Mrs. G's Journey to Better Health

Happy New Year! 2012 We stayed home with our little ones and watched Dick Clark's Rocking Eve. Wow! It's been 40 years already? Now comes all the New Year's Resolutions. It's not just about making them. For me, it is also about planning on how to keep them. Since I want to loose weight and be healthier... I am starting off my New Year with a new pair of by Lightning Asics. On January 1st, I will take two 2.5 mile walks. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. This is all a big deal to me. I am finally walking again, unassisted, limp is practically gone. That darn foot injury was a bigger set back than I originally thought it would be. To help me stay motivated and start the year off right, I got me a new pair of shoes. The feel comfy, cozy, just right, and I think they look pretty good. Okay, I look pretty good on them too.

Do you have a New Year's Resolution? Make sure you live to see it. Don't Drink & Drive.

For lunch I had the Grilled Chicken Salad with creamy cilantro salad dressing and got one chicken al carbon as well. Which ended up being 830 calories. At the end of my meal is when I started to count the calories and realized I could have made a much better choice for lunch. The two little cups of creamy cilantro dressing were 180 calories total. I could have skipped that dressing. I enjoyed the avocado sauce and house salsa much better and for twice the amount of each, I would have only used up 10 calories (, instead of the 180). In the following picture: - The cup at the top is the Creamy Cilantro Dressing - On the left is the avocado sauce - On the right is the house salsa Lesson Learned: I can have lunch at El Pollo Loco. Pass on the creamy cilantro dressing and go for the avocado sauce and house salsa. Goal Updates: - drank three out of the five 8oz glasses of water I wanted - walked 5,320 steps out of the 8,000 I wanted. - stayed within my caloric bu

We set out to potentially get 14 caches. With two little ones in tow, we only made it to 4 locations and found 3 of them. On the plus side, I : - drank five 8oz glasses of water - walked 10,324 steps - exceeded my calorie intake budget by less than 50 calories - synched my FitBit for the 3rd day in a row - and made a blog post for the 3rd day in a row on SparkPeople Goals for Tomorrow: - drink as least as much water as I did today - walk at least 8,000 steps - stay within my calorie intake budget - synch my FitBit - make a blog post

For lunch today I went to Wendy's. I asked for a number 1 Combo.My order: Salad instead of french fries, a diet soda, and I asked for the burger protein style with no mayo. I was told they refer to the burger as "lettuce wrapped". Okay. On the receipt it read, "no bun". I think the receipt was more accurate. The following are the series of pictures I took with cell phone. You can see the actual packaging, calorie counts, and what I actually got to for lunch. The burger as delivered Inside the 1/4lb cheeseburger Croutons, I did not have them. Regular Ranch Dressing Nutritional Info for Regular Ranch Dressing Side Salad Package/Container A better look inside the side salad, which included two ripe grape tomatoes I was not thrilled with lunch, lesson learned.

Overall it was a good cool day. We took the kids to Greater Los Angeles Zoo (GLAZA), better known simply as the L.A. Zoo. From the time we parked the car to the time we got back to the car, it was 5 hours. We/I did a lot of walking around. I am pleased to say that my FitBit reads 10,410 steps taken today. Yay! After all that walking, we had dinner at Applebee's. My dinner selection was descent, Bruschetta Chicken for 850 calories, very filling. I should have stopped there. Unfortunately I did not. I got tempted by the Sampler Appetizer. I did control myself to not pig out on it, but I did have about 15-20% of the platter. Daily Goal Updates: - I did drink one 8oz of plain water. - Managed to walk at least 10,000 steps. (10,410 steps actually) - Synched my FitBit, Day 2! - Logged into SparkPeople - Made this blog post Tomorrow's Goals: - Drink at least two 8oz glasses of plain water. - Walk at least 10,000 steps. - Synch my FitBit - Consume

I have seen commercials for Cici's Pizza for a some time now. It has only been recently, that we have 3 in Southern California. Today, we decided to try it out. The staff was friendly, the Store Manger was nice, the store was clean, all but one table was in decent clean shape. As for the actual food, ... I only got two bread sticks and never saw more. The salad bar was bare, but the salad dressings were stocked. The straws for the beverages ran out. It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. The following pictures were taken with my cell phone. Please note, we do intend on going back one more time before deciding if the place is for us or not. After all, maybe we were there on an off day, right? The Menu  Two Cheese Pizza Spinach Pizza Sausage Pizza Mac N  Cheese Pizza Pretty Bare Pizza Bar

The stitches are out, the swelling has shrunk, the bruising has disappeared. I am walking with a minor limp and minor pain that is tolerable. At the end of the day it can get annoying but it is not holding me back anymore. Yesterday, I went into my SparkPeople.com SparkPage and made a blog entry and set some goals... In effort to be more active in my SparkTeams, I have narrowed it down to 4 SparkTeams. Of those 4 teams, I am focusing on participating in 2 of them for the following 2 weeks, then 3 of them for the following 2 weeks and finally all 4 after that. The 2 I have selected to start with is TwitterTeam and FitBit Users Unite! I have joined the Team Goals of drinking 8 cups of water per day. This is a big challenge for me because I do not drink much water. I do drink lots of coffee and flavored drinks, but not water. According to my friend who is a member of Weight Watchers, water is any drink that has no calories, no sugar, and no caffeine. That being the case, I won