Health Food

In bygone years I have been a health foodie as well as a junk foodie! For the first 13 years of our married life I did not eat any meat for five and then only white meat for the next seven. We also did not eat sugar. No refined sugar, zip, nada nothing. After I had my sixth baby something went haywire and I started eating everything in sight. I mean everything in sight.

The problem with this is of course I started getting fat. So I started working out like a crazy person. I mean I worked out about three hours a day. I was doing triathlons and I almost broke even. I still could not get my weight where I wanted it. Of course the fact that I was stuck in eating for two mode did not help. My excuse is I ate for two for fifteen years due to nursing and being pg. so I just kept it up, not good.

After all these years I have figured out the formula for staying at my ideal weight and I don't even have to work out three hours a day. I do work out one hour a day. I also practice portion control! When I first began trying this out I would take my regular helping and then put half of it back. That worked out well and now I have a good idea of what a portion actually is.

When I became a certified personal trainer it also helped because we had to see what a portion was. Boy oh boy was I way off. In fact I was not eating for two, I was actually eating for three or four people.

I have come full circle and am back to being a health foodie. That mostly because junk food is too expensive in Costa Rica, and just because I feel better when I eat healthy. Maybe by the time I am fifty I will realize my goal of being comfortable enough to work out in my jog bra and running shorts, not quite there yet.

CARROT CAKE

When Rick and I got married we had three cakes. The first cake was of course our wedding cake. My seminary teacher's wife made it for us for a gift. The second cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for the hubby. The third cake was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. That would be my favorite cake. When we were stationed in Hawaii I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to sell at the local health food store, they were a hit of course.

Today was my son-in-laws birthday. I was so happy that he requested carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Not only do I love that, but my daughter luckily followed in my footsteps and makes one mean carrot cake. It was delicious and I fear I am quickly putting back on the hard lost pounds.

Why is it that it takes so darn much time and effort to lose weight and then bammo overnight it is back? That would be the problem with this tapering thing. My body gets adjusted to the big time exercise and when I cut back even the teeniest bit, I get hit. I guess it is time to start watching what goes into the big ole' bocca!

GOAL REACHED !!!!

Yahoo! Finally got into the 130's. When Rebekah and I started training for our marathon two months ago my goal was to get into the 130's by the time we did not marathon. I am so excited to finally get down there. I have not seen this weight since I did my iron man 7 years ago, and did not expect to get there again.

Now I know the key. Run 35 miles a week and don't eat junk food or sweets. The last part was forced not by choice by the way. We have been trying to tighten our belts and cut out the junk and "non-nutritive" foods. That seems to work, unfortunately.

The good news is I have been working on cookies all day. My son wants to introduce our cookies to the neighborhood, so we made some to sell over the weekend and see how they were received. The bad news is chocolate chips are now $4.00 a bag now, holy heck I guess I will keep losing weight. May be in the 120's by the time our race day gets here in four weeks.

PHAT PARTY

Sound fun? I think it would be a blast. I got the idea from a show I watched about a couple of ladies that have coupon parties. They just charge a flat rate and help you learn to save money with coupons. Cool. Anyway since I love parties so darn much I thought how about a PHAT party? We could take measurements, weight, fat measurements and work out a fitness and nutrition program for the participants.

It would be great because people could share what has and has not worked for them. We could teach them the correct ways to workout and how to check heart rate. We could even have drawings for cool prizes, like t-shirts, cookbooks, and exercise mats. Yeah I think it sounds fun, gotta hit my buisness buddy with the idea, but I think she will love it.

We both love helping people get and maintain a healthy weight, as well as just plain ole having fun getting into shape and staying there. The more I think about it the more I like it.

LAW OF ATTRACTION

I thought this was a good topic to talk about when making our New Years Resolutions. I realized many years ago actually, that I always had the same goals. Why every year did I need to have the same resolutions and I was never getting anywhere?

Once I have learned more about the "law of attraction" I have realized why I keep making these goals over and over. It is because I keep making the same mistakes over and over. A good example of this is the weight loss dilema. How many of us have just wanted to lose that extra 10 lbs. for years now?

In finally comprehending the law of attraction I realized what I was actually doing was attracting that 10 lbs. back every year. That which we think about is what we get. I was thinking about the 10 lbs. not being skinny.

This year is different. I have pictures of what I want to look like, and will not concentrate on the don't haves or don't wants, only the wants and haves. In other words put it all in a positive sentence. I will spend one hour a day working on reading with Maleah. Rather than I will not send Maleah to school not knowing how to read in english. Does that make sense?

I will talk more tomorrow about how to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. That was a hard one for me to comprehend until I read a great analogy about it. Take care and rewrite those goals on a positive note. Pura Vida and Happy New Year.

FEELING HOT YET?

You know there is a lot in a title. When I went to massage school I was a little timid about telling people I was a massage therapist once I got done. I think it just took a little time for me to realize I had a title other than mom!

I think sometimes we get so used to wearing our title of mom that we forget we are someone! I love being a mom and think it is pretty cool. But I can also use the title to hide behind. I can use it as an excuse for my weight, my frumpiness, my forgetfullness, my sloppiness, my whatever I want an excuse for.

If you give yourself a new title I believe it will help you look at yourself just a little differently. Just try it for a couple of days. Think to yourself " I am a hot Mom." See if it does not change the way you look at yourself.

Maybe you will take just a little more time getting dressed in the morning. Maybe you will stand just a little taller. Maybe you will even feel so excited you will go out and do that workout you have been avoiding for awhile.

Try it out and see what it does for you.

NO EXCUSES-AGAIN!

I wanted to follow up on yesterdays post with some great success stories that I know of personally. These people all inspire me and are my heros. I will try and get some pics from them so they can inspire you as well.

The first one is my friend Robin from Flagstaff. Robin and I were friends for about 6 years when we lived in Arizona. When we left there two years ago she had six kids and weighed over 200 lbs. She had always wanted to lose weight, but there was just never time with six little ones.

She told me that one day in Feb. last year she was talking with her brother in law on the phone. He ran a weight loss program and she was complaining about her weight. He challenged her to make a commitment to losing the weight. She said ok fine I will start tomorrow, I want to lose 50 lbs by June for the family reunion. She asked him not to tell anyone in the family so that she could surprise them.

The next day she bought an arobics cd and went to work. She tried to work for an hour every day. Of course at first it was near to impossible for her to work out that long because of the weight. As she kept with it the workout got longer and stronger. She also made drastic food changes. She is a great cook and continued cooking for her family. She just quite eating the junk.

She said she also quit eating anything after six in the evening, chewed lots of gum, and had no sugar. A lot of days she did her arobics at ten or eleven in the evening because that was the only time she had to do it.

By June she had actually lost 50 lb. and lost another 60 by Christmas. Is she still there. Yes! She does have to continue working on it and she has had some set backs, but she is staying healthy and taking care of herself.

Another example of a different goal set and reached is my mom. Mom went back to school a few years ago! She graduated with her Bachelors degree from NAU when she was 65 years old! She had tried to go to school many times during her time of raising 9 kids, but she was finally able to finish.

Lest you think she had plenty of time by this time, she was also taking care of my step dad who had cancer, my sister who has cancer and of course all the other kids and grandkids who stop by.

Like I said there are no excuses and I challenge all of you to give me one excuse for not doing something you really want to do. Try it, I dare you!