Slaughtering the Beast

It sat on my counter for a week awaiting its fate.  I finally manned up and slaughtered the watermelon.  I'm solo this weekend, so the bounty now fills every piece of tupperware I own.

It's really hot outside, so I don't think it will last long, but for now, it fills a shelf in my fridge.

The Little Things

I noticed a couple of little things lately that really made a big difference for me.  I went to lunch at Cosi and realized they post the calories for menu items right there up on the big menu.  They also had stickers on the drinks revealing their calorie contents.  This made ordering super easy for me (didn't have to pull out my iphone to start searches). Thanks, Cosi! I'll be visiting you again.

The next thing I noticed was that calories are posted on some of the bakery items in Starbucks.  My first reaction to something like this is that it probably wouldn't be a great business decision to do something like this because it might keep people from buying something they would have splurged on if they hadn't been aware of just how much damage it would cause.  But then I noticed that these were posted on the little things.  Starbucks Petites as they are labeled on their bakery menu.  So it was a two-fold change.  They put the calories up AND they made the portions tiny.  HURRAY!  That's the kind of business change I love to see.  And with both of those things in place, I just might treat myself to a petite cupcake or whoopie pie one of these days.

Whoopie!

Planning for Success

Menu planning.  The phrase brings to mind words that might describe television moms from the 50’s: frugal, housewife, efficient, homebody, coupon clipper.  Nothing negative about any of these other than they are “not me”.  Financially, I could afford to stop by the fresh market everyday and pick out whatever I wanted.  I could eat out or take out any and every day of the week.  For some reason words that didn’t come to mind were gourmet, exotic, fresh, and that’s what I wanted my life to be.  Without a little bit of planning, the truth included phrases like time consuming, wasteful, unprepared, and woefully disappointed.

I realize now that the phrase was tainted for me and that doing some planning was the key to me being able to have great gourmet meals every day that were healthy and fresh and essential for setting up an environment in which I could be successful in my health goals.

Spending about 20 minutes a week planning what meals we will be having and creating a shopping list means that we are prepared and have everything we need as soon as we arrive at home to put together a recipe we have selected.  It means that whoever gets home first knows what to start doing and we can work together in the kitchen and enjoy the time together instead of one of us having to spend time in the produce aisle every evening.  It means that when I get the munchies and open the fridge or the pantry, there are only good things to tempt me and they are all part of the plan.  A lapse in will power doesn’t have dire effects because my environment doesn’t allow it.

I created a great planning spreadsheet that lets me choose recipes that I like for the week, then with the press of a button, generates a shopping list that any of us can take to the grocery and fill in one trip.  Our list is flexible.  It has items like “seasonal vegetables” and “seasonal fruit” so that I can be impulsive at the store.  This is flexibility that I build in for my own personality quirks.  Others may want everything spelled out.  What I’ve learned is that a little bit of planning makes it easier to be creative and I can spend more time doing the fun parts of cooking.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet.  You'll have to download it and open it in Microsoft Excel...it won't work in google.  There is an instruction sheet so you can see how to put your own recipes in.

Excel Planning Spreadsheet

What Do I Eat? It's New, I Mean Gnu

When I left H3, I had in my hand a nice sheet evaluating snack bars.  I knew I would need something easy to store around the office for snacks in case I got in a pickle at work and couldn't find something fresh to eat.  There are too many bad choices out in our environment, so I wanted to pack some good choices in easy to find places. Since I am an internet shopper at heart, I figured I would just go to the top of the list and order the one with the highest recommendation, Gnu bars.  I found out later that it is cheaper to buy them from the website than at any of my local stores that carry them!

You can find them here gnufoods.com/.

These little devils can keep you filled up and energized between meals, can be accidentally stored for a long time in a hot car and still taste great, and come in lots of flavors.  The other nifty thing is their "Joy of Fiber Club" that allows you to set up autodelivery of as many as you need per month in any combination of flavors.  Anything that permanently reduces my todo list is a good thing!

My favorites are the Orange Cranberry and Espresso Chip, but there are so many flavors from which to choose that everyone will find a favorite.

Equilibrium

c.1600, from L. aequilibrium, from aequus "equal" + libra "a balance, scale, plummet"
1. A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system.
2. Mental or emotional balance; poise.


One of the lectures at H3 given by Bob Wright that had a big impact on me was regarding goals, habits and the idea of set points.  One thing we discussed was the possibility of not setting a final weight goal.  It took some of us aback.  What?  Not have a final weight goal?  But then the discussion went on and we talked about  the idea of "set point" and something clicked.  It started to make sense.  Whatever it is you do regularly, whatever it is you eat regularly will get you to some point of equilibrium.  I have been at my current state of equilibrium for 15 years.  It's the weight I was shortly after my daughter was born and I have been at or near the same weight, eating the same things and doing the same amount of activity.  There might have been some short periods of variations along the way (diets that didn't last), but for the most part my habits since then have kept me at about the same weight.


So to be at a different weight, I have to do something different, and that something will eventually get me to a new state of equilibrium.  I don't know where that is now.  When I get there, if it isn't where I want to be, I'll have to change my habits again, if I'm willing, to find a different state of equilibrium.  We have to accept that a number we've pulled out of thin air (trust me, it's thin) may not be at a place that we are willing to habitually live. I have to decide how I want to live, and that will determine the state (in health and weight parameters) in which I will live.  The good news is that you get to the "how you are going to live" goal faster than the "where you are going to live" goal.  Remember the story of the kids on vacation that keep asking "when are we going to get there" while the adults know that the journey is the goal?


So for now, I'm quite comfortable with the changes I've made and my new habits.  I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I find my new equilibrium.

Dinner and a Movie

A last minute sleep over for my daughter turned into an opportunity for us to see a movie and to have dinner before the movie.  It took a while for me to finally commit to a place at which I was willing to eat.  Nothing looked as good as what we could make at home, but I finally picked something I could live with that was close to the theater.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get reservations and we waited as long as we could until we decided we would miss the movie.  At that point, we decided to eat after the movie, and made our way to buy tickets.  The theater we go to gives assigned seats, and when we saw what seats were still available (the ones in the front where you get to look up the nostrils of the actors), we decided a movie at home would be better.  Man we are getting picky.  Dinner is better at home.  Movie is better at home.  Is it picky, or are we just better at cooking and making things right. 

As we drove home, I started thinking about what I would have done four weeks ago.  We would have eaten bad food someplace else.  We would have picked a crummy movie with better seats so we could sit and eat salty popcorn.  But that's not what I do now.

Still driving home I also had the thought that "this is how it is now, this is just what I do now."  It was a different sort of thought.  It wasn't a "this is what I do while I'm on this diet and things will be different when I'm done."  I realized that I was done. Done with diets.  This is just how I am now, this is just what I do now.  I eat good stuff and I won't compromise.  I do fun stuff and won't sit in a bad seat.  There isn't a done.  And I like that.  I'm not waiting for some magical scale event for the "fun stuff to start".  This is what it is, it's now, and it's fun!

The Whirling Dance of the Dervish

Spinning.  I googled it, and after the Official Spinning Site (registered trademark and all), I came across a dictionary entry that referred to the "whirling dance of the dervish".  So now you are going to wonder how I am going to link my morning fitness to this sufi ritual of which the purpose is to reach religious ecstasy, right?  Well, rest assured, the spinning class at my wellness center is no where near ecstacy of any type.

How did I end up in a 5:15 AM spinning class?  It's the only class at 5:15 AM, and that's the only time I can guarantee I won't schedule something else instead of working out.  While I was at Hilton Head Health, I took every class that was available at least once.  I did things I never considered doing.  So when I decided I would have to work out at 5:15 in the morning, I didn't question what the class was.  It was whatever it was.  And that "was" is spinning. 

So what is my take on spinning?  Well, humans created a simple machine called a bike wheel, then made the bike not go anywhere.  And instead of the difficulty of the ride being determined by the trail

it is instead determined by a red knob below the handlebars.  We are then told to pedal across non-existent flats and over non-existent hills, and to then purposefully make our journey more difficult.  We've made going nowhere really hard to do.

It produces great magnitudes of sweat, and after 40 minutes, I miraculously feel better than I did before I started.  Well almost.  One part of my body feels worse, or if I am lucky, it just feels numb.

So, no I do not feel like a whirling dervish as I spin, and I have not yet experienced religious ecstacy on my Spinner bike.  However, the word dervish comes from the word for door and it may be that this spinning is a way in which a door will be opened.  I just wish the triangular torture device, a.k.a. the seat, was more comfortable...