THE DIABETIC DIET

So, now that I am Diabetic, my eating has changed DRASTICALLY, and I mean drastically. Sure didn't watch too much of what I ate in the past. Part of being a diabetic is having a strict meal plan and counting carbs. I'll be honest, it was H E Double at the start, but now that I'm getting the hang of it, it's actually fun, and way easier then I thought, making all these recipes they send me. I have around 300 recipes made and designed specifically for my weight and body mass that are literally DELICIOUS!! So-as I have been making all these recipes and feeling extremely good by eating them, I want everyone in on the fun:). I've had some requests to share the recipes, so that's exactly what I'm going to do! I'm going to post the breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes on my blog for all of you to make yourselves, and not only have fun while cooking, but to feel good and eat healthier! Promise you will feel a difference. (side note-all of these are portioned and sized for no more then 30 grams a meal, so if you want more, feel free to double the recipe)I'm going to start with one of my favorites today that I made 2 nights ago:

Almond Tilapia (fish of your choice) and Asparagus w/ Brown Rice

Ingredients:
1 tablespoons butter, divided
1 cup Brown Rice
1/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tilapia fillets (5-6 ounces each)
Salt and pepper
Brown Flour, for dredging
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Preparation:
Heat pot and add 1/4 tablespoon butter in a pot until boiling. Stir in rice. Simmer rice for as long as directed. While rice cooks, toast nuts in a skillet until golden, 5-6 minutes over medium heat. Remove nuts and reserve.
Add 1/2 tablespoon of Virgin Olive Oil and 1/2 tablespoon butter to skillet. Season fish with salt and pepper and dust fish lightly in flour. Cook fish fillets for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden and firm. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 lemon over the pan.
You can add whatever vegetable you want, but my choice was Asparagus. See, EASY and FAST! Hope you enjoy it as much as me and Brad did:)

The Good, the Bad, and the UGLY!

It has been quite the past few weeks-and telling the story might take awhile, so sit back and relax and enjoy the randomness. So our good friend Kate, from Canada, was getting married and we thought it best to take a little road trip and go to the reception, and of course visit all the cousins, aunts, uncles, Grandma and Grandpa. Sure didn't know it was going to be a life changing experience.

So me, Brad and Jax decide to head out Thursday and travel up. Everything was great-car was working, tons of junk food and just plain excited to be going up to Canada. We get there and settle in and everyone was just feeling good. Friday night was the reception so we decide to hang out and catch up with everyone throughout the day. Before we head out to the reception my Grandma makes us all dinner. So to back up a little bit, I have been going to the bathroom about every 5 minutes, drinking gallons of water at a time, lost some weight and have been feeling extremely tired. Just thought the air was dry which led to drinking lots of water, and thought I was going to the bathroom every 5 minutes, because well..I was drinking lots of water. And the tiredness I just thought because I sit at a desk and stare at a computer screen for 8 hours a day for my job-and of course I thought I was losing weight because I went to the gym once a month and stretched on the mats for 10 minutes. This has been going on for the past 5-6 months I would say. Back to the story-so during dinner I drank 5 glasses of water and went to the restroom twice, just during dinner! My aunt noticed what the heck was going on and of course thought it a little strange. Her daughter has been Type One Diabetic for 18 years, so she thought these systems were a little familiar. She asked me how long this has been going on for, and I just said about 5 or 6 months. Just for kicks, she thinks of this brilliant idea for me to check my blood. She pulls out the needle to prick my finger to test my blood and I'm just freaking out because I'm simply petrified of needles. I suck it up for a second and she pricks it. The average person's blood sugar is supposed to be around 3-6 (this is the Canadian metric system we are using at this point) and mine is a good whopping 31.9. I have no idea what this even means so I just laughed and thought it was because I was horking down candy all the way up to Canada. My aunt is terrified.

At this point our ride is honking for us to all drive to the reception and so we just hopped in the car and drove off to the wedding. Had a wonderful night. It was great to see everyone and just sit around and catch up with people. Didn't think twice about my blood sugar being so high. So later that night my aunt calls me just worried sick. She says, "Melissa, I don't want to scare you, but you need to get to a hospital immediately!!" She of course explained why she thought I needed to be there and so we had no choice but to head over. I was feeling just fine so I skip into the hospital just excited to be there. I have never set foot in a hospital for my own health reasons, so I was thrilled. The nurse sits me down to take my blood and sees that its 31. Shes all of a sudden frantic to get me into an emergency bed and they send me on up to get into my little gown. I'm just having a great time sitting on the bed not really thinking that anything is wrong, because usually there isn't. The doctor comes in and sits down and begins explaining what is going on with my body. He said my body is going through what they call a "honeymoon stage". It's when the pancreas is trying to send out as much insulin as it possibly can but its basically dying. Usually when this happens, the pancreas dies and shoots off its last bit of insulin and the person falls directly into a coma. He said luckily you found out before you fell into a coma, but you are, in fact, Type 1 Diabetic and will be for the rest of your life. I'm just in shock. He keeps explaining what is going on and what my new diet will be like and the insulin shots that will be needed to be taken for the rest of my life before meals. By this point I'm just in shock and utterly pissed, not because I'm diabetic, but because I will have to start eating healthy for the rest of my friggin life.

I stay there for 24 hours so they can get me stabilized and get me back down to the states where I will have to go and be in the hospital for another 2-3 days. I get home and find a doctor, a diabetic doctor, and just start learning right from the start how to be a diabetic. TONS and TONS of things that needed to be learned, and still are learning to this day. It really is still sinking in that I'm a diabetic.

I'm sorry about this dang novel, but I thought it only appropriate to share my life change. Everything has been going great so far! Of course it gets extremely old not being able to eat sugar, pricking my finger every hour, and sticking a needle in me before every meal-and I swear on my life, my heart goes out to every addict, because my body, in fact, has been going through with-drawls for sugar..or just a doughnut. Brad has been the best of friend through all of this with me and literally being all of my strength. It's a new life style for the both of us. Its incredible the timing of everything, because I would not have been able to go through this without him. My life has taken a drastic turn, but I know through time, it will all become routine and I'll be able to live an absolute normal life. Of course during this chaotic time-sure didn't forget to take the pictures:)!!! WOOOOHOOO

Pictures of the beautiful bride and all the girls-it was so great to see them all again and it was well worth finding out I have a disease!!! I hope you all enjoyed my story and again I'm sorry for it being so long, but thanks to all of you who have been such great support, awesome friends and caring family!! I'm so grateful!!!

~Friends and Family~plus all the extra's

There is definitely a lot to blog about, obviously you guys can see it has been quite awhile:). This past weekend was a BLAST!! We FINALLY got out in that snow and put it to some good use! Kristin, Taylor, me, Brad, Cherelle, and Ryan all went sledding up at Doughnut Falls. It was honestly so much fun, I highly recommend it to anyone that is debating on going sledding! It's always so fun to get with these friends, I seriously just laugh so hard when we are all together-they are some definite keepers:). Then afterwords we went to eat at Fudruckers and of course reminisced while all of our husbands just sat there feeling awkward, jokes I hope they had a good time too, even thoug it can get annoying hearing all of our past high school stories. But overall, it was such a great time!
This past Thursday baby Jeff was born-man, I know all babies look the same when they are born, but this little boy was the cutest little thing!! We couldn't help but go and take a look at the newest addition to the family! 2 weeks ago we got together with Tori, Ryan, Dave, McCall, Melissa and Kelly. Of course its always a stinkin blast hanging out with these guys! We went out to eat and then after headed over to Kelly and Melissa's house to heat up some Fondu-delish is all I have to say. I literally couldn't control myself with that little stick and dipping everything in the chocolate, it was so GOOD!!
These next pictures are pretty random, but this past week Brad just had the sudden urge to make some doughnuts! (those of you who know me well, know of course it was like Christmas morning when he threw out that option-doughnuts are my fav!) We had a little party just the 2 of us cookin up some Spudnuts. They turned out so good so of course I just had to Blog about it:). Here are some pics of the "doughnut making" in the process....sorry, I wish I could have given you all the taste, but the pictures are all I can do for you..so enjoy:).

a simple update

I figured it had been long enough since the last time I updated, so here is just a simple update of what has happened since good old New Years.
On the 16th we celebrated my Birthday by going to a couple's massage at the Sanctuary Spa. Holy crap, for any of you who haven't ever received a massage, highly recommend it!! It was incredble! So after we went out to eat and just came home and relaxed, we still were feeling lazy from the massage.

So later that weekend Me, Brad, Kelly and Candace went down to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. We drove through Main Street once and decided that was enough-the streets were a little too crowded for us to try to spy on any celebs. So we did something pretty random but it was way cool. We went to Midway and decided to take a look at the Crater at the Homestead. I know, random, but for any of you who haven't been, it really is incredible! We wanted to swim but decided against it. But it was fun to even check out. We got a picture, but of course there was so much steam that you can't even see anything. So, sorry about the crappy picture!

This past weekend was fun hanging out with all of Brads friends from high school and there spouses/girlfriends. They are all such cute couples, and its always fun to see everyone get the update on everyones lives. We played some games at Aaron and Shireena's new apartment with Todd and his girl Britny, Tim and his girl Rachell, and Mike and Aubrey. We played the game Battle of the Sexes, and I promise it was thee most hardest game-all of us didn't have a clue to any of the answers. It was pretty funny watching everyone and how frustrated we all got from trying to answer all the questions. Also, last weekend all of the girls went out to lunch again, Me, Cherelle, Kristin, Racquel and Chelsey. It really does get better and better to hang out with those girls. I miss being able to see them more often but its such a fun time when we all get together and just talk old times!

Well, nothing too exciting, but I thought I would spare you guys to have to see the Christmas update one more time! Hope you guys are all enjoying the new year and hopefully something really exciting comes up that I can blog about:).

Christmas Break and a Happy New Year!

I know I'm a little late, but its better to be late then never eh:). Our Christmas was extremely casual but still lots of fun with both families! Our family went on a carriage ride down town, and it was so fun! I was expecting it to smell like horse poopie the whole time, but it actually turned out to be so fun with Stace and Dave there, and it was of course fun to see Coop and how he handled the ride, he loved it!
Me and Brad's Christmas shopping turned out pretty fun too, we hit up Cheesecake Factory and yes, we did wait 2 hours to be seated, so we just did our shopping while waiting to be seated so it worked out perfect!Here are just a few random pictures that I was able to get, I didn't have my camera for most of the time, which I seriously regret, but I caught a few randoms. The little cute red head that I'm holding is Brad's niece, she is literally one of the cutest little girls I have ever met! She was always so calm and cuddly, but of course in this picture she wasn't quite as cuddly as she usually is, but it was the only picture I got of this cute little girl!

I wish soo badly I got more pictures of Stace and Dave of there cute fam, but this year was Dave's family's year, so most of the time they were at Dave's house, but some EXCITING NEWS-Stace and Dave are moving to Utah in APRIL!! We were all so excited when they told us and can't wait until they get here!!

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and New Years, and by the way, I would have put some pics up from our New Years, but I literally fell asleep at 11:30! We spent the night at my family's house and just watched movies and ate, and everyone was pretty asleep at 11, except Carson, way to go Carson!!

Also, a special CONGRATS for Aaron and Shireena Fennell and John and Erin Mayfield! Both couples got hitched this month and both weddings were beautiful! We are so excited for them both!!

the new job

It's official, I got a new job! Thought some changes needed to be made and school was becoming more and more important, I just hate that it took 3 years for me to figure it out! I got a new job called Rescue Alert, formally owned by the Bangerter family. I'm starting school in January and I'm literally as nervous as heck! I went to one semester of school after I graduated, but it was basically, not only a waist of money, but just a party to me, or I thought thats how it was supposed to be-I just didn't know how to handle all the freedom. So now that I know what I want to do, i'm going back and hopefully it's a little different from the last college experience! Hope your Christmas Season is going great, and yes, I am aware that not one picture has been posted about Christmas from us yet, but there will be pics after:). EVERYONE HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!!!!

VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!!

WOOOHOOOO!!! LAS VEGAS BABY!! This past weekend Me, Brad, Kelly and Candace all drove to St. George, stayed the night at Kelly's grandma and grandpa's house and that following morning drove to Vegas and spent the day! A day is all I can pretty much handle there and to be honest it's not even the day that is fun, its seriously all for the night life there!

The first thing we did when we got there was the STRATOSPHERE!! Candace wanted to go on the ride that tips you over the edge so bad-but us 3 were seriously just straight scared out of our minds. There were 3 rides up there, the Scream (that cart that tips you over the edge), Insanity (You sit in seats that spins you over the edge), and the Big Shot (the ride that just shoots you to the top of the Stratosphere). They went on the Big Shot and the Scream that tips you over...I lost weight just watching the ride! I was the most scared out of everyone there, I refused to go on any of them-well, they finally begged me to go on the Insanity, its the one that you sit in these seats and it hangs you over 1,700 feet and spins you....bawled, I literally opened my eyes once and when I did, I honest to goodness started bawling! I have never ever in my entire life been so scared as I was when I was on that ride!!

The rest of the day was spent safely on the ground where all the fun was happening. We hit up the MGM Grand and took a quick look at the lions, we ate at the Rio Buffet, which was incredible food, and then we of course gambled just once...and let me add, I won 15 buckaroonies and I'm still smiling from it. We watched the Water Show at the Belagio which, no matter how many times you have seen it, still is so great to watch!

Here is Candace, Kelly and Brad on the Scream-worst ride ever made and even though they said they had fun on it, I guarantee they were scared out of there minds...

Had to include the good old dance show that was going on while we were throwing in the quarters:).

It was way fun and we couldn't have been happier that we went on this trip! It was an awesome little get-a-way and we hope to go again soon!!