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Cutting the Cable

I don’t know what I’m going to do when we have to cancel our three-month trial of our extra cable channels. We originally got the extras specifically for FitTV (now called Fit & Health), by my request. And at around $5 for the first few months, it’s soooo worth it!

Now I don’t know what’s going on with FitTV these days, but I seem to remember seeing a lot more workouts than there are now. Anyhow, I had to wait two full days before there were any actual workout videos playing after work. I got all suited up and into position, ready to change the channel promptly at 5:00. “FitTV is currently unavailable.” Excuse me?

I was not a satisfied customer when the only channel on the whole tube that I care about was currently unavailable. My husband saw the look on my face and dutifully started dialing. The fastest they could send a technician was on the weekend. After several unsatisfactory phone transfers, the lady on the line pointed us to ExerciseTV On Demand. Oh brother!

Handfuls and handfuls of fitness videos I can turn on as I please? I don’t have to do the same workout twice? Hallelujah! Those videos I bought a month ago will be collecting dust for three months because I won’t waste them (and risk growing tired of them faster) until On Demand is gone. Believe you me I am going to squeeze every last drop of potential out of those channels until our time is up.

That’s a Total Crock-Pot

The crockpot has got to be the single most important diet invention ever. Especially for the working gal who only has a passing interest in “cooking.” You can make anything in there. Oh yes, you can. Lasagna, enchiladas, meatballs, barbecue chicken…every.thing.

Type in “crockpot” on the SparkRecipes website and you get 200 recipes, many of them saying they’re “the easiest recipe ever!” Now that’s what I like to hear. Since the site is affiliated with SparkPeople, most of the recipes are going to be rather healthy.

People, this is easier than cruising to the drive-through. Dinner arrives just in time, while pizza can be expected to arrive 30-45 minutes after you’re already starving. You place your chosen meat, packet of seasoning and can of cream-of-something soup in there and it cooks for you while you’re busy at work.

And I don’t know about you, but sometimes I miss the smells that came from my mother’s kitchen. But when I walk into my house after a day of work, a simmering crockpot emits a smell that could rival a restaurant. That onion soup-drenched roast smells almost as good as mom’s.

Michael Polan Rules

If I were to recommend one book in this entire world for healthy eating, it would be Michael Polan’s Food Rules. This is the best non-diet diet book I’ve ever come across. When you establish a healthy eating plan, you should pick something you can stick with for…well, for your entire life. Diets that are only temporary are usually inefficient and sometimes unhealthy. Changing your diet for the better should be something you can establish for a lifetime. That sounds daunting, but it’s really not. Consider the three easiest diet rules you’ve ever seen:

Rule Number One: What should I eat? Eat food.
Rule Number Two: What kind of food should I eat? Mostly plants.
Rule Number Three: How much should I eat? Not too much.

1. For the most part, try to eat real food, not processed food. The more “pure” a food is, the better. It’s not adulterated, altered, tainted with additives or ground into an unidentified substance. It still provides optimal levels of vitamins and antioxidants.

2. According to the pyramid, the things you should be eating the most servings of are fruits and vegetables. Whole grains are also high on the list. Sprinkle produce all throughout your day and you can hardly go wrong.

3. Pare down your serving sizes. Everything should be eaten in moderation. Pay attention to serving sizes. Don’t eat the whole pie, but certainly don’t forget to savor your sliver!

I would add Rule Number Four: Never lose an entire food group! Sure, eat food and eat mostly plants, but never do this to the exclusion of carbs, fats or any other portion of the pyramid. You’ll miss out on essential nutrients, among so many other things.

You Know You’re a Fitness Junkie When…

…You spend over $100 on Amazon in one fell swoop. All on workout DVDs and Yoga decks. No sweat though (well, for the cost anyway). This was my attempt to spend my hard-earned Christmas money (I’ve been a pretty good girl this year) and capitalize on some wellness moola at work. Score!

On the menu are Ellen Barrett’s Barefoot Cardio, some good ole Quick Fix and 10 Minute Solution DVDs, a Bollywood dance workout, Shape Magazine’s bikini body workout, a ballet-inspired Reach workout, some Iron Yoga, a small bit of capoeira, and some Shiva Rae. Ooooh. Aaaaaah. Endorphins, my drug of choice.

And as you can tell, I despise workout monotony. I have to refresh every once in awhile or my motivation wanes. I love trying all different types of movements, as you can tell. And if I can multitask while working out, all the better (i.e. learning new dance moves, practicing meditation while I move, getting strength and cardio done in one shot).

Now, I eagerly wait by the mailbox…

Resolutions Smesolutions

I may have mentioned before that I’m not a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. I think that it’s important to recognize that you are fully capable of making a resolution right this second, this very day of the year, this singular moment before the next bite reaches your mouth. I think that the “I’ll start on Monday” mentality is, please forgive me, lazy. It’s a giant excuse not to take control of your own habits, bodies, responsibilities and health that you have full authority over. I like to keep in the practice of making resolutions the second I think of them. I don’t wait until Monday, I begin with my next meal or transaction.

However, I do appreciate the freshness that the New Year offers. The feeling of vitality all around you, the fresh outlook, that sense of starting over. Plus every business everywhere capitalizes on the New Year, so you might as well take advantage of those gym fee waivers and exercise equipment sales if you’re going that route.

I would like to offer a few tips from my own experience at forming New Year’s resolutions every year since I’ve understood the concept. Hey, just because I don’t agree with waiting until the New Year to tackle your ambitions doesn’t mean that I don’t like to use the date as a great time to re-evaluate where I’m going. So, my advice is to try to:

1. Practice your New Year’s resolutions a week or more in advance. This gives you a chance to work out the kinks, rework your schedule, and adjust the picture before you even start. If you plunge ahead on Jan 1 without any practice, it’s all too easy to fall for the all-or-nothing cop-out. My resolution for 2011 is to read through the Bible and I started in November so that I have plenty of “padding” for those days I know I’ll miss. Given enough time, I was able to find this Bible podcast and these complementary sermons that I can listen to while I’m working. Through this early trial, I also figured out that reading two Bible companions in tandem with the Bible readings is overkill and I know I cannot dedicate myself to that much cross-referencing and reading right now.

2. Jot down every obstacle you can foresee on one side of a piece of paper. On the other side, brainstorm solutions for overcoming those obstacles. Without a Plan B, failure will be that much easier. On the other hand, if you know exactly what your action plan will be, you won’t hesitate to keep going. There WILL be obstacles.

3. Write about your efforts, vocalize your goals, and gather your cheerleaders. If you keep your resolutions inside your head, you have only yourself to hold you accountable. When you put your plan in print, you are solidifying it and making it real. You are reminded of your efforts with every glance where memory may have failed you. Start a blog centered around your resolutions like her, write a few goals on a Post-it® attached to your computer screen, or enlist a friend to check in on you. The more you talk about it, the more concrete the idea will be in your mind.

4. Visualize yourself successfully completely your goals with every inch of your being. Taste the sweat, hear the crowd cheering and those compliments, touch the rope at the finish line, see yourself in your new fitted clothes and experience the entire thing down to the sensory details. If in your mind you’ve already succeeded, then you know for sure that success is not impossible. And once you immerse yourself in that feeling of accomplishment, nothing will stop you from getting there. It feels too good.

5. Do some research. It’s a whole lot easier to jump into something on Jan 1 when you know what will be expected of you. Print off that 5k training plan, read others’ success stories, track your spending for a month or two before implementing a budget, and become familiar with the terms and equipment at the gym so you can nail your resolutions head-on, without hesitation. Know exactly what you’re getting yourself into–or out of!

6. But don’t over-plan! You are not likely to be successful at losing weight if you immediately plan to track every morsel down to the almond, subscribe to three magazines, join every online weight loss community you come across, buy piles of complicated equipment, join a gym and forgo entire food groups unless you have some sort of rare iron-clad dedication. You’re setting yourself up for failure if you plan to form a million new habits at once. The most successful dieters use baby steps to achieve their goals. Implement one new measurable strategy per week such as drinking two extra glasses of water, walking 2,000 extra steps, putting away 25 extra dollars, sending out three extra resumes, or using a smaller dinner plate. Continue with what works, chuck what doesn’t. I can practically guarantee that by December, or maybe even July, you will reap the rewards of all those baby steps put together.

7. Don’t let your imperfections or shortcomings derail your entire plan. Who says you can’t change or rewrite your goals in February to better suit your lifestyle? Certainly not me!

Sugar Sugar Everywhere

I’m so excited for Christmas. My home has been decked out for weeks, the sugar cookies have come and gone, about half of the gifts have been wrapped and placed under the tree. Every evening I come home and turn on a Christmas CD while I try to figure out what’s for dinner. I love showing people how much thought I’ve put into celebrating them as a person by choosing gifts with meaning. I’ve taken my son to see many-a-Santa (but he’s two, so he hasn’t quite caught on that he looks different each time). The snow is falling in pure white blankets. The goodwill is so thick in the air you can almost taste it. But instead of taste it, you stop to check the calories…

I’m here to petition that we do not take the cheer out of the holiday treats. Everywhere around me, I keep hearing people grumbling and then taking fistfuls of treats almost reluctantly. At my lunch break exercise class, there was moaning during the walking lunges about how we’d better treat ourselves to extra pecan pie for this. There’s something just so wrong with this picture. We shouldn’t be lamenting these bountiful gifts from friends, family, business vendors, etc.

Please, by all means, have fun with the outpouring of Christmas suga’. Grab a few chocolate-covered pretzels and really enjoy each roll across the tongue. This is a rare once-a-year treat. Take an extra lap around the building before grabbing a cookie if you must, but please grab a cookie! Maybe not ten, but at least one or two. The more you fight it, the worse off you’re going to be anyway. This is a time to celebrate, to enjoy, to indulge. What’s to celebrate if you’re too busy worrying about that monster chocolate cake you just bit into?

It’s All on the Menu

The best smart-eating tip I can offer: you gotta plan out the menu people!

And these are my best strategies for menu planning:

1. Make a list of all the common meals you make for yourself or your family. You can do this with snacks and drinks too. I want to add my very own list to this blog very soon so I have my own record. Because sometimes when it’s time to go to the grocery store, you just plumb can’t think of anything to make. Continue adding to this list as you add new recipes to your repertoire.

2. Do a search at Cooking Light or SparkRecipes for more healthful versions of your favorites or try to do a few heart-healthy swaps (light sour cream versus the full-fat version). I bought a Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet cookbook that improves upon a good share of our family favorites in one book. Printing real recipes with actual nutrition labels also helps keep you honest about each serving.

3. Now go back through that meal list and place notes next to each meal listing the ingredients you’ll need for each recipe.

4. Each week, plot out every breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. This is not as hard as it sounds. It’s perfectly OK to have nutritious waffles with blueberries all week so you need only buy those two things. For snacks, all you need is a carton of eggs for a hard-boiled snack or a bag of apples and bottle of peanut butter. Add the ingredients for these meals to your weekly shopping list.

5. I always find it helpful to jot down the meals and snacks I’ve planned on a white board or scrap of paper so I don’t forget by Thursday what I actually had in mind. I scratch the meals off as I go.

This one simple meal-planning strategy sounds way too easy, but it really works. And as a bonus, it keeps our grocery bills much lower than ever!

The Great Remote Search

I’m not the lazy type that searches the entire house for the remote just to change the TV channels from the couch. Oh no. But for the past two days I’ve been in a real bind. I’ve wanted to work out to several different fitness DVDs, but I can’t find the DVD remote. The actual box itself can only do so much. What about when I want to get to the third workout on that Turbo Jam DVD? I. just. can’t. get to it! Ugh.

However, this did force me to pull out my old bundle of ripped-out magazine workouts and put them to darn good use. You should see the stack I have. You know those file envelopes with like 8 file dividers? I have two of those jam-packed about 2-inches thick with every type of workout you can think of from capoeira to back-to-the-80s leg warmer workouts to tae bo, you name it! And I always have good intentions of using them (otherwise I wouldn’t horde them so), but somehow I just don’t.

It’s much easier for me to throw in a DVD and capitalize on the Chalene-style energy. Almost like I’m working out with someone else or in a class setting. I take less breaks and pump a whole lot harder. Those DVDs keep me a whole lot more accountable than a piece of paper I have to stop and read. But I did use the paper this time. And I liked it. Especially with my own music cranked up and the boys out of the house.

Post-Workout Shower

I have an odd conundrum that has to do with the post-workout shower. Ok, I admit I have gone places after a sweaty workout. I try to keep this social snafu to a minimum, but I assure you I never go to bed without a full lather-off. So, what do you do the next morning when your hair is all crazy kinked but you’re still shower fresh? I know a lot of people who will take another shower in the morning. I have done that too, especially in the sticky summer heat, but it seems like such a waste–of water and extra time. They do tell you to even skip a day of showering for the benefit of your hair and skin moisture levels, which I just won’t do. But double showering must do a real number on oil production.

So, if I take a shower in the morning and another shower post-workout that same day and don’t take one the following morning, I still come out with my socially-acceptable one shower a day. Whew, at least I can keep my social standing. But I still don’t know what to do about that hideous bed-head. It’s not the cute Jennifer Aniston-esque-beach-wave-bed-head. It’s the three-year-old-girl-after-a-day-of-craziness type.

Anyhow, so far, the only remedies I’ve come up with are clips to pin my hair back. It also helps if I wear a hat on my walk to work to flatten some of the bumps. Otherwise, cute pixie pigtails or a headband seem to do the trick. My hair’s too short right now to resort to the oft-used ponytail. I may have to grow it out just for that reason. But then I’m afraid I’ll get lazy and use the ponytail solution every day again like I’ve done before.

The Stuffed Upper Crust

I’ve noticed more and more that people are being drawn to health foods when it comes to sharing snacks or meals with others. We’re all getting a little scared of going to parties where there is way too much to eat. They write about it in magazines all the time–how to not sabotage your diet in one fell swoop of the buffet table.

Snacks at work in a health-conscious department and even work-provided lunches are taking on a health spin. Make a calorie-light cupcake and watch them disappear. Bring in a calorie-dense cake and frown as you take most of it back home again. At church, at birthday celebrations, more and more people are leaning toward healthful fare. And everyone mumbles about donuts–so enticing no one can resist yet oh-so-naughty for the waist. And I almost feel guilty serving that sort of thing myself. As if I’m a devil’s advocate of sorts. Here, engorge yourself, until you’re uncomfortably stuffed and guilt-ridden. How hospitable is that?

We recently invited some friends over for dinner. Something people generally jump at the chance to enjoy, right? Well, they weren’t sure if they could make it because they’re trying to lose weight. Well, it’s a good thing I have a few healthy recipes under my belt and am sort of a health buff myself. Sort of. So, I can make them feel at home in my home and in their own skin. I know, it’s a gift.

As a side, would it be weird to host Thanksgiving this year and make it a health food affair with pre-portioned plates? I’m also fantasizing about that energized feeling after finishing a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, starting my day off on the right (and left) foot. But what’s with the parting gift–a fresh pumpkin pie? Shouldn’t we slim that down to a sugar-free, low-fat pie of some kind? We all know we’ll ruin our efforts later in the day, but why help us take an unhealthful turn right away?