“My Arm’s Not Working!”

Okay, so my left forearm and half my left hand are still all numb and tingly. Makes typing and putting on makeup loads of fun! Actually, I’m pretty surprised that my typing hasn’t been a lot worse. I guess it’s because I’m a touch typist, so as long as I can move my fingers to the right keys, it doesn’t matter if I can feel them or not.

So, long story short on the trip to the doc… She checked my reflexes and had me hold first my thumb and ring finger together while she tried to pull them apart, then my thumb and middle finger, and then my thumb and index finger, and she couldn’t pull any of them apart. So, she said my reflexes and my strength were good. She explained that sometimes a muscle injury can cause the nerve(s) near it to get inflamed, and when that happens, everything on that nerve’s path is effected. So, just like I could feel the pain from my muscle spasm down my arm, so too, it would be the same with the numbess. The first thing we’re doing is a course of anti-inflammatory for the nerve inflammation, and a muscle relaxant for the spasm. If it’s not improving by Monday, I’m to call her and then she’ll have me meet with the Pain Management specialist in their office, and some possible physical therapy.

The best though, was that she then asked how I was doing otherwise, and told me that I looked great. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but when your doctor says you look great, I think that’s a pretty good sign that you’re doing something right! I told her that I had joined Weight Watchers back in November, and quit smoking, and she was really supportive.

So, now I get to use one of my favorite lines that my niece once said when she was around 3 years old. She was tired and cranky, and we were putting her in her car seat, and trying to get her to put her arm through the seatbelt. She looked at me and said “I can’t. My arm’s not working!” Well, my sister and I just looked at each other, and my sister said “Don’t you just hate it when that happens?” Needless to say, we both totally lost it, and to this day (my niece is now 10), anytime someone is being a bit ummm… dramatic, my sister and I will look at each other and say “My arm’s not working!” And of course, that was the first thing I said when my sister answered the phone after my doctor’s visit. I just couldn’t resist!

Up a “.2″ This Week

Gotta love those “.2’s”! They really keep us on our toes, don’t they?

Actually, last night’s weigh-in was kind of funny. I weighed in, got the “.2 news”, and then I realized… I had weighed in not only while still wearing my pedometer, but with a dollar’s worth of quarters in my pants pocket! So, I asked to try the scale again, not for a change in my “official” number, but for my own reference. Turns out that it didn’t make any difference, but that’s okay. I know it’s a water retention “bloatsville” week, and that “.2″ will soon be history. If that’s all I gained, I’m perfectly fine with that.

Right now, I’m dealing with a muscle spasm in my neck and shoulder which, it appears, has now caused my lower left arm and 3 fingers to feel like they’re asleep. Did I mention that I’m left-handed? Have you ever tried putting on makeup when your makeup hand’s asleep? Fortunately, I was able to do so without it looking like Picasso painted my face.

So, I’m off to the doctor’s in about 10 minutes. This will be interesting, because the last time she saw me was back when I had the cellulitis in May. That’s easily about 50 lbs ago. I definitely plan on asking her to look and see what my weight was on my last visit. I wasn’t keeping track back then, so it should be interesting!

Free Multigrain Cheerios Sample

I had seen this one last week, but the link to fill out the form for the free sample wasn’t working. It looks like they’ve fixed it now.

Free Multigrain Cheerios Sample

Wish Me Luck!

I’m off to a day out shopping with my sister, which will include lunch at either The Cheesecake Factory or Baja Fresh. I’ve looked both of them up online, and interestingly enough, the salads at The Cheesecake Factory are more POINTS-friendly than most of what I’d eat at Baja Fresh. So, if we do The Cheesecake Factory, my plan is to have a Spicy Chicken Salad. If we do Baja Fresh, I’m going to have to check my Weight Watchers Dining Out Companion, which is already packed in my handbag.

I’ve also packed a small turkey sandwich with mango chutney, in case I get hungry before we even make it to lunch. It’s really low in POINTS and it will help keep me from going off plan. I’ve eaten a healthy breakfast, and packed a banana, too. This should all help keep me on track today. Keep your fingers crossed.

Wow, That Was Fast!

About 2 weeks ago, I posted about the Splenda sample offer for 2 packets of their French Vanilla flavored sweetener for coffee. I got mine in the mail today. That’s pretty fast for a free sample offer!

On another note, all that cooking appears to have paid off. At my weigh-in tonight I was down 5.2 lbs!!! I’m still trying to figure that one out. Must’ve been all that exercise putting my new air conditioner into the window last weekend. That puts my total lost since joining Weight Watchers at 44 lbs!!! Just 6 lbs to go for 50!!!

I’m going to look back through my tracker to see what I did this week that was different. I know I tried several new foods, and made up about a whole week’s worth of meals ahead of time, but I’ve done that before and not lost that much in one week. Mind you, I’m not complaining – I just want to see what I did and keep doing it!

I’ve also been contemplating my end of summer goal, my “I’ll be very happy if I can get there” goal, and my very daring, “That would be so AWESOME if I did that, but I’m not going to kill myself to get there” goal. My summer goal is to aim for another 28 lbs by the 9/11 Anniversary. I know it’s after Labor Day, but the 9/11 Anniversary has a lot more significance to it for me in terms of goal setting than the “official” end of summer. My “I’ll be very happy if I can get there” goal is, in a nutshell, anything with a “1″ in front of it. Now, if I make my summer goal, I’ll have also made my “I’ll be very happy if I can get there” goal. Two goals in one shot isn’t a bad deal.

The BIG goal is the “That would be so AWESOME…” goal. I was thinking about it on the way home from my meeting tonight, and the thought of being able to say “I lost 100 lbs” felt really “right” for some reason. Seven months ago, just the thought of that number seemed impossible. Now, I’m seriously contemplating it as do-able. That’s a big change in my thinking!

This Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Weight Loss, or Food, but…

It’s pretty cool, so I’m sharing it here.

Today is Firefox Download Day 2008, to mark the release of Firefox 3.0. The folks at Firefox are aiming to set a download record in the Guinness Book.All you have to do to help them set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is click the graphic above and download Firefox 3 now by 17:00 UTC on June 18, 2008. That’s Wednesday 6/18 at: 1:00 pm in New York and Toronto, 12:00 pm in Chicago, 11:00 am in Denver, and 10:00 am in Los Angeles.

Firefox 3 has exciting new features, including one-click bookmarking, the smart location bar and lightning fast performance. It includes phishing and malware protection, plus instant site ID info.

Some More Free Samples While They Last

WalMart is offering some free product samples on their Free Samples page:

Free single-serving on the go drink mix
Benefiber sample

Nature’s Family is offering free samples of their SUN CRYSTALS™ Natural Sweetener

Kashi is offering free samples of its Mountain Medley Granola.

Seven Oaks Ranch is offering free samples of its Garlic Gold.

Sign up for their e-mail newsletter, and get a free sample of Teeccino Caffeine Free Herbal Coffee.

I’ve Been a Cooking Fool Today

Which is highly unusual, since I don’t do much more than boil pasta and nuke stuff usually. But, I was starting to feel like I was getting into a food rut, and needed to do something different this week. So, I decided yesterday that today was going to be the day that I spent cooking everything I planned to eat all week. Well, almost everything, since a week-old salad probably wouldn’t taste too good.

So, since around 11 o’clock this morning, I have:

• Cooked a pound of whole wheat pasta
• Made up and cooked 4 teriyaki turkey burgers. This is a new recipe for me, which I found on the Weight Watchers web site. I made one or two slight changes to the recipe (mainly omitting scallions and egg whites, since I didn’t have either in the house), and if they taste anything like they smelled while cooking, they are going to be really good!
• Cooked fish for the first time since joining Weight Watchers. A while back in one of my meetings, someone had mentioned discovering tilapia, and how much they liked it. So, when I was at the grocery store on Friday afternoon, I picked up 2 fillets for under $3.00. I figured worst-case, if I didn’t like it, I was only out three bucks. I made blackened tilapia in a pan on the stove, seasoned with Emeril’s Cajun Blast. I ate it for lunch today. I went a little heavy on the cajun, but the fish was delicious! Very moist, tender and no strong fishy taste to it. I would definitely make it again. It only takes about 2 minutes on each side in the pan, so it’s really easy and quick, and I could even do this  after work.
• Searched the Weight Watchers web site for pasta sauce recipes, to see if there was something fairly easy that I could make up, just to have something different from my usual vodka sauce. I came across a recipe for a sesame ginger pasta salad, and basically just made the sauce part of the recipe. It was really easy and didn’t require any cooking. Just mixing together a bunch of stuff like sesame oil, rice vinegar, crushed red pepper, minced garlic, fresh grated ginger, and a teaspoon of sugar – all of which I actually had in my kitchen! (That alone is pretty impressive.)
• Lastly, I made up three turkey wraps in slightly different variations. Each started with the same basic ingredients – a tomato basil flavored wrap, 5 slices of turkey breast, lettuce, tomato and a sprinkling of asiago cheese. (The cheese added a point, but the added flavor of asiago cheese is so worth it!) The variations were in the dressings I used. Two had mango chutney, and the other one had a combination of guacamole and salsa. What’s nice about these is that they’re very tasty and filling, but are really low in points.
• Oh, I almost forgot, I made myself a low point smoothie with LaYogurt blueberry yogurt, frozen strawberries, and some frozen kiwi slices. I also washed a pint of blueberries and portioned them out into small zip lock storage bags.

I wonder how many activity points all of this is worth, because I am exhausted!  Now, if I really wanted to be ambitious, I would make up some tuna salad, plan out what I’m eating when, and get it all packed up and organized to take to work each day. I have a feeling that I’ll be lucky if I get ambitious enough to pack up tomorrow’s meals.

While I’m on the subject of cooking, I discovered two new food finds. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned them before, but I LOVE Birds Eye Steamfresh Singles Super Sweet Corn!!! I bought this two weeks ago because they were on sale, buy one get one free. The corn is delicious!!! I added less than a teaspoon of margarine and some salt and pepper to mine, and it tasted just like fresh corn on the cob. I’ m not kidding! It was that good! I also love the single serving bags! Definitely worth buying!

I found the other food find on Friday afternoon. It’s Tio Jorge Fully Cooked Yuca Fries. They’re frozen, and they microwave in about 2 minutes. Now, I had never had yuca before, and had absolutely no idea how this was going to taste. I was a little worried that I was going to hate it and want to spit it out, but it was good! The best way I can describe it is that it comes in pieces that look like really large steak fries, and it tastes like baked potato. I would definitely buy it again.

Another Free Sample Offer!

Before I get to the details, first I want to say that I have tried this stuff and it is fantastic! I had read about it in Weight Watchers Magazine, and then stumbled upon the free sample offer online.

The product is True Lemon. Simply put, it is a crystallized lemon substitute which is available in packets that you can mix with water to get the taste of fresh lemon juice. They also make True Lime, and True Orange. When you request your free sample, you get one each of True Lemon, True Lime and True Orange (at least I did). I tried it just to give my bottled water some flavor, but you can use it for cooking as well.

I was really impressed by the taste. If I hadn’t known it wasn’t fresh lemon juice, I would not have been able to tell by the taste alone. It’s definitely worth trying!