Health and Fitness, April, 2009

[Harriet]

Welcome! This is a thread about gaining and maintaining strength for our wonderful calling, Homemaking. As we care for our own health, we grow more capable and competent to care for our families, our neighbors and our communities. As we become more effective, our hopes for ourselves and those we care about get the best chance!

We've posted recently about following healthful lifestyle changes, challenges we have given ourselves, getting sensible medical care/tests/proactive steps, trying to form good habits like enough sleep or hydration, trying to break some other habits and creating healthy meals. Please join right in!

[trish]

I am joining you in welcoming a new month. My goal for this month is a 5 pound weight loss.
Harriet, I will answer the what do I eat question. I eat lots of oatmeal, fruit, yogurt, fish, spinach and other veggies, a little poultry, peanut butter and olive oil for fats, ocasional whole wheat bread or potato. I have occasional not clean eating but mostly God made as you phrase it and I like that phrase.

[Harriet]

Okay, I just realized I never thanked BookSaver for coming along last month and saying SENSIBLE THINGS to us. That's helpful.

lucylee and I are looking around and wondering if Harmony is peddling or walking lately.

Smile Lee, there may not have been much water weight in that loss - we definitely eat several pounds of food a day, remember. How will your raw diet most differ from your regular diet - I'm thinking you will avoid animal products. Hope its going very well. So you are on every-day with the standing/floor/aerobic. I am a pretty firm EOD gal, but go to short workouts ED sometimes. Wondering if we are doing the same standing or floor and what you do for aerobic.

trish, I had just bought a new can of McCann's Irish Oatmeal at Fresh Market before I saw your post, but you inspired me to cook some down on the stove today. BESTEST BREAKFAST EVER (and I do not say these things lightly) just went into my happy mouth. I only wish I'd done it before dd had her grape nuts and left for school. I put in a tablespoonful of brown sugar after cooking (made a half-batch of the can's recipe, with 2 cups water and 1/2 cup oats, so that's plenty sweet) and added cut up strawberries in my bowl. Oh my stars. I had to go back for seconds! (That's not good, is it? )

I have been thinking in terms of the very healthiest grains as HRH and I explore the idea of adding vegetarian meals (we won't become vegetarians, but will go meal by meal). He has had some health scares lately - some were bogus diagnoses, but some were potentially important clues - and we are reading up on the very healthiest nutrition for him. He has been off sugar (except for some that may have been in bread) for almost 3 weeks (yay, him!) and says he feels better because of it (so I need to find a different sweetener for my oatmeal, don't I?!!).

Oh, those of us in the "I'd like to lose a few pounds" column are happy to have you, trish. Also helia will be rejoining us after Easter and she had been thinking along those lines, too.

As of this morning (so, a little late, but closer than last month!) I have lost the two "March pounds".
My plan is to lose 2 pounds per month for 4 months Feb to May and end up June 1 back to my happy weight. (Some winter padding happened. It's all good. )

"Medical stuff" check in - had my mammogram.

[Smile*Lee]

Harriet ~ I looked back at my post. I guess it was a bit obscure.

My 3-day-rotation looks like this:
Monday - standing - Ladybug TWO
Tuesday - floor - Ladybug floor
Wednesday - cardio - Step Away the Inches
Thursday - standing - Tempo 2 or Tempo Lower Body TWO
Friday - floor - Tempo Lower Body floor - I also have Maxi-Max 3, so I'm going to review that again.
Saturday - cardio - Step Away the Inches - working back up to Step It To the Max
Sunday - whatever I want -- maybe walking or swimming or biking

After I get back up to full strength - I want to put the standing and floor together for Monday & Thursday and do weights on Tuesday and Friday. I'm finding my body is really liking this 3-day-rotation.

My 30-day RAW consists of trying to eat mostly raw foods: fresh fruits & veggies, fresh juices, fruit smoothies, green smoothies, raw soups, salads, raw oils such as avocados, nuts, raw sweetenings such as dates. I do use Udo's oil for my salad dressings.

No junk/processed foods. Minimal meat - clean as possible. Minimal dairy - maybe a little cheese in my salads once in awhile. Minimal pastas, breads, etc., trying to keep that whole grain as possible. Minimal grains.

Long term goals: 60 - 75 % raw, adding in whole grains and lean meats.

I implement it by keeping raw up through the day up till supper, making sure I have a salad for supper. I might eat a little steamed veggies or meat - sometimes not.

I've also reduced my caffeine intake enormously.

You can get lots of info on htpp://www.rawdivas.com and http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com. Lots of other good sites out there, but these are very good intros. Check out the blogs too.

[sherinjoy]

Harriet - Just had to reply to your discovery of McCann's Oatmeal - I love it! I've been eating it every morning for breakfast for about 2 years (except on vacation). I cook a 4 cup water/1 cup cereal mixture and then store it in the fridg, and scoop out my morning portion and heat it in the micro. It usually lasts about 5/6 days each batch. I just have it with a little milk, no sugar. Sticks to the ribs and usually lasts me until 10:30 am (I eat breakfast at 6:30 am), and then I have a banana for a snack until lunch. Glad you like it too - I haven't been able to convert my DS or DH yet to it's greatness.

[Harriet]

sherinjoy, do you ever have fruit in it - this was my first addition of fruit and each bite was sooo good. I've almost got dstepson31 recruited! LOL! He doesn't care for "instant" but likes Quaker regular, so he was fascinated when I opened the can and showed him you can find real unprocessed oats to cook rather than flakes. Dvetneighbor told me about McCanns - she keeps it on hand in fridge like you do, I think.

Okay, just to draw a parallel for anyone who wonders how advanced Smile Lee is in her workouts.... ... since you already have a pretty good idea how advanced I am, right?
...ahem... ...
(stop giggling, now, make a serious face! honestly! I could be advanced. It could happen!)

(this is T-Tapp workout-speak, btw)

times I've been able to do Maxi Max 3 in my LIFE : 2
floor workout I've mentioned here that makes me fall OFF the floor : the one Smile does every Friday!
how I look after Ladybug : like an actual ladybug, but upside down and no longer kicking



Smile, my Step Away The Inches VHS shredded. Dd29 has me the DVD and keeps telling me she's going to bring it to me but for two visits has forgotten it both times. Sigh! Can we say, sidetracked!

I brave the ones you mention when I feel adventurous but throw in a lot of Beginner-Rehabilitative (EODay), which has been my bread-n-butter over the last 7 years, my great fav. Recently have been studying floor form with the pretzel/awesome/diva dvd released for form tips at the end of last year.

Was SO consistent during February, which was my full come-back month after an autumn back injury, but hit "the virus wall" in March. Like you mention, we just keep pulling ourselves back to full strength, that's the ticket. For years after I started T-Tapp, no virus touched me, but everyone says this one was really, really bad, so I guess we can't have everything.

That's about how I was thinking your raw days would go - good job. I enjoy cutting avocado into a tossed salad, btw. Didn't think of the minimal grains. Dates - hmmm... ... bet a little of those would be all I'd need for oatmeal sweetening.

[trish]

I love oatmeal with fruit in it and it sticks to your ribs for awhile which is a bonus when you are trying to remove a few pounds. I never thought about it but I do eat a lot of raw foods. And oatmeal. And fish... yes, I like to eat. lol.
Harriet, I have started doing fish more often especially the omega 3 fish is so heart healthy. We also do beans a meal or two so we don't eat meat as often as we used to.

[Smile*Lee]

I'm definitely going to have to incorporate the McCann's into my diet after my 30 Days. I LOVE fish too! And beans! and rice! Another garbage gut here. lol. The reason why I'm focusing so much on raw right now is that I got into really crappy eating habits over the last few months. I just feel better when the biggest percentage of my diet is raw.

advanced... umm... I don't think so. lol! I just go "to my max". It's been so long since I've done MaxMax3, I don't even remember what's on it. LOL!
I DO love the LadyBug floor and the Tempo 2. Definitely get the Tempo 2 if you get a chance. It's got great form tweaks and added moves that take Tempo to the next level. Diva Derrierre is a killer to learn, but once you learn it --- omg --- you can feel the workout deep into your waist and ab muscles.

I was pretty out of shape when I started back this time around. Lots of out of town family stuff was going on in November/December. I came down with 4 stupid viruses in January/February. It totally sucked.

One thing I've learned with T-Tapp is that it is so comprehensive. With the form & muscle memory that I've built in 6 years -- if I go a long time without consistent workouts and try to go full strength back into it, my muscles get so sore that I actually feel ill. (Umm.. that might be because I'm in my 50's. lol!) So... I have to really pull back in my intensity till I can feel my strength building back up.

I missed my workout today. I'll see how I feel tomorrow whether I just do the standing or the standing/floor combo.

[lucylee]

Jan. 5 -- 160
Feb. 2 -- 159.5
Mar. 2 -- 156
April 6 -- 155 * whew *

Committing today to increased water intake and daily exercise.
Goal -- 8 glasses water, 20 min. walk/walk away pounds.
There. Maybe if I post it on here, I'll be more accountable.

[Harriet]

Had to come in here and smile smugly at that 155 *whew* from lucylee. Gotta love it when a plan comes together. Remember, you scooted UNDER that once, too, so you are changing something, for sure.

trish, we went to the local cafeteria on my dad's bday to get everyone supper - usually a hard type of place to keep to healthy choices. (Here it is "K and W" and I think there are similarly named ones over much of the country, loosely affiliated.) I chose the broiled spanish mackerel there and it was so delish, made me feel so virtuous.

Smile Lee, I knew you'd gone through sickness but had no idea it was so bad. Thank goodness that's over!