The Leftovers Mom

I read once that a major contributor to the weight that women gain (or haven't lost) after having kids is due to eating food off of their kids' plates, and I believe it.  I am a victim of it myself!  After reading The Fat Loss Troubleshoot and getting a black and white reminder that I need to weigh, not just measure but WEIGH IN GRAMS, my food to get an accurate picture of calories in versus calories out, I am realizing just how much of a habit this has become for me.

My kid eats healthy food.  I mean, its not like his leftovers are Cocoa Krispies and chicken nuggets.  But, as I've said before, even healthy food has calories.  Even tomatoes have to be burned into fuel and that means they have calories. I keep a food journal, but do you think I write down those blueberries I tossed in my mouth before putting some on his plate?  What's a few blueberries, right? And that spoonful of his oatmeal to make sure it isn't too hot? Pshaw!  Scooping up his uneaten broccoli at dinner to prove a point about how they are sooooo goooood that I just want to eat it allllll day long...well, veggies are "free," right?

Not right.

The more I read about people whose fat loss is sabotaged by these seemingly harmless nibbles, the more I started to do the math in my head and realized that I am likely eating on average 300-500 more calories in an entire day than I realize.  Uh oh. Damn it!

So I pulled that digital kitchen scale out of the cabinet and got to work.  I usually only weigh meat and cheese because they are more calorie dense than fruits and vegetables, and figure I don't need to worry about produce as much.  I was very relieved to find that for the most part, my guesstimated portions were right on the money or close to it, and now that I have nixed the kiddo-plate-nibbles, my actual consumption and my http://www.fitday.com/ profile are a little more in agreement.

But to be sure, I went a little overboard with the ziplocks this week and measured every single morsel. To the gram.  It's always good to get a refresher on reality.

And in the meantime, I am making smaller portions for my picky prince.  Hey, no sense in all that good food going to waist.

Good day! :)

The Fat Troubleshoot: A Review

So last week, still on a high from ordering my GoWear Fit (which is on my arm calculating away as I type!), I bought and downloaded an e-book called The Fat LossTroubleshoot, written by a trainer named Leigh Peele, who also wrote the detailed review of the GoWear Fit that ultimately convinced me to buy it. 

Now, let me confess something: I made a New Year's resolution this year to stop wasting my money on gadgety fitness doohickeys.  I've bought (and lost or broken) more heart-rate monitor watches, pedometers, fancy water bottles, diet and nutrition books, kitchen appliances, and Lord knows what else over the years in the name of making my life easier.  And I think I made pretty good progress making it all the way to June before I bought two new fitnessy things at once. :)  So yay me. 

I read the entire book over the weekend, making copius notes in the margins, and I think it was a good use of $40.  In its 150 pages, Peele debunks a lot of myths related to nutrition for fat loss and sheds some light on a few realities that none of us really want to face, like the truth about how many calories we actually burn and how many we actually eat.  And, I was very glad to spend $40 to find out that for about 95% of my training and nutrition, I am doing everything pretty darn close to perfect.  Another yay for me!  As for that other 5%, now that I know about them AND have my GoWear Fit, well I am pretty much unstoppable! I can do anything! Maybe I should call BP and offer my assistance.

The book is really helpful, with some great formulas and calculators designed to explain the incredibly complex human body (well, the part related to metabolism anyhow) in an easy-to-understand and readable format. Considering I really didn't care for the online persona of the writer going in (because I tend to not like people who are like me and plus the homepage of her website made me think that maybe I shouldn't be looking at it on my work computer), that is some pretty high praise!  I really liked the book and came away feeling thankful to her for writing it.  I would gladly give her some more money to tell me some more stuff.

Check it out - I'll be sharing some of her insights and my experiences with them here as they are relevant. 

Good day!

Stalking the UPS Man

I am so so so so so so so SOOOOOOO excited!  My GoWear Fit is arriving today, which I know because my minute-by-minute tracking of the package on Amazon.com tells me that as of 5:29 am today, it is on the truck and scheduled for delivery.  I can't believe I didn't take the day off so I could play with it right away. 

OMG I AM SO EXCITED!

GoWear Fit is a nifty little gadget that monitors (within some relative range of error of course, which I will ultimately ignore) all of your body's functions throughout the day.  Well, all the ones that I wonder about anyway.  So throughout the course of a day, it will measure your approximate calorie burn, changes in heart rate, and even your sleep patterns. At the end of the day, you can plug it into your computer and upload the data to determine your overall calorie burn throughout the day and whether you need more or less activity, how to better time your nutrition, and if your sleep quality is adequate for your goals.  I've been skeptically researching its value and accuracy since I first learned of it back in December, but after reading enough reviews and convincing myself that I deserve something pretty, I decided that the GoWear Fit will be the perfect addition to my obsessive-compulsive lifestyle. 

I've already informed my husband that I am going to be out of pocket for a while as I charge it up, install the software, and figure out how it works exactly, which ironically, I will need my husband to "help" me do (read: do for me as I impatiently stand by).  But it's okay, I think he is ready for a break from listening to me go on and on about how excited I am about it and updating him on the progress of the UPS man as he brings my little darling closer to me. I wonder if I could call the UPS man and ask what time he is going to be at my house.  Would that be creepy?  

Anyway, for all of you know-me-in-real-life types who are asking, "Heather, isn't this the LAST thing that a neurotic, fitness-obsessed, control-freaky data-analyzing over-achiever (not that there's anything wrong with that) like you needs?  Won't it just make you even crazier? Won't this just send you over the edge into a pit of potentially-flawed information that will ultimately drive you insane?"

I thought about that. And, it is a risk I am willing to take in the name of science.

Be sure to get your hopes up!

A little pre-weekend finger-wagging

Warning - I'm gonna get all preachy on you for a minute. 

Today its about commercials for food that feature people who can't believe that the item is healthy (it usually isn't) because it actually tastes good. 

"It CAN'T be healthy!  It tastes too good!" 

The one that got my goat this week was a woman eating cereal who was just amazed that the cereal was filled with fiber and nutrients (it's actually not) because all she could taste was honey and brown sugar!  And it reminded me about how fixated we are on how our food tastes, and how we feel entitled to food that tastes good when really we're only entitled to food.

A few years ago, I attended a lunchtime roundtable meeting featuring the incredible Laurel Blackburn, a trainer and business woman who not only inspires me as an athlete but also as a hard-working woman of integrity.

She's awesome. 

Anyway, she mentioned the concept of eating for performance, and it stuck with me.  I loved that idea - eating for function, eating purposefully, actually considering the physiological needs of your body before fueling it to get the most bang for your calorie bucks.  Since that day I can honestly say that functional eating has been a personal priority of mine.  Thanks Laurel for opening my eyes!

Anyway, since I started eating functionally, I started letting go of any expectation I had of food to be anything other than functional.  I no longer needed my food to taste good, it just needed to work.  That didn't happen over night, but gradually I began to appreciate food for its purpose and function, not whether it was something I was craving or felt entitled to.  There are so many ways that this has impacted my personal life that I can't go into them here.  You'll have to buy my book for that. :) 

But there is one thing that really stands out - entitlement.  I see such a feeling of entitlement among my peers concerning food. Seeing that cereal commercial made me wonder: do we even deserve food that tastes good?  I argue no.

You deserve access to food that will nourish your body, period.  You deserve to be loved, cared for, and safe.  You deserve to share a private joke with a friend that no one else gets.  You deserve to go through your day freely and enjoy the world around you, unless you have been convicted of a felony in which case you do not deserve that specific part.  But you don't deserve food that tastes good.  You just deserve food.

I know not many others share this opinion, and I'm not so bold as to say I never eat things just because they taste good or that I exist on some higher intellectual plane where I am immune to the delicious aroma of BBQ.  The food I eat does taste good to me, and I love creating and finding recipes that are highly nutritious and tasty.  But, I am really happy that I have gotten to a point where that is secondary to the function of the food specific to the requirements of my body.  So when I see people eating food and going on and on about how good it tastes, I feel sad.

I just needed to say that.

I Didn't Fall on My Face Today. Score!

I didn't fall down today.  That is an accomplishment!  Granted, its only 8:45 am so I have a ways to go. But as a klutz supreme, I'm just excited to be wearing a skirt sans bruised shins from some exercise-related calamity.

I have a little bit of a history of falling down and being otherwise clumsy in the gym, to the point that whenever someone else falls or kicks something over, it's called, "pulling a Heather."  Seriously, you accidentally hook a step mid-jump and send risers flying all over the gym and suddenly that's all anyone can remember.

Well, today was all about balance in my workout.  Captain Awesome had me doing all kinds of stuff on the Bosu ball, single-leg dead lifts, funky squats and lunges and toe-touches and whatnot, and I was pretty excited to learn that my balance has increased tremendously over the past year or so!  My agility and balance used to be very poor, and today I completed everything with ease.  It was a good feeling and confirmed that I am ready for something more challenging.  Like levitation.

Balance training is not only fun because you get to use nifty stuff like Bosu balls, wobble boards, bands, and big bouncy exercise balls, but its great exercise for those days when you want to work out and be active but you're a little bit pooped and not really in the right mindset for anything aggressive.  Check out this site for more information on the role of balance in fitness, and find out for yourself.

Good day

Thanks for the Jam! Or is This Jelly?

You know, there is something a little bit wrong and probably uniquely Southern about finishing up a workout and then heading to a locker room where everyone lines up to get their jar of homemade jam and then discusses the differences between jelly and jam and which is their favorite variety.

At lunchtime, I work out at a church recreation center that attracts a demographic different from any gym crowd I have ever seen. A group of men I endearingly refer to as the First Baptist Church Men's Knitting Circle and Weightlifting Club discuss shepherd's pie recipes while exercising, the women in the locker room debate the true end of deer hunting season, and Sharon's Short Stop Cafe is located next to the reception desk, selling fried pork chops, cheese grits, and other sundry snacks for the post-workout refueling.  I am totally serious.

And you know, I work out with these people almost every day, and even though I rarely utter more than, "have a good afternoon," when I am on my way out, I have come to love them.  They work hard, they huff and puff to stay healthy and fit, and I am pretty sure that if I ever find myself with a mess of catfish, they would be able to tell me who can clean it for me and how to fry it up.  But something tells me the real reason they workout so hard is so they can eat cobbler and fried pork chops and biscuits with jelly (or jam, depending on their preference) without too much heartburn over the impact on their girlish figures.  I admire that about them.  They have great attitudes and a lot of fun, and while I enjoy living squarely within my militant perspective about eating for function, I can appreciate the thrill of rebellion through cheese grits. 

I never did find out the difference between jelly and jam, except that jam "sticks to the bread better."  Unfortunately, it also sticks to me. :)

Good day!

My Snack Can Beat Up Your Snack

Everywhere I go, people wanna know...

what I'm eating, so I tell 'em....

People always want to know what I am eating, so I am telling you one meal at a time.  Last time it was my yogurt/blueberry/museli afternoon snack, which got so many great review and recipe requests I was floored.  I honestly did not know that many people read this blog. 

Today, it is my morning snack, and this one is pretty easy: fruit and almonds.  My old stand-by.  I eat this all the time, and its great in a pinch.  It is also pretty portable, which is a plus for me. 

There are only two "rules":

1. stick to berries as much as possible (I personally find that apples and pears make me retain water, and melon is a high-glycemic food that I don't have much use for).  I also include peaches and kiwi when I can because I like 'em.

2. eat only whole, natural almonds.  Not roasted.  Not salted.  Not covered in chocolate.  Just plain old boring dry almonds.

Eating clean and healthy doesn't have to be complicated, folks.  In fact, eating from the earth is the most un-complicated thing I do each day. When you follow the basic guidelines of eating fresh veggies, fruit, and lean protein for your meals, it is really, really, really hard to screw up.

Good day!