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working on the healthy
thursday, march 13, 2014
well, at least one of us is. getting saxy into some of the healthier stuff is proving a bit more difficult. breakfast? yea, no. no matter what i do or make, he tends to not eat breakfast. in fact, he tends not to eat much until he gets home, and most days, that's quite late, and he ends up eating nothing or next to nothing before crashing. it's irritating the heck out of me.
on the plus side, he is working on his smoking. he's using one of those smokeless cigarettes devices. it's a start, and i'm hoping he'll eventually not need to smoke anything. but even if he ends up just using the smokeless cigarette, that's better than the 3 or more he's been smoking a day.
however, i am working on getting what he does eat to be better for him and the rest of us as well. he apparently has extremely high cholesterol (mine is elevated as well) and we both have high blood pressure. the trick is developing a healthier diet for him and me while not cutting too much fat and things that my son needs (who is still in the 0 percentile for weight). one of the tricks i'm trying is making my own oat flour (just throw some oatmeal into the food processor) and replacing some of the all purpose flour (up to 1/4th for most recipes, but you have to add more of the rising agent if the recipe uses it) in my baking for us...and i'm trying to bake more. i'm making my own granola with oats, raisins, almond slices, dates, and the highly helpful chia seed. i've been working on reducing my sugar a biti've taken the total sugar in a gallon of my tea from 1 1/4 cups down to just under 1 cup. trust me, that's harder than it sounds when you have a huge sweet tooth like i do.
i need to start working on my portion sizes again and cutting down my snacks. it's tough right now with easter (some of my fave treats are out right now) and the weather going back and forth the way it is. but calorie wise, i need to do it. i still eat an awful lot in a day. and some of that extra is needed for the amount of exercise i do, but not all of it. so really trying to trim back a little bit at a time. hubs and i did this a decade ago (when i think about how much we ate then, i'm flabbergasted: no wonder we gained so much weight!). it's a bit of a slow process: basically, we put on the plate what we're used to, then remove a scoop. eventually you get used to the new portion size and don't need to remove the scoop.
for a long time, i've been using lean cuisine for lunches, to help with portion size among other things. now i'm working on replacing it with homemade food and putting leftovers into small containers and freezing those. this will also have the benefit of cutting the grocery bill a bit (although, not giving up my greek yogurt! lol). i always feel guilty about buying the lc's, which is silly. most people who buy lunch spend at least $5, and i always aim for the $2-$3 lc's. but for 2 weeks, that's an extra $30-$40. using leftovers is not only healthier in terms of salt and fat, but also better for the budget. and i've been on the lc's long enough that i have a better idea of how to portion my food to keep the cals down. you would think this would translate to my other meals, but not so much. lunch tends to be my lightest meal of the day. but i'm working on bringing dinner down in cals/portions and eating less snacks and making snacks healthier.
we're eating less red meat, more pork and chicken, which are both leaner and lower calorie than beef. we've started taking fish oil since we can't afford fish more than once or twice a month at the moment. i'm trying to work in more salads too, though those are a little harder to make interesting and different every time.
my weight is rather stagnated at the moment. i lost a few pounds earlier this year, then regained it all in a "damn it's cold" over eating fest. but i'm switching slowly from indoor activities to walking plus targeted workouts for abs and muscle tone. my new stuff includes pound (which i'm really liking) and zumba. plus i have some belly dance and hawaiian dance dvds. my next (and last, for awhile anyway) purchase i hope to make is turbo fire for this summer. saxy walks a lot for work, so getting him to do more exercise is impossible, but i hope to get him doing some kind of muscle toner eventually. right now my biggest battle with him is eating, so that's going to be my focus.
so, yea, working on the healthy thing, a little at a time. and some of it is spilling over to the husband whether he likes it or not.
word of the moment: edenic
any place of complete bliss and delight and peace; a place of pristine or abundant natural beauty