Spring Flavors: Seared Mint Scallops

I found this terrific recipe in Diabetic Living, Spring 2009 issue, page 24. It is simple and brings a sweet balance of seared protein and the fresh flavor of mint and watercress. Look for the big sea scallops rather than bay scallops and cook in a searing to skillet for a nicely caramelized finish.Seared Scallops with Mint PestoIngredients:1/3 cup lightly packed fresh mint1/4 cup lightly packed

Ending the Binge Eating Cycle

Monica Seles became a binge eater after a tragic incident occured in her life. Depression led her to binge on junk food for years. From being the top ranked female professional tennis player she became a recluse and gained forty pounds.

Now she's written a book about her struggles; Getting a Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self.

So much for that new plan

Taking pictures of my food was suppose to make me eat less. It worked until about 1:30am today when I woke up starving out of my mind and couldn't go back to sleep. Drat!

I got up and ate....34.5 freaking Points! Yes, I entered all the crap I ate into the online tracker. I had two ice cream cones with Dreyers Double Churned sugar-free vanilla (at least 2 cups), a chicken thigh and leg and a box of Kashi TLC brushetta crackers. Yes, I said a box, a brand new unopened box. Six servings at 130 calories/5 grams fat/3 grams of fiber...per serving. Which makes yesterday a 59 Point day. WTF?!

I don't know where that came from. I'm not depressed, and I certainly wasn't THAT hungry. It was mindless eating. I was totally out of control. It was a binge. Something I haven't done in months.

All I can do is get right back OP today and work my butt off at the gym. So much for the picture taking.

My new plan

I have another new plan for getting to my goal weight, plan #9,898. I'm going to take pictures of my food and post them here. A lot of people are doing it these days. I'm just late getting to the party, plus, it seems like a lot of work. If it helps, I'm willing to do it.

Several months ago I read this is suppose to help you eat less, and I'm desperate for something to help me reach my seemingly unattainable goal of 135 by my 54th birthday on August 7 (I still can't believe I'm so freaking old!).

That's just 16 weeks from now, and I'm about 22 pounds from 135. That means I need to lose 1.4 pounds per week, which sounds totally doable. I've been stuck in the 155-160 range for several months and I'm getting sick and tired of writing about it and thinking about it. I just want to get to goal and start maintenance. I started maintenance about 22 pounds too early.

This past week I went back to my old routine of counting Points all day, then eating too much in the evenings and not tracking my Points at the end of the day. Obviously this is a very bad plan and one that doesn't work for me.

It was a hell of a week at work, long hours, major stress, too many virus tiger team meetings, and a presentation in the midst of off this chaos. Only three workouts all week because by Thursday I was running on too little sleep and too many hours at work. Things are pretty much back to normal so I can't use work as an excuse for not staying on plan.

Breakfast: 6 Points
1 English Multi-grain muffin
1 slice 2% cheddar cheese
1 egg
4 slices Canadian Bacon














Mid-morning snack: 1.5 Points
2 Honey Tangerines
(picture is of one tangerine because I forgot I was suppose to take a picture)














Lunch: 5.5 Points
4 oz. chicken breast
1 Light Italian Flatout bread
2 T. non-fat mayo
spinach
1/4 cup onion
1/2 cup jicama
1 cup grape tomatoes














Afternoon snack: 2 Points
1 cup red grapes
1 Activia Light yogurt
1/2 cup Fiber One














Dinner: 8 Points
6 oz. chicken breast
1 T. barbecue sauce
1 cup roasted Brussels Sprouts
1 1/2 tsp. olive oil
tomatoes/carrots














Snack: 2.5 Points
2 cups strawberries
1 sugar-free vanilla pudding cup













Total Points: 24.5

I'm allowed 19 daily Points, so 24.5 is perfect.

APs earned: 4 (1 hour workout)
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Today's NSV

In the locker room at the gym today I watched a woman struggling with bolt cutters trying to cut her lock off her locker. She was about 40, and she didn't have any muscle tone in her arms. She was a little overweight, but not much. I asked her if I could help her and she gladly handed over the bolt cutters to me. She said her lock had jammed and she couldn't get it open.

When I took the bolt cutters I thought man, this is going to be really embarassing if I can't cut this lock. Luckily, I snapped it like it was a toothpick. It barely took any effort on my part. I love having muscles! It's worth every minute I spend at the gym lifting weights.
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My marriage

I'm discontinuing my marriage blog. I can barely keep up with one blog, much less two. So I'll post updates about my marriage here, as part of my regular blog, under the title of "The marriage". If people don't want to read about it, they can just skip it.

So how are things going with my husband and myself? They've never been better. I can't remember being happier in my marriage at any other time during the past 20 years, and my husband says the same thing. A little part of me is sad that we wasted so much time being so unhappy with each other. A larger part of me is delighted we seem to have found what works for us.

Contemplating divorce and almost losing each other has made a huge difference in how we treat each other. We're so much kinder and gentler and loving to each other. The book The Love Dare has also had a dramatic affect on how we act towards each other. We're only on day 25 because of me being sick with bronchitis, then the traveling, then this week my work was crazy, but we're still reading the book when we can and still doing the things from the past 24 days. I really believe this book has changed our lives.

We stopped marriage counseling. We went to two sessions and both agreed it was stupid. The counselor who is suppose to be really good and came highly recommended seemed to be an idiot. When she put that awareness chart on the floor and started explaining it, I knew it wasn't going to work. Then the Chakra shit, neither one of us could get into that. Too much hocus pocus junk.

We've had a few fights, but we fight differently. There's a kindness in him I've never seen before, even when he's really mad at me he doesn't step over the line and neither do I. I haven't mentioned the word divorce once, not even in the heat of an argument when I totally disagree with him. Divorce just isn't an option for us anymore, and that changes everything. When you really believe in a lifetime commitment to one another, it changes your behavior. At least it has for us.

Two days ago I received the email below from a coworker and friend. It's from a guy I worked very closely with for five years. In fact, he was my mentor when becoming a developer. I read his email and started to cry. He's 39 years old, married 11 years, two boys, ages 4 and 6. His wife works for the same company as we do and is in senior management. He's getting custody of the kids. His email broke my heart. I don't understand all these disposable marriages these days.

Although, I was totally ready to throw my own marriage away a few months ago, so I guess I should understand it. Thank God I didn't follow through on that insanity. I really don't know what to say this friend. I guess "sorry" is the only thing I can say. I'll recommend Love Dare, but I have a sinking feeling it's too late.

Hi All -
I've worked for this company long enough to know how quickly gossip travels and it's also been a couple months since anyone has asked me "how's Lea", so I thought I'd put it out there and let you all know that yes, Lea and I are getting divorced.

There is no big gossip here, we just got busy with life and quit working at our marriage, we let it get to a point that it could not be salvaged. We did not reach this decision lightly and ultimately decided we needed to do what is best for both of us and our children. Of course this is a difficult time, but we are both fine and working at making this as easy as possible for our kids.

So, please feel free to talk about it, I don't mind talking, I just don't feel like it's necessary to tell everyone when they ask "what's new".
Thanks,

A Testament to the Flexibility of the Human Mind

I'm sure you've heard that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. But we actually have far more senses than that. The canonical list doesn't include equilibrioception-- our sense of balance-- the result of fluid sloshing around in the inner ear. It also doesn't include proprioception, the ability to detect the position of our limbs using nerve endings in our tendons and muscles.

Furthermore, the sense of touch is actually several different senses, each detected and transmitted by its own special type of neuron. The sense of touch includes vibration sense, pressure sense, heat sense, cold sense and pain sense. The sense of smell can be divided into roughly 400 senses in humans, each one tuned in to a different class of airborne molecules. Vision can be divided into cells maximally responsive to four different wavelengths of light. I could go on but the rest are less exciting.

This brings me to what I really want to write about, the development (or perhaps refinement) of a new human sense: echolocation. Echolocation is the ability to gather sensory information about your surroundings by bouncing sounds off of objects and listening to the echo that returns. It's what bats use to hunt in the dark, and dolphins use to navigate muddy water and find food under the sand. There are a number of blind people who have developed the ability to use clicking sounds to "see" their surroundings, and it's remarkably effective. This represents a new use of the human mind, or at least a refinement of a rudimentary sense. Here are a few links if you'd like to watch/read more about it:

Human echolocation- Wikipedia
Daniel Kish- You Tube
The boy who sees without eyes- You Tube

A Testament to the Flexibility of the Human Mind

I'm sure you've heard that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. But we actually have far more senses than that. The canonical list doesn't include equilibrioception-- our sense of balance-- the result of fluid sloshing around in the inner ear. It also doesn't include proprioception, the ability to detect the position of our limbs using nerve endings in our tendons and muscles.

Furthermore, the sense of touch is actually several different senses, each detected and transmitted by its own special type of neuron. The sense of touch includes vibration sense, pressure sense, heat sense, cold sense and pain sense. The sense of smell can be divided into roughly 400 senses in humans, each one tuned in to a different class of airborne molecules. Vision can be divided into cells maximally responsive to four different wavelengths of light. I could go on but the rest are less exciting.

This brings me to what I really want to write about, the development (or perhaps refinement) of a new human sense: echolocation. Echolocation is the ability to gather sensory information about your surroundings by bouncing sounds off of objects and listening to the echo that returns. It's what bats use to hunt in the dark, and dolphins use to navigate muddy water and find food under the sand. There are a number of blind people who have developed the ability to use clicking sounds to "see" their surroundings, and it's remarkably effective. This represents a new use of the human mind, or at least a refinement of a rudimentary sense. Here are a few links if you'd like to watch/read more about it:

Human echolocation- Wikipedia
Daniel Kish- You Tube
The boy who sees without eyes- You Tube

I want a divorce because you're fat.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. A year ago his wife gave him an ultimatum, lose 100 pounds in a year or I'm leaving you. When he told me this last year I told him, oh, she doesn't mean it. She's just saying that because she loves you and wants you to get healthy. He told me then that she was serious.

It's been almost a year and she was indeed serious. It's been a year of hell for him. All physical contact cut off, even touching or kissing, until he lost weight. He's about 150 pounds overweight. He hasn't lost an ounce in the past year. My heart broke for him as he told me how hard he tried to lose weight, but that he didn't do well under pressure. His wife has found an apartment and is moving out with the kids (13 and 15). After 19 years of marriage, he says it's over.

I told another friend about this, that I just didn't understand how a wife could do this to her husband, an otherwise kind and gentle man. I was really surprised when he said he totally understood this guy's wife. He said if his own wife gained 100 pounds he'd consider it a breach of contract and would consider divorce if she didn't make a concerted effort to lose weight. What!? This shocked me. As a person who has been 100 pounds overweight more than once in my life, I just couldn't believe my value as a person and a spouse would ever be based on my weight.

What do you think? Is it a breach of contract? Would you ever consider divorce if your spouse gained 100 pounds and didn't lose the weight? Most likely if you're reading this, you have a weight issue yourself and can't even imagine such craziness. From what I'm hearing from normal sized people who have never experienced being overweight, this breach of contract seems to be a common thought. I know there's two sides to every story, especially divorce stories, but seriously, I don't understand this line of thinking.

Note: I gave him a copy of The Love Dare and he promised to read it and try the love dares. His wife sounds like she's totally opposed to a reconciliation, but you never know.