June that sounds wonderful and Rochele, your quinoa salad sounds lovely. I can't tolerate cous cous so I often substitute with quinoa.

Just grilled some lamb and oven roasted some parsnips and carrots for tea. I am starving but not in the mood for complicated. It beats toast and a Cadbury cream egg like yesterday's dinner!

Oh and a roasted whole head if garlic. Should help with the throat.

S x

Sazzle, it sounds like you are feeling better, with that appetite. Are you? Your lamb has my mouth watering. we love lamb!

I was emailing for new Year's wishes with a friend. we were bemoaning that we stayed up too late watching crap TV, but she mentioned watching Dr. Oz, who had Rosie O'Donnell on his show. Friend said she spoke of her heart attack, and new diet(way of life sort of diet).

Anyway, so I never knew that Rosie had a Heart attack. Googled it, and found myself reading about plant based diets reversing heart disease. Not just preventing, but reversing it. So, I am intrigued. I was already wanting to get back on track with my usual eating, and now I am going to try to improve it more. I probably eat too much animal protein, but it works well to keep my blood sugar level and keeps me full.

I do not think I could go all vegan, but I can certainly add more plant based foods to my days.

I could talk food all day. Maybe there is a forum here for it, so I do not bore the Novies.

Sazzle, I hope you get better soon, so sorry you are still feeling crummy.

The recipes were just stuff I made up as I went along. I'm staying within the Somersizing guidelines, Suzanne Somers' stuff. One of the main parts of her diet is to use as many fresh ingredients as you can. My weight seems to be plateauing, so I am kind of ticked off. If I don't continue to lose weight I will go back to just a regular diet with portion control. The reason I like this diet is that there is no portion control.

Hi again,

Everyone's food sounds great - we ended up going out for Mexican and so I didn't make anything good last night. We had a fun night - played some games and waited for midnight.

I did manage to exercise this morning so I got 2013 started on the right track. Like many of you, I want to make this year of finally getting back into shape.

Marine, I love the idea of the jar of good things. I am going to put it beside my bed and make sure I do that everyday this year.

FMTM, I hope you enjoyed your juice drink and the Just Dance. I ended up mixing my concoction with La Croix pear/pear sparkling water that I got on sale at Target. It was delicious.

Rochele, we did the Engine 2 28-day challenge last year - it is a plant based eating plan. My husband I and were just talking about it this morning and we may do it again for part of the month. I know now that I've stopped drinking, I would lose weight. My biggest problem with it was that I felt like I spent all weekend preparing food for the week. It's not something I could do all the time, but, the idea that heart disease can be reversed by plant-based eating is intriguing.

It was great to hear from everyone. Hope the rest of the week goes well for all of you. :nyag

Feel better soon Saz :)
congratulations to everyone on their milestones today, whatever day it be :)

D

FMFT - no offense, but your other avatar always looked like a slice of pepperoni pizza when I looked at it sideways.

Happy New Years everybody! Congrats on an alcohol free start to the New Year. Here's to keeping alcohol out of our bodies & our lives for the next day, week, month, year, decade, lifetime.

Felt great to wake up alert, happy & rested today & it felt good to ring in the new year last night with some sparkling cider, instead of whatever booze-laced anything I could shove down my gullet. Cheers & thanks to all of you!!!

What?!? My hope, peace, love ornaments - pepperoni pizza? well maybe while looking at it sideways, one eye covered, standing on my head. You must've been hungry.

I spent all day packing for my temporary relocation - leaving this weekend. I started crying when I was packing - not sure why - it's not like this is permanent. I am still keeping this house as I will be back in the late Spring/early Summer. I guess in a way it is part of the grieving process. My late husband and I bought this place over 20 years ago, before we got married. So I guess I really am moving on after all. Found a place to rent with no one's opinion but my own. Packing up the car and driving 18 hours alone - it will really sink it once I pull out of the driveway I guess. I am glad I will have you guys to "chat" with when I stop at a hotel for the night!

Oh well - a new start to a new year and a new life. I am glad to leave 2012 behind me for obvious reasons. My actual trial for the DUI is not until later this year, but I am not going to think about it or worry about it - it is out of my control and I have plenty of time to forget about it for now. I need to focus on my new life and meeting new people.

The talk about all of the good food is making my mouth water. I am trying to finish up everything I have in the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets before I leave, so I am living off of canned soup, toast and way too many cookies and candy. I will start my "new" diet when I get settled. Oh, I also thought FM's avatar was a pizza.

Off to pack some more.

Dominos has never written Hope Love and Peace on my pepperoni....LOL.

D

You're awesome Marine. Just saying. I'm sure everybody in this group is here to support you if you need anything.

I tried to start a daily food thread in the cafe, but I was the only posting in it... so I'll carry on here. Today I tried making, wait for it, mozzarella and pepperoni pizza bread. It's in the oven right, but turned out more calzone-like.

Also checking in. Just got home a little while ago. Went to my friends house for New Years Eve. Lots of eating going on. My friends did have some champagne, because they still had it left over from last year. (I didn't drink last NYE), and I shared some sparkling cider with their son.

Today did a late Christmas with some of their relatives, and came home to be with my kittens. They finally calmed down. It was nice that they missed me.

So happy to see all of you back here.

Marine - Good luck with your new venture. A new start in the new year for the new you - good for you! I know change can be hard, but it sounds exciting too. Keep us posted how things are going.

Marine good luck. I missed that you were relocating. Is it for your job?

Charlee, thank you for mentioning that engine 2 diet/28 day challenge. Not sure I will/can do it and still feed my kids and dh, lol. but it has led me to a lot of good reading on plant based nutrition today, and managing diabetes and cholesterol, and heart disease. I should take a look at trying to do some form of it. I suppose it would be healthy to try to do it as often as I can, like 2 meals a day, or 3 days a week, or such. I currently do more low carb, which is by nature rather heavy on animal proteins and healthy fats. Rather opposite of the plant based programs. Hard to think about t total turnaround, as I did lower my cholesterol, and lose 50 pounds doing what I do now.

But I would love to get my cholesterol better(it is still not great) and lose more weight.

One of the neighbors saw me shoveling and asked me to come over for dinner since the wife and kids are away. The wife's family is from Pennsylvania and they said it is a tradition to have pork, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. The sauerkraut had diced tomatoes and stuff in it. It was incredible. I am not a big sauerkraut fan, but holy cow it was good. Put the sauerkraut on top of the potatoes. Crazy good.

I like traditional sauerkraut too - good stuff! :)

D

Hey everyone, I think my computer is going down.

Think I might have to replace the fan in it, I'm not sure.

So if I am not around for awhile, I am still here.

Does anyone know how to tell if the fan is broken, and if it is costly or hard to fix?

I have a dell laptop, inspiron 1721. Bottom gets really hot, and then computer just shuts off.

I'll get it fixed somehow, but if there are any computer people out there, would love to hear what you have to say.

And also, if I run it without a fan working, will it mess up the rest of my computer?

Doing some research now.

I don't know much - I'm a software guy, not hardware.... but I do know your PC needs the fan - if it gets too hot and you fry the other bits, a new PC is going to cost a lot more than a new fan.

D

Amy, my computer was getting very hot and the fan was racing wildly, all the time... I had nor realized it was so abnormal for it to be so warm, as it was my first laptop. Used to use the bog old dinosaur in our basement office.

I died one day. I could not turn it back on, even after it cooled. But 3 days later, it magically turned on when I tried. Then, it happened again, and never came back on. It was on warrantee for just a few more weeks, thankfully. we mailed it in and they had to replace all the hardware, according to hubby. He is the computer whiz around here, so he took care of trying to address the issues and then contacted HP.

So, I would get it serviced before it is a bigger deal like mine was. Luckily it cost us nothing, but would have cost a great deal a few weeks later.

Hope it is a minor fix!

Good morning all. Getting the kids back into the school routine after 11 days off - wish me luck! I'm not looking forward to work today. On Monday I left an unresolved personnell issue and I will have to face it first thing this morning. It is my least favorite part of my job, confrontation makes me very uncomfortable inside. It has always been a huge trigger for me, but drinking is no longer an option. I will get through it and will find healthier ways to de-stress today.

Today would have been my 60 day mark if I hadn't messed up. I can't change the past, only use the experience to make a different future, but still, I feel dissappointed about it today. Also made me think about how proud I am of all of you who are continuing on with so many consecutive days. Don't give it up for anything, trust me, you won't regret it.

Have a happy day:)