Jen's Blog

I have been living with the Weight Watcher Smart Points plan for a little over three weeks now.  I shared a bit last week about my new journey.  It was hard (and a little embarrassing) but the wonderful and supportive comments I received made it worthwhile.  I know, despite how it feels sometimes, that I am not the only one who struggles with eating right, staying active and losing weight. My son  hunting eggs  So I decided to go ahead and keep sharing, if I motivate just one person it's totally worth it.  And since it's currently cold, cloudy and rainy at the end of April when I am writing this, it might just motivate myself to go down to the basement and hop on my elliptical. I weighed in Saturday, my third weigh in since joining, and was happy that I was down another 1.2 pounds, for a grand total of 7.4 pounds in three weeks.  Since it was Easter week and my goal was to stay the same I felt super happy to have a loss.  Especially since ...

Before picture...with my boys in Grand Cayman!  April 2017 Anyone who knows me knows I have always struggled with my weight and that in the last few years I have developed diabetes.  In 2009 I successfully lost 30 pounds with Weight Watchers, and my fasting blood sugar went down quite a lot without medicine.  While I have successfully kept almost half of that off since then I have gained the other half back, and my blood sugar has gone up as well. Although I haven't had to go on insulin, I am currently on three medications to keep my blood sugars low.  That along with exercise and fairly healthy eating habits has helped keep my numbers in control. But...I love food.  And I love sugar.  I know it's a little bit of an obsession and addiction but there you go.  When my blood sugar went back up the last few months I wasn't surprised.  Winter was rough for me this year, not enough sun, I made some bad food choices and I wasn't as active as usual....

Thanks to NetGalley and the editors for the advanced readers copy of this book! This is a great book for working people who want to eat healthy at work and don't want to spend a lot of money.  The pictures were great and I am excited to try more of the recipes.  So far I have done a breakfast smoothie and one of the salads.  I am excited to try the morning cookies, some of the dips and the soups! Some positives about the book include the great pictures, the variety of recipes and the key that lets you know if it's going to be a fast recipe, one that could be made ahead or freeze well.  The ingredients are fresh, real and good for you.  I love that there are several that will be perfect for garden season when I am over run with zucchini and green beans. I was disappointed that the nutritional information wasn't included with the recipe.  I am diabetic and that makes it so much easier for me to know right away if the recipe will work or not.  Som...

As many of you know I am a reference librarian at my local library.  One of my duties, shared with the reference department, is writing blog posts for our reference blog.  I am pleased to share some of my blog posts here.  Topics range from  the personal, my life with diabetes, dieting and taking better care of myself to new authors I am falling in love with and genres that I want to share with others. Please visit my libraries webpage and take a look! Planning you Perfect Summer Vacation Beach Reads Women's Fiction Eat, Run, Live Keep Moving, Body and Soul Running Playlist Chick Lit Amish Romance

It's been awhile since I posted! My goal is to run 6 races this summer...ending with a half marathon in October! This is what I have so far... April 26th, 2014 - Color Run May 4th, 2014 - 5K at the Eau Claire Marathon June 20th, 2014 - UV Color Splash by Color Dash October 19th - Half Marathon!

It was a busy week here...as usual. I have one child recovering from a concussion and another came down with a fever. Thankfully the concussion is on the mend and the fever was shirt lived! I struggled this week though. The ten pounds I gained over the holidays started to get to me. I didn't get very many workouts in and I was either a little sick or just feeling the winter blues. Maybe a little of both. I was able to bounce back today after feeling sorry for myself forms few days. The wonderful massage I had this morning helped. Sometimes you need to take care of yourself in order to take care of anyone else. I did get two out of three runs in this week...today I got in 2 miles which felt pretty good. The first good workout I have had all week. Planning on getting another workout in on Sunday. Busy weekend here, basketball tournament for my youngest tomorrow and our 17 year anniversary celebration tomorrow evening. Also we will be finishing up our house projects hop...