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.
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! :)
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.)
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.
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.
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?
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:
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.
Speaking of Grocery-store spending, my friend let me borrow her 
