A past co-worker dropped 40+ pounds in 6 months without exercising. I was worried that she would be emaciated if she lost more than 10 pounds because she looked slim and heathy to me. This just goes to show you that we don't always see what is there. I didn't see her very often so the tranistion was evident when we met next, although she was slimmer she was also glowing with health. Her skin was smooth and pink and her hair shimmered. Her secret - Before you even get out of bed, drink a large glass of water. This starts the organs moving and doing the job they were intended to do.
"Water is your body's principal chemical component and makes up about 60 percent of your body weight. Every system in your body depends on water. Water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues." (from a Mayo Clinic article).
While I don't have a glass before getting out of bed as I am usually in too big of a hurry to eliminate the water I had before bed, I do drink 32 ounces of water before I eat breakfast. By 9 AM I have finished my second 32 oz glass of water and 15th sprint to the bathroom. Hmmm, I could count those trips to the bathroom as exercise. How many calories are burned running to the bathroom, sitting down then standing up?
Besides trying to have 51% of my food intake as fruits and vegetables, I am drinking water with every meal and in between to carry the good nutrients to each cell. Nice plump cells filled with good nutrients equal a healthy me.
Today, I have almost gotten back my "eat right to get healthy" momentum. Along with a glass of water, my husband and I had an egg sandwich and an orange for breakfast. Lunch was chicken chili, made with shredded chicken, three kinds of beans, diced tomatoes, and bell peppers. An apricot, and celery sticks completed the meal. I am trying a new recipe for dinner tonight, Swiss Chard and Garbanzo Beans. My best friend provided the Swiss Chard from her abundant garden, the recipe and a raving review of the meal. I am looking foward to dinner tonight.
Eat healthy, stay healthy
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Prayer Garden
To eat healthy "the books and experts" suggest giving up sugar products and incorporating a high amount of organic fruits and vegetables into your diet. In fact "they" say that 51% of your diet should be fruits and vegetables preferably eaten raw. They also suggest drinking fresh juiced vegetable three times a day. Yeah right, these experts must be making tons of money off their books to be able to afford 51% of their food intake and juice in vegetables and fruit; one non-organic bell pepper is $1.20 on a good day. I can spend $100 a week on salad material, and I don't think that would give me 51% of my food intake. If I were to juice it I would have to spend triple that amount.
The way to resolve this is to start a garden and grow our own food. I have started gardens in the past, I love to work the soil, transplant the starts, sow the seeds and rejoice when I am rewarded with growth. After that I am done with it. Number 1, I don't like vegetables (I was just growing them because I figured if they were there I would eat them). Number 2, I didn't know the difference between a weed and the plant, so invariably I would eventually end up with a bunch of spurge. Enough of the excuses, the real reason is because by the time the garden was ready to produce, if I had somehow left the correct sprout in, I was bored and had moved on to some other project.
But we are committed to eating healthy and becoming Sustainibilly's so we started our garden. Due to my dogs and the space available in my back yard we purchased 11 tree boxes made from recycled wood to start our garden in. My husband and I only know the first thing about gardening but that is about all. Three weeks ago we planted some bell pepper starts in one box and sprinkled carrot seeds in it. The other box we planted tomato plants and sprinkled some other seeds in there. The next week we purchased more boxes and went to town planting according to the seed packets. Then we started praying in the garden that the seeds would sprout and the transplants would acclimate and stay alive.
One week later our prayers were answered, we had 3 little stems poking up in the pepper box, and one corn shoot popping out of the soil. Every day we see the miracle of new growth, which I swear is from answered prayers.
Now I just need to stay focused until we get to eat the fruit of our labor.
Eat healthy, stay healthy.
The way to resolve this is to start a garden and grow our own food. I have started gardens in the past, I love to work the soil, transplant the starts, sow the seeds and rejoice when I am rewarded with growth. After that I am done with it. Number 1, I don't like vegetables (I was just growing them because I figured if they were there I would eat them). Number 2, I didn't know the difference between a weed and the plant, so invariably I would eventually end up with a bunch of spurge. Enough of the excuses, the real reason is because by the time the garden was ready to produce, if I had somehow left the correct sprout in, I was bored and had moved on to some other project.
But we are committed to eating healthy and becoming Sustainibilly's so we started our garden. Due to my dogs and the space available in my back yard we purchased 11 tree boxes made from recycled wood to start our garden in. My husband and I only know the first thing about gardening but that is about all. Three weeks ago we planted some bell pepper starts in one box and sprinkled carrot seeds in it. The other box we planted tomato plants and sprinkled some other seeds in there. The next week we purchased more boxes and went to town planting according to the seed packets. Then we started praying in the garden that the seeds would sprout and the transplants would acclimate and stay alive.
One week later our prayers were answered, we had 3 little stems poking up in the pepper box, and one corn shoot popping out of the soil. Every day we see the miracle of new growth, which I swear is from answered prayers.
Now I just need to stay focused until we get to eat the fruit of our labor.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Making wind and relationships
It is a good thing my husband and I are going through this together. With the introduction of more fiber in our diets, our bowels are moving more rapidly and with that comes air and repeated trips to the bathroom. At first I got away with passing silent ones, but when the dogs started leaving the room I knew I had a problem. My sweet husband even started coughing and laughing, and it wasn't because of me.
As a married couple, we were comfortable sharing some intimacies with each other that we wouldn't want to share with the rest of the world. But after a few days of trumpeting butts and lingering, nauseating smells from my husband, me and the dogs, my husband began an earnest search for a cure to eliminate the problem. The answer was to begin taking Acidophilus to add the good bacteria in to the digestive process.
There must have been one mighty war going on in our stomachs between the good and bad bacteria from the rumblings we felt. By the increased flatulence it appeared the bad bacteria was winning and my husband and I were doomed to live as singles if we were going to continue eating healthy foods. Sugar farts did not compare to what was blowing in the wind. This eating healthy was not conducive to a good marital relationship.
Fortunately, everything worked out, the Acidophilus conquered the bad bacteria and we were able to leave the house without embarrassment. That was until we added in the vitamins, but that is a different story.
Eat healthy, stay healthy.
As a married couple, we were comfortable sharing some intimacies with each other that we wouldn't want to share with the rest of the world. But after a few days of trumpeting butts and lingering, nauseating smells from my husband, me and the dogs, my husband began an earnest search for a cure to eliminate the problem. The answer was to begin taking Acidophilus to add the good bacteria in to the digestive process.
There must have been one mighty war going on in our stomachs between the good and bad bacteria from the rumblings we felt. By the increased flatulence it appeared the bad bacteria was winning and my husband and I were doomed to live as singles if we were going to continue eating healthy foods. Sugar farts did not compare to what was blowing in the wind. This eating healthy was not conducive to a good marital relationship.
Fortunately, everything worked out, the Acidophilus conquered the bad bacteria and we were able to leave the house without embarrassment. That was until we added in the vitamins, but that is a different story.
Eat healthy, stay healthy.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Welcome
Three years ago, my husband and I decided to get healthy and lose weight. We purchased the most recent get healthy, lose weight book on the market, made a grocery list, went shopping and spent lots of money to buy all kinds of food we had never heard of let alone knew how to cook. That lasted for two weeks and we reverted back to our old eating habits, ignoring the original reasons we wanted to change our lifestyle, binging on sugar products and gaining more weight.
A few months later we would start again only to repeat the same cycle, spend, let food spoil, and gain weight. What is that saying "Stupidity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results”?
Family pictures at Christmas opened my eyes to how heavy I had become. The few times I did a full assessment of myself in the mirror I would tell myself that "I don't look that bad." and that "the scale must be broken". But the pictures taken at Christmas portrayed me as a wall with a nose and lips, and that was only my face; I couldn’t deny any longer that I didn’t have my 19 year old body anymore. I won't describe what I thought the rest of my once slim figure had blossomed into.
In addition, my husband and I watched Food Matters and Food, Inc. which put the resolve in us once again to eat healthier, even if we didn't lose weight. We had already started attending some Permaculture classes and planning how to implement their philosophies into our daily living when we would be able to move onto a larger plot of land. But the movies encouraged us to begin now.
December 31st we finished up all the sugar products in the house and set a plan in motion to succeed in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Instead of buying books I checked books out from the library on healthy eating and nutritional supplements and once again headed to the grocery to buy vitamins, fruits and vegetables and grains. Starting January 1st, 2011 we have been trying to eat 51% of our food in fruits and vegetables, either raw or cooked. We have made that part the focus of the meal and any meat eaten that day as the complimentary part.
Two weeks ago I purchased a juicer at a garage sale for $5. (what a find) and we have begun a regiment of vegetable/fruit juice each morning. This is still a work in progress. Next will be making our own bread using the pulp from the juiced vegetables/fruit and healthy grains.
Last week we started a vegetable garden in some tree boxes made from recycled wood and are praying that something grows. We have also planted apple, plum, peach and apricot trees; although these will take about two years to produce fruit we are still on task. Our next step is to plant some grape vines and nut trees. I am going to need a bigger yard.
We have also re-evaluated the amount of money we were spending on paper towel napkins, plastic baggies, and other disposable products and switched to cloth napkins and re-usable containers.
Our goal is to become "Sustainabillies", growing our own food, re-using or recycling, living in an energy efficient home and so on.
A few months later we would start again only to repeat the same cycle, spend, let food spoil, and gain weight. What is that saying "Stupidity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results”?
Family pictures at Christmas opened my eyes to how heavy I had become. The few times I did a full assessment of myself in the mirror I would tell myself that "I don't look that bad." and that "the scale must be broken". But the pictures taken at Christmas portrayed me as a wall with a nose and lips, and that was only my face; I couldn’t deny any longer that I didn’t have my 19 year old body anymore. I won't describe what I thought the rest of my once slim figure had blossomed into.
In addition, my husband and I watched Food Matters and Food, Inc. which put the resolve in us once again to eat healthier, even if we didn't lose weight. We had already started attending some Permaculture classes and planning how to implement their philosophies into our daily living when we would be able to move onto a larger plot of land. But the movies encouraged us to begin now.
December 31st we finished up all the sugar products in the house and set a plan in motion to succeed in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Instead of buying books I checked books out from the library on healthy eating and nutritional supplements and once again headed to the grocery to buy vitamins, fruits and vegetables and grains. Starting January 1st, 2011 we have been trying to eat 51% of our food in fruits and vegetables, either raw or cooked. We have made that part the focus of the meal and any meat eaten that day as the complimentary part.
Two weeks ago I purchased a juicer at a garage sale for $5. (what a find) and we have begun a regiment of vegetable/fruit juice each morning. This is still a work in progress. Next will be making our own bread using the pulp from the juiced vegetables/fruit and healthy grains.
Last week we started a vegetable garden in some tree boxes made from recycled wood and are praying that something grows. We have also planted apple, plum, peach and apricot trees; although these will take about two years to produce fruit we are still on task. Our next step is to plant some grape vines and nut trees. I am going to need a bigger yard.
We have also re-evaluated the amount of money we were spending on paper towel napkins, plastic baggies, and other disposable products and switched to cloth napkins and re-usable containers.
Our goal is to become "Sustainabillies", growing our own food, re-using or recycling, living in an energy efficient home and so on.
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