Summer Spinach Salad

1 packet Good Seasons Italian Dressing

Pomegranate infused vinegar (Basalmic or red wine)

vegetable oil

Fresh Spinach

about 12 Chopped Fresh Strawberries

1/2 cup Roasted Salted Sunflower Kernels

1/2 cup shredded or crumbled Colby cheese

Prepare dressing according to package instructions with pomegranate vinegar and vegetable oil.

Toss all ingredients except the dressing in a large bowl. Drizzle with dressing and Enjoy!

(since I have to eat almost entirely Dairy-Free, I'm going to try this with a few cheeses that are a little friendly to my system and post my results)

A few thoughts on Getting Healthy!

The Daily Challenge at MeYou Health is built around this idea. Health.com slideshows devoted to it. I was doing it by myself because the bigger goals seemed to intimidating. What am I talking about?

Small Actions. Baby Steps. Mini-goals.

Call them whatever you want, but time and time again, it's been found that this is the best way to make a big change in your life. With weight loss, they may not give you the most immediate results, but they're going to be the things that you stick with.

Swaps are the easiest baby step to take. Here are some that have worked really well for us.

• Iced Tea instead of Diet Coke (Carl)
• Whole Grain/Whole Wheat/High Protein Pasta instead of Semolina Pasta
• Pita Chips instead of Potato Chips (mine)
• Edy's Fruit Bars instead of Ice Cream
• Seltzer/Homemade Sodas instead of Mass Produced Soda
• Trail Mix instead of Junk Food
• Jayone Rice Rolls or Ryvita Fruit and Nut instead of Cookies
• Kashi Cereals instead of High Carb/Low Protein Options (mine)
• Almond Milk instead of Cow's Milk (mine)

Little stuff. When we crave crispy, we eat crispy. When we want pasta we eat pasta. If I want milk, I drink milk. We just make the smarter choice.

Carl is walking and doing more and more of the really nearby (within a few blocks) errands. I'm riding my bike to do the ones that are a little further (Up to 5 mile round trip). We drive if it's too far to walk/ride or if it involves hauling something home, like the case of seltzer I bought last night.

We've both opted to completely ignore the numbers. I look out of curiosity and because Lyam is diabetic and I like to have an idea of carb counts for him, and because I need to make sure I get enough protein at breakfast, but that's it. The only number we're concerning ourselves with is our respective pants sizes.

We don't count carbs. We don't count calories, points or fat. We don't weigh ourselves. We don't even own a scale. We promised not to drive if we don't need to. We promised that every time we light the grill, we're going to add a vegetable too. We promised to support each other and to help each other make smarter eating decisions. And he promised to let me buy new bras and underwear if I can get below 200 lbs.

I'm beginning to see that he's losing weight (in fact, he just told me he's wearing shorts he couldn't fit in 2 weeks ago!). When my Grandma wanted me to weigh myself the other day, I discovered that along with a pants size, I had dropped 16 lbs!

And the best part is, by making swaps instead of sacrifices, the only thing I miss is cheese, and since I've become quite lactose intolerant, there's not a lot I can do with that one, except have 1 or 2 slices of swiss on a sandwich when I can't take the craving anymore. If I have more dairy than that or anything and creamier, I get too sick and it's not worth it.

Screw the numbers. Start small. Eat Smart. Do more. Lose weight. Get happy.

Don't dwell on the numbers. If you do the right thing, the numbers will follow.

Make little changes. Don't say, I'm never going to have pasta again. Instead, say "I'll have pasta less often and when I do it will be whole grain (or veggie pasta, whatever works for you)"

Make smarter food choices. If you have a fast food craving, don't make yourself suffer, get the kids meal. 20 years ago, that was the value meal anyway at most places. Plus, you get free toy!

Get off your ass! Park a row further from the building at work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Walk the long way around the building. All that little stuff adds up!

The inches/pounds/sizes will come off. Have faith in that. It may take a little longer before you see results, but you won't give up before you see them like you would on a crazy diet.

The happy happens all by itself. And it multiplies every time someone says you look thinner. Or that what you're doing must be so hard (and you know it isn't!)

One more time!

Screw the numbers. Start small. Eat Smart. Do more. Lose weight. Get happy.

Check-In. And I thought I was inconsistent.

The biggest downside, to me anyway about dairy-free, believe it or not isn't the fact that it's somewhat more pricey than the regular dairy options. It's not even the fact that in order to get dairy-free you often have to go vegan, or gluten-free. Or sometimes even, gluten-free, fat free, sugarfree, flavor-free.

What never fails to piss me off is the completely random and inconsistent ways that grocery stores seem to stock the dairy-free options. Sure, put them in the organic or natural section, I expect that. Put them in the Vegan section, I can even deal with that. Even better, put them in the same cooler as the organic dairy, I can deal with that. But when they're randomly intermingled with the organic "regular" dairy, it makes me want to cry.

Why is it so difficult to put the dairy-free/vegan all on one or two shelves at the top or bottom of the door and fill the rest with organic dairy? Why do should I have to sort through organic cheeses and spreads to get to the one tub of Better Than Cream Cheese at the back? Why is organic ice cream stocked between rows of dairy-free and vegan desserts? I stock shelves as a large part of my job. It's not like it's hard to put the Daiya shreds up or down one shelf.

And while we're talking about it, why does it seem like the dairy-free stuff is always randomly in and out of stock? Do they order by hand? (Ok, at Sign of the Bear, they do. But they're also way more organized than grocery stores I'm talking about.)

For the longest time, I was convinced that nobody but Sign of the Bear carried Better Than Cream Cheese. Now it seems that (at least our local) Wegman's has an over abundance of it, crammed in the back of the bottom shelf in the last cooler in the natural/organic section. They carried Tofutti Cuties in Key Lime and All Vanilla forever. Tonight I go, all they have is the classic vanilla with chocolate wafers. No sign that they ever even carried the others.

My Giant doesn't have any Soy Yogurt and hardly any natural, organic, dairy-free or Vegan options, even though the next closest Giant to us has an entire organic/natural market in the back and several other Giants in our area have an organic aisle. Nevermind, my closest Giant is on the opposite side of a city park from WEGMANS!!

This is a huge change for me and I'm trying to be good. I really am. Why are the grocery stores making it so damn hard!?!?! You wouldn't randomly change your regular ice cream flavors. Sure they add new and get rid of poor sellers, but the dairy-free stuff seems like it changes from week to week sometimes.

The regular dairy cheeses are always neatly organized, excepting when there's an amazing sale, why is the dairy-free/Vegan/Organic always a huge mish-mash that looks like there was a total free-for-all battle in the cooler?

Come on, be nice to those of us who need/choose to eat a little differently.

Check-In. New Loves!

A few websites that I've found that have been wonderful for my personal "Get Healthy" movement.

Me You Health - Daily Challenge - you fill out a short questionaire, they give you your well being rating and then everyday you get a Be Healthy Challenge. They range from arm wrestle someone in your house to make a pledge to learn to use the right amount of sunscreen. It's a huge community of people all supporting each other! You can give out Smiles (similar to Facebook "Likes") and post congrats and support to friends and strangers! Tons of fun.

Bike Journal - If I belonged to a Bike Club, I'd get even more use out of this website, but they give you tools to track your bike rides. There's a journal, a great forum, and a huge community.

In other news, I'm proud to say that I've biked just over 25 miles in June so far! If I can keep up with this rate, I'll hit 100 miles this month! Not bad for a hippy chick who didn't even own a bike 6 weeks ago!

I'm settling further and further into the smaller pants size and I'm finding that some of my size 18's are actually way too big to wear outside the house. I'm starting to collect them together, so anybody interested in Hand-Me-Downs??

Except for my closing shifts, where I ride my bike less (Carl picks me up and brings the bike rack, so I'm not riding in the dark.) and get home later still wound up, I'm sleeping much better most nights and have even cut the dose on my OCD meds back down to where it was before our house fire last year.

Carl has given up on Diet Coke altogether and as a Congrats present I bought him a 64 oz water jug that he uses to carry fresh brewed tea or filtered water with him to work. And, he's taken to munching on seasoned nori strips which, as far as I'm concerned, he can eat till he floats, they have 1 Calorie and 1/10 of 1 carb each!

All in all, we're in doing pretty good with the get healthy stuff and when the veggies start to come in out in our little garden, I think we'll do even better!