Rocco's BIGGEST LOSER Recipes

If you want to try the recipes Rocco (Gosh, he's cute!) offered TBL contestants, here ya go:

Rocco's Recipes

The "Chicken Alfredo" is calling my name.
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Dragonfire Factoid: Fat? Your Heart Will Attack Earlier and Your Pancreas Give Out Sooner!

A study of more than 111,000 people has shown that overweight people have heart attacks on average 12 years earlier than "normal weight" individuals. This makes obesity worse for the heart than smoking, according to this study...

Dr. Peter McCullough, lead author of the study published in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, analyzed data from a nationwide U.S. registry of people hospitalized for heart attack and unstable angina, or chest pain, from 2001 to 2007. They were grouped according to their BMI (Body Mass Index). Here's how the numbers break down:

* The heaviest people were an average of 59 years old when they had their heart attacks (average weight 280 pounds).
* That compares to an average age of 75 for the lightest group (average weight 103 pounds). Those in the "normal weight" category averaged 71 years (average weight 142 pounds)
* The rate of diabetes was 17 per cent in the leanest group, and 49 per cent in the most obese.

--from Diet Blog's "Obese Have Heart Attacks 12 Years Earlier?"

Reality Check for Fatfighters: It Never Will Be Easy; The THINKING has to change the BEING to allow a NEW BECOMING.

You probably already know how marvelous a blogger Lyn of Escape from Obesity is. She lost 60 lbs with sensible diet and exercise methods: the healthy way. And she's one I tend to check in with frequently--and always when I'm especially struggling or need motivation or a recipe or hope. Even when some of her weight crept back and old habits popped up to bedevil her, she's refusing to give up. I like this.

Today, she gave us a reality check we all need. It doesn't get easy. It stays hard--whether losing or maintaining. This from today's post from Lyn about how we must learn to adapt, change, and THINK about exercise and food:

It is essential that I not only lift weights, but that I *become* a Person Who Lifts Weights. It has to be who I am. Not that I am going into professional body-building, but that it has to be part of who I am, just as much as I am a Mom Who Loves Her Kids and a Lady Who Cooks. We all have many facets, but there is a huge difference between having a task you do for a time, and hate it... and being a person who does something because it is part of who you are. If I hate my bike and always think, "ugh, I have to exercise, this SUCKS but I have to get the weight off," I am going to QUIT biking when I get the weight off, and I am going to gain it back. Period. So I have to either a) embrace the biking and be a Woman Who Bikes, or b) give it up and find a difference form of exercise that I can truly embrace.

Similarly, I have to be a Woman Who Eats Vegetables, and not just a fat woman who is eating a salad to lose weight but really wants to binge on candy bars. Some people say it's "thinking like a thin person" which may be true. If I *am* a thin person someday, I cannot keep thinking like a fat person or I will gain back the weight.

Yeah. It's true. Vigilance can't be slackened, and that's especially true with thought patterns and ways of perceiving oneself and one's life and one's mission. I know it.

I was .2 lbs from losing all that I had regained after the August challenge. I was at 270.4 a few days back, and my challenge weigh-in on September 1st was 270.2. So close to cracking into the 260's.

Well, the last four days have had me binge twice at night (and I have a lot of zits the last week, so I'm thinking this is a hormonal bit of craziness). Today, I was awakened by a BOOM! 2 hours after going to bed. Turns out it was a police team blowing up the door of a neighbor behind us (across the alley on a street that's one block away from City Hall and the police station, for pete's sake). C4 on the door. He was dealing drugs.

The BOOM! woke up hubby and me and our neighbors. I peeked out and saw a flak-dressed cop with helmet and I went right back inside and took cover. Later on, I asked the policemen watching the alley if hubby could get the car out and go to work. They said sure, all's safe.

Dang.

The neighborhood used to be so peaceful, safe, and full of really nice people. You could walk at night.

No more.

So, I ended up not getting rest (who could sleep with all the adrenaline) and I didn't eat (tried to nap before Pilates). As a result, my workout suffered. No food and no rest= rather sucky muscular effort.

I was tempted to stress binge, but I went and bought a skim milk latte and a chicken and brown rice with salsa bowl for ..er..brunch? I visited the market for fruits and veggies. I just need to get my mental mojo going for dinner.

Point being, I'm trying to think like Lyn suggests---I'm a woman who doesn't emotionally binge. I'm a woman who eats lots of fruits and veggies. I'm a woman who chooses better take-out meals. I'm a woman who loves to exercise. I'm a woman who learns to cope with surprises and stressors.

It's thinking comes first, and that leads to action.

We all have to become something new if we want to change and keep changing and hold on to the changes.

It's never gonna be simple. It's never gonna be easy.

And if you doubt that, go see how easy it is for champion fatfighters to regain. Visit some recent posts by Lyn and this week's posts by Jennette, who lost half her weight. We've seen the lovely and sweet Chubby Chick lose a chunk of adiposity and regain. It's hard. Hard. Hard.

But I also take heart when fatfighters don't give up, when they get back on the program and work harder to recapture lost ground.

Hooray! It's nice to have role models who are open, honest, and show that no one has to stay down. Or would that be stay UP, numbers-wise?

Happy Wednesday. Onward and DOWNWARD!

Erin Huggins' # 1 weight loss tip

EAT REAL FOOD! I love the simplicity of that. Erin Huggins is a terrific Pilates coach on YouTube. Check out her videos for some exercise guidance. She also lost 20 lbs and kept it off for 13 years--and we all know how hard it is both to lose and keep the loss OFF.

Hope you enjoyed the video.

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Slow Cooker Low-Carb Pork Recipe

I have a pork loin in the freezer for two months already, wondering what the heck to do with it. Well, just noticed this recipe over at Felicia's blog, and it really is tempting. I think this is the one I'm gonna use that loin for:

Pork Roast with Apricot Sauce

338 calories per serving.

I've got everything in the pantry except the low-sugar apricot preserves and that guar/xanthum thing. I wonder if I can skip that last one? That's just a thickener right?


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Sparkly Factoid: Eat These Foods for Achy Joints So You Can Keep Exercising!

These six foods could be your best medicine: berries, ginger, avocado, flaxseeds, omega-3-rich fish, and soy. Research shows they help stifle joint-damaging inflammation, according to John La Puma, MD, author of ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine.

--from "Six Foods that Knees Dig"

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The Damage Done, The Challenge(s) Ahead, and an Award

Okay, so I step on the scale after an absence from weighing-in and from regular posting: 272.0 lbs.

So, lower than my last official weigh-in of 272.4, less than what I started the challenge (which was almost 274.) But not as low as I should be, sure. (Slaps self.)

I thought it was gonna be worse, honestly. After weeks of being lax with the eating plan. It's 2 lbs over the lowest weigh-in (post-challenge at the end of August 270.2, which I never posted).

So...I have made no weight loss progress THIS year. I'm at the weight I waas 1/28/08.

Ah, well.

I didn't get back in th e 280's, which I would be, or higher, if I hadn't been vigilant. I totally understand how hard it is to maintain now. I'm nowhere near goal, but maintaining a 27 lb loss has been work, all the same. NOT gaining is hard. Not as hard as losing for me, but still hard.

Wow. No wonder even folks who have had gastric bypass have trouble keeping to their lowest weights, no wonder there is some regain. This is tough stuff.

Anyway...

I want to be in the 260's so bad, I'm even tempted to join Angie's no-wimps challenge. But my inner wuss hesitates.

I do want to join CCs Christmas challenge. I can't believe the year is almost over and Christmas looms! It would be lovely to be in the 250s (okay, 250 period) for Christmas and to start the New Year with less than 100 lbs to lose.

I want to get a new phone (Blackberry or iPhone) and learn to take and upload phone pics. I love when folks take pics of their healthful meals and upload them. I'd like to learn to do that (tech-idiot that I am). Check out Diana's "no name" tortilla lasagna-ish one. The Incredible Shrinking Katschi does this photomeal thing wonderfully!

I also really need to find a workable aerobics regimen. I'm doing the stretching and the toning (and my very sore abdominals--all of them, lower, upper, obliques-- and achey muscles under my armpits and in my upper back are proof that I worked hard yesterday at Pilates), but the good-for-the-heart work has been non-existent. I have no excuse other than two crappy knees for not doing it. I can find something low-impact and put up with the boredom. Yes, I could.

Yes, I can.
Yes, I can.
Yes, I can.

Just trying to get positive there.

I'm not feeling the motivation mojo, but I'm gonna be talking to myself a lot today as I make my meals and do some household chores.

So, 272 lbs. Goal for September 30: 268. I need to get out of the '70s. :)

I'd like to thank Chubby Chick for a nifty new award. I don't know how deserving I am (given how "in absentia" I've been of late). She named good encouragers, some of whom are encouragers right here, to me; so I won't be redundant. And really, those of you who post here and give me a boost up, you're my encouragers, and I thank you all. I will pick a few names to carry on the bloggy awardiness vibe (ie, to pass it on to their encourages)--

Zanitta
Lyn
Shanna
Chrissie


As we enter a new season next week, may the excess fat "fall" off our bodies and may the holidays be bright, shiny carrots in front of our faces, urging us eagerly on to better ways of eating and moving and thinking and living.

Onward and Downward!

A Challenge For Those Who'd Do THE BIGGEST LOSER If They Could

Not everyone is tough enough for THE BIGGEST LOSER. (I'm likely not!) Of course, you never know until you're there and have that constant, day in and day out, weight-loss imperative.

That said, if you ARE tough, and if you ARE ready for a huge challenge, and if you want badly to see the new year many, many pounds lighter, there's a non-wimp challenge out there for the boot-camper in you:

Angie All The Way's BIGGEST LOSER: BLOG EDITION.

It's a no excuses, no wimping out, no there-there-it's-okay pats on the back kind of challenge. If you're super-sensitive, this may not be for you. But if you admire Jillian's tough mentoring and you want people to keep you from coming up with reasons you couldn't do it or didn't lose weight in your weekly weigh-in, then this is the one for you.

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A Second Babe for Matt and Suzy

This may be old news to y'all, but I'm just catching up with all the stuff I missed while AWOL.

Nice to see Matt and Suzy of BIGGEST LOSER are doing well with a new bundle of joy! I thought they were just so cute when they won and then even cuter when they got married. I wish them, their first boy, and the new little one, much joy and continued health.

Matt's coming out with a book, too. BIGGEST LOSER sure changed their lives, huh? :)

I wanna lose big, too, and change my life. Just not on tv. ::shudder::

~

Where the heck does the time go? To my belly and butt, maybe?

Well, shoot. Look at me. I went AWOL! It's funny how when I see my last post here, I think, "No way it's been THAT long!"

Seriously, though, I've been weather-stressed and just not in the internetty mood. Been praying a lot, crying a little. Hurricane season has been unkind to my family.

No, not the US family--we've had the stress of watches, but nothing has struck us in Miami, thank God. But I have family in Cuba, two brothers, nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and assorted cousins, etc. Gustav swiped the island where my eldest brother lives and damaged his house. We heard from him once the telephone was back up. No injuries (other than to the homestead), for which we're grateful, given the flooding and that amazing amount of Category 4 wind.

But Ike raked Cuba and got my second brother who is on the Eastern (and hardest hit) part of the isle. We haven't heard from him or his kin yet, so we're worried, naturally. We assume there is no loss of life, but likely a lot of loss of belongings. When poor folks are concerned, those who have little, losing anything is a hardship.

We're lucky to be in a free country that affords so many opportunities, and we'll be able to send money to help (hopefully soon).

Speaking of Ike, though, a friend of mine of 12 years got hit in Houston.

Hurricanes suck big.

Please pray for those in Haiti, Cuba, Houston and other mangled parts. May the hot and stormy season end quietly. And if your budget allows, please give to help these people. Haiti breaks my heart. Hubby and I have already donated twice to aid in that nation, which has been hit multiple times by a mean Mother Nature. It's to weep over. (Make sure you check charities at Charity Navigator. Please don't give to inefficient charities or those that throw huge chunks of cash to their executives. (eg., a local paper listed Feed the Children as one to give to, but they are rated two stars out of four and, really, look at who gets paid what. It's like 3 members of a family making half a million out of this venture. Seriously makes me go "hmmm". Look for those that are effective and four-star rated or rely on a church or someone you personally know will get the aid there intact.)
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As for the weight thing, I had gotten to 270.2 at the end of my challenge (only losing about 4 in the month), but this month has done damage. I haven't been on the scale, but I suspect it will be a few pounds up when I do. I may brave it soon.

I am still doing Pilates, though only twice a week for the last two weeks due to holiday/personal family stuff interfering. But I'm hoping it'll be back to 3x a week normality next week. I've had two regular periods since I began Pilates on 6/30. This is major. Prior to that, I'd have a period, miss four months, have a period, miss three months, etc. I still might have the zits and bloat as if I were gonna get it, then not get it. Weird perimenopausal stuff, I tell ya. I could really do without the big breakouts. These cystic things on my lower cheeks, chin, and jawline hurt.

But exercising has, so far, synched me up. I wonder if October will see a continuing "red" trend?

In any case, I'm sorry to flake on y'all, but I have not given up the fight. In fact, I came to post cause I was ordering my organic delivery of produce and dairy for tomorrow.

My goal is to break down past that 270 major block of mine and enter October in a fight against the 260's. I'd like to think of each month as a fight against a particular decade of weight.

I'll be catching up on your blogs. Thanks to those who left comments of "hellos" and concern. I appreciate your thinking about this missing-in-action Princess. The fatfighting community rocks!

Muah!