What would you do?

Hello everyone. Back from the beach and checking in. Love the blog posts lately. So informative. I have to try and post more photos of foods that I like and eat. I tend to get deep and philosophical when I write on my blog. I hope you find my posts helpful, but I will try and be more informative regarding my day to day doings on the BFC.

I had an idea as I was scrolling through your blogs and seeing all the meals, snacks and food that you eat everyday or order when you are out. I recalled many situations when I'm not sure what to order or what to eat when I am out of my normal environment and routine. I thought I could post a few questions and make alittle game of it. I'd like to see what everyone, but especially the "pros" would do.If you don't mind and have a minute, post your answers to the questions in the comment page, and then I will compile them together and post all the answers for everyone. Maybe we can all learn something.

1) You are with a group and everyone is ordering takeout from the pizza/sub shop for dinner. What would you order? (Don't cringe, but this just happened to me and I ordered a chicken cheese steak with the works! Ok, I'm being honest here!!!)

2) You go to a baby shower or other ladies event and there are sandwich trays, chips and dips, fruit trays, pasta salad, and cake and candy. What do you choose?

3) What do you order at a fast food restaurant?

4) You go to a restaurant and they bring out  hot fresh baked artisan bread with cold butter. Is it okay to eat those carbs if you count in in your total?

5) What salad dressing to you choose for your salad when you are out and can't check the nutritional labels?

6) How do you handle going to someone's house for a dinner when you have no idea what will be served?

7) What do you pack for a brown bag lunch?

8) If you were to plan so BFC friendly appetizers that others would enjoy, what would you serve?

These are some of the questions that I get stumped on and I would love to hear suggestions and ideas if you have time to answer them. I'll put them all together in a future post.

Happy Hour on the beach with the family!

I think you might figure out that I again had some challenges this weekend at the beach. My mother made a tray of lasagna for dinner Saturday and we ordered takeout sandwiches Friday night for dinner. Carbs were everywhere. And then there are those happy hours on the beach. Except for my breakfast and lunches I felt a little out of control. I'm lucky to have a place to go to on the weekends, but with the travelling back and forth, the houseguests every weekend, and just being on a different schedule, I have a hard time keeping it on "cruise control". It's a challenge I have to deal with, at least for the next several weeks.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Until next time!

Thought for the day:  Keep calm and carry on!

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life!

Morning on a ranch in Oklahoma

There is a quote that I just love. It's not from a great philospher or scholar, but from an actor. His name is John Wayne. I don't remember where I saw this quote, but I love it, and keep it on my bulletin board at my desk where I can read it often. It goes like this:

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands and hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

I love this quote because it's about what we all want, a fresh clean start. New Years day is a great day for clean starts. So are Mondays, the first of the month, and birthdays too. They are significant days, milestones or important times in the year. That's when promises are made, goals are set, new chapters begin. But really every morning when we rise with the sun there is a chance for a fresh start. You can have it any day and every day.

I think it's an important concept for me as I struggle to lose weight and follow a certain lifestyle. In my case, it's low sugar, low carb. Sometimes when you mess up, make poor food choices or really fall off the wagon, you may have a tendency to say, " I'll start on Monday", or " it's almost the end of the month, I'll start fresh with the new month." But you are just prolonging your journey, putting off your goal, and the days will pass and you will be in the same place you started.

Morning in Napa Valley

So I think a better way to look at things is to say, today is done, tomorrow is brand new. If I worked at meeting my goal yesterday, I will try and repeat that performance today. It it was a bad day yesterday, it has no bearing on this very clean, bright new day!

Good luck to you on this clean bright day and hope you all reach your goals!

Thought for the day: ( this is an easy one!)

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands and hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Morning in my backyard

Do you use an online food tracking site?

Hello to all. Loved the recent blogs from everyone. It's great to see others posting what they eat each day.  I have trouble keeping track of what I eat and have taken to using a website called fat secret. I use the app that they have for my android phone called calorie counter. It syncs with the phone and the online program. On my ipad, I can tap on the things that I have eaten previously and it remembers them, as well as meals. You can also put in the barcode from any product and it brings it up with the exact nutritional value. That's a real nice feature.You can track different items, such as sugar and carbs, add your weight and exercise and any other goals you have on this site.

When I visited Dawn's blog today, I noted that she uses myfitnesspal. I love that she can sync that site with her blog and her recorded meals are there for us to see. I don't think fatsecret can do that. There are pros and cons to each site.

So I was wondering if you have used any of these sites, or if you have any others that you love. I think they are really valuable tools to keeping us on track and also to recording what we eat. I'd love to hear your feedback. Of course there is still good old fashioned hand writing your meals. That may still be the best way to go!

Today was weigh in day, and I weigh EXACTLY what I weighed last week. Down to the tenths of a pound. I'll take it I guess. Not exactly setting any weight loss records, but hey the tortoise ended up winning the race right??

Until next time!
Thought for the day: There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going!

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to!

Hello everyone. It's Monday morning and here I am back at my computer. Catching up on all of the blogs, remotivating myself for the week to come....forgiving myself for the week that past.....planning for the day ahead.

For those of you who post your meals for the day, I want to tell you that I find it very helpful. I have to work on doing that. I love the style of blogs like Rosalie and Kay where they write about their day, their meals and what's going on in their life. I like to hear about the ideas of what others are eating and doing for exercising. It give me motivation and keeps things fresh for me. I am going to work on doing that.

Mostly when I sit down to write on my blog, something has popped into my head and I just want to share it with you. The title of the blog today, is something I picked up somewhere along the way, while reading posts on facebook. Someone posted that statement in their status on facebook. It really made me think a bit about what that really means. There are lots of things we can do....are allowed to do.... can do.....but should we?

The other day I had brought home leftovers from a dinner at a small Italian restaurant. The portions are huge and portion control has always been a problem for me. However in this place, even I know I can't, and shouldn't be eating all that they give me. So I took home half of my chicken dish. It was a delicious dish with spinach, ricotta cheese, tomatoes and eggplant. Pretty good for the BFC I thought. I asked for extra veggies instead of the pasta and they threw some broccoli in there too. So the next day I'm thinking what a great lunch this will be.The portion was still probably more than one serving, but into the microwave it went.

So I'm eating and eating, and for some reason that fullness cue, you know the one that tells you that you are getting full and may have had enough to eat, kicked in. I usually eat right past that feeling, but I stopped and thought  'I feel satisfied.' The earth shook , the sky opened up and a triumphant music started playing!!! Not really, but it was an impressionable moment. I felt satisfied and there was still food on my plate!!!! But then I said to myself.....' I can eat this....it's okay on the plan....there is little sugar and carbs in it....it's practically a 0/0....I should finish it up'. But I didn't. That was huge. If you don't have the portion control problem or know when to say I've had enough, then you are probably bored reading this right now. But this little moment stuck in my head. I didn't finish my meal. I was satisfied and there was still food on my plate.

I didn't grow up in a clean plate family....but I always eat everything on my plate. My husband said I would probably lick it if I could, and when I'm alone I sometimes do!!!! He on the other hand, did grow up in a eat everything on your plate family. But he always leaves something, at least a few bites on his plate. I read somewhere if we just would leave two bites on our plate at every meal we would save several hundred calories in a week. You only have to decrease your calorie consumption by 3500 calories to lose a pound. So if you left a couple of bites, maybe totaling 50 calories at each meal, you could save 150 calories a day, or 1050 calories a week. That would be about a 1/3 of a pound a week and alittle over a pound a month. Not alot, but every little bit helps. I know we don't count calories on the BFC, but just trying to make a point about eating just to we are satisfied, even if it means leaving a little behind.

So as I start this Monday, full of good intentions and fresh goals, I think I will try the leave a few bites behind method this week. I'll try to be more present to what I am eating and notice the feeling that says I've had enough.  I think it will help me to appreciate and notice what I'm eating. Then maybe I will remember to post it the next day! Until next time!

Thought for the day:  If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. ~Buddhist Saying

The long and winding road.....

Hello everyone. Hope all is well and you are enjoying the hot days of summer. I know that 37 states have excessive heat warnings, so hope every one is keeping cool. It sure is hot in PA and I'm not liking it one bit. Today was weigh in day, and I lost that pound I gained on the vacation week, and a bit more. I don't even want to brag about it because it is such a slow process for me. But hey, progress is progress right?

One of my blogger friends, was feeling a bit down this week, and so was I last week. I hoped I cheered her up, and encouraged her with my post, because she always does the same for me. In fact last week, unbeknownst to me ( who's keeping track at 50??), I was really PMS' ing. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was super emotional, very moody and quite frankly feeling like giving up. Not  like me at all, but again,I didn't make the connection until after it had all passed. I really didn't think I could ever really succeed at this weight losing process. But then I made a connection, this time on twitter, with someone who helped me over the hump.

 Thank goodness for the kind uplifting words that Amber ( if you don't know who she is, you should,....meandjorge.blogspot.com) gave to me. It sounds corny, but she turned my thought process and mood around, just by her kind words of encouragement.  Please indulge me for a minute, but whether it was hormones, or raw emotion, I was actually teary during our conversation on twitter. The fact that someone I had never met, cared enough to help me through a rough time, and gave me motivating words of advice, made me feel so grateful and restored my faith in humanity and the spirit of human kindness.

This journey we are all on, is a long, winding, road. You may have great progress for days, even weeks at a time,  and then one day you are feeling down and out and don't know what to do. If you reach out to others on these blogs, stay in touch and keep up on new ideas, and meals, your journey will be smoother and easier.

The fact that these blogger friends, are people that I have never met, but who care enough to reach out, and take a minute out of their day to help a fellow traveler on this journey, makes it all the more special to me. It makes me realize that we are more alike than we think, and more connected than we know.

So today, I thank all of you for those kind words of encouragment, especially when you speak more kindly to me than I do to myself. You are setting me in a positive direction and I hope to always return the favor.

So treat yourself kindly, speak to yourself as you would to others, and don't beat yourself up over little missteps or mistakes. It's all good my friends, and little downfalls are only bumps in the road, We are on the right path. It's about the journey, not just the destination.

Thought for the day:  Keep calm and carry on!

On the road again!

Hello all. Back from my weekend at the shore. It's my summer ritual. Friday morning, (sometimes Thursday depending on the work load) I pack the three dogs in the back of the SUV, grab some stuff and drive 84 miles from PA to NJ. I often think how crazy this is driving back and forth, because I'm just going for a short amount of time.  But when I get there, I do find the change of scenery, and the lazy pace of a little beach town really does destress me and I enjoy myself. The time seems to pass slower there. I read more, relax more, laugh more.

But then Sunday comes and I turn around and do the process in reverse. We used to stay until Monday morning. If I had my way, I'd just stay down all summer, but work beckons. It's just too hard from my husband to get up at 4:30 Monday morning, so he can get to the office by 7:30. He can't be late because he has patient office hours on Monday, and with traffic, you never know how long the drive will take. So we get back Sunday, and relax in our backyard around the pool. It's actually a nice way to end the weekend. Start at the beach, end up by the pool!

 I've been absent from my blogger friends for a few days, and I just poured a cup of coffee, caught up with all of your blogs, and wanted to write alittle before I get my day started. I work mostly from my home office, and I run my husbands' medical practice. Not really by choice, but when he left his other practice and went out on his own, I just seemed like the logical person to help out in the beginning. My youngest of three sons had just left for college, I am an RN, although I stopped working after my oldest was born and became a stay at home mom for all those years, and he needed help.

But here it is a few years later, and I still have that job!It's very demanding and I have a lot to do evey week.  At this point, neither of us thinks we can find anyone to do what I do, but I think in the fall I'm going to start looking.I run our business, our homes, our cars, and it's alot for one person to handle. We are busy with two offices, and I find I am craving some free time for myself. Yesterday I had to cover the front desk because someone called out, so everything I had planned to do, business and personal, got pushed to the back burner. I left the house at 7 and didn't get home until after 5. So enough whining, but  if  I'm awol for a few days, you know what's going on!

The weekend was nice and my middle son, who is staying in New York to look for a job post  college graduation, came down with three friends. Three big and hungry friends! I did lots of cooking and entertaining. Didn't do too bad eating wise ( we'll see what the scale says on Wednesday!), but I know I ate more carbs then I should have had. I didn't keep track. It's hard to stay focused when I go do a different environment. I have the house stocked with all my BFC essentials, but after my normal breakfast, the rest of the day is a struggle to keep my head where it should be. I almost forget what I'm supposed to eat when people are ordering take out sandwiches, beers at lunch, appetizers on the beach, bringing doughnuts home from the doughnut shop. I did have a cookie this weekend. Felt like a failure, but then I thought, of all the sweet stuff there was lying around, if that's all I had, then it's not the end the world.  It's a problem I have to learn to cope with, because with college boys and big appetites around, it's going to be different than my normal house, where mostly it's just the dogs, my husband and me. My kids come home and say, 'there's nothing to eat in this house'! But at the beach house, people and guests come with all sorts of stuff. The temptation is there and I have to really be strong willed sometimes.

Actually, when you think of it, it's good practice for life. Because if this is my way of eating for life, then I have to learn to eat well regardless of the circumstances and what food is around. So I'll get to practice again next weekend, and the weekend after that!!!! Practice makes perfect!

Until next time!

Thought for the day: It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back. ~Mick Jagger

Auto pilot, cruise control......call it what you want, but it's all good!

You know I thought a long while about what to call my blog. I wanted it to be about weight loss, but also my thoughts, feelings and how I see life. I'm a chatty person, in case you couldn't tell, and I love to gab and chat about all things going on. I didn't suspect that I would enjoy writing them down so much. Actually, it is really typing them down. The writing thing never worked so well for me. Probably because my pen could never go as fast as my thoughts. The keyboard keeps up so much better!

So my original blog was called " cruise control to my dreams". I wrote this whole long introduction about how the BFC was going to put me into cruise control to get to my dreams, one of them being weight loss. I had no followers and eventually I erased my posts and started anew again. This time I called it "MY ( emphasis on my) Cruise Control.

I realized that I had to take control of my life, and my eating, and that if I could just get into the automatic habit of doing the same thing over and over, day in and day out, it would be like a car on cruise control. You still have to drive it,  you can't go to sleep and forget about it, but your speed is set and now you need to guide the vehicle to where you are going. Sometimes you have to step on the brake, sometimes you have to reset your speed, but you can get right back to the cruise control when you want to.

Awhile back, there was a blogger named Helen. For some reason she made her blog private, but when it was public, she used to write what she ate everyday, and her exercise. For that she would write "cardio on autopilot".  I asked her in the comment section on day, what it meant and she explained to me her AM cardio routine.  It was something she did everyday, on autopilot. It was part of her routine.

Now I like to think I have an AM cardio routine on most days. When the planets are aligned, after I've had my morning coffee, checked my emails, watched a bit of the morning news, then maybe I will do my cardio. I said MAYBE. If I am to be honest, I don't do it more than I do do it.

I like the idea that your exercise and your meals can be put on autopilot. It helps you know exactly what you are going to do (walk, zumba, yoga) each day when you get up, and it also helps with meals, as you get to know exactly what to eat and how many sugar, carbs are in that meal. You automatically do the right thing before you have time to think about doing the wrong thing.

As you may have noticed, I'm not really good about blogging my meals. I do try to write them down or I use an app on my IPAD that keeps track. I need to get better and start posting them.  I really like to see what others are eating, and I do enjoy when they post what they ate each day. I notice repetition, and I think that's a good thing. Your body starts to know what it can expect each day. No surprises!

So I hope you all have a good weekend. Leaving for the shore early tomorrow morning. Be back Sunday. Talk to you all next week. Have a great weekend.

Thought for the day: If you fail to plan...you plan to fail!

Keeping it fresh!

Hello everyone. Well today wss weigh in day, and like I suspected I am up a pound. I'm not going to stress because I know why and stressing isn't going to change anything. I missed last weeks weigh in because I was away. Anyway..... Just keep calm and carry on! I hope everyone else is having a good week.

I love hearing about all the new recipes and ideas from everyone. I am going to try the Chia seed pudding real soon. I love poached eggs and put the chia seeds on them and it adds a delicious crunch, and some much needed fuber. Please keep posting your meal ideas and new products that you find. I think it is helpful for all of us.

There is another blog site that I follow and it is  Ginas Skinny Recipes . Gina has some great recipes. She lists all the nutritional values, even sugar, which I found many recipes leave out. She lists the weight watcher points, so I guess she is a follower of that plan.  I haven't made anything from her site, but I looked through some of the recipes and many are low carb and low sugar and made with ingredients that would be allowed on the BFC.

Speaking of weight watchers, and as a former weight watcher, I can say that their new plan has changed and seems to lean more towards the watching the carbs and sugar. My mom has lost over 40 pounds and kept if off for over 4 years doing weight watchers. She said things like the sandwich thins used to have one point and now they are two, but other things like mayo and sour cream have gone down in points. Seems they also are making you think twice about the carbs and realizing that the fats might not be the real problem. I think we will see a trend towards that in the future. Low fat and fat free, will give way to low sugar and lower carb.

That's all for today. Until next time.

Thought for the day: Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all it's flavor!  W. Cowper

Deciding to be happy.

Hello everyone. I have been tweeting with a blogger friend lately via twitter and some of her comments about deciding to be happy reminded me of an email someone sent me along time ago. I tend to save them, to look back on, when I need a boost of motivation or reason to feel grateful. I had forgotten about this one, but now I remembered it and decided to share it. Maybe you have heard it before, but the message is worth repeating. You can decide how you want to be. My son commented to me today that I always seem dissatisfied. It hurt, but I thought, I probably do project this. I am always looking to improve, to do better. I have all the reasons in the world to be grateful. Why do I look beyond them sometimes and not project happiness, but dissatisfaction....or in other words...unhappiness??

I am reading a book right now, called The Happiness Project, but Gretchen Rubin. She was a wife and mother, leading a fullfilled life, but she didn't feel particularly happy. She decided to embark on a year long project to make herself feel happier. This included organizing her life, tackling to do projects, working on improving her marriage relationship and on and on. A new project each month. I'm not through the book yet, but I realized that so much of our happiness IS within our control and our mindset. She proved that you can make your world happier and it is within our control.

So to get back to that story...It really illustrates the power of the mind to control our happiness. It is a choice. It is within all of our reach. We can choose and decide to be happy! Just like this sweet man, who decided in advance, he would be happy, and make the most of his new situation.

"The story goes that a 92 year old man, legally blind was moving into a nursing home. His wife had passed away and he had no other choice but to move, since they had taken care of each other and now he was all alone.

He arrives at the nursing home facility where he will live. As health care institutions go, he had to wait for hours before his room was ready, and finally an attendant came to show him his new room. As he led the way he began to talk describing the room, trying to make it seem as though it were something exciting on the other side of the door.

Now if I'm the elderly man that just lost his dear wife of many years, and I have no close family to rely on, I am not particularly worried about whether the room is great or not. In my mind I am thinking this is the last place I will live out the last years of my life, so who cares about the room. Who will come and visit and spend time with me in this room, is what I would be thinking.

But in all the wisdom that comes with growing older, this dear sweet man's response to the description of the room was this;
I love it, he stated with the enthusiasm of am eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy."
The attendant replied, how do you know, you've never seen the room.
The elderly man said "that doesn't have anything to do with it." He went on to say, "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like the room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged,,,it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be THANKFUL for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away, just for this time in my life."

" Then he said, "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in, so my advice to you would be deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!"

I know this post doesn' have to do with the BFC lifestyle....or does it? When we choose to be happy, I think we can better navigate our world, our lifestyle and our eating choices.

Speaking of eating choices, on Kay's blog she was talking about a new favorite high fiber white carb tortilla. it's not really BFC approved since we aren't supposed to have the white stuff. That being said, she enjoys it and it helps her to stick to the plan and it's better than a regular old white, low fiber tortilla. Well I just downloaded the new Italian menu and recipes that Jorge is putting out. He asks you to "like" him on facebook and then you will get access to it. Well nothing happens when you do that, and many are complaining they can't get the menu. I went back to the original email, and picked the choice instead that says "click here if you do not have facebook". Then he sends an email confirmation and you get the download. Looks like a regular BFC menu, "italianized"' a bit.  There are a few recipes, and he is talking about his new class that will be coming up in September. However on the recipes, one is for rigationi.....and, he doesn't specify whole grain one bit. What's up with that? Is Jorge giving in the white stuff while in Italy?
Bye for now!

Thought for the day:
Don't worry.....be happy!!!

"Decide that it is true, and it is true"

Hello everyone! All good things must come to an end and I'm back home from my week at the beach. Isn't it funny how you go crazy trying to get everything in order before you leave for vacation, so that you don't have much to do when you get back. But then you get back, and there is all the stuff ( mail, bills, work stuff) that kept piling up while you were gone. But I vowed to try and get to my blog at least every couple of days. I would love for everyday, but I usually set goals too high and then feel miserable when I don't succeed. That is something I am working on, setting reachable, achievable goals.

My blog title today is a quote from Amber (yes that bikini babe Amber!). She and I got to tweeting this weekend and she said some beautiful things to me. I had tears streaming down my cheeks when I read her blog because I really felt like she was talking to me. I told her I don't really believe I will every achieve my goals, if I am to be honest. I know making up your mind is the first step, but sometimes I just don't know if I can do it.

She tweeted back: "just make that decision! You are a beautiful women and u can have everything u want! Decide that is true, and it is true ". It really touched me, a deep part of me. I wondered what does it take to make the difference between those of you who have done it and someone like me who is struggling to do it. Can I ever really get back to that goal weight that I want to be at? Sometimes I don't think I can. Is that little bit of skepticsim and negativity holding me back? I think so. I have to believe I can do it.

But I get strength from all of your blogs, and I know you all are a much needed support system for me. Maybe that will be the difference this time. I have some real people that I can turn to for help, motivation and support. I noticed how we all lift each other up with words of encouragement, but often the words we speak to ourselves are negative and critical. I am trying to be kinder to myself with my thoughts and my words.

So I don't weigh in until Wednesday. I hope the scale doesn't show all of the sins of vacation. but I am confessing that I had 1/2 of a white peach, probably way too many blueberrries, definitely some white carbs and let's not even talk about the wine. Isn't it funny how I'm feeling guilty about overdoing the fruit somewhat!

Until next time!

Thought for the day: "You can have everything you want" - Amber. S.

When you know better, you do better.

Hello everyone. Have enjoyed reading all of your blogs this week. It's so hard for me to take a technology break, but since this is supposed to be a vacation week, I am trying to read more, relax more and of course sleep more.

My house guests are gone and we had a wonderful time together. My son and husband are all that's here now, but my Mom and my other son will be down again in the next few days, and who knows who else will come. It's one of the best and sometimes the worse things about having a house near the beach. I have to admit today I am enjoying the quiet. The streets are empty, the beach is not crowded with people and there is a peaceful vibe down here now. Once Friday comes that will change again.

The title of my blog is a saying that Oprah has been known to tell her viewers: when you know better, you do better. I was thinking that recently and looking back on foods I served my growing children and I myself ate, and how my views have drastically changed. I know some people don't see me as an expert when I talk about cutting back on sugars. Fellow bloggers, Amber, Rosalie, Katie and Kay would have more credibility since they talked the talked and walked the walk. The proof is in the weight loss. I am trying my best and hopefully before too long, when I get to my goal weight, others may pay attention. Why is that so important to me?

Cutting back on the white processed sugars is definitely one of the best things a person can do to ensure good health. I really believe this, whether one needs to lose weight or not. I have not lost much in a month ( 4 lbs, ) but  I feel better, my skin doesn't break out anymore and I function better with a low sugar diet. Gone are those wild crazy "must have something sweet' urges that used to take over me like some sort of demon. I still get a little urge for something sweet after a meal, but some blueberries satisfy me or some dark chocolate in the evening. I'm only human after all!!

 This weekend I mentioned one of my houseguests and I had a discussion about sugar.We disagreed on most things. I told her I wished I knew many years ago when my boys were little, what I know and believe now about the harmfulness of high sugar diets, artifical sweeteners and dyes in our food. I thought I fed them well, but there was certainly sugary snacks, sugary lemonade, kool aid and homemade sweets around the house. Just the dyes in things like fruit roll ups or fun fruits really were a bad thing to give children, yet I put a pack in their lunchbox, thinking it's one sweet thing among the other good things. I didn't know what I know now. She said everything in moderation. I don't see it that way. Bad stuff in moderation is still bad stuff. I'm not saying a kid can't have a  homemade cookie or small piece of dessert every now and again, but all of the processed, dyed junk food and drinks is not good in any quantity, and certainly shouldn't be consumed on a daily basis even in moderation. I saw these visiting kids eating doughnuts, croissants and starbucks coffee drinks for breakfast, cookies and milk for snacks,  and mike and ike candies and twizzlers throughout the day. Drinks were full sugar (39 gms a can) soda or gatorade ( not as bad as soda, but still 22 gms of sugar).  I'm not attempting to criticize here, just reporting on what I observed. It hit me this morning when I was straightening out cabinets and realized that  the whole 2 lb bag of twizzlers, 2 full packs of Chips Ahoy cookies and a huge bag of Mike and Ikes ( bulk size bag) were gone in 4 days. I didn't even check the drink supply but I know there was alot consumed. They brought all of this food, but to see it laid out on the counter as we were unpacking bags, I just couldn't help feeling disgusted by it all. But this might have been what I was unpacking twenty years ago for vacation snacks. She's a good mother and I am a good mother, but I didn't get it then. I didn't know better. Now that I do, I really want to pass it on. Some people don't buy it.

On the Belly Fat Cure the daily sugar limit is 15 gms. That is not very much. But what most people don't realize, is that current recommendations by other organizations are stating we should eat lower amounts of sugar. The American Heart Association released its recommendations that women should eat no more than 6 tsp or 25 gms of  added sugar a day, and men no more than 35 gms or 9 tsp a day. They are not counting naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables, but added processed sugars. That is still a small amount of sugar each day, especially when you realize the average person is eating 22 tsp a day!

So I know better now and I am doing better. I will still try to spread the word to those who want to listen, but unfortunately there will always be those who think it's a fad diet or a passing diet trend. I predict you will see more and more food products emphasizing sugar content in the future, the same way the 'low fat' and 'fat free' trend occurred in products over the last ten or so years. Those in the know, realize the truth about sugar. And so we do better, because we know better. Until next time!

Thought for the day: The past is a good place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!

From sea to shining sea!

Good morning all. I have been awol for a few days. We are at our vacation home this week. We used to travel in the summer with the kids, but since we bought this house near the beach several years ago, we try to spend a few full weeks down here, as well as every summer and fall weekend. This week I might try to give myself a little break form my blog,  and twitter, facebook addiction. I really do enjoy keeping in touch with all of you and I promise not to follow the trend of so many bloggers to drop off after awhile. You all help keep my accountable. Just this week it may be nice to use my laptop sparingly as a mental break. It will be harder to stay off my smart phone, so if you are on twitter follow me @pmc1720.

For me being at the beach is an instant calming factor. You can't feel stressed or troubled while sitting on the beach, with a good book, watching the waves roll in and out. The seagulls and salt air, ocean breezes and soft sand, all provide a much needed respite from the stress of everyday life. For me it's a change of scenery and so oftern changing my routine can mean some trouble in the eating department.

So I find myself sitting here this morning, and thinking back to what I actually ate yesterday, and the day before. For me not remembering, means there were things I shouldn't have eaten. I'm starting to sense a common thread here. When my routine changes, so does my eating. That will be a challenge for me because my life is not routine for the most part. Last week was a cooking weekend in Oklahoma, this week a July 4th celebration, and I still have the whole summer to go through, then the holidays and on it goes.

At the beach we usually have lots of family down and long days at the beach concluding with happy hours in the early evening. We BBQ, eat out and there are always temptations as family members arrive with bags of goodies.There are times I could make better choices, but I lose track of my plan when surrounded with all the temptations laid out before me. Here's a photo of a typical summer weekend with family and friends at the beach.

So it's a new morning and the shore has just been bombarded with thunder storms and rain. The sky is clearing and I thinnk it will be a nice day after all. I'm going to make my breakfast now, and it will be good  for me BFC breakfast. My favorite is two poached eggs and some shredded cheese and chia seeds on two slices of ezekial. I brought lots of stuff that is good for me to eat. I will stay away from the banana bread and bagels. The watermelon, blueberry and mint salad might be a challenge!!

Happy Fourth of July Everyone. Goodbye for now!

Thought for the day: We all have the freedon to make the choices best for us!