well it's Friday in 20 minutes and I can't wait til the weekend. Really need the rest and to get back on my track. Only lost 2 pounds this month but I guess that's ok since I was drinking gallons of syrupy cough medicine and living on chocolate ice cream for my sore throat.  Steroids have finally kicked in and I'm not coughing so much and my lungs feel much better. Really have an activity intolerance because of this long illness though so it will take a while to get up to speed. My goal for the month will be to lose 10 pounds.  Not a lot I know but I'm so run down it will take a while to get going.  Don't want to hinder my recovery with extreme calorie reduction.  If I do end up getting better faster and lose more than 10 I will be VERY happy with that!

Yummy Yummy. By now some of us may be getting sick of their routine healthy breakfast.  If anyone is going low carb, low glycemic or low fat I have an awesome bread that I just love for breakfast. Hadn't gotten it for a while and was getting tempted driving by McDs (love the breakfasts) on the way to work again so went and bought some. It's called Ezekiel Bread by Food for Life. This morning I had the Ezekiel 4:9 whole grain Cinnamon Raisin. It really tastes like a "cheat" food. It's an organic (freezer section), vegan, sprouted multi-grain bread: 2g fiber, 18g carb (5g sugar but only from the organic raisins), 3g protein, 0g fat (5 calories) and 80 calories a slice. If you haven't ever tried sprouted whole grain bread the dense, course texture is very different than refined flour breads but I really like it. They have other whole grain breads too that I like to spread peanut or almond butters on for breakfast too. I haven't been tempted to get by breakfast burrito once this week :-). I'll post this on our blog too in case some people aren't on FB. Actually I had a sugar craving Sunday night and a slice of the cinnamon bread (no butter) took care of it . I buy mine at Giant Eagle but I think they have it at Heinen's too. Haven't found it at Kmart or Walmart or Sam's club.

I need to write about Cabana's. My husband and went there Tuesday night for dinner.  I hadn't eaten anything for lunch at work except some almonds and was worried if the food on the low cal menu was going to be enough to fill me up because I was famished!  I got the Chicken Scalopini dinner.  Wow. It definitely filled me up and "Food with an Attitude" woke up my taste buds with the lemony seasoning.  My husband (NOT on a diet) ordered a burger and loved it. He said it was moist and flavorful.  The fries were "perfect". He couldn't finish all of his meal and took the rest home for lunch the next day. They have 3 chicken dishes on their special (under 600 calories?) menu and the rest is seafood or fish.  I don't eat seafood and aren't a big fish fan but if the fish is as flavorful as the chicken dish I think I'll try it!

Well I'm still a bit under the weather and didn't make it to water fitness last night but did take a little over a 2 mile walk outside yesterday.  It was pretty nippy but it took such an effort I needed the cool air.  Today the cold air is making me cough more so I will do some walking inside. I wanted to make sure I share a couple of really good web sites. www.MapMyWalk.com (for walking) and www.MapMyRide.com (for biking) I've used MapMyWalk a lot and MapMyRide just a few times! You can map custom routes from anywhere including your house and save them.  Its better than regular mapping because you don't pick addresses but you set points along the way on the map to change directions on your walk, account for bends in the road, back tracking on a route etc. I've saved routes for walking different routes in my neighborhood and for work lunch breaks based on how much time or energy I have and what my distance goal is.  You can log the workouts too. They do have other "MapMy" fitness sites but these are the only 2 I have used.

Feeling drunk on cough syrup and sad.  This month really hasn't worked out how I planned so far.   It's been a really rough month and I haven't exercised since last Monday.  Wednesday was my next exercise day but it was our 30th anniversary on Valentine's Day and I had to work late to take Thursday off so I figured I'd just have to make it up.  Thursday also was a diet-free day for our anniversary. We had a blast at the Blue Man Group and I even splurged and had a "blue mantini". If you have the opportunity I would see them. I guess you'd describe them as kinda a comedy, music, techno performance that is amazing. Well the "makeup" exercising didn't happen since this cold/flu then hit the family. We've all been down for the count so I missed yet another exercise class. We've literally gone through BOTTLES of disgustingly sweet cough syrup.  I rarely eat ice cream but it's one of the few things that's palatable and it helps the sore throat from all the coughing.  Lots of hot tea with honey and lemon too. I think I've had more sugar in the last 4-5 days than I have in the last year!   I did find some decent cough drops that are sugar free by Ricola.  One of the good things out of this is that I've hardly had any diet Coke since I've had so much hot herbal tea.  I was really getting concerned that my diet Coke addiction was getting out of control again.  I think part of my bad headache was from the withdrawal.  Today is better.  I'll brave the cold for a walk at lunch break. I'm so congested I'm hoping it will help. It's sunny outside and it's supposed to go up to the 40's. After spending the entire weekend in bed I'm going to go to my water fitness class tonight.  I may not have much energy but I'll do the best I can.  So what if this month really hasn't worked out how I planned so far on the scale but then this isn't a one month process so I can turn it around!  I've found that overall I'm getting back some of the energy I'd lost now that I'm cutting out most processed foods and starchy carbs again. I'm losing that weighed down feeling that started creeping up on me when I started allowing more and more of them back into my diet.  I guess when I look at it that way I have made progress this month!

Been feeling under the weather and my diet has been taking a hit.  Why are all the traditional "comfort" foods not diet friendly?  Well I'm calling today my "Motivation Monday". Gotta get back in the health and fitness groove.  Goals for the week: 1-Count my calories!!! It's hard to be in denial on what I'm actually eating if I see it spelled out! 2-Eat breakfast. Since I've been waking up feeling  "yucky" and so skipping breakfast I've really had trouble controlling my cravings the rest of the day. 3-Water, water, water. So far I've only had water and NOT a diet Coke! Yeah I know it's still am but that's a record of late! 4-Fitness Class. I WILL make it to all three of my water fitness sessions this week 5-Walk!!!!!  I'm going to dust off my FitBit and wear it. Again interesting that I just realized that this week or so since I've not been wearing it my walking and exercise have decreased dramatically.