Last posts on diet

Dealing with weakness

2010-04-03T03:07:00+02:00

We all have weaknesses. I have been in an ongoing conversation with a friend about sin and confession. The whole thing started with the idea of confessing every sin you've committed since becoming a Christian. I didn't like that one. Not because I don't confess my sin, not that at all. Me and God are on speaking terms 24/7, although I don't know if he likes the late night calls about every little sound I hear in the house.Here's my problem: sin in a Christian's life does not mean that he or she does not love God. It means you are either growing, and continually moving away from sin or you are backsliding and moving away from God. In light of my sins, I wouldn't want to give a different impression than the truth: I am a human being who genuinely loves my Lord and boy has he taken me a long way away from where I once was!Think about this: some people can spend an hour every day in the gym. Some will take a long time to get to that point. My husband used to get mad at me when I would take breaks during a work out video. He didn't understand that I was not giving up. I was building up. I was weak and I needed to build myself up to become stronger.Life is a process. Jesus died to forgive all our sins and to bring us through the process. Today I am so thankful for my forgiveness. I love Jesus and I am grateful beyond words for his sacrifice. May you all be blessed during this season!God Bless You and I love you!!!The Weak and the Strong - Romans 14 1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. 11 It is written:" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' "[a] 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way

Reinventing the wheel

2010-03-31T01:08:42+02:00

Last Sunday at church, I was talking to a complete stranger about an idea I had. Weird, I know, but it was meant to be. While we were talking, he made the statement, "You don't want to get into reinventing the wheel." To be totally honest, it's one of those adages I never understood. Okay, I personally think everyone has a few of those, but I'm here to admit it. For years, I didn't understand what hanging someone out to dry meant until the invention of the internet. But that's not the point. We were talking about using something already there to make something new. Basically, life is about reinventing the wheel. I sat in complete awe this afternoon of my husband. He got an idea a few weeks ago to take out the existing brick patio and build a new one. That was a workout in itself. But tonight, as I sat on the new patio holding my son drenched in the evening rays of light (thanks to daylight savings, hrmph), I watched him plaster stucco on one of two brick pillars he made out of the brick that used to be the patio.Amazed. My husband took what looked old and disgusting and broken and made it into something beautiful. Sometimes as I struggle to lose weight for good, not for a few months, I think that maybe I can't do it. I think look at this belly, covered in pink roads. Look at this stretched out poofy body. Can it ever be small? Can it pop a muscle?I choose to believe that yes, I can do it. If my husband can use a bunch of old moldy (moss, I know, whatever) bricks to build a beatiful stone pillar for a lamp post, I can remodel this big bag of delicious into a small sillhouette of lovely.God Bless You and I love you!2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight.P.S. Today is weigh-in day. And I lost 3.8lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a confession to make

2010-03-27T02:05:30+01:00

Okay, so lesson #1 No cheating. No lying. Full access. OH CRAP!!!So, I was just in the kitchen eating my second piece of corn bread when my husband asked if I was going to put that on my blog. I said NO because I'd be starting all of that tommorow and he shook his head. So, obviously, with a heavy spirit of conviction. I'm back less than an hour later to apologize..........to myself............to you. Yes, I ate the corn bread.I have some serious choices to make and thinking to do. I'll talk to you all tomorrow.God Bless You and I love You!1 John 1:10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

Lose the Baby Weight

2009-06-10T16:47:00+02:00

Or any weight, or forget the weight loss and improve your health and fitness. I had the pleasure to work with two cool women, who are also fitness experts and writers/presenters, to create a 12-week plan for regaining or improving fitness while dropping some of the pounds leftover from a pregnancy (even if the blessed event was long ago).

Deborah Bohn and Amy Cotta guide you through 12 weeks of “assignments” for your diet, your exercise, and your attitude. They say success is tougher if you don’t work on all three together. They bring a great sisterly and realistic approach to the project, understanding the challenges of limited time, money, or energy that plague most women. Their program and the style of their message brings you to the realization that although they offer 12 weeks of suggested workouts (with videos) and diet tips and advice, what they’re really setting you up for is a life of healthier choices. Not perfection, and not deprivation (one article is called “Hooray for Pizza, Beer, and Chocolate”), but a sustainable, informed way of living.

There are probably other things out there in this line, but this is a charming antidote to tabloid headlines and shouting adverts for the latest nutrition/diet “breakthrough,” or … even … NPR conversations on yo-yo dieting (not the name of a Chinese musician).

Here’s a link to the index page of the website where the Lose the Baby Weight Challenge lives. But as it’s a bit out of chronological order, here’s an overview of the 12 weeks, with links to the weekly content. Check it out.

Bias and Diet

2008-07-29T15:55:00+02:00

Stuart Buck at Overcoming Bias looks at the overarching theme of bias in Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories [published as The Diet Delusion in the UK], "a book of some 600 pages (nearly 70 of which are the bibliography). ...

"Why is Taubes so interested in bias? For several decades, it has been the conventional wisdom that dietary fat (and especially saturated fat) contributes to obesity, heart disease, and cancer. Judging from Taubes' exhaustive research -- indeed, I'd be surprised if any other book examined bias within a particular scientific field in such detail -- the conventional wisdom was based on unreliable and slender evidence that, once established and institutionalized in government funding, set a pattern of confirmation bias by which further research was judged (or ignored)."

Examples follow, including that dietary researchers ignored or suppressed "studies showing that diet, cholesterol, and heart disease were not even correlated ... or even that low cholesterol raises other risks of death."

Taubes' contention, by the way, is that heart disease and other "diseases of civilization" are more likely caused by high triglyceride levels, which are elevated by eating refined carbohydrates.

In a January 2008 interview with the Telegraph, he admits "that he himself might be biased: 'What are the chances of writing an article that says the entire medical establishment is wrong, and them going, "Good point, thank you, Gary. Can we give you an award?" When people challenge the establishment, 99.9 per cent of the time they are wrong. If I was writing about me, I'd begin from the assumption that I am both wrong and a quack.' ... 'I have a friend who says that, if I'm wrong, I will have to live in Argentina with all the other mass murderers."

(Is that a real cat in the photo??)

Healthy Eating Habit–Avoid Late Dinners

2008-06-02T15:55:30+02:00

Healthy Eating Habit–Avoid Late Dinners:With our busy lives we are always tempted to put of dinner until the last minute. Try to eat dinner at least 3 hours before you go to bed. This will give your body a chance to digest most of the food before you rest for the next 8 hours.A strategy that has worked well for me is to plan dinner for the week ahead of time and making sure I have every thing I need in the house. It allows me to get dinner started as soon as I get home and cuts out the extra time it takes to dig through the cupboards trying to find something to make and then running to the store to get the remaining ingredients.Take a few minutes one day a week and plan the entire menu. Make a grocery list and shop for everything you need for the next few days. You may even want to post your menu on the fridge so other family members can get a head start on dinner if you have a late meeting at the office.

January 19th

2008-01-20T01:25:00+01:00

Ok, today I've decided to keep my food diary with more dedication, i.e. until the end of the day. I went to the Marina for a long walk this morning with my boyfriend and we ended in the Fort Mason park were we sat and had a picnic. It was wonderful, just like spring. There were a lot of runners, people with music, the sun was shining. My boyfriend even took off his shirt to sunbathe. There was something in the atmosphere, I don't know what, I could see me there having a real good summer-time with friends. White tee-shirt, light jeans, sunglasses... It really gave me an incentive to lose weight. And that's what I'm going to do!Weight : still 120 lbs

JournalBreakfast 280 calories yogurt, sandwichPhysical activity - 400 calories at least. We walked 4 hours, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.Lunch 550 calories Italian sandwich, half a banana, diet cokeSnack 160 calories crackers, yogurtDinner 350 calories what was left over from my sandwich, applesauce, half of a LarabarSnack 160 calories the other half of the Larabar, yogurt, lemon juice with honeyTotal : 1500

January 18th

2008-01-18T18:00:00+01:00

Weight : I'm big, about 120 lbs. I really need to take steps to go drop pounds to 114... I guess being on holiday and depressed doesn't help.JournalBreakfast 200 calories sandwich, frescaSnack 180 calories sandwich*By "sandwich" I mean 2 slices of a light bread I find in some stores only, light cream cheese, cucumbers, tomato and sprouts. A regular sanwich would be more like 500 calories.