Off to the Lake!

With this week winding down and Lora here claiming victory over her self made challenges - I'm heading off to the lake!

The water issue will be easy there. And yes, we have small plates at the cottage. Fast food? None down there. Hubby's going with me so we'll be taking the expressway all the way and no fast food places on that route anyway!

And now - a confession of sorts - though I don't really consider this a relapse....I stopped at McDonald's today. But I didn't order anything bad! I had to go to the rental property we have to do some last minute tidying before the tenants (aka college kids) arrive tomorrow and realized that I was missing lunch and my tummy was rumbling. So I got a Southwest grilled Chicken Salad. It's been a while since I had one and I felt strong enough to resist the urge to order a Big Mac & Fries. And you know what? When I got to the drive up widow I didn't even want anything else - except the salad.

When I arrive home Sunday (or Monday if we decide to stay an extra day) I'll have started my challenge for week four. Which is.....drum roll please....

Make sure I eat at least 4-5 servings of fruit and/or vegetables every day.

That's a biggie for me because I happen to be a carbohydrate loving gal - and if truth be told - I don't eat a whole lot of fruit. I'm hoping this will move me towards a healthier - cleaner way of eating. I can certainly use the fiber and the extra nutrition found in fruits and veggies.

Have I mentioned that I'm feeling much less bloated these days? I think it's ll the extra water I've been drinking - which is slowly become second nature to me. Which has been my whole intent here..... little changes - over time - that become a way of life.

Y'all have a great weekend!

Hanging in there!

I know I've used this pic before - but it bears repeating.

The small plate has been used for every meal and it truly makes a difference. I've gotten some great suggestions from some of you with methods to use when the small plate is not available (ie. when I'm somewhere besides home.)

~ create an imaginary border around the plate and only eat what's inside it

~ don't let any of my food touch

~ move my food to a salad or bread plate and box the rest to take home

Good thinking guys! Thanks! It's amazing how the power of suggestion can actually control what we eat and how full we think we are. I've been satisfied with what's on my little plate and done quite well. And of course all that water has been helping too. I've found that downing a glass before I eat helps make the tummy feel fuller too.

The water has still been my biggest struggle. Only because I'm forgetful. But I'm getting better!

The fast food hasn't been an issue at all. I don't even notice the Golden Arches now when I'm driving by. Grand baby never misses them though. He'll ask...."Gramma do we have any money?" And I'll say "No. Sorry babe." To which he responds "Okay. No McDonalds today....maybe tomorrow." Gotta love three year olds!

I hope that any of you who are following along with this are finding as much success as I am. For me - I'm finding that by looking at these small changes as permanent changes my whole mindset has somehow altered itself. I'm not denying myself - I'm choosing to do things differently.

And that has made the difference.

Challenge #3.....

Well, I've managed to get through the second week my personal challenges and I must say - I thought drinking the required amount of water would be the easiest of all challenges. After all - that one required putting something in my mouth - not the other way around. But it's going to be a struggle until it becomes second nature. I did manage to do pretty well most days. And I've avoided all ff joints for 2 weeks now. That actually was easier to do than I thought. And I don't even miss it.

Which brings me to week three. My personal challenge for this week is to use a smaller plate at every meal. I was doing that for a while and it worked pretty well. The problem was...my smaller plate was too small (I don't have an in-between size in my set of dishes so I was using a saucer!) Now that was small! I had to crowd my food onto it just to get anything at all which was difficult to say the least. So I got myself a medium size plate (it measures 8 1/2 inches across) vs the normal 10 1/2 inches across... Which might not seem like a big difference - but you math geniuses out there would beg to differ, right?

Sparing you the details, the area of my smaller plate is approximately 60 square inches. The larger plate has an area of 86 square inches. That's 26 less square inches of space to put food. And if I can incorporate this one little change into my life permanently - I know it will make a difference over time. And I'm banking on the fact that once I've done this enough times - I'll automatically know what amount of food I should be eating so that when I'm at a place where only larger plates are available - I'll still be able to keep my food intake at the smaller level.

I know all of this seems too easy. Like little bitty baby steps - but it's really working for me so far. Just having to concentrate on one new thing each week is keeping me from feeling overwhelmed.

I'm sure it'll get a bit more complicated as each new week brings a new challenge - but I also realize that with each new week - it's one more week that I'll have been doing the previous challenges which have to get easier with time, right? RIGHT!

So here I am on the cusp of week three.

• No fast food


• 64 oz. of water ever day


• eat all meals on my smaller plate

Yep. I can do this.

TGIF!

How am I doing on this week's challenge - drinking all that water? Actually - pretty good! I have been filling my 32 oz. Brita Bottle twice daily and sipping though out the day. I was going to try to set my computer to remind me (as suggested by Cammy) but alas - being the technologically challenged ace that I am - couldn't figure out how.

I have found that drinking a tall glass with my meals helps. But I still need to make sure I get in my milk (which I usually did with dinner ) now I'm saving it for bedtime. Got to have that calcium at my age...

I still have not succumbed to the fast food beast either. Taking this step by step is working for me so far. The few pounds that had crept back on this summer have left again. Good riddance!

It's raining cats & dogs outside right now (and yes...the tent is still set up) but at least it's standing! My sisters & I are going to try to squeeze in a camping trip in early September (in a camper). That'll be a challenge. When the four of us get together (sister in law included in that count) we tend to eat as much as we talk. Hopefully by then I'll have enough good habits going that it won't be as difficult as I'm imagining. I've got a month to instill some more good habits.

I've not much else to say today...would rather see what the rest of you are up to.

TGIF and have a great weekend :-)

Has anyone else been plagued with all the rain this summer? It seems to have rained more than I can ever remember! It clears up fast and gets hot (humid!) again quickly - but still! Enough already!

Our last night in the mountains it began raining as soon as we got in our tent and continued until about 11:00 AM (which meant I had to take the tent down in the rain and set it back up again when I got home so it could dry out.) Setting it up the second time went much smoother without the aid of a 3 year old...

Well -I decided to leave it up all day Monday to give it a good airing. And then yesterday I thought.... "better take that tent down Lora...it could rain..." And no sooner had the thought crossed my mind and the thunder rumbled and it poured. I mean POURED!

So this morning I look out the window and the sun is shining (yay) but the tent had collapsed in the night! (I guess maybe I should've let grandbaby help me set it up the second time too!)

So now I must set the darn thing up yet a third time and let it air out. Gheesh!

On a more positive note - I got all my water in yesterday!

Water Anyone?

You know....I almost felt like I was taking the easy road by making my week 2 challenge be to drink 64 oz. of water a day. Giving up fast food seemed like a feat. Just drinking water isn't all that hard.

Or is it?

It's day three of this challenge and I still haven't managed to do it! When I was working the bottle sat on my desk as a constant reminder. But being home I just get side tracked. So I guess I'm not feeling like such a slacker anymore by deciding to incorporate this new habit into my lifestyle. Because it's something I'm truly going to have to work on until it becomes ingrained. It's not as easy s I thought it would be.

Here are few more reasons to make this a habit in your lifestyle as well. Drinking a good amount of water could lower your risks of a heart attack. A six-year study published in the May 1, 2002 American Journal of Epidemiology found that those who drink more than 5 glasses of water a day were 41% less likely to die from a heart attack during the study period than those who drank less than two glasses.

Drinking a healthy amount of water has also been found to reduce the risk of colon cancer by 45%. And it can also reduce the risk of bladder cancer by 50% and potentially reduce the risk of breast cancer.

And get this - for those of us women who feel a little "fuzzy in the head" (you know...we get scatterbrained and forget things at times?) well....not getting enough water could be the culprit.

So I'm trying to figure out a way to make sure I get my 8 glasses. Mizfit wears 8 bangle bracelets on one wrist and moves them one by one to the other wrist for each glass of water she drinks. I've heard others set their watch to beep 8 times though out the day as a reminder.

I'm going to have to come up with a strategy that work for me. Any suggestions?

Back Home....

I'm back and I survived the camping trip. No bear encounters (though a few were sighted by neighboring campers and I heard one walking through the site while huddled in the "safety" of my tent). I also managed to make it straight through with no stopping for fast food! I brought a tuna sandwich and grandbaby & I ate our lunch when we arrived at the campground.

The only thing that was a challenge was trying to set up a 21 year old canvas tent with poles with a 3 year year old "helping". He & I were the first to arrive (his mommy had to work and wouldn't be arriving till after midnight so he rode shotgun with me.)

Late hubby & I bought the aforementioned tent when we were newlyweds. (Dome tents hadn't been "invented" yet....) Over the years we progressed to a pop-up camper, a motor home and then a cottage. So this past weekend's trip was reverting full-circle. I hadn't set that tent up in years and it was hard to remember which pole went where and what to do first. And of course my helpful little grandson was re-arranging everything as fast as I could lay things out and when I said "hold this for gramma and don't let go!" - of course he let go. The people camping in the site across the street sat in their lawn chairs and watched me flounder for over an hour. I'm glad they were amused.

After it was finally set up, my daughter & her hubby from Massachusetts rolled in. She has been a camper since birth and was delighted to be finally camping again. Her hubby on the other hand had never camped a day in his life and looked at the tent with hesitation. My other daughter and her hubby arrived later and set up their tent next to ours and we all managed to survive the weekend. In spite of the hard ground. In spite of the rain. I spite of the fact no one remembered matches to light the stove the next morning for our coffee. (I did not resort to borrowing any from the lawn chair people who had watched the show the previous day. I walked a few sites down where no one knew how inept I was at setting up tents!)

My sister-in-law's place was a few miles down the road and we spent most of the time there with all of the family that had come in for the reunion. We had representatives from Oregon, California, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and various part of new York State. All from one set of siblings and their offspring. It was fun and the weekend flew by too fast as always. And of course...this being late hubby's family - there were memories and tears as stories were told, photos were passed around and old cassette tapes played of he and his brothers singing...

Moving on ~ week 2 has begun in my 12 week challenge and this week as I continue to boycott fast food - I am drinking 64 oz. of water daily. And as I promised....some interesting water facts!

There are many forms of metabolism going on in your body right now, but the one everyone is talking about it the metabolism of fat. This is actually something that the liver does when it converts stored fat to energy. The liver has other functions, but this is one of its main jobs.
Unfortunately, another of the liver's duties is to pick up the slack for the kidneys, which need plenty of water to work properly. If the kidneys are water-deprived, the liver has to do their work along with its own, lowering its total productivity. It then can't metabolize fat as quickly or efficiently as it could when the kidneys were pulling their own weight. If you allow this to happen, not only are you being unfair to your liver, but you're also setting yourself up to store fat!

When you give your body all the water it needs, it will get rid of what it doesn't need. It gets rid of the water it was holding onto in your ankles and your hips and thighs, maybe even around your belly. You are excreting much more than you realize. Your body figures it doesn't need to save these stores anymore; it's trusting that the water will keep coming, and if it does, eventually, the flushing (of both the body and the potty) will cease, allowing the human to return to a normal life. It's true. This is called the "breakthrough point." (Why Drinking Water Really

is the Key to Weight Loss by Maia Appleby)

I have a Brita Water bottle that I used to fill up twice daily when I was working and sip through out the day. But I've gotten lax and neglected it sorely these past few months. So this week's challenge for myself is to make sure I fill that thing up 2 times every day and drink it though out the 24 hour period. That'll equal 64 ounces and is what's required to keep the body running efficiently. (I've actually read that you should drink an extra 8 ounces for each 25 pounds you're overweight..... but for now I'm sticking to my 64 ounces.)

So now I have two things I'm working on. The fast food ban and the water. Ten more to go till a healthier me!

Hope you all had a great weekend and meet your own challenges this week!