My Top 10 Tips to a Healthy Lifestyle

I recently threw my diet and exercise program into high gear and have received some great results. It took me years of fine tuning to make this lifestyle change happen, but it has finally all come together.

Several people have asked me what I did to finally get the scale to move and the simple answer is that I counted every calorie and worked my butt off in the gym. In thinking about it, I realized that the answer is really not that simple. Isn't that always the way? And what works for me may not work for everyone. So with that in mind, here are ten of the things I've learned along the way.

1.  Being healthy is a part-time job.  Yes, you read that right; and unfortunately there isn't any other way around it. Being healthy takes time. I literally spend 20 hours per week (at least) on my new healthy lifestyle. Between meal prep time, time at the gym, and time spent pounding the pavement getting my steps in, I spend an enormous amount of time making sure I stay on track. That means I have to say "no" to a lot of other activities.

Now while I don't have kids at home taking up my time, I also don't have a spouse at home to help me around the house. I have to take care of everything all on my own. Quite frankly, some people don't understand why you can't volunteer for yet another committee at church or spend a couple of week nights on something "fun".  I don't have the time.  If I want to do this I need to keep focused. And since I already have a full-time job, adding another part-time job to that can be stressful. You can relax a bit after you reach your goals, but we are looking for a lifestyle change here, are we not?

2.  If you don't recognize what it's made of, don't eat it.  In today's world, this is one of the hardest rules to follow. I've been preaching this for a while: eat more whole foods. Convenience has it's price and that price is processed food. For example, salsa is a great addition to your meal. In addition to being darn tasty and having almost no calories, it's packed full of vitamins and minerals. However, if you're not making it yourself you never know what's hidden in it. Watch out for added sugars -- we don't need them. Best packaged foods have five ingredients or less, and you shouldn't need a degree in chemistry to pronounce any of them.

Now we all can't be perfect all the time, and sometimes you just need to go out to lunch with your Bestie, so have a backup plan. Pick a few eating establishments, do your research on their website, use the nutrition calculators, find out how they source their ingredients, and then watch how they prepare their food (do they measure?). Know what you are going to order before you get there. You'll be happy you did your homework.

3.  Make friends with your supermarket salad bar.  Fresh produce is expensive. Add the cost of someone else chopping it up, and it's even more expensive. However, when you're at a loss and don't have a meal planned for a day, a salad bar can be your best friend.

I am fortunate that the grocery store near my house has a great salad bar. Everything is always fresh and well-stocked. I recently commented about that to the woman who was restocking it and she let me know she takes great pride in everything looking fresh and neat for her salad bar.

One other benefit: did I mention everything there is fresh? I don't know about you but I throw out more food than I eat. I always have good intentions but somehow life gets in the way and I don't end up having time to make that roasted cauliflower that's supposed to taste like popcorn. So it ends up going bad in my fridge. Food just doesn't keep as long as it used to, unless you're buying it at the farmer's market, so a salad bar can actually save me money in the long run. Just one warning, keep your selections to the veggies and fruit and forget about the nuts and pre-made salads.

I've also stopped using bottled salad dressings. I now only use vinegar and oil. There are a lot of great vinegars out there! One of my favorites is from Trader Joe's and it's called "Orange Muscat Vinegar". I do half and half, vinegar to olive oil, and it tastes great.

4.  Eat your eggs. I don't like eggs. I never have. It's just something about their texture that wiggs me out.  However, they are self-contained protein powerhouses! And at only 74 calories for a large egg they are a dieter's best friend. So,
I have "taught" myself to eat eggs. I eat a frittata every morning for breakfast. I make them ahead-of-time in muffin tins, wrap them up individually, freeze them, and then heat them up in the microwave when I'm ready to eat them. One frittata with a glass of milk can keep me satisfied all morning long. If you're worried about eggs raising your cholesterol, think about this. During a six month period of time I ate an egg frittata every week day, an egg sandwich on the weekends (buttered toast, fried egg whites in butter, and bacon), and my cholesterol ratio vastly improved. Add a glass of milk to it to get in part of your daily calcium and you have an amazing meal.

5. Count your calories. I know ... I know ... you don't want to hear this. But the old adage remains true: calories in verses calories out is how you lose weight--at least it's one of the main factors.  There are 3500 calories in a pound. Want to lose a pound? You have to burn 3500 more calories than you consume. Two pounds is 7000 whopping calories! That's a lot of steps, and sit-ups, and, well, you get the picture. There are some great calorie counting apps out there. Use them. They're free. It just takes time, but once you get a few things set up they get easier and easier to use.

If you're like me, you really don't realize how many calories you truly eat until you count every ounce of cheese, every craisin, or every nut. Those calories add up. I've also found that exercise doesn't burn as many calories as I would like it to burn so counting calories is even more important.

Know your portion sizes, too. I weigh and measure everything. I know which glass to grab for 1 cup and which to grab for 1-1/2 cups. I use the same bowl for my soups, etc. so I know exactly how big one portion is.

Have your go-to snacks close at hand. Some times you're just hungry, so make sure you know what will fit in your calorie allotment and what won't.  Nuts are great snacks but they are loaded with calories.

The only calories I'm not OCD about counting is vegetable calories. I don't measure out my celery, or onions, or carrots, or spinach or lettuce. By the time you've entered it into your app you've already burned the 17 calories from the veggies. Don't sweat it.

6. Get used to eating the same meal several days in a row.  Especially if you work a full-time job. I do meal prep on the weekends. I pick one day, usually Sunday afternoons, and use that time to get my meals set for the week so I don't have to think about what I'm going to eat on any given day. Eventually, you'll get in a routine. Want to see me stressed out? Take away my meal prep time.

For instance, I will make a big batch of my tuna salad so I can eat tuna melts for lunch every day for the week (Monday through Thursday). I will also grill a split turkey breast and two chicken breasts on Sunday which gives me dinner on Sunday night and enough meat for sandwiches and salads all week long. I'll alternate those meals with another set of meals for another week.

Also, eat an apple every day. They are available all year round, are good for you and they are only about 80 calories for a medium apple. I have learned to substitute an apple for chips with a sandwich. Sometimes you just want to eat something crunchy and an apple is great crunchy snack.

7. Drink your water.  One hundred ounces a day. That's a lot of trips to the bathroom. However, it flushes out your system and keeps your skin looking fabulous. I drink two glasses in the morning after I get up and before I leave for work. Four more before lunch. Two with lunch. At least four more between lunch and going to bed. I also have one to two glasses of milk throughout my day, too. It's a lot of fluid, but our bodies need it to function.

Remember, any caffeinated beverages take away from your water count. If you don't like drinking just plain water, put ice cubes in it (IMHO, almost everything tastes better with ice cubes in it). You can also add some lemon or cucumber to it to change the taste (and add vitamins). Try strawberry basil infused water -- it's scrumptious!!

Also, if you think you are hungry between meals, drink a glass of water. Chances are you're probably thirsty, not hungry, and the craving will go away.

8. Eat that piece of chocolate. Yep, I do. I'm one of those people who likes a bite of something sweet after a meal. I've tried and tried and I can't seem to break that habit. While fruit does it most of the time, sometimes you just have to have a piece of chocolate.

9. Move your arse! Sorry, but there's just no other way to put it. Invest in an exercise program whether it's a gym membership or renting a video from the library. Specifically, do some kind of weight resistance training. This can be accomplished without any special equipment at all by just using your body weight. Squats, sit-ups, lunges, jumping jacks, planks, push-ups, mountain climbers, and the dreaded burpee can all be done using body weight alone. Add a couple of pieces of inexpensive equipment, and you add more weight resistance.

Get out and walk! I have a desk job so I don't get very many steps in during the day. In order for me to get in 10,000 steps I have to walk before work, during lunch, and then again after work. If in the course of your job you can easily get 10,000 steps in, then set your goal at 15,000. You have to push your body. You can't get fit by doing the "status quo."

Find something you like to do and do it. I've spent many years in a gym with a personal trainer and recently came to the realization that I hate training in a gym. However, when I put all that training knowledge into use in a boot camp class, I absolutely love it. It's hard, but it's fun, I see results, and that keeps me coming back for more.

10. Have a cheat meal. No matter how hard I try to change my taste buds, their favorite meal will always be a hamburger, fries and a Pepsi. I can only go so long before I find myself at the drive-thru at Culver's. So I allow myself one meal a week where I can go nuts. It's like a little mini vacation from the dieting.

Well, there you have it. Use some of it ... or all of it ... or none of it, but this is what has worked for me and what I have learned over years of research and trial-by-error.  There are a bunch of other little things, but I think ten is enough for now.

Needless to say, I could never do all these things without the strength of Jesus behind me. In those days when I want to quit, when I'm so stressed out because I'm trying to fit 28 hours in a 24 hour day, or when I just can't seem to get off the couch, I always turn to Jesus for help and guidance. He is part of my support system.

Good luck!

The Decision is the Hard Part

I was faced with a tough decision to make recently.

Many of you may remember Bob the Jeep. Well, Bob has not been feeling well lately, and I have been wrestling for almost a year with the decision of what to do with him. Basically, as my dad used to say, his giddy-up has gone and went.

I realize that cars don't last forever, especially those than have seen the troubles Bob has seen. But the truth of the matter is that it is really nice to have a car where I don't have to worry if there are nose prints all over the windows and dog hair in the seats. And aside from the whole not running right part, Bob is in really good shape for an old Jeep. His interior is in great shape (nose prints aside), and there isn't much rust on the outside.

The problem is that I worry about driving Bob for any distance and I worry about how many more times he's gonna start. I worry he's gonna strand me if I take him out and I worry about just letting him sit in the garage all winter. I worry about him passing his emissions test, whether he's fixable and I worry about how much it's going to cost, although I have a pretty good idea. I worry about ... well ... you get the picture. I worry about Bob a lot.

All this worrying is exhausting.

So I tried to imagine life without Bob.

I bought one of those barriers to put up in my good truck to keep the dogs back behind the rear seats. It works great, when it's not falling down on top of them (note to self: adjust it regularly), and I can deal with the bit of rattling that it does. However, Ellie can't see out of the back windows because she's too little and I worry that she will scratch the windowsill trying to see where we are going. Plus neither of the dogs can put their heads out of the window way back there and let their tongues wag in the breeze. There are paw prints and nose prints and dog hair ... not good for a work truck.

So I thought about getting another car than runs well but is not real expensive. However, the problem is that I don't know what I'm getting into with another used car, especially for the dollar limit I'm willing to spend. With Bob I know what I've replaced and what I haven't (which isn't much). He's got good tires, brakes, radiator, starter, water pump, power steering pump, universal belt, etc., etc.

One of the guys at work is a gear-head and has a lot of gear-head buddies. I asked him for a reference of a place where I could get an honest quote about fixing Bob. He referred me to this engine shop and, for less money than it would cost me to buy a different car, I made the decision to get Bob fixed.

Oh, sweet relief!! The decision has been made! After I made that decision I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders, and I haven't looked back since.

It's not the results of the decision that were gonna kill me, but making the decision itself.

Life is full of decisions. Some hard (do I leave my husband or stay?), some easy (chocolate or vanilla?). You have to ask yourself one simple question: how much time are you willing to spend standing at that fork in the road?

What I've found is once you've made the decision and you know it's the right one--and trust me you'll know--then you can get on with your life. There's a sense of peace that follows those tough decisions because you can now get down to work effectively doing whatever it is you've decided to do.

There are still a lot of "what ifs" out there and there are no guarantees that the decisions we've made are not going to cause us to have to make more decisions in the future. But for now, I can enjoy the fact that there is one less thing out there I have to worry about.

Welcome back to the world of the living, Bob. Here's to another 175,000 miles.

Someone to Watch Over Me

Do you ever notice how, if you change one little thing, you feel like something is wrong?

I was driving to work the other day and instead of taking my work truck I decided to drive Bob the Jeep to work. Normally I'm pretty relaxed on my drive to work. I have my tea in one cupholder, a glass of milk in the other, my audiobook going on the radio, and I gradually make my way to work. 

But on this day, simple things were making me feel uneasy. First of all, the cupholders in Bob aren't that great so I have to drive with my hand resting on my cups so they don't spill. Then the sun was in my eyes so I was having difficulty seeing -- not so much the road, but inside the vehicle. Plus, for some reason, it was bothering me that I had to drive with gloves on (stupid, yeah, I know). I felt awkward, like I didn't know where anything was.

Now this is pretty ridiculous because I've been driving Bob for 17 years. I should be able to drive just by "feel".

Then there was this street cleaner. He was going along at 3 mph in the right hand lane and approaching a turn that I had to make. I had to make a decision to go around him or stay behind him. I decided to stay behind him and then he stopped quite a ways from the stoplight and didn't make the turn. So now I had to go around him and turn in front of him. 

Holding on to the cups so they don't spill, I went around him and made my right turn. But, while I was worried about him, the light had changed and I pulled out a bit too late in front of the oncoming traffic. Fortunately, they were just getting going so everything turned out okay. However, the first thing I thought of was, "Thank you, Angels!"

Do you believe in Angels? I do. They watch over you all the time, whisper suggestions in your ear, find you parking spots, and save you from disaster. I kindof like to think of them as God's army. 

You know the old Gershwin song, "Someone to Watch Over Me?" 

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood

I know I could always be good

To one who'll watch over me.

Now while the song is about a woman singing about a man, the lyrics come to me every time I feel like my Angels are watching over me. 

I haven't always been able to "hear" my Angels, but recently I find that their "suggestions" have become clearer. You know that little voice you hear in your head saying, "Oh I wouldn't leave that glass there because it's going to get knocked over," and then two minutes later you knock it over and spill it all over everything. That's your Angels.

Years ago I had a tarot card reading (before I knew the Bible doesn't approve of such things). This particular medium, with whom I had seen before, was particularly uncanny. She knew things about me there was no way she could know.

For instance, years before I bought a house, she told me my first house would be a blue house. When it came time for me to purchase my first house, which was yellow, I thought about her. Quite a few months after buying my house I was having a new back door installed and they had to remove some of the siding on the house. Underneath the yellow vinyl siding, were wood clapboards, which were ... wait for it ... blue!

Anyway, one time she told me that my "guides" (Angels) were frustrated with me because I wasn't listening to them. Do Angels get frustrated? Maybe. After that point in time I started trying to listen better, and act on those little suggestions.

Sometimes when I can't find something that I know I should know where it is, I will close my eyes, take a deep breath and I ask my Angels for help. Inevitably, an image will come into my mind of a place in my house, and if I go there, I will find whatever it was I was looking for. Kindof spooky, but comforting at the same time.

The hard part is learning to listen to their nudgings and act on them. "Don't go around town go through town." Didn't listen to that one the other day and ended up being rerouted by an accident. 

To me, knowing they are there, is reassurance that we are never alone. I don't think there is a day that goes by where I don't thank either God or my Angels, or both, for watching my back. I like to think of them as my own personal Secret Service. They watch out for me. They help me make it through this life that can be so difficult and frustrating at times. All I have to do is listen.

Church is like a bag of potato chips ...

I was talking to a friend of a friend the other day. In the process of catching up and reminiscing she noticed that the one thing that comes up in my conversations a lot is my involvement in my church. She mentioned that she and her husband had not gone to church for years. The reason? They decided that you can pray anywhere so you don't need to go to church to pray.

That got me thinking. Why do I go to church? Certainly my friend's friend was right, I don't go there just to pray because you can pray anywhere. And I don't go there because I have nothing better to do on Sunday mornings. And I don't go because they have my favorite coconut cookies after service.

So here's the deal--this is why I go to church--put in terms that everyone will understand.

Have you ever tried giving up potato chips? It's the beginning of the new year, the diet is in full swing and you head off to a luncheon. In the middle of the buffet table is a big bowl of Classic Lays potato chips (not the baked kind). As your filling your plate with salad, a piece of fruit and some raw veggies and dip you decide one chip won't hurt and it's been so long since you've had any of that crunchy, salty, fried goodness. So you pick the biggest chip in the bowl, pop it in your mouth and chew while making yummy sounds. Then you head back to your table, sit down, and proceed with your healthy meal.

As you're sitting there you notice this little voice coming from the far side of the room: "Come over here ... look at how beautifully perfect we are ... so much salty, crunchy goodness that those ole veggies can't give you ..."

It's the potato chips talking. Teasing you. Mocking your healthy food choices. And before you know it your back for a whole handful, throwing the diet out the window and eating 10,000 steps worth of the little buggers.

You can't just eat one potato chip.

That being said, church is like a bag of potato chips; and as Christians, Jesus has given us one potato chip and said, "If you want more chips, go to church." But we don't just want one more chip, we want handfuls of chips. We crave them, we obsess about them, and we can't get them out of our heads. Nothing else we eat is the same as that first chip. So we go to church, where along with everyone else, we satisfy our cravings for more potato chips.

In all seriousness, I go to church to be with other Christians. I like to be around people who think like me, and act like me, and can help me through tough situations in a way that is acceptable to me. We pray together, sing together, worship together, cry together, laugh together, study together and eat together. We serve the community and the world and we do it all--together.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

We speak the same language. I don't have to feel funny about saying, "I will pray for you," or "God spoke to me the other day," to my church family. They understand. They've been there. 

We all have this insatiable need for more knowledge. We study the Bible, and don't feel funny about taking the Bible 101 classes over and over because sometimes we just can't grasp the meaning of 2nd Kings. 

They know what it feels like to want to shout from the mountaintops, "I love you, Jesus!!" or to wonder why your faith is wavering when you feel like you're doing everything right.

That's why I go to church--because at church I am around people who understand one of the fundamental rules of life: you can't just have one potato chip.