Failures and Rewards

Posted on May 4, 2012 by HHollingsworth

When it comes to dieting, you can stamp a huge red FAIL across my forehead. I haven’t really counted calories or stuck to any specific regimen in months. Sure, I pay some attention to obvious pitfalls like soda and chocolate, but I also give in and let myself indulge almost any time I want. I honestly can’t remember the last time I exercised on purpose, either.

The trouble is, now I’m beginning to notice my clothes fitting more tightly and I’m getting heartburn after eating the mildest foods. Those are my typical warning signs that the food is sticking around longer than I want it to. I’m either going to have to start taking control of my diet and exercise or resign myself to buying larger clothes and feeling crappy for the rest of my life.

So that’s the failure part of the post. Here’s the thing about rewards: It is really easy to make up a reason to give yourself something you want. In my case, I tend to reward myself with food and beverages.

I managed to go to work and stay there like I was supposed to even though it was a hard day? I deserve a trip to the sports bar! A few beers and some fried foods won’t hurt if I only indulge when it’s a reward for good behavior, right? Sure. A blowout day doesn’t have permanent repercussions if it only happens once every few months. No problem.

Except I live in a house with 4 other people. Someone is bound to have some reason for rewarding us all with a great restaurant meal every weekend. In fact, if i think really hard about it, I could come up with a reason to deserve eating out every single day of the week. It’s easy to rationalize poor food choices, especially when life is so crammed full of crazy schedules and sleepless nights.

The trouble is not with the rewards. Of course I deserve to pamper myself when life is tough. Everyone should treat themselves well when they are stressed. The trouble is with the things I’m using to reward myself. I would probably feel just as good about a new jar of bath salts as I would feel about a plate of creamy pasta. It is possible to find treats that don’t make me feel bloated and push me toward a larger pair of jeans. Food and drink rewards are simply a habit I’ve formed over the past twenty or thirty years.

Habits are tough to break. Every single type of habit has more layers than a 10-foot tall wedding cake. I love the food and the drinks when i go out, but I also love the excitement of the idea of going out to eat. The restaurant is always filled with people who are happy to be there. The waiter, waitress, or barkeep chatters with me, which is nice even if it is their job. I get to choose a meal from a large list of wonderful items, and I don’t have to cook any of it. When I’m done eating, the dishes are whisked away like magic and I can sit back and enjoy conversation with my dining partner. If I’m lucky, there’s a good game on a TV somewhere nearby, too. Eating out is an experience! How am I going to replace that experience with something that doesn’t include empty calories?

It will help when I get back on track with my food and exercise, but I’m afraid the eating out is gonna have to go. Did I mention it’s also expensive? Sheesh! So here’s to my search for a new rewarding habit that is less detrimental to my wallet, waistline, and self-esteem.

Categories: diet planning, eating out, The Journey | Leave a comment

Looking for Potato Respect

Posted on February 22, 2012 by HHollingsworth

The potato has gotten some bad press lately. All I hear is how it’s empty calories and useless starch and ohmigosh CARBS!

Really?

Take a closer look at what is inside a humble potato. Well, inside and outside the potato. You get the best of everything if you eat the skin, too. That said, here is what you get with a large baked potato, skin included:

278 calories

7.5 grams of protein

1600 mg of potassium

28.7 mg vitamin C

0.9 mg vitamin B6

That’s half your recommended vitamin C and potassium for the day. Vegetarians will love that a potato gives you a solid chunk of protein as well. People who can’t eat gluten can use a potato as a good replacement for bread products or flour in all sorts of recipes.

So why are people hating on the potato?

The potato’s worst enemy has largely been the rise of low carb dieting. These diets are basically attacks on all kinds of white, fluffy food regardless of the food’s nutritional content. While processed white bread might deserve to be chunked off the menu, a good baked potato shouldn’t be lumped into the bad-carb pile just because of its starch content. Low carb diets have been proven to work – for a few weeks or even up to a month. Eventually, though, your body starts to look for the things it needs from foods like the potato. You start to gain weight back and feel less healthy the longer you leave these important foods out of your diet.

Did you know that the potato with skin has enough nutrients to keep you alive? You could survive solely on potatoes and be relatively healthy. I’m not suggesting that you try, but I think you should know it’s possible.

Now that we all understand the value of a potato, I have to say something about the potato’s tendency to entice us to cover it with salty, fattening butter and cheese and gravy and sour cream and all manner of things that are bad for us.

It’s true. A plain potato without anything added to it tastes kind of like moist chalk.

The key to gaining the best of the potato without blowing your healthy diet is to choose the right things to top your tater. Consider using salt-free butter instead of margarine. If you must use sour cream, choose a low-fat variety. Instead of a fatty cheese like cheddar, top your potato with something healthier. Maybe use provolone instead.

A potato can become a healthy meal if you top it with a chicken breast and some low fat, low sodium ranch dressing. Throw some fresh spinach in there for color and flavor, too. Portabello mushrooms are a brilliant addition to any potato.

The versatility of the spud can’t be ignored, either. Boil your potato down into a nice soup on cold days. Grate your potato and fry it in light olive oil for hash browns. Mashed potatoes go with almost anything. A potato pancake is a fabulous alternative to bread in a sandwich – and it makes a nice wrap for an omelet or scramble as well.

My point? Don’t disregard the potato. It is truly a miracle food that can keep you healthy without adding inches to your waistline. Get creative and remember that the potato is a blank canvas that can be used to create almost any flavor you like. Bake it, mash it, or boil it, but don’t ignore it.

HH

Categories: diet planning, gluten-free news | Leave a comment

Twice in one Week

Posted on February 8, 2012 by HHollingsworth

I did it again! I laced on my running shoes and hit the pavement. I gave myself a little bit of a break this time, skipped the hills and settled for flatter terrain. I did, however, push on to week 5 day 2 of the running program I’m using. It didn’t get really hard until the last 5 minutes, which is way better than Monday’s run.

Looking forward to week 5 day 3 on Friday!

Categories: 5K Runner, The Journey | Leave a comment

Up and Running Now

Posted on February 6, 2012 by HHollingsworth

Okay, so I have to admit that immediately following my last post, in which I promised to start doing my 5k gamification exercise regimen, I came down with a rotten ear infection. Just when the ear was getting better, I crippled myself with blisters from a new pair of shoes. The result is that I didn’t even put on a pair of running shoes for a week and a half, right after I said I would. The universe has an awesome sense of humor.

Today was the day, though! I ran out of excuses, so I ran out in the neighborhood. I don’t know if it was hubris or impatience or a combination of both that caused me to skip up to the fifth week of this 8 week program, but I did. I also added a little extra insult to that injury by choosing a new running route that involved more hills. Now I understand why working up to the mid-point of the program is probably the best way to do this. Ugh.

Of course, pride won’t let me back off to an earlier point. I’m not in pain, I can still breathe, so I’m going to go forward with week 5 day 2 on Wednesday. The worst part of today was while I was gasping for air in the middle of the run. I glanced down at the program on my iPhone to see how much longer the torture would last, and I noticed that today’s inspirational quote was “You’re so much stronger today than you were one month ago.”

I’m not. A month ago I was still running at least once a week. Now I’m a soft wimp who had to recover after a week 5 day 1 workout. I was so much stronger a month ago than I am today. I made my running program lie to me by going out of order. Sigh.

I’ll let you know what’s left of me after Wednesday’s attempt.

HH

Categories: 5K Runner, The Journey | Leave a comment

Gaming my Exercise

Posted on January 25, 2012 by HHollingsworth

If you’re like me, it takes a little extra motivation to keep you on the proper dietary path. Especially during those holidays! I’ll admit, I completely undid all the good that I had done by allowing myself to stop counting calories, only exercise when I felt like it, and expand my portion sizes all out of proportion over the last two months. Now I’m stuck at my pre-diet weight and I’ve lapsed back into the bad eating and exercise habits that got me this size in the first place and I want to make a change. Again.

So what can I do to get back on my diet and exercise regimen? I’ve tried scheduling my food and exercise around my work schedule and trusting myself to follow the new plan, but I’ve done more backsliding than jogging lately. I think I need to resort to some gamification to get back in the swing of this diet stuff.

What’s gamification, you ask? It’s the most devious and entertaining behavior control mechanism ever devised by Madison Avenue. Gamification takes a normal, everyday activity and offers rewards for completing it. Green Stamps were the original gamification devices. All you had to do was shop at the right store and you would get a book of Green Stamps that could be traded in for nifty prizes once you collected enough. You might spend three times as much as the price of a toaster earning enough Green Stamps to cash in on a new toaster, but it’s money you would have spent on groceries anyway, right? And it’s just plain fun to get something for “free.”

Modern technology has put gamification in the palm of our hands. Advertisers offer free iPhone apps that seem like games but are really cleverly designed ways to keep their product in your brain. Some of the gamified apps let you earn points for scanning items when you shop. They get you to find certain items, pick them up, and scan them into your phone so that you can earn the next badge or a certain number of reward points. What are the odds you’ll drop that item in your cart instead of putting it back on the shelf? Foursquare offers badges for visiting specific stores – because there’s a good chance you’ll buy something if you go to the trouble of walking in the door so that you can get your badge.

Gamification can be used for behavior modification as well as advertising. In my case, I adore earning badges and levels on silly games. I’m going to use that gaming addiction to get myself back into shape. I have an app for my iPhone called “5K Runner.” The app promises to get me off my rear end and running 5K after 8 weeks if I follow each step as outlined in the app’s plan. How does this get me back on the road to fitness? It offers badges! I get a badge every time I pass a milestone. To make it even more fun for me, the app will upload my progress (and my badges) directly to Facebook so that all my friends can bask in my reflected glory every time I run a little further. Posting my progress on Facebook has the added incentive of knowing that all of my friends will see it every time I skip a workout. It’s bad to know that I dodged my exercise on my own, but it’s worse to have to confess it to all my Facebook buddies. That combination of public tracking and private badges should keep me working steadily toward my 5K goal – which will go a long way toward getting me into the healthy shape I really want.

Truth is, I’ve done “5K Runner” through Facebook already and I’ll be kind of embarrassed to start all over there. So I’ll post my progress here instead. You guys will have to keep me honest. I’ll start over with the program on Monday, January 30. If  I don’t check in with an update every third day for eight weeks, you have permission to shake your finger at me and remind me of how much I don’t like my “fat pants.”

Here goes!

Categories: 5K Runner, The Journey | Leave a comment

Understanding What you Order

Posted on September 26, 2011 by HHollingsworth

I was sitting at a local restaurant the other night enjoying a quick bite between work assignments. I like to sit in the bar area because there is usually open seating, which makes it easy to get in and out when I’m on a deadline.

Imagine my surprise when I watched a server bring a great big pina colada back to the bartender from a table. He said the woman who had ordered it was allergic to pineapples. The fancy drink in a monstrous goblet sat at the end of the bar for at least half an hour while they tried to figure out what to do with it.

Having lived with someone who is allergic to several types of food, I know how carefully she looks over any menu at a restaurant. I grabbed a menu to see how the pina coladas were listed, and pineapple was clearly one of the main ingredients.

I hate wasting food. It bugs me that someone at the restaurant was going to have to take a loss on a big specialty drink because a diner with food allergies didn’t take the time to check the ingredients before she ordered. It’s people like that who make restaurants cranky about working around allergies.

The moral of the story: If you know you are allergic to something, put a little effort into reading the menu to make sure you’re not ordering an item that contains your allergy.

If the item isn’t listed in the menu but shows up on your plate, it’s the restaurant’s fault. If it’s listed and you didn’t look, it’s yours.

Categories: eating out | Leave a comment

Plugging Along

Posted on September 14, 2011 by MHuber

This past Friday I took part in a United Way Day of Caring. It was a lot of fun! I got to discuss how to do math problems with people looking forward to passing their GED.

That was awesome.

But food as always became an issue.

The free breakfast at kick off was a sausage biscuit with coffee. I can always work in a cuppa coffee, but sausage and biscuit – too many calories, too much salt and full of gluten besides. Lunch was half sub sandwiches from a local shop. See previous comment.

In anticipation of just such an issue, I noshed on a hard boiled egg (with a dollop of light mayo) during my drive in, and enjoyed my fruit, my salad and cheese snacks during lunch.

I fear this is the biggest lesson I have learned on this journey. I have to plan.

Some days I really don’t want to.

But if I want to eat items that are good for me, relying on the catering services or restaurants of the various locations where I work just can’t be the option.

Take a morning, (I use Sunday) and plan the food for the week. Regardless of the support system you use, taking a few moments to find tasty meals that fit the caloric, sodium or other restrictions in your diet can make a struggling week seem easier.

I love Weight Watchers because of the tools it provides – and the option to have extra points on certain days of the week.

That means I don’t have to eliminate eating out – I just have to be choosy when I do. Sausage biscuits may never be on the agenda.

But gluten free pasta, low sodium potatoes and fixings, and tasty salads can be.

So, I guess it is clear I am not spontaneous.

But boy do I feel better.

Categories: diet planning, The Journey | Leave a comment

Fitting a Diet into the First Week of School

Posted on August 30, 2011 by HHollingsworth

M and I both work in the classroom for a local college. Our schedules depend in large part on the schedules of the people we work with. Some semesters we might have three algebra classes on Tuesday and Thursday and one American History class on  Monday and Wednesday.

The thing is, every semester is different and there are always huge changes to the schedule within the first two weeks of any semester.

Since M has her diet scheduled to the last calorie and mg of sodium, it can be kind of tricky to plan for a week that promises to be anything but predictable. We were up to the challenge this semester, though!

The Saturday before classes started was planning day. M and I looked up the details for several different food options and plotted them all out on a spreadsheet. Then we arranged them by the way they need to be prepared and how easy they are to carry. By the end of the day we had built a reasonable and balanced diet that could be stashed in a backpack and eaten on the run if necessary. Sunday was for shopping and preparing any foods that needed to be cooked or sliced and diced. Pack the groceries into oversized freezer bags and fill up the bottom drawer and all that’s left is to grab a bag on the way out the door. No muss, no fuss, and no starvation.

I was pretty impressed.

Let’s see how well we do next week…

Categories: diet planning, The Journey | Leave a comment

Yay! Olive Garden part 2

Posted on August 15, 2011 by MHuber

As I shared in my last post, Olive Garden is actually advertising their gluten free menu. I did finally realize why I had never noticed it before – you have to ask the server for the “Garden Fare menu” which is kept at the front where you check in for seating. (I am sure there is a fancy word for it, but I haven’t had coffee yet and can’t think of it.)

gardenfare.jpg

Among my limitations is an allergy to onions as well, so to have a low calorie, low gluten, onion free, low sodium salad at Olive Garden becomes a challenge. I am sure they would have tried to make me a bowl without croutons, dressing or onions, but it seemed like a lot of work for something I would have just a few bites of. I skipped it and instead used my order to take home a bowl of soup for a family member who enjoys the Zuppa Toscana. Obviously the breadsticks went home with my dining companion for the same reason.

But I had a dinner of gluten free pomodoro with chicken.

The pomodoro dinner portion is 490 calories with 1510 mg of sodium. The chicken breast is 100 calories and 390 mg. That places the entire portion at 590 calories and 1900 mg. You can see it is only one third to one fourth of a day’s calorie count for an entire day’s worth of sodium.

But cutting the meal in half, and there was plenty to be able to do that, I had almost 300 calories for 950 mg of sodium. If I make other low sodium and low calorie choices during the day, there is no reason I cannot enjoy a nice dinner out with friends.

I hope other restaurants take a page from Olive Garden’s Garden

Categories: gluten-free news | 2 Comments

Yay! Olive Garden!

Posted on August 7, 2011 by MHuber

So my facebook wall just received a post from Olive Garden that they have gluten free penne pasta.  How is it I have missed this?

I have struggled with finding dishes that are low sodium and reasonable calories (lunch portion of the pomodoro is currently my fave)  and just decided I had to suffer with the hyperactivity I experience with eating wheat on those special occasions the family needs a place to eat away from the home.

With gluten free penne I don’t have to give any of it up.

Here is their Garden Fare menu in case you want to join me at perusing the new options.

Yay!!!

Categories: gluten-free news | Leave a comment