One of our favorite recipes for holiday dinners is sweet potato casserole.  I’ve listed three below.  The first one is from Michelle, a dear friend of ours.  The second one is from my mother.  She had a way of fixing canned sweet potatoes that did not taste canned, but she never wrote down her recipe.  This is the best I could remember.  The third one is a lighter recipe which sounds really good!

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• Holiday Sweet Potatoes
• Easy Sweet Potato Casserole
• Sweet Potato-Pecan Casserole  Calories 160; Fat 4 g (Saturated 1 g); Cholesterol 25 mg; Sodium 180 mg;  Carbohydrate 31 g; Fiber 3 g;      Protein 3 g

Need some ideas for desserts that are delicious yet lower fat, lower cholesterol, or lower calories?  Here are four desserts that might work:

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• Frozen Pumpkin Mousse Pie  from Food Network  (might be better with graham cracker crust).    Calories 279; Total Fat 8.5 g (Sat Fat 2.7g, Mono Fat 1.7g, Poly Fat 1.7g) ; Protein 7g; Carb 44g; Fiber 1g; Cholesterol 43mg; Sodium 158mg
• Double Chocolate Pudding Pie  from Food Network.   Just a small dollop of real whipped cream on top will still give a taste of richness.
• Healthified Pumpkin Pie  from Eat Better America  (Cholesterol-free)
• Creamy Vanilla-Caramel Cheesecake  from Eat Better America.    Calories 180 (Calories from Fat 70); Total Fat 7g (Saturated Fat 4 1/2g, Trans Fat 0g); Cholesterol 25mg; Sodium 190mg; Total Carbohydrate 21g (Dietary Fiber 0g, Sugars 17g); Protein 5g, Exchanges: 1 1/2 Starch; 1 1/2 Fat Carbohydrate Choices.

Here’s a recipe for those of you who like sweet cornbread but not the sugar!
 
INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup flour (Spelt Flour or whole wheat would be good, too)
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal (or 3/4 cup organic cornmeal & 1/4 cup organic coarse cornmeal)
• 1/3 teaspoon KAL Stevia Powder  (or sugar substitute to equal 1/3 cup sugar)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk (I used reduced fat milk)
• 1/3 cup EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)

 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Oil 9-inch pan with 1 teaspoon olive oil and place pan in oven to preheat.  After the pan is hot, take it out of the oven and add the mixture.  Bake until golden brown on top.

Losing weight is a struggle for so many people. I want to lose ten pounds, but right now I’m having a hard time eating as healthy as I want to. It’s not like I need apidexin or any type of diet pill, but I do need to cut out the sweets we’ve been having the past week while celebrating my husband’s birthday. And I need to exercise more which is hard to fit in with a busy beginning of school schedule.
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Here’s part of my problem. My husband received a birthday coupon from Cold Stone Creamery, and we discovered their “Founder’s Favorite Signature Creation.” That was so delicious! Then I got an email coupon from them to celebrate the Labor Day holiday weekend: “Buy One, Get One Free.” Guess where we went last night. You’re right!

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I am not going to lose ten pounds if we keep going to get ice cream, which we honestly rarely do. With my husband’s birthday past and one birthday left to celebrate the end of this month (our daughter’s), I hope I can stay off most sweets…until the Thanksgiving holidays get here anyway.
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One good thing about our daughter’s birthday is that she has been sticking to healthy eating for the past month while reviewing Freshology meals on her blog (Frugal Novice). And she’s going to be doing it (Freshology meals) for one more month. So, I’m thinking about maybe an angel food birthday cake for her birthday, topped with low-fat frozen yogurt plus fresh fruit to decorate the top of the cake.

Safety is just as important an issue during extremely hot weather as it is for water safety during the summer. Here in Texas, we have had over twenty consecutive days over 100 degrees, and the forecast for the next ten days predicts all ten days will be over 100 degrees.  Just a few minutes in that type of heat is like being in a sauna and having safe fat burners to sweat off the pounds.  Seriously, though, people need to take safety precautions in this type of weather and watch for signs of overheating in themselves and others around them!

One thing I love about summer is the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. Another thing I love is that without the bitter cold of winter, summer is a great time to exercise outdoors and get plenty of sunshine. With these two factors in mind, it seems that this time of year makes it easier to lose weight although some people still use diet pills to aid them.

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Of course, summer is a time when people eat a lot more ice cream, so that popular dessert or treat needs to be eaten in moderation which is easier said than done for some people. Even with ice cream taken into consideration, summer is usually a time when it’s easier for people to lose weight.

So many women have to deal with the problem of Weight loss. It seems like once we reach the age of twenty then our metabolism changes. Add to that having babies and dealing with the added weight gain of each pregnancy, it’s an ongoing problem for the majority of our lives.

In the past, whenever I would gain five pounds or so during the holiday season which started with Thanksgiving and ended with the New Year, I could usually manage to get the weight off by eating healthier and going for walks several times a week. However, when I turned fifty, that didn’t work at all. In fact, I gained ten pounds during the holiday season and couldn’t lose the weight afterwards. Even six months later I still hadn’t lost the weight. When I visited my doctor during the summer for something else, she had me take a special hormone test and then put me on a natural compounded hormone after she received the results of the test. After just a couple of months on the hormone, I lost ten pounds without really trying to lose weight. Simply eating healthy and light exercising worked once again.

Many women nowadays choose hormone replacement therapy to help with a lot of problems caused by hormone imbalance.  This imbalance affects weight loss, fibromyalgia, headaches, anxiety, depression, and other health issues, probably more than we realize.  I think especially when many women reach their 30′s, they can start having problems with their monthly cycle due to hormone imbalances.  I can look back now and realize that some of the problems I had in my late 30′s were caused by this imbalance.

Note: I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog for Chattanooga weight loss and Chattanooga hormone replacement therapy,  and I was compensated monetarily. However, the views and opinions are my own.

I’m still trying to lose a few extra pounds, and they’re free for the taking if anyone would like them!  I do have a plan for the next month before school starts which includes walking and exercising more plus cutting out snacking so much.  That’s been my downfall! I don’t need fat burners but do need to watch what I eat.  I usually lose several pounds at the beginning of school because it’s such an extremely busy time, so if that happens then I’ll be right where I want to be weight-wise!

Do you “stress eat?”  I have been the past month, and now my pants are too tight in the waist.  I am determined to lose the weight, though, through healthier eating and light exercise.  I don’t need any diet pills or nuphedragen since I’ve only gained a few pounds.  School is nearly out for the summer, my stress level should drop significantly, and it should be easy to stick to an exercise routine and a healthy diet of fresh fruits & veggies!