My friend and registered dietician Nicole pointed out that February is National Heart Month and will be teaming up with some other bloggers who have the chops and credientials to post about heart healthy food and recipes this month.  Um, turns out it takes a lot of schooling to be a registered dietician!

So for those of you who may need ideas on how to incorporate more heart healthy things in your diet, here are a few tips:

  • Try fat free milk over whole milk
  • Instead of eggs, try egg whites mixed with egg beaters
  • instead of fried tortilla chips, try baked chips
  • instead of regular potato chips, try fat free pretzels
  • instead of Devil’s food cake, try angel food cake

Guess where I got that information?  For the online front page of the Chicago Tribune!  I guess I didn’t realize fat free milk would be less calories and fat than whole milk.  Um, thanks for those tips?

But you should check out Nicole’s blog because she does have the science behind the nutrition – and she like spicy shit and buffalo anything just as much as me. šŸ˜€

I still haven’t figured out the points of the blueberry hand pies from the night before last.  For two reasons – if they turn out to be a lot of points I don’t want to know, and if they are lower in points than I thought, I might make them too often!

But I did take about 1/3 cup of the blueberry mixture (that was mixed with maybe 1/2 teaspoon of sugar) and sauteed the blueberries and apples for my parfait:

  • 6 oz. greek yogurt (2)
  • 1/2 large apple, chopped (0)
  • 1/3 cup blueberries with 1/2 tsp. sugar (0)
  • 1/3 cup granola (5)

This was delicious – the tang of the yogurt, the sauteed fruit and then the crunch of the granola – delicious and for only 7 points is wonderful.

Hannah is busy with school and work Monday through Wednesday, leaving Thursday’s wide open.  She met me for lunch and we ended up going to Nozumi.  I’ve probably been there at least 6 times now and the food is always so good.

They have $4 rolls during lunch hours.  We got the cucumber and avocado and tempura shrimp rolls for an appetizer.

I got the spicy chicken yakisoba noodle dish – loaded with veggies – my guess is all together lunch was about 14 points. Sound right?

I wasn’t too hungry by the time dinner rolled around, so I just made a quick bolognese and some penne pasta – dinner was ready in 25 minutes šŸ˜€   My plate is about 10 points.

Yesterday at work one of my co-workers was on a local t.v. show and my new (young – he’s 26!) boss sent a link from youtube when he was in a local bar commercial during law school – singing no less!

I then of course had to show him my Oprah appearance, circa 1991 – maybe some of my new readers haven’t seen it before.  I am on the left and my twin sister is on the right.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCGHm9NR9XQ]

But you know what I realized after watching this again?   Hannah is now only 3 years younger than I was in that video – how did I get so old?

So we are all set for Tony’s out patient surgery for the wound vac, it came directly to us and we have to bring it with us on Monday.  Um, we are just a bit concerned about the size!  I couldn’t figure out how to remove the red eye, so I made the picture black and white. šŸ˜€

I have my quarterly diabetes doctor appointment today.  I cancelled my one in December when Tony was in the hospital – I haven’t seen him since August – bad diabetic!

Off to make some coffee and get a move on – make it a great day!