Baby Step

Last semester was a particularly difficult one for me in every aspect of life, and I gained some weight. Because this is a public forum, I'll just say that I gained some pounds and leave the web to speculate on how many that is. 

So now, I'm baby stepping back into good habits. I got up three days this week and went for a walk, and I really felt much better. I've been trying to get back to my better eating habits as well.

Today, after a long day of being in the sun and moving some boxes, I realized that I hadn't eaten all day, so I took myself out to dinner.

Then, I went to the grocery store to pick up some basics for the week. I was seriously tempted to get some ice cream. Because I had taken myself out to dinner, I knew that I had already used up my "weekend treat calorie points." I knew that I should not get the ice cream.

And then, I walked away from the treats.

I bought a package of strawberries and some green grapes instead.

Teeny victory dance for the teeny victory!

Some Success

Cousin Aaron has been hard at work and doing great!

http://aaronandleahspot.blogspot.com/2009/05/losing-weight-and-feeling-great.html

Time to knock it off!

Most of us have fallen off of the healthy-living wagon to some degree or another. I seem to be alternating between coasting and backsliding lately. I guess it is time to knock it off and get back on the wagon.

So here is a call to all of us. It's time to quit making excuses and start doing all the things that we know we should do. My suggestions for getting back on the wagon:

1- Plan ahead so that healthy meals are convenient, instead of using unhealthful convenience foods. This is probably the most effective thing we can do. Plan to succeed.

2- Get more exercise. Quit with all the lame excuses for why we aren't exercising and just DO IT! Do something- even if it is just doing a few sets of crunches and bicep curls every other day. Involve your kids, your spouse, your friend or use it as your quiet thinking time. There is plenty we can do without any equipment. And if we can find the time to watch TV or play a video game for 30 minutes every day, surely we can find 15 minutes to do six or nine sets of some kind of strength training.

3- Stop turning to food to solve our problems. Self-medicating with food just makes our problems worse. Instead, when we want to eat because of something besides hunger, let's figure out the something. We may not be able to solve that problem right away, but we can make a little progress each time in understanding the "something" and that's how we eventually solve the problem. Somehow we need to figure out what's eating us, instead of us eating something. Having problems and stresses and "issues" doesn't excuse or justify what we do to our bodies when we medicate with food. Calories are calories and junk is junk, no matter what we tell ourselves. How about if we just remind ourselves that we don't need to stuff our faces just because we are sad or stressed or lonely or bored.

4- When you fall off the wagon, don't sit on the side of the road in the dust and watch the wagon roll off over the horizon. Just because we slip up one day doesn't mean we have to keep doing it the next day and the day after that. We don't fail just because we haven't done what we should. We've only failed if we don't keep trying again and again each time we've slipped up.

5- We all know what we need to do. Now it's time to do it.

We have a friend who kept putting off the changes he needed to make for his health. Then just last year, after twenty years of putting it off, he decided not to wait any longer. He put together a nice blog post about it. We talked with him about it later and he said he just hopes other people don't wait twenty years to do what they need to do to be healthier.
Maybe some of his ideas will help or inspire you.

Diet

This semester, my healthy eating has seen a really sharp downturn.

I heard a food expert say that you should "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I have not really been accomplishing this lately.

Today on NPR, there was a story about self-control. It was playing as I stopped at a gas station on my way to work to buy a treat for myself.

Has anyone seen my self-control? I seem to have left it somewhere...

Tip of the Whatever- pt. 2

Here is a really tough one. I haven't mastered it yet, but the research and data are pretty convincing.

Get enough sleep. Chronic inadequate sleep negatively affects your immune system, mental health and weight control efforts.

If only getting enough sleep was as simple as it sounds.

A Huge, Huge VICTORY!

Yesterday was a day that I just kept trying to be a good mom and have a better attitude, but it was one of those days where something unpleasant happens, you decide to let it go and have a good attitude, then something else happens, you try to rise above it only to get knocked down again and again and again. And finally, in the midst of a really horrible mess the boys made they started jumping off the couch onto Mauricio and that was just it. I got out my bag of chocolate chips and decided I'd make cookies first chance I got. (After rescuing Mauri, of course...) And after I got the kids into bed, I worked on some church stuff and then went to the end of the YW activity and choir practice, came home and unloaded the dishwasher, loaded the dinner dishes, read my scriptures and went to bed. And this morning I put the chocolate chips away. I did not eat any junk, in spite of a pretty frustrating day.

The day after my 'moving on' post I ate what was left of my M&Ms and a few marshmallows. But I've been good since then. I still have my chocolate lava cakes that I've been saving, and Monday night I heated one up and enjoyed it. With some popcorn. But I haven't been binge eating when I'm stressed out, and that is big, big progress.

My Tip of the Whatever (I can't commit to a specific interval)

LL made a great point: Don't buy it or bring it home if you shouldn't eat it. Especially since no one else should be learning to eat it, either.

Today I would like to offer the first of several tips learned from reliable sources (doctors, trainers, dietitians, independent research reviewers).

Don't Drink Calories

Soda, punch, lemonade, sunny delight, sport drinks and even real fruit juices are very calorie dense. With the exception of fruit juice, there is very little real nutrition in them. When I decided to cut out just the soft drinks a few years ago, I lost several pounds even though I hadn't made any other changes in my diet yet. An added benefit of eliminating these beverages from your diet is the reduction of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in your diet. Regardless of what the HFCS producers' ads say, it isn't just the same as sugar. We should reduce the amount of sugar in our diets, too.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule:

1. milk- skim is best (look for brands without added milk solids-aka powdered milk) and if you just can't do skim, stick with 1% milk.
2. vegetable juices such as V8 or tomato. Keep it to no more than 11 oz. per day because of the sodium.
3. one (yes- only one!) 4-6 oz serving of 100% fruit juice, if you just can't give it up. If you are trying to lose weight instead of just eating better, then you should give up juice for a while.

And on a sad note: new research suggests that regular use of artificial sweeteners can actually contribute to weight gain. The theory as to why this occurs- the sweet taste keeps your "sweet tooth" active and stimulates cravings.

So in a nutshell, think about your liquid calories; make them minimally processed or refined and nutrient dense. If there is one healthy habit you can give your kids, this is it!