Healthy & Fitness - September 2014

[FelineFriend]

I walked 1 hour today; some of it was on the cell phone talking to DD.

I've been ill today, so have been sticking Very close to the Gastritis Diet.

I ate scrambled eggs with an English Muffin with margarine on it, for dinner last night. I'm NOT SUPPOSED to eat eggs OR margarine OR butter, on the Gastritis Diet. I got to bed,was so sick with Gerd, acid, gas in my chest and slept on and off, very rotten ALL night. It serves me right, but I had a craving for the eggs and English muffin. I hadn't had ANY since March or April! that's 5 - 6 MONTHS without! So, yes, I paid for it.

I'm considering, very seriously, since the elderly finds it very common to have Gastritis return in elder years, why not just STICK to the Gastritis Diet as a way of life? It sure would solve a bunch of problems for me, pain-wise and I'd feel better, too.

[Lady Maverick]

((((FF)))) I'm right there with you on making bad food choice.

We had a busy evening so I ordered pizza from our most favorite place and picked it up on our way out of big town. I was zooming around getting things done when I arrived home then stopped and ate two pieces of pizza. While eating I was making plans with LO what we were going to do before bedtime but after eating I immediately felt my energy draining. I actually fell asleep sitting up! I have continued to experience NO ENERGY and it has been 12 hours. ARGHH! I didn't sleep well and woke up groggy. That pizza definitely didn't do my body any favors. I don't know if it was because I over ate (2 pieces) or the pizza itself. I'm not sick like bad-food-sick but just feel like I'm dragging a 50 lb weight around. I WANT MY ENERGY BACK! On the treadmill this morning I had to reduce my top speed. I couldn't keep up even holding on. LESSON LEARNED....having an abundance of energy is far more important to me, is more fun and most definitely trumps the fleeting enjoyment of over eating pizza.....even my most favorite pizza .

I started listening to audio book "Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes". The author was born with a missing gene that gives him unusual form of cancer, apparently not immediately life-threatening, but something that must be controlled. He did much research and makes these recommendation for himself fighting for his life. I don't know if any of the recommendations are good or if I will incorporate them......but I do think what we eat, how active we are and how we sleep has a huge affect on our health.

[FelineFriend]

Ate well today, did housework and laundry for activity, and although I ate well, I ended up having terrible IBS in the later morning. I had DH buy me a cereal by Post, which Dsis said she eats once a day and it CURED her IBS! I ate some for lunch, ate a protein bar later, for more protein and ate two crab cakes for dinner. I couldn't have my planned spinach salad because of the IBS, because spinach sometimes disagrees with me when I'm having a "flare" like this.

I took my med, 4 different times, for IBS today, but cannot exceed the limit beyond that amount. This evening, I ate a cheese stick and Ritz crackers for a snack. I'm feeling VERY GOOD NOW! So, now I "wonder".... is it the IBS med OR is it the cereal!? I'll figure it out, when I stop having the IBS med and eat the cereal once a day, like Dsis does, to see if it "cures" IBS like it did her.

Also, I bought an e-book about curing your IBS the natural way. One the cover are oats, grains, etc... so I betcha that soluble fiber is one of those miracle cures, like what's in this special cereal made specifically for digestion. I'm so GLAD my Dsis told me. We rarely talk about '"that stuff", but I guess I must have said, "I had IBS again today," one too many times, so when she told me about the cereal, I went on-line to Post's site. They have this specific one in vanilla and another in berry. I can't have berry because if there are seeds in it, I've gotten IBS again and I have diverticulosis, too. So I need to be careful because of 3 pockets I have, not to get things in there, get inflamed and have severe diverticulitis. Oh, I HATE this. It's inherited from Dmom, a GAunt died of colon cancer at my age I'm at now, and Dsis, DD, and a DGS have IBS, too. I don't know if my Dcousins do, too, because I'm not in contact with them. (We all went our separate ways when I married 44 years ago.) I was the oldest of the cousins, graduated earlier, etc... Anyway, I just know how this evening I FEEL SO GOOD!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Survived yesterday and ended up not eating too badly. Would have eaten better if there were apples in the house. Would have washed down my second milk with an apple and peanut butter instead of my delicious choice.

Continuing to try and cut a meal from the day.

Had my cereal/fruit/milk at 11:30, then a large salad with 3 oz of turkey at 2 ish. So far so good. Also had lots of water.

Then we went to the house. Around 4:30 I was hungry. Ds had store made rice krispie squares so I stole one of those (he'll never notice it missing!) Still hungry and I spotted a single-serving package of goldfish crackers on the pantry so I grabbed that. Total calories were about 210 but it was the emptiness of them that bothered me.

Still it was a good thing I had something because the key to this skipping a meal is to have my big meal of the day, dinner, relatively early. Yesterday, because of the tower problems, we ended up eating at 7. The choice was Subway (which was great because it meant healthy choices) but I wanted something more substantial than my normal ham or chicken sub. And I really didn't want poultry because I had had turkey Wednesday night, chicken Thursday lunch, turkey Thursday night and Friday at 2. Luckily there was a lineup and they had their nutrition charts out for you to peruse. I ended up with a steak & cheese (no cheese since I never have cheese on a sub) and it turns out that's the same number of points as the roasted chicken so I may have a new favourite sub!

I even managed to choose apple juice (no HFCS) so ended up with a healthy dinner which I blew with a brownie when I got home (to wash down the milk I had to have in order to meet WW minimums.)

When all was said and done, I came in under the my calorie allotment for the day. Yay!

There seems to be a downward trend now on the scales since the 1 pound jump at the beginning but I'm still looking at only a half pound down.

Since double tracking my intake (I'm both pointing and using MyFitnessPal) seems to be working, I'll keep it up. Some days I'm low on points but at my limit for MFP so that shows how WW is more forgiving because of including fibre in their calculations (they figure fibre, fat, calories) whereas MFP looks at carbs, fat, calories.

[FelineFriend]

The name of that cereal, which cured Dsis' IBS is called:

Post Great Grains Digestive Blend whole grain cereal with active cultures. It supports healthy digestion. It has 200 calories per cup, 0 fat, 125 mg. sodium, 8 g. sugars, 7 g. fiber, and 10% DV iron. It comes in vanilla natural flavor or berry. The vanilla has nutritious whole grain barley and multi grain flakes and clusters. There are 5 Post Great Grain cereals, but only 2 have this digestive blend with active cultures.

So if anybody's interested, look on your store shelves.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Another update on the Now Eat This books.

As I mentioned before, the books offer healthier cooking techniques (which you can apply to anything.) Tonight I had quite good french fries. The book would prefer that I have sweet potato fries (actually, I would too, but I didn't have any on hand!) So I made up the recipe using regular potatoes but using his low fat, high flavour, cooking method.

I've done oven-baked 'fries' dozens of times before but always with disappointing results. Tonight I: 1) salted the cut potatoes for 20 minutes to draw out excess moisture, 2) sprayed them with spray oil while they were in a bowl, not on the cookie sheet and 3) put a wire rack over a baking pan and put the fries on that. So the heat circulated around all the sides.

They were crispy on the outside and looked just like french fries. The taste was slightly 'off' but I could see myself getting used to that in a hurry. Dh has agreed to try them in the future on our homemade fish and chips nights because it is the difference between having fries or not. (We haven't used the deep fryer since moving.)

They pointed out to 2 pts for a small serving (a little less than 1/4 of my plate.) The remaining quarters were 3 oz of tenderloin steak, steamed brocolli and carrots. I'm pretty full right now which is good because I was starving before (and very cranky.) Dh made himself his fried potatoes (which I no longer eat because I never feel well after, probably because of the amount of oil he uses.) Those point out to about 10 pts for the same amount of potato (which actually seems like less because he dices the potato finely and then they shrink while cooking so you need more to fill up even a quarter of a plate.

Another discovery:

My ineffectiveness today along with how cranky I was as dinner time approached shows me that the skipping a meal may help me lose weight but I risk losing 145 extra pounds (by driving dh away!)

[FelineFriend]

(((Kathryn)))....

I forgot to report that I did walking/marching in place today, while reading my Nook Color e-book. I found it distracting to walk/read, so I set it up on the eating bar. I have the cover, which folds into a stand. I marched in place, to = 1/2 moving and got a good sweat going, too. It was nice and it's a good way to exercise, too, because I can read and march at the same time and do both at once. I get bored with in-house walking up and down halls and around the great room, on the hotter days, when I stay indoors. So reading/marching fit the bill.

[Lady Maverick]

Why I don't weight 999 more lbs is beyond me. I ate 1/4 of a lemon cake yesterday, didn't log food on MFP and only drank 3 of my bottles of water. Definitely emotionally eating. STOP IT!

The scales showed a .4 lb loss this morning. Crazy.

The next 5 meals will be eating out. Ewwwweee. Not looking forward to massive sodium intake that most places do. I need to be picky.

I need those healthy habits to emerge during my time of lost focus -
Water
Treadmill
Fruit
vegetables
Sleep

Water bottles are in their side slots on my backpack.
Treadmill was done this morning and I have a plan in place for tomorrow's treadmill time
I finished up the week averaging 7 hours 20 minutes of sleep each day

That just leaves fruit and vegetables. I can do this!

[Nancy]

Took less pm insulin late night for today. Still had a available low. Picked grapes and processed them. Had a low on the way to lunch of chicken taco salad stopped to get roses on sale. (Checked bs before leaving home it a as #127 should have been fine.)

Got 2 more roses to plant somewhere in the yd. Will get to that later. H. Said he would grill for dinner.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Not a good day from an eating point of view but I looked well put together!

Had two coffee hours to deal with. Had two delicious cookies at one and two squares at the second. The second one left me feeling unwell (probably too much fat in the squares, they were very rich.) Did I stop when, after a few bites, I felt it was too much? Noooooo. Sigh. Gotta learn. Oh, and why did I put two squares on my plate in the first place?!!!

Then I (not dh, ME!) suggested fish and chips for dinner.

I do have tomorrow in control so that's something.

And we split a single order between us and I gave dh 2/3 of the fries. So I feel no worse and probably better than after the squares. BTW: the halibut was absolutely delicious and worth every calorie and fat gram.

I have bought grapes so have a healthy fruit for a snack tomorrow.

I will have a salad later today (am sorely short of veggies but did have 3 servings of fruit.)

I don't want to think of how many points dinner was but will forge ahead and figure out something so I can track it in MyFitnessPal. I don't want to run away from what I eat.

((((LM)))) Emotional eating may not be good but, when you are torn apart the way you are, how else to soothe oneself? Food is quick, cheap and easy and we have to eat (unlike bubble baths, or long walks, or massages which might be other soothing options.) On the plus side, you aren't drinking to soothe yourself.

If anyone has a quick, easy & cheap soothing tactic please post it below. Us emotional eaters could use a list to rely on when life strikes.