Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
101

<p>Again, for those like myself who hate gyms, I highly suggest an a home program that requires no more than some free weights and a resistance ball. Add a weight bench when you build your program. All of this requires very little effort. I</p>

<p>I use the ball for ab crunches first thing in the AM and squats–this totals under 20 minutes. I use the weights 3 X week for no more than an hour. Then add your cardio like walking, swimming, dancing, a spinning bike…and you’re set, taking up very little room and doing while you watch TV.</p>

102

<p>Northminnesota, check with your library. Our library system has iPod-compatible audio books which can be downloaded, in addition to ones which can be read on one’s iPod.</p>

103

<p>The “no white at night” sounds like a good idea. I would like to seriously reduce the amount of refined carbs/sugars in my diet but it takes a certain amount of effort. I did feel a lot better sticking to brown rice and other whole grains and it’s more filling too. I am going to give this a try.</p>

104

<p>mom60, two things I did that made a big difference (dropped 20 lbs in a year without a lot of effort):</p>

<ul>
<li>Started making my own breakfast and lunch, not buying it at work (saved money, too!). It is sooo easy to grab a muffin at work, or something in the cafeteria that is not healthy. I started making pb&j on wheat the night before and eating it in the car in the morning (have an evil commute at the moment…) or hard boiling a couple of eggs to eat at my desk, and also packing lunch 3-4 days a week. I still eat with my teammates in the cafeteria, just some of us brown bag. I plan ahead for the lunches when I make the weekly menus so I can shop appropriately. Lots of times I poach some chicken breasts on Sunday night for a few days of sandwiches, and make extra of dinners for leftovers. I still eat out once or twice a week. I often pack a snack (extra piece of fruit) and keep peanut butter & wheat crackers in my desk, too.</li>
</ul>

<p>-Instead of eating dessert after dinner, I usually have 2 squares of dark chocolate & a handful of raw almonds shortly before bed. Sometimes with a small glass of grape juice or red wine :slight_smile: Again, occasionally I have dessert if there is something good or if I go out, but most nights I have this. (Just had my cholesterol checked this week, and my good was VERY high - - thanks to this habit, I think!).</p>

<p>Regarding exercise with reading or TV, I agree that my intensity is a bit lower. But I really look forward to exercising much more, and find I am MUCH more likely to exercise 5-6 days a week because there is a fun component to it. Because I am using an exercise machine at home, my workout takes 30-45 minutes, which fits into my schedule so much better than anything else I have tried.</p>

105

<p>Okay, I’m in. It has been an absolute all out food fest since Thanksgiving and it has got to stop. I just had my last “pre-diet” meal at a Mexican restaurant. Tomorrow I am back on weight watchers. I have found that it works for me if I stick with it. Sticking with it is the challenge. What I find so difficult is planning my meals and snacks so that I don’t give into temptation when i am busy and hungry. Also finding time and motivation to exercise is a challenge. Between a full time job, grad school and a family I have all I can do to find time to eat at all but somehow I still manage to gain weight.</p>

<p>I did read something online today from Dr. Oz about weight loss. Most of what he had to say was old news but a couple of the suggestions were new for me.</p>

<ul>
<li>don’t drink diet soda because it fools your body into thinking it has taken in real sugar and causes your body to store fat.</li>
</ul>

<p>*Eat the same thing for lunch everyday. I forget why but studies have shown that people who eat the same meal at lunch everday have a much greater weight loss than people who eat a variety of foods at midday.</p>

<ul>
<li>Hot pepper or peppers at breakfast will reduce your appetite all day.</li>
</ul>

106

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<p>So now we not only have to watch our calories, but we have to bore ourselves? Feh.</p>

107

<p>I saw the Dr. Oz article, too. I can eat the same lunch every day, it’s the hot peppers at breakfast that I couldn’t handle.</p>

108

<p>Well, I am lovin’ this thread!</p>

<p>I was doing great with diet and exercise, but the last few weeks have been pretty rough. Since October, my mom, DH, and my Dad have all had unscheduled trips to the ER and each one was in the hospital for at least 5 days. My usual schedule of exercise and diet have gone up in flames. Couple that with the holidays & you have a recipe for disaster. My greatest downfall are a couple of glasses of wine before I go to bed (to relax) and the accompanying cheese and drinking Coke to get a burst of energy during the day.</p>

<p>So - starting tomorrow, I am eliminating the coke. The wine? Hmmm, not committed to that just yet.</p>

109

<p>‘I can eat the same lunch every day, it’s the hot peppers at breakfast that I couldn’t handle.’</p>

<p>If the hot pepper idea leaves you cold you can try cinnamon with your breakfast. It is supposed to increase your metabolic rate. A sprinkle on your cereal or over your coffee grounds before brewing can do the trick and its definitely tastier than the pepper.</p>

110

<p>workinprogress, try this trick: instead of only cheese, have some cut up fruit and cheese on your plate when you drink your wine. Gradually replace some cheese with fruit untill all you have is fruit. It worked for DH!</p>

111

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<p>I like oatmeal in the AM, so I will try it, it sounds good. Thanks, EPTR</p>

112

<p>OK… add me to the group. I am four months from 50, and there just are no more excuses anymore. However, I have several challenges that create difficulties for me. I am hypoglycemic and find keeping to some kind of eating schedule regarding meals is impossible. Literally, when the sugar low kicks in, I can quickly go from OK to shaky, sweaty, nauseaus and light-headed; at that point, I have to grab whatever I can (I’ve literally asked people for food) and don’t necessarily have the time to grab something nutritious. I try to take just enough to get me over the hump and until I can get something more healthy. </p>

<p>Probably my biggest problem is that there are a lot of foods I just don’t like, that many people recommend, like yogurt and fish. My husband had some minor health concerns come up at the end of last summer, and our doctor recommended the South Beach diet. He has done so incredibly well with it, and all his blood tests are now normal, along with his blood pressure. He also joined the gym and goes regularly. He has lost quite a bit of weight. I have adopted some of the South Beach recommendations, but he can eat fish four times a week, and I can’t handle one. I also am not a big fan of salads for a meal (although one of my favorite salads is the Fuji Apple Chicken salad from Panera Bread… and I do get the apple with it, as opposed to the bread or chips) and he does well with this. On top of it all, I have pretty bad GERD… which I suspect would improve with a weight loss of 20 or 30 pounds, so that also impacts what I can and can’t eat, especially at dinner time. I’ve been on Nexium, twice a day, for many years, but still must be careful. </p>

<p>So, for working out… I used to belong to Contours Express, until our local club closed just over a year ago. However, even when I was at my best with going, I get soooo incredibly frustrated with what I see as a lack of progress. I’d love it if someone could explain this to me: from what I understand, if you want to burn fat, you go with a lower heart rate than if you’re doing aerobic training. However, to keep my heart rate within that fat-burning range, I absolutely do not break a sweat. I look at people around me walking/running twice as fast, at four times the incline, etc., and I just get so incredibly depressed… I look like I’m doing a warm up or cool down for the entire session. Anyway, so when my husband joined the gym in October (when he could no longer ride his bike), he signed me back up (I’d been a member several years ago before I went to Contours Express), and I’ve just now gone a handful of times. </p>

<p>The only thing that has ever led me to believe that workouts change me is when I go see my massage therapist. Several times, when I’ve started new programs that included lifting weights, I won’t mention it to her, but sure enough, within a month of my starting, I’ll go in for one of my twice-monthly massages, and she’ll ask me, “Are you working out?”… because she can tell that my muscles are more tone. </p>

<p>So I guess I’m at a point where I just want to see at least a small decrease in my weight when I’m working out, that I never usually see, although I’m focusing more on fat-burning heart rate than aerobic heart rate. But I can completely understand why I don’t lose weight, because I never break a sweat (unless I get hypoglycemic!). I hope someone here can help direct me to what I might try.</p>

113

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<p>But if you’re going at a lower heart rate, you have to exercise for a longer time to get the weight-loss benefit. For example, you can walk at two miles an hour, or three miles an hour, but if you walk at two miles an hour, to get those three miles in, you have to walk for an hour and a half.</p>

<p>If you walk at two miles an hour, and you walk for half an hour, you’ve walked a mile. Which doesn’t require that many calories. </p>

<p>So, teriwtt, I recommend trying a nice long walk (a couple of hours, say) once a week. Take some pocket food in case you get shaky. I don’t know about your dietary requirements, but I find protein stays with me longer, so I don’t get a blood sugar crash; therefore I recommend bringing something like a handful of almonds and an apple.</p>

114

<p>Or do something else fun. You live in Chicagoland-- go skating. Or how about ballroom dancing? Cross country skiing? Snowshoeing? Square dancing?</p>

115

<p>Teriwtt, my DD is hypoglycemic. She also carries glucose tablets sold over the counter in drug stores or some sugar. About 20 calories of either will get you blood sugar back up.</p>

<p>As for the salads, most commercial ones are no better than eating a big sandwich because of the dressings.</p>

<p>Maybe you can follow SB replacing the fish with a 4 ounce service of any meat with under 5% fat. There’s even commercial pork that fits that description today and no problem finding very low fat poultry and beef.</p>

<p>I would highly recommend a few sessions with a trainer to learn how to most effeciently burn calories. You’ll see results fast. If you can keep your calories below 1500/day and get in 45 minutes of exercise 4 times per week, you will be 32 pounds lighter at 50. Good luck!</p>

116

<p>When I’d do the treadmill before, I’d walk up to 4mph, sometimes with a slight incline (very slight). I can do it, no problem, but my heart rate would be up above what I’m being told is a fat-burning rate. Which is why I’ve slowed down to 3 to 3.5 mph, but then I don’t break a sweat. This all seems so confusing!</p>

<p>Also, when I get my Panera Bread salad, I ask for dressing on the side, and sometimes use half of it. I agree with the personal trainer idea. I like your calculations, though!</p>

117

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Well, that would definitely reduce my appetite – I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing! My tolerance for hot/spicy foods is very,very low. I can deal with cinnamon, though.</p>

118

<p>teriwtt, the whole notion of “lower heart rate to burn fat” can be very misleading and confusing for recreational exercisers who are looking just to be fit and perhaps lose some weight. It is derived from the science of energy systems in the human body that really has more application to serious endurance athletes who are engaged in their sports for 2 hours or more at a time and therefore need to be aware of what energy systems they are tapping so that they don’t bonk or hit the wall before they have completed their event. And those athletes are highly trained so that they are performing at an energy production level that is very high compared to their heart rates and therefore can maintain a high level of performance over a long period of time.</p>

<p>It’s a much different story for fitness exercisers who spent maybe 45 minutes to an hour a session doing cardiovascular exercise. Don’t worry about whether you are “burning fat”. Exercise at a level that will cause you to sweat, to breathe fast. Within the 45 minutes, do some intervals of a minute or 2 where you push really hard and then go back to a level that you can sustain. If you are interested in using exercise to assist in weight loss, the idea is to burn calories; your body doesn’t care what energy system is used to burn the calories. The more intense the work out, the more calories you will burn. Of course, you want to be reasonable about this - you don’t want to try to do a 45 minute anaerobic level run on a treadmill, unless you want to be like the old George Jeston treadmill cartoon bit after about 2 minutes :slight_smile: ! But seriously, exercise at a level that causes you to break a sweat and breathe fast. Throw in some 1 - 2 minute intervals where you push to the point of breathing hard enough that you can’t carry on a conversation, then back down to your baseline intensity. You will get much better results in terms of muscle tone, cardiovascular fitness and weight loss than if you follow some inapplicable “fat burning” routine.</p>

119

<p>Okay, the red pepper suggestion is taking a lot of “heat” so let me clarify my understanding of it. If you sprinkle a few flakes of red pepper in your omelet or scrambled eggs, it will reduce your appetite. I don’t think that the diet docs are suggesting eating a handful of hot red peppers. It would certainly wake you up, though, wouldn’t it?</p>

<p>Another suggestion is to eat a few almonds about a half hour before a meal. The healthy oils give you a head start on feeling full so you don’t overeat.</p>

<p>So I’m supposed to start my new healthy diet today but a friend invited me over tonight for seafood risotto and a game of scrabble. What to do!!!</p>

120

<p>Extra exercise today if you know you are going to eat something you shouldn’t. And you could call and ask if you could bring dessert, then bring something that is NOT sinful. Search for “low calorie dessert” on the web for ideas. Eat a healthy snack (fruit?) before you go so you can eat ONE reasonable serving and turn down seconds.</p>