Sundays and kinda snacky! And Mondays are completely crazy in my world.  So rather than get completely discouraged every single Monday from either missing my weigh in or weighing in and having the numbers be high, I decided to change it to WEIGH IN WEDNESDAY.  I'll be posting on Wednesdays from now on.

Hope you are having a good March so far! 

So there you go - my discoveries from the past few weeks.