A mini me

Well this is just a recent picture of little C from the other morning.

Children are such a reflection of what you do and who you are. Here she is on the phone in the morning on our way to work.

This has had me thinking more and more about my weight loss journey. She is going to look to me for my habits and behaviors. This had made the whole process even more important she needs to learns about the need to eat health and the importance of exercise. However she cant just be taught she needs to be shown the what a healthy life is.

21 Times...

I was watching some show over the summer and they said that if you do something 21 times it becomes a habit.

Well I can tell you from experience I had 4 years ago that when I truly set my mind to something I know I can accomplish it. (Ok I know look at my career and educational accomplishments and I am still never 100% sure I can accomplish what I want to in life).

Well in the start of September something changed and I made the decision that things have gone too far and I need to get back to the gym and get back on track to loose the weight I so desperately need to loose.

Earlier this year in February I did really well going to the gym because I had motivation of a trip and I wanted to wear certain clothes. It worked I dropped about 10 lbs before the trip but have since gained that back (plus some).

I have booked a trip in January for somewhere warm knowing that I would be good motivation to get me started. I also know that I have a real bathing suit problem (e.g., my current swim suit that I typically wear for snorkelling has finally gone to swim suit haven and I can't find any more suits around at this time of the year and I have two new suits that I could fit given some lost pounds).

So I made the decision I am going to try for a total weight loss goal of 40-50 lbs by time I leave for the trip. I had my original goal in LoseIt set at my ideal weight (155 lbs - I am 5'8" and that is what I weighed when I graduated high school) but it seem too far off.

So I have readjusted and I am determined to meet or exceed my goal of 210 by time the trip in mid-January comes along.

However, I decided that I wasn't going to make consistent or big posts about it because I seem to wain. I wanted to see how long I can make this stick and most importantly stick to it with my ever changing life.

But yesterday was #22 and this morning I am down 10.4 lbs in the last month (I still have 37 lbs to go) but I am 21% of the way there.

SO here is the news:

Since September 7th, I have made a consistent trips to the gym every night :) I go almost 7 days a week with a few exceptions and on those nights where there are exceptions I have been doing other physical activity (e.g., removing slat and plaster from house...yes I would count it as a work out!)

Since September 7th, I have continuously logged my food intake using LoseIt. This has also been a big task because we have been eating out a fair amount in the last while (visits with friends and family) but I have done the research or have simply asked for the nutritional information and make informed choices. (I know I blogged about LoseIt before but after a couple of weeks I gave up after 2 1/2 weeks)

I can tell you it feels great and I am very excited about it.

There have been other major changes to the routine around the house that are combining with my weight loss goals that are making things go really well.

I face a major challenge this weekend with Thanksgiving but I am determined to take it one step at a time and not give up or give in. Temptation happens (e.g., fries on Wednesday night) but I know that fries are not going to go away and I have to adjust and plan accordingly and I don't feel restricted so life is good.

So 21 times and I would say that my food logging and gym have officially become a habit.

Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffins

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup ground flax meal

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 pinch cardamom (optional)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs (for slimmer version use only egg whites)

1/2 cup dark brown sugar (for slimmer version I use Splenda Brown Sugar)

1 1/2 cups pumpkin

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 c vanilla yogurt

4 oz low-fat cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Put the entire brick of cream cheese on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper and shape it into a long log.

3. Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour.

4. Unwrap and cut with a sharp knife so each cream cheese disk equals 1-2 teaspoons. If the cream cheese disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This lets you push it down into the batter easier.

5. Mix all ingredients together (except cream cheese).

6. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full.

7. Put cream cheese disc in the middle, pressing down.

8. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!).

9. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Do not touch the cream cheese until it cools.

**This recipe makes 12.

NOTES:

• you could add nuts or sunflower seeds to this for extra goodness.

• Make sure you buy plain pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling (did that once with another recipe and it was not such a hot idea)

• I also use a low-fat No Sugar Added vanilla yogurt

Based on the information I have about the recipe each muffin has:

175 calories

6 g fat

1 g sat fat

28 g carbs

3 g fiber

1 g sugar

5 g protein

NOTE: I have NO idea where this recipe came from as it was shared by a friend but it is too tasty not to share!!

Some more thoughts on the iPhone 4

OK

so I don't know what to honestly think of the iPhone4. I have been a blackberry user for two years prior to going to the iPhone4 this summer. I was promised that I would marvel at the wonder of the phone and never want to look back.

Well on one side of the world yes I LOVE the phone for many reasons:

(1) I can use it for movies and music

(2) The ability to have like a bazillion different apps for almost anything that I need or want and a lot of the apps really simplify my life (e.g., LoseIt, MealBoard, and Couch to 5K are my most frequently used apps) they keep track of my food, meal plans, grocery shopping and running program. Fabulous!

HOWEVER I have found some extreme limitations that frustrate the crap out of me and no one seems to mention them:

1. Multiple mailboxes but only one signature

As I said before the primary purpose of my phone is for work but I also have my mobile me and personal emails coming to my phone.

However, I have an extremely long signature for work (my name, business and other important details but then also a confidentiality statement) and I have this as my default signature. However, I do not want this appearing on my personal emails. Thus, my only option is to delete this every single time I send a personal email from my personal email account (can we say pain in the rear!?)

I have been told that if I use MobileMe or GoogleMail that I can probably fix this. well I don't think I should have to use a third party to preform this task that the BlackBerry readily did.

2. App Store Management

The way in which the app store is managed and organized is driving me nuts. I would love to be able to look and review the different apps using iTunes on my computer but alas the way that it is laid out in iTunes is extremely limiting and counter intuitive (surprising since everything apple is normal very intuitive)

I would also like to be able to cue downloads of apps. I am currently searching and downloading many apps. I do not like the fact that I have to press install and then wait for the app to install before continuing.

Last and not least you can NOT use iTunes gift cards on the Apple Canada app store - boo urns!!

3. Contact Management

I frequently send emails to the same group of people (on a more than daily basis) and it is annoying to have to retype their emails every single time that I have to send an email. On BlackBerry you could create a group in the contacts and then send and email to the group and it would automatically deliver to all the parties listed in the group. I have not been able to find such a feature on the iPhone.

4. Calendar Invites

UGH the vain of my existence - I have a beautiful MacBook Pro that runs boot camp and whenever I have an appointment that I want to put in my calendar and invite another person to I literally would rather boot up BootCamp and then open Outlook and send a calendar invite than use Calendar on the iPhone. There is NO option to send calendar invites.

Again, I have been told "there's an app for that" however as a smart phone I consider this to be a BASIC thing that a phone should do. I stand in court frequently with my phone trying to schedule something and the ability to send that invite or even ACCEPT an invite from someone else is a necessity. Frustrating beyond belief that I have lost that function of the iPhone4.

5. Calendar Views

AH can you tell that I have issues with the calendar?? (By the way all of the issues I am listing here - you guessed it blackberry has the options....)

There are only three view options in the calendar - "List" "Day" and "Month"

(a) I miss a weekly view. I do not like having to use month view and then click on the different days to see what I have going on - especially when at MAXIMUM only two appointments show at the bottom and then I have to scroll through to see what is going on and even then there is not obvious indication that there are other appointments past the two that are visible - so there has been occasion where I did not see them listed and when switching to day view...well see (b) below.... (I am not a fan of list view - I am very much a fan of lines and seeing the days beside the other so I can have a whole view of my week at once)

(b) I miss being able to see the entire day. Even when using Day view I can see only 8 hours of the day and no way to expand or minimize to see the evening at the same time.

6. Task Management

There is no way to sync tasks between iCal/Outlook/Entourage and the Phone.

Again "there's an app for that" well - this is a basic thing the phone should do (I mean the BlackBerry does it why doesn't the iPhone?)

Summary

if you are looking for a basic phone not for work purposes that does everything else under the sun as well then I would definitely recommend the iPhone4.

If you are a professional looking for a phone that will act as your life saver (manage contacts, email, calendars) and the apps are a cool secondary feature then I would consider buying something else and getting an iPod touch to get the benefits of the app. Especially when you consider that the phone is between ~$200 and ~$300 on a three year contract or about $900 (with MobileMe which is necessary to get calendar synching) unlocked or off contract.

At the end of the day I still love my iPhone4 (yes enough that I would be crazy enough to line up at 9 p.m. the night before it went on sale again...) but I am sadly disappointed that many *key* features have been missed

*sigh*

iPhone4 photography

Here is a picture that was taken downtown today.

I am truly loving having the phone more and more. However, I am still not entirely in love. My newest pet peeve is that you cannot send invites to calendar events right from the iPhone. I have been told that you that you can get an app for that or use mobile me or what ever but honestly this is a BASIC feature of any smart phones.

the best iPhone App ever!!

Ok well maybe not the best every made but this is definitely one of the BEST apps that I have on my phone (aside from games).

I have been in a habit for a long time of keeping my recipes on my computer in a word document. If I need a new recipe I will have a friend or family member email it to me and then paste it into the every growing word document. (For those who want to know yes the document is impressively organized into different categories and subcategories that includes a table of contents). The pages eventually get printed off and added to my binder (along with any other recipes I collect).

However, I have a recurring problem of not having toner or paper in my printer (or a general desire not to walk downstairs to print the same recipe for the umpteen time).

As such my solution has been to email myself the recipe which has worked well but I figured because of the saying "well there's an app for that" there MUST be an app to keep my recipes on my iPhone. Well guess what - there is LOTS of them.

I have an entire folder devoted to cooking with the following free apps:
MyStarbucks
Jullan
Food Network
CampRecipes by Coleman
AllRecipes
RecipeFinder by McCromick

they are all really good for looking for other peoples recipes. I also purchased:

How to Cook Everything - which is amazing.

However, I still wanted something to use my own recipes so I downloaded

RecipeHolder

which is ok - it comes with a free preloaded recipes and then the ability to add your own and have your own pictures. I am not a huge fan of this app - it is good but I do not like how the instructions are on a completely different screen than the ingredients. I have also had problems add in instructions that seem to be too long for the field.

I then purchased

MealBoard


and I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS APP!!

I was hesitant to purchase it for $2.99 at first (ok compared to the $0.99 that most of my apps are this is expensive)

But I love it for many many reasons:

1. I can enter my recipes in online and then upload/download to my iPhone (which means that mass editing is easy!!)
2. I can use it as a meal planner and to keep my recipes which is AMAZING
3. You can create your meal plan and then have it automatically create your shopping list and then you can ADD to your shopping list the non-grocery items (e.g., toilet paper) to the list

THEN you can email the shopping list and meal plan and it is SORTED by areas in the store.

OK and you can even email recipes to friends at the click of a button.

Downside:
1. you can't add pictures (ok not huge but it would be a nice touch)
2. It doesn't cook the food for you... seriously those are the only things I do not like about the app.

I also have created a "left over" food item for nights when I plan on just having left overs and it comes preloaded with an "eating out" item so that you can load those into the meal planner. It is also very very easy to move meals from one day to the next if you need to rearrange your plans mid week..You can also plan for more than a week at a time (nice nice nice)


Truly I am in LOVE!

(i would also add that you can use this on the iPod touch and I am guessing on the iPad as well but I am not sure).

iPhone4

Well I finally have my iPhone and I have spent the last week getting all setup, down loading apps and generally playing with the phone.

I love the phone - it does everything for me except for washing the dishes. However, that being said o do have a few things that I am not a fan of on the phone.

First you should know that I primarily use my phone for work purposes but I like being able to have my personal life integrated with the phone, which brings me to the first downside.... I love that I can have multiple mail boxes on the phone and being able to send from the different email addresses. However, I hate that I can only have one email signature that is used for all of my emails. I have a work one that I MUST use so I have set that up and them just delete it on personal emails but it is still a pain.

Also the way in which the app store is managed is driving me nuts. I would love to be able to look and review the different apps using iTunes on my computer but alas it is very limiting and not intuitive like all other things apple.

I would also like to be able to cue downloads of apps. I am currently searching and downloading many apps. I do not like the fact that I have to press install and then wait for the app to install before continuing.

Last and not least you can NOT use iTunes gift cards on the Apple Canada app store - boo urns!!

Well we shall see how things go. I am contract free and I am loving that!