Starting off right!

Yeah! I'm down a pound. Silly to be so excited over a pound, right? Not for me. My GOAL is one pound a week. So I'm on track with where I want to be.

I'm still having issues with the tooth but not as bad as it had been. I'm slowly being able to eat some things again that had bothered me before. I'm also trying to eat more regularly, even it it's just a serving of yogurt or cottage cheese. At least I'm feeding the metobolic furnace.

Today, once I'm caught up on the business end of things, I'm getting on the treadmill. I'm going to start out slow and let myself build up gradually. ANY amount of walking is better than no walking.

I'm also going to be searching for the Tuesday Recipe to share. I'm starting with each of my 'healthy' cookbooks and working my way through. Can't wait to see what's on the table tomorrow.

Enjoy the Journey!

More on Portion control

A few days late this week. Monday was Valentine's Day. And my ever uber-supportive husband DID NOT buy me chocolate. Bless his heart. He gave me a romantic pamper basket complete with a sleeping mask, terry cloth slippers for after my bath and a teddy bear for my bear collection. The whole week leading up to the day of Love, we'd been seeing commercials for the heart shaped box of variety chocolates. I KNEW he'd already purchased my gift so I didn't say anything about NOT wanting them. I just kept my mouth shut and hoped he'd been paying attention to me - not the commercials.

Ladies, don't hate me for what I'm about to say but he ALWAYS listens to me. He might not always REMEMBER LOL - but he listens.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying you CAN'T EVER have chocolate. Heaven for bid! Women more than men (in my opinion) REQUIRE chocolate. It truly is a food group to us. What I am saying is you can have ANYTHING YOU WANT in moderation. So unless you can stick to just 1 chocolate from that box, hand it off to that skinny little thing down the street who seems to be able to eat the whole cow without looking like one :-)

Which brings us to more on Portion Sizes. After hunting high and low for the tables I knew I had somewhere... I found one really good source - right in my 3-Hour Diet book by Jorge Cruise.

If you've not been to his website, I encourage you to do so. He really does give down-to-earth, easy-to-understand information. It's really the same thing we've been hearing from a lot of different 'meal-planning' sources over the years. He just puts it in plain English. You can find his books in most libraries.

Let's take a look at some basic measurement/ portion equivalents:

1 Cup = a baseball

1/3 Cup = 1 cupped hand (palm)

1/2 Cup cooked vegies or chopped fruit = 1 rounded handful

1 piece of fruit = a light bulb

1 tsp = water bottle cap or tip of thumb to 1st knuckle

2 Tablespoons of Peanut Butter = a ping pong or golf ball

1 oz bread or grain = 1 cassette tape (remember those?)

1 medium potato = a computer mouse

The key is to learn to equate the correct portions with things you KNOW in your every day life.

If ever you are not sure about a portion size, read the label. Then measure it with a standard measuring utensil. When you've done that, study it. What does the portion size remind you of. Learn to set your own gauge for what you eat. It will be easier for you when you're away from home. Whether it be in a restaurant or at someone's backyard BBQ. Watch your portions and watch the inches slip away!

Enjoy the journey!

Monday Musings

So, how'd you do last week? Did you get your notebook and track how you normally eat? If you did, that's AWESOME! It means you are serious about doing whatever it takes to put yourself on the road to Good Health! I'm so proud of you!

If you didn't, why not? Did you think it was silly? Were you afraid of what it might reveal? Either answer are legitimate reasons for * avoiding the issue *. But I can tell you avoiding the issue IS NOT going to make you healthier. So how serious are you about being healthier? How serious are you about losing weight?

This week we're going to talk about what TRUE PORTION SIZES are. Some of them may surprise you. I know the first time I told my husband that a 'portion' of mashed potatoes consisted of the ice cream scoop, he thought I was nuts! LOL

Carbs are most often a 1/2 Cup portion. A traditional ice cream scoop is 1/2 Cup... the same portion size for any of your starches such as mashed potatoes, white rice, pasta, etc. And an additional FYI - it's also the portion of Ice Cream. 1 scoop... sans toppings unless you want to count some pureed fresh fruit like strawberries or rasberries.

But what about Proteins? How big of a piece of steak or a pork chop or chicken breast is the RIGHT portion?

Think in terms of a standard deck of cards, or the palm of your hand - not the whole section from heel to finger tip - but from heel to where the fingers join the hand.

Although Cheese is a protein, it's also a dairy. A 1 oz piece of cheese is equivalent to a DOMINO.

Fats are easy. 1 serving of fat will fill a WATER BOTTLE CAP.

Sure doesn't sound like a lot of food does it? So what are you suppose to fill up on?

VEGETABLES and FRUITS.

You can determine the amount of these by the dimension of a DVD case - stacked 3 high

Jorge Cruise came up with a great *Portion Control* visual in his book The 3-Hour Diet.

First of, start with a 9" dinner plate. Most of us use a large plate - 12". Don't believe me? Go to your cupboard and get out the same plate you'll put on the table for supper tonight. Find a yard stick, a ruler, tape measure or your husband's shoe. What measurement do you get?

Studies show if you use a smaller plate, you'll eat less. Why? Because if your eyes transmit a picture of a FULL PLATE to your brain, it reads it as FULL ! It doesn't care about the SIZE! Your brain only comprehends what YOU TELL IT!

If you don't own a 9" plate, take thee to the Dollar Store, Thrift Store or local Discount shopping center (You know the one I mean. The one you do a majority of your weekly shopping at). Buy one for each person who sits down to dinner with you. If you use this plate as your guide, you won't need to worry about measuring QUITE so much.

Cruise plan calls for you to divide your plate into thirds. NOT equal thirds! Here's how the equation works:

Fill 1/2 the plate with your VEGETABLE and or FRUIT. You can combine it with a salad or fresh vegies. And remember that dressing you want to drench it in? Read the back of the dressing bottle for the CORRECT serving size. That label on the back we never pay much attention to is FULL of valuable information.

Okay so now you have 1/2 a plate full of good stuff. Now to the stuff you'd rather be eating. Divide the remaining 1/2 into 1/2 again. 1 side for your carb and 1 side for your protein.

Don't worry if it doesn't seem like a lot. You're going to be snacking on a piece of fruit in three hours and drinking lots of water. You'll be fine.

Will this be easy? NO

Can you adjust? YES - if you want to

Is it the best for you? ABSOLUTELY! What isn't good about being HEALTHY!

So give this a try for a week. Using the guidelines given, practice the portion control. Next week I'll try to have located some of the other portion guidelines I've come across. The more you know - the easier this will be.

Enjoy the journey!