Pizza Party

The Fire Up Club will be celebrating all the successful changes in lifestyles that ladies have done since Jan 1. For ladies who have weighed in 5 times or more since January, the total weight loss for the group is 184 pounds. As one lady shared at our meeting this week, "this is one whole person." Way to go ladies!!

To celebrate, we are having a pizza party at our next meeting. We will be indulging in whole wheat pizza with salad. This will be followed by a tasteful dessert made with fresh fruit and a favorite yogurt dip of mine. Dinner will be followed by the Nutrition Twin Trivia Game. The game will have questions from the Nutrition Twin's book and other materials that we've covered since January. There will be prizes. Who said that eating healthy can't be fun?

Nancy's Easy Chicken & Rice Recipe

I made the following dish for a birthday party this past Sunday. Everyone liked it and many people have requested the recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

Ingrediants
3 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast
1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt or less
1.5 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tablespoon flakes)
dash of pepper
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celary
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup rasions
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Place all ingredients except for the chicken into a 4 quart pan. Stir and bring to boil. Salt and pepper chicken. Lay chicken on top of ingredients. Lower heat to simmer and cover tightly. Cook 45-60 minutes until water is absorbed and chicken is tender.

Phrases to Help Us Continue On Our Lifestyle Change

For the past few weeks, I've heard or read phrases that can help us to stay on our journey of changing lifestyles and living healthy. I hope they encourage you as much as they do me.

For the ladies - eat like a lady and not like a big man. This is a phrase that one of the Fire Up Club ladies shared. She came up with it one night when she at a buffet with her family. She said the phrase helped her to minimize the number of times that she went to the buffet and helped her to control her portion sizes.

Finally, believe that your body image does not have to be limited to body weight changes only. Body image changes include how we relate to other people, how much we allow our thoughts about our body to affect our moods and how we interact socially.

True change cannot be rooted in external changes that work only as temporary band-aid to cover up a problem, but must be rooted from the inside out. To be successful in body image change, you need to OWN your own body and its ability to change. Begin implementing and maintaining these changes as an on-going lifestyle, not without set backs but always without judgement.

(Source: Rev It Up Manual, Tammy Beasley, RD, LD, CEDSN; 2005).