Healthy spagetti & meatballs....AND 37 pds gone

Happy October 1st! We are getting into my favorite time of year. Cool, crisp mornings & evenings and comfortable afternoons. I wish it could be Fall all year long.

Drum roll..... I have now officially lost 37 pounds! Praise God! I could not be doing any of this without His help. My pain is decreasing. I am moving more freely than I have in years. And I am just feeling better & stronger than I have felt in years. My feet still hurt, but at least it is tolerable & I don't cry myself to sleep every night because I'm in so much pain. Now that I'm moving better & the weather is so beautiful, I am going to try to start walking on my lunch hour. My hiney & legs are shrinking rapidly, but my belly is still not shrinking like I want. Hopefully once I start walking on a regular basis the belly will shrink also & now I need to tone up my hiney & legs.

Tiffany LOVES pasta. Any kind of pasta. Last weekend I made healthy spagetti & meatballs. On Saturday, I made a batch of meatballs. I used organic 90% lean ground beef to which I added a thawed box of frozen spinach, bread crumbs (I had been taking left over bread & putting in ziploc bag in freezer. I took 3 pieces of whole grain bread & 2 croissants & soaked them in milk then tore them up into the beef mixture), garlic salt, paprika, basil, oregano, parsley, 2 eggs, 2/3 cup oats & a cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Mixed that up together real good with my hands, made into balls, placed on foil lined cookie sheet & baked at 375 for about 50 minutes. After meatballs cooled, I put in ziploc bag & placed in refrigerator.

Sunday morning I put the meatballs in a crockpot. Poured 2 jars of Ragu spagetti sauce over them, then added a small can of tomato paste, a few tablespoons of minced garlic, basil, parsley & oregano & a little water. Turned the crockpot on low & went to church. After church, all I had to do was cook the organic whole grain spagetti. Everyone ate it up! Tiffany loved it. I wasn't going to tell the guys that I put spinach in the meatballs, but Tiffany noticed. But by that time, the guys were already hooked. Kevin & Cole don't even care for spagetti that much, but they loved it & said they definitely want me to keep making it. Who ever said that healthy food doesn't taste good is WRONG.

I hope you all have a wonderful Fall day and always remember that God is good and faithful... ALL the time.

Lori