I once heard that the average woman at age 35 is at least 25 pounds over her ideal weight.  I know when I first heard this I was probably almost 200 pounds over MY ideal weight for my height and age.  Then I wished I only had to worry about 25 pounds.

Fast forward to today and this number is haunting me.  From a series of bad choices, a busy schedule, health speed bumps and a slew of excuses, I am now dealing with being 35 and at least 25 pounds overweight.  Truth be told, according to my doctor, I am roughly 75 pounds overweight.  I am not comparing myself to Twiggy here. Just factoring in my BMI, height and age to get this number.

I worked SO hard to lose over 160 pounds over 4 years and have now backslid back into a XXL, Muffin Top sporting, heavy breathing mess.  Yes, I mean this.  I wake up before the chickens to work, I go to my real job all day, I come home to be with my family then I work when they are in bed.  Somehow along the way I have lost my ‘allotted time’ to exercise.  That is my problem.  Not my eating per se.

So over spring break I caught the beginning of a Dr. Oz show. I am not the biggest fan of his show, but when I heard him open the episode with a promise to share how to lose weight I was hooked. 

He had several women on with different body types and they were going over a healthy meal plan/vitamin combo that these women would try for one week.

A few examples were:
Junk in the trunk-
It was advised that you drink Red Clover Tea a few times a day and eat a healthy pasta primavera dinner every night for 5 days.
Muffin Top-
CLA supplement of 1000 mg a day along with a breakfast of an English muffin sandwich with an egg white, avocado, Swiss cheese, tomato and olive oil drizzle. Every morning for 5 days.
Upper body fat-
 Take L Carnatine, get plenty of vitamin C, make a metabolism boosting salad every night that has: spinach, a bit of fresh corn and black beans, 1/4 of an avocado, diced onion, a tiny bit of sour cream and a sprinkle of cheese. I was surprised to hear that he said you should emphasize low fat dairy.
Thunder thighs-
Have a liquid lunch ie: protein shake. throw a banana, berries, 1 scoop of whey powder, flax seed, a tsp. of cocoa powder and one pill of white bean extract in a blender and this will give you at least 30 grams of protein.
Big all over (me)-
He suggested a “fat burning” supplement called Red Ketone.  This is made from concentrated red raspberries. Now, you could never ingest enough raspberries to meet the required amount your body needs. This helps the body to burn fat by tricking it to ‘think skinny’. Ketones make your body produce an adipo-nectin (?) that take your fat, sluggish cells and gives them a face lift.  In essence, they take some of the fat out of cells.
This supplement is roughly $12 online.  I , of course, couldn’t wait so I bought it locally and paid 3 times that. *Insert smack to the forehead here*

He stated that patients tested had a hard time weaning off of it because of their renewed energy and slight weight loss.  With diet, exercise, and these red keytones, I am hoping to give myself a metabolic makeover.  Because, as you know, it is harder to shake that excess weight off as you age ????

I will keep you posted.  Here is what we had for dinner last night. It’s not revolutionary by any stretch but it was easy, fast and my family liked it.  Best of all it was low in fat, high in fiber and loaded with fresh roasted veggies.  I had a huge glass of lemon water (my favorite drink) and after dinner we had a very long walk.
Not a bad start!

A variety of veggies, a red onion, a drizzle of olive oil, kosher salt, fresh pepper, Turkish Oregano  and into the oven to roast for 20 minutes (or until desired degree of done-ness) at 400 degrees.

Roasted veggies tossed with feta cubes, whole wheat penne pasta, diced chicken and fresh basil rounded out our dinner. Tossed in the juice of 1 lemon along with about a 1/4 C of olive oil a pinch of salt and fresh pepper.

A healthy dinner and we were all happy ????