The major benefits of this fruit are:

1. It contains 15 grams of pectin (this fiber is linked to lowering cholesterol and reducing fat).
2. It is high in viamin C and potassium.
3. It is fat free and contains no sodium.

Grapefruit is also rich in natural galactronic acid.  This  aids in lowering cholesterol and fat.  It also battles against hardening of the arteries and the development of heart disease.

Before you add grapefruit as a major staple to your diet, check with your doctor to see if it ok.  Grapefruit can cause a bad reaction when taking some medicines.  (I’m on a cholesterol medicine that warns me not to use any grapefruit products.)

Over at WebMd, they explain in further detail ALL the benefits of grapefruit.  If the doctor gives you thumbs up, head to the store and stock up, they last several weeks in the refrigerator.

Grapefruit is a product that can help you lose weight, lower cholesterol, and lower fat.  It’s a great addition to anyone’s diet.

I’d add up my figures at the end of each day and finally have a grand total at the end of the week.  According to my figures, I should have been losing at the minimum two pounds a week.  It wasn’t happening.  It didn’t take me long to get discouraged on my weight loss journey.

I figured out why I wasn’t losing two pounds a week.  My calculation of what was a portion size was way off the mark.  I wasmaking good food choices but I was eating more than what the National Institutes of Health described as a portion size.

If you use the following list as a guideline when eating, you will be able to successfully track your calorie intake:

1. ONE CUP of PASTA IS  =  A WOMAN’S CLENCHED FIST.
2. A HALF CUP OF VEGETABLES  =  HALF A TENNIS BALL.
3. ONE TABLESPOON IS  =  TWO THUMBS PRESSED TOGETHER. (thumbs up)
4. ONE TEASPOON IS  =  A THUMB TIP.
5. ONE FRUIT SERVING IS  =  ONE TENNIS BALL.
6. THREE OUNCES OF MEAT IS  =  A DECK OF CARDS.

It takes awhile to get acustom to using the correct method of portion size.  It’s kind of like bowling, the more you practice, the better you get.  I’ve started using smaller plates so it looks like I’m eating more.  When growing up, my sisters and I were not allowed up from the table until or plates were clean.  I have retained that mentality into adulthood which is partly what has caused me to be overweight.  It only makes sense for me to use smaller plates….I can have a clean plate without excess calories. 

You know the old saying…..What ever works!!

I went to this icee place and had to settle for a root beer ice cone.  I didn’t care for it.  It tasted wayyy too sweet.  Since I don’t care much for sugar, I wasn’t able to eat it.

When I got home, I still was thirsty for a milkshake.  Low and behold I had some Blue Bunny strawberry frozen yogurt in the freezer.  I used that large glass in the picture and filled it with ice cream and 2% milk.  Wow,  was that ever good.  In fact, I made myself one of these strawberry shakes two days in a row.

I was feeling guilty about all the calories. I was kicking myself for indulging in such a manner.  I decided today to take a look at the calories and sugar I consumed. Ahhh….not as bad as I thought.  There are 90 calories in half a cup (I used a cup) and there are 120 calories in 8 ounces of 2% milk (I used 1 cup).

The shake really filled me up and on both days it ended up actually being my lunch.  I’m not feeling so bad now.  I’m glad to see my indulgence wasn’t as bad as I had orginally thought.  This actually could be considered a weight loss drink.  It  filled me up so I didn’t need any lunch.  It kept me full and I didn’t do any snacking before supper.

This is my newest weight loss recipe.  It’s funny how I can go from feeling so guilty for indulging to realizing this milkshake is going to help me lose weight.  Wow…what a win-win recipe.

Milkshake Pros:             Milkshake Cons:

1.  Filled me up            1.  Over 16 grams of sugar

2.  Only 300 Calories       2.  No Fiber

3.  Zero fat               3.  More calories than I usually drink at one time

You should check out the Blue Bunny website.  They have information a nutrional guide, recipes, and even a $1.00 off coupon for their ice cream.

It’s time for me to get my grass cutting shoes on….where off to make another customer happy.

I love this Echo trimmer.  It’s light weight and easy to use.  It has a nice big trimmer head so I don’t have to keep loading the string so often.  I’ve never done trimming.  I’ve always left that job up to my husband.  Since there is so much trimming with this complex, I knew I was going to have to learn.  

By the end of the second day, I was scooting right along with my trimmer.  I’ve claimed that trimmer as mine.  Using this trimmer has helped my shoulders as well as my upper arms.  I’m looking forward to the next job so I can do the trimming. I tried using my husband’s  trimmer but it just didn’t work for me since I’m left handed.  The guard on the bottom of the shaft was on the wrong side for me.  I had no protection from flying rocks and debris.  I tried holding it with my right hand but it just felt too uncomfortable.

It’s been raining off and on all morning so the grass cutting is I’m getting a break.  This has given me a chance to make up a large cucumber salad.

  I’ve used fresh cucumbers, onions and tomatoes from our garden.  I add fat free half and half, cider vinegar, and a little sugar to balance the taste.  Top it with a little salt and pepper and let it marinate for a couple of hours.  This makes for a nice low calorie healthy salad.  I don’t put much tomato in the bowl because it makes it too watery.  It’s better to just add the tomato to you individual bowl a few minutes before you are going to eat it.  

You can also keep adding cucumbers to the dressing.  When it begins to taste bland, it’s time to make a new batch of the dressing.  (Although it’s not necesary, I usually peel the skin off my cucumbers.)

I’m off to visit

In another pan, I cooked up some fresh broccoli from the garden and plan on added it to my healthy concoction.  I plan on dishing this over jasmine rice (it’s my favorite).  I don’t know the calorie content of this recipe but it has to be very low.  What a bonus, low calories and good tasting.  That is such a winning combination.

It’s still be real hot here.  My husband and I are still busy cutting grass.  We just picked up another new customer on Thursday.  It’s great because they live across the street from one of our regular customers.  It makes it nice when you can knock off a couple of lawns without having to drive any distance.  It seems we get most of our customers by referral.  Our customers are happy with our prices and our work. 

I’ve been drinking plenty of water in this heat.  The good news is I’m down two more pounds.  My husband just finished fixing my push mower ( fuel line was clogged) so it’s time for us to hit the dusty trail.

Hoping everyone has a great weekend!!  (We’re going to the weekly Saturday night auction tonight.)

My husband had me  ordered the two parts he thought it needed but neglected to order this little $2.00 piece.  So here we are…..waiting again for that little piece to come in so he can reassemble my mower. 

I’ve been having to use my pushmower on yards I usually use my rider.  I’m afraid to use my husband’s lawnmower.  It’s a zero turn commercial Ferris and it goes so much faster than mine.   I can still remember when I was afraid to learn how to use the other riding mower.  I finally attempted it when I had a 3 acre yard to work in.  I figured I would have plenty of space to turn around.  I’ve finally graduated up to smaller and tighter areas. 

I’ve been getting a lot more exercise using my push mower.  I don’t like the self-propelled type so it’s all “pushing.”  Anyone that has spent much time in Tennessee knows it’s hard to find a flat yard.  I’m up and down hills and gullies most of the time.  I know that is burning off more calories than sailing across a flat piece of ground.  I’m losing my weight slowly this time and hopefully will be able to KEEP it off.

I enjoy being outside.  Cutting grass for me is more fun than working in my flower garden.  I hate pulling weeds and hoeing.  The past few weeks it’s been very hot.  There have been several heat related deaths in our area.  To combat this hot and humid weather, I’m drinking plenty of water, taking plenty of breaks in my airconditioned vehicle, and trying to remember to use sunscreen.  I only had one day I quit around noon.  The combination of the heat and humidity just took my breath away.  I started having cold chills so I knew I had been at it too long. 

I’ve got to go meet my husband at the church and cut the grass on the playground. 

Have a safe and happy 4th!!

To reach their weight loss goals, people use various diets, pills, and drinks combined with exercise. There are so many weight loss gimmicks out there, with more being presented every day.  It’s a real money maker for these companies.

I’ve read a ton of books on weight loss and tried so many methods of weight loss.  I find I get discouraged.  When that happens, I gain back the weight I’ve lost.  I’ve been analyzing why this happen to me.  I’ve decided it is because of the way I measure success!!  I always set myself up for failure….thus leading to my weight gain.

I have redefined success in my weight loss journey.  I am looking at the positive things I do each day and realizing it is a success.  Example:  Delivering meals on wheels.  (I know….you are thinking….what is she talking about.)  I now see delivering these meals is two hours of exercise.  Jumping in and out of the car, walking to the door with the food…..it’s burning calories. 

For me, it is taking a look at my day and seeing all the positive things I’ve done and realizing it’s been a successful day for me.  I make sure I document it all in my weight loss journal. 

I’ve talked before about setting realistic goals.  I have found for me, the most important thing is measuring my success.  Of course, some days are better than others but each day, I find I’ve made at least on successful choice.  It is keeping me on track and I feel so much better.  (I’ve lost another 10 pounds!!!!)

I know I haven’t made a post in sometime but I’m back and will be sharing some of my experiences of late in upcoming posts.

We’ve got a heat advisory out for today so I’m going to get my running done before it gets too hot.  I hope you all have a great day.   Toodles….I’m off to the store!!!!

Yesterday I looked at my favorite blog posts from this year.  When I was doing the research for that post I looked through a lot of my blog posts over the past year and I realized was that I’ve had an amazing year.  I’ve done a lot of cool things and had some wonderful experiences with great people.  Today’s post is just a look back at all that I have done in 2009.

MY YEAR IN REVIEW

I started the year off living at home, but with a promotion to a new job at work.  I didn’t really like the job but appreciated more hours and money and the ability to do some new things with the YMCA (which I love). I dated some crappy guys and tried to have a little bit of fun that got me out of the house, like celebrating friend’s birthdays.  (Ignore the timestamps… this was in Feb 2009, the camera was wrong.)

Still, things weren’t so great for whatever reason and I ended up spending half my time being miserable and gaining weight until I hit 251 (OMG!).

I did have quite a bit of fun though… I even went on spring break to Puerto Rico!  I never went on a typical spring break vacation until the year after I graduated college.  It was a gorgeous place and sooo relaxing and fun.

In April I decided to get things back under control at least weight wise and did a Biggest Loser contest with my mom and her work friends.  She kicked my butt and I came in second, but I still lost a bit of weight and started my forward momentum to getting my life back on track.

Quit my job in July because I wanted something different, something more, and I wanted to travel.  I took a roadtrip to Pennsylvania with college friends for a wedding.

I spent a few days in DC with my good friend MaryBeth and had fun exploring the city.  I was actually a history major in college so I love any city with good history (even though I forget most of it… I was a bad history major).

I headed to Chicago for a few days and I met some amazing people at BlogHer, including Carla, Roni, AJ, Lisa, Cammy, Kath, Jenn, Mara. I learned a little bit about blogging, ate some yummy food with cool people, and had a freaking awesome weekend.

After I came home I decided to move out of my family’s house and move in with a friend.  Moving out was a great decision for me and helped me clear my head and prepare for future endeavors while I started feeling like myself again.  I lived there for a month in between jobs, using an air mattress as my bed.  Comfy.

While I was there I did a lot of exercise and I even worked out with bloggers who live in Memphis, including Cammy and JackSh*t!!  I enjoyed meeting and being active with both of them.  And if you weren’t aware, JackSh*t is HILARIOUS and a really nice guy.

I was offered an interesting position at Green Mountain, which I had never heard of or ever planned to attend, which led me to move to Vermont for three months.  I had a job blogging and making videos for GM’s official blog and youtube page, which was amazing, and I also worked out a lot and got in really good shape while dropping 18 pounds. It was a beautiful place to live and exercise.

Some of the people who came there as participant while I was there changed my life.  I learned a lot about myself and other people while I was there.  It was really rewarding to watch people come alive again after so many years of living under their potential.

And I really enjoyed traveling with them as I visited Boston, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, and a ton of places in Vermont.  I even saw the ocean!

In October I took my clothes off to be EXPOSED and show what I love about my body.

I started talking to and fell in love with a really awesome guy, Kepa, who also blogs about healthy living.  This one fact probably made my year, and will definitely make next year as I’m going to freaking New Zealand to see him in January.  I’ve actually been trying to go to New Zealand for about four years, before I even met Kepa, so this trip will be a dream come true in many ways.  But yeah, love is sweet and I’m happy I found it this year.

For the last few weeks of the year I’ve been living back in Memphis with my great friends Hilary and Chris.  I’ve celebrated holidays with my family and spent some fun nights with friends.  I’m catching up with everyone I can and spending time with my mom before I leave again.

It has been an amazing year for me with so many great things happening that I NEVER expected.  I’ve had some rough times, struggled a bit with feeling out of place, feeling alone, feeling confused about the future and the like.  But everything that happened was worth it.  It was a fantastic year and I’m super excited for the new year and all it will bring.

So what about you?  How was your year?  What was the BEST thing you did this year?

Wu-Long = Oolong

First, let me eliminate the mystery: Wu-Long tea is the same thing as Oolong tea. It is simply another translation into the English alphabet. A few years ago, certain companies began using this alternative translation in an attempt to deceive the public. They hoped that dieters would think a new secret tea blend had come from Asia to magically increase their metabolism. And, unfortunately, it worked.

Many people were deceived and spent too much money on something they already owned. Oolong tea is probably served in your local Chinese restaurant. Of course, it certainly is a delicious and healthy beverage, but, it is not some secret formula that is only known to these diet companies trying to hype their weight loss products.

What Is Oolong Tea?

In North America, we typically group tea products into four basic types of teas (white, green, oolong, and black). It should be noted that Chinese classifications are slightly different and include yellow and red teas among other slight alternative groupings.

Whatever the classification scheme, all teas come from the Camellia Sinensis bush and are so named by the way they have been processed and the degree of oxidization. White tea is the least oxidized and black tea is the most oxidized. Oolong is semi-fermented, or partially oxidized, and the taste qualities reside between black and green teas.  The leaves of oolong vary in color, too, from the less oxidized green shades to the more oxidized dark brown shades.

Sometimes called the “champagne of teas,” oolong tea is richly aromatic with a range of floral flavors that are smooth and complex. The variety of leaf colors is determined by how oxidized they are and also determines the flavor and aroma characteristics. The lighter green the leaves, the more floral the flavor. This complexity makes oolong a favorite among tea connoisseurs.

Mostly cultivated in Taiwan and Southeast China, oolong teas involve the most difficult and time-consuming processing of all four tea classifications. It is vital that the leaves for oolong tea are picked at a particular time and immediately begin the processing stage. The processing starts when the leaves are placed in the sun to wither. Next, the leaves are placed on bamboo mats and are shaken so that they bruise, just slightly, on the edges.

This aspect of the processing is required to partially oxidize the leaves. After being shaken they are placed in the shade until they turn a slight yellow. The entire process is repeated a few times. Once the desired level of oxidation is reached, the leaves are placed in high heat so they will not oxidize any further. They are then dried a final time and packaged. Because oolong teas have less moisture in the leaves they have a longer shelf life than green and white teas (but slightly less than black).

Is Oolong the Only Diet Tea?

As research about the health benefits of teas arise, so do fads and exaggerations.  We must beware of the diet hype and lies claiming Wu-Long is the one and only “slimming tea”. The fact is that all teas contain a variety of thermogenetic benefits, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. These antioxidants, as well as other helpful ingredients such as fluoride and caffeine, work to fight heart disease and cancer, strengthen bones and teeth, raise metabolism, and improve mental cognition.

So the truth is that dieters and health conscious individuals in general can benefit from drinking all teas. It is also true that white and green teas typically contain more antioxidants than oolong and black teas; however, there are other benefits in the more oxidized teas that are not available when drinking less oxidized teas. For example, Pu’erh teas undergo an additional stage of processing that allows them to age well in contrast to all other teas, and simultaneously lower an individual’s LDL cholesterol.

Lose Weight and Improve Your Health with Any Tea

Go to pubmed.gov and do a search for “tea”. You will find over fourteen-thousand medical studies that have been published and recorded by the US federal government analyzing the benefits of various teas on the human body. The fact is that all tea is good for your health and the best thing you can do is to drink a variety rather than just focus on one particular style looking for some unique benefit that may not exist in other teas. Remember that all tea comes from the same plant.

For those who like a tea with a weaker richness than black tea, but not quite the grassy notes of green tea, oolong offers the perfect compromise. And with so many tastes available, it is worth exploring the immense varieties of all teas to find a suitable match for each and every palate. Certainly give oolong a try and reap the metabolic rewards of this tea. But, don’t fall prey to the claims that Wu-Long tea is the one and only miracle diet beverage. Save your money from these scam artists, look for a reputable company that sells premium quality loose leaf teas, and drink to your health.

Contributed by Steven Van Solkema, Founder and President of LeafSpa Organic Tea.

1.  I have been working 3 days a week cutting grass with a push mower for my husband’s lawn service . (4-6 hours each day)

2.  I have been drinking approximately 10 (8 oz) glasses of water each day.

3.  I am religiously keeping a journal of all my activities as well as what and when I eat.

 4.  I have switched to low fat foods as well as reducing my carbs to approximately 15 grams or less per meal.  I’m eating more fish and chicken while reducing my intake of red meat.   ( I also kicked  bread to the curb)  I now snack on fruit such as watermelon and fresh strawberries. (no more hershey bars or gharedelli candy)

  5.  Working out at the gym 3 days a week. (I’m up to 45 minutes now)  I’ve also started using some of the weight machines. 

6.  I’ve changed my sleeping habits. I’ve been turning the tv off by 11:00 pm instead of staying up half the night. (my worst snacking use to start after the 10:00 pm news)

These are the things that are working for me.  Having realistic short term and long term weight loss goals are also helping me.  Hopefully you can incorporate some of them into your life and have success as well. 

It’s time for me to get ready to go work in the gift shop at the hospital.  I enjoy the people I work with and also the customers.  God has blessed me so so much!!!!!!