Keep it moving

The holiday leftovers are in the frig and I am taking the dog for a long walk to make up for the few treats I allowed myself for the special day. I am human after all.

Calories in and calories out is what the weight loss game is all about. Cheat a bit, then put on your tennis shoes and take the dog for a walk. It’s a good bet that he overate as well. They are basically four-legged vacuum cleaners for table scraps when you boil down their existence.

Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving

Treat your holiday plate like it was a TV dinner tray

The average person will eat at least 4,000 calories on the day that we stuff a turkey along with ourselves. Frankly, that estimate is low considering that most people will have breakfast, the holiday meal and then continue to nibble the rest of the day.

This is just a guess but a pretty good one that no one will be walking the many hours that it would take to work off their indulgences.  I know that my day will start off with a good workout but I have no intention of overeating so that I have to walk several days straight to work off the extra calories.

Most turkey TV dinners have around 500 calories but most people don’t serve their holiday meal on an aluminum tray. We should but we don’t.

I have learned to hold back in the line for the holiday buffet and not be the first person digging into the beautiful dishes. When I am last in line there is less food to choice from and I don’t feel the need to rush so that the others can eat. My nephews are eager to fill their plates and I let the 6-foot boys take first run at the food. By the time they are done there is less food for me to pile on my plate and there is no pressure to rush and I have time to properly portion out my dinner.

The end result: I am the only one that doesn’t feel the need to unzip their pants after the meal which is just fine with me.

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater

One thing that I have learned in the last 5 years of losing weight is that sometimes you have to give into the seasonal treats. The chocolates at Valentines day, a grilled hot dog on Memorial Day, sweet corn drenched in butter for Labor Day and of course a piece of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

Losing weight can’t be a game of deprivation and if you approach it that way, you will fail. You know that, I am sure as heck, know that now. Food is a part of life and it needs to be enjoyed just like all the other pleasures that come our way.

There are a few tricks that I have learned along the way, portion control being the most important lesson. Have your chocolate just don’t buy the biggest box you can find. Have your hot dog but just have one and savor it. Have your corn right out of the farmer’s field but try it without the butter if you really want a treat. And most of all have your pumpkin custard just forget the crust. When you think about it, how good can fat and flour really taste? It is the rich, smooth, spicy flavor of the pumpkin that you really want. Hey, it’s a vegetable for dessert if you look at it the right way.

My family is used to my healthy eating routine by now. My plate filled with a cornucopia of salad greens is now accepted. I told my mom that I would bring the pumpkin “pie” this year and of course she asked what I was doing to it to make it healthy enough for me to bring. I told her I was going to leave off the crust and just make the custard. I masked the lack of a crust by making a nut glaze with pecans, honey and butter and edged the dish with it. There might be as many calories in my decoration as there is in a crust but this option is healthier and adds fiber.

If you are really trying to be good just spoon out your portion from the middle of the dish, you can’t do that with a pie.

P.S. The custard is the recipe off of the can minus the crust. Why mess with perfection. Enjoy!

Holy crap, it’s working.

 

I have been on Joy’s new LIFE diet for over 7 weeks and it is really paying off. Those last 24 pounds are finally coming off and I am feeling so good about my efforts. I am putting my heart and soul into it and I can’t believe the results. The love handles that I thought were a permanent fixture are almost gone. YEA!

It will take awhile to tone my body when the last 10 pounds come off but I am finally in the home stretch.

Who knew that I could do it? Not me in the beginning but now I know that anything is possible. I have learned that if you want something bad enough and work hard enough you can make your dreams come true.

Last week was too stressful for words and I did get off track but I am back on Joy’s program and looking forward to reaching my goal by January 1. I want my list of New Year’s resolutions to include maintaining my goal weight. 

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

I must not tell a lie. I have fallen off the diet wagon this week. No trips to the pizza joint that serves the best pie in town just plain old eating to make up for what was really eating at me this week. The fact that my friends are leaving the business that I have loved since I as a teenager was at the root of my problem. One by one they will be going out the door never to return and it’s just plain sad. Not an excuse but just my reality this week.

Some of my co-workers call me the queen of dieting. Yes, I have lost nearly 190 pounds by learning how food should be used instead of being misused. But I am far from perfect and this week I fell off the wagon. I hit the candy dish I shouldn’t have and once and only once I hit the vending machine to offset the sugar high I was on.

Funny how my thousand of trips for a bag of salty junk food went unnoticed but since I have been on the Today Show it made me an office celebrity for healthy eating. One of my coworkers came over to talk to me about a story and he spotted the empty bag in the trash can at my desk. He grabbed it out of its resting place and began to wave it over his head telling my pod mates that I had fallen off the wagon.

The gesture wasn’t done in a mean spirit but I truly think he thought that my eating habits were perfect. Wrong. I am human and I did fall a bit from grace and today I have to report to my diet coach with Joy’s program that my scale went up this week.

When you have to report your weight twice a week it is hard to cover up your slip-ups, but there aren’t any real excuses when you are dieting. You have to call your slip-ups just that and get back on the program and stick to it.

It took me over 5 years to lose all this weight because I have fallen off the diet horse more than once but I am so close to my goal of losing 200 pounds I can’t lose sight of my prize. I deserve and so do you. A slip-up is just that and now it is time to put my blinders back on for all the temptations out there and reach for the finish line.

Yes, I know that next week is Thanksgiving which is followed by the season of endless holiday cookies but that is followed by the New Year. I want to reach my goal by then and that is better than any sweet that will come my way.

STRESS!

Today is the cutoff day for signing up for the company buyout and if they don’t get the assigned number of people to take it, layoffs will be coming right before Christmas. As I have stated previously, the newspaper business that I have been in for nearly 30 years is in trouble, big trouble and we are just one of many papers that are laying off people. No new news here but the economy is doing so poorly that they increased the number they want gone from 38 to 50. In my book that is stress.

Not only will some of my friends and colleagues be leaving but more of them will be gone then we initially thought. We have a tradition in our newsroom of clapping people out when they leave as a sign of respect. Frankly, it is more like sounds more like taps to me. It is just hard to watch your profession dwindle and even harder to be one of ones still standing to pick up the slack as others leave.

In the past my sorrow would lead me to the nearest candy dish but that isn’t an option with the weight-loss mission that I am on. So I have been reaching into my desk drawer and grabbing my container of sugar-less gum. Not what I really want but I can take out my aggression in a nearly calorie-free way.

Stress is everywhere these days and learning to deal with it and not packing on the pounds is still a struggle for me and for so many others. But it is important to take it all in stride and not take it out on our poor old bodies. When it gets really bad I grab for my tennis shoes in my desk and take a quick walk outside to clear my head. Yep. I burn off a few calories and I increase my distance from the office candy dish.

“Balls,” said the queen, “if I had two I would be king.”

Oddly enough that is one of my mother’s favorite sayings but I know for a fact that she wasn’t talking about workout balls the last time she uttered those words. It is the first thing that I think of when people say balls, sad but true.

I love my workout spears. They are great for getting your core muscles in shape and half the time you aren’t even aware that it is happening.

I will admit that getting used to exercising on the round thing did take some getting used to. Balance and coordination aren’t my strong suits. Basically the first time I tried the thing I ended up doing a summersault and ended up with my feet over my head. Yep. I had fallen off the damn thing and couldn’t get up. The dog just starred at me and I think he even laughed at my first attempt. But I got right back up and tried it again and that time with more success.

Now, I grab the thing off of its perch and use it as often as I can to do stretches and situps. I strongly recommend it for those that want to get rid of that flabby belly that is such a problem for so many of us. Make sure that you keep it properly inflated because who wants a under-inflated ball in their home. Not me!

Check out: Core Secrets by Gunnar Peterson — Good whole-body workouts. Focuses on building a strong core and overall flexibility.

Sex, Lies, and Videotapes

I hate to disappoint you but this blog has little to do with sex, contains no lies and so that leaves videotapes as the topic of the day.

Since I have established that I hate my gym, I have found the best way to keep me moving is to pop a videotape or DVD into my TV to get my fanny in action. I am a sucker for those late night infomercials and I have quite the collection of items that have promised to make me look like Christy Brinkley in a matter of weeks. In the past, I thought that just buying a workout tape was all the effort that I needed to make me look fit and healthy. Wrong! You actually have to do the workout and not just pop the video in the TV and think that is the workout.

Over time I have learned, at least for me, not all workouts are created equally. I love the ones in my workout suggestions. They do a great job of taking it a bit slow at first so that you don’t get discouraged. When I pop in a new one and all they do is scream at you to move your butt I tend to pop it back out and add it to my pile of forget this workout tape.

There are some workouts that are best for a studio situation like yoga. Who doesn’t want to relieve stress through working out but when you are bent up like a pretzel it is hard to see the TV screen. Pilates fits the relaxing and toning bill for me and you can actually do the workout and see what the instructor is telling you to do.

I am always keeping my eye out for a new workout to mix up my routines. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them and share them with the readers of my blog. I can add them to my wish list for Christmas.

Know when to wear them and know when to retire them

Every spring I head to my neighborhood running store and treat myself to a new pair of shoes for the season. Let’s set the record straight. I don’t run, never have and really don’t care to in the future. My arthritis is too bad and I enjoy walking so I let it go at that. I didn’t start my active lifestyle until my mid 40’s and I have learned to listen to my body and it is happy with a long and brisk walk.

When I go into the store there are so many choices it’s hard to pick just one. As a chick, I am drawn to the colors of the shoes, can’t help it but it is truth. I have learned through the last several trips that color is the last thing that I should be concerned with. Then there is the high price tag that comes with all the bells and whistles that they try to put in a shoe. When common sense sets in I sit down and tell the clerk what I am looking for in a shoe.

My wish list is simple, fit my foot, stay in budget and hope that the end product is a shoe that isn’t too ugly. I have a bad bone spur on my heal so I have to go with a shoe that has a wide heal.  For the last few years that has meant I left the store with a pair of Asics, but this time I left with a pair of Reeboks. The best fit out weighs brand loyalty for me.

The treads are worn out in my old pair and it is time to retire them. They are like tires so when the treads wear out it is time to get a new pair. Experts say several hundred miles should do it. For runners that can mean replacing them monthly but for me it means just several pairs a year.

I am looking forward to the comforting, cushy feel of the new pair. It is time to retire my old friends and put them in the garage for mowing the grass next spring.

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