My get up & go has got up &left without me. I am trying to get in to doing my homework. I have two classes I have turn in homework for & I don't even have the motivation to get to it. I did finish my writing class paper. I am finished with most of my networking class assignment,  haven't even looked at my HTML assignment & I still need to know who I will be working with for my ne class assignment. I emailed the teacher asking who was my cohorts were. Just have to hurry up & wait on that. I should be writing out a ruff draft of what we should be doing, there again haven't even looked at it, well thats not entirely true, I glanced at it. That counts right? LOL! I guess not. Sigh. I will just have to woman up & do it.

I am having a hard time with my diet too. I did not do my exercises today, I think I might later today. All I want to eat is oreos with milk. I tried to eat some banana bread, but only got about 1oz into it before I couldn't eat any more. I have drank two cups of coffee milk when I should be only having one. I did slip a little & had a Reese's. I would feel better about the slip if I would do my exercise. I don't even want to look at a scale right now. I have a feeling I have gained what I lost over the last month in just this weekend.

I allowed my self a free pass while my sister was up yesterday & now I feel guilty for it. I had a princess cake all to myself, 4 oreos with milk, fries, two sodas & two chicken strips. All in one day. Granted the soda I had was more juice  & carbonated water then sugar, but it was 200 per calories of uselessness that I should not have had. Empty calories anyone? Oh! & the princess cake is 245 calories. I don't even want to think about the fries & the chicken strips & the the honey mustard I had with them. Sigh. I always forget the condiments, talk about empty calories, do you know how many calories are in one serving of ketchup? 15 cal per teaspoon, now think how many times you just put about 2TB of the stuff on your plate, that 6t, 6 X 15=90cal that you added to your meal in just ketchup alone. Really makes you think before you squeeze that bit red bottle right? Now apply that math to all the other things you add, Mayans, mustard, sugar, salt (yes it does count, it razes your blood pressure & its in everything you eat that comes from a box to a can.) Makes you really think right?

Plus do you know how much salt your suppose to have every day to be healthy & how much your really having? 1500 and 2400 milligrams for a daily ration of salt is what we are suppose to have. Consider that just one teaspoon of table salt has 2,325 milligrams (mg) of sodium. You know how much on average we actually have? On average, Americans eat about 3,600 mg of sodium a day. Thats more then we need. The bottom line? Avoid products with more than 200 mg of sodium per serving. And check the Nutrition Facts label closely for the serving size — and consider how many servings you actually eat.Plus the biggest helper, PUT DOWN THE SALT SHAKER! Many recipes call for salt, and many people also salt their food at the table. And many other condiments also contain sodium. One tablespoon (15 milliliters) of soy sauce, for example, has about 1,000 mg of sodium. Adding more salt on top of the salt already there is like asking for your own salt lick. Hello heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and congestive heart failure. NO THANK YOU!

I have a father with type two diabetes & heart disease, I know all too well that the more salt you take out the blander your food tastes at first, thats because we have trained ourselves to love salty things. We need to train our selves to love spices instead. Now I know most of you are saying, "But I don't like spicy food". LOL! I love the English language, & how one word has two or three meanings. I am talking about Spices like time, sage & rosemary, (anyone else have a song playing in their head when these are mentioned?) If you add things that have intense aroma or just down right taste good, you can replace most of the salt (you still need it in our diet to be healthy, just in moderation) you up the flavor of you food  without adding empty calories & you will lose weight too. (Eating too much salt makes you bloat. IE: water weight gone.) And remember that sea salt has about the same amount of sodium as table salt.

Ok, I will get off my soapbox & get to my home work now, I so did not mean to rant like that, LOL! I will leave you with this:

Sweet ginger tisane

Ingredients

6 cups water
1/4 cup peeled and chopped fresh ginger
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup firmly packed fresh mint leaves
6 tablespoons dark honey
1 lemon, cut into 6 wedges

Directions

In a large saucepan over high heat, combine the water, ginger and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the mint, and let steep for 5 minutes.
Pass the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, placed over a pitcher, pressing down lightly on the ginger and mint. Discard the mint and ginger.
Stir the honey into the tisane. Serve hot or iced, garnished with a lemon wedge.

Nutritional Analysis

(per serving)

Calories	77	Monounsaturated fat	0 g
Protein	< 1 g	Cholesterol	0 mg
Carbohydrate	20 g	Sodium	8 mg
Total fat	0 g	Fiber	0 g
Saturated fat	0 g