Water, Water, Everywhere...but here

Learning how to live my new healthier lifestyle:
The more I test the waters, both negatively and positively, I am learning. I am trusting myself more and trusting my judgement more, on what I eat or what I do for exercise as well as what I don't eat or what I don't do for exercise. Remember, this is all new territory for me. I have never been this way before. I am still learning how to live as a semi-normal healthy woman...and I LIKE IT!

Summer:
Summertime is here with a vengeance in central Arkansas. Yesterday it was over 100º with the humidity around 50% and no rain for days. Yuk. My 12 year old son and I are still hitting the local swimming pool to exercise and cool off. I love the water! Plus I scored those water-dumbbells at that rummage sale last fall and can do a real proper exercise session, in the pool. Playing catch or water-shooting each other has been fun too.

Gardening:
Something new I discovered is that you can grow your own lettuce from what normally you toss in the trash! I am experimenting with romaine lettuce. I cut off the end of the lettuce and put it in about a half inch of water. The water needs to be changed daily as the lettuce gets its nutrients from the minerals in the water.

Here is a photo of three lettuce heads. 

They were all started within a few days of each other:

 The one on the bottom right is the oldest one. 

Here you can see I added a forth head-end of lettuce:

 Look how much the first one has grown in less than a week!

Within two days the forth head has sprouted leaves in the center.
The oldest head is almost ready to start harvesting if you want to eat baby romaine:

A few more days pass, and I have a 'garden in a cup' on my window sill!

 

I will let you know if this turns out to be real food that is edible. I read that you can do this with celery ends, onions, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and pineapple too! I have an onion and sweet potato in a cup on my window sill to see if I have any luck there as well.

In the kitchen:

Something that is a little more normal than growing lettuce in the window, is pie. I don't eat pie very often. I do like a good blueberry pie though and this one is from fresh blueberries:

I have mine with plain 2% fat Greek yogurt (Fage of course) instead of whip-cream or ice cream. Since I only have pie once or twice a year, I don't feel guilty about it at all! You do NOT have to be deprived to live healthy.

In the background are banana muffins. I made these without sugar, buttermilk, or oil. I used whey from homemade yogurt that I made from raw milk. The bananas are very ripe so they add the needed sweetness. These turned out great! They were not as chewy as when I've made them with yogurt or applesauce instead of the oil. I also tossed in a few handfuls of rolled oats to thicken the batter. I love experimenting in the kitchen. I had to show this again as this really is one of the best looking pies I have ever made:

Pizza Crust:
I have made pizza crust using cauliflower in the past. I always thought you had to precook the cauliflower and then run it through a ricer. This method takes raw cauliflower to make the 'dough' and is not as much work! For preparation and cooking specifics go to this video on YouTube by Buff Dudes.

Here are the ingredients from the video:
CHICKEN PIZZA
 2 Cups Cauliflower
1/2 Cup Cheese
6 oz Chicken
Dash of Parsley & Oregano
3/4 cup Tomato Sauce
Handful fresh Spinach
2 Full Eggs

1 Slice Contains:
90 Calories
4.3 grams Fat
2.7 grams Carbs
10 grams Protein

Whole Pizza Contains:
726 Calories
35 grams Fat
22 grams Carbs
81 grams Protein
This recipe is for chicken pizza, but you can change up the toppings as you like.

That's it for today! Till next time, Walk-On!

Summertime arrives early

Now that my son is out of school for the summer, it is swimming season! The ninety-plus heat sent he and I to the pool last week. As predicted, no one seemed to take note of my saggy skin when I went to the pool. Of course, I did take note of others! 
I saw several rather large women there. I could have made two or three swimsuits for myself out of their suits. Were they there so they could soak in the water to keep cool? (Fat adds a layer of insulation as I well know!) They certainly weren’t there to exercise. If they were not laying in a lounge chair they were laying on a air-mattress and hanging on to the edge of the pool so they didn’t move around when the breezes blew. I wanted to go up to each one and say “I used to be like you.” Then I would offer help and ‘save’ them from themselves. What gives ME that right? No one ever said such things to me, except for my parents as they were trying to save me from being overweight.

Instead of saving the world, I exercised with the floatation dumbbells that I found at the thrift store last fall. I did that for about half an hour. The second half-hour I played with my son. Remember, he is almost as tall as me. We played like little kids, with full abandon. We both had these pump-action water guns and were chasing each other around the pool, trying to soak each other even more. I felt so young again. I felt like my son and I were bonding and will remember this moment as he goes into his teenage years and all the drama that will come from that!

Weight loss: I was shocked to find I had gone down four pounds from the week before. Today I was back up by two. I am content to just be in the 180’s now.  I haven't been tracking my food. I am happy with how things are going. For now, this is all good enough for me.

I am reading Secrets of a Former Fat Girl and hope to have a book review soon.

I've been working on this post for over a week now! Instead of trying to achieve perfection in blog posting, I am going to call this quits for today and get it published.

Hope you are having a great beginning to your summer season! Walk-on...even if in a pool!

Trigger is more than a horse...

I read a post on Roni's Weigh blog that talked about trigger foods. It was quite thought provoking to me. Here is her posting: Trigger Foods.

It gave me pause to think about my trigger foods. If wine can be considered a trigger food, that would probably be my biggest temptation. I can leave candy alone but if there is a bottle of wine and a weekend involved, I find it hard to resist a bottle of my favorite wine. Another trigger food would be ice cream drumsticks. Yum. Sometimes it can be cookies...they have to be ooey, gooey ones though!

Roni talks about why she thinks certain foods are trigger foods for herself. That got me to thinking about why mine are trigger foods. The wine? I think it is because I like the buzz. I like the way it mellows the mood and relaxes me. How do I handle this trigger? Avoidance. I just don't buy it unless it is a special occasion. The ice cream is a combination of childhood memories of trips to DQ. Ice cream was a treat and a special occasion. Same for the cookies. I handle these by avoidance too.

Of course there are modern day reasons for wanting some of the trigger foods that are not related to childhood memories. These reasons are things like the way a food is made up. A lot of processed food has a bunch of science behind it. Hundreds (and I am guessing a LOT more) of dollars are spent on research to find the right combination of salt, sugar, and fats that make our brains crave more and more. Think potato chips...nobody can eat just one!

Do I plan to avoid certain foods all my life then? Nope. I do not buy them every time I go shopping though. I also try to buy as small a quantity as possible too. If I want a cookie, I either make it myself and share with my neighbors or do it on a day that I might be going to an event, and bring them to share with others.

Do I ever give in to temptation completely? Sometimes. I am pretty happy with myself though. If I buy a box of drumsticks and keep it to one per night for dessert, then I think that is ok. As long as I don't do this day after day, week after week, month after month, I feel it is ok. I also try to push eating a little lighter during the day, pushing big salads and lower fat foods to make up for the treat.

What is your trigger food? How do you handle the temptation? Do you know where your trigger food's roots originated? Do you think that that knowledge would help you resist your trigger foods?

One last note about trigger foods...if you can't resist temptation, can you make it healthier? Can you find a substitute that is better? Can you eat less of it? Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. The difference is that now I can resist or change foods to healthier versions of favorites. When I can't resist, I enjoy the smallest portion, slowly, mindfully, and with relish! THEN I do NOT beat myself up over it. I really try to not let food rule me...I rule the food...as much as I can, as often as I can and it is getting easier.

Walk-on till we meet again!