The Diet Naked Blog

Food and Exercise at this Conference

Yesterday, I headed for a nearby state park (Henry Cowell State Park).  I knew it was somewhere over there (waves vaguely) and so I laced on my walking shoes and took off.  As fate would have it, I turned left when I ought to have turned right.  I walked about forty-five minutes through little Felton, California, hoping that I'd find the promised land.  And I did!

I walked through the most impressive grove of Redwood trees, gasping in wonder at each one and then marveling at the next, even more stunning tree.  I took a bunch of pictures, but forgot my camera cord, so you'll have to be patient and wait until next week to see what I saw.  But it was breathtaking. 

I found a path that brought me back to the conference grounds . . . and it was only about a ten minute walk from my accomodations.  I don't regret the extra-long walk, though.  I felt great exploring, using my own healthy body and knowing that I had the stamina to go as far as my bright-ideas-brain wanted to go.  I walked about two hours and sort of hoped that it could count for my exercise the rest of the week because the schedule is jam packed.  Today, I skipped out of lunch (and networking opportunities) early so I could squeeze in a 30-minute walk.  Tonight, my last session begins at 9:30 p.m. and I didn't want to put off exercising until after that.

Anyway, all that to say that you really can fit daily exercise into your life if it's a priority.  And it's definitely a priority for me.  I love how much better I feel, how much healthier I am this year compared to last.

I should also note that the food here is excellent.  They serve a big breakfast, but most importantly, for me, unsweetened, old-fashioned oatmeal.  Today, they even had fresh, sliced, non-sweetened strawberries.  Every meal features a giant Romaine lettuce salad and an entre.  Several times, now, I've put the salad on my big plate and used the entre as a sort of side dish (for instance, yesterday, I turned the makings of a fajita into a salad).  I am thrilled with the food here.  (For "coffee break" today, they set out big bowls of nuts.  How great is that?)

Well, I could go on and on, but the next session beckons. 

I haven't heard any news since I've been here, nor seen any television.  Is anything happening in the real world that I ought to know about?  Leave a comment and inform me!

From the Redwood Forest

I'm blogging from a rustic conference center with a wireless connection.  And I'm hungry.

I left my house this morning at 9:45 a.m. and unfortunately, I was in a big rush and didn't enjoy my usual bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal.  I did grab a bottle of water to guzzle on the way to the airport and I stashed a Kashi granola bar (relatively low sugar and whole grains) and a packet of almonds for my purse.  I'm glad I did because when I got onto the airplane, it was 12:15 p.m. and I was ready for lunch.

Only, you know, of course, that airlines no longer serve real food.  I was grateful for the tiny cup of Diet Coke I received, but looked suspiciously at the packet of . . . what?  Pretzel type food, I guess . . . first ingredient was "wheat flour" but it looked suspicious to me, so I tucked it into my purse and retrieved my almonds.

We arrived in San Jose at 2:30 p.m. and I headed for the baggage carousel to find my luggage and hook up with shuttle to the conference grounds.  (I'm at Mt. Hermon's Christian Writers' Conference.)  A tour bus caught on fire on the winding four-lane highway leading to our destination, so traffic was backed up and our shuttle van was stuck.  I, and a half dozen other writers, waited at the luggage carousel for an hour and a half.  But we didn't know when the van might arrive, so I was afraid to spend time eating.  I did buy a large Diet Coke at the Burger King, but passed on the salad.  And I was hungry.

I did pull out my Kashi granola bar, though.  I was so grateful I'd packed it. 

We finally arrived at the conference grounds at 5:30 p.m., just in time for dinner.  I had fretted about what I might encounter, but was thrilled to find a buffet line full of romaine lettuce salad, steamed broccoli, a bean salad with garbanzo beans, and toppings for the salad.  I filled my plate with vegetable goodness and didn't even have room for the spaghetti or bread.  Yum, yum.

When dinner was finished, I hurried back to my room to change into my exercise gear.  I grabbed a map and set off into the twilight to walk.  I circled around, but when darkness fell, I had to stop walking after only thirty minutes.  I'm looking forward to walking again tomorrow during daylight--there are tons of trails and walkways and paths and trees, huge, towering Redwoods. 

And then I came here to check in. 

Oh, and I already ran into my blogging buddy, Barbara Curtis of Mommylife.net. 

Until tomorrow, be good.  And get some exercise.  :)  (Now, I'm heading back to my room where I intend to drink a cup of sugar-free cocoa and read until I fall asleep.)

Official Thursday Weigh-In

I have officially reached a new low:  169. 

Let the celebratory dance begin.

Now is your chance to weigh in.  How are you doing?

(I'm leaving for my writing conference this morning. . . hoping for a good wireless connection when I get there so I'll be writing next from California!)

Food Today

Do you want to know what I ate today?  Well.  I'll tell you. 

For breakfast, I had old-fashioned oatmeal with a packet of Splenda and cinnamon.  For a snack, I ate a Kashi TLC granola bar. 

For lunch, I ate a giant Romaine lettuce salad with a bit of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and some bacon bits.  Then I had some Triscuits with shredded mozzarella melted on them.   Then I ate a few raw almonds.

I had soup for dinner.  I put the ingredients into the crockpot at breakfast time:  brown rice, onions, celery, garlic, V-8 juice, chicken broth, kidney beans.  I had another granola bar at some point, either before dinner or after.  I can't remember.

When I returned from the store tonight, I ate a bunch of strawberries.  I'm afraid they'll go bad if I don't eat them before I go.  No one else is interested in eating strawberries around here but me.

So, there you go.  It's not difficult to eat a low-glycemic index diet.  If I'd known this before, I would have done it year ago.

(Oh, and yeah, I'm eating evening snacks again and considering whether it makes any difference to me.  Psychologically, I think the idea of not eating snacks causes me to eat more during the day because I feel a sort of panic that I'm not going to be able to eat later.  I'm thinking about the whole thing.)

Leaving on a Jet Plane

The most amazing thing will happen this week.  On Thursday afternoon, I'm flying to California to spend five days at a writing conference.  On an airplane.  Alone.  As in, with no kids and no husband. 

I've been away from my family before, but never for this length of time.  I am alternately thrilled and terrified.  And then thrilled again.

How will I fit in exercise?  I will exercise Thursday morning before I get ready for the day.  Once I'm there, I will be able to take a walk each day.  I think the facility where the conference takes place has an exercise facility, too.  So, I'm not worried about exercise.

I am a little concerned about food, though, because every meal will be served cafeteria-style--as in, no real choice about choices.  I can always eat what I can eat and ignore the rest.  I also plan to bring a supply of almonds (Trader Joe's sells a bag of already bagged individual-sized bags), Kashi granola bars, and . . . what else?  I don't know, but that'll ensure that I have protein, just in case. 

In other news, I am not really making downward progress . . . I weigh every other day or so and I just hover between 170 and 171 pounds.  I am going to start a strength training and stretching workout--I was inspired by the March 2007 issue of Oprah's magazine.  But not until I get back.  I know that I need to increase muscle mass in order to burn off more fat.  Clearly, knowing something is not the same as doing it, so I need to just do it.  I have the whole cardio work-out thing completely under control--I don't even think about that sort of exercise.  The push-ups and other stuff?  I totally forget about it.

My middle name seems to be Maintenance.  On one hand, hooray.  That's positive, considering I have never lost this amount of weight before.  Every time I'd lost 20 pounds in the past, I would immediately put it back on the second I lost heart.  This time, the changes are permanent.  But I want to lose more.  I really do.

This week, however, I am concentrating on preparing for my trip and refuse to stress about increasing my muscle mass.  I'm thinking more about keeping the laundry washed and packing and what shoes to wear on the airplane.  Important details, you know.

Breaking a Weight Loss Plateau

Hey, I found this short-and-sweet article (post?) about how to break a weight loss plateau.  I thought someone besides me might find it helpful!

Diet Tricks and Tips

Today, I offer you this:

Expert Diet Tricks from Fitness Magazine;

Four Diet Tricks that Work from Prevention.com;

Little Diet Tricks that Pack a Punch from ElizabethSomer.com;

And finally,

One Hundred Smartest Diet Tips Ever. 

My humble diet tip for the day is this:  Say you have some brownies on the counter.  Every time you walk into the kitchen, you see them and say, "Mmmm, brownies.  Must not eat brownies."  Next time you see them, stash them out of sight.  Truly, out of sight is often out of mind.  Research shows that too often "people use their eyes to count calories and not their stomachs."  So, guard your eyes and save calories!

Official Thursday Weigh-In

Today, the scale says 170.4 pounds, which is a small gain from last week.  The weight is coming off so slowly now . . . which is so depressing.  On the other hand, it's hard to be depressed when I feel so much cuter this year than last!  My total weight loss is 56 pounds at this point and I'm pretty happy about that.

How are you doing?  Check in now and let us know.

Eat Less? Exercise More?

The problem with following the advice "eat less, exercise more" is that it's incomplete.  Sure, you could eat say, five Peanut Butter Twix bars a day for a total of 1,325 calories and lose weight . . . but could you do that for a lifetime?  Nothing but Peanut Butter Twix bars every day? 

Losing weight and keeping it off is not only about eating less and exercising more. 

I once did a weight-loss program called "The Weigh Down Workshop."  I loved it!  The idea behind that diet is that you learn to eat when you're hungry . . . you eat what you want when you're hungry and then you stop when you're full.  That sounds great, right?  So I'd eat a donut for breakfast, an order of fries for lunch . . . maybe nothing for dinner if I weren't hungry, then whatever struck my fancy at 10:00 p.m.  And I lost weight! 

But did I keep that weight off?  No!  When I stopped paying attention to physical hunger, I began overeating, accustomed to the same sugary, processed foods that made me fat in the first place.  And now that I understand the relationship between refined carbohydrates, blood sugar and insulin, I can see how the binging I did was related not only to emotional issues but also to physical cues.

I really, really never wanted to give up sugar and refined, processed foods, but I believe that I could not have lost weight and kept it off any other way.  Cutting down portions of junk food, fried food, sugar and baked goods (full of hydrogenated oils, like Crisco) never worked for me for long . . . because my portions wouldn't stay small. 

Perhaps this is because I lack the self-discpline necessary to stop at one cookie.  Whatever the reason, simply eating less didn't work for me.  Not for long, anyway.

I had to change the way I eat.  Sure, I do eat less now than I did before--that's a byproduct of my lifestyle change--but that's not the focus of my diet.  My diet is about eating whole foods like grapes and strawberries, oatmeal and barley, carrots and zucchini, cottage cheese and yogurt. 

And what about exercise?  Well, I've talked about this before . . . exercise alone will not melt the fat from your body . . . mainly because you can eat so many more calories than you can burn off.  I could easily eat two thousand calories in an hour . . . but I could only expend about 300 calories in that same hour.  Exercise is awesome, though . . . it raises your metabolism, burns calories and makes you feel fantastic.  Your heart and your lungs thank you for exercising--no more gasping when you walk up a hill or trying to find a bench at the park.  Stronger muscles improve the quality of your life.  I can't think of a single downside to exercising, other than sweaty hair.

So, I'd modify that advice to eat less and exercise more.  In my world, the way to lose weight is:

Eat no sugar and refined flour.  Exercise every day.

Those keys open the door . . . once you're inside, you can always rearrange the furniture, but first, you need to get inside.  You need to decide what you are willing to do every day for the rest of your life and then do it.  I am willing to exercise every day and to avoid processed foods, but I am not willing to write down the food I eat or preplan my meals.  That works for me.  Figure out what works for you.

Then go for it.  By this time next year, you could be a mere shadow of your former self.

Break the Streak?

Friday night found me racing away from the movie theater and toward my pregnant friend's house.  She'd gone into labor and so, following my directions, had called my house.  My husband called my cell phone (the only acceptable phone call in a movie theater, really) and said she was having contractions four minutes apart.  "Does she want me now?" I asked.  And he confirmed that she did, so I missed the last fifteen minutes of the movie.  (Which are said to be awful, according to movie critics, but still.  I wanted to see the ending!  The movie?  "Premonition," which I thought was entertaining, despite the panning given it by critics everywhere.)

As I sped down I-5 at 9:30 p.m., I realized with sudden dismay that my exercise streak would die that night because I was the designated childcare person.  My friend and her husband would leave me with their sleeping two year old . . . I didn't even have a toothbrush, let alone access to exercise equipment or an alternative plan.  I telephoned my husband to announce that my exercise streak would end that night.  He suggested I do calisthenics at my friend's house.  Somehow, I couldn't imagine it. 

When I arrived, her contractions were a steady four minutes apart, but seemingly bearable.  She was restless, so I suggested a walk . . . and she said with apparent relief, "Yes." 

That's how I ended up walking on a starlit Friday night with a 9-months pregnant woman (who walked at a steady clip, let me tell you!).  We walked for an hour, thus keeping my streak alive.

(And at 5:24 a.m., her 8 pound baby girl was born.)