Thursday, October 15, 2009

Things that make me smile

Along with my role of homeschooling mom who is on a journey to lose weight, I am also a student of herbal medicine who intends to get certified one day when the dust clears and so on. Ultimately I would like to become a naturopath, but I fear time may not be on my side with that one. Until the day comes when I am able to formally enroll in a school , I content myself with a course of self study . I read from textbooks, lectures, just plain books, observe and work with diet and herbs for many of life's issues. It works, I learn, and one day when the time is right I will get the opportunity to make it formal. One thing that has been frustrating me a lot of late is my inability to find time for my studies.Between home school demands, playing nutritionist and personal trainer o my family and keeping up with mundane things like housework, there is little time. However, over the last couple of weeks I have been able to fit it in , somehow. Nothing can make you feel more alive and worthwhile than pursuing your dreams ! The last few days i have been studying the interaction between iron and different vitamins in the body, and just basking in the geeky goodness of it all. Combine that with the affects of exercise and diet, and you get a really good overall feeling about life .

Yesterday I began the day with the breakfast mess- 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1 cup frozen blueberries and 3/4 cup special K cereal. I love breakfast that begins in a bowl and gets mixed up ! This is a satisfying, colorful 290 calories to play with ! After breakfast we hit the first of three Wii sessions and then moved on to school for the day. Things went very well, and we decided to have lunch afer we finished

When lunchtime arrived , I was STARVING ! Belly grumbling, not thinking straight kind of hungry. I had romaine with cherry tomatoes, turkey breast on an Arnolds Thin, an apple and a cup of beef broth to which I added about a 1/4 cup of peas that had been sitting in the freezer for God knows how long. 330 calories, and a good way to ridd the freezer of one orphan !

After lunch we did another session with the Wii and then I worked on planning next weeks school. I kept thinking of Halloween themed topics, and eventually broke for this 200 calorie snack of an apple and a Fiber Plus bar.

Dinner wound up early somehow, and it was a good thing as I was STILL starving. This night Chicken caccitore on Ronzoni whole wheat pasta with chopped broccoli was on the menu for 472 calories. I have come to the conclusion that while broccoli is good, chopped broccoli should be left for something you toss in a casserole or something else. Give me big, meaningful spears over this horrible stuff !

After dinner we did the third session with the Wii ,this time as a family taking turns with it. Afterwords we settled down for the best night of TV all week and I grabbed a snack of another apple and a 100 calorie pack of cocoa roast almonds. About the time Glee came on hubby and I decided to go watch it in our room where we could stretch out and watch the show. Bad move as we missed it. That is another reason to have a really good overall feeling about life- after 28 years of marriage , spending 2 minutes alone together usually means the world is going to be ignored. Not only does that improve your attitude about life and keep you close. It also burns calories in a whole other fun way !

4 comments:

Joanna@BooneDocksWilcox said...

I had a girlfriend that took naturopath online courses.

Apparently, you were still hungry when you went to the bedroom. ;-)

Di said...

LOL ! There is growly hunger and then that occasion of hungry eyes that will get you every time ! And yes, I was still growly hungry well into the night. About 1 am I could not sleep from the growlys , so I got up and grabbed a water bottle and a pack of Benifiber water mix in. It's ab0out 5 calories but really works to make the stomach growling stop !

Kristina said...

I love the idea of the 2 mins alone burning calories. lol. Thanks for stopping by my blog to see me. Im following yours now too. We are in this journey together! Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Don't you just love those Cocoa Roast Almonds.......they are my go to snack! I have them in my drawer next to my computer at work. They are great with apples too just like you had.

=) Laura @ Finding A Healthy Balance.....after a 100+ POUND weight loss!