Taking the First Step - Literally!

OK. I told y'all that I am NOT a runner...but...I'm not really a walker either. I mean, when it comes to exercise, I'd rather be in a gym or in a pool. (Again I ask...what..am..I..doing?) So....I walked my first mile on Monday and I walked my second mile yesterday. This is not part of the Couch-to-5K running program. This is just me - the lovely couch potato - getting out and pounding the pavement. Literally! Taking the first steps to getting moving...and let me tell you I am GLAD that I'm doing this before I start the program next week. My legs are already feeling the burn. Didn't realize I was THAT out of shape!

My wonderful, in-the-know, tech-savvy husband found the Couch-to-5K running program available as an App for my iPod Touch. (As he says, "There's an App for that.") We are testing it out while I'm typing this. This is pretty cool. It has all the workouts laid out and the running segments timed for you so all you have to do is select which segment you're doing and go! It also gives you vocal prompts in a lovely British accent to encourage you and let you know how much time you have left. While you're using it, you can listen to your favorite music and still be able to hear the cues to start running or start walking. It's really very simple. I'm excited that I don't have to take my stopwatch with me and try to keep up with how many minutes to jog and when to go back to walking.



Today I'm walking another mile. My neighborhood is laid out quite well for walking. I start out walking downhill for turns 1 & 2 then level out on the back side until turn 3. On the home-stretch, and through turn 4, it's a slow incline all the way back to my house. I go around twice and that's a mile. I'll check it with my pedometer today to be sure.

Let's do this!

Running the Race - The Preparation

What. Am. I. Doing? I can't believe I'm even saying the word...running. I am not a runner. So why do I have this annoying - no - nagging feeling telling me to start running? I mean, you've seen the date of my last blog entry. It's been a year since I posted anything. It's been 8 months since I even put workout clothes on. Running? Are you kidding me?

For the last 4 months this running notion has been floating around in my head. I can't even fathom why it's there except that I'm to learn something extraordinary from the experience. I have no desire to run for weight loss and I have no longing dream of running a marathon. I've never even run before...well there were the elementary and high school track & field event days where I ran a 50 yd. dash and a relay race...so I know absolutely Nada when it comes to running distance other than needing some really good shoes and a lot of mental determination. So I find it rather ironic to be sitting at my computer researching running and how to get started.

In my search for how to begin running (OK...I know how to run but I think you know what I mean) I came across a running plan that sounded right up my alley: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan from Cool Running. This was designed just for me - I know it! It's a beginning running program designed to ease you into running gradually so you don't wind up miserable as you take up running. Too many people have been turned off to running because they start too fast and their bodies rebel. The idea is to transform me from couch potato to runner - running 3 miles - on a regular basis in just two months.


I feel there's hope that I can become a runner and that I might actually like it. I know friends who have started running and they say that they feel great and that they love it. Not to mention that they look great too! I think I'm sold on the idea. Can I turn this idea into reality? Yes!! If you are thinking of running, print your own running plan and join me on the quest of finding out what running is all about. Or, you can just join me from your couch.

First order of business: Get awesome running shoes! While I'm looking into that, I've started walking. I walked a mile yesterday. It was approximately 1485 steps on my pedometer. Two times around my neighborhood is a mile. I got showed-up by some young kids preparing to run for the Kid's Bloomin' Mile for our 84th Apple Blossom Festival this weekend. Hmm...that's OK. I'll get 'em next year.

Don't Think. Just Shrink.

I am down to the last 5 - FIVE - pounds to reach my goal! WooHoo!! Or should I say, 'HooWah.' I am so excited to wear a dress tomorrow that I haven't been able to wear in I don't know how many years. I can't believe it!! It's a black dress with an off-white, lace overlay on the top that has scalloped edges. I will post a picture tomorrow to show you all! That is if there's anyone out there reading this. LOL

Barry's Boot camp has been very tough. Today is Day 20 out of 30. I have never been this broken down - body and spirit - but I know I will come out stronger on the other side. Barry always has little sayings to help you along. For example, "Don't think. Just Shrink" and "Pain is weakness leaving your body." A few days ago, I was broken to the point of tears. I felt I just couldn't hang on and then....this was funny....I head Barry say, "C'mon! Don't give up! Hang in there. Keep going." Talk about timing. I needed that and I made it through!!! His workout has several conditioning exercises and are just one minute at a time. For me, it reduces the monotony of repeating an exercise over and over. And the resistance bands (which are not like any I've used before) are used in just the right way to offer a challenge. Next week I take it up another level which will be over an hour of working out. It's been over 10 years since I worked out for that amount of time. I used to go to the gym before I went in to work and I would work out for an hour. However, it was nothing like this! Barry's workouts total a 550 calorie burn. Whew! And you REALLY feel it!

My Atkins experience has been going well. I am not hungry and I am getting a LOT of veggies in my diet. I am able to eat more than when I was just counting calories. The other day I took the kids out to IHOP and while they had pancakes, I had an omelet filled with spinach and mushrooms and topped with cheese. It was only a couple of carbs (from the spinach and mushrooms and cheese) but they are good carbs. I was full for a VERY long time unlike counting calories where I could eat very little and would be hungry again. I went to McDonald's last week and I had a Big and Tasty sandwich - threw away the bun and ate the burger with the veggies and cheese and mayo - all of 1 carb maybe. Can't do that kind of stuff when I'm counting calories. I'm up to 25 carbs a day now and feelin' good. I spend a little more time in the kitchen preparing a side dish of vegetables for myself since I can't eat some of the other veggies that my family eats. Sometimes I will eat an avocado, or saute some zucchini, fry up some onions...things like that to get in the good carbs.

I'm in the home stretch now and I am sooo close to the finish line for my weight loss goal. I doubt whether I can get there but I'm going to try! And I certainly enjoyed the trip getting to where I am now! I'm still eating healthy, living healthy, and thinking healthy. All ingredients for balanced living...one moment at a time.

A Jump Start

It's hard to believe that it's the middle of April! My farm co-op will be starting next month and we'll be getting our produce from the farm for the next 20 weeks. What will I do with a 1/2 bushel box of produce every week? My husband says, "Cook it." (Thanks, dear)

Since my last post - sorry it's been so long - I've started some new things to jump start my metabolism. I've been "stuck" at the same weight for more than a month (though I've lost a total of 15 pounds since I started blogging) and I've still been counting calories and exercising. However the exercising on the Wii has been replaced with outside activities. Hmmmm....maybe that's why I'm stuck. I'm outside, but not exercising enough. I've been doing yard work like edging flower beds and mulching them but that was only for 2 Saturdays. I've been riding my NEW bike!! But since I'm so out of shape, it's hard to ride up and down all these hills!! So I don't ride for very long. I grew up in Michigan and we didn't have many hills. It was mainly flat. In Virginia, there are hills everywhere...starting in my neighborhood. We go out as a family around the neighborhood, but the little ones tire out coming up the hill toward our house. My youngest girl rides on a seat on the back of my bike so I'm carting around an extra 38 pounds on my bike. Whew! It's funny...the last time we went out as a family on our bikes, my son was losing speed up the hill toward our house and my husband was trying to stay with him. My son told my husband, "That's OK dad. You go ahead. I'll catch up." And sure enough, slow and steady, my son made it home. As soon as he got off his bike he promptly said, "I'm going in the house. I'm tired!" I know how he feels, although HE is the young one!! LOL...go figure.

I've changed 2 things that I hope will jump start my metabolism. 1: I started the Atkins diet on April 12 and 2: I started Barry's Bootcamp on April 19. Since I started Atkins I've lost 1.5 pounds. I love a diet that lets me eat bacon, eggs and cheese for breakfast!! Anyway, I have friends who have done this before and have started again back in February (after they were inspired by my-and my husband's-weight loss) and I've been watching them as they do this Atkins program. They've had much success and they inspired me to read more about this diet. I had preconceived ideas that it was a hard diet to be on and I couldn't understand how all the "fatty" foods would help you lose weight. The science behind Atkins is that by eating the right kind of foods it will turn your body into a fat-burning machine rather than a carb-burning machine. I was tired of always feeling hungry while I was just counting calories. On Atkins, I'm not feeling hungry and I'm not craving sweets (that much). Part of that is due to my giving up caffeine. Coffee was actually making me crave sweets. When I started phase 1 of Atkins, they suggested that if you have a true caffeine addiction (which I do because when I go off of it, I go through withdrawals and headaches) that you go off of caffeine while going through phase 1. So I did. Today is day 7 of no caffeine! That wasn't the only reason for giving up caffeine. Since I work in a program in my church that deals with addicts, I've learned that my caffeine addiction ranked higher on the list than theirs. Sugar is the #1 addiction in the U.S. with #2 being caffeine and #3 being greasy food. Here we are, as a church, preaching to people about cocaine, drinking, and pornography, while we're having a Coke and waving a greasy pork chop at 'em. I mean, really!! It got me to thinking....I ranked higher on the list than my students. Not that I can't ever have coffee - but it IS a stimulant and one does "come down" from it which makes that person want to reach for more to get that stimulant again. It acts just like a drug. Anyhow.....back to Atkins. Sorry for that rabbit trail.

How can one tell if they're burning fat? By urinalysis. There are test strips that you can find at your local drugstore (I had to go to the pharmacy window). They are called Ketone strips. You pass it through your urine stream and the result will tell you the amount of ketones you are putting out. When I first started, it took about 4 days before my body started burning fat. Since last Friday, the strips have been getting darker which means I'm burning fat in my body!! Yes!!! There are so many benefits to eating this way, I highly suggest everyone try it for a least two weeks. That's the length of phase 1. It helps with blood sugars, cholesterol, etc. Like I said, gotta love that I can eat a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese - just throw away the bun!

Let's talk about Barry's bootcamp. It's an intense workout that uses a "ball" (that looks like a giant pill) and arm bands for the exercises. Sounds typical, but where this if different, you only do each exercise for 60 seconds. You can commit to anything for 60 seconds, right? The workout lasts for 21 minutes and Barry's right there getting you to push yourself. I really respond to someone like that. What I really like about this is that ANYone can do this. Even if you are so out of shape like me or if you are in shape...there are levels for you. This is NOT the Wii Fit by any means, not Your Shape, and it's more intense than the Active workouts for the Wii. My husband found this program on WOOT. Otherwise, I've never heard of it before this. It's for 30 days at a time and you workout every day except day 7. WHAT??? Yes, every day you workout and every 7th day you rest. My body hurts so much, yet Barry says you work through the pain. Pain means that changes are happening in your body. I agree. I hope this changes my baby-bump-looking belly. I would like for that to go away so I don't have to wear super-sucker pantyhose or a girdle to keep it from...well you know.

Wish me Luck! I'm in the home stretch!

How Crude!

I've been researching how to get closer to the natural state of our food and how the food I eat is being raised, etc. when I gathered some information from a friend, who has a child with food sensitivities, and how foods - certain brands of food - contribute to behavior problems. She saw my interest and brought me a great deal of information to read about a program from the Feingold Association . One of the first things that caught my eye was the heading: "Many learning and behavior problems begin in your grocery cart." As I began reading and learning about this program, I was appalled at what I learned about our USA food manufacturers and what EXACTLY goes into our food. Let me share just a bit of info from their program with you:

I'm sure you've seen them..."Yellow No.5," "Red 40," Blue#1," etc. Do you know where these food dyes come from? Those pretty colors that make the "fruit punch" red, the Jell-O green and the oatmeal blue are made from (are you sitting down?) petroleum - crude oil - which is also the source for gasoline!!!! If you go look in your pantry or in your kitchen cupboards and look at all the nutrition labels on your items, I think you will be shocked at how much crude oil appears in your food.

The colorings and flavorings in foods are combinations of many chemicals, both natural and synthetic. An artificial flavoring is synthetic and may be composed of hundreds of separate chemicals and there is no restriction on what a company can use to flavor food. One source for imitation vanilla flavoring (called "vanillin" and probably is in your cereal) is the waste product of paper mills!!! Some companies built factories next to the pulp mills to turn the undesirable by-product into imitation flavoring, widely used in many cookies, candies, and other foods (as I found on my Wheaties Fuel cereal).

Artificial preservatives (synthetic) are found in many foods (especially in the US) and like the food dyes, are made from petroleum (crude oil). Often they are NOT LISTED in the ingredients, but most of the time you see them as "BHT", "BHA", and "TBHQ." These chemicals may be listed as "anti-oxidants" because they prevent the fats in foods from "oxidizing" or becoming rancid (spoiling). There are many natural beneficial anti-oxidants, but they are much more expensive than the synthetic versions! I've heard some people say that "it's a conspiracy" from the food manufacturers...I'm not going to go there, but I do find it amazing that families on fixed/tight budgets can only afford the food with crude oil in them! There was a time when JT and I could barely afford to eat dirt (due to job losses from Sept. 11) and we could only afford the Wal-Mart brand white bread that was 50 cents (and full of chemicals) and cereals full of HFCS and artificial everything!! We are now in a different season of life and God has blessed us 100-fold. We are able to afford the "healthier" and more natural foods, but we will go broke doing it!! It costs more to eat well, no doubt about that, and I think it's a shame that more manufacturers can't help give our families better food for a more affordable price.

In the Beginning, There Was All Natural

The other day, I went grocery shopping in a store that I don't regularly shop in. Toward the back of the store, there is a little shelf area where they place items that are reduced price or going out of stock. I happened to see boxes of cereal that had "Ezekiel 4:9" on the front. What???? I pick up the box and along with the big picture of a spoonful of cereal are the words from the Holy Bible: "Take also unto thee wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and spelt and put them in one vessel and make bread of it..." ~Ezekiel 4:9. I can't believe my eyes. I flipped the box around and read some of the side panel: "We discovered when these six grains and legumes are sprouted and combined, an amazing thing happens. A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs. In fact, the protein quality is so high, that it is 84.3% as efficient as the highest recognized source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids. Plus, there are 18 amino acids present in this unique cereal - from all vegetable sources." I was intrigued...I bought a box to try.

It reminds me of Grape Nuts cereal...with raisins. The Ezekiel 4:9 cereal I bought was "cinnamon raisin" (2 things I like) and I ate it with skim milk. In just 1/2 cup of cereal there are 190 calories, only 1 gram of fat and 7 grams of protein! Not to forget the vitamins - it's loaded. One of the BEST cereals, nutritionally speaking, that I've ever had. It's very crunchy, but if you pour your milk on it then put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, it reduces the crunch factor a little bit. Ya know, if you have dental work, you may want to take this approach! All-in-all, I thought it was not bad! It lasted me until lunch!

I visited Food For Life today to read more about them. They have many things to offer for gluten/wheat free diets, yeast free products, diabetic friendly items and products that are high in fiber. They do something called "sprouting" to their grains. What is sprouting? Well, I'm glad you asked. I pulled this from their site: "Sprouting is the only way to release all the vital nutrients stored in whole grains. The sprouting process activates beneficial enzymes which cause the grains to sprout and become living and nutrient-rich. Stores of vitamins and minerals dramatically increase over the amount available in flour. Sprouting also converts the carbohydrates in grains into maltose, which is ordinarily done by the body during digestion, thereby predigesting nutrients for you. The enzymatic action enables the body to assimilate the vitamins and minerals more efficiently. Plus, the sprouting process naturally increases the protein content and decreases the calories and carbohydrates found in the original grain." Do you think they did this in the days of Ezekiel? Nonetheless, it's getting closer to all natural eating.

Personally, I believe I should be getting closer to the original state of the food - it's natural state. For example, in our house, we ask the kids: "Did God make the powdered cheese that goes in the macaroni and cheese from a box?" Well, no. We believe that God DID make the cow that gives the milk for cheese. God created the grain that is harvested and made into noodles. So we make mac'n cheese with whole grain noodles, real butter, milk and cheese. In addition to getting closer to the original state of the food, we are going to get our vegetables from a farm this year instead of the store. We are participating in a CSA(community supported agriculture) with a local farm and all our produce will come directly from the farm for 20 weeks. We also have a ton of deer meat in the freezer - the leanest meat you can get - thanks to JT's hunting abilities. We are stocked up for quite a while in that department. Talk about original state of the food...and all-natural!

I'm inspired! I really want to know more about where my food is coming from, how it's being raised and that it is being raised for flavor, not for shelf-life. I'm not surprised that healthy living and balanced nutrition is found in the Bible - after all it's where it all started (IMHO).

Monthly Reflections

Wow! It's the last day of January already! Time flies when you're workin' out and choppin' vegetables! I have to say that I'm actually surprised that I've been able to meet my goals so far. For January, I've lost 8 pounds this month, surpassing my goal of 5 pounds for January. Going back to day one of this blog, I've lost a total of 13 pounds since the "Feeling Fat" day!! I can't believe it! I have 12 more pounds to reach my goal weight. I am really excited that the scale has moved past where I thought it was stuck! I'm over half way through the 6 week body makeover challenge on the Active Workout for Wii. I've burned about 1800 calories for the month of January. I've been sleeping better at night, and I have a better attitude about things. I'm also able to "run" up the stairs without getting winded.

I had a Tupperware party 2 weeks ago and I ordered those fridge mates to help keep your veggies fresh. The cost of produce is so high that I want to be really sure that the produce stays fresh for as long as it possibly can! I spent a good two hours on Saturday washing and chopping vegetables and getting them in those containers. They are guaranteed to keep your stuff fresh for however long it says it will. With the moisture control setting they have on them, I'm sure they will work better than what I'm doing now.

I can't seem to shake the sweet tooth. I would love a good cookie or piece of candy or someting sweet. I've experimented with low-fat oatmeal cookies but they were high in sugar!! They got a bad grade from Calorie Count! :-( I had a friend make some healthy chocolate chip cookies and they were good! I've discovered that angel food cake is an excellent snack to have! I actually LOVE angel food cake! I've been resorting to chewing gum when I get the urge to snack on something sweet.

Goals for February:
Lose 5 pounds
Increase workout time on shceduled workout days by 15 minutes
Create a house schedule to stay organized

Tomorrow is a NEW day! And a new month....