Week 12, Day 5

A dear friend of mine, Sheryl, is a very active person. Or at least she was until she fell off her bike recently. Now she is in terrible pain. Her plight is a reminder to stop taking for granted what we CAN do. I used to be fit and stupidly gave it up because of stress, asthma, and laziness. With Adam running for the first time in his life just this past week and now learning of Sheryl's new challenges, I'm more determined than ever to continue working on increasing my fitness level and being HAPPY to do it instead of viewing it as a chore. As a bonus, the weight will come off. And it will honor those I care so deeply about. Will you join me in HAPPY exercise? C'mon--we CAN do it!

With that in mind, I went for a walk at Target tonight. I'm still getting used to my new Shape Up shoes, so I can't go quite as far as I did before. But I am noticing my calves have the beginnings of a better shape to them already.

I've also felt really good about what I've eaten today. However, I'm so much NOT a domestic person. I made some oatmeal today and didn't measure correctly. Instead of a big bowl of oatmeal, I ended up with enough to feed two or three people. So I had oats for breakfast AND lunch.

I like whole steel-cut oats. They're much heartier and filling. I put pumpkin pie spice in and a bit of syrup for sweetness. Mmm....yummy! However, I was also appalled. The Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup is actually mostly high fructose corn syrup, a completely engineered product masquerading as food. So while at Target tonight I picked up some real maple syrup and threw away the Mrs. Butterworth's stuff when I got home. Another step foward in my quest to remove non-food "food" from my life.

For dinner tonight I was feeling like something different. So Adam and I went to Olive Garden. Now you have to understand this -- I've spent years enjoying every morsel of Olive Garden pastas, breadsticks, and salad. Tonight, however, we had nothing but the unlimited soup and salad. They brought breadsticks, but we didn't touch them. Bleached flour, too much salt. Not good. I had a bowl of chicken and gnocchi soup with roasted chicken and spinach that was marvelous, though. And we ordered the salad with dressing on the side instead of coming to us drenched in dressing. According to the online nutrition information for Olive Garden, the dressing increases the calorie count by roughly 200 percent! We've gotten so used to not using dressing that we each used only about a tablespoon each for the whole meal. The bowl was refilled twice, and the second time the kitchen sent it out with dressing on the salad, and we sent it back. One thing they teach on the Biggest Loser is that it's okay to ask for food to be prepared the way you want it, and it's okay to send it back if it's not right. We both came away absolutely stuffed and loved every minute of dinner.

Today's Tip:
Yesterday I talked a bit about stair climbing for fitness, but I wanted to expand on it just a bit today. Anyone with access to a flight of stairs can get a good workout. And it's simple enough that even a beginner or someone with limited fitness can do it (even me!). At first, it may only be a few steps, but with stairs it's so easy to build up to greater levels. Virgil Aponte, a certified health and fitness instructor, shares these ideas in his most recent newsletter:

1) Regular Walking: simply walking up stairs as
you would normally do. To adjust the intensity
here you simply walk faster or slower.
I usually change this from round to round.

2) Hands Behind the Head: Another way to
increase the difficulty of stair climbing is
to place your hands behind your head.
This variation will make walking up the
stairs more difficult by challenging your
balance and increasing the work demands
of your legs.