Health and Fitness January, 2015

[LadyMaverick]

RR - I am soooooooooooooo happy for your success this past year! YGG!

(I have tossed most of the Christmas snacks and baking

I am still a little bit shocked I did this and haven't told anyone about it other than DH. When DH family came to our house Christmas Day I had a 8' table to hold sweets. Several brought homemade treats and the table was completely covered with multiple kinds of fudge, multiple kinds of cookies, rise crispy treats, fruit pastries, cake and a couple pies. While the family was here, I sampled several homemade goodies and they were SOOOO GOOD!! When family members started leaving I tried to give them the sweets they brought, but they all said to keep the goodies and enjoy them. When I started putting things away, I looked at the table and knew it represented nothing but impossible to resist temptation resulting in weight gain & spiking blood sugar. Soooooooo.....my secret is......before I could lose my will power, I got a 50 gallon trash bag and dumped the entire contents of the 8' sweet table into it. The bag was HEAVY to the point I thought it might break, which helped me stay strong. I didn't want that heavy weight to end up ON ME and I didn't want DH diabetes to go out of control! Before I could change my mind, I dragged the filled trash bag OUT the door doing away with all those homemade goodies.

My drinking recipe experiments continue.....I love vinegar and sometimes drink it straight. However in the drink recipe I tried yesterday I found ACV smell was too strong. I liked the taste but found myself dodging the smell each time I opened the top to my drinking bottle. Today I made the same drink but used lemon juice instead of vinegar. I'm totally enjoying this lemon flavored drink (taste & smell).

[Twins' Mom]

We are home from getting ds back to GT. After dropping him off we walked through IKEA so I'm up to 7400 steps. I've already walked dogs so will go upstairs to treadmill to finish to 10K.

[Harriet]

Because of early rehearsal time at church, I went along with dd's idea of a drive through. Bacon, egg and cheese is fine until you put it on a (delish) croissant. I fear adding that early sweet bread to the social, stressful day was an undoing. Back home I joined HRH in pasta (not bad in and of itself) but then later I napped and awakened without good common sense and agreed to eat one of the biscuits family had coming out of the oven. I did have a low-cal frozen bitsy meal with veggies, but it also had pasta. Out of the blue, I ate two pieces of (airy) candy! Why did I DO that? Sweets lead to sweets.

Anyway, I chose wisely on our grocery shopping trip so upcoming days can be better. I did the Basic workout today. Other healthy habits did get accomplished.

LadyM, if you would still like to try that drink and avoid the odor, a lidded cup would help, with a straw or just the kind with an opening? On disposing of all that - sometimes the immediate decision is the best way to go.

Good job on snow walk and snow shoveling, Nancy.

Ramblin' I hope you had a good workout today, and fun. Congratulations on your year-over-year weight change.

[LadyMaverick]

I'm giving Almond Milk a try. Most of the THM recipes call for it. I know there is strong opinion about dairy/soy/nut milks but I'm not getting into that. I did do a comparison of the nutritional value of between Whole Milk and Almond Milk with the result being Almond Milk scoring better in 19 of the 22 categories compared. I don't care for the taste of any of the milks so I use as little milk as possible, usually only in recipes. Until I decided whether to continue using Almond milk, I will continue to buy "regular" milk for DH and LO.

Weight is slowly headed downward although I'm still trying to figure out THM plan. I continue my effort establishing THM breakfast weekly menu and also the drinks.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Lady Maverick WTG on dealing with the sweet table! I've tossed a few of the last cookies, etc. but am still having trouble dealing with the chocolate. Will make a decision by February on whether or not to keep it in the apartment. I keep thinking I can take it to pot lucks, but really, I won't.

Unfortunately, I'm working my way through several of the good boxes of them. Not proud of that but I have subbed them in for my morning chocolate.

My cold is progressing and I'm firmly in the cough and runny nose stage. Sigh....

[Harriet]

Almond milk, unsweetened but vanilla flavor, is HRH's choice after a lot of wondering, LadyM, and he has found the Silk brand is a little more pleasing to him than the Almond Breeze brand (the two most available here). I like it fine on cereals, but in my coffee it's just not what I'm looking for, lol, so I keep my container of cream on hand. Dd buys lactaid-free dairy milk. Of the non-dairy choices for my pudding, the coconut milk was really not bad, but almond a disappointment in changing texture - don't know exactly why.

HRH had another slight downer of a dr's visit today. Our gen prac is a friend and wasn't happy enough with A1C this time to ignore his worries, so HRH agreed to another med. Again, this is the weakest dose of the weakest med, but that makes two "weakest dose" new meds in a short time, so it's demoralizing. This is for 6 weeks, though, not permanent. He has never had to be on meds because of an A1C reading, and it simply doesn't compute to me, since his daily readings are obviously on an improving course. But there is extra worry in his case because of the kidneys.

HRH also got that "lose weight now, because after you are 60 we want you to stay the same" speech. That is so interesting to me - I just never heard it before, but actually with all my eldercare, overweight had never been a factor, so maybe I just never encountered the AMA party line on this. Or maybe this is new? Anyway, HRH was pleased that dr suggested he not bother losing more than a couple more pounds even now, because dr thinks he's at a good weight, taking his high muscle-to-fat composition into account. As a matter of fact, target weight dr gave him was 2 pounds lighter than this a.m.'s weight. So there is success, too.

[Twins' Mom]

As I said in PWYC, it's not been a great day for getting in my steps. Three laps around the circle with ddogs just put me up to 8300. I am going to change shoes and go upstairs and finish up on treadmill to 10K NOW. Afraid if I collapse for now I won't get it done.

[Nancy]

Have now had candy for a week. Took a walk today for my
exerise.

[LadyMaverick]

Yesterday I experimented with Quinoa. I have never eaten it before so I didn't know how the finished product should look/taste. So, I followed directions and hoped for the best. We ate it plain but I think it would be better in a dish mixed with other ingredients.

I have the treadmill set up now but haven't used it yet. Yesterday I was at 8K steps with just doing housework. I have MOUNDS of paperwork that have to be dealt with in the near future which will force me to sit still. I'm going to use the treadmill to help raise my step count in those times I am force to remain sitting.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I'm still not tracking food fully but I'm tracking some.

And all of the easily grabbed junk food from the holidays is gone. Except for the crackers and half a case of Pepsi (my present from CM.)

Because of the cold, I haven't made it to the pool yet this year. On the other hand, I'm still averaging 10K steps a day. Yesterday we didn't even leave the building but I did a lot of tidying so was moving around here a lot, plus 1.5 miles on the treadmill and a trip down to the storage locker and garbage room.