Stew Recipe

My God-mother was born in Naples Italy and immigrated to the US as a small child, and grew up in  Al Capone's Chicago. What she has passed on to me, was a very earthy rustic recipe for a unique stew. The veggies are drenched in balsamic vinegar and then roasted for 30 mins. It gives the stew a tangy sweet taste that takes it away from the norm.

For the recipe go to the side bar under recipes and click on God Mother's Italian stew. I know you'll enjoy it.

Racing towards the RWA Conference

I’ll be leaving for the RWA conference a week from today. I’m excited as I make plans with friends and hope to see many others I haven’t seen in a couple of years. I’ve done pretty good on my diet. I’ve lost 11lbs. I was hoping to lose more, but like all of us, I’ve had my good days and a few bad. On the bad days, I just do my little u-turn and work to do better.

My goal was 15lbs by this date. It is only halfway to my full blown goal of 30lbs overall. To lose the final 4lbs in the coming week, I’ve beefed up my exercise and tightened up my diet. I’d love to lose a lot of weight very quietly. Since I started this process too close to the conference, (just out of pure laziness) I’ve had to live with the reality of the situation.

Like everyone, I’d love to lose a lot of weight over night. It is possible to lose weight very quickly with a lot of craziness and strict dieting. I’m against that, as much as I’d love the results. The reason being, losing a large amount of weight quickly means one thing, to stray from the diet will mean very rapid weight gain. To lose 1 or 2lbs a week is reasonable and healthy. It’s easy to maintain and do a little u-turn when those bad days or weeks occur. And they will happen, because life happens.

I watch a lot of weight loss programs, such as the new program ‘Body Make-over’. I study what they are doing to lose so much weight so quickly and safely. For one thing, those individuals such as on the Biggest Loser, are obese. They often lose a whole person in weight. Does it make losing weigh easier for them? Not really. They are doing grueling workouts daily. They burn as many calories as they take in. So if they have a diet of 1,500 calories, with those workouts they are easily burning that much or more. It equals losing 10lbs or more a week, at least in the early stages of the program. Once they start to gain muscle, the weight loss slows way down, but they continue to grow smaller.

When I said I beefed up my exercise, what I’ve done is add an extra hour to my regular workout. I’m retired and have the time, especially this week with my grandkids away on vacation. I’m also trying to mix things up. For example, this morning instead of a run and swim, I road my bike for two hours. I hit the streets and road as hard as I could around my small town taking as many hills as possible. My estimated burn was around 1,000 calories. Tomorrow, it will be a short half hour run on the treadmill, at 5.0spd, with three sprints at 6.0spd, holding it for one minute. I’ll ride my bike to the pool to swim laps for a 1hr. When I’m finished I ride for an hour around town. That is a lot, but I’m determined. I do have to be mindful of injury while I ‘beef’ things up. Which is why my run is shorter right now, and my non-impact exercises are longer. I’m no spring chicken. Fortunately, I’ve been active my entire life, which helps with my muscle memory.

There is a downfall to all this exercise, I get very hungry. I have increased my caloric intake with healthy foods, like fruits. The natural sugars in fruit help to keep my body’s sugar levels even without spiking while I burn energy and hopefully fat. I’ve had too, so I can maintain this amount of exercise.

I’m also writing a lot these days, which has me in my chair in front of the computer for hours as I push to finish my next book. This in itself makes me crazy. I want to be active. I like to be active and moving around. To help with the feelings of caginess, I take a break and have been lifting light weights in front of the television for an hour.

My diet over these weeks has been very clean. I don’t eat processed foods. I’ve cut out anything that is processed or out of a can. My hubs and I have also limited eating out. I can’t tell you the last time I ate fast food. I make everything from scratch. It is more time consuming, but all those chemicals and crap in those types of food encourages the body’s metabolism to slow, which particularly for women keeps the weight clinging to us. By taking the time to make healthy foods, is so much better. You know what is going into your body. And the food taste so much better.

By Thursday I hope to have a report on how all this is working. Then on Thursday how to survive National and the all the foods especially chocolate and alcohol.