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Well, I’ve been on this weight loss journey for a month now. Ten pounds lost. (It still isnt showing though). Ive mainly done just dieting, some walking, none of the strengthening core exercises (that really trim the inches all around I must say).

I have to admit I sometimes lose motivation - 10lbs in a month? That’s too slow. I was targeting at least 20. I just have to compete with my perfectionist self and remind myself that 10lbs in a month until November will be 40lbs - and I can finally be nice in Christmas family portraits.

So there.
Aggie, don’t reach out for the coke.
Aggie, as Dora would say, just keep swimming.

A tag from Ems

*Join me in this fun quiz tag and add yourself in the list. Tag all your foodie friends too. Take the quiz here: What Kind of Wine Are You?

WINE DRINKERS: 1.) Living the Healthy Life is a chardonnay; 2.) The Salad Caper is a chardonnay! 3.) YOU!

You Are Chardonnay

Fresh, spirited, and classic - you have many facets to your personality. You can be sweet and light. Or deep and complex. You have a little bit of something to offer everyone… no wonder you’re so popular. Approachable and never smug, you are easy to get to know (and love!). Deep down you are: Dependable and modest Your partying style: Understated and polite Your company is enjoyed best with: Cold or wild meat

**This sounds classy

Create yours here.

I have always been.

My mother used all Johnson’s baby products on her four kids and honestly, up to now, I still use their powder and cologne. I love their Sleep Care line - the lavender lotion and powder. Their consumer products are very gentle on my skin - I have sensitive skin, one that breaks out, reddens and tightens almost easily when exposed to harsh chemicals so J&J baby products are perfect for me.

Naturally, when I had my own kids, I used the same products too. I just automatically associate the J&J smell with newborn babies and clean kids Matthew is very very used to J&J products, if he uses another cologne, I feel it’s not him anymore.

Martha’s skin chemistry is not really compatible with J&J bath products. Since it is mild and Martha needs strong antibacterial shampoo and soap to control her odor and sweat, I switched brands. I still use the powder and cologne on her though.

I love J&J.
I cant imagine my life without it.

Im in a bind. I never knew meal planning for THREE people will be this hard. Take note the three people consists of one adult (ME), a grade schooler (age 7 - Matthew) and a toddler (age 2 - Martha). Clearly, we require very different calorie intake and food types.

My kids are not really big eaters but they have voracious appetites - they eat all the time, but are like goats, they graze a lot So meal planning is hard. I want to make sure we maximize our food intake health-wise but do not spoil food (Last week, we always had some rice spoiled. Isat kalahating gatang lang un ha ~ for the whole day!)

The tricky part here is, what to cook for all of us? I love eggplants and veggies but the kids are not that enthusiastic on this. Martha loves tomato-based dishes (afritada and menudo) while Matthew loves anything with soup (sinigang, tinola, crab and corn). Since we have cut back so much on grocery I can now afford to get some pork twice or thrice a week for us.

Im going to play around a little this week and test the waters if this will work for us.

Monday: Menudo
Tuesday: Chicken Sopas, Porksteak
Wednesday: LEFTOVERS day (Eat what was leftover food from the previous days), have Fried Chicken on hand for backup
Thursday: Lumpiang Shanghai, Crab and Corn Soup
Friday: Carry over food from Thursday, Porkchop (Leftover from Porksteak)

Let us see if I can get pictures of the food we have, our dining area is a bit dim I would need compact flash for the SLR.

But I should remind myself that it beat the hare once.

Down one more pound this week. Slowly but surely.

I went to a Filipino Food Expo a few months ago. It showcases Pinoy foods for potential export so there were a lot of foreign investors going around checking to see if there were products that were primed for export. Food suppliers were, needless to say, at their best. Their food presentation (and the food taste and quality of course) were so awesome! Custom Trade Show Exhibits like these really showcase the talent and creativity of Filipinos.

A Custom Trade Show Exhibit like the one I went to takes a lot of time, money and investment for suppliers. You need to make sure the trade show booths you have showcase your products very well and really make an awesome presentation that can best other booths. That is why there are customized trade show booth designs for food products!

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Rules:
1. Don’t remove the credits when you post the image
2. Please link back to the person who tagged you and pass this tag to many of your friends
3. If you have more than one blog, please post this to all of your blogs so your other blogs can be listed to the master list too.
4. Remember to come back here at A SLICE OF LIFE (pls. don’t change this link)and leave the exact post url so I can add you to the master list to help increase our rankings and improve our Technorati Authority.
6. Spread the BLOG LOVE FEVER!!

BLOGGERS: 1. Jenny Said So 2.) Simply Jen 3.) This and That 4.) Bargain.Sales.Deals. 5. A Slice of Life 6.) Aussie Talks 7. When Mom Talks 8. Mommy Talks 9 Aggie Shoots. Aggie Scraps 10 All Kinds of Me Stuff 11 The Salad Caper 11 Winding Creek Circle 12 InkBabyStudios 13 YOUR BLOG HERE
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Weight Loss: 4lbs
I really wasn’t able to meet the lifestyle and exercise challenges this week (last week actually) because I got sick. So sick. I think I owe the 4lb loss to the sickness.

So thank you for letting me get sick?!?! Hahaha.
Not really.
But it allowed me to really rest. As Ive also been offline most of the week of last week, which is such a rare occurrence.

So, to those who were looking for me — nope, didnt book an impromptu vacation (how I wish Id gone on those spur of the moment Vegas vacations though). I went into a rest and wellness vacation

Don’t we just love it that our kids eat more healthy food than junk and sweets? Well, that isn’t the case always. While some mothers do not even try harder to feed their kids simply for the reason that their kids are food lovers, others have been very stressed in getting their kids to eat.

But this meme is different. We will name weird and strange food liking of our kids.

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1.) Name something strange that your kids love to eat. Doesn’t matter how many.
2.) Post an image of him or her enjoying ‘the’ strange food liking. If none, just a photo of him having a feast.
3.) Add your kids name in the linky love with the blog where you posted this meme.
4.) Get back to Living the Healthy Life Blog by leaving a comment so your kids’ name be added to the master list.
5.) Tag as many of your friends with kids.

Kids who joined the fear food factor: ETHAN / MARTHA / YOUR KID’s NAME with your Blog’s URL
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Martha loves to eat peanut butter alone. And butter on a spoon. I have layouts to document her weird habit.

And she loves to eat and munch on the knuckles of chicken bones and crispy pata - parang Max’s, sarap to the bones.

Here she is munching on the bone of crispy pata (Oct 2007)

Tagging all mommies ~ Ill get to my rounds when I have enough energy!

My son, Matthew, is going through the Ugly Duckling stage right now. He has buck teeth with very large space on the upper jaw, while his lower jaw doesnt have much space for all the teeth that are growing. He was born with teeth (pre-natal) already and since they were jagged and was interfering with his feeding, his pedia advised to have it removed. Wrong move. With the teeth removed, the two lower incisors had no space when all the milk teeth were growing so when it was time for the permies (permanent teeth) to grow — they had no space.

God-willing, we might be in the US by the time Matthew grows all his permanent teeth. And that’s where the big work (and big bucks $$$) comes in. I know dental work in the US is mighty expensive so as early as now I am saving for his dental care needs as well as am scouting around for the best dental plan for him and our family.

I found out through the website of DentalPlans.com that a discount dental plan might be more beneficial for us than the traditional discount plan. A discounted dental plan is a plan where you are given (members) a large network of dentists that can give you services for a discount. These have no annual limits, no health restrictions and no tedious paperwork hassles. Once you join, you can start saving right away and some plans even offer savings on cosmetic dentistry, orthodontia and other dental specialties. Dental insurance have varying annual rates, have deductibles and orthodontics are rarely covered - Matthew needs help on that area. A discount dental plan can cover that for us!

Let’s talk about mailboxes. Living in the province certainly puts you in a disadvantage. Would you believe that my parents dont have a NUMBER in their address? And yet, the postman brings packages and letters. Proof that everybody knows everybody here — and that what comes around goes around. Anyhow, Im becoming obsessed with getting our own mailbox lately, I specifically want the whitehall products, there is something about them that just screams “classic mailbox” to me — stuff that you see from movies.

People here also know you by your last name. Instead of house numbers being used as address plaques (remember I just said there are addresses that have NO numbers?), they use their last names. It seems there is no escape from financial collectors here

Id love to make an address plaque with or last name AND house number someday - when we have own house. Let’s just hope and pray that it will be soon for us.

Spice Up Your Eating
The hunt for the perfect condiment!

What sauces, herbs, condiments do you usually reach out for to spice up your eating?

We Pinoys have such a strong habit for “sawsawan”. We love tasty food and our vast range of condiments at our home (and even in restaurants) are proof of that.

I remember when I was 16 and went to the US for a vacation, my uncle treated us to Outback (a steakhouse). Im a steaklover and was so excited to taste my first authentic prime rib. It was so soft, so thick, but BLAH. It tasted good after A1 and Worcheister sauce though

I only have two condiments that needs to be IN STOCK all the time at our house or Ill go mad: KETCHUP and PATIS.

Ketchup, or specifically, Del Monte Tomato Ketchup I dont like sweet, I like them sour with a zang (Original please). When I was a kid (say until I was 6 or 7), I used ketchup on EVERYTHING: even on daing na bangus, tocino, tapa, and yes, even food with soup on it (yack, I know). It’s a good thing I grew out of it already otherwise, Im sure you’d be losing an appetite when you see me eat I also gobble them up especially when have fried chicken. Proof that it is all in the genes: Martha makes papak the packets from McDo when she watches TV

Patis, or fish sauce! Oh what will we do without it?! My mom is such a great patis user - she taught me to use it tocino, tapa with egg, afritada and even eggplant (instead of vinegar). Everything is just tastier with patis - bulalo, nilaga, tinola….yummy! It doesnt help I married a man who is Bicolano and loves sili so the patis became this:

Spicy food makes you consume more rice, dont you know?

There’s no cure for emotional eating, even if you take the diet pill. Trust me. I read an article in the Reader’s Digest that diet pills really work for the obese, but the thing is, you got to take it for the rest of your life, and treat it as a maintenance drug. Let’s say you have high blood pressure, you dont take medicine to keep it down and then when you feel better, you’d stop. It will come back.

And so does weight.
So what is the most effective way to do things?
Lifestyle change.

The problem with a lifestyle change is that it is complete turnaround of things. And it needs to be taken in small steps otherwise if you take big leaps, you are bound to miss a step and will come down crashing hard on the floor. It also takes up a lot of time, in a sense that you need to be conscious of it every single moment and CHOOSE to live another way.

And it takes years to get by.
Patience is not exactly one of my dear virtues.
But hey, I will get there.

Weight Loss: 1lb
Lifestyle Challenge: Was able to drink at least 64oz of water a day, Was able to track down food.
Exercise Challenge: Was able to exercise (walk and run mostly) thrice a week

One of the things I need to buy for the new house is a toaster. While staying at my parents, I realized my kids love (actually, they love it very very much) toasted bread. They eat a lot when the bread is hot and toasted to a crisp. I also learned I can reheat pizzas, cook hotdogs and do many other things with it. Did I mention it’s cheap too? So yes, I think a toaster in our counter is foreseen in our home in the very near future. I gotta love things that make my life easier!

I think staying at my parents’ place was a bad idea (very bad idea). I have no control over what I eat and Im slipping on my water intake (Didnt bring my 1.5L bottle) - I still get to drink 64oz a day but I should be drinking 94oz and more.

This week our challenges are to track our food intake, drink water, and step up exercising to 30 minutes a day, three times a week. I have been doing good on all three - because I get to use my Dad’s treadmill since Monday for 30 minutes a day. Im doing bad in portion control. At the end of the week, Im going to be listing down all that I ate at this blog. Ack. Wish me luck