Patch and Sara get healthy 2010

My sweet aunt knows how much I’ve been having trouble lately with my…umm… stomach….uh… issues.  So anyway she made me an appointment with a nutritionist for monday, and she is paying for it!  What a fabulous aunt I have!  Anyway I am excited to talk to the nutritionist and see what she has to say.  I also think in the next few weeks I am going to be tested for food allergies, as I am pretty sure that will help determine what the real issue is here.

I know you all love when I post about my stomach issues.  Sexy huh?

~s

The past couple of weeks have been rough.  I have been having some stomach problems.  I pretty much always have them, but some days are worse than others.  I was eating what they call a “bland diet” to try to get my stomach back under control.

A bland diet consists of, well, bland foods, but to be more specific, white breads, mashed potatoes, pasta, saltine crackers, broth, fruits with no skins etc.  And NO grains, seeds, nuts, fruits with skins, or raw veggies.  So mostly anything I was eating for my diet is off limits and I was supposed to eat all the things that are not on a weight loss plan at all!

I was a little frustrated to say the least.  The worst part is that is has been harder now to get back in the swing of things.

I now have my stomach under control and am going to try to make next week a better week as far as my diet is concerned!  Here’s hopin’!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Alton Brown quote that Sara posted below. Dieting, I feel, is kind of a dead end. It’s a temporary measure for what are usually temporary results, right? To change your body permanently you have to change your behavior permanently. That’s not so easy. Sara and I have really been concentrating on lifestyle change for about four weeks now. Here are some things we’ve picked up on in that time:

-Losing weight/changing your body is eighty percent diet. Exercise is an important part of the equation obviously, as it builds lean muscle and helps keep your metabolism high, but, ultimately, you’re gonna have a hard time just exercising your way to a better body. You have to burn 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat, after all. That’s quite a lot of time on the treadmill.

-Eat nutrient dense foods, not energy dense foods. That phraseology comes from Alton Brown, as you know if you watched the videos we posted a couple weeks ago, but I’m stealing it because it helps me wrap my brain around eating better. Sara and I are really trying to pay attention to what we eat most of the time. We’re especially trying to get in more super foods like almonds, blueberries, oily fishes, and chia seeds (look for a post on chia seeds in the near future). When you can get a lot of nutrients for fewer calories it’s what Michael Scott would call a win/win. If the food taste good in the process that’s a win/win/win.

-Scales don’t tell the whole story. In the three weeks we’ve been doing strength training with Bob, Sara has seen her weight go down every week. That’s awesome, right? But it’s not the whole story. In those three weeks she’s also put on muscle - and as everybody knows, muscle is denser than fat. So if Sara is just judging her weight loss by the scale, she’s missing part of the picture. The true tests are things like how her body looks and how clothes fit over time. For me, I’m not really trying to lose much weight (just that belly bump I mentioned before). Losing that probably isn’t going to show up on the scales as I’m building muscles in the process.

Those are the three big take-homes I’ve been thinking about lately. Not extremely groundbreaking or particularly insightful, but it’s where we’re living right now. Also, sorry we went a few days there without any blog activity. Look for more posts soon, specifically on chia seeds, as I said above, and on how we feel about the whole “once-a-week-for-fifteen-minutes” strength training we’ve been doing.

_Patch

Sara and I have been pretty lucky so far - as we’ve attempted to get healthy, nearly all of our friends are also exercising and eating better - so we have a lot of support.

We also got some support in a place we didn’t suspect - Alton Brown.

Anybody who knows me, knows I love The Food Network - especially Alton Brown. Oddly enough it seems that at the same time Sara and I are thinking about getting healthier - Mr. Brown is too.

He recently did an episode of Good Eats entitled, “Live and Let Diet”; all about how he lost 50 pounds, lowered his cholesterol, and reduced his resting heart rate. The episode is full of great information. The same way Brown explains science in an easy and fun way, he also explains healthy eating in a way that makes it seem incredibly simple (nutritionally dense vs. energy dense - genius!). He also provides several great recipes (all of which I’ve tried so far - except I replaced his sardines with lump crab meat). His smoothie especially is amazing!

Here, see what I’m talking about for yourself. I guarantee you’ll find it interesting and helpful.

-Patch

This morning Patch and I decided it was a good idea to start sprinting.  I have never been a runner and now I remember why.  Bob told us in addition to the 15 min a week of strength training that he had been also doing a couple days of cardio.  But instead of an hour on the “hamster wheel” he was doing 20-30 min of alternating sprinting and then walking to full recovery.  So I attempted it this morning.  Out of a total of 21 min I sprinted for 30-45 seconds 4 times.  That is pretty darn pathetic!  This has really shown me just how out of shape I really am.  But it also makes my motivation to get back into shape stronger.  Sexy beach bod here I come!

-Sara

So my battle with Mountain Dew continues. I only drink the stuff with meals these days. I really like the way it taste with food, it seems. I can drink water all day, but when it comes to meals, I need a little something more. So, in an attempt to find a possible replacement for the sugary swill, Sara and I held a little taste test tonight with a variety of “healthier” beverage options. Here’s how it went: Izze Esque Sparkling Mandarin: Nutritional info: 60 Calories 0 Fat 15 Grams of sugar Sara: Thumbs down. No flavor Patch: Very bland. Weird, bitter aftertaste. Won’t be replacing Mountain Dew in my diet. Powerade Zero - Strawberry Nutritional info: 0 Calories 0 Fat 0 Sugar Sara: Smells like jello. Not bad. Would drink it after a workout, but not with a meal. Patch: Decent. Wouldn’t pair well with food. Fuze Slenderize Tropical Punch Nutritional info: 5 Calories 0 Fat 0 Sugar Sara: Sugar substitute leave a bad aftertaste. Yucky poo poo. Patch: Too peachy. I hate peaches. Fuze Slenderize Strawberry Melon Nutritional info: 5 Calories 0 Fat 0 Sugar Sara: Better than the fruit punch, but still too much aftertaste. Patch Taste like watered down Kool Aid. I feel like I’m at VBS. Club Soda with Lime Nutritional info: 0 Calories 0 Fat 0 Sugar Sara: Lime + soda = lime + soda. Boring. I’d rather just have water. Patch: Like it. Carbonation tricks me into thinking I’m getting something I’m not. Obviously lacks sweetness. So a couple of decent drinks, but nothing that’s really going to replace Mountain Dew easily with my meals. So, the search continues. Anybody have any suggestions?

_Patch