Hear Ye, Hear Ye....

Hear Ye, Hear Ye...I have news! First of all, thanks to all of you who have been commenting and sending your support for my attempt at a healthier life. Amazing how the kind and encouraging words of strangers can make such a difference!!! THANK YOU! 

I apologize for not updating more often but I´ve hit a snag. My computer won´t allow me to upload anymore photos onto my PIcasa and so I´m not able to edit my photos and I´m not computer-intelligent enough to understand how to get things taken care of so I can start editing photos again, so I´m waiting for my fix-it-man, aka The Captain, who will be arriving next week. So be patient with me and please forgive me for all the borrowed photos you´ll be seeing in the posts this next week! :-) 

So onto the news...today I was at my Easylife program. As those of you who are following me know, we meet every Tuesday for a weigh in and a lesson on nutrition, exercise, or general health. Then we have an exercise class. We try new things every week so that perhaps we find something we´ve never tried before and like it....tonight´s class was Spinning. I have to admit to you all that I´ve had a deep fear of spinning for as long as I can remember. I´ve never been on a spinning bike but honestly never understood the concept or the difference between a spinning bike and a regular exercise bike except that you control the intensity on a spinning bike while on an exercise bike you usually run a computer operated program. I also heard with spinning they sometimes stood up on a bike and pedaled and I was thinking that would be an impossible feat for me. When the Captain and I bike with regular bikes he always tells me to stand up on the hills and use my legs more to bike but I´m so uncoordinated that I am always afraid to crash...so I don´t stand on a bike....I pedal hard...so that scared me a little about spinning....

BUT.....tonight our group had a spinning class and I have to say.....I was surprised to find myself liking it :-) I have to admit it´s partly because I PERSONALLY control the intensity and so yes, I have a much better chance of "cheating" and not pushing myself as hard....which sounds horrible when you´re suppose to really push yourself in exercise! However, with that said, I DID work up quite the sweat and felt I really got a great workout. So my verdict is...I will definitely try it again...I think maybe our trainer tonight ran us kinda easy because he wanted us to like it and try it again....the next trainer might be a nightmare...but I will try!!! In my 45 minute class I burned off 450kcal. So I figured that was dinner which was homemade tomato soup and meatballs which I blogged about HERE. So after I got home and had a nice warm shower I made this little treat for my evening meal: 

This is a piece of low carb bread which I made from a mix I bought at the store, low fat cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes and red onion. I have to admit, I´ve used cottage cheese in lasagna but never just eaten it on bread like the above photos shows. Not sure I thought I´d like it without the tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese I use with lasagna but it´s actually pretty good on it´s own and I try to give it a little Italian kick with the red onion and cherry tomatoes and a little garlic pepper sprinkled over the top of it. I used fresh basil the other night with this but forgot it tonight. The drink is a peaches and cream smoothie. Low fat vanilla yoghurt, 2tbsp cream, about a cup of skim milk, about 8 ice cubes, 1 banana and 6 peeled and sliced peaches and finally 1.5 tbsp honey. 

According to my Easylife coach/trainer I´ve gone down a total of 5.7kg since I began this program the 25th of September. However, those are his numbers which he gets by weighing me in the evening, which is the heaviest time of the day to weight yourself on so I´ve been weighing myself in the morning on the same day we have our class and according to my weight numbers I´ve gone down 6.3kg which I think is perfect. I´ve also lost about 4.5cm around my waist. It´s slow going but that´s how it should be...I´m eating real food...wonderful, fantastic, REAL food...not nasty shakes and soups....I´m having a blast planning out healthy meals and trying new foods..this is how it´s suppose to be and I´m making a conscious choice every day to do the right thing. I do mess up sometimes. The weekend before last I had company and ate things I shouldn´t. This past weekend Sarah was visiting and I had some nuts and yoghurt covered raisins Saturday night...but it´s ok...I´m still losing and I´m happy....so this is the right choice for me! It´s important to live good while trying to get healthy and while my brain thinks living good involves cakes, cookies, and other yummy snacks, I´m trying to re-program my brain to find other healthy alternatives to living good and I´ll share them with you as I find them :-)

Until then my friends.....