Smarter, Better, More

Cleaning up around the house I found an article from Family Circle Magazine that talked about how to Eat Smarter, Sleep Better, and Move More. Perfect!

Eat Smarter
Leave two bites at every meal. (they say you'll cut out about 100 cal a day. But I'm not into the whole wasting food thing, so may I suggest dishing up and putting 2 spoonfuls back?)
Swap out a red meat dinner and swap in a vegetarian one, once a week.
Cook at Home one more night eat week. (New research shows that the average American now eats four restaurant meals each week!)
Turn off the Kitchen lights at 8:00pm (a great idea! I'm totally going to try it!)

Sleep Better
Gain time with sleep. (A sleep expert, Jodi Mindell, Ph.D: "A lot of women think that if they go to bed early they're mission out on getting stuff done- they won't get those emails sent, bills paid or laundry done. But you'll get everything done twice as fast the next day if you get enough rest.")
Hotel-ify your bedroom: (Soft sheets and pillows, room-darkening shades, no laptop in bed, move out exercise equipment.)
Keep it cool: 60-68 degrees at night.
Get the right light. (Mindell: "exposure to AM light affects how sleepy you feel come nighttime. Morning light triggers your body to stop producing the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and to make more of the stimulating hormone cortisol. About 12 hours later your body will automatically start producing melatonin to get you ready for sleep." Interesting!)
Log off your computer and allow your brain 20 minutes to wind down before you hit the lights.

Move More
Walk 15 extra minutes a day.
Take advantage of weird time. Find the random time in your day. Bored? don't text, WALK! :)
Don't blow off your plans. ("Your day has been one big downhill of cake, candy and chips- so why bother with that 4pm power walk you'd planned? Because it makes a big difference. Physically, exercise can reduce your appetite, and mentally it will put you back on track to eat a smarter dinner.)
Be a role model. to everyone and make it fun!

School's Out! Food's In!

Well, with school just about over, summer plans have began to take over. I have gallbladder surgery scheduled for the beginning of June, and tons of things to do beforehand. I'm not going to let my plan to eat healthy lapse though, here's a little Rachel Ray cooking on a budget.

You've GOTTA check THIS out. :)

Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

Okra

This is Okra:

This is Fried Okra:

After a garage sale, we went to celebrate our good sales by going to a local restaurant called Golden Chick. It's fried everything. It's a dangerous place. I didn't realize how much our attitude had changed until I sat down with the food. Everything was the same color. Golden. :)

My method? Peel off the fried skin on the chicken and enjoy. There was no way I was going to risk having a gallbladder attack or having a clogged artery, or anything else by eating a TON of fried everthing. I peeled the skin of my daugher's chicken as well. (We actually just got one entree for the three of us- the portions are big enough!) She wouldn't eat the fried okra. My husband would show her how fun they are, and she just wouldn't eat it.
So...
I peeled off the 'fried' part while she wasn't looking and put it on her plate. A minute later when she saw the green- she popped it in her mouth, loved it, and gave us a good laugh!

My thoughts:
1- don't visit restaurants too often- I want to know what I'm eating. (a past post on the subject)
2- COLOR, color, CoLoR!
3- Watch out for the portion size (this is how you can actually save money by eating healthy!)
4- eat closer to the 'natural' state. Okra vs. Fried Okra.

Buen Provecho!

My Confession

I love bread.

I eat bread.

I now make bread.

When my husband and I were first married we gained. We gained a new apartment, new jobs, new life, and new weight. I weighed more 4 months after we got married than I did full-term with my daughter.

What did it?

I blame Me. My weakness. My bread.

Hot Ham and Cheese Bagel for Breakfast,

Bagel with jelly for a Morning Snack,

Sandwich for Lunch,

Banana Bread for afternoon Pick-me Up,

And Chicken breasts with Bread Crumbs for Dinner.

Don't even ask about dessert....it wasn't pretty.....

Along my quest to be aware of what goes in my body, I found that buying bread was one of the hardest things to do. There was the healthy bread, but even that had HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) in it, and a whole bunch of other things that I don't recognize. I did find some natural stuff, but really.... $4 for a loaf of bread?

Yes, my bread addiction has been under control for 3 years now, but really, $4? It just wasn't in our budget. So...I began my search for a breadmaker! And FOUND ONE! (Brand-new Betty Crocker at Goodwill for $15)

I was hesitant that my addiction would come back. Reading in SuperSized Kids today, I found this quite fitting to my situation:

"Another patient...carefully preserved a picture of his grandma, a woman the size of the Titanic who had a great fondness for baking bread. He loved his grandma and he cherished that picture. Yet... [he said] time and again, "I just don't want to be like her." He love her, admired her, respected her- but he absolutely did not want to wind up morbidly obese, like her."

Meet more families studied by clicking here.

"Parents, the time to prevent or reverse SuperSizing in our kids is always now. Don't wait until the problem gets worse. Don't wait until serious physical problems appear. If your child has an apparent obesity problem, start today to deal with it. Why? An average-sized adult may have 20billion to 30billion fat cells; a moderately obese adult, however, can have 60billion to 100billion fat cells; and a morbidly obese person in excess of 300billion fat cells. Obese children can have five times more fat cells than children of normal weight!"

"Once formed, these fat cells can decrease in size, but they do not decrease in number....

"Today is the best day to start!"

Feel the Earth Move

I was online this morning, and ran across THIS page about Exercise Needs by Age.

They said that it's never too late to start a regular fitness program. Even though it is April, almost May, the New Year's resolution can start with TODAY. A New Earth Day's Resolution!

Up to 35 years old

Two fitness components are often neglected during these years are form and flexibility. Practicing good form in any sport will help you stay injury-free later in life. Devoting time to stretching, yoga or Pilates will also help. Avoid overtraining by always building rest into your exercise program.

35-50 years old

Strength training should be a part of your fitness goals. Perform 30 minutes of resistance training at least three times per week. This is vital for women in order to help prevent osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

50 and up

Even if you haven't exercised in a long time, you have every reason to start now. The real key is slow and gradual progress. Begin any new actrivity with its lowest run. For example, instead of running, start walking first. Instead of lap swimming, take a water aerobics class first. If you're unsure about how to start an exercise program, consult with a qualified personal trainer.

And if you need extra motivation, click here to link to Parent's magazine reader's responses to the question, "How to busy moms fit in time for exercising." My favorite one, probably because I do it, is using your kids as a workout. Hmm...so if I keep it up, when she's 10 will I still be able to bench press her weight? :)

DON'T just READ! GO and DO SOMETHING!

Hop to the bathroom...or maybe from the bathroom is a better idea.

Calf raises while doing the dishes, making a sandwich or talking on the phone!

Do chair lifts before getting up from the dinner table or computer desk.

Commercial Crunch!

Oops, I mean, Commerical Crunches!

Hey, the earth is moving, why can't WE!?

The Coolness Factor

I love friends. I love my family. I most definitely love my family more though. So, when I think about what others think about me, I think about my family. Am I Honest with them? Hard-working in serving them? True to myself?
So naturally, my family's health comes before my coolness factor.

Now to define 'cool'. My definition of 'cool' in this situation is minimizing akwardness. :) Wikipedia says that cool "often is used as an expression of admiration or approval." Okay, so social approval.

Enough background, now for the story. I have friends. I have family. I most definitely control my family's health, and not that of my friends. When my friends go to a certain fast 'food' place every week after a get-together it's hard. It's hard on a lot of people. It's hard because it's now socially expected, not just accepted.

I have found myselft not going to the weekly get-together to avoid the situation. Do I have problems saying, "Naw, I'm not going to go this time." or "No, she's ready for a nap." or "Naw, have fun though."? No, I can do it, but it gets old. Just like we get old. And we become what we eat. And I don't want to be a re-heated science experiement served on a tray with a side of diabetes and preventable heart problems.

My point? It's not easy to eat healthy, but it can be cool.
I think it cool, who's with me!?

And friends, if you read this too-my cool group is accepting applicants! :)

oh, and just to clarify, this isn't the only place that the 'coolness' factor comes into play. It's really any type of social gathering that is loaded with a whole bunch of stuff that the guests get to choose from. Luckily though, in those situations there are CHOICES! :)

...while you're at the store

Click here for Ingredients to Avoid!

Combo #4

As the title of this blog suggests, I am promoting self-education in regards to eating and living a healthy lifestyle. It just seems that it's too easy to NOT eat healthy, that doing the alternative actually takes time and study. My goal is to put all of my observations, opinions, and random tools into one place to make it easier on me and anyone else who enjoys participating in this journey with me.

Right now, I'm busy doing a lot of things.....aren't we all right? But one of the things I AM working on is creating a budget-friendly, healthy menu for a month. When I googled "how much should a family of 3 spend on food for one month" and similar search phrases I got everything from "I don't have to worry about that 'cause I'm on welfare" to "My husband and I cut back to $400 a month for the two of us". Soooooo obviously, it's just a lot of opinion.

MSNBC reports that you should spend 15-20% of your overall monthly spending on Food- groceries and restaurant. Just food for thought. (don't worry, I won't charge ya for that one)

Speaking of Grocery-store spending, my friend let me borrow her New2010 edition of Eat This, Not That. I'll have to say, that I've plowed through this book faster than I used to a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles! Chapter 4: entitled Eat This, Not That! At The Supermarket, gives some helpful advise.

#1. Stay away from the soft, creamy center....of the supermarket that is- "the healthy stuff like dairy, produce, meat, and seafood is usually located around the edges, the interior of the supermarket is almost always packed with highly processed foods made with corn and soy and the 3,000 or more additives manufacturers use to make things that are edible but aren't actually food."

#2. Avert your eyes!... eye level (well, for the average person) around 5 feet is where the store packs it's high processed, high caloric, high priced foods.

#3. Get back to the Earth...You choose: apple, chicken and a potato VS a jar of applesauce, a bag of chicken nuggets, and some chips. :)

#4. Eat more food, eat fewer ingredients...The fewer ingredients on the label, the better something typically is for you. They give the example of applesauce. Yes, apples turn into applesauce, but "they can often double their caloric load because of hte addition of high-fructose corn syrup."

#5. Watch Who's on First...Nutrition labels you're looking for 2 things. "The first is the order of ingredients- labels by law must list them in order of volume. So if the number one ingredient is, say, "spinach," that's good. If it's "sugar" or "high-fructose corn syrup" or "canary droppings," that's probably bad. The second thing to look at is the servings per container." If it's 2 per box, but you know you'll eat the whole thing, then 200 calories becomes 400 pretty quick.

#6. Eliminate the Drive-by...Quick trip to the store = 54% more purchased than planned. Bring a list, and a pen (and might I add, a calculator.)

NOW, LET'S GO SHOPPING!!

Blueberry Buttermilk Mini Muffins

..or normal sized muffins. :) I got this recipe from a kids' book I checked out from the library a few months ago....I didn't write down what book it was...
SOOO GOOD SOO HEALTHY and SOOO EASY, CHEAP to MAKE!

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (i use 2/3c white, 2/3c wheat)
2/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar ( i use 1/3...it turns out perfect)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
MIX ABOVE TOGETHER IN A LARGE BOWL

1 1/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup canola oil (i need to try applesauce...)
1 egg slightly beaten
1 cup fresh/frozen blueberries
MIX LIQUIDS IN A BOWL (not the blueberries) THEN POUR INTO DRY MIX BOWL

stir just enough to moisten. Add blueberries
BAKE 350 FOR 10-12 MIN

toothpick clean? means time to cool and eat up! :)



*blueberries are obviously good for you
*buttermilk is surprisingly low in fat
*corn meal is packed of good nutrients (the real stuff) and gluten free
*WAAY better than anything packaged and packed of chemicals
*did I mention easy to make!?

My Buffet

A random sampling of facts and opnions. Please don't take too much, we all know what buffets can to do ya.....


I'm currently reading a lot of stuff- one of the books I'm reading is "Super Sized Kids: How to rescue your child from the obesity threat." Written by Walt Larimore, MD; Sherri Flynt, MPH, RD, LD; with Steve Halliday.

It's packed with super sized greatness. :) I haven't gotten through the whole thing but throughout the book they sprinkle in 50 ways to SuperSize your Kids. I thought I'd share what I've read so far.


#1. Believe that your child's SuperSize status is normal.

#2. SuperSize their portions.

#3. Let your kids eat frequently at fast-food restaurants.

#4. Give your kids lots of soft drinks!



A few points that I found interesting:

They did a study that followed obese children to obese teenagers to obese adults. Children in the study who were obese as teens died as adults at the average age of 46. Not only that, but a different study pointed out that the effect of obesity "significantly impairs quality of life."

"Severly obese kids have a quality of life similar to that of children who have cancer."

What has happened? What has happened that we as adults have become so lazy, unintelligent, and passive in our decision making.

Say 'yes' to knowledge. This is my motivation.

Underdeveloped societies suffer from: TB, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera....

Affluent America now suffers from: obesity, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, liver diseases, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, abused children, suicide a murder.

Take your choice.

My last point(S):

• It's not about appearance. It's about health. I heard on the radio the other night that by the age of 2 a kid can recognize a McD's (or any other frequented fast food store) by their logo. How awful.
• As a person commented in my last post, wouldn't it be nice if HEALTHY restaurants had "playplace"s? That would be a good help.
• Wouldn't it be even nicer if we ATE at home (which is important what we eat there too...) and had our own "playplace"?
• I think it's awful how parents introduce their children (fat, obese or fine) to fast food so frequently. Maybe you disagree. That's fine. This is my opinion based on my observations. You can make your own. In fact, I encourage you to do just that.

Say, "yes" to knowledge and research it yourself.

Why?

I thought I'd take a post to tell the story of how this all started.

Once upon a time (seriously) I ate 2 double cheeseburgers while working 12 hours at a movie theatre. I was alternating between: trashing theaters (lingo for cleaning up after a movie was over), ticket checking, kicking people out, running up 32 stairs to thread-up the movie (lingo for getting the projectors ready), run down 32 stairs and back into concession to be a runner (lingo for doing the extra jobs for all the registers to make the line go faster). I looooved it. I didn't work 12 hours everyday, but when I was assistant manager in college- I did that quite frequently. I loooved it. I ate something that would last a while.

Then, I graduated, got married, and got a job as a sign language interpreter. Not quite the running that I used to do, instead it was driving from place to place and I understood that 2 double cheeseburgers once a day was not the way to go. So, I didn't.
*****************************************************
Then one New Years Eve, in 2007 we were at a friend's house and we were having a fun time eating, socializing, and playing the Wii. The next morning- Happy 2008: I'm sick. My stomach feels horrible, but after about a day, I'm back to normal.

2008 New Years Eve repeats. Happy 2009: I'm sick. A few months later we went to a friends house for a kids play-date/lunch. She had tons of goodies that I couldn't resist. So, I didn't! That night, I was sick- AGAIN.

Do you know why?

This is why:

This little piggy went to the market, bought a crescent wrap and went "weee wee wee" all the way through my digestive system. I finally made the connection. Okay, got it. No lil' smokies. No Pigs In a Blanket. None. Check.

Then, New Years 2010 starts approaching. No lil' smokies- got it! Buuut, I got sick BEFORE New Years. Happy New Years Eve 2009, and happy, "loose stools" along with my upset stomach. No party for me, but at least I felt better the next day, to start out 2010 healthy instead of sick- like the past 2 years.

Then, a couple weeks later, I suffered from the same nursery rhyme without having eatin any lil' smokies....strange. Then, at the end of January, I was starting to feel better. We thought it'd be fun to grab a bite out to eat cause we hardly do. Sonic was the destination.

No tots, no cheese, just a wrinkly jr. burger. I ate it. What else was I going to do? Not eat it is what I should have done. I still had a case of the 'lil' piggies' but was on the curly tail end of it. This- did not help. My stomach was a rock. In a few hours I could barely move. I had a more intense case of "loose stool" and was in pain. Then I was on the bathroom floor in pain- not moving. I felt like I did the night we went to the hospital and 4 hours later had a baby. But worse, there was no baby.

We decided to go the ER- they did some tests, but said it was a virus and sent me home with instructions to do a followup with my Dr....Great- I already had my yearly appointment scheduled for that Monday. My mom sent me with a family tree of how many people in our family were without gallbladders.

My mom, my grandma, my aunts, my great grandma, my great..great...you get the point. My genes were not helping any more than the Jr.Burger was.

After an ultrasound and HIDA scan- the conclusion was that my gallbladder wasn't bad enough yet to take out. But to try to regulate it with diet. My response: we don't eat that bad! I mean seriously, we make most our food at home, we eat out like hardly ever- where is all the fat coming from that was stressing it out?! Their response: it's just bad genes.

In conclusion:

The more I read about it, and asked questions, I realized that everyone has their gallbladder out these days. Our diet is so awful that we destroy it. But wait- mine's not THAT bad yet. Still functioning about 7% above the average removal functioning of 30%. Great, right? Well, for me, yes. I am not one of the people who came equipped with a functioning part. My factory settings came with a handicap. My galbladder started the food consumption, fat break-down process race with bad genes.

My goal: To limit fat intake so as not to put additional stress on my already genetically stresssed-out galbladder AND while I'm at it, take out everything else that's not good for the rest of me. I want to know what I'm eating.

Why? I want those lil' piggies to go home and stay there.

Health Care on the Brain

However you feel about the Health Care Reform, I guarantee we can agree on one thing. People want to save money. Or do they? MSNBC reports that medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for a person who is obese compared to a person of normal weight.

"Overall obesity-related health spending reaches $147 billion, double what it
was nearly a decade ago, says the study published....by the journal of health
Affairs.

"Don't blame things like stomach-stapling for all those extra bills.
They instead reflect the costs of treating diabetes, heart disease and other
ailments far more common for the overweight, concluded the study by government
scientists and the nonprofit research group RTI International."

Sound convincing? Maybe. Maybe not. This was an article published in the Summer of 2009, so fairly recent, yet the study was done by government scientists and a nonprofit research group. Can we believe it? I believed it enough to keep looking, and you can too.

Imagine this: your grandparent is being treated for a relatively small handful of age-progressing ailments including adult-onset diabetes (which is now referred to as type 2 diabetes due the the increasing number of non-adults who are affected by it). Yet at the same time, your child is being treated for the same life-shortening ailments. How often does this happen? Enough to say that America has an obesity crisis and it affects EVERYONE.*

****This continues my topic of Health Care Monies, and brings up another- of children, which I will discuss more at a later date.

The NewYork Daily News in 2004 reported:

"It's dead wrong to write off weight problems as somebody else's personal
problem. We are all paying the epidemic's costs. More than 100,000
stomach-reduction operations take place annually, with insurance
companies-meaning all policyholders-under intense pressure to pick up the
tab."

And while I'm not going to walk up and blame someone for my continually increasing insurance premiums, I can take control and learn how to eat healthier, live healthier, and encourage others to do the same. We're all in this together aren't we?

18,16 and 3?

An article Good and Bad Health Habits was posted on WebMD about the health habits of Americans. They said that results from a study done 2005-2007 (which I'm sure things haven't gotten any better) regular drinkers (6 in 10) outnumber regular exercisers (3 in 10).

In 2004, the CDC announced that Obesity is approaching the top cause of preventable death!




In 2000 this is was preventable deaths in America looked like:

Tobacco -18.1%
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity -16.6%
Alcohol Consumption -3.5%

Do you see what I see?? Tobacco still kills. 6 in 10 people are regular drinkers. And Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity is quoted as the #2 KILLER. Not just on the list, but 16.6% of deaths that can be prevented are linked to unhealthy eating habits AND obesity compared to a mere 3.5% of Alcohol Consumption.

Which one will you be?
I choose None. Say "YES" to knowledge and let's change together.

Do you Trust your Chef?

I found this reading today, and thought it went along quite well. Think about that question,
"Do you trust your Chef?"
A better question might be these days,
"Do ya even know whosa cookin' yer food!?"

This article focuses on fine cuisine and answers the question by saying, "...you certainly won't if you stick to chain restaurants..." referring to the lack of evironment for creativity.

But my challenge for you is the post title's question: Do you trust your Chef? Do you know your Chef? That is one of the problems that I face. I'm NOT a good cook. But, I CAN follow a recipe. Great. I can read. But really, the challenge for me is finding recipes that don't have strange ingredients in them. I want the classics!!!

To my own credit, I must say that I've advanced quite a bit. I'll tell this story in hopes that this is not you. If it is you, then I tell you this story to give you HOPE! YOU can be your own Chef!


Okay, first: I found a Kraft recipe for delicious chicken pot pie!!
Classic right? Well, one of the ingredients was for Philadelphia Neufchatel Cheese...Neu fa what? Sooo I venture out to the store thinking it's gotta be with the cheese riiight, cheese? Is this shredded? cubed? boxed? white? blue? large? small? in a container? in a package? cold, right? or maybe it's one of those shelf cheeses!?

Not to worry, I found it, it's in a box thingy- silver to be exact, and it's a ways down from the cheese, but still in the refridgerated section- near the sour creme and such....

Since my accomplishment, I have graduated on to also use Ricotta cheese in a chicken dish as well. So see, there IS hope
BE YOUR OWN CHEF! and know what you eat.

What did you eat for Lunch today?

I had a meat turkey wrap.

Do you know what was in it?

A tortilla
Ground turkey cooked in a skillet with Valentina sauce
Slices of green peppers
Slices of onions
Cheese
Shredded lettuce on top

Are you sure??

Tortilla: Enriched bleached flour, water, vegetable shortening, less than 2% of the following: salt, nonfat milk, leavening, fumaric acid, mono and digycerdies, whey, l-cysteine

Ground turkey: turkey? I don't know, I didn't raise it, kill it, or grind it up.

Valentina sauce: Water, chili peppers, vinegar, salt, spices

Green peppers: were hormones added to help mass produce the "green-ness"

Onions: same with this one?

Cheese: Shredded cheese is mechanically shaken with a small amount of cellulose, prior to packaging. The sole purpose of adding this ingredient is to prevent the cheese shreds from sticking together and forming clumps.

Shredded Lettuce: Didn't grow this myself either.

What did you eat for Lunch today?

I don't really know.

I'm ready for my garden.