Health and Fitness February 2011

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Nancy: Mopping and vacuuming really get my heart rate up. I count it as low intensity exercise and take my WW points for it because I work up a 'glow' and get slightly breathless.

Dove, I'll set my NT up in the next day or two and see where I hung on. I remember hanging on but now that you mention only the tummy cushion, I can't think of where I hung on.

[Nancy]

It's going to be up to 52* if the forecast is right no granny duty.
So I'm hoping to get a walk in here.

[Twins' Mom]

Today is the first food challenge of tax season - we have bagel, muffins and fresh fruit on Sat mornings. I just checked and the wheat Panera bagel (which is probably the best choice!) is 19 WW points now - about half my points for the day, and that's before any cream cheese! Whew. Trying to think this through but it sounds like I need to resist.

Last night for supper I made myself a two egg omelet with feta, roasted red peppers from a jar and (packed in water) artichoke hearts. Very nice for 6 points total. The last my doc mentioned, the American Heart Assn recommendation for eggs was that 5 eggs a week are okay - since a boiled egg is one of my favorite 2 point snacks, I'll need to cut back on eggs if I make an omelet.

I'm not getting on the treadmill this morning so I can get on to work sooner - since I'm running late anyway. (Okay, I usually don't worry about when I get there on a Saturday.) I'm counting on myself to do the treadmill this afternoon or evening.

[Nancy]

Walking and shopping was my exercise yesterday.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dh and I did a major hike on Saturday and walked for the mail on Sunday. We were kind of stumbling along on the walk because our legs were sore from Saturday's slipping and sliding in the deep snow (should have had snow shoes on.)

Today I'm on the treadmill. Yesterday I blew my diet while at church from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. At least the items all tasted great! I skipped potato for dinner and ate tons of salad instead but had two blueberry tarts in the evening so ended up at about even for calories but with less nutrition.

I figure I've now blown the program for the week but will continue to point everything.

I think dh and I might be coming down with colds. We are quite congested at night. So I need to take things easier for a bit.

Tomorrow is really busy so today is the day to slow down if there is going to be a slow day.

[Indiana]

Dove I'm way behind here. You have gotten excellent information on equipment.

I noticed you said you got dizzy after exercise.

Besides seeing your doctor about it. Feeling dizzy after exercise can be from being dehydrated, not breathing (my thing), not cooling down long enough or your blood pressure is dropping while exerxising (my major thing). If you make sure you have a chair at hand sit down and put your head between your knees to bring blood back to your head.

Those may help but see your doctor.

[Harriet]

So much great advice on treadmill/activity here. Hope everyone stays well!

HRH brought home the new (Feb) Reader's Digest because he knew I would be interested that the cover story (with an egg-bacon breakfast smilie face) is about low-carb eating and it favorably mentions the book I bought on new-Atkins. This guy's book that RD condensed will be titled, "Why We Get Fat - and what to do about it". He agrees that low-carb eating is the way to avoid gaining weight, with his premise that our ancestors never experienced processed bread, rice, pasta or sugar, and we should consider them unnatural foods to which we would not subject our bodies. He's also against corn and root veggies (most of them high-starch) but doesn't have as clear a reasoning about them. He says our ancestors ate meat every chance they got. He believes it is impossible to rely on calorie counting to cure the world's long-term obesity ills, because just a mistake of 20 calories a day (2 extra sips of a cola) would still add 20 pounds in 20 years from age 20 to age 40, which is the average for everybody now.

Here is the quote HRH found compelling: "What we tell people to do to lose weight - eat less and exercise - is exactly what you'd do if you wanted to make yourself hungry." He illustrates this with what people do when they are looking forward to a special meal that evening - they will eat much less during the day and "work up an appetite" with activity, to be very hungry for the special meal. The quote I found compelling - "The past 40 or 50 years, obesity research has basically been an attempt to explain why obese people just don't have the moral rectitude of lean people without actually saying that. I'ts terribly damaging. It's inexcusable." He says we should all become aware that the true difference is how sensitive each one's cells are to insulin and specifically how sensitive your fat cells are versus your muscle cells.

So this was really interesting to me in this week right after I quit low-carb, LOL. Our supper menu is spaghetti. LOL. Best I can do is use the partly-whole-grain noodles.

I had a sweet potato breakfast and crowder-pea lunch. For lunch's dessert I had puffy Cheetos. Doesn't everybody have Cheetos for lunch?

[Dove]

Thanks for the tips on dizziness, Indi. I printed them & will bring them to the basement for quick reference when we set up a treadmill down there. I only ever got dizzy when walking on the treadmill. It has never been a problem while walking briskly outside, trotting up & down stairs, etc. I always assumed it was a motion sickness type issue, only without the nausea. But thinking back, I don't think I was drinking water beforehand, or cooling down.

Harriet, I agree with both your quote & the quote that resonated with HRH. It just popped into my head, though, that our portions are so much bigger than they were in the 40's, 50's & 60's when most people were a normal weight. Back in those days coffee was in a small china cup, not a huge mug, dinner plates were the size of todays lunch plates, meals were more often made from scratch & not fast food or box mixes loaded with fat & sodium. People walked & played outdoors so much more.

I remember being dumbfounded when talking with dro & dsil several years ago. One of dnieces was overweight & they were shifting the blame to HER --saying that she needed to make healthier choices. But she was only 6 or 7 years old at the time! Being so young, she naturally preferred cookies to apples. They were not teaching her about healthy eating, modeling good eating habits or limiting her access to snacks.

[Harmony]

Sunny and I were just talking together about how much walking we used to do. I used to walk 2 miles back and forth to high school when the weather was nice, just to save a dime busfare! She used to walk all the way into the big city, 5 miles! I used to walk the other way into a shopping district, over 2 miles I think. Springtime was when we got our bikes out and there was hopscotch in the street and badminton all the time, plus I never knew anybody who had a riding lawn mower. Ours was a reel push type. Summers were spent at the municipal swimming pool. In colder weather Friday evenings or Sat. mornings were spent going round and round and round the skating rink. And Sunny and I both were skinny skinny girls!

I think I like the bike riding because it doesn't feel like exercise. It is simply something nice to do. I almost feel like a kid again. When DGKs are here I wistfully long to be on their skateboards and scooters. We all know how that turned out when I did try! I've actually really wanted to try inline skates as I used to love roller skating. If we had a rink nearby I think I might actually go again. I was always good on 4 wheels.

Regular exercise or videos, well I can make myself for a while. But I don't like it enough to continue. Even after months of doing it over and over and over.

I actually might like something like dancing with a group, etc. Now that might be fun. Some things I don't do because DH can't with bum ankle. Like taking walks, I'd be alone. Maybe square dancing...if he could...which he can't.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I think the statement "Our ancestors ate meat every chance they got" is correct BUT the year the hog got away by breaking through the fence and my MIL's siblings captured it and put it in the shed, that was their only pork for the whole winter. For a family of 9. I don't care how big that hog was, there is no way they could have had pork even just 3 nights a week for 7 months if they were served even 3 oz of meat each. In this case, the tragedy was that there was rat killer in the shed, the hog ate it and died and they had no pork that year. And pork was the only red meat they could afford to raise so they had no red meat that whole year.

Yes, they ate meat whenever they had it but they didn't have much unless they hunted/fished/farmed it themselves. And as a result of all that effort, their portion sizes were way smaller than ours are.

Dh and I had beef tenderloins on Sunday. Believe it or not, that's a diet food in our house. The steaks are 3 oz each (and look pathetically small on the plate) so are actually quite low in calories when grilled. But the quality of the meat is so high, the small quantity is very satisfying. The 8 - 12 oz chili I had at lunch on Sunday had way more calories because there was no portion control and it was obvious from looking at it that it wasn't a pound of beef stretched with beans, carrots and other veggies but some beans and onions tossed into a large amount of ground beef. And I could have eaten way more because despite having a salad and roll with it, I was still not satiated.

And this guys argument completely falls apart when he starts to diss starchy root vegetables. It is their starch that made our ancestors feel full. In Asia, the role of starch is performed by rice.

I agree, get rid of all processed foods (not that I have.) But I'm not keen on eating unlimited amounts of meat unless I go back to caveman lifestyle without car, instant heat and a solid roof over my head. If I had to live constantly on the move (following the food source as it migrated), scrounging fuel for cooking and heat, I bet I could eat a lot more than I do now and still lose weight. But I don't.

So I'll stick with the old WW points program (the starchy vegetables no longer are considered vegetables on the new program). Portion control (self imposed because there are no limits to available food in my life), lots of movement (to approach the movement my ancestors had), and as much unprocessed food as possible.

I need to get back to thinking of restaurant/take-out food as a once a week or two exception and not a twice weekly entry on my meal plan (Chinese for dh and pizza on Friday night) plus eating out at least one or two other times per week.