Friday, July 30, 2010

Alissa Skips Out on the Skippy

I've now listened to my father and decided to skip out a little on the peanut butter. I was eating All Natural Skippy. I'm not going to totally take this out of my diet, but I'm skipping out on the Skippy some.

Instead we bought Almond Butter at Costco. My boys really do love Almond Butter. It is a little more pricey, but healthier for you.

Alissa - Glucose Tolerance Test

My glucose tolerance test came back normal! :) I still am meeting with a diabetic nutritionist on Tuesday to push losing weight further. I want to lose weight and be healthy.

New Balance Shoes

Alissa here. Does anyone want to win a pair of New Balance Shoes? I do!



Feisty, Frugal and Fabulous is giving away a pair of New Balance 759 Running Shoes.

Fun Follow Friday


My Wee View

Fun Follow Friday is a great way to get to know what's out there in the blogging world. It's hosted by Simply Stacie and My Wee View. The goal of this hop is to get new Google Friend Connect Followers for your blog and be introduced to new blogs to follow!

I hope you enjoy our new blog. It's a journey about two women tring to lose weight.

Alissa - Fasting, Fasting, Fasting

Once again I'm fasting for a glucose testing. I had to fast for 12 hours. No breakfast for me today. This lab stuff will take two hours. Having this done in the morning is no big deal. Right now I'm drinking my orange drink. It brings back memories of being pregnant with my two boys.
Only this time I'm just fat, not pregnant.

I wonder how this happened, me getting fat. I was skinny up through grad school. I've gone though two pregnancies, this winter I broke my foot, and I just got into bad habits of sitting on the couch too much.

On Monday I fasted all day, came in to get my lab work at 3:45, and they told me it was too late in the day to do anything. The nurse said as long as it was before 5. Not so. This is my second time coming in.

At least I have a computer to type on! ;) It's too bad they don't have an exercise room right here. :( But we are going swimming tonight, tomorrow night and on Sunday. ;)

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Food Scale Giveaway!

This is Alissa. I just wanted to let you know that J. Leigh Designz is giving away a food scale by EatSmart!


If you are a person that needs to lose weight like me, this is a great giveaway to enter!

A Healthier Burger

It's me Alissa here. I love cheese burgers! I never really craved them too much until my oldest was born close to 5 years ago.

I actually mixed in oatmeal into the hamburger. If you want less texture, you can use a mini food chopper to grind up the oatmeal up before adding it to the meat.

I also added chopped green onion, tomatoes, garlic, feta cheese and a dash of worceshire sauce.

The burger had wonderful flavor! There really wasn't that much feta cheese in the mix. I didn't add additional cheese on it.

We try and get meat that is low in fat. 

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Juice

Alissa here. I think it's important to touch on the topic of juice. Too much juice can cause obesity, diarrhea and tooth decay. This is exactly why doctors try and prevent toddlers from drinking juice. We tend to think of juice as being a healthy alternative to soda. Even some of the more natural juices have added sugar in them.

I mix always add water to our juice at home. Sure it may not taste as good. It still has flavor, and we've gotten used to it. When I make it from the can, I add in one extra cup of water then what it calls for. When it comes to the pre-made juices, I add 1/4 water to our glass of juice. When the container gets down to 3/4 of the way full, I top it off with water.

If you like Lemonade like I do, skip it and drink water with lemon or lime juice from the actual fruit.

Food Scale

It's me Alissa. I'm so excited because csn | stores contacted me once again to do a product review. They said I was a preferred blogger. That made me feel good because I've never officially reviewed a product before. I do talk about products all the time.

This time I decided to pick something out for me! I picked out a food scale. Perfect for this time in my life!

I'll let you know when the review is up. I just ordered it, and like to spend a few weeks with the product before I review it.

Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk

It's me Alissa. I've started up walking during the lunch hour again.

The first couple rounds around the building I call and check on the kids. Then I hang up, and walk even faster. I run in the back of the building. I don't want anyone seeing my BIG butt jiggling!

I walk more then a mile during this time.

Spaghetti Squash Pie

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
  2. Grease a glass pie dish. I use olive oil spray.
  3. Cook the onion, and brown the meat. My husband prefers Italian Sausage. I only cook 3 links. If you prefer a less fatty meat go with ground turkey. I only cook 1/2 a package.
  4. Cook 1/2 a spaghetti squash. It doesn't have to be cooked all the way because it will be in the oven longer. Drain very well.
  5. Add the spaghetti squash to the pie dish, mix in the parmesan cheese and eggs. Cook for 10 or 15 minutes. Cook enough to cook the egg.
  6. Spread on the can of tomato paste. Season it with Italian seasonings and add 1/2 can of water to the sauce.
  7. Spread on cottage cheese.
  8. Add the meat. I sometimes add garlic too.
  9. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese.
  10. Cook until cheese melts.

Jessie: Finding Me Again


Facebook is so awesome. I love it when I log in and notice that someone has added a friend, and that friend is someone I haven't seen in forever. Today I found my cousin who we will call "Miss A" (whom I haven't seen since I was a little girl). It was really cool to get back in touch with her and chat for a little while before The Mister was home from work.

I realized after Miss A asked "do you plan on having any children?", that I hadn't really thought much about that this year. It has really been quite a while since I've really had the opportunity to even think about having kids, nor have I really wanted to. With everything going on with my brother, with school, work, and the possibility of moving to a different state, I haven't really had the time to think about even myself. It's been hard enough to balance everything and try to get "Me and Hubby" time in there somewhere. I mean even with my sister in law having her second kid I still hadn't really thought about it much. I've had so much going on in my world that I don't guess I've had ample opportunity to just sit and think. And although I wouldn't change a thing, as I feel I have really been able to help others, I think somehow I lost myself in all of it and haven't had a chance to sit back and really think about where I'm going in my life.

Long story short, I've been surviving on the bare minimum: emotionally, physically and mentally. And it's time to stop this now.

This evening while The Mister was watching a movie from Netflix (only the best company ever!) I started doing a little google search for the fertility specialists the doctor had referred me to from my last visit to the OBGYN (You can read about my last dr's visit {here} ). I read about the doctors, the mission, and decided to cut it to the more important stuff: the cost. Surprisingly, the rates were fairly reasonable compared to what I have seen other places.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going over board on this. I am in no rush whatsoever. I like my life the way it is right now because adding a kid on top of all the stressful things that are going on right now would be a nervous breakdown waiting to happen. Besides, I'm not sure if I am quite ready to take on the whole "trying" aspect of everything again. The Mister and I have tried for going on two to three years (with a three or four month break in there due to my surgery). The waiting for a potential ovulation, the testing and hoping for a positive pregnancy test to watch it only be a negative, the bad news from the doctors. All of that. I can't take that right now, and I just want to do enough research to see what I'm looking at so I can at least prepare myself for that. Besides we decided that after the end of this year, if I don't get pregnant the natural way then next year we will begin looking at fertility treatments. And I think at this point, in all honestly, after everything I've gone through in that area I would rather pay the money to have good ol' doc put The Mister's junk with my junk, eliminate having to try and just wait for the flowers to bloom if you catch my drift.

So, until that point I figure I could help myself and get into decent shape maybe. I know I've got on here before and typed away about how I was going to hold myself accountable to the world, log my food and diet. Yeah right! That lasted for all of two weeks. Hello chocolate cake! This time I may take my time and really focus on getting completely healthy. By that I mean taking the time do something I really enjoy, thus the DIY projects and watching Lost. Taking the time to do something that stimulates the mind, thus reading books and really focusing on my school work. Taking the time to build my relationship with The Mister, thus the awesome date nights. Taking the time to eat healthy, thus really taking the time to make a conscious effort in better eating habits.


After getting my health back, slowing down enough to enjoy the days again, and after coming up with a plan for success, maybe I'll find that happy-go-lucky me again somewhere in the mix.

Wordful Wednesday Welcome

It is me, {Alissa} writing. This will be my 4th blog. I have my family blog, one on breastfeeding and one called Cookie Art. This blog is about a journey of women trying to find themselves once again. Last week was a hard week for me. I went to the doctor only to find out that my cholesterol and blood sugar are both slightly elevated. I know I need to loose weight in a a bad way!

After I learned about this I was sobbing! I was crying because I know it's going to be a hard road from here on out with weight. Most of my mom's side is over weight. I look in the mirror, and don't like what I see. I don't feel attractive at all! I don't like that I'm not healthy.

I bake a lot, but do not eat the things I bake. The goodies go to my work or my husband's work. It's activity that's a problem for me.

It didn't help that I decided to wean my 2 year old from nursing last week cold turkey. My emotions were running wild! It was a habit I had to break because I've tried weaning ever so slowly. We kept going backwards, and nursing all the time again.

Now is a time for change. I want to be sexy again. Most importantly, I want to be healthy.

I met a girl in the blogging world {Jessie} that wants some of the same things as I. Together we're going to inspire each other with this blog.

Recipes, exercises and other getting fit tips will be recorded on here.