Welcome to a new edition of Carol’s Corner.  Hope everyone is having a great start to their New Year. Today’s ensemble pictures were taken at the mall. I dubbed today’s outfit, ” Fun and Flirty”.  Took in a movie while there. Hubby took me and dropped me off while he did some business. Since my car accident last year, I won’t drive out of town at night . It’s not worth the risk.

 Still trying to get all the kinks worked out with WordPress . Let’s see if I can make my video clip work.

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Ok, think that’s gonna work. Some of you know already, but for any new visitors, every time I do a workout or take a walk , I do a small motivational video clip to encourage everyone to “get their moves on ” as I like to call it. People seem to really enjoy these little clips. 

So let’s get to what the meat of today’s post is going to be about. Everyone wants to know about how I ate when I originally lost all my weight. And I need to get back to this as much as possible because I need to take off another 10-15 pounds over again, at least 10 anyway. I don’t want to get quite as thin as before,because I think I actually look healthier at a slightly higher weight than when I was at my lowest.

I didn’t follow any certain diet. I basically cut down while watching sugar, carbs and fats. In fact I’m pretty sure my blood work is not going to be where it should be when I get it done on the 16th.  So I’m planning on eating healthier every day whenever possible. Stocked up on all my salad ingredients at the grocery store tonight.

Let me describe what goes in one of my salads. Well I make a large bowl that will last a number of days.  Then I add some extras when I dish out my serving for that day.  Since summer I stopped using any iceburg lettuce. It turns color too fast. Right now I am using Green Chard, various leaf type lettuces and baby spinach as my greens. During the summer I loved to use Beet Greens from our garden at our sons and an edible “weed” known as Purslane. So when my greens are all cut up and spun in my salad spinner , I put them in the large large bowl that I use for my salads,  and start adding my other ingredients. Then comes diced baby cucumbers, scallions, grated radishes and grape tomatoes . I also add some broccoli slaw and cauliflower or broccoli “rice”,  as they call it. Lastly I add sprouts (usually alfalfa or broccoli) and frozen baby peas. Of course they thaw out fast, so they’re not frozen when I eat my salad portion. Now some things I add to a serving when I eat it, is a reduced fat cheese blend, some cut up raspberries ( delicious in salad) and some crushed Parmesan crisps. I usually use about two tablespoons of some kind of lower calorie dressing. I almost never  use the fat free as it contains more sugar grams than the  lower fat kind. Here’s a picture of one of my large dishes of salad I made recently. Doesn’t it look fabulous? And that’s before any of the extras. Can’t get any healthier than this.  Some days you could just have a salad day and eat this a few times a day.

Now some of the other things I ate on a regular basis are as follows. If you’ve never tried what I’m about to tell you about, you should. My husband is the one who got me turned onto this. Have you ever tried steaming your Hamburg? It’s really great if you know how to do it. Take what I call a ramekin bowl, not the tiny one but an average sized one. Guess I’ll take a picture of one so you can see it.

Press your hamburger down into the dish. Put any kind of seasonings you desire. I use a little salt, garlic powder, my pepper grinder medley and my secret ingredient,ground cloves. We have a large steamer pot we keep on our stove. You can put the dish in the steamer pot and you could also put around any kind of vegetables you like and steam them at the same time. I usually turn my meat once and season the other side. Just lift it with something to do it.  Depending on the vegetables you’re using you could start the meat first. We also have smaller steamers if we want to do vegetables separately. When your meat is done lift it out of the dish and the grease will be in the bowl. I like to use some salsa or something when I eat the meat. You can also do this with cut up chicken. With the chicken I add a little bit of olive oil in the dish. 

I love all kinds of vegetables so eating them is never a hardship. Learn to use seasonings . That makes a major difference. There are also butter flavored sprays you can use to lesson the calories.

Some other things I like to make are chicken salad and egg salad. The white meat chicken you can buy in the cans makes a great chicken salad. My secret ingredients in both are dillweed and some cut up grape tomatoes. I make my egg salad crushed up fine. In fact  I made some tonight. You don’t even need bread. I eat it right out of the dish , using Hellman’s  mayo light. I’m a mayonnaise person, I can’t stand salad dressing. Try making your sandwiches using a whole grain or whole wheat wrap. Aldi’s has some good ones which are low in calories.

Don’t forget to have some fruit in your diet as well. Grapes are also great cut up in a salad serving also. When using bread try to use whole grains. Oat bread is really great too. You should have a little of every food group. Moderation is the key to all aspects of life as well as in your diet.  Hope this helps you to see how to get started. Feel free to ask me any questions. You can always reach me on Messenger.

Remember take one step at a time, one day at a time. Just take a step and  go from there.  Let’s try and motivate each other to be the best we can be. Till next time, God Bless!