Health and Fitness January, 2016

[Harmony]

Oh Harriet, that is really hysterical. The Mom is so very non-nonchalant as she's talking with the poor son! I had no idea it was on utube, thanks for posting it. I hope LadyM and Lucylee look at it!

[LadyMaverick]

Harriet - That is a gem find! I love the video. It was perfect.

I don't know how to put my eating needs before others. I mean I know HOW, but I just can't seem to do it. I prepare 3 meals a day on most days, plus a snack for LO. We typically eat at set times (7am, noon, 5pm). I have breakfast menus fairly well planned and portion controlled. Other meals are getting there.

My problem is the other food that I don't plan. Yesterday DH and LO came into the house TWICE with chips they had just bought. My weakness. I am a chip-o-holic. I can easily eat a whole big bag of potato chips. I'm not proud of that. I am embarrassed by my lack of will power. The potato chip people invented that saying "you can't eat just one" because of people like me. I will speak to DH again about this. DH thinks it is showing love by bringing me something that I obviously like. LO was so excited to bring me a bag of my favorite chips. I smiled because of his joy, gave him a hug and then was left holding a bag of chips in my hand. REALLY?!!!! yug. I MUST LEARN SELF CONTROL regardless of my surroundings and emotions.

This afternoon I will spend 3 hours surrounded by junk food. Making/selling fresh hot popcorn, CHIPS, candy, etc. I will resist. I will.

I refuse to give up.

Tiny habits. I reeeeaaaallllyyy like that idea. I have had great success with tiny habits in other parts of my life. I need to think how to apply tiny habits to these unplanned eating snafus.

[Harriet]

DH thinks it is showing love by bringing me something that I obviously like.

Very much aware of this in my life, too. Also, others bring gifts of sweets I love, but would have simply walked past in the store myself. HRH makes extra-extra of starchy things that are fine for him, specifically so that I will have plenty, such as potatoes or rice, when I need only a small portion. (Of course he always makes way too much of any dish he prepares - he says it is probably a vestige of childhood when he only got enough to eat at his grandmother's.)

A web trail led me to Jamie Oliver yesterday. Have seen him along with others, or specifically for school programs, but not on his own that much. His TED talk, several years back, is a very worthwhile 15 mins that we hadn't seen before except in excerpts in other video. It got dd17 to stop and watch, commenting.

His concept for healthy homes is more from-scratch cooking than I do, certainly. And I'd have to question whether there are minutes in my life to do that much more. But a few of the ideas on his website do make me think about it. Also, he cautions (and I've heard this from others, of course) that generationally, families reach a point at which the next generation has not been taught from-scratch cooking, which would never have been what any of the various generations would have wanted.

[Harmony]

LadyM, I can only tell you what works for me, YMMV.

I often use a smaller plate or a saucer to put my food on. When it comes to chips, I get out a small plastic container and fill that and put the bin away. I give myself permission to eat all of my little container. DH and I do not eat meals together a lot of the time. You have a greater challenge as I do not cook breakfast or lunch. If I'm not hungry, I don't eat just because it's mealtime. At dinner, I do cook or fix up leftovers. If I'm loading both plates, I don't automatically pile as much on mine as on DH's. He has been physical and needs more calories. If I'm hungry before he comes home (often he's late) I go ahead and eat and fix his plate, cover with alum. foil and put in a warm oven. Then I just sit with him and eat my salad or drink my coffee.

Sweets call to me. When I get cookies for him at the store I purposely do not get the kind that I absolutely love. And I'm a visual eater, if I see something constantly I'm going to eat it. Sometimes without thinking. Our clear cookie canister which sits out is a problem for me. Someday I'm going to solve that.

I have solved my supermarket binge on the way home by buying 1 cheese stick (I love cheese) but an individual bag of chips would work if you do this. I've seen all this food and want something NOW.

Problem: because of the way I'm eating now, when I get hungry I need food NOW. DH doesn't get this and if we're out it's a problem. He doesn't want to stop, I must.

Well we have very different lifestyles. I don't know if any of this would work for you. I don't always eat the same things as DH either. Last night I left the meat off my plate as I'd had meat at lunch.

I don't know. It's all hard. Motivation is in our heads, we must figure out a way to put it there and KEEP it there.

I am stuck at the edge of 150. But this is typical for me. I go up and down within a pound for a few days up to a week before the scale budges a little. I'm plugging along with it.

[LadyMaverick]

Motivation is in our heads, we must figure out a way to put it there and KEEP it there

Such wise words! Thank you for sharing what works for you. I am soaking it up.

I started working on a "vision board". The center of it is WHY. I am working on mind mapping the why's.
My goal is to create a vision board that focuses on how I want to feel, to think, to be.

I have barely started this process, but I am already reaping benefits. I heard my self talk when I started preparing the 3 meals today. Each time I heard myself thinking "how would a healthy, slender person prepare this meal?"

[Nancy]

Walked w ddog short walk. Groc. Shopping done couting it for my ex. Today.

[Harmony]

Oh, ha ha, just do what I say not what iI DO! Today was a complete disaster.

I started out well with my cooked oat bran cereal with prunes. Good.

Dinner, my goodness. DH had brought in a big package of chicken drumsticks. I groaned inside when I saw it. I knew what he wanted. So finally today I made them. He would have been so disappointed if I had taken all the skin off them and cooked them some way...so I breaded and fried all but 4 of them. After I had them browned I put them on a grill pan in the oven to bake. The other 4 I took most of the skin off and put them in to bake that way.

Then I got out the leftover mashed potatoes and fixed them with flour and spices and parm. cheese into patties and fried them in the chicken oil (I used olive oil). Then I put them in the oven to cook with the chicken.

And I ate 2 of the potato cakes and 1 baked and 1 fried chicken leg. The only bright spot in the meal was fresh green beans from the garden which were delicious, and I put "fake" butter on mine.

Told DH if I cooked like this all the time we'd probably have died of heart attacks years ago. I hardly ever do this. But he walked in the door with this tray of chicken legs... what do we do with family who sabotages our efforts? No I didn't have to eat what I did, he wouldn't have cared.

LadyM, it IS definitely harder when one is cooking all the time. I do a lot of big meals and leftovers so I'm not focusing on food all the time. Heating up the plate doesn't keep one's mind on food all the time. I think that's easier. I just couldn't cook all this good stuff and eat none of it.

[LadyMaverick]

Hum......Okay. I'm clueless. I would have thought that was a fairly good meal. Protein (chicken) with 2 vegetables (potato and green beans). Under 500 calories?

For breakfast this morning I prepared quick Smoothies using Sugar Free nutritional powder. I try not to cook on Sunday so I usually rotate different styles/kinds of smoothies. Breakfast = 300 calories

I didn't have any of the donuts at church. I didn't have any of the cookies we handed out to the little ones. I mostly stayed away (couple hand fulls before I realized what I was doing) of the bucket full of buttered popcorn LO gave me (he was learning about manna).

Lunch was with DFriends at local cafe. LO was having a rare melt-down and I didn't have time to think. The waitress was in process of taking the groups order, so I just told them to order us both a hamburger as I was leaving the table with LO. I did have them bring me a salad for a side.....that was my attempt at being healthy by adding a vegetable. Best guess was 800 calories for the meal. Maybe more.

Dinner is at DMoms tonight. She loves to cook and it is usually high carb. I eat whatever she serves without complaint. I do try my best to limit portion of high calorie/carb food and fill my plate with vegetables. Although DMom's vegetables are heavily seasoned using sugar and butter......so not sure how much better the decision is to have bigger portions of those.

Even though I want to do better it seems I am stuck in a rut. I am not blaming anyone else. I am an adult and can opt to change, but I don't seem to be making any progress..

[Nancy]

I did 20 on the ex. Bike. Heard Omega 3 helps with cracked hands so will be having fish this week more hoping it helps. I have done 20 min. on the gazelle.

[Harmony]

Well, LadyM, I am trying to get my cholesterol down. DH's is sky high too but he won't alter his diet. Anyway, leaving the skin on the chicken isn't cool, neither is frying it in anything. I fried those potatoes I'd made into cakes and added parm. cheese to it. The baked chicken leg for me would have been ok, at least not too bad, because I'd removed as much skin as I could from those. All the fat/cholesterol in poultry is in the skin.

We hardly ever do anything fried here. I only pan saute things a bit to brown occasionally. DH would have everything fried if I'd cook that way!

Mostly for potatoes we have baked, and I have problems with mashed because I really really want to put butter on mine.

It's funny, but later that evening, I could feel the difference in my tummy. And the next day I was up at least 2 lbs, though that came off the next day.

Last evening we had fish fry with small group. The fish was healthy, not so much the coating and frying part, though it was well-drained. I had just a couple small pieces. The rest of the meal was ok with what people brought, I just tried to keep my portions small of things like the rye bread, etc. This morning I was back down, thankfully, because after 2 days of eating like this I was afraid to get on the scale.

I lose weight very slowly and I'll just bet it's because I don't move enough. I need to work on that because I seem to be stuck and can't get down from the 150's.