Mother's Day

Thought for the day:


"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."

-- Lin Yutang


Happy Mother's Day!!


It's a great day! A day to appreciate mothers, and I like to get appreciated.


When my children were still little, it was the day I was served breakfast in bed. My three children would get up and fix a breakfast tray with Fresh Dandelions from the yard in a little vase, toast, cold cereal, milk and orange juice. I could always hear them in the kitchen getting things ready, but so as not to spoil their fun I would lay in bed, playing "Possum" until they came in to awaken me with their surprise.


Preparing my own breakfast this morning, it occurred to me how important a healthy breakfast is to get the day started. It also occurred to me how much my idea of breakfast has changed in the last couple of months. While I have always eaten breakfast, I didn't always have a good breakfast. Often, the most important meal of the day consisted of sugary, starchy, doughnuts and coffee with lots of cream, a bagel with cream cheese, an Egg McMuffin with deep fried Hash Rounds, or a supersized coffee shop muffin slathered with butter.


These choices often had me hitting the vending machine about an hour later for more sugary or fatty starches to hold off my hunger until lunch.


Now my morning meal and snack looks a lot different. Often it resembles the simple breakfast my kids would prepare on Mother's day; cereal with milk and a side of fruit. Now the cereal, either cold or hot, is whole grain; the milk is low fat and the fruit is fresh and in season. On weekends, I might have eggs turkey bacon or sausage and whole grain toast with fruit spread.


The great thing about this change is that I am not hitting the vending machine an hour later. I don't need a snack until coffee break. Even then it’s usually fruit and yogurt, which keeps me satisfied until lunch.


Our Mother's were right about a good breakfast being the most important meal of the day.


Yesterday was weigh-in and the scale was my friend again. This week, I lost another 3.2 pounds. The total amount of weight I've lost since beginning this "Challenge" is 18.8 lbs, Wow! That's like losing 6 cans of shortening!


Like James Brown, I FEEL GOOD!


This is definitely a work in progress.


The week in review:


What I did right-


a. Ate a good Breakfast daily.

b. Kept a diary of every bite that crossed my lips.

c. Drank a minimum of 6 glasses of good old H2O daily.

d. Walked for 60 minutes, 5 days of the week.

e. Actually tried some Yoga moves from a beginners Yoga DVD. I liked it well enough to repeat the experience after the back my legs stopped hurting enough to give it another try.


What I can do better-

a. Try a couple of new recipes so I don't get bored.

b. Look for a beginners Tai Chi DVD at the library

c. Treat myself to a non-food splurge.

d. Find some additional ways to unwind and reduce stress.