Healthy Living

It all started with a sudden burst of cold-hard realization that hubby was going to turn 35 this year. He had always thought that by age 35 he'd be at the weight he wanted to be at for his middle aged years. In fact, he wasn't!

So project transformation began! But what to do to lose weight? Which diet? Which habits to change? Being the type of people we are, we didn't want to go for a strict cut-everything-out-of-your-diet-and-barely-survive-on-toast-and-water diet. We firmly believe that God wants us to live life abundantly - and this also applies to eating habits. There had to be something less restrictive. Hubby found @EstandoEnForma on Twitter and began to "follow" this group. It's a Venezuelan organization that promotes healthy living. If you can read Spanish, you can check out their website here. Their main push is to change bad eating habits, be realistic and get exercise. I'm ok with that.

This is a list of the things that had to GO:
- White bread
- Cool-Aid (Caricia)
- Dulce de Leche
- 1/2 the amount of bread we ate
- Noodles
- Coke/Soda/Pop

Instead, these things were IN:
- Granola (YUM!)
- Fruit
- Veggies
- Integral Rice (Arroz Integral - Also a surprising YUM!)
- Pleeenty of water/terere
- Eggs
- Salads with every non-breakfast meal

I have to admit that i didn't really feel as though i'd "suffered" w/ my new menu. I needed a bit more preparation with my meals, but smart shopping took care of that.

Here are some eating habits that changed:

BEFORE our diet, I'd make noodles (*a VERY heavy starch*) about 5xs per week - Spaghetti, Guiso, w/ eggs & cheese, lasagna, etc. NOW, I make noodles once a week and even then try to make it a Lasagna or a Noodle Soup that doesn't have to so many noodles in it ;)

BEFORE our diet, we'd have a salad w/ our meal once or twice a week. NOW, there's always a salad.

BEFORE our diet, we'd have a bun w/ peanut butter on it w/ a cup of coffee (*actually not too bad a breakfast). NOW, we enjoy a bowl of granola w/ yogurt (*friendly bacteria :) and Mate

BEFORE our diet, I'd try to just eat breakfast and wait out til lunch to eat. After lunch i'd wait til supper. NOW, i have trail-mix (toasted peanuts, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and raisins), fruit and pop-corn to snack on.

BEFORE,  we would "diet" and binge on stuff we wanted so often that the diet just really didn't exist. NOW, @EstandoEnForma actually recommends breaking your diet once a week. So we plan that!!! This week we went out for a Valentine's Dinner and had a lovely buffet supper, lemon mousse & coffee. YUM! The idea of breaking your diet once a week is to sorta "jump start" your body into remembering that it's got grease/carbs/whatever it's gotta keep burning. It also helps the dieter to not cheat so often ;)

All in all... it truly wasn't hard. Maybe I'm cheap or I was already pretty health-conscious, but i almost never have cookies, cake, junk food around the house. I pig out if i have it. So in the end (in my opinion) it's not worth it. I usually serve water for meals. I don't bake or cook with cream (Sahne) like most people around here do. I'm not good at making Vereniche (boiled ricotta ravioli w/ white sauce) so i can't sin there - it's my favorite!

The hardest was upping the exercise. BEFORE the diet, I'd try to go for a walk Mon-Wed-Fri. But if i especially felt tired, there were too many engagements, i'd skip out a day and not replace it. NOW, i go for a walk/run almost every day. I'd say 4-5xs a week. Most weeks there's at least one day that doesn't work bc of travel/meetings and another day that the weather or sickness won't allow. I'm not anal about it. I just plan to go every day and if it doesn't work, i'll go the nxt.

It's worked!

Fortuitously, I measured myself mid-January right before I started the diet and by the first week of February: w/ healthy eating habits & exercise, i lost 9cms!! Another 15 days later (TODAY) I've lost another 6.5cms. That's 15.5cms I've lost in one month!!

What do I measure? Don't laugh at the names... i'm no seamstress...
B (Boobs):
UB (Underboobs - top of ribcage? HAHA!):
BB (Belly Button):
FleFle (that the Pooch!):
Hips:
Butt:
Thigh (the thickest part you have):

Every 15 days I measure myself again and add the cms i've lost in each category and that's my number.

Weight? Well... i haven't lost any :( I'm pretty bummed about that.

---TMI ALERT:---
BUT just so you know (if you didn't know...) muscle weighs more than fat. With all the exercise i'm getting I can tell that my calves are thickening up, my butt doesn't sag so much. It's tighter and i can feel the developing muscles in there from the runs. My flefle/pooch is tighter/flatter, my boobs don't lay so low on my upper rib-cage (perkier?). I might not have the Kgs to back up my Cms, but I'm incredibly pleased with the results i'm having otherwise.

- I can tell in my clothing that my body is changing.
- I can tell when i'm running that my body is getting stronger bc it doesn't take so much effort to "aguantar"/make it to the end of my run
- I can tell at the end of my day that not only does my exercise help my body, it also helps my mind and my heart. I have more patience for my children bc the run de-stresses me.
- I can tell it's helping my mind bc i have clearer thoughts. The cobwebs in my brain a clearing up. I actually feel smarter :)

So, that's just a quick overview of what's going on health-wise around here.

I'll leave you with a couple of Tweets that @EstandoEnForma posts:

- Instead of eating 3xs a day, eat 5-6. But watch the calories. This keeps your metabolism up
- Drink water like it's nobody's business
- Use hot sauce in your meals. You can speed up your metabolism by 30%
- Common Mistake: Abusing Integral foods (integrales). They have almost the same amount of calories as the normal versions. What helps is the fiber.
- Fat takes up more than 5 times the space as muscle. Muscle is heavier. Don't look at the scale so much - look in the mirror!!!!
- Fat is not burned locally (de manera localizada). It's lost in a uniform way (all equally). Just because you aren't losing your pooch doesn't mean your regimen isn't working.

Lost My Cool =S

I lost my cool today.

For those of you who know me, you know that losing my temper isn't something that happens very often. Most of you have never seen me truly upset. I'm a pretty even-tempered person who tends to strive to keep the peace with pretty much anyone who comes my way. But today... I'm honestly and profoundly ashamed of the monster that came out of... well... i'm not sure where he came from!

Academically speaking, today was a very important day for me. I have finished my course study to receive a Bachelors in the Science of Nursing (BSN or aka Licenciatura en Enfermeria). All that I have left are the 3 big reviews/examinations.

         (1) Defense of Community Service (Defensa de Pasantia Rural)
         (2) Verbal Exam w/ a representative of the Ministry of Health
         (3) Defense of Thesis Paper

Today I did #1. This is also the only one of the three requirements that is a group project. The 6 of us graduation applicants went out into the boonies for a week in December to offer our expertise in health service. Based on our experiences we drafted up a brief report and a PowerPoint presentation of it all. Today, in front of the Directors of the Institution, the Chief Nurse of the local Health Center (Centro de Salud) of the town, the Chief of Police (Jefe Comisario) of the town, a Professor and my husband we tried our best to describe our experiences and results.

The Defense was supposed to begin at 2pm. We all agreed to be at the school somewhere between 12:15 & 12:30 to set things up and review the content of the presentation. I was late. I got there at 12:35. But not to worry! The next person didn't show until 1:15. I used my "alone" time wisely and set up the classroom that we were to use for the presentation. The floors were unswept, the chairs thrown askew, etc. As soon as it was presentable i tried to set up the laptop w/ the infocus. There was no extension cord.... then there was no adaptor... Once I had convinced someone to PLEASE get them... then my laptop wasn't compatible with the infocus. We used the school's laptop. Finally it was working. By then it was 1:50 and my classmates were getting their first look of the PP presentation. Easy as it was, they weren't too quick on the pick-up. I ended up going point by point through the entire thing, splitting up the slides between us all. I'm getting extremely nervous because there is only 10 minutes left til Start Time and my classmates are still familiarizing themselves with the content. To my profound relief, I find out that the presentation time has been pushed back 30 minutes and we all now have 30 minutes more to prepare.

Throughout this entire time, one of the women from my group has been stressing out about the number of snacks. She says that 50 snacks are not enough... only 100 will do. We have prepared 50 because this is what the school secretary told us to prepare. I even brought in a Banana Cake to add to the menu as extra padding just in case. "No-No-No! 100!", she says and insists I do something about it because it's my fault we don't have enough. I have no clue how this all got to be my "fault" since the food was never one of our pre-delegated jobs. Her chatter and insistence is non-ending... and... I.... finally... SNAP!

Oh my.... I'm NOT going to go into detail of all the words that came out of my mouth. At least I can be proud of the fact that no swearing came out (i don't even swear!!) but i reamed at her and gave her my 2 cents and 10 bucks worth. I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself and have profusely apologized to her, to my classmates and the Directors, secretaries and cook of the school (- all who were in the room to witness my shining moment - *cringe*).

Trying to make sense of it all I pursued self-examination and i realized that I had felt abandoned with all the prep-work for today's presentation. No one else lifted a finger to get anything done, I felt angry! etc... The list is long and i'm going to stop it here bc my purpose for this blog is not to detail the long list of transgressions...

I'm struggling to find God in all this. There's got to be a lesson. There's always a lesson! So I opened my mind and God guides me deep. I felt deep remorse for my lashing tongue. The SHAME! OMG! I'm telling you... I yelled at the lady! I wouldn't let her interrupt me! and worse of all.... I made her cry!  =(  and worst-worst of all.... my husband heard it all. I was so ashamed! I can pridefully get over the fact that my peers lose their respect of me... but my life-partner? I couldn't bear the thought that he'd be ashamed of me and my very public display of craziness. As I mentioned before, I apologized to everyone personally. And typically, in the end, I did the right thing. But my mind and my heart still felt so dirty.

I went for my walk/run seeking answers from myself and from God. At some point on the jog back home I realized that I'd apologized to everyone involved, but not to Him. With a contrite heart, I did that. I know that He forgave me - It's all about Grace & Peace, right? and then... He reminded me of one more person I had to ask forgiveness from.... myself.

Steve Green's starts singing on my Running Playlist and he's delivering the rest of God's message to me: (translation from Spanish)

    "Our lives are pots that are waiting to be filled//
    God fills them without measure bc this is His will//
    He fills us with abundant grace

Life Application:
I'm not feeling terribly worthy, but i am reminded that I am a pot that God fills by grace. He doesn't just use plain water that simply "fulfills" our pot-nature of holding water (does that make sense?). But He fills us with GRACE! Undeserved stuff!

So... even if I feel pulled down through this experience, I shouldn't let myself stay down. Rightfully, I deserve to lug around my shame bc what I did was truly hurtful and spiteful... But NO! God fills us with grace - the undeserved stuff that bad people don't deserve to get but do anyways. Through forgiveness, righteousness is mine!

Just gotta forgive myself... (*sigh*)

A great Sunday to you all!

Cindy

[If you made it this far in the reading... thanks for accompanying me through today's mucky waters. I appreciate your reading it and becoming a part of it all]