Making a Change?

The stars have aligned and I can ignore them no longer. Certain health problems persist in my home and too many sources are suggesting that a gluten-free diet might be helpful on all fronts. I really want everyone to feel better and I'm willing to try this approach.

The latest person who pointed me toward gluten-free I asked for shopping advice. I don't really know what I'm looking for as a read a label and the idea of reading every label before I put it in the shopping cart is overwhelming to me. She just said, "Oh, just ask the supermarket employees to point you to the gluten-free aisle. There are lots of nice choices."

So I went to the market and picked up these options.

I'm nervous, though. There are people in my family who are not adventurous eaters and resistant to change.

This is going to go over like a turd in a punch bowl.

My City Half Marathon

Two Saturdays ago, my SIL Sarah and I participated in my town's half marathon walk. We are lucky enough to have some extensive trails around town, some of them in picturesque locations. This year was the 3rd annual half marathon walk.

Sarah and I were so proud of ourselves! Sarah is the type of person who, once she commits to something like an athletic event, googles training programs for such a thing. The programs all said that you would be able to complete a half marathon walk without training, but regular walks as exercise would be a smart thing to do.

She and I spent the late summer and early fall walking as often as we could get away together, but couldn't seem to put aside large enough blocks of time for really long walks. Finally, the week before the event, we managed an eight mile walk, which just about killed us.

To say we fretted over the additional 5.1 miles we would be walking the next Saturday was an understatement.



But the Saturday of the walk rolled around and in the cool October morning air we found the distance more manageable. We were proud of our pace and even did the second half a half-hour quicker than the first half. We felt better after ten miles than we had after eight the previous week. In fact, we felt so good around ten miles that we jogged for a little bit. (After three hours of a brisk walk, we were feeling the effects of the repetition in our hips and in the whispers of the start of blisters on our feet. Jogging had us move the strain to other parts for a short amount of time.)

The last two and a half miles or so were tough, though. We finished in 3.5 hours, well under our expected finish time.

Yay, us!

(These photos were taken by the photographer on the staff of the city's downtown organization.)

What Did She Mean By That?

I spent the weekend away from home.

My personal trainer said, "Welcome home, Mommy. You have one hour to nap, then you get on the treadmill."

Wasn't expecting that.

A Revelation Through the Haze

My mother always said that I'd be a coffee drinker by my second semester of college. Not so. I probably started drinking more Pepsi at that time of my life. I always enjoyed the smell of freshly brewed coffee, but it just tasted like oven scrapings to me.

No, it wasn't all nighters in college that made me a coffee drinker, it was my third child.

It was Brooks' first year in school full-time. Sophia was just turning four and Ava had just gotten mobile. I needed to clean the house from top to bottom for Sophie's little birthday party with the family. I thought it would be nice to offer coffee for the grandparents to drink with their cake and I remembered a bag of Blue Mountain coffee that I had had in our freezer since our trip to Jamaica a couple of years prior. After the birthday party, I just continued to make coffee for myself most mornings until the bag was gone. And then I required more.

The Pioneer Woman, a blog I read, is giving up sugar for a month. She just means sugar, not carbs. She will still eat a baked potato or drink a glass of wine. I thought I would join her in giving up sugar. Since I drink my coffee very much on the Sweet and Light side, I'm disgusted that giving up sugar also means giving up coffee, but it's only a month, right?

Yesterday was a day that should have been very productive. My schedule allowed me to be home alone for most of the day and there was plenty to do. Instead, I sat down at the computer between loads of laundry. I took two (!) naps. I commented to a friend that I couldn't figure out why I was so sleepy and useless. And then...

Ah, yes. Day five of no sugar and no coffee.

Guess what I'm doing on Day 6? Substituting for elementary school music. May God have mercy on my soul.

Fat Tuesday (and Wednesday, and Thursday)

Never fear. This is not about to become a health food blog or a weight loss blog. But Mama's turning 40 this summer and the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be.

(When I was in school, I worked in the kitchen of a retirement community. From time to time, my duties included serving Sunday dinner in an assisted living portion of the campus. At these times I became acquainted with A Woman of a Certain Age who managed to work the phrase "the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be" into every conversation we had as she followed me about the dining hall after the meal. When I used it just now, I imagined myself, white-haired and wheelchair-bound, coasting around behind the kitchen help, telling her of Days Gone By.)

As I've approached 40, I've put on some weight. When I tried to get into my winter clothes this past fall, I realized that my weight had reached a number I'd never seen before, not even on the delivery dates of my children. And the comfortable pants size was one that had never been in my closet before, not even post-partum.

I gained weight simply by aging. I hadn't increased my food intake or decreased my activity. I tried cutting out soda pop and kept gaining weight. I took up running and kept gaining weight. I was pretty frustrated.

OK, I've already given this topic a higher word count than it deserves. Look, my mom was 5'10" and wore a size 13 shoe - we're of corn-fed, country stock. I've never been petite nor prideful about my smallness. But I desire to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible and to set a responsible example for my kids. I've got to stop cooking as though I'm feeding farmhands.

Even though it feels more like lunch and not the kind of evening family meal I'm accustomed to, I've begun to incorporate more meals like this into the menu rotation. It's a nice, healthful, low-carb wrap with plenty of ingredients so that everyone may combine flavors and textures that they enjoy.

I usually provide lots of worthy ingredients like shredded chicken breast, onion, lettuce, sweet peppers and chiles. On another occasion, I had a leftover sweet potato, which I cubed and put in my wrap. I liked the spots of rich, warm sweet potatoes against the cool crunch of the lettuce and pepers. I put as much of these vegetables into my wrap as I want.

I offer some fats, too, but I measure my portions and count my calories. I might sprinkle a tablespoon of cheese and use a schmear of sour cream or guacamole along one edge of the wrap to seal it shut.

When I counted up my portions, I had a meal that satisfied me in about 400 calories.

My Favorite Breakfast

I don't know if I invented this breakfast. It seems unlikely. But I've never had it or heard of it before. I was just sitting in the class in which I was substitute teaching one day and the fantasy of these flavors and textures together in my mouth entered my head.

I happened to have made some homemade granola a week or two before and wasn't using it up quickly. I spooned out some cold, creamy, low-fat vanilla yogurt into a bowl, sliced oranges on top and poured granola over all and it honestly was better than I had imagined.

Exactly five months from today, I will be 40 years old and my body is telling me in lots of different ways that the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. In the last 18 months, I've continued eating as I always have, but I noticed I was putting on weight when I hadn't before. So, I continued with my normal diet but began to exercise faithfully...

And I continue to put on weight.

So now I'm looking for ways to still enjoy food, but cut calories or portions and make our favorite things more healthful while still allowing them to be flavorful. I'm extra pleased with this breakfast because it's not "good, for healthy food." It's just GOOD. I feel like I'm getting a special treat when I'm eating it.