You know, just last week I was noticing some blogs have been nominated for awards from their fellow bloggers. Many of the blogs are really amazing and so deserving of recognition. I remember thinking how my little blog isn’t nearly as interesting or compelling as so many others, and I would probably not be nominated any time soon.

Then it happened! Ask Ms Recipe nominated me for the I Love Your Blog Award! I am so honored to receive this award, see:

Thank you so much, Ms Recipe. I appreciate it so much.

So the rules are:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2. Link the person you received the award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of the nominated blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

And here are my nominees:

1. The Life of an Unbalanced Libra. Happy birthday fellow Libra!

2. Willows Cat Blog. Where else can you meet cats who speak like a pirate (on the right day!)

3. Daily Blissings. A blog that has taken “an attitude of gratitude” and made is part of everyday life. Inspiring!

4. Holy Cuteness. I can’t start my day without my cuteness fix!

5. LiveLife365. Just another award for your collection! Great writing style.

6. WTF Do You Blog About? Everything from a 911 tribute, to entrecard contests, and Clay Aiken news. An interesting read.

7. A Blog With a Little of This, A Little of That. Truly a mixed bag. But well written and fun to read.

I went to my Weight Watchers meeting last night.

Did you know there are as many people in the world who do not get enough to eat as there are people in the world who are over weight? Sorry, I didn’t take notes, I think she said 1.1 billion people in each category. That’s a huge number of hungry people.

To do their part and make a difference, Weight Watchers has a new campaign called Lose for Good. For every pound lost by a Weight Watcher member between 7 Sep and 18 Oct, they will donate the equivalent of one pound of food to the hungry.

So, if you want to loose weight, have been considering joining a weight loss group, but just haven’t acted on it, now is a great time to start. You will be doing something for yourself that you know you need (and want) to do, and your actions will make a difference to some people in the world who are less fortunate.

Go to www.weightwatchers.com and find a meeting near you. You won’t be sorry!

I haven’t tried this recipe myself yet, but it looks really good. As soon as I get my weight down to where I want it, I’m definitely trying this one out!

I found this recipe on Jenn’s great blog: The Peacock’s Nesting Place

Overnight Spinach Manicotti

1 carton (15-oz.) ricotta cheese
1 pkg (10-oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1-1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided use
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided use
1 egg
2 tsp. minced fresh parsley
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
2 jars (28-oz. ea) spaghetti sauce with meat
1-1/2 cups water
1 pkg (8-oz.) manicotti shells

-In large bowl, combine ricotta, spinach, 1 cup of the mozzarella, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, egg, parsley, onion powder, pepper, and garlic powder.
-Combine spaghetti sauce and water; spread 1 cup sauce in an ungreased 9×13 baking dish.
-Stuff uncooked manicotti with spinach mixture (I find this easier to do with a baby spoon); arrange over sauce. Pour remaining sauce over manicotti.
-Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.
-Cover and refrigerate overnight.
-Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.
-Bake, covered at 350º degrees for 40 minutes, uncover and cook for 15 more minutes or until the cheese on the top is melted.

* Tip: to make the filling easier to put in the shells, use a baby spoon!

Does cleansing work? Is one product better than another?

OK, so I’m a middle aged woman approaching old age. I’ve already told you I have spent life as a nutritional flunky!

But since I am trying to change my nutritional ways, and since I’m middle aged, that means when I can’t sleep I end up watching probably far too many late night paid programs!

One night I was completely caught up in a colon cleanse product documentary. What a concept! Take a pill and it will clean out your colon and you will loose maybe ten pounds in the process! I was all ready to order until I found out this particular product cost in excess of $200! I wasn’t quite ready to plunk down quite that much change to find out if a product worked…

But I was still intrigued with the concept. And I think I believe in cleansing. I just don’t really know exactly which products work or what diets are necessary, or just where to start. Dieting as I am right now, I would like to get the most out of the nutrients I am eating, so maybe now is the right time to cleanse.

We are exposed to a multitude of toxins everyday as we live our lives. We ingest toxins with our food, in fact, sometimes our food is toxic! There are airborne toxins we are exposed to every day as well.

So, is there a way to clean these toxins from our bodies?

I am going to try. I have made a decision to use a cleansing product called Renew. It’s a new product, so there is no data available on it’s effectiveness. The price is good, though, so I feel as though I have nothing to really lose.

I will definitely share the story if it causes me to lose ten pounds in a week. That seems unrealistic to me. But I’m open to the experience. I wonder if I’ll have to spend the week in the bathroom…. that would be so not good….

If anyone has suggestions on cleansing products they have had success with, I would love to hear about it. Any suggestions are welcome!

I can’t believe I have been so remiss in posting to my blog. Oops!

However, it has been a very eventful period of time. I will be posting about my weekend trip to Mt Princeton Hot Springs in Colorado and a recent trip to San Diego in the near future. I have never been to San Diego before, the beaches were so fun and so beautiful. Both trips were a blast!

I have continued my bike riding plan. I haven’t been able to get out quite as frequently as I would like, but I’m getting out several times a week, so that’s good. I am becoming much more confident in my abilities. Today I wouldn’t be afraid to ride on the street. I know I can stop and not fall in front of oncoming traffic!

While getting into better shape and improving my overall fitness level has always been part of my plan and a driver behind my biking experience, I have to admit that I also want to lose weight. So, after riding my bike as often as I can, I didn’t feel I was losing weight. And in fact, I think I gained a few pounds. My friends told me that I was looking slimmer, so perhaps I was developing muscle. But that didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t making progress on my weight loss goals and I didn’t like the way I looked.

So, I did something to speed that up.

Losing weight was always easy for me when I was younger. And I will be the very first to admit that because staying slim was easy, I never developed good eating habits. In fact, my eating habits have always been atrocious! My solution to losing five pounds was either not eating for a day (or two!), or playing more sports. Participating in sports wasn’t a bad plan. But at the same time, I would fill up on M&M’s and cheescake and never paid attention to nutrition.

Around the time I hit my mid forties, losing weight became much more difficult. I know maintaining a healthy weight gets more difficult when we become middle aged. And for women, the entire menopause thing tends to contribute to weight gain as well. I, as it turned out, was one of those fortunate (???) women who went through early menopause. By the time I hit 46 I was already post-menopausal. Yeah me! (mixed blessing, I can assure you!)

So, about four years ago, I weighed even more than I did at the start of this summer. I wasn’t ready to be that heavy yet, so I joined Slim For Life. I was very successful with SFL and lost over 35 pounds in about three months. It is a good program. But it was very expensive. I suppose it would have been less expensive if I had not bought all the supplements they recommend. But my thought process was that since they didn’t guarantee weight loss without the supplements, I was going to follow their plan to the T.

So, I spent the money. Spending money has always been a motivator for me - I want to make sure I get what I pay for! But I lost the weight and was very happy.

The problem was that I felt like I was starving myself to death while on that diet! They had so many foods that you simply were not allowed to eat. It was very restrictive. You can’t even eat bananas, can you believe that? Since it was so restrictive and not at all representative of anything close to the way I eat, over time I gained most of the weight back.

Many people at work have been having a great deal of success with Weight Watchers. In fact, one woman I know has lost over 130 pounds. She is like a Weight Watchers Poster Child!

I never really gave Weight Watchers much credit, I suppose. I mean, they’ve been around forever, what can they know about losing weight?

How stupid is that perspective! They HAVE been around forever, and they know A LOT about losing weight! I joined about a month ago, and have lost about 12 pounds. The thing I like about Weight Watchers is you can eat anything you want. There is a cost, but you aren’t denied a favorite food, so I am finding the program to be much more realistic.

Under Weight Watchers foods are assigned points values based on the calories, fat, and fiber content of the food. An individual has a point “goal” for each day based on their gender, age and weight. If you go on the “flex” plan, you have that point goal for each day, and then you get extra points for the week. I see that as permission to cheat! I have a friend who calls it permission to have a life, which is probably more correct.

Because all foods have an assigned point value, it gives you an easy ability to make trade offs. I know if I want cream in my morning coffee, it is going to cost points and it isn’t going to make me feel full. So I can make a considered choice.

Then, on top of that, exercise is also encouraged. You earn “activity” points which you may also use against your food goals if you exchange them the day earned. I call these points extra credit! Since I had already committed to an exercise program and my bike riding, I already have this part covered.

So here’s the good news. In about five weeks, I have lost 12 pounds. Even taking a long weekend trip to San Diego!

My goal is to lose about 15 more pounds. And I know I can do this with Weight Watchers.

The challenge will be to keep it off. But, Weight Watchers is really about a lifestyle change more than a diet. So far, on their plan, I find it much more sustainable than SFL. They have given me the tools to lose weight. And, by the way, I don’t feel like I’m starving to death all the time! So, I’m hopeful they will provide the tools to keep the weight off.

As you might expect, I will be posting my progress.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has used Weight Watchers and not only had success, but have been able to keep weight off.

Obviously, I’m on the Weight Watchers bandwagon right now. You can check them out for yourself at their website (Weight Watchers) . Good luck!