Health and Fitness September, 2013

[Harriet]

Nancy, that's wonderful. It's the staying at the better weight that is the really tough thing to do and you are doing great.

Ivy, it's always a challenge when others wish you would join them in a sweet treat, isn't it? (oooooh, baked cherries are so nice)

Harmony, good job getting those emails - I have been meaning to. Your butter/cheese concerns are different from me, it's true. I was thinking yesterday that I probably couldn't do this without just planning on a big tossed salad a day for fiber's sake, and enjoying different things on it for variety. Well, take that to (my) logical conclusion and I don't know how I could be doing a tossed salad a day without mayonnaise! And I thought about you - are you eating regular mayo, or are you trying to find a special one made differently, or avoiding it completely?

There is almost always some form of mayo in my salad dressing - no kidding. I have variety by having tuna salad over it, or having a modified 7-layer type, with no peas (just mayo, cheese, bacon), or, now, by using Cruise's shrimp recipe over it (1 tablespoon mayo, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, dill to taste, about a half-stalk of chopped celery, mixed, then mix in about 7 small cooked shrimp - the ready rings at grocery would have 3 meals worth, then- which I like to cut in half to be more bites).

I had a Har dee's (Carl's) low-carb chargrilled chicken club sandwich while out yesterday, and, depending upon which online calculator you believe for the carb count, that was between 44 and 54 sugar calories, so not a problem. (no bun on their "low-carb", just a wrap of lettuce in a wrap of wax paper) Harmony, yes, it has cheese on it, and even if you omit that, they put bacon on it - so I don't know how impossible this sounds to you. Can give a recommendation that it tasted very nice, though it was messy to eat as a sandwich - but mine was just as they make it.

Har dee's also offers a burger the same way, but it has caused me acid reflux in the past. I would like to believe it's just because of the onions and I could omit those and be okay. Wary of it. Other chains may do no-bun sandwiches - have never found out.

[Lynlee]

I tried pilates this morning.

Interesting about the sugar, added and in food.
I'm trying to remember all the Glucoseindex info. Many of the freebies are low GI. As are some of those you like like berries - from memory.
Re alt flours - I had a giggle at those grain free flours. Take a seed or nut - of course its different. You might like besan flour - thats chick pea.

Take care to keep off those things you already know to steer clear of Harmony. I've been tempted to eat things I really shouldn't have just because some diet said yes to them.

I still avoid added sugar and sugar substitutes even though GI indicates not a problem. It was off on the FM diet, as many of the things I already avoided.

[Lynlee]

PS - Ever seen a little bottle of apple juice that claims to be the juice of 5.5 apples? The juice of one apple would be more like a serve in my view.

[Harmony]

Yes, I agree, Nancy, and that's my goal too, to get down and figure out how to STAY down.

Harriet, I'm doing Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil. It is 60 cal TBSP and 2 gr carbs. Regular Mayo is way more than that I think and the fat free stuff - yuck! But I don't do a tablespoon, I do less than that.

I discovered yesterday when I was so low on my sugar count heading into the afternoon that I went mentally a little nuts and slipped off my diet. I don't think I'll be able to stay at the 100 number, and if going over it a bit keeps me from going over it a whole lot, well, that's how it must be. You have the advantage of feeling full with fats and cheeses, etc., that I don't have right now. Try doing this while cutting fat/cholesterol down and I'll bet you'd find it very tough.

My cholesterol is probably up due to the thyroid, as that's all part of the metabolism of cholesterol.... and I don't have a handle on that yet or the knowledge of how much fat I can eat...and I don't think the dr. will be a good source of information about this either. Speaking of cheeses, I checked and the carb count on fat free cottage cheese is higher than cheddar, which was not fat free.

So there's my conundrum in the whole thing. I had oatmeal today with a little dollop of sugar free applesauce, and that puts me way up on sugar but at least I'm not feeling binge-y.

Lynlee, yeah 5.5 apples seems a bit much. What were the carbs in that bottle, and how big was the bottle? You are in a similar boat with a whole bunch of stuff that you can't eat. I don't now how you do it.

[Nancy]

I did have bacon need to be using that up, and two fried eggs, on slice cheese.
Plus a granola bar. Two mini dark chocolate bars. Pms-y this week. Rode ten mi.on ex. Bike.
Cleaned chicken run.

[Twins' Mom]

Harrrumph. I am tracking using the WW tools all of a day and a half now, but am going over the daily pts allowance and into the the "extra" weekly points pretty hard. I figure I'll get the hang of this - I've not eaten fast food, french fries or a lot of other things I was eating pretty consistently so I am eating less than I was. Sober reminder of how many calories, points, fat, et al is in the foods that I eat often.

Yes, I get extra points by exercising and the little stroll with ddogs hardly counts anymore with Macs lollygagging. Kathryn suggested awhile back that I need consistent, hard exercise daily and I am thinking I need to join the local Y - less than a mile away. Before I go, I need to find out if dh wants a household membership or I should join as an individual, also I need to figure out whether I want to be able to go to any Y in town or just the closest one.

I also asked dh to set our treadmill back up upstairs.

[Harriet]

Finally a review, lol! The "2 Minute Cake" is a nice little 1-serving chocolate cake using almond flour and a stevia baking blend for sweetness. It's a bit dry, which I suspected when I saw J. Cruise cutting into it in his youtube video about it for the N. Y. Post. I garnished it with a few raspberries and found that that was just enough extra moisture to make it really tasty, plus the raspberries looked pretty on the plate over the round cake serving. (raspberries are super low in sugar calories) He suggests you could also garnish with whipped cream, which of course he has no problem using.

Beware of some of the inaccurate printed copies of this recipe on the net, which assume (because of the name) that you bake for 2 minutes. No. The recipe name means : 1 minute prep + 1 minute bake = 2 minutes. That's very clear in his video. Don't smoke your kitchen up like I did the first time!

It certainly took me more than 1 minute to prep, but then you are refrigerating 3/4 of the batter and using the other fourths later, so it probably does work out to a minute prep average.

I did cook this evening - turkey. But lunch time found me racing around again, and I was grateful to, of all places, McD's, who had a grilled chicken salad that worked fine.

[Lynlee]

Harmony - I just googled - 3-4 apples make a cup of juice. I think The bottle was about 350ml or 375ml so thats about right. By my reconning a serve would be 1/4 - 1/3 a cup given that how often would we sit down to eat 3 - 4 apples at a sitting.

Re sticking to my diet - for me it means stopping headaches, muscle tension, doubled up screaming with gut pain, mouth ulcers, sores on my tongue, stinking gas, bleeding to touch my personal bits, black - bleeding in my gut. Add to that periodontal problems and low blood sugar if I don't attend to it . That's apart from feeling ill, angry, with mixed up thinking. I need to question my sanity if I don't want to look after my food selection given that I know what happens, and that it takes little atm to be "too much".

To the person who mentioned sulphur food problems - add leek, cabbage, potato, and all the sulphite preservatives - 220 - 228.
http://fedup.com.au/factsheets/blog

[Harmony]

Lynlee, I guess all those problems keeps you motivated to do the right things with your diet. I've at least got my acid reflux under control somewhat and that is huge for me.

Don't know what's happened, but since I tried to do that sugar thing I've completely failed to keep the diet. I was doing so good before. I am going back a step to my original plan and will try that a couple days. I'm sure it's something mental triggered, and I don't know yet, but it's not good.

[Harriet]

((Harmony)), dstepdil and I were just talking about the mental aspect, and whether it's better if a way-of-eating asks you to do less, or do more (she is trying to eat 5 small meals a day, 3 hours apart, according to an author she saw on Dr. Oz, and failing because it seems to be asking too much of her mentally, and she can't understand why she feels this way). Also, how we can get off-track, how I kind of gave up on healthy habits for a couple months after my ddad's death and yet now surprise myself with how ready I am to recommit, all those things.

We are not computers or robots! Please just head right back to what was working and keep it up or change again later if it suits you. There are so many ways to get to where you want to go! I suspect that with worry about trying to avoid whole other types of foods like dairy, you found it hard to be satisfied limiting from yet another direction. If you were feeling hungry, that will make you nervous, for one thing. Antsy.

Lynlee, you are such a good example of sensible, consistent eating, and researching what is right or wrong for you. I hate that it's been so hard on you until you figured it all out, though.

HRH has received from urologist a list of "no-nos" for those who may be prone to his type of kidney stone. Oddities on here you would never think of such as nuts, which especially makes him sad, since he loves nuts. We add this to the list of "no-nos" about gout. Sigh. And if he would like to continue to eat at least vegetarian if not vegan, to support healthy blood sugar, we add in the list of "no-nos" about that. I told him he needs a computer program to feed all this into and see if it can make menus that are alright with every list.

Today I ate a skinny muffin with blueberries, and since dstepson's family was visiting and wanted to bring take-out for lunch, I chose the Har dee's chargrilled chicken low carb again and fit right in. For supper a big tossed salad. Today I resisted ice cream and it wasn't too tough at all. I just concentrated on enjoying the conversation with everyone instead.