WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR JANUARY 2017

Good morning Ladies!

For the person who asked for the mushroom soup recipe (sorry I can't remember who it was), here is the basic recipe. It was given to me by a dear friend who cooks by the seat of his pants. Add flavors until you get the taste you want. It turns out differently but delicious each time.

Sautée a sliced sweet onion in butter until soft and translucent. Do not brown. Add salt and pepper to taste but be mindful of the salt because the stock will add salt.
Add 8oz of sliced button or baby Bella mushrooms. Sautee until the mushrooms give up all of their liquid.
Add about 3 cups of rich chicken broth, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a very low simmer. At this point you can add a sprig of thyme, clove of garlic, brandy, sherry, whatever curries your fancy. Simmer for an hour with a lid on the pot partially off to allow evaporation. Do not boil and stir every 10 minutes to ensure everything cook evenly.
Remove the sprig of thyme if you added one and blend in a blender or use an immersion blender. At this point I sometimes add a touch of 1/2 and 1/2 but it is not necessary.
If the grocery store has mushrooms on their "clearance" rack I scoop them up for this soup, the older the mushrooms I find the better. It is not a pretty soup, quite an ugly color really, but tastes wonderful.

I think I will try to make my own protein bars this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

A few of my friends traveled to D.C. This weekend to march for all of us that couldn't make the trip.

I gained almost 3 lbs. overnight! And that was after being right on point with my diet and exercise! Now I remember all the frustration I encountered when I was trying to lose weight in the past and would put on weight magically overnight. Funny how it doesn't disappear that quickly. My logical brain tells me it's just water but I do so love to see the number go down. Three days later and I still have a little over a pound of that 3 to release. In the past, before I successfully lost all the weight, I would throw my hands up in frustration, tell myself nothing I did would ever work, that my age, menopause (insert excuse here) ,prevented me from losing significant amounts of weight...and then just give up and bake a cake to eat.
NOT ANYMORE! I now know that although the number on the scale may disappoint me today, eventually it will go down and stay down, also that little losses do add up.

To increase my excercise yesterday I went straight to the mall after work to walk a few miles in a pleasant climate. I planned for this and packed my sneakers before I left for work so I wouldn't have to stop at home first and find an excuse to not go out again. It worked out very well and I think I will use this tactic often until the weather gets better.

Hugs to everyone. Have a wonderful day!

Chris in MA