Habits of Contradiction

Throwing food away, and thoughts about intuitive eating

2011-04-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

Many people were taught as children to always clean their plates (think of the starving children in Ethiopia, etc.). As adults, they continue to clean their plates, and feel quite guilty if they don't, even when portion sizes and calories are far more than necessary, even far more than can be comfortably eaten. Chapter 23 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win explores how to throw food out when you're satisfied.

She has you start when you are hungry, and take a big plate of "very righteous food" (something inexpensive and very good for you). Watching your thoughts and sensations - use the Watcher! - eat until satisfied. Throw away the rest of the food. The next time you're ready to try the lesson, try a food that's slightly more expensive and tasty. Work your way up to an "extremely wicked" food. If you feel panic about throwing it away, remind yourself that the food is available, you can have more anytime you want. She doesn't say this, but ideally I think you should have the food around, or where it can be easily purchased for next time. The key is that you have to watch how your body feels, and throw the food out as soon as you are satisfied.

My brain works a little differently than Beck's example in this chapter. I don't remember ever being told to finish my food. Mostly, I remember never having enough of the foods I craved - meat, sweets, even sometimes fruit. We were never hungry, but we rarely had the foods that other kids in school had.

The issue for me isn't that I feel like I have to eat anything on my plate, it is that my brain doesn't believe that the food I crave will be available later. Some part of my is always secretly worrying that this is the last time I'll ever get it, so I have to eat it all. This isn't uncommon, I think, it's just not the same situation that Beck describes.

I didn't do the full lesson described above; I jumped in and have been trying to throw out a little food for at least a couple of meals every day. Not every meal - when I first read the chapter, I felt like that's what I should do, but I quickly realized that I was just setting a rule for myself that I wouldn't be able to follow. Some of my meals are planned to be a fairly small portion already, especially during the work week. The point is to throw away portions of the meals that are too large. The easiest way for me to do that is to start with a larger portion of oatmeal for breakfast - and I can definitely feel the point where I've had enough, as well as feeling the desire to eat it all (because I do love oatmeal). I've had less success with meals eaten out, and that's something I definitely need to work on, as those are the meals that are too big to begin with.

I've been trying to focus on both Chapter 22 (eating forbidden food) and Chapter 23 at the same time, after doing each separately. That's a good combination, and I think it is slowly helping me form a picture of how I want to eat. I'm not there you though!

From famine to abundance

2011-03-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Time to get back to more chapters! I find that if I don't actively focus on doing a 4-day win, then I also don't focus on the larger issue. Interestingly, back in late December, I had identified that issue as improving my relationship with food. Now, I would phrase it as improving my relationship with my body - and the circumstances of what/how/when I eat is part of that relationship.

Chapter 22 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win discusses how to counter famine with abundance. If you have been starved, or consistently denied yourself the foods that you want (and isn't that the definition of a traditional diet plan?), your brain wants that food. Beck talks about how the hormone dopamine, which is released in response to hunger, can over time cause structural changes in your brain so that you focus more on cravings.

This chapter has an interesting exercise for imagining your favorite food in great detail, and in unlimited quantities, to look at how much you really want; also exercises for doing this in real life - ordering a lot of your favorite food and watching how long it takes you to be full, then stopping (and either having a friend with you to help you throw the rest away, or take the leftovers home for later, if you feel like you can).

The 4-day win is to practice eating your favorite food, focusing on stopping when full, and reminding yourself that you can have more next time you're hungry.

This lesson worked really well for me for a few days - I had just a few girl scout cookies or other sweets each day, and really didn't want more. Then I hit the end of the week and decided to make an ice cream brownie sundae. I ate too much of that, was not concentrating on when I was full. And then the leftover ingredients were in the house, which turned out badly. Certain foods are ok for me to have in the house now, but that particular combination is not!

Beck talks about this, she says that she's not recommending that everyone keep their favorite foods in the house, although she says she does (and rarely eats it). But, she says: "I think that our brains are geared to relax famine responses when we know we have food stored even more than when we've gorged ourselves."

Farinata chicken sausage pizza

2011-03-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

Farinata chicken sausage pizza

1/2 cup garbanzo flour
5 oz water
dash salt
1 T olive oil
1/4 tsp rosemary

2 chicken sausages
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
2 T tomato sauce
10 black olives, sliced
1 cup mozzarella, shredded

Mix garbanzo flour, salt and water until smooth
Let sit for at least 1 hour

Preheat oven to 475 F (yes, 475!)

Remove casing from sausages, chop into bite-sized pieces and saute until browned
Add onion and mushroom, cook until soft

Add olive oil to cast iron skillet, heat for at least 5 minutes (can do this while oven is pre-heating)

Stir garbanzo flour mixture, then pour into hot pan; sprinkle rosemary on top
Bake for 15 minutes

Remove from oven, spread tomato sauce on top, then sausage mixture, olives and cheese
Bake for another 5 minutes or until cheese is completely melted

The crust is from askGeorgie.com - I use her Rosemary Farinata recipe exactly, baked in a cast iron skillet.

This is my new favorite Sunday recipe!

Rat trap/rat park

2011-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

Rats will, when kept in small cages ("rat traps"), choose to drink sugar-water laced with morphine over plain water. Other rats, kept in a larger space with room to roam and plan, will choose the plain water; they don't like being on drugs. Move the caged rats to the "rat park" environment, and they will slowly stop drinking the morphine water, even though that causes them to go through withdrawal.

The premise of Chapter 18 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is that humans do the same - when faced with a rat trap environment, we will choose the drugs, including food. I find it sad that those rat trap environments are largely of our own making, or at least, we have the ability to change them, and have chosen not to. The lesson for this 4-day win is to identify people, places, activities, and situations as belonging in either the rat trap or the rat park.

Chapter 19 follows up with taking your daily to-do list and marking each item with a desire to eat score - identifying what makes you want to eat because you feel trapped. Then, take the worst item on the list and ask yourself if you can bag (don't do it), barter (trade or delegate it) or better (do it, but add a happier element while you do) that item.

Not surprisingly, most of my rat trap items are related to work or other obligations that I'd rather not do. Identifying as many items in my life as possible as either rat trap or rat park did help me see clearer what makes me happy and what makes me want to gnaw my arm off (and eat cookies). From my daily to-do list, I always chose to better the worst item. Perhaps I need to work harder at allowing myself to just bag (don't do) certain things though.

Not always so

2011-02-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Chapter 15 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is basically a continuation of Chapter 14, where we looked at common weight loss myths and kept a journal of thoughts and why those thoughts might not be true. Chapter 15 is about lies that we tell ourselves. Those lies generally start with "I can't" or "I have to". We feel trapped by those lies, leading (of course) to overeating.

The exercise is to write down things you've eaten while not hungry each day, and then analyze what thought triggered that eating. In theory, I really like this exercise. I completely agree with Beck's premise that rephrasing can make a big difference in how we feel - changing "I have to" to "I don't really want to, but it's my choice". There may be really unpleasant consequences, but almost everything is a choice.

In reality, I couldn't come up with much each day for this. Maybe because I did it from Sunday through Wednesday, which tend to be stable eating days for me? This is probably a good exercise to repeat on a Friday and Saturday. I did catch one or two "I have to do all of this stuff and I don't have time" thoughts, leading to eating small amounts of chocolate. The truth is, I didn't have to do any of it (there's always the option of quitting my job, or just quitting doing part of it), and what I really needed to do was prioritize.

Liar, liar

2011-01-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

The title of Chapter 14 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is "How not to be a big fat liar". Beck lists a bunch of myths about weight loss, with an argument against each one. They mostly involve relying on external authority, instead of trusting yourself to come up with what will work best for you. Also, that you will always have emotional ups and downs, there isn't any perfect system that will eliminate the need to cope with emotional changes.

The lesson for this 4-day win is to keep a journal of what you ate, hunger level, physical feeling, emotional feeling, what you were thinking, and reason why that thought may not be true.

As I previously discovered, my emotional feeling is far too often a general low level (or high level) stress. Physical feeling varies, but for these 4 days, it tended to be some variation of "tired". I had a harder time identifying what I was thinking, which seems odd, although I did have some clear "I deserve to eat this" thoughts.

In general, I think I'm past the need for someone else to tell me the rules, at least about weight loss, fitness and health. I still have to work on getting some old rules out of my head though, or at least determine if they are really what makes me feel the best. Ah ha, that's why I'm really feeling ok with skipping some chapters, and thinking about doing some out of order - Beck is an outside authority too.

2011-01-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

On to Chapter 13... yes, I'm skipping around again! Chapter 12 involves replaying a binge episode, basically as if it were a movie, watching your reactions. I didn't have enough emotional energy to do that this week. I suppose I had planned to do follow the chapters in order; I'm enough of a Type A personality to want to do things the way they're written. But I don't think there's anything wrong with doing chapters out of order or even skipping some entirely. It's all about what's going to help me, and some exercises may just not feel right, or may not feel right at this time.

Chapter 13 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is another simple and positive 4-day win. Each day, you list 15 things you are grateful for or appreciate. She says it's impossible for your brain to be afraid while in a state of gratitude or appreciate (which also come with many health benefits, including lower stress). Emotional eating, of course, has a lot to do with fear. I'm not sure if she actually states this in the chapter, but this is obviously another step in how to be the Watcher in your own mind rather than being ruled by the Wild Child and Dictator.

Catch up

2011-01-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm jumping around in chapters again - skipped Chapter 9, for reasons that I may discuss later. The short story is, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, seemed too silly/stupid. I'd already done Chapter 10, so on to Chapter 11 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win.

I don't have the book in front of me, but this chapter is basically thinking of good memories, in as much detail as possible. You squeeze your left pinky with your right hand when you do the exercise. Probably the same theory as wrapping a string around your finger to remember something, it's imprinting a memory in your brain. Then later, you can do the same thing when you're under stress (squeeze your left pinky with your right hand), and your brain will remember the happy memories.

This was a fun exercise, nice to think about all of the good things in life. I definitely want to repeat this one later.

I've been sick since last weekend, and didn't have the mental energy for a new chapter, but I'll probably start another tomorrow. Need to come up with better or different daily rewards and 4-day rewards, to really emphasize that those are rewards, not just things I do all the time.

Adding to the last lesson

2011-01-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking of Chapter 7 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win as "how to relax", which makes Chapter 8 "how to relax and listen to your body". Beck again refers to your body as a creature, and your brain as a computer, and says you have to train the computer to listen to the creature.

The lesson for this 4-day win is to do the 10 minute relaxation/meditation exercise from the previous chapter. Then, when you're feeling very relaxed and in touch with your creature body, describe the sensation in your hands and feet, and then your whole body. She wants very clear precise language here, and starting with feet and hands because they are the safest body parts for many people. Then, describe what you are feeling emotionally; if you can't tell, focus on the part of your body that is most uncomfortable, until you can feel the emotion. From there, breathe deeply and relax - and notice that you're not feeling hunger, you're feeling whatever that emotion is. Lastly, feel what your physical hunger actually is, and rate it on a hunger scale of 1-10.

My favorite quote from this chapter:

... you may be thinking that this is touchy-feely pop-psych New Age folderol way beneath your intelligence, and that you'll just skip over this particular exercise. If so, I'll tell you what emotion you're feeling: fear

Haha... (and darn, I think pop-psych is exactly the word I was looking for in my last post). Actually, I didn't have any resistance to doing this exercise. I don't find it difficult to know if I'm hot or cold or itchy, but it is hard to put that into words without boring myself when I'm doing it a few times each day. Tracking down the emotion is a little harder, and it is often a mild anxiety, meaning I'm slightly stressed way too often. This exercise puts me to sleep sometimes, which is helpful!

The body whisperer??

2011-01-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

Chapter 7 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is "The Body Whisperer". This chapter hit a lot of buttons for me, the ones that say "this is psychobabble". She starts the chapter by talking about horse whispering, the ability to speak the physical language of horses to calm them, and then relates that to the relationship that our rational brains have with our bodies. She says that our brains act as predators and our bodies are prey:

Overeating is a self-calming behavior that's triggered by resistance - your resistance to your body's appetites, its resistance to your attempts at controlling it. You can't ask a prey animal to stop being afraid when it feels threatened - everything in its nature makes that impossible. Remember, I'm not just comparing your overeating self to a pray animal, I'm telling you it literally is one.

I love that first sentence. My gut reaction to the rest is "errrrr ok". Then:

If you want to lose weight, you must drop your predator behavior. That means being supportive, rather than aggressive, toward your body. It won't come naturally at first. You may feel ridiculous. I don't care. Fake it.

I felt better knowing that she expected the reaction that I had. So I did the exercise, which involves finding a safe place where you will be uninterrupted for at least 10 minutes, breathing deeply, and repeating mantras. She gives examples, such as "it's all right to rest", "if I never changed a thing, the world would keep revolving" and "I can handle this moment, and I don't have to handle anything else". The goal is the reach the point where your body relaxes.

I was really shocked the first time I did this - it felt great! I'm not sure how long it really took, but I was able to completely relax, I could feel the stress in my neck and shoulders completely disappear. Thinking about this, it is obviously a classic relaxation or meditation exercise. I've just never really tried to do those.

I'm still not sure what to think of the concept of my brain acting as predator and my body as prey. But I think the meditation exercise is great!

If you've noticed that I'm jumping around with the chapters, that's because I had intended to do a few 4-day wins for the chapters referred to in the Quick Start guide, and then start my own 4-day wins for weight loss (which is what the Quick Start is for). After doing two chapters, I decided that I need the mental training more than I need to be on a diet plan. I am eating pretty well, and I'm getting back into the habit of doing regular Turbulence Training workouts. But for now, I want to focus my 4-day wins on the exercises in this book. I'm having fun with it, despite feeling silly at times, and I've been reading ahead and am eager to get to some of the later chapters that look really interesting.

Becoming the Watcher

2011-01-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Chapter 10 of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is entitled "The most important weight-loss skill in the history of the universe". Basically, this is how to reach a mental state where you are observing your own reactions; from that state of observation, you won't overeat.

The exercise is this:

Imagine a miniature version of yourself, who is commanding you to lose weight. This is the Dictator, who is harsh and insulting in her commands.

Then, imagine another miniature version of yourself, who wants to eat uncontrollably. This is the Wild Child, just waiting for an opportunity to escape from the Dictator's control.

While imagining these miniature selves, see that they both are essentially good. The Dictator wants you to be healthy, and gets frantic when you are out of control. The Wild Child is the instinctive part of you that evolved to prevent starvation.

The lesson is to offer them both kindness and compassion, understand that they want what is best for you - but that neither of them is you. You are the Watcher, able to understand both of them and thus able to understand what you really need.

Now here's where I have to confess that I'm terrible at visualization. I've always been a left brain person - logical, analytical, with very little patience for mumbo jumbo. Yet, there are issues in my brain, related to food, that seem completely out of my control, and thinking about them logically has not worked for me. This book is full of visualization exercises that are intended to help bring those more under conscious control; I suppose I just have to learn to be more comfortable with visualization exercises!

I comfort my left brain logic by noting that Beck does start most chapters with a scientific explanation. In this chapter, she talks about how obsessive compulsive disorder can actually be seen on an MRI brain scan, that there is unusually high activity in the part of the brain that triggers fear reactions. She has an example of a psychiatrist who treats patients with obsessive compulsive disorder by having them look at their MRI, and tell themselves that the compulsions are just electrical impulses in their brain. Then, the patients are instructed to do something they enjoy for 15 minutes. After repeating this exercise a couple of times, the compulsions start to get better, and eventually go away. And, a new MRI shows that the structure of the patients brain is now "normal".

Beck says that overeating is often a self-calming compulsion similar to OCD. Her becoming the Watcher exercise is a little different (most people don't have easy access to MRI's after all), but the concept is the same. Beck says that becoming the Watcher is the process of your brain releasing anxiety.

This 4-day win lesson is going really well for me, other than feeling silly and perhaps uncomfortable trying to do the visualization. Maybe I would do better thinking about the electrical impulses in my brain rather than the Dictator and Wild Child, but for now, I'm doing the exercises as written.

Observing famine brain

2010-12-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

The premise of Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win is that it takes 4 days of practice to install a new skill or behavior in our brains. Link enough 4-day wins together and you'll be so used to the new behavior that it will be harder for you to stop doing it than to continue. This is similar to the common adage that it takes 21 days (or 14 days or 28 days or whatever) to form a new habit. Beck stresses that the skills or behavior you are trying to learn should be done in small steps - she calls each one a "ridiculously easy daily goal". You also set a small daily reward and a slightly larger 4-day reward. If you don't follow through on the daily goal, you don't get the reward.

There are two ways to follow The Four-Day Win book:

1) Skip to the Jump Start, where you read a few important chapters, pick a diet plan to follow - as she says, "Pick a diet, any diet" - and then start following it for your first 4-day plan. Later, after you have had some success with your plan, then you go back and learn what she calls the "backfield skills".
2) Follow each chapter from the beginning, learning all of the backfield skills to start with. Each chapter ends with a 4-day win plan to follow. You make up your own daily rewards and 4-day rewards.

The 4-day win plans include: Sensation interpretation (rating your hunger); Beating the binge monster (walking yourself through a past binge and identifying your emotions); Ruthlessly exploiting appreciation and gratitude (identifying what you are grateful for); Food-mood-brood journal (what you ate, what you were feeling, what you were thinking, and why those thoughts may not be true). There are about 30 lessons to go through; I haven't read through them all yet. I may skip a couple, but there are others that I'm sure I'll need to repeat.

I'm starting at the beginning, although I will skip ahead to the Jump Start after I do a few.

Chapter 6 is the first 4-day win: Observing famine brain - watch your emotional and psychological responses to food limitation.

She cites a 1950 Ancel Keys study where a group of healthy men were put on a very restricted calorie diet for 6 months. By the end of that time, they had basically all become obsessed with food, and some started binge eating. Their metabolic rates had also dropped an average of 40%.

I've never restricted what I eat that far - but I think anyone who has dieted has set up some of that mentality. Beck says "overeating and putting on fat is the normal psychological response to the mere expectation of being chronically hungry".

This is probably a lesson that I'll want to repeat later, because I have done very little food restricting in recent weeks, and I'm not really trying to eat less yet, so I don't have all that much famine brain thinking going on.

I have been focusing on why I'm eating, particularly when I eat foods that I normally wouldn't consider "on plan", and it's clear that boredom and stress quickly send me to the kitchen. Of course that's not really a suprise, but making myself focus on why I want snacks has helped me to not eat or eat less.

My daily reward for this first 4 days is 15 minutes in the evening to play mindless computer games (Mah Jong or Solitaire) or messing around with ancestry.com. My 4 day reward will be flowers, expensive fruit, or some other small non-junk food treat from the market.

Where to go from here

2010-12-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

Here we are on the verge of another new year, ready to assess where we are and where we want to be. After a long absence, I plan to post here regularly.

The bad news: my pants are too tight, I'm avoiding stepping on the scale, and I feel out of shape. I've been eating too much and not being active enough for too long. My brain feels worn out from too much stress, and I'm sure I'm chronically short on sleep.

The good news: I feel fairly confident that my major stress (work related) is winding down. I'm starting to sleep better. And interestingly, I don't hate my body (despite all of the above), and I sometimes even like what I see when I look in the mirror. It seems obvious to me that I need to like or at least respect my body in order to be healthy, and I think I am at least halfway there. Yet part of me feels like that is bad news too, because hating what you look like is an awfully good motivation to lose weight.

I've been fighting with this for the last year; I don't want to just lose weight again, because my own history tells me that I'll be right back here again sooner or later.
I know what to do to lose weight - but I could lose the same 5-10-20 pounds a hundred times and I'll gain it back a hundred times if I can't sort out how to have a better relationship with food. I need to stop eating for the wrong reasons. This is not to say that I want to eat only for fuel; eating should also be about sharing and enjoying food, and perhaps sometimes even for comfort. But my overall habits and patterns and dependencies involving food need to change, and my methods for dealing with (or perceiving) stress need to improve.

I still believe that the Precision Nutrition eating plan and Turbulence Training workouts are a winning combination for physical health. That means for losing fat and gaining strength, as well as numerous other indicators, such as cholesterol and blood sugar.
I will use what I can from these programs, because I know they work, and improving my physical health is important. But it's equally important that I improve my mental and psychological health, and that definitely means working on how to not be "on" and then "off" program. It means figuring out how to just live rather than follow a program.
I'm not weighing and measuring myself and taking pictures for a start date. I am working on setting goals, they're just not related to physical measurements. And I am promising myself that I will do my best to be healthy, which means eating well, being active, reducing stress, and sorting out what I really need instead of food.

I'm starting with reading through Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win, which is all about how to change behaviors, four days at a time. I've started the four day win lessons... more details on the first one in a day or two.

GoWear Fit

2010-02-28T19:30:00.001-08:00

I've been playing around with my new GoWear Fit for about 10 days - I bought it as my new year's motivation. It's just a little late for the new year because January was hectic.

The GoWear Fit is an armband that measures calorie burn, physical activity, steps taken, sleep duration and sleep efficiency. It's not 100% accurate for any of those, probably particularly calorie burn. It measures motion and steps with an accelerometer, electric conductivity of skin (which changes when you sweat), skin temperature and heat flux (heat flowing from your body as a result of muscle activity). There is still some type of standard metabolic rate calculation being used, which means there is going to be a margin of error in exactly how many calories you burn. The numbers it gives are a good base though, and their website has food logging tool to see your caloric input to compare with calories burned.

Warning: this device requires their tracking website, which has a monthly fee.

Here's what I've learned so far:

I'm averaging about 8500 steps/day

I can get up to 10000 without any problem if I have an evening walk
If I do a workout instead of a walk, my steps fall short
On weekends, I'm lucky to get 5500 steps

Calories burn is 2200-2300/day

This doesn't vary as much as steps
Again, weekends are less for me
Workouts don't make a big difference in daily calorie burn
General activity - taking the stairs, cleaning, yard work - seems to make more of a difference, but I haven't tested that too much

I don't sleep enough, averaging just under 7 hours/night

I'm lying down for about 8.5 hours, which puts my "sleep efficiency" at under 80%
If I'm really tired, I can sleep for about 4.5 hours straight
Most nights, I sleep for only 2.5 hours straight before waking

I find that I'm trying to walk more throughout the day because I'm thinking about my steps and calorie balance. I didn't realize exactly how sedentary my job is most of the time or that my weekends are even more sedentary unless I'm consciously doing something active!

I have been more conscious of what I'm eating; I've tracked calories fairly often in the past, but never felt sure about the other half of the equation - how many calories I was burning. Of course the numbers my GoWear Fit gives me may not be accurate, but at least I know they are affected by what I'm doing through the day so I take them more seriously than a generic RMR calculation.

I find my sleep numbers to be the most interesting, although I'm not sure what to do about that issue other than continue to work on managing stress and unwinding before bed.

Abstainer vs. Moderator

2009-12-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

I am a neglectful blogger! Summer is finished, fall has passed and we're firmly in the grip of winter, despite what the calendar says. Winter of course brings the holidays - and very quickly, I'm lying on the couch thinking "why did I eat all that cookie dough"??

I ran across an interesting post today on strategies for dealing with holiday temptations:
Four Tips for Using the Abstainer/Moderator Split in the Face of Holiday Temptations

She splits the world into two types of people - abstainers and moderators. Abstainers can't stop eating treats once they start; moderators can't stand the thought of not being able to eat any treats.

I can understand being an abstainer. I went three months without eating sugar last year and though it was really helpful. In many ways, it was much simpler; instead of deciding what I "should" eat or what I "deserved" to eat, I just didn't eat it. That was difficult for a couple of weeks, but then actually became very easy. I knew there was end date though, and I don't think I could have done it if I started out thinking I was going to avoid all sweets for the rest of my life.

In the long run, I am a moderator. I have the idea in my head that there is a "healthy" way of eating, which is mostly vegetables, fruits, lean meats and whole grains, but will include some treats. I don't want to ever try to tell myself that I can never have a brownie and ice cream again. Cutting out treats entirely for a certain time period doesn't seem right if I know I'm not willing to cut them out forever. I want moderation (in all things, but that's another topic).

This holiday season, I have drawn up a calendar of events - those are the times when I can freely have treats. I may slip up and have treats other times, and I'll try not to be too hard on myself if I do. I'm hopeful that giving myself permission to have treats at certain times will decrease the temptation the rest of the time.

Sunday ritual

2009-08-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

On Sunday's, our Precision Nutrition Lean Eating Program lesson is about "the Sunday Ritual": either plan and prepare food for the coming week, or plan how you will ensure that you will have good nutrition for the whole week.

For me, it's easiest to do most of the planning and prep work on Sundays. First thing in the morning, I plan what to eat for each meal (and if I'm feeling wishy-washy, I plan multiple options), write a grocery list and go shopping. Throughout the day, I fit in the food prep - chopping veggies, cooking snacks and lunches, and cooking dinner for Sunday and Monday. I have a bag of snacks and lunches to take to work for 2-3 days; then I prepare another bag Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Here's what this week looks like:

Breakfast:
Cottage cheese/egg white/veggie casserole (baked today, will last Monday through Thursday)
I have plenty of eggs, egg whites, vegetables and cheese for the remaining breakfasts

Morning snack:
Tuna, mixed raw vegetables, raw cashews if I'm still hungry
Usually I have a second snack option, but wasn't feeling energetic this week and tuna is easy!

Lunch:
Edamame, green bean, red pepper salad w/olive oil and lemon juice dressing (made today for two lunches)
Chicken sausage stir fried with zucchini and onion (for two lunches, will prepare Tuesday or Wednesday night)
One lunch will be a meal out, but it will be a healthy choice

Afternoon snack:
Choco-Coconut Protein Cake (baked today), with the rest of the veggies from my morning snack

Dinner:
Pizza made with whole wheat pita or tortilla, chicken, mozzarella, olives, red pepper, onion and mushrooms (this was tonight's dinner and have veggies prepped for tomorrow)
Trader Joe's teriyaki chicken with zucchini and onions
Lean pork chops with bbq sauce and either steamed broccoli or roasted zucchini and yellow squash
One undecided dinner this week - but there is plenty of good food in the house to choose from!

Evening snack:
Lowfat Greek yogurt with berries (mix yogurt with cocoa powder and splenda and add a little whipped cream on top for a treat)
Kashi GoLean cereal with berries or peaches (usually only after a workout)
Oat bran with banana and a little coconut (only after a workout)
I also keep dark chocolate around and will have up to 16g with my evening snack a few nights a week if I'm craving chocolate.

Saturday lunch and dinner tend to be meals out, and that's my day to have small splurges and not worry as much about what I'm eating. I am trying to only eat to 80% full on Saturdays too though, which is my biggest challenge right now.

Sundays are right back to my good habits, just not as planned out - whatever is left in the house plus I like to get whatever healthy treat catches my eye at the grocery store. Today, that was "fried" cheese from Trader Joe's, which I believe is actually kasseri cheese; it's commonly fried in Greece, but I use a non-stick pan without oil to brown it and get it nicely melty.

That's my week! It takes a little time on Sundays, and again on Tuesday or Wednesday night, but that extra time up front is worth not stressing about what to eat as each meal approaches through the week.

Self Assessment

2009-07-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted about this yet, but I am in the middle of the Precision Nutrition Lean Eating Program. This is a 6-month nutrition and exercise program, broken down into groups of 100 women (or 100 men), with online lessons, coaching, discussion, and support.

The daily lessons are one of my favorite parts of the program, and I just completed a great one about assessing your motivation:

As an "athlete" in the Lean Eating program, there are many possible aspects of your fitness and nutrition lifestyle you could assess, but for simplicity sake, let's look at following five areas and score each one on a scale of 100 (0 being the lowest and 100 being the highest).

Genetic / natural ability in a given discipline
Nutrition / supplementation
Training
Mental
Recovery

This comes at an interesting time for me, because between vacations, planned events, and work stress, I just didn't have enough dedication over the last month. I was trying to be really aware of this and recognize that's why I wasn't seeing results on the scale or other measurements, but it was still a little frustrating. After all, I was doing some things right, and it's easy to focus on those and forget what I was not doing right!

Over the weekend, however, something clicked and I found the focus that I need. I'm not sure if it was knowing that I finally have 7 straight weeks where I should be able to have a very routine schedule, accepting that work stress isn't going to get any better right now and I need to just deal with it, cleaning out my kitchen so I'm more organized, or what. But I now do feel focused and able to dedicate myself to working on my goals.

Goal:
Right now, I am working to lose enough fat that my smaller pants fit comfortably (maybe 10 pounds). In the long term, I want to become more balanced in my eating habits and how I think about food so I'm not constantly fighting with my weight.

Genetics: 50
I lost a lot of weight 5 years ago, but I have still spent most of my adult life overweight, and struggle with maintaining my weight. I seem to gain weight really easily (gained 6-7 pounds this spring over a 3-4 week period when I had a really bad cold). I have to really buckle down to lose weight, I can't eat just a little more carefully and have the weight very slowly disappear - but I always can lose it when I really try.

Nutrition: 90 now (60 over the last month)
I could eat a few more veggies, and my meal timing is slightly stretched out in the morning (sometimes right at 4 hours rather than 2-3), but I'm doing really well with what I eat this week.
Over the last month, I had a few episodes of binge eating, ate fairly well while on vacation but not as well as I could have, and generally ate too many carbs outside of the post-workout window and too much on weekends.

Training: 90 now (80 over the last month)
Training is usually the simplest area for me once I get into a routine. I could push slightly harder on EEW (energy expenditure workouts) sometimes, but I always fit in all of my workouts and make sure to increase weights or reps on at least a couple of exercises each workout. I am still working out at home, because I have heavy enough weights for all of the exercises so far, but that does require some exercise substitutions.
I did fairly well with training over the last month too, only missed one workout while on vacation, and substituted two bodyweight workouts. This is where I start thinking "but I should have seen progress, I worked hard on my exercises and didn't eat that badly!"

Mental: 70 now (60 over the last month)
I never get really bad, but I did have a touch of "poor me" recently; see above under training. Mostly, I just get mentally worn out and don't feel like saying no to the foods that I crave.
I don't think I've ever felt super positive and energetic; I'm not negative, but I am a bit of a cynic.
Right now, I do still feel a little low on mental energy overall, but for this goal, I am motivated and positive enough to keep myself on track!

Recovery: 70 now (60 over the last month)
In general, recovery is my weakest area. I get stressed out easily and I bring work stress home too often.
I've started a few different methods to help with that - going downstairs to read at least 15 min. before bed, doing 30 min. of yard or house work after my workout a few nights during the week so I don't feel like I have to do it all on the weekends, and trying to get out of the office for lunch each day (not doing so well on that last one this week).
I'm pretty good at taking days off from working out when I need them. I need to look at other recovery methods more - hot baths, massages, etc.

That puts me at a total of 370 right now, which is a pretty big improvement from over the last month. I'm excited to see my progress this week - but I know there is still room for improvement if I need to push myself harder.

Raspberries and Radishes

2009-06-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the first day of summer, I picked fresh raspberries and radishes from my garden this afternoon.

Sadly, I don't have much of a garden this year. The weather was not at all co-operative for weekend gardening, and I was too busy stressing about work. Then we took a 2 week vacation to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks right as it got really hot at home. So right now, I have a small section of corn, a few hills of yellow squash, spotty rows of bush beans, very spotty rows of beets, and just two basil sprouts. The radishes and tomatoes are volunteers from last year's seeds, which is always fun to see.

I'm happy to say that all of my fruit is doing well though - apples, asian pear, grapes, blueberries, cold hardy kiwi, and raspberries. Also ground cover strawberries, which are spreading like crazy (despite being newly transplanted and not watered at all) and are blooming, but I don't think are really intended to be edible.
The raspberries are trying to take over the entire hillside, which is a good excuse to not mow down there; if I mow the grass, the raspberries won't have any competition.

I rinsed the radishes and ate them straight out of the garden. The raspberries will be gobbled up later on top of a bowl of Greek yogurt. Small pleasures from the yard, even when I neglect it.

Rhubarb Coconut Flour Clafouti

2009-05-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

I always intend to write more, but I'm not doing so well this month! Instead, I've been reading a lot of cooking blogs and drooling.

Spring is, of course, rhubarb season, and I have a nice big plant in my flower garden. Don't ask why someone would plant rhubarb in the flower garden (and yes, it was me that did the planting). I picked a bunch the other night and went hunting for a recipe - a quick search came up with a lot of clafouti recipes. I'd never made a clafouti, but they all looked good!
I wanted a reasonably healthy recipe, so I did a lot of tinkering with the recipes that I found. My recipe came out just a little grainy, which is the coconut flour, but very tasty, and actually even better the second day.
No picture, I tried but it was too dark in the kitchen.

Rhubarb Coconut Flour Clafouti:

About 3 cups chopped rhubarb
1/4 cup splenda
2 T sugar free vanilla syrup (or more splenda with water)
2 eggs
1.5 cups lowfat milk
4 T Greek yogurt (or regular yogurt)
1/4 cup splenda
1/2 cup coconut flour (or combination of regular flour and corn starch for thickening)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine rhubarb, 1/4 cup splenda and sugar free syrup in sauce pan; simmer on low until smaller pieces of rhubarb are just softened.
Blend eggs, milk and yogurt in blender.
Mix coconut flour, 1/4 cup splenda and spices in large bowl; add blended liquids.

Coat pie pan with non-stick spray. Using a slotted spoon, remove rhubarb from sauce pan and layer on the bottom of pie pan. Pour batter over the top.

Bake for 30 minutes; increase temperature to 400 F and bake for another 5 minutes until solid in the middle (did not brown, which I think is because of the coconut flour).

With my particular ingredients, 1/4 of the clafouti comes to:
178 calories, 6g fat, 20g carbs, 8g fiber, 12g protein

Ice cream!

2009-04-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

It's been ice cream weather here in Seattle for the last two days, and by ice cream weather, I mean 70's. Nothing extreme, we take what sunshine we can get!

I've been reading Abby's healthy ice cream recipes this week and was inspired by her New York Cherry.

Here is my version of cherry ice cream:

Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream
1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
2 oz unsweetened almond milk
1 T sugar free vanilla syrup
1 T cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsweetened frozen cherries

Blend all ingredients except the cherries (it does take longer than you'd think to get the cottage cheese blended up). Pour into a freezer safe bowl. Chop cherries in half or quarter and mix in. Freeze for at least 2 hours, stirring several times to avoid frozen edges.

I used almond milk because that's all I had in the fridge, but the texture could have been thicker, so I may skip the milk altogether next time. I'm sure 1/4 cup of cherries would have been enough, I was using up the last of a bag and didn't want a few left over. And - I didn't wait 2 hours, so mine wasn't frozen completely. It was yummy anyway!

Kayak Conditioning

2009-02-26T19:25:00.000-08:00

After going kayaking last weekend for the first time in a couple of months, I decided that I need a kayak specific conditioning workout to compliment the Turbulence Training workouts that I do three days each week. In general, I was suprisingly not-sore after kayaking, but the inside of my knees were sore and my shoulders were just a touch. I'd like to work on building strength for the specific muscles used in kayaking, which are mainly shoulders, back and core, as well as flexibility for my hips and legs.

I've been browsing online and found quite a few resources, which I'm working on combining to fit my needs.

First, a pre and post kayak routine, which I am going to use for warmup and cooldown:
Sea Kayak Magazine (click on the Pre & Post Kayak Exercise Checklist and then wait forever for the PDF to download)

A detailed exercise routine for each body part:
theseakayaker.com

A five part series on strengthening your core:
paddlingtravelers.blogspot.com (the link for The Plank appears to be broken)

Plank exercises to strengthen your core:
Wavelength Magazine, Winter 2007 (starts on page 34 of the PDF)

Many of these exercises are included in my current TT workouts, so I'm primarily looking at the ones that I'm not already doing.

I haven't figured out yet what I can do to strengthen the inside of my knees. I'm not sure quite what muscle that is, but it's not being worked enough by squats, lunges, step-ups or 1-leg deadlifts. I have seen an exercise that uses a band, sitting in a chair and pulling your thighs apart. That seems a little cumbersome, plus I don't really like bands, so I'm hoping to come up with something better. Let me know if you have any ideas!

Choco-Coconut Protein Cake

2009-02-07T23:05:00.000-08:00

I've been wishing for chocolate cake all week, and almost talked myself into trying a recipe from the new Clean Eating magazine. I'm sure one piece of cake would have been good, but it would have resulted in leftover nibbling for days.

Then I remembered that I have a healthy Choco-Berry Protein Cake recipe (which I originally found on Kek's Good Food Blog).

I dug out my printout of that recipe, and found notes where I had modified it to add coconut flour and flavoring. I think I only made this once before, but it's really good, has a nice chocolate coconut flavor, and the texture is very close to regular cake or muffins. Even better, it's healthy enough that I could snack on these muffins all week and not feel guilty!

Choco-Coconut Protein Muffins:

1/2 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa
3 scoops Designer Whey Chocolate protein powder
1/2 cup egg whites
1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese
3/4 cup milk, with 1/2 T lemon juice (I used low carb 2% milk)
1/3 cup splenda
1.5 T coconut oil
3 T unsweetened coconut
3-4 T sugar free coconut syrup

Preheat oven to 350.
Blend (or mix well with a hand mixer) cottage cheese, egg white, milk, and splenda.
Mix remaining dry ingredients.
Fold dry ingredients into wet.
Add sugar free coconut syrup to taste.
Fold in 2 Tablespoons coconut (reserving 1 Tablespoon).

Note: if texture is too thick, add water until it is just thin enough to pour (no more than a few tablespoons).

Pour into sprayed/greased muffin tin, or 12 individual muffin cups.
Sprinkle remaining 1 Tablespoon of coconut on top of muffins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Nutritional information, according to my particular ingredients, with 12 servings:
119 calories, 4g fat, 10g carbs, 2g fiber, 9g protein

Rest and recovery

2009-01-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

Last week, I did well with nutrition and exercise, but I was nowhere near my best physically. I started the week with bad headaches, slept poorly all week, including a nearly sleepless night on Thursday, and was generally tired and sore all week.

I have been doing regular workouts since early October without a break, and have been under a lot of work, holiday and health (dental) stress during that time. The normal recommendation is to take a week off after 12 weeks of an exercise program. If you don't, you may start to experience extra soreness, slow recover after workouts, and other signs of stress on your body.

It's time for a rest week! This week, I'm not doing any regular workouts. I am continuing to take walks and do other activity, to whatever degree I feel like. I'm working on going to bed early, taking my multi-vitamins, ZMA, and fish oil, and doing anything I can think of to relax.

By next week, I'll be all rested up and ready to start Phase II of the Turbulence Training Bodyweight Manual!

The Body Fat Solution

2009-01-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

My copy of The Body Fat Solution by Tom Venuto came in the mail last week, and I've been slowly working my way through it. I had an Amazon gift certificate, so it's my diet/fitness treat for the month.

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and personal trainer, best known for his ebook Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I don't actually own that program, but I've heard that it is a very detailed, by the numbers approach to weight loss and fitness.

The Body Fat Solution is intended for a wider audience - in the first chapter, he says it was written for people who are overweight, or "for people who were previously overweight who want to maintain their ideal weight for the rest of their lives".

The main focus of this book is the five Body Fat Solution principles:

Mental training:
Setting goals and reprogramming your brain for success. This chapter has a lot of detail about how habits are developed and five steps to set goals. Then, there are eight mental training tools to program your goals into your mind.

Nutrition:
He has ten nutrition rules, starting with focusing on the calorie deficit and budgeting calories. Then the fairly standard list - protein with each meal, vegetables with each meal, omega-3 and other healthy fats with each meal, a least 2 fruits every day, natural starches and grains depending on what's left in your calorie budget, eat mostly natural foods, eat 5-6 times a day, limit liquid calories, and follow the 90/10 compliance rule.

Strength training:
Weight training 3 days per week, using supersets, and focused on the basic exercises that recruit the most muscle mass (squats, lunges, rows, etc.).

Cardio training:
Starting with 3 days per week, 30 minutes with sufficient intensity to burn at least 300 calories. He recommends high intensity interval training or high intensity steady state cardio, if you are in good enough shape to do it and can stand to do it, simply because it gets your cardio done with quickly.

Social support:
Categorizes the different types of people who influence you and how to deal with the negatives. Describes the five types of support you need, and where you can get it from.

In addition to the above five principles, there are chapters on body fat myths, how to change your attitudes and beliefs about health and fitness, and how to free yourself from emotional eating. At the end, there is a section on how to put it all together - plan, organize and implement, monitor your progress, and maintain your weight for life.

If you're like me, you may look at this summary and think "well that's nothing new". And you'd be right - the nutrition is very similar to Precision Nutrition, the strength and cardio are generic and similar to many online programs (such as Turbulence Training), and the social support aspect of weight loss has been talked about many places. The mental training has tools that are new to me, although some of it is similar to what I've read with intuitive eating. The chapter on freeing yourself from emotional eating is very much about intuitive eating.

What The Body Fat Solution does really well is pull all of these concepts together into one integrated approach to weigh loss and maintenance. You look at the whole picture at once, rather than focusing on one piece. It has good tools for creating goals, then you look at each of the five principles and see exactly what is holding you back from your goals.

Mental training (and emotional eating) is clearly what I need to work on. My strength training is great, cardio training is good, and my social support is decent. My nutrition is fine, when I don't fall into emotional eating. I'm currently re-reading the mental training and emotional eating chapters, and I need to sit down with pen and paper (or keyboard and Word) to start writing down information about my beliefs and goals.

Eat Stop Eat

2009-01-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that I'm trying a new approach with my eating. I'm trying something that I never thought I would do - fasting. Specifically, intermittant fasting using the Eat Stop Eat program.

The basic theory is that you fast for 24 hours once or twice each week, in order to create an easy calorie deficit to lose weight. Then, you eat normally the rest of the time. You usually arrange the times so you are fasting from lunch to lunch or dinner to dinner, which means you never need to go through a day without eating.

Sometime last year, I had downloaded ESE as a free bonus with Turbulence Training (note that it is not a free bonus now), and had seen many people posting on ttmembers.com who really liked it. But I didn't think it would work for me. I figured it would contribute to binge eating, which I struggle with anyway, and I thought it might interfere with my workouts.

However, in early December, I realized that I was way off track with my eating. I didn't want to seriously restrict what I was eating going into the holidays, as that seemed like the sure path to an emotional breakdown. I was doing too much binge eating already, and I decided that ESE wasn't likely to make it any worse.

Surprisingly, I've found some real benefits from intermittant fasting:

No worrying about what I'm going to eat during a fast
Seems to reset my stomach, I'm full quicker after fasting
Less food prep for the workweek
Less money spent on lunches at work
Less worry about eating small treats, because I knew fasting will create a calorie deficit
I feel like I actually know what "hungry" is now

The only real downside is that fasting for 24 hours can be difficult. Sometimes, I'm barely hungry, and can actually focus on work better. A couple of times though, I have been starving all day. I haven't tried working out in the middle of a fast, but I have shortly after breaking a fast, and have not had any problems with strength or endurance.

There is a lot of research in Eat Stop Eat, showing that fasting: does not slow metabolism, does not negatively affect exercise (except endurance sports such as marathons), decreases insulin (which is good unless you are diabetic), and increases "fat burning". One key condition of ESE is that you must do regular weight training, which will prevent muscle loss during fasting. Any long term restricting of calories will lead to muscle loss, unless you are using those muscles.

Intermittant fasting isn't for everyone, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would, and am finding it to be an interesting experiment with my body.

In between fasts, I am continuing to roughly follow Precision Nutrition, which means eating lean protein with vegetable and/or fruit every few hours. I'm eating a little more whole grain carbs than the basic PN plan, and am not stressing if some of my snacks end up being nuts instead of a complete protein.
I'm also allowing myself some treats - PN allows for 10% cheat meals, but I'm trying to think of that as 10% of my total calories rather than actual number of meals.

New Year

2009-01-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

I fell behind on posting this fall, which in hindsight, was another symptom of falling off track. Starting about October, I really struggled with eating. I have been keeping up with my Turbulence Training workouts, but haven't been doing enough other activity. From late fall into the holiday season is really the most difficult time of year for me - I never feel as motivated to eat well, there is so much junk food around (including all those cookies that I make!), and it's dark so I don't go for walks or get outside much. Plus the stress of holiday shopping, baking, and dealing with my own leftover childhood issues with holidays.

As I write this, I am back on track! I made it through the actual Christmas and New Years weeks fine, and I feel much more positive now than two weeks ago. I am now focused on losing whatever fat I have gained. I'm joining the latest Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge, starting on Sunday, and I'm trying a new approach with my eating. More on that later.

In the meantime, I'm wishing (and planning!) for a quiet, productive, creative, non-stressful 2009.

Happy New Year!

Protein Pumpkin Pie

2008-11-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

While we're on the theme of pumpkin...

Protein Pumpkin Pie
2 cups pumpkin
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/3-1/2 cup splenda
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Blend cottage cheese, eggs and about 1/2 cup milk until smooth. Add remaining milk and 1 cup pumpkin and blend. Add all remaining ingredients, blend until smooth.

Pour into sprayed pie pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until pie is solid in the middle.

Nutritional info for 1/4 of the pie (using 2% cottage cheese and milk, 1/2 cup splenda and Designer Whey Vanilla Protein):
181 calories, 6g fat, 11g carbs, 2g fiber, 22g protein

Pumpkin Yeast Bread

2008-10-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've gotten behind again, so I have some catch up posts to write! First, a pumpkin yeast bread recipe, from King Arthur Flour:

1/2 cup warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups puréed pumpkin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)
6 1/2 cups flour (approx. - I used half all purpose and half white whole wheat)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

In a large bowl, stir yeast into water to soften. Add milk, eggs, pumpkin, oil, 4 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, ginger and cardamom to yeast mixture. Beat until well mixed.

Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead, adding flour as necessary, until you have a smooth, elastic dough. (Or, use the kneading hooks on an electric mixer, which is what I did).

Put dough into an oiled bowl. Turn once to coat entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. (Only took mine 40 minutes to more than double).

Turn dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface. Divide dough in half. Shape dough into loaves and place in well-greased 10 x 5-inch pans or, shape half into a loaf, and other half into 12 large dinner rolls. (I used a 9x5 pan, plus rolls).

Cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes (again, mine didn't take that long). Bake in a preheated 375°F oven. Loaves bake about 30 minutes, rolls about 20.

I usually bake with all whole wheat or white whole wheat flour, and I think I tend to not knead bread long enough. Plus, it's usually rainy when I make bread, by some strange co-incidence. All of those lead to rising problems, so it was very impressive to see how well this bread rose.

These turned out really nice and moist, with not too much pumpkin taste (although my husband the pumpkin hater said he could tell). I added cinnamon chips, dried cranberries and a few chocolate chips to the rolls, and brought them to work for a potluck. I sliced the loaf as thin as possible (not very) and made cream cheese and cranberry sauce sandwiches for a tea party.

Taking care of myself

2008-10-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

Oops, I'm a little behind on posting here! This is a symptom of my general procrastination. I'm good at doing what I need to do in order to live my daily life. At times, I'm good at keeping in touch with friends and family, posting on a blog, and other social activities; other times, I'm just terrible. And I'm really bad at taking care of issues that aren't immediately urgent - house and yard work, doctors appointments, dental care, etc.

The dental procrastination bit me this week. I haven't been to the dentist in far too many years, and one tooth has been bothering me for quite a while. It broke on Sunday. I'll skip the gory details, but I had the root canal on Wednesday, have to go back to finish it in 3 weeks, and then will need a crown. My jaw is still sore, and I keep forgetting that until I sit down to eat. Salad is not nearly as appetizing when I have to think about each bite. Carrots and almonds are too hard, I don't want to risk chewing them. Popcorn, my oldest food love, is just a bad idea until the crown is done.

I've been working to change my eating and fitness habits for a few years now - sometimes slowly, in the background of ordinary life, other times making that an active everyday focus. It's time to put some work into taking care of my other major procrastinations too. That will help with my overall stress levels too!

Domestication

2008-09-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that I love fruit? Oh yes, several times. I'm currently growing apples, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, kiwi, and the neighbor's plums. And I can't eat it all. Especially the apples, grapes and plums. So far, I can easily eat the blueberries and kiwi all by myself. The raspberries are going in the freezer (which is now full) to make into jam. Last year, I made plum and grape jam too, but I wasn't really looking forward to doing that this year. I also froze grapes, but didn't really eat them later.

On somewhat of a whim, I bought a dehydrator on Saturday. Not an el-cheapo $30 one, but not an expensive one either. It has 4 stacking trays and circulates the air around so you don't need to rotate the trays.

So this weekend, we made:
1) Dried apple rings (4 hours)
2) Dried plum halves (16 hours and may still not be dry enough)
3) Beef jerky, from lean ground beef (4-5 hours)

I also made:
4) Applesauce, from the wormy apples (still in the fridge awaiting canning)
5) Oat-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies - my favorite cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking
6) Rosemary Cheese Bread - a never before tried recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Whew... that may be enough domestication for the month. Except I still have apples and plums on the trees, raspberries in the freezer that need to be turned into jam, and I'm really curious to see if I can make my grapes into raisins.

I'm in!

2008-09-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am officially joining the 3rd Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge - with no weight loss goals! (NOTE: you have until September 22nd to join this challenge!) I could stand to lose a few more pounds, but I'm pretty happy where I'm at and I'd like to get used to it before I decide whether this is where I should be at or not.

I tend to do really well when I'm losing weight, and then fall into a pattern of eating too much junk and start gaining again. I'm really good at gaining weight quickly and losing weight slowly, I've had a lot of practice at both over the last 4 years!

Now it is time to focus on figuring out how to increase calories while continuing to eat well, push myself on TT workouts, and reduce stress in my life.

Goals:

Nutrition:
Increase calories by 250/day for 2 weeks, then re-evaluate based on average weight and high and low weights through the week. (I'd like to be no higher than 147 and no lower than 143 for now).
Keep sweets and other junk at or below current levels. Work on controlling weekend overeating of junk!
Continue to roughly follow Precision Nutrition, although I am eating more whole grain carbs, and occasionally have a snack without a complete protein.

Stress relief and recovery:
Take a bubble bath or salt bath at least once per week. I also have a couple of fizzy bombs for the shower to try.
Buy a foam roller and start using it.
Be in bed by 9:00 on weeknights.
If I am really craving chocolate, go ahead and have a small amount!

Fitness:
Complete 3 TT workouts/week, with intervals.
Increase pushups from 16? to 20.
Increase real chinups (no cheating at all) from 2-3 to 8.
Do extra chinup sets if they aren't in my regular workout to work towards this.
Increase number of burpees in 45 second intervals, currently 15.
Increase number of DB swings in 45 second intervals, currently 25. Also work on increasing weights for this exercise, currently 15 lbs.

Finally, I promised a while back to post my pictures.... here are the comparisons from December 31, 2007 to September 9, 2008. The new ones will be my starting pictures for this challenge, but I don't expect to see a physical change in the next 12 weeks.

A fitness challenge for maintenance?

2008-09-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

I have a little dilemma that I've been considering for the past week or two. I've done two Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenges this year. The first one was great, I was very strict with diet and exercise and had great results. The second one was more interesting, more challenges in my personal life, and more of a lesson in how to deal with unexpected or non-routine situations. In the end, I had pretty good results from the second challenge too. I'm really happy with what I learned from both challenges, about how my body reacts to different nutrition and exercise, as well as how my mind reacts.

This week, I'm finishing up a mini 28 day challenge that I set for myself after the last TT challenge ended. I'm back down to the lowest weight I've ever been as an adult, possibly slightly lower than where I was at 4 years ago. I'm stronger than I've ever been.
I also am still carrying more body fat than I need to have. Anyone who knew me when I was much heavier would say no, I definitely don't need to lose more. But anyone who just met me now would say yes I could lose 5-10 pounds in order to look really good. In this circumstance, I know a lot of people would try to continue losing fat.
However, I really want to give my body a chance to adjust to where I'm at now, and figure out exactly how I need to be eating for maintenance. I've felt all year that my metabolism may be a little lower than it could be, because I've restricted calories on and off for many years - losing weight originally and then bouncing up and down in a much smaller range over the last 4 years. I want to keep eating the clean food that I am eating now, with maybe more grains, and increase calories overall. I also want to work on reducing stress in my life.

The dilemma? Well, there's another Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge that just started this week... and I really really love the support in the Discussion Forums on TTMembers.com. It's crazy over there right now with everyone who has started the challenge since Sunday. Crazy in a fun, exciting way! I want to be part of the club!

I haven't made up my mind 100% yet, but I think I will enter this challenge, with only maintenance goals. I can come up with good strength goals, increased chin-ups, pushups, etc., and have goals of maintaining my weight, increasing my daily calories, and some stress reduction goals (those I'll need to put more thought into). This seems a touch silly, for what is primarily a weight loss challenge, but the challenge will give me extra support to stay on track. In the past, I've always fallen into the habit of eating too many sweets and other junk when I try to maintain, and I don't want to do that this time.

By the way, this latest challenge is open until September 14th. Need motivation and a great workout plan? Turbulence Training was just what I needed!

It's time to vote again!

2008-08-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

The finalists for the 2nd Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge have been announced: 7 Finalists

Wow, look at all those abs! I'm still trying to decide who to vote for, but I'll figure out how to pick one somehow. I'm not sure how long the voting will be open, so vote early (and vote often, haha... no, no, read the fine print: "Only 1 Vote is allowed per IP Address").

These finalists, as well as everyone else who finished this challenge, should be a great inspiration to anyone looking to lose fat and get in better shape. There is a new Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge starting September 1st, if you're in need of motivation for the fall!

Berries!

2008-08-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much luck growing vegetables this year - my peas did well for a short time, and cherry tomatoes are looking good, but that's about it.
The berries and fruit are fantastic though. I have a 20 foot row of raspberries, 4 blueberry bushes, 3 cold hardy kiwi, 2 grapes, 2 apples, an asian pear, and the neighbor's plum tree hanging over the fence. Plus blackberries trying to invade from both sides, and 3 huckleberries and a cherry that are too young for fruit.
One day last week, I had ripe raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, and blackberries. The plums are almost ripe now, and one type of apples are probably ripe (but wormy, so I'll be making applesauce). I've been eating berries raw, on yogurt or cereal, and freezing tons of raspberries and blackberries to make jam later.
September has always been my favorite month, because I love the crip start of fall... but August has so much of the good fruit!

Where to next?

2008-08-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

After finishing a fitness challenge, there's always the dilemma of what to do next. I've been doing Turbulence Training workouts for 12 weeks, and really pushing to increase weights or repetitions on at least a couple of exercises each workout. It was definitely time for a week off from workouts, so I'm doing that now, and it's been so nice to not be sore almost every day!

My diet wasn't very strict for most of the 12 weeks, so I'm not taking a break from that yet. In fact, I'm trying to tighten down a few things. I've set a new mini challenge to keep myself on track and try to lose just a little more fat:

Eat clean! Cut out sweets unless it's something really special.
Keep better track of calories. This means eating mainly foods that are trackable, so less eating out or more careful eating out.
Cook my own lunches and weekend dinners for one of these weeks, to see how difficult that really is, and also to have one week where I am absolutely sure of calories.
Cut out diet sodas and other artificial beverages for one of these weeks, to see if that has any effect on my body.
Average calories of 1500-1550 average/day over each week. I have been averaging 1600-1650, so this is a small reduction, and I will be mainly cutting out weekend treats.
Continue TT workouts and other activity each week (except this is my week off, so just light exercise).

I'll be working on this for the next 4 weeks, August 11 through September 7. Then I think it'll really be time to look at increasing calories in a healthy way.

I do have my before and after pictures from this 12 week challenge, but I think I'll wait another 4 weeks before posting pictures here. Got to look my best in that bikini, eeeks! If I'm a finalist in the 12 Week Turbulence Training Challenge, you'll see my pictures sooner, but I think there are quite a few other finishers who had great results.

12 Week Challenge #2 Results

2008-08-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

12 Week Turbulence Training Final Results:
May 17 - August 9
Weight: 152.6 - 145.6 = -7
Neck: 12 - 12 = 0
Shoulder: 41.5 - 41.5 = 0
Chest: 35.5 - 34.5 = -1
Torso: 29 - 27.5 = -1.5
Waist: 33 - 31.25 = -1.75
Hip: 38 - 37 = -1
Right thigh: 21 - 21 = 0
Right calf: 15.5 - 14.75 = -0.75
Right arm: 11 - 10.75 = -0.25

Chin ups: 0 - now 3 (can do more if I cheat with a little boost at the bottom)
Pushups: 12 (not so good form) - now 16 (with good form)

Official Essay:

During this 12 Week Turbulence Training Challenge, I lost a total of 7 pounds, 1.5 inches off my torso, 1.75 inches off my waist, and 1 inch off my hips. I'm very pleased with that progress, which puts me a lot closer to the body that I want!

This Challenge was a great lesson for me in dealing with disruptions to routine. I tend to be a creature of habit, which is good and bad. If I can get into good eating and exercise routines, I have always done really well. If I can't get into those routines, I have always slid backwards.

I knew going into this challenge that it would a little more difficult because of the season - there are always more social events in the summer. I just didn't realize how many trips and events I would have. Now really my schedule was pretty light compared to others', and nothing compared to anyone who has children! But it made it impossible for me to stick with one routine each week for the entire 12 weeks, and I rely on routines to keep myself on track! My workout schedule had to change during many weeks, or I couldn't get the workouts done. That meant I had to force myself to break out of my normal habits.

I did TT workouts on vacation in Victoria, BC, and in Portland, OR, while on a trip for work. I love that there are TT workouts that can be easily done in a hotel room! I did workouts earlier in the week than normal to avoid times I knew I'd be spending with family, at different times of day, and I even did them two days in a row a few times because I knew I couldn't fit them in the next day.

My diet also needed to be more flexible for times when I was traveling or just couldn't fit in my usual snacks and meals. Because my stress level was already high, I didn't want add to that by forcing a really strict diet, so I did allow myself more treats. Undoubtedly I would have seen better results with a stricter diet, but I don't think it would have been worth it.

There were times when I really questioned my diet though - and that's where the ttmembers.com forum was invaluable! There were many of us who posted every day, and this is the most supportive group that I have ever been involved with! When I was really upset over my weight not dropping, they looked at my measurements and pictures and told me to stop looking at the scale. They were there to congratulate me on being able to do a couple of pullups for the first time, and on increasing weights or repetitions on many different exercises. Without the ttmembers.com forum, I would never have made it through the full 12 weeks!

Check these out!

2008-08-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the end of my 2nd Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge. I finished my last workout in the current series today and I'll be taking pictures and doing measurements in the morning. I'm already thinking about how I've done and what I'll do next. The short answers are: not bad but not as well as I would have liked; and - keep working!

In the meantime, many others have already finished their 12 Week Challenges. Here are a few with their own blogs, for inspiration:

Michelle - I love her subtitle: "Or, I cannot believe I am posting pictures of myself in a bikini on the WEBZ!!!"
Abby - also check out her amazing Transformation Video!
Karla - notice her gorgeous profile picture too!
Erin - jiggle, what jiggle? Look at those abs!

Am I going to be brave enough to post pictures of myself in a bikini? Hmmmm, we shall see!

Exercise and Nutrition for High Stress

2008-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

Stress is something that I do to myself; I worry about things that I can't control, and I don't change that things that I can control. This summer, it's been a lot of work stress - slow business, having to lay off employees, thinking about what my job needs to be.

I was also worrying about my current Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge. About the end of Week 8, I got really stressed about not seeing much change on the scale, and felt like I wasn't doing as well as I should be. My immediate reaction to not feeling like I was doing well enough was to want to cut calories and increase my workouts and other activity. Luckily, I came across this excellent John Berardi article: Exercise and Nutrition for High Stress Folks:

In the end, my prescription for the "ultimate stress busting workout" for the average person would be 2-3 days per week of strength and/or interval exercise and 2-3 days per week of low intensity activity such as walking, bike riding, meditative yoga, etc.

That made me feel a lot better, and Berardi's prescription is exactly what I have been doing. Now, I've just started Week 11 of the challenge, and have stopped weighing myself for now. I'm continuing to eat well (protein and vegetables every few hours, really limiting sweets) and NOT push myself any harder on exercise, and I feel a lot better about how I'm doing!

How often do I really need to eat?

2008-07-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, when I was very overweight, I never ate breakfast and I was never hungry in the morning. In fact, I didn't eat very many real meals at all - mainly just dinner and too much snack food. I started to eat more regular meals when I was following Weight Watchers Online, and I lost a lot of weight. Mainly, I was just eating a lot less calories, and I got used to feeling hungry in the morning and around my normal meal times.

Last year, I did a lot of reading on nutrition and fitness, and discovered that many people recommend eating every 2-3 hours. This is one of the main points of Precision Nutrition, along with eating vegetables and protein with every meal/snack. I started doing that, really making an effort to eat about 6 times each day and fit in a lot of protein. This is usually 3 smaller snacks, and 3 medium sized meals. Now, I wake up hungry for breakfast, and I get hungry after a few hours, and I sometimes even get weak and shaky if I don't eat on time.

However, I recently took a few small trips where that wasn't easy to do. Two were business trips, where I was literally so busy that I didn't know what time it was most of the day. The third was a family visit, and luckily I did bring a few snacks, because I met up with them late in the morning and we didn't eat a meal until about 7:00!
The interesting thing is, I got hungry about when I'd normally expect to, but I couldn't eat then and I didn't have time to think about it. Instead of feeling sick, the hunger just went away! When I did eat, I ate bigger meals, but I don't think I ate any more calories than normal.

So is eating every 2-3 hours really necessary? Obviously not... There is research that suggests that eating more frequently keeps your metabolism running faster, because it is working to digest food more often. And protein takes more energy to digest than carbs or fat. But really, our bodies are amazing machines, they are highly adaptable and will use whatever they can get.

Now I'm trying to take my eating less seriously, following the general habits that make me feel the best, but not strictly following any plan. It's too easy for me to get obsessive about diet, and I don't need that extra stress. My body will do just fine with lots of fruits, vegetables, good fats, lean protein and whole grain carbs (and an occasional treat) - no matter how often I eat each day.

Herbed Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

2008-07-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

I make pizza occasionally, but I've always used pita bread for crust, I'd never even tried baking pre-made dough from the grocery store. Yesterday was my husband's birthday, and we had friends coming over for dinner, so I decided to try baking pizza dough from scratch. Never mind that the temperature outside was in the mid-80s, and inside was probably even hotter.

The pizza dough turned out great! We topped it with tomato sauce mixed with herbs, and an assortment of chicken breast, lowfat salame, vegetables and mozzarella. I didn't calculate the nutritional info, but it should be pretty reasonable.

Herbed Whole Wheat Pizza
From: King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Crust:
3 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 T plus 1 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1 1/2 cups cool water
1 T honey
1 T olive oil
2 tsp. salt
1 T dried oregano
1 T dried basil
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Short version of directions:
Measure out 2 cups flour, stir in yeast. Combine water and honey, add to flour mixture, and stir well. Cover with plastic and let rest 1 hour.

Stir in olive oil, salt, herbs and cayenne, then add remaining 1 3/4 cups flour. Kneed about 5 minutes, until shiney and elastic, but still quite soft (I use the bread dough hook on my stand mixer). Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, divide in half, form each half into a loose round, cover and let rest for 20 minutes.

Place baking stone on bottom rack of oven and pre-heat to 375 F. Roll out the first dough circle into a 12-inch round. Transfer to hot baking stone, and roll up edges to form a rim.

Prick all over with a fork.
Bake for 10 minutes.
While baking, roll out second dough circle.

Top each crust with sauce, meat and vegetables of your choice, and bake at 425 F for 10-12 minutes.

Raspberries!

2008-07-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I picked the first raspberries of the season in my garden. They are a little late this year, because most of June was cool, and I was eager for fresh berries. The first ones were small and perhaps a little seedy. I ate them straight off the bushes. A few days later, we picked about a cup, most of which went straight from hand to mouth.

Yesterday, I took out a 2 cup container, thinking I wouldn't fill it. I even brought the lid. I ate quite a few and still couldn't fit them all in! Besides eating them straight off the bushes, I put them on yogurt and cereal, bring them in for co-workers, and freeze them to make jam or smoothies later. I love having a garden!
It's amazing though how quickly I go from looking for every berry that could possibly be ripe to wondering how I'm going to pick them all before they go bad.

Blueberries, my absolute favorite, will be ripe soon too!

The Vacation Mindset Part II

2008-07-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last time I discussed this topic, I had just returned home from a 3 day business trip, where my eating had been ok but not great. I took another business trip in late June, with slightly better results - I ate a few things that weren't nutritionally the best, but overall calories were suprisingly low.
For both trips, it helped that I didn't think of them as vacations. There was a lot of stress in leaving my regular job, and I was very busy the entire time I was gone. In fact, I was too busy to think about eating at all during the day, which was an unusual experience for me!

This last week, I worked on Monday, but had the rest of the week off to visit with family. My mom and aunt were here, and I saw three of my brothers and two nephews and a niece (the kids are adorable, of course).
I brought snacks with me, and avoided sweets except rhubarb cobbler, which I had made and knew wasn't that sugar-laden. I did not have my usual "must eat all the food that I normally don't" vacation compulsion. There were moments when I thought "oh I should go get a muffin or hot chocolate", especially on the ferry. There is something about a ferry trip that makes me want to buy something sweet to eat! But the moments passed and I was fine without.

I know that I can get back on track immediately after a vacation, and now I can take at least a small vacation and stay relatively on track. I'm certain this sort of thing is not a linear progression, I will slide now and then. But I think I am making progress!

June was a particularly stressful month for me, mainly work related (thus the lack of updates here). I haven't made as much progress as I had planned for my 2nd Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge (today is the end of Week 7). However, I'm feeling really good right now about being able to eat some sweets and other treats, but keep that under control and not feel compulsive about what I am eating.

Friday night kayaking

2008-06-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

We took the kayaks out in the Puget Sound last night. We're terribly at getting out of the house on work nights, but we'd only been kayaking once this year and our weekends were feeling full. So this was a test.

On Thursday, we put the roof rack back on the car and load everything in the trunk - paddles, seats, PFD's, spray skirts, boots, water bottles, pump, emergency snacks, and map. Friday, we came home, ate quickly, loaded the kayaks on the car and were off. We get home about 5:00, and left well before 6:00, so that was pretty good time.

Then we hit bad traffic. There was an accident, police re-routed traffic in such a way that almost everyone turned down a badly marked dead end street and ended up in the cul-de-sac from hell. And then sat there and sat there as everyone had to try to make a left hand turn to get back out, as yet more people were turning in. That wasted at least 20 minutes. I mention this because it's very frustrating to be stuck in that type of situation while driving a Toyota Corolla with two 17-foot kayaks on the roof!

We finally reached the park, were able to find a parking space close to the beach and unload everything. We were on the water by 6:30.

The water was rough! The marine forecast had called for up to 1 foot waves, but by the time we got home and checked again, they'd increased it to 1-3 foot waves. That meant they were breaking over our bows frequently, and once or twice over the kayaks sideways. I found that I could paddle at full speed through the waves, if I was properly braced, but it took work (and I found a large bruise on one knee today). We only paddled for about 40 minutes before deciding that was enough.

Sometime soon, we need to go out on Lake Washington with our dry suits, and practice assisted rescues. We did them in a class a year or two ago, but that's definitely something we need to be comfortable with in order to feel safe kayaking in conditions like Friday's.

All in all, this was actually a successful test. The traffic was frustrating and the water conditions were a little scary, but neither of those had anything to do with it being a work night - just bad luck!

Joe kayaking

Me, getting ready to land

See, all those workouts did some good! (Actually, our kayaks only weigh about 40 pounds)

Functional fitness

2008-06-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

With all the yard work I've done this spring, I've noticed one big change from last year. I'm not sore! I can bend and squat and repeat for a couple of hours and not have sore legs the next day. I've always dreaded the first weekend of yard work in the spring, because various parts of my body - legs, back, neck - would be sore all week.

We went kayaking a week ago, for the first time this year, and I wasn't sore afterwards. Sure, I had a hard time standing up after sitting down and paddling for an hour and a half, and my legs still wanted to fall asleep in the kayak. But that was all temporary discomfort; I didn't have any soreness the next day. And I felt a lot stronger; I didn't paddle any faster, but I could have kept going for much longer.

This is what's called functional fitness, and it's a big benefit of the Turbulence Training workouts that I have been doing over the last year (and taking seriously for the last 5 months). Functional fitness is being able to do everyday activities better, and being able to do more fun activities too. I don't think functional fitness is an advertised benefit of Turbulence Training, but it is certainly effective! I love that my workouts can not only help me lose weight, but they also help me be stronger in everything I do. Whatever your workout program is, does it make life easier for you when you're not working out?

The fruits will come

2008-05-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

I've spend a lot of time in the last few weeks in my garden. Weeding, trimming, mowing, and planting. Then weeding, trimming and mowing all over again, because it is never-ending!
Planting is the fun part. Picking the fruits of my labor is my favorite part. Vegetables too, but I love my fruit especially. We're not there yet, but I love watching everything grow:

Peas on the trellis, with radishes growing randomly

Raspberry, Blueberry and apple

And this is what happens when you turn your back on the rhubarb (for about a month).

Artificial Sweeteners

2008-05-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

I like to think that I don't use much artificial sweetener. In reality, I drink diet soda on the weekends, I use artificially sweetened protein powder, and I do some baking with splenda. Splenda is my artificial sweetener of choice. I haven't played around with stevia much because I like splenda, haven't found any reason not to use it, and it's more widely available than stevia. I won't use aspartame, because it gives me headaches, or sacccharine, because it just scares me.

John Berardi, of Precision Nutrition and Gourmet Nutrition, just posted this excellent article on artificial sweeteners.

Quote from the article:

For what it's worth, we here at PN aren't moved by stevia either way.

Just like with Splenda, the research doesn't convince us that there's any need for fear or paranoia. Nor does the research convince us that stevia (or Splenda) is friendly, helpful, or necessary.

A little bit of it each day in some tea, coffee, oatmeal, or a protein shake is probably fine.
But we wouldn’t break out the stevia cookbook just yet.

What About My Cookies?
But what if you want some cookies - and you want them sweet? We say, make some real cookies. And eat them infrequently.

Use a whole grain flour, unrefined sweetener (like date sugar or evaporated cane), and other healthy organic ingredients. And then eat them after exercise, with a PW meal.

I think I'll take a close look at how much artificial sweetener I do use.

Choco-Berry Protein Cake

2008-05-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

I've been bookmarking recipes for years, and never get around to trying them. This is one that I found earlier this year; I love chocolate and berries, and a healthy cake recipe sounds too good to be true. I finally tried it today, and the recipe works great. It's not quite the same texture as chocolate cake, a little drier, and chocolate protein powder doesn't taste exactly like chocolate. But it's close enough to fulfill my cake cravings - and the recipe is healthy enough to send to work with my husband for snacks (rather than making a batch of protein bars).

The original recipe is from Kek's Good Food Blog, which I highly recommend checking out. I modified it just slightly.

Choco-Berry Protein Cake:
3/4 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa
3 scoops Designer Whey Chocolate protein powder
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese
1/2 cup 2% milk, with 1/2 T lemon juice (original called for buttermilk or yogurt)
1/3 cup splenda
1.5 T oil
1 cup frozen berries, thawed

Preheat oven to 350.
Blend (or mix well with a hand mixer) wet ingredients and splenda.
Mix remaining dry ingredients.
Fold dry ingredients into wet.
Fold in berries.
Pour into sprayed/greased 8x8 baking pan.
Bake for 35 minutes (I would reduce to 25-30 next time).

I cut into 9 pieces.

Nutritional information, according to my particular ingredients:
155 calories, 5g fat, 15g carbs, 2g fiber, 12g protein

Coconut Cheesecake

2008-05-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

This is a modification of the Lemon Cheesecake recipe in Gourmet Nutrition Desserts (free pdf of the desserts available here).
I love the texture, not quite cheesecake but good, and the coconut flavor!

Coconut Cheesecake:
1 cup cottage cheese (I use 2%)
2 eggs
2 T sugar free coconut syrup
2 T ground flaxseed
2 T flaked coconut (I use unsweetened)
1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 375.
Blend all ingredients well.
Pour into two mini cheesecake or tart pans.
Bake for 25-35 minutes, until firm.

Makes 2 servings.

Nutritional info, according to my particular ingredients:
241 calories, 12g fat, 8g carbs, 3g fiber, 24g protein

Low Carb

2008-05-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

I have never been a fan of low carb diets. I don't buy the science behind it; I think any weight loss comes from calorie reduction due to cutting out an entire nutritional group, as well as the initial large water weight from your body storing less glycogen. I find the idea of ketosis scary; it's too close to ketoacidosis, a less severe version of the same process. My husband is diabetic, and ketoacidosis is a horror story to a diabetic.

I do believe that most of our bodies handle carbs better at certain times, such as after a workout. I really enjoy a nice bowl of oatmeal with berries or apple after a workout. But that's not eating low carb, that's eating timed carbs.

I like grains and bread, but I love fruit. I love blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, apples, grapefruit, watermelon, canteloupe, kiwi, pineapple, grapes, kumquat. You get the picture. I think fruit is good food, it's full of vitamins and nutrients, and it's delicious. I don't believe that I have ever gained weight because of eating too much fruit. A diet that forbids fruit is a diet that I will never follow. I certainly won't tell anyone else what to do as far as diet, but I won't do it myself.

So here I am eating low carb. For one week. Only one week. Seven days. I'm doing it as an experiment, to see how my body handles not eating carbs, and then re-introducing low-GI carbs, then higher-GI carbs, all according to the Cheat to Lose Diet plan. Still, I feel funny, as though I'm doing something against my principles. Maybe the lack of fruit has addled my brains.

Four more days.

Turbulence Training Challenge #2

2008-05-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Today is Day 1 of my second Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge.

12 Week Goals:
Weigh 140 or less
Drop 4% body fat (if I can figure out how to get consistent readings from my scale)
Do at least 3 chin ups (currently 0)
Do at least 16 push ups with good form (currently about 12, with not so good form)

Workouts:
Weeks 1-4: Turbulence Training Big 5 Circuit Workout
Weeks 5-12: Haven't decided yet

Eating plan:
Starting The Cheat to Lose Diet today
Week 1: Low carb
Week 2: Low GI/GL
Week 3: Higher GI/GL (with a cheat day at the end)
Weeks 4-12: rotation of low carb, Low GI/GL and Higher GI/GL days each week; OR follow general Precision Nutrition guidelines, depending on how I feel after Week 3

Precision Nutrition works well for me, but I want to play around with carbs a little more, and Cheat to Lose looks like an interesting way to do that. PN recommends customizing to see what your body can handle, but I always feel like I'm cheating when I stray from the rules as written.

Week 1 starts today. This will be harder than Precision Nutrition only because fruit and starchier vegetables, such as carrots, are not allowed, and I will need to skip my post-workout oatmeal. I have been eating more grains recently, because I've been trying to eat for maintenance, so will see if this is difficult. I don't really expect it to be, and it's only one week! It will also get me out of the sugar habit that I've started to fall back into.

I'm excited about starting this challenge. I need a push to get moving again and see what I can do with my body!

A bunny horror story

2008-05-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

Little tiny baby bunnies are cute. Then they grow up to eat everything in my garden. I have to put cages around my blueberries, and spray hot pepper water on my perennials.

Last year was the only year that I haven't had much of a bunny problem, which I attribute to my bunny horror story:
About this time of year, I was out mowing the front lawn, when suddenly 3 tiny little bunnies ran out from under a bush and onto the front driveway. The car was parked in the driveway, but the garage door was open. One bunny ran under the car. About an hour later, I went in the house, changed, checked to be sure there wasn't still a bunny under the car, and then we went out to the store. I told my husband, as I closed the garage door, that I didn't think the bunny had run into the garage.
About a month later, he found a mummified bunny in the garage. Soon after that, I was mowing the lawn again, and heard a thwack! Turns out he'd hidden the remains under a bush, and I happened to mow under that bush. We had little bits of fur all over. Nothing else, because it really was mummified.
I felt terrible about the whole thing..... but I had no rabbit problems for the rest of the year!

This evening, I was out mowing the front lawn when something moved in the grass. This always freaks me out because I worry about snakes. Not that I've never seen one in our yard, but I still worry. It was a little tiny brown bunny. I encouraged it to run onto the mulch under the wisteria, where I don't mow, then I started the mower again. Something else moved. It was another tiny brown bunny. In the end, I saw 4 of them, and discovered that they have a little nest dug right into the lawn (obviously it's been a while since we've mowed the front lawn!). Later, I almost ran over two of them again, because they'd run the other direction and hidden in the lawn.

Now that I know there are baby bunnies in the lawn, I'll be careful. They are really really cute. I am dreading the start of the munching on all of my plants though!

The vacation mindset

2008-05-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

When I go on vacation, I fall into the vacation mindset. I think "I'm on vacation, I'm going to enjoy myself. I'll eat whatever I want and not workout". Most people do this, to one degree or another. When I went to Mexico 3 weeks ago, I thought maybe I wouldn't fall into that habit. I successfully avoided eating junk the week before I left, when my brain first started saying "you're going on vacation anyway, so why not". But as soon as I was on vacation, my careful control went out the window. This wasn't helped by catching a stomach bug, and then not being able to tell if I was hungry or what I was hungry for. I ate chips, bread with butter, and ice cream pretty much every day.

When I got home, I felt guilty about it all, and I was irritated to see how much my scale was up - even though I know that most of that couldn't be actual fat gained. At the same time, I planned out meals for the week, went grocery shopping, and did my usual food prep. Then, I proceeded to eat normally all week, and do my regular workouts. That was a wonderful feeling, being able to come home and fall right back into my good healthy eating and exercise habits.

This evening, I just got home from three nights away for a business trip. I almost never have to travel for business, the day I left was very stressful, and the trip was only supposed to last two nights. So my eating wasn't great - but it wasn't terrible either. I didn't have time to think about eating, and then I was hungry and tired and ate a few things that I wouldn't normally. I did do a lot of walking, and did my bodyweight workout on Wednesday as planned, even though I was exhausted. I felt better mentally after doing that, which is always the case. Overall, I really didn't fall for the vacation mindset for this trip, but it helped that I certainly wasn't thinking of it as a vacation.

I'm not sure what I want to do about my vacation mindset. It makes me feel uncomfortable to have that much of a shift between normal eating and exercise and vacation eating and exercise. So the vacation mindset is probably a habit that I need to devote some energy towards changing. But I felt much better about myself as soon as I realized that my "normal" mindset is exactly where it needs to be for healthy eating and exercise.

Food Blogging

2008-05-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

My plans to do more whole grain baking haven't really happened yet. Between yard work that needed to be done, yard work that still needs to be done, vacation, other weekend events, and work, I just haven't done much. I'll admit that I have been doing a lot of browsing of food blogs though.
Here are a few of my favorite:
King Arthur Flour - Baker's Banter
Kalyn's Kitchen
Closet Cooking
Kek's Good Food Blog
Baking Bites
Passionate About Baking

Maybe I'll find something good to bake later today!

Breakthrough Challenge

2008-04-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've officially joined the Breakthrough Challenge, and I'm excited! This is a group of people who will be participating in the next Turbulence Training Challenge, plus providing extra support, motivation and "buttkicking" for each other.

To quote Sara:

In the last TT Challenge I got myself again to that point at which I am quite happy but not really thrilled with my body composition, fitness and self-dedication. I decided that what I need is a breakthrough effort, and after putting out the call, I found a number of kindred spirits, one of whom, Lisa, designed our rockin' logo.

When I read that, I knew for sure that I wanted to join the Breakthrough Challenge, because that is exactly how I feel! I'm more or less happy with where I'm at - but not thrilled - and I'd like to see where I can go from here.

I won't actually be starting the new Turbulence Training Challenge for a couple of weeks, but I'm onboard with the Breakthrough Challenge group now!

Stop and smell the rain

2008-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

The title of this post was going to be "You can't smell the roses if you don't get outside". That would be misleading though as the roses won't bloom in Seattle for another month. April is the month for showers, wind and sometimes hail; this year, we even had snow.

So it wasn't surprising that we went out for a walk this evening and got sprinkled on. It was a little sprinkle, just enough to create the wonderful smell of rain falling on a dry sidewalk. I think the basic smell of rain is the same all year, but it's tinted with different flowers and other scents through each season. Right now, that's the big pink cherry blossoms, magnolia, hyacinth, tulips, the first hint of lilac, and of course dandelions in the lawn.

I try to walk a few days each week for exercise, which of course is helpful for stress relief too, but don't let walks be only practical. Inhale the rain, stop to smell the roses when they are blooming, and admire all of the types of blooming bulbs that you wish you had planted last fall. Enjoy the beauty and life that you can't properly see from your office, car or living room.

The rain had stopped by the time we got home, and there was a rainbow over our house.

New Turbulence Training Challenge

2008-04-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for a challenge? The new Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge starts on May 1st. This time, participants can even submit photos via email. Basically, you just need to follow Turbulence Training workouts and take beginning and ending photos with a newspaper. You can begin the challenge anytime in May. A challenge like this is a great way to motivate yourself to set goals and follow through with them.

I won't be starting my challenge for a couple of weeks, but I look forward to seeing new journals and blogs from everyone beginning on Thursday!

How long is 4 inches?

2008-04-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

Nope, this isn't a bad blonde joke. When you look at your wet hair, indicate where to cut it, and the stylist says "that's about 4 inches", that should ring alarm bells in your head. Instead, I said "ok". So she cut my hair, dried it halfway, put in some mousse junk (which I never use, but it's easier to let them put it in and then go home and wash it out). I looked in the mirror and thought it looked good and the length was about right for one of my shorter haircuts. Remember, this was half dry.

Went shopping for about an hour, came home, and my husband said "you got a lot cut off". I never get my hair cut, maybe 2-3 times a year, so I thought he was just commenting on that. Then I went downstairs and looked in the mirror. Yikes, I got a lot cut off!! This is probably the shortest my hair has ever been. I know my hair shrinks when it dries, it's all the curls, but I always forget how much.

I think it looks good though, and it'll be easier to manage on vacation. We're going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a week, leaving on Saturday. That means lots of chlorine filled pools and salty ocean, and I refuse to play the "can't get my hair wet" game, so swimming always leaves my hair unmanageable.

Next time, I may think twice about 4 inches though!

Turbulence Training Transformation Voting

2008-04-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

The first Turbulence Training Transformation Contest has officially ended. This was a 12 week contest, but the starting dates were individual, within about a month and a half time period. Yesterday was the final day to finish, and Craig Ballantyne is on top of it, with a voting website already set up for the top 8 finalists:

Transformation Contest

Check it out for inspiration and vote for who you think made the greatest transformation. Nope, I'm not in the final 8, but I feel great about how I did, and I think the finalists all look fantastic!

Ham and cheese rye muffins

2008-04-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend's new baking recipe, from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking:

Ham-and-Cheese Rye Muffins:
2 cups rye flour (I used 1 cup rye, 1 cup low carb baking mix)
3/4 cup unbleached bread flour (I used white whole wheat flour)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated Swiss cheese (I used a cheddar/mozzarella blend)
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I used 2% buttermilk)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
4 ounces diced ham

Abbreviated instructions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Whisk together dry ingredients; add 1 1/4 cups cheese.
In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. Add, all at once, to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Stir in ham.
Scoop into greased muffin tins and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the tops.
Bake 25-27 minutes.

I substituted white whole wheat flour for the bread flour, because I don't have any at the moment. And I had a bag of

Bob's Red Mill Low Carb Baking Mix that I've been meaning to try, so I used that in place of half of the rye flour.

They turned out really well! These are my morning snack for the week, along with a baggie of chopped up vegetables. I can't taste anything odd from the low carb mix, and they have a nice soft texture. The batter was much thicker than I expected for a muffin; I had to scrape it off the spoon and push it into the muffin cups. That may have been because of my substitutions.

My nutritional info came out to: 240 calories, 14g fat, 18g carbs, 4g fiber, 13g protein.

A little high in fat, but the fiber and protein are good. I wonder if there is a way to reduce the amount of butter but keep the texture?

Good for you pancakes

2008-04-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

I made my favorite healthy pancake recipe on Saturday. The recipe is high in fiber and protein but really does taste like a pancake. I've found similar recipes on a few different websites, with varying amounts of egg white, but I add ground flaxseed and berries.

Oat Berry Pancakes:
1/2 cup egg white
1/2 cup oat flour, or regular oats
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1/2 cup berries, fresh or thawed

It's very simple: throw all ingredients except berries in the blender and blend until smooth; then stir in berries.
Cook in a non stick frying pan, making pancakes as big or small as you like. Flip when bubbles form on the top.

Nutritional information for the whole recipe, according to my particular ingredients:
366 calories, 7 grams fat, 40 grams carbs, 8 grams fiber, 36 grams protein

These taste suprisingly like regular pancakes; I can taste the oat, but not the cottage cheese or egg white. I ate mine with just extra berries on top, but these would be great with butter and maple syrup too.

Planting a garden

2008-04-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

I dug up most of my vegetable garden Thursday evening. I'm terrible at putting the yard to bed in the fall, so I always have a lot of weeds in the spring. I turn the soil under for the area that I know I'll plant, pulling out some of the bigger weeds. Then I come back later to dig and rake it smoother and pull out the rest of the weeds.

Today, I did more digging and weeding, and planted sugar snap peas and carrots. I'm also planning to plant bush beans, cucumber, pattie pan squash, and corn. Some varieties of corn will ripen here in western Washington, which always amazes me, so I have to grow a few plants each year. The ears are small but very sweet. I'll probably plant a few pumpkin hills too, although I don't have the best luck with gourds of any type. I also have terrible luck with peas; the plants don't grow well and then get diseased when it gets warmer. I added inoculent last year, without any better success, but I'm trying again this year.
My husband wants to plant rattail radishes too, which look interesting. I tend to let a few radishes go to seed each year, which is where he got the idea from - the seed pods are actually very tasty.

Also mowed the largest chunk of the lawn today, so we're down to the small front lawn that still needs to be mowed, as well as the wild area at the bottom of the hill. I try to mow that in the spring to keep the grass from getting tall too quick, but I let it grow later in the summer, with only a path to the back gate.

I'm feeling good about the yard, which is always nice before leaving on vacation!

Change is good

2008-04-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Last week, one of my employees found a new job and gave notice. This is a good solution - she'd been unhappy with her job for quite a while, which affected how she did her job, which made us unhappy. She'd been with the company for a long time though, and I know it was hard for her to decide to make that change.

When you reach a point where you can't stand your job, or you dread doing your exercise routine, or you always cheat on your diet, it's time for a change.

I've found that changing my exercise routine isn't really that difficult. I'm really happy with Turbulence Training because there are two or three different workouts each week, and then you change workouts every 4 weeks. The change is built right in.

My difficulties with change are more in my diet. I tend to try to follow a strict plan when I don't have the mental energy or commitment to follow it properly. Of course that means I fall off plan too often to see the results I want, but because I'm trying to follow a strict plan, I feel like I'm always dieting.
After finishing my 12 week challenge, I've been roughly trying to follow the same Precision Nutrition plan, but I don't have the focus to stay strict. I don't know if that is just because I was so focused during the challenge, or because I'm almost happy with where I'm at now (although I clearly have more fat that I could/should lose), or because I'm going to Mexico in 8 days!
I have also wanted to see how much I can increase what I eat, by eating healthy foods, to see if I can bump my metabolism up. So yesterday I decided to increase calories and increase carbs - oats, brown rice, whole grain bread, etc. I'm still following Precision Nutrition, but looking at it for maintenance rather than fat loss, at least temporarily. I think this will be a very good change mentally, and should also do my body good.

Other people have more difficulty with deciding how to make a change with exercise, but have no trouble with diet. Most of us have trouble deciding to change jobs or other major life events. But change doesn't need to be hard. Do your research, think about what you really want, and make a plan. When you do make the change, it may be a shock, but you will be better for having done it in the end. Yeah, that's a cliche - but true.
The bottom line is, if you're not happy with what you are doing in life, in work, in exercise, change it!

Waterproof camera

2008-04-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

Before taking a trip to Mexico last year, I was browsing cameras, looking for one that would fit in my pocket, and I discovered the Olympus Stylus 720SW. I had to buy it - it's waterproof! Well, down to 10 feet, and shockproof for 5 feet, and it does fit easily in my pocket. I haven't actually dropped this camera, but I've taken it snorkeling, kayaking, and out hiking in the rain.
There are newer models now, all the way up to the Olympus Stylus 790SW, which comes in a multitude of colors. Do I need a new shiney blue camera? No, my 720SW is perfectly fine! I'd highly recommend it to anyone who can think of good uses for a waterproof camera.

Speaking of kayaking, here are a couple of pictures from last year. It's about time to take the kayaks out this year, but will have to wait until after vacation (April 19-26).

Mulching away

2008-04-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

A hard weekend's work:

The cages are to keep out the rabbits - they think groundcover blueberries (front) and hazelnuts (back) are special treats.

Wheelbarrow path down the hill.

The good news is that we're done with the pile of mulch! The even better news is that I am not, so far, sore. In the past, I've always been very sore after doing that much work, especially all of the bending and kneeling to weed the rose bed yesterday. I really do credit Turbulence Training workouts; this type of functional fitness is exactly the benefit I was hoping for.

My list of plants is growing: salal, oregon grape, huckleberry, thimbleberry. I also thought about salmonberry, because they like a little shade too, but the berries aren't that tasty. (Of course we still ate them by the bucketful as kids). I love my Raintree catalog that just arrived in the mail this weekend.
But we're going to wait a few weeks before planting, to give the grass time to start dying off and make sure the mulch is stable on the slope before we start digging holes.

Replacing a lawn = a lot of work

2008-04-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

The 5 cubic yards of bark mulch arrived at 8:30 this morning. After spending far too much time weeding the roses, we shoveled many wheelbarrows of mulch around them. The lawn is too enthusiastic about spreading into the rose bed, so we're having to pull up a lot of grass each year, along with dandelions and other weeds. I think the solution is to dig a ditch, line with landscape fabric, then gravel, then nice bricks. Our local hardware store sells bricks that interlock and can curve around a corner. That's going to be a lot of work though, and we have to finish the mulch job first.

The rest of the mulch is for the back yard - we're slowly working on replacing sections of lawn, and this year's chore is part of the back hillside. That is the hardest to mow, because it's so steep and it's slightly shadier than the rest of the lawn, so the grass grows thicker.
We mowed that section and started laying down landscape fabric plus old carpet bits. Then hauled many wheelbarrows of mulch down about 100 feet of steep slope, trying to keep the wheelbarrow from escaping. We're about half done, hopefully can finish up tomorrow if the weather (and sore legs) cooperate. Actually, I'm hoping my regular workouts will help with yard work soreness - this will be a good test to see how well Turbulence Training works for functional fitness.

Eventually, we hope to replace almost all of the lawn. I've done some reading on different methods for this, from digging up the grass to covering and composting. Here are a few nice websites:
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/pi/shrunklawn.htm
http://www.yougrowgirl.com/lawns_gardens_convert2.php
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/2004/dec/groundview.htm
http://archive.seattlepressonline.com/article-9571.html

Now I'm off to check out different planting options (although it'll probably be a few weeks before we get to that part of the project). I want native landscape plants, and have been thinking about salal, oregon grape and huckleberry. By "check out", I mean online of course! My favorite online nursery is Raintree, which is located in southwestern Washington and has a huge variety of plants that grow well in my area.

Comfort food

2008-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

We're two weeks into spring already, but last week felt like winter. We had hail, snow, and frost here in the Pacific Northwest. That's the type of weather that makes people reach for comfort food.

The funny thing about comfort food is that it's all about memories. The food triggers feelings of warmth and security and love, even if you can't recall a particular memory that it is tied to.
One of my favorite comfort foods is lentil soup. I know that's an odd one, but we ate a lot of lentil soup when I was a kid and I remember the smell of it cooking as we came in from the cold.

Here's my recipe for lentil soup:
1 or 1.5 cups lentils, rinsed
4 cups chicken broth
spices - oregano, thyme, basil, and anything else that smells good
onions
carrots
celery, including a little bit of the leaves
any other vegetables that sound good, such as potatoes and zucchini
7-8 slices bacon, or chicken sausage

Bring the lentils and broth to a boil, turn off heat and let sit for about 2 hours (this lets the lentils partially cook). Then turn heat back on and add chopped veggies. If you're using bacon, fry it and then fry the onion in the bacon grease. Add chopped bacon or sausage when vegetables and lentils are almost done. Cook until lentils are just soft, not mushy.

When I was a kid, we wouldn't have added meat ever, and I think we cooked the lentils in water and then added tomato juice instead of chicken broth. I haven't tried making it that way in years.

Now that I have this typed out, I see that it's not much of a recipe. That's how comfort food works - you know the right measurements and cooking times to make the food turn out just the way you like, but you're cooking by habit, not recipe.

Lawn mowing (or more exercise)

2008-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

I love having a yard. I hate having a lawn. We own about 0.3 acres, which is decently large for a suburb of Seattle. The house is 3 stories tall and only has a footprint of about 700 feet. This leaves a lot of yard, most of which is a steep hill.

When we moved in, it was all lawn. Over the past 4 years, we've slowly replaced pieces of it. The first year, we dug up a big strip and planted a 20 foot row of raspberries, 2 grape vines and 3 kiwis (Arctic Beauty, which are cold resistent). Then a couple of dwarf apples, blueberries, and an attempt at ground cover strawberries and blueberries. The ground cover would do better if I was better at weeding.

We also covered up a big section with cardboard, hauled in new dirt, and planted eco turf. The brand we used is Fleur de Lawn, which is a mixture of dwarf perennial ryegrass, english daisy, baby blue eyes, dwarf yarrow, and dwarf clover. People panic when they hear yarrow, but it really does stay shorter, as long as you mow it a few times a year. It does not need to be watered, can be mowed much less frequently than grass, and is pretty. Sadly, the english daisies appear to have been left out of our mix, or never sprouted, but otherwise it's very nice.

This weekend, we're getting a giant pile of bark mulch to cover up another section of the lower hillside. It's a little shadier down there, so we'll plant native shrubs, probably oregon grape, salal and huckleberry.

Still, the lawn is bigger than everything else, a fact that I sadly notice each spring as the grass grows taller by the day. I started mowing today, with our handy Neuton cordless electric mower. It's a great little mower, and I love not having to deal with a gas mower, but the wheels aren't powered so hills are a lot of work. I try to look at it as exercise and be happy that I have a lawn to mow on sunny days, so I don't have to exercise inside. Haha... sometimes telling myself that works.

Exercise for stress relief

2008-04-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Last week was my week off after finishing my Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge. My body was tired out; I was having a harder time pushing myself during workouts, and was sore afterwards.

However, by the end of last week, I was feeling stressy, some work related, some just general stress that I couldn't put a name to. Same thing on Monday - until I came home and did my Turbulence Training workout. Afterwards, I felt energized but calm and unwound. My left shoulder, which tenses up and aches when I'm under stress, relaxed immediately.

Exercise is an incredibly effective stress reliever for me. There are probably a number of reasons why:
Release of emotions - the more energetic parts of a workout, such as the high intensity interval training, give me an outlet for whatever negative thoughts are circling around in head.
Distraction - when I'm focused on which weights to use and how to push myself a little harder, I often forget those negative thoughts entirely.
Endorphins - our bodies release several natural chemicals in the brain during exercise that relieve pain and elevate our mood.
Sleep - I sleep better after I exercise, which leads to less stress on my body the next day.

If you're having trouble motivating yourself to exercise regularly, consider the stress relief angle. There may be a little additional stress at first, if you're like me - I stressed about how to fit workouts into my week, whether I had the right equipment, whether I could follow instructions, etc. (most of that was solved by using Turbulence Training, because the workouts are short and I can easily do them at home).
Once you have a good plan in place, the reward of stress relief is worth it, and exercise will quickly become a habit!

Book Review: Magic Burns

2008-03-31T17:10:00.000-07:00

The bad news for my weekend plans was that Magic Burns, by Ilona Andrews, was not on the shelf at Borders on Friday night. The good news is that I did find it at Barnes & Noble on Saturday. Technically, it's not supposed to be released until April 1st, but I've found that new books are usually on shelves the weekend before. I prefer shopping at Borders, but they are a little erratic about when they put out new books; Barnes & Noble is more consistent.

Magic Burns, like the first in the series, Magic Bites, is an entertaining read. The main character, Kate, is powerful and funny. She is now working for both the Order (Knights who fight threats against humanity, but may determine that you are a threat) and the Guild (mercenaries who fight any magical threats, for a price), and trying to make enough money to keep afloat.
If I hadn't read the first book, I think Magic Burns would still make sense. The author weaves in a decent description of how magic and technology come in waves, one works for a few hours/days and then there is a switch to the other, usually resulting in problems that Kate and other characters have to deal with.

My favorite characters from the first book are back again - Curran, lord of the shapeshifters, whom Kate constantly antagonizes; Jim, her sometimes partner, who again leaves her in the lurch (but she's done the same to him); and Derek, a young werewolf who tags along with Kate when the shapeshifters want to keep an eye on her.

The plot involves Celtic mythology, including the goddess Morrigan and her cauldron, and problems that will happen during the coming magic flare. A flare is when the waves of magic happen closer and closer together and end with a powerful surge: "with each subsequent flare, more of our world succumbed to magic."
Near the center of everything is Julie, a young teenager whose mother has disappeared with the rest of her Coven. Julie has an all too realistic habit of doing anything to please her boyfriend, which leads her into trouble. Another new character, Andrea, is introduced as a Knight of the Order, restricted to office duties after her partner died - but there is more to Andrea too.
This book has more female characters than the first one, which I think is good; it gives Kate a more rounded feel than the stereotypical "tough girl trying to fit in with the boys".

The mystery of Kate's background continues, although there are a few serious clues, and it's clear that she has, or will have, far more power than any normal human.
The hint of romance also continues. I wasn't sure until about 3/4 of the way through that the hints were real, but they were fun to look for. The ending definitely made it clear that the romance was there all along.

I really enjoyed Magic Burns and look forward to the sequel that is sure to come. It makes a decent stand alone novel too though, so don't be afraid to read it on it's own. The main plot pieces are all tied up by the end, there are just character details that are still to be revealed.

Apple Oat Bread

2008-03-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

Here was my baking project for the afternoon:

Apple Oat Bread

1/2 cup rolled oats*
1/2 cup barley flakes*
2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons milled flax or 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup Baker's Special Dry Milk
2 3/4 cups King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup dried apples, chopped
3/4 cup Cinnamon Flav-R-Bites®, optional

*Or use all oats, or all barley.

Place the oats and barley in a bowl or the bucket of a bread machine and pour the boiling water over them. Cool to lukewarm, about 20 minutes, and stir in the remaining ingredients, except the apples and cinnamon bits. Stir, then knead to make a soft, slightly sticky dough (or allow to go through the dough cycle of a bread machine). If you're kneading by hand and the dough is very sticky, allow it to rest for 15 minutes before adding more flour. Add the apples and cinnamon bites at the end of the kneading process, or when indicated by the bread machine. Let the dough rise, covered, for 1 hour, until it's puffy.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased work surface, knead gently, then form into a loaf or ball. Place on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, or in a greased 9" x 5" loaf pan. Cover and let rise till almost doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Preheat the oven to 400°F while dough is rising.

Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it's deep brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf will register 205°F. Remove it from the oven, cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely.

Like last week's brownies, this apple oat bread recipe is also from King Arthur Flour. It's not from my King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book, which is one of my two favorite cookbooks right now, but it's a similar type of recipe. I wonder if this recipe is newer than the book?

The ingredients were easy to mix up - I'm growing increasingly fond of the bread hook on my stand mixer, which I thought I'd never use. It's quicker than kneading by hand, and a lot less messy. This means that I'm more likely to want to make bread, which is great (unless I'm trying not to eat too much bread!).

I used all rolled oats, as I couldn't find barley flakes (perhaps a Whole Foods trip is in order next time). I don't have their particular brand of dry milk or vital wheat gluten, so used whatever I have. The Cinnamon Flav-R-Bites are really good, they are dry cinnamon pellets that absorb moisture as the bread rises and cooks; probably cinnamon chips could be used instead.

Our deepest fear

2008-03-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

I ran across this quote a few years ago. At that time, I was feeling a little stunned that I had managed to lose a lot of weight, after years of not being able to.

I've always been really good at cerebral pursuits: I was a straight A student in school, I understand math and I can write. I follow current events and politics (more or less). I read the news, I read commentary, and I try to search for what is not being said. I can write a budget, and I understand how loans work. I take pride in being able to think.

My body was always secondary. Not because of a lack of time or a lack of energy or a lack of good genetics, although I used those excuses. There were a lot of factors, but a large part of me did not want to look good, did not want that type of attention. I've always attracted attention through being good at thinking; I didn't want attention because of how I looked.

And deep down, I was afraid of being too good. It was as if being smart was good, and being happily married was good, and having a decent job and house and car was good.... but if I were in good physical shape too, that would be one too many good things, and something else would be sacrificed. I never consciously thought this, but I can see so clearly now how deep the thought was buried.

In the aftermath of losing weight, this quote struck me as entirely relevant. I am not at all a religious person, but that's not important in my reading of this quote. This line resonates with me: "Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."

If you are having trouble motivating yourself or sticking to a goal, take a deep look at what you are afraid of!

Protein Muffin Recipes

2008-03-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

If you're being careful with what you eat, snacks are a problem area. What do you eat when you're in your car, or have only a few minutes between meetings? Or if you just like to keep things simple and not bring your entire refrigerator to work?

I try to follow the Precision Nutrition program, which requires protein and vegetables with every meal, and small meals every 2-3 hours. The vegetable part is simple, I chop up a variety of vegetables on Sunday and put them in plastic baggies or containers, which I bring to work on Monday and throw in the office fridge. They don't take up a lot of room, but you could also bring them in each day and then not need a fridge at all.

For protein, often I'll bring in canned tuna, or baked chicken breast, or lean ham. But if I want something really easy to grab at work, here's what I make:

Pumpkin Flax Protein Muffins (makes 9)
1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
4 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
8 ounces egg whites
1 cup pumpkin (or 1/2 of a 15 oz can)

Nutritional info, with my particular brands of ingredients:
92 calories, 2g fat, 7g carb, 2g fiber, 13g protein

Applesauce Flax Protein Muffins (makes 12)
1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
5 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/3 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
8 ounces egg whites
1 cup unsweetened applesauce

Nutritional info, with my particular brands of ingredients:
97 calories, 3g fat, 7g carb, 2g fiber, 11g protein

For both recipes:
Preheat oven to 350.
Combine all dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet, and mix until combined.
Pour into greased muffin tins.
Bake 23 minutes, or until cooked in the middle.

Notes:
Oat flour is just ground oats. I buy it at Fred Meyer or Whole Foods, but you can grind oats in the food processor. The neat thing about oats is that 1/2 cup oats comes out to exactly 1/2 cups ground oats too, so you don't need to guess how much to grind up.
When I started experimenting with the applesauce recipe, it came out a lot thinner than the pumpkin, so I added additional dry ingredients. It is still a little thinner, and sometimes my applesauce muffins spill over the top. But they taste good!

Urban Fantasy

2008-03-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

A typical weekend for me isn't complete without a book Friday night and a book Saturday afternoon or night. Least you think I have no life, I have to say that I read very fast. Plus, I have no life. :)

In the last year, I have been reading as much urban fantasy as I can find. Wikipedia defines urban fantasy as:
Urban fantasy is a subset of contemporary fantasy, consisting of magical novels and stories set in contemporary, real-world, urban settings--as opposed to 'traditional' fantasy set in wholly imaginary landscapes, even ones containing imaginary cities, or having most of their action take place in them.

Urban fantasy tends to be gritty - dark alleys, dirty subways, gunshots and violence. I don't normally like a lot of violence in books, but it doesn't bother me in urban fantasy. Maybe I think of it as a natural part of a city?
There is often a romantic element as well. That's my dirty secret; I won't read straight romance, but I like romance in fantasy.

If you're just getting started on this genre, or want some new ideas, here are a few of my recent favorite authors:

C.E. Murphy
Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams have great characters. The build up of the magical world is decent, but the main character doesn't want much to do with it, so the workings are revealed sporatically. The characters though are wonderfully easy to like and care about. There is just a hint of romance in the first two books. The last one has more romantic elements, which take place in a not-real scenario, but I don't think she can develop those further without major changes to the main character.

Laura Anne Gilman
The Retreiver series involves humans who have Talent, as well as various non-human species and a super secret agency reminicent of the X-Files. The conflicts between the groups get more complicated with each book: Staying Dead, Curse the Dark, Bring it On, and Burning Bridges. I came close to throwing Burning Bridges across the room because of an unresolved relationship issue with the main characters. Free Fall, coming in May, will hopefully resolve some of the issues.

Patricia Briggs
Moon Called, Blood Bound and Iron Kissed live on the bookshelf in my bedroom, which is where I keep my favorites. I've re-read the first two quite a few times in the last year, just to savor the fun (and smutty) bits. These books incorporate werewolves, vampires, and fae. The werewolves are the main players, and the author has done a great job building their world and the patterns of their behavior. The romance is good!
I'll do a full review of Iron Kissed soon, because I read it recently and it deserves one.

Ilona Andrews
Magic Bites combines magic, shapechangers and vampires (of sorts). The rules of the world are well laid out, and the main character is funny. Just a little romance is hinted at, perhaps more to come?
The sequel, Magic Burns, will be released any day now. In fact, with any luck, it'll be my Friday night reading this week.

Wen Spencer
The world of Tinker and sequel Wolf Who Rules is very well constructed. I like how the author mixes elves straight out of classic fantasy with some very hard core scientific concepts. Dragons and magic and space ships don't usually come together this well.

Rob Thurman
Did I mention violence? Nightlife is very dark and bloody. The main character is half-elf, where elf means "crazed monsters out to kill all humans", and perhaps suffering from too much teenage angst. He has grown up a little in Moonshine. These remind me of old pulp science fiction, perhaps in a lack of character depth, but they are well written. Angst can be fun to wallow in from time to time.
Madhouse is just out, and (surprisingly) I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Creating New Habits

2008-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

How many days does it take to develop a new habit? 14, 21, 30? Who cares - just do it!

The sooner you start, the sooner you'll hit that magic point where it will be easy (most of the time).

The best part of the Turbulence Training challenge that I just finished are the new habits that I created. The challenge was 12 weeks, 84 days, and I think that's a good amount of time to make a commitment to change your habits.

For me, there was the exercise habit - doing TT workouts three days per week, which was every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for me. I'd done it before, although never for 84 days; but really three days per week, about 45 minutes per day, isn't that big of a commitment. In the beginning, I had the occasional "I had a long day, I don't wanna" syndrome, but that passed quickly - especially when I realized how much stress relief I get from the workouts.
Find the positives that your new habits create!

Eating was harder, because my bad eating habits have been around for a long time. I took it one piece at a time, planned my breakfasts, snacks and dinners each Sunday, and created a list of decent lunches I could grab near the office.
I took that approach that eating sweets was just not an option, and anything else that fell into my rough catagory of "off plan" was very limited. I had a few small treat meals each week, which were often rice or a potato with lunch, plus a bigger treat meal on Saturday.
Weekends were the hardest, because I don't have a set routine of what I do on weekends. I made sure there was always something in the house that I could eat for each meal on the weekends.

I always had a backup plan. During the week, it was extra tuna or nuts in my desk, or a plan to go out for steamed milk if I needed to feel like I was having a treat. On the weekends, it was a mental plan for what I was willing to eat at what restaurants, if we needed to eat on a trip out.

Planning meals takes time, and it's a pain until you get used to it. Resisting whatever goodies are around is also very difficult in the beginning.
But the more you do it, the easier it becomes. You remember the previous times where you were successful at staying on track. The more successes you have, the more invested you become in staying on track. And eventually, staying on track becomes your new habit.

Once you have developed good new habits, you will be amazed at how simple it was - in hindsight! You just have to take the first step, and the step after that, and the step after that. Don't worry about how long it will take. That time will pass the same whether you are seriously working on creating new habits, or just talking about it.

Whole Grain Brownies

2008-03-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a much needed day off from work, and I took the opportunity to do some baking, including Whole Grain Brownies

It was great fun melting the butter and mixing in all that brown sugar and cocoa. Whole wheat makes everything healthy, right?? Never mind the 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of brown sugar!

I baked them in a glass pan, and I always forget what adjustments have to be made for baking temperature. The edges looked just a touch burnt, but it turned out great. When I cut the brownies, they were very moist in the center, more firm on the edges, but not burnt. They are very chocolatey, with some of the chocolate chips still solid on the bottom. I used white whole wheat flour, and can’t taste it at all over the chocolate.

This recipe is available online, but I first found it in King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains, which is an excellent cookbook. I’ve loved every recipe that I’ve made out of it. The dry ingredients are all listed by measurement and weight, with a discussion in the beginning about why weight is more accurate. The section in the back about different grains and gluten content is particularly useful too.

Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge

2008-03-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I don't intend to talk about weight loss frequently on this blog, but it is important background information for where I'm at now. I just finished a 12 week challenge that really helped me to change my fitness and eating habits, so I'm thinking about that a lot this week.

For most of my adult life, I was overweight. I tried to lose weight on and off, but never got very far. A few years ago, something finally clicked in my head and I was able to do it. I lost 80+ pounds, following Weight Watchers Online. I think that is a decent way to lose weight, except there is no emphasis on exercise, and in the end, I wasn't entirely happy with how my body looked and felt. I was happy to have lost all that weight, but I didn’t feel in great shape, and then I slowly inched up to 18 pounds over my lowest weight.

I discovered the Turbulence Training workout program last July, and could quickly see a difference in my shape, but my eating was erratic. I also started following the Precision Nutrition program in September - but I struggled with staying on track during weekends. By the end of last year, I was not pushing myself very hard to do my workouts, and my eating suffered holiday overload.

On December 31, I started the first 12 Week Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge.

Yesterday, I finished the challenge. I lost 14.5 pounds, 2.67 inches from my torso, 1.75 inches from my waist, and 2.5 inches from my hips. I’m planning to lose a little more fat, but I am in the best shape of my adult life. I can finally do real push ups, I can see and feel muscle in my arms, and I run up several flights of stairs every day without getting out of breath!

Just like when I originally lost weight, something clicked in my head. I can't put a name to what it was, but I know that joining an official challenge was a major motivating factor. I don't expect to win the challenge, but I am competitive enough that I wanted to do my very best.

For this challenge, I made a commitment to myself to do every workout for the whole 12 weeks. Most of the Turbulence Training programs are structured so that you do 3 days of weight training and high intensity interval training each week, plus other activity of your choice (can even be active cleaning or gardening) for 3 days, with one day of rest each week. The workouts can be done at home, and take less than an hour - usually about 45 minutes. Since I refuse to join a gym, and I don't have a ton of free time, this was a great schedule for me!

I also started out this challenge by planning to not eat any sweets (brownies, cookies, etc.) for a week or two, to try to break my bad weekend eating habits. I ended up eating sweets just once during the 12 weeks, for a planned special event. This has been the most amazing part of the challenge for me – realizing that I don’t need sweets! By eliminating sweets as an option, I also eliminated a lot of mental stress about what I should eat, whether I’ve “earned” a treat, or whether it’s ok to have “just one”. I’m not giving up sweets forever, but they don’t have the same pull that they always had before.
I can spend an entire evening reading now without feeling the compulsion to eat sweets the whole time. As I post more, you'll quickly discover how much time I spend reading, and I have struggled with compulsive eating while reading since I was a child!

This is all about habits. My old habits were that I might or might not do my workouts. I ate sweets every weekend, usually in excess, and my eating during the week wasn't always great either. My new habits are that I do my workouts as scheduled, and I enjoy the stress relief. I can eat sweets if I really want them, but I'm not really craving them.

Here are my before and after photos for the challenge..... I hate posting pictures of myself, but it's really interesting to see where those 14.5 pounds came off of!

Posing in a new outfit:

In the beginning

2008-03-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Dear readers-
A long, long time ago, I wanted to be a writer. Then I had to find a job in order to eat and pay rent. This is a typical story. Now I want to stay sane, be happy, and win the lottery. I still enjoy writing though, and I don't do enough of it.

I started using the internet long before blogs existed, at least in the easy blogspot/livejournal format. You'd think I would have started a blog years ago. But no, here's my first contradiction: I like to think I'm a logical person, but I usually refuse to participate in anything that is popular, even if it's something I might otherwise want to do.

Why a blog now?
I just finished a 12 week fitness challenge (more on that soon), and spent some time thinking about breaking old bad habits and creating new healthy habits. That led to thinking about habits in my life in general, the pattern behind all of my thoughts and actions.
I want to write, but I never have time. I never have time, but I browse the internet for hours on end. Hmmmm, is there a solution here somewhere?

Then my only hesitation was whether I actually have anything to write about. I don't want to add to the millions of pages of useless information that are already out there. You won't read much here about the soap opera of my personal life (sorry, there just isn't much of one), how much I hate my boss (really, I love her), or how much weight the latest celebrity has gained.

I'll be writing about the things that are important to me right now: fitness, healthy eating, and perhaps a little about weight loss. Plus the things that I love to do: gardening, cooking, kayaking and reading good books.