Thursday, April 22, 2010

To Exercise or Not to Exercise, that is the Question

Do you hate to exercise?
So do I.
If you don't like to exercise, then don't!  I mean it! No one is going to make you exercise!

BUT

Here is what I found out about exercise:
(Gee, another revelation!)

I had been eating an excellent diet for some time. You know, no crap! I had lost some weight, but it was coming  off very slowly.
This was not upsetting to me, because I never try to lose weight. I do not go on diets anymore. I don't weigh myself.  And I don't count calories. My mission was, and is, to be good to myself and eat healthy. And in the course of eating healthy, you will always lose weight and "equalize," or get to the best weight for you. So, I said to myself in a philosophical sort of way, "Wow.  I'm hardly eating anything, but I'm not losing weight. I'm just sort of maintaining. Hmmm......  I wonder why?"
Then, one day one of our cars broke down and I started walking to work and back, fifteen minutes each way.  

You guessed it!

BINGO!  Instant weight loss! I started looking thinner within a week. And the weight kept coming off!

So, I'm not telling you that you have to exercise. I'm just telling you that if you are already eating right and you add this one teensy weensy thing--and we are not talking a lot--you'll be on a Roller Coaster Ride to Thin. Wouldn't that be a nice change from the ride you're on?

P.S.  A funny thing happens when you start to exercise. You start to want to. Because it makes you feel good. And it makes you look good. 

So what are you waiting for?




Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"F" is for Fiber

After reading Sugar Blues by William Duffy, I firmly believed that Twinkies were bad for you because they were loaded with sugar.  Then, after I started to get headaches from eating preservatives (with a 48 hour time lag—my husband figured that one out for me!), I said, "Of course!  Twinkies are loaded with preservatives!  The preservatives are what make them so bad for you!"  Seems like a no-brainer.  Then I thought, calories.  Too many calories.  I don't have enough room in my diet for those calories.  But I don't count calories any more...  
Next came the fake fat scare (Bans have begun in a lot of places here and abroad) and my husband said, "No more trans fat in the house!"  So, I decided, all that hydrogenated glop that passes undigested through your digestive track, possibly lodging in your arteries and giving you a heart attack, that's definitely the worst thing about Twinkies!  

Get this, I was wrong again!  But, I was close:

The clue was in something I heard a long time ago from a health food addict. This person called all junk food, "Fiberless fast food."  I didn't really understand the implications of that at the time, but, in retrospect, I believe they hit the nail on the head.

First of all, what is fiber?  It's anything bulky (think fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains, etc.) that helps push food through your digestive tract.  (Remember the last lesson on digestion and elimination?  How's that gonna happen if nothing is moving?  And how's it gonna move if it's like goo?  [Try the "Twinkie in the glass of water" experiment.]) 
 
So you see, I'm not pushing health food.  And I'm not pushing "diet" food (iceberg lettuce and celery, yuck!)  I'm pushing the, well, "pushing" foods.  I'm just saying, if you want to be healthy and lose weight, fiber is your friend. 
 
So, go ahead and eat that Twinkie if you really want to.  
Just make sure you roll it in sesame seeds first.