One Foot In Front of the Other

Day 3 - Hara-hachi-bu

2009-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Which means on the Okinawa Diet "eat until you're 80% full". What a concept. Dr. Sanjay Gupta (be still my heart) was on The Doctors today. He said he is trying this. It's one of the ways that they live to be 100. I wonder if it's an island full of crabby hungry old people?

Seriously, how can they do that? I tend to shovel food into my mouth until I'm 120% full. If anyone out there reads this, and you've done this, please let me know how you did it and if it worked.

It was a cold, rainy day here and I did not put one foot in front of the other today. I'm killing myself because I have to put in 10 miles on Saturday.   The 1/2 marathon is less than a month away. Holy Cow! Did I mention I'm walking the Philly 1/2 Marathon the Sunday before Thanksgiving? I did it last year...and 20 people finished after me so I wasn't the last, woo hoo!

This year, I'm trying to improve my time. I tried to weasel out of it, but my true pal walking buddy has told me she's dragging me kicking and screaming to the starting line. What can I say, ya gotta love friends :).

Today I made a big crock pot of vegetarian chili. Easy peasey recipe. Soaked a bag of red beans overnight. Drained them. Threw them into the crock pot with a chopped up onion, threw in a 28 oz can of tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a bag of Quorn veggie crumbles (not vegan because they have egg protein in them), and two packets of something I import from my hometown, Chili Man Seasoning Mix. McCormick works well too though.   So does I believe Ortega or Old ElPaso. I can't remember which. I just know that I always go with no MSG.

Let it simmer all day on high and you have a fat free (99.999%) awesome filling warm dinner. For a lot of days.

So I've been trying to come up with a game plan for my success. I know I just have to plug away one day, or one meal at a time. I'm going to stick with the Vegetarian concept. I have a lot of good websites, a lot of good books, and a lot of great reading material.   I'll post what I'm doing as the days go by. For now, I plan on relying heavily on beans, veggies, brown rice, quiona, and all that other good stuff.

I just bought The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. I also just bought Overcoming the Food Seduction by Dr. Neil Barnard.   I know, I think too much. But I've learned not to jump into anything with both feet yet.

For now, I'm concentrating on healthy, whole foods. Staying away from MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup, any artificial sweeteners, except for Stevia (I'm putting Sun Crystals in my one cup of coffee) and exercising as much as possible.

Oh and gathering lots of inspiration from all the great bloggers I've found along the way.

So for now, the National Anthem is playing on TV. Game 1 of the World Series.

All I can say is take care, be healthy and GO PHILLIES!!!

Day 2 - Marching for M&M's

2009-10-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

So here's day two. I like this truth in blogging.

Food was great and I stayed within my points. Breakfast was company cafeteria oatmeal with some raisins and a little spoonful of granola to make it crunchy. Lunch was a bag of Sunchips (6 pts) with a turkey sandwich (6 pts) and dinner was brown rice with a bunch of broccoli and cauliflower, some Campbell's Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom soup (no MSG in the Healthy Request) with added water and a laughing cow wedge. I don't eat after dinner. I find I sleep better if I don't. The three hour rule really works well for me.

So Halloween is Saturday. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to buy any Trick or Treat candy. I honestly believe that if you're going to have trick or treaters, you gotta buy candy. Stickers?? Comeon! I haven't had any trick or treaters in the past two years. I find that if I leave the bag sealed, I'm OK. I'm not a real chocolate lover, so it really doesn't bother me. I just know if I don't buy the candy, the doorbell will ring. If I don't have any of the little beggars, I'll just put the bag in the trunk of the car and take it to work.

Are you ready for this? My WW leader told us this and I can never look at an M&M the same way again:

Stand on a football field, eat a plain M& M. You need to walk the entire length of the football field, including the end zones to burn off ONE! You want to eat another one? Start marching across the field! I KNOW!

Tonight is Biggest Loser night! Woo Hoo! Jillian is my hero! I would give anything to have her train me for two weeks! My afore mentioned heart would be REALLY happy! I have a guest room waiting for her!

Well anyway, if there's anyone out there, whatever you do, I hope you have a good one.

Take care and be healthy!

Day 1 - Heartbeat Ephphany

2009-10-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Hi. Today's a great day to actually start writing in this blog. To introduce myself, I am Sara. I turned 50 this year and weigh 295 lbs. I have been so inspired by many blogs, Sean Anderson, Jen, the Prior Fat Girl, Anti-Jared, Jack Shi*t, and on and on.

I call my blog one foot in front of the other, because I'm training to walk my second 1/2 marathon on Nov. 22 in Philadelphia. My walking pals and I did 9.5 miles yesterday. After about 7 or so it becomes...one foot in front of the other. I love these walks. The blisters on my feet scream at me but I tell them to suck it up.

Last week, I decided to see a cardiologist. It's purely baseline turning 50 stuff. So today I had an echo and a nuclear stress test. The stress test was nothing. I am really mad at myself because it took less than two minutes to get my heart rate up to 145. That means I have a lot of work to do because I'm definitely not in the best shape, regardless of how many miles I'm tracking on Sundays.

So the echo was wonderful. I'm laying there watching my heart beat on the screen. It's a lovely creation. I actually got quite emotional. There is this amazing little pump, doing its work. I looked at it and made the promise right there to be kind to it. To feed it well and to get serious about losing this weight to make its job easier.

So here I go. I belong to Weight Watchers. I love my group. We are more like a family than just a weekly group. Our leader is wonderful. Patti is the best. Actually, I would call us the cult of Patti. Some of my best friends are in that group and I am grateful to it and them every day.

That being said, I believe that there is far too much junk being discussed and consumed. I've been reading Jillian Michael's "Master Your Metabolism". It's an eye opener, to say the least. My pledge to myself and this wonderful heart that I met today is to eat as cleanly and simply as possible. However, there is much to be said about Sean Anderson's way of life. Have what you want, keep it under control and don't dwell on it. I'm going to stick to the WW points way of life, for now. We'll see how things go.

I've pretty much rambled in this first entry. My pledge, so I can live the next 50 years as a healthy, happy being is to be good to this body that was created for me. I want to be good to that heart, to whom I was introduced today.

Take care and be healthy.

2009-09-01T07:00:00.001-07:00

Coming soon.....