I Ordered a Slice of Key Lime Pie...

No, it's not a big deal if you choose to order Key Lime Pie. Unfortunately for me, at this particular time, it was not the smartest move I could have made. Allow me to set the stage.

My husband and I traveled to a nearby city so that he could play tennis with our eldest daughter. It was a beautiful day and I had been ahead of the game all week with my eating well and exercising routines. I was feeling pretty good while still trying to shed a couple of pounds I had put on over the course of the holidays, a cold weather snap, a brief unexpected medical problem, a four day mini trip and my recent birthday celebration. I was well on my way towards accomplishing the goal of losing the weight and feeling good. My plan was to stay away from reasons to celebrate where food was involved. Now we all know this is quite hard to do in America.

I had a great workout the day before and my plan was to sit on the sidelines, enjoy the beautiful weather and finish a book I had been reading. Not long after, during a court switch, my daughter casually asked if we would like to go out to eat after the tennis match. If you know me, I don't need to be persuaded in the least when the subject of food or eating out comes into play. I was like, "Yeah, I'm in!" Truthfully, I almost fell off the bench in anticipation.

So much for control, not even a moment's hesitation. After the match, we piled into our cars and proceeded to drive to a quaint little seafood/burger type restaurant on the beach. I ordered the peel & eat shrimp for an appetizer.

By the way, peel and eat shrimp is always a great choice! We split it three ways and I had five shrimp.

Here's the aha moment that I apparently missed. I didn't stop to think about the best choices I could have made for my main meal, in fact, I felt entitled to eat a hamburger because I rarely eat one out anymore and I rarely eat fries. Forget about the things I sometimes do eat that I shouldn't, these two things I rarely eat and that's a fact if anyone cares.

That's when my husband and eldest daughter's mouths dropped open and their faces immediately expressed great concern. You see, it's like my little family unit has this fear that I'll turn back into the grabby Octopus and start treating myself like a human version of a garbage disposal. Hey, guys, I got rid of my GDS or Garbage Disposal Syndrome two years ago! Give me a break!

Then it came down to another big decision. Do I order a burger and fries for myself or should my husband who can finish a half burger in two bites in less than minute and I share one order? I don't trust him. I know the pattern. He eats his and then starts in on mine. I have a problem with anyone touching the food on my plate. It is my domain and everyone who knows me knows this. I wasn't about to let that happen and again, I had done so well all week long, this was my REWARD! Yikes, food can't be a reward, I know that, it's in our book, "Tame Your Inner Octopus!" Yes, I knew all of this but when the waiter came over I promptly blurted out. "I'll take a hamburger medium well with FRIES!" I could see the fear in my husband and daughter's faces. It was like they were thinking, "Wow, she's going for it; I hope she's not reverting to her old pattern of eating."

I ate only a half of that burger and of course, I didn't eat all of the fries, my husband and daughter took a few and there were a few left over. I was TEMPORARILY happy but then I had another dilemma, was I to "choose" to order dessert?

Well, remember I had done well with my eating and exercising all week long, why not I told myself. My daughter sort of looked at me like, "You're not going to order dessert Mom?" In fact, I don't think she thought it, I think she said it out loud, "You're not going to order dessert Mom?" I've always been the rebellious type and I quickly stated, "Yes, I am."

I did it and I ordered coffee too. In my mind I was celebrating the beautiful day, the quaint little beach side restaurant and the opportunity to be with my husband and eldest child. In my mind I was creating a beautiful memory.

The truth is, I have a lot of beautiful memories and I really did not enjoy that Key Lime Pie, it wasn't the greatest I had ever eaten. I only ate about four small bites of it and it wasn't worth ordering. I wasted money and it simply wasn't necessary. Another valuable lesson learned and at least I am now able to assess the situation after the wrong choices are made.

In the past, when I was overweight, I wouldn't have cared or have been aware because I was the grabby Octopus who ate mindlessly throughout the day and I did treat my body on a daily basis like a human garbage disposal.

The moral of this story is to know when not to order Key Lime Pie!

Have a great day!

Here's What 1,400 Calories A Day Looks Like!

As a woman, my goal in weight loss mode is to modify what the food pyramid says I normally need to eat on a daily basis so that I can lose unwanted pounds. I do this by simply creating a deficit from what I should eat to what I need to eat in order to create a deficit of around 400 calories each day.

I will first list an example of how I modify my calories in weight loss mode at approximately 1,400 calories. My goal has always been to set up the best balanced healthy eating pattern while in weight loss mode. Once I reach my "ideal" or "preferred" goal weight, I simply add in around 400 healthy calories from the same food basic food groups in the food pyramid in order to maintain my weight. This comes out to around 1,800 calories a day.

Here's An Example of 1,400 calories a day in Weight Loss mode:

Breakfast (Around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m.)

1/2 of a Whole Wheat English Muffin 62

1 teaspoon of peanut butter (Smucker's All Natural) 33

1/2 of a sliced banana 55

1 teaspoon of honey 20

6 oz. of Plain Non Fat Yogurt (I mix in Splenda) 80

25 blueberries (mixed in the yogurt) 20

4 teaspoons of lite or fat free Coffee Mate creamer 40

Breakfast Total: 310

Mid morning snack (around 10:30)
1 cup or @ 37 seedless red grapes 110

Lunch (around 12:30)
1 slice of whole wheat toast 110
2 oz. of Boar's Head sliced turkey breast 70
1 teaspoon of Kraft Olive Oil Mayonnaise 15
1 cup of steamed Broccoli 52
1 tablespoon of Ken's Lite (on top of steamed broc) 40
1 cup of split pea soup without ham 150

Lunch Total: 437

Afternoon Snack (around 4:00 p.m.)
1 Yoplait Yogurt Lite Strawberry 100
2 teaspoons of lite coffee creamer for afternoon coffee 20

Dinner (around 6:00 p.m.)
3 oz. skinless chicken breast 83
1 Tablespoon of ketchup 20
1 medium sweet potato 103
1 teaspoon of lite butter 17
1 teaspoon of brown sugar 19
1 cup of green beans with onions and 1 teaspoon 60
lite butter

Dinner Total: 302

Dessert or snack
Edy's Frozen Strawberry All Fruit Bar 80
1/2 banana 55

Daily Total: 1,410


Please note, I use Crystal Lite or assorted green teas at different times throughout the day most days. I also try to get the recommended amount of water in each day.

In my next post, I will discuss what mypyramid.gov lists as a recommended daily intake for women according to age when not in weight loss mode.

Have a great day!

Let's Begin to Set Up a Healthy Eating Pattern Today!

Are you ready! Let's begin to set up a healthy eating pattern. The first thing we may wish to consider is whether we want to set up our eating plan in order to lose weight or maintain our current weight.

Remember, the average woman requires an intake of approximately 1,800 calories daily. At this intake most of us would be able to maintain our proper weight, along with exercise.

If we are overweight or obese we can assume that we have been eating more than the 1,800 calories our body requires each day. If we wish to take off the extra weight, we're going to have to create a deficit in order to gain control over our eating habits in order to lose all of the extra weight we have put on over time.

There are different spots we can choose when creating a deficit. I chose the 1,200 calorie area. In hindsight, although this area worked well for me, I would recommend dropping to an intake of around 1,400. I think that's a great spot. This way, you're creating a deficit of 400 a day just from what your normal intake should be and you can also burn off 100 calories through walking which would result in a total reduction of 500 calories a day overall.

Remember, a reduction of 500 calories a day is equal to a 3,500 reduction at the end of 7 days. It takes a reduction of 3,500 in order to equal a one pound loss. This also explains why we drop more pounds in the beginning of starting a weight loss program. If we are way over our daily intake at 2,400, we will lose considerably more when we drop back to 1,400 a day. That would suddenly become a 1,000 calorie reduction per day. See, right there would account for a possible loss of 2 pounds a week.

It's all about the numbers, when you get down to it. Learning what 1,400 calories looks and feels like is extremely important towards achieving success in weight loss.

Sure, we could follow the latest or great diet and we could also look for a magic pill to solve our problems in these areas. The one sure way to reach our goals and preserve them for life, is to set up a healthy eating pattern based on staying within your numbers.

Do you know your body may not allow you to lose weight if you go too low? That's right and that's another reason to realize the importance of knowing your count. Many times people want to wing it and do it on their own by simply guessing. Many times, in their excitement to do something quickly, they eat too little. It's quite easy to do and most of us have done it that way.

What usually happens is that we quit early because we're not eating enough. Our body has a self preservation mode it goes into when it thinks it might be starving. It will not allow us to shed pounds and it will hold onto to the extra pounds.

Many times this is what happens when we plateau. It's like our body says, "I better start conserving so she won't starve to death!"

That's why we need to know what 1,400 looks like when we're trying to lose weight. Many experts agree that women should go no lower than 1,200 calories a day. We also need to know how to pack in the best foods we can throughout the day in order to provide great fuel for our body. It's that simple.

So, where do we start? To me, it came down to common sense. I didn't look for a special diet. My thought was how do I go about setting up a great healthy eating pattern for life. I knew it couldn't be a "diet". It had to be something I could understand and learn to live with for life. It had to be based on all of the foods I like not foods someone else chose for me. Doesn't that make great sense?

That's when I turned to the best source I could think of and that was our Basic Food Pyramid. Think about it. All of the great foods we know are in that pyramid and everything there is healthful.

I found a site that our government and our taxes probably pay for, so I decided to make the most of this great information. I've noticed lately, this site now has awesome commercials, advertising all the great things it's set up to do for everyone of us in our nation.

You can check it out for yourself! Here's the site, take a little time to study it. It's great for your entire family! www.mypyramid.gov

On my next post I will explain how I discovered what the food pyramid states my body requires on a daily basis. I will then show you how I modified that area in order to create a deficit to at first lose all of the extra weight I had put on over time. You see, early on I realized that I wanted to start at the right place and finish at the right place. That's exactly what I did and I know it can work in the same way for anyone who takes the time to check it out!

Have a great day!

Oh! Oh! Valentine's Day Is Right Around the Corner!

Yes, Valentine's Day is coming up next! It's our next "special occasion". It's seems like we just celebrated the New Year, my birthday, a family marriage and let's not forget the "Super Bowl"! It's always something; isn't it? It's just another day in our lives that is celebrated or centered around food! I'm not trying to be negative; I am simply stating facts. I happen to love food and I adore candy but common sense tells us we have to become accountable at some point or we'll look just like our grabby Octopus with no control over our eating habits. Our eating habits will control us if we allow them to and if we "choose" to not become accountable.

When I had my "Aha! Moment" a couple of years ago, I soon thereafter began to set up my healthy eating pattern in order to lose weight. I knew it couldn't be a "diet", so I didn't go out looking for the latest or greatest "diet". I knew it couldn't be a pill; it had to be a transformation, a way of life. It had to be "profound", I love that word! I also instinctively knew I had to create my own healthy way of eating.

It was then that I began to immediately notice all of the "special occasions" where high fat or sugary food items came into my life. I was amazed! I had to put my foot down and not allow these things into my home or at the very least keep them out of sight while I was setting up my healthy pattern of eating. Let me tell you, it was not an easy thing to do but boy, was it enlightening.

Before, I looked just like that grabby Octopus! If food was in sight, you had better get out of my way and clear a path. I was like a football player going in for the recovery of a fumble at the Super Bowl!

Heck, my kids used to say things like, "If you want some of the bread pudding Mom just made, you better get it now before she wolfs it down!" I laugh, because my children have a warped sense of humor and I don't know where they get it from! Wolfs it down is something my eldest daughter made up and she still jokes about it even now after I've lost the weight and become fit. I have to admit, it is quite funny but sadly most of all it was factual. I did "wolf down" pretty much anything I wanted for a period of 18 years! I wolfed down the peanut butter fudge that I said I made for my children as a treat but I ate half the plate before they had arrived home from school. I wolfed down this special ice cream that I love whenever it was in the house. I can go on and on, I was pretty good at wolfing things down, let me tell you!

Yes, I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. That's why it was at first difficult for me to attempt to set up a healthy eating pattern. I had to work against the grain in order to break the cycle of eating that had been a part of my life for almost two decades! As I state in our book "Tame Your Inner Octopus", I can best compare to it to taking away a bottle from a baby. For many people, food represents "comfort". We reach for it, all throughout the day, without a thought, out of habit and it soothes us temporarily. Going over our proper intake for the day on a continual basis also makes us pile on extra fat and this makes us overweight or obese and that's far from being comforting or soothing if you stop and think about it.

It didn't take me long to realize how many "special occasions" or reasons I had for eating things I shouldn't have been eating. I was shocked to tell you the truth because I had never realized how many obstacles are in the path of trying to eat in a proper manner. It's no wonder why approximately 68% of our nation is overweight or obese. It's the reason why so many people can't stick to a diet or the proper way of eating. There are too many "special occasions" right around the corner!

Let's take a time out, no pun intended and realize that the average woman is supposed to ingest around 1,800 calories each day while exercising on an almost daily basis. We can't afford to go "off track" on every single occasion that high fat foods or celebrations come into our lives. We have to be choosy; we must be accountable and we have to aim to eat within that 1,800 count each day. If we're trying to lose weight we need to be in the area of 1,400 calories and no lower than 1,200 as a woman.

The healthy pattern of eating that I set up close to two years ago has been my salvation. It's my day to day game plan. It's the healthy eating pattern that I revert to after eating "off track" for special occasions in my life.

Right now, when you get a chance, please take the time to get a clear picture of how many times "food" comes into play in your life on a daily basis. It could be an advertisement on TV, in a magazine, or on a billboard. It's downright shocking that so much emphasis is put on food on a daily basis. You too will be amazed if you do this for a week or a month.

This realization was one of my biggest "Aha! Moments".

We simply cannot eat like the grabby Octopus and expect to lose weight or maintain our ideal weight for life.

Have a great day!

FOOD KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

The following is a great quote:

"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."

Epictetus

Let's stop an apply this quote to losing weight or maintaining a goal weight for life. Approximately 68% of our nation is presently either overweight or obese. If you ask many of these people if they know how to lose weight and keep it off permanently, many would probably emphatically answer "yes".

This would mean one of two things:

1) They really do know but don't want to lose weight and keep it off permanently.

2) They really don't possess the key knowledge in order to take the weight off and keep it off permanently.

I happen to feel most of us fall into the area of not having the right type of knowledge to lose weight in the most effective manner in order to keep it off for life.

I know because I was one of those people who felt they knew but really didn't know how to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together in order to lose weight and keep it off permanently for life. I only began to be able to put the puzzle together through a great deal of research. I then implemented all that I had learned into my lifestyle and only then did I meet great success through personal experience. Trust me, you can do this too.

Knowledge is power. I know that more than ever now that I have gained the knowledge I needed to make these tremendous changes in my lifestyle as it pertained to my eating and overall fitness patterns.

Realizing that I didn't know what I needed to know in order to reach success was the first issue I had to grasp. For 18 years I was in "limbo land". This is an area where I too thought I knew everything but really didn't know most of the basic numbers that I needed to know. Looking back I now realize I, like many, knew bits and pieces but I had no idea of how to go about setting up a healthy eating and fitness pattern for life.

Knowledge is power and food knowledge is critical when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off permanently yet so many of us want the quick or easy way out. Losing weight and keeping it off permanently is not about searching for the latest or greatest diet. It's not about taking a "magic" pill.

It's about coming to the realization that we must take "time out" in order to make it a "priority" in our lives to reach the weight and fitness levels that we wish for on a permanent basis.

If you've been reading my blog, as a woman, you will know the answers to the following four questions.

1) How many calories does the average woman need to ingest each day?

2) How many calories should the average woman consider cutting back to each day in order to create a deficit.

3) How many calories does it take to lose one pound?

4) How many pounds do most experts suggest we aim to lose on a weekly basis?

The answers to these questions are four of the most critical parts of losing weight and keeping it off permanently. This is the starting point. This is where the first areas of the "key" knowledge comes into play. Here are the answers.

1) Approximately 1,800 calories.

2) Around 1,400 but no lower than 1,200.

3) A deficit of 3,500 calories.

4) 1/4 to 2 pounds weekly.

Sounds simple doesn't it? It is, but the next step and we'll discuss this in depth, is learning how to parse out 1,400 calories throughout the course of a day in order to lose the extra weight while fueling our bodies with the best foods possible. Once we reach our goal weight, we can then up our intake to the area of 1,800 calories in order to maintain.

We'll discuss ways to incorporate great foods and exercising into your daily life in upcoming posts.

Of course, always check with your Dr. before starting any new eating or exercising program.

Have a great day!

Lose Weight and Get Fit for Life! Welcome to "Tame Your Inner Octopus Boot Camp!"

Welcome to "Tame Your Inner Octopus Boot Camp!"TM We're going to get down to the nitty gritty over the course of the next few weeks and months! You've heard me repeatedly mention the importance of having the right "Mindset" in regards to losing weight and getting fit. Let's take the time now to discuss why it is critical to overall success.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the single most important realization you must have in order to lose weight and get fit permanently or maintain your ideal weight for life is to realize that this is not a diet; it has to become a way of life in order for this to work on a permanent basis. It is not hard and once explained, it can be quite easy to implement into your lifestyle.

Let's take it from the top with this new "Mindset" in place. Here's what you need to know.

The average woman's body needs approximately 1,800 calories a day. This excludes pregnant or nursing women or women with special dietary needs.

The average man's body needs approximately 2,000 calories a day.

Let's stop and think about these estimations. Realistically, if we eat more than our required 1,800 or 2,000 calories that our body needs as fuel on a daily basis, for the most part we can be assured that these extras will be stored as excess fat on our body. Now, doesn't that make perfect sense? Ladies and gentlemen, so much of this is about the numbers. The rest is about incorporating the best foods into this equation.

Please realize, each day, just like a bank account, your starting balance is around 1,800 for a woman or around 2,000 calories for a man. Now you can choose to purchase and eat the healthiest foods in the right amounts or you can eat junk and eat mindlessly like the grabby octopus. It's all up to you and the food choices you make on a daily basis 95% of the time. Just as we value making quality purchases in life with regard to our hard earned money, we can easily make these same type choices in the quality of foods we eat on a daily basis. It's all in how we choose to spend those calories!

It came down to common sense for Sharon, the co-author of Tame Your Inner Octopus and I because we quickly realized that we wanted the biggest bang for our bucks or should I say calories!

We wanted quality over quantity. We wanted to ingest great fuel for our bodies on a 95% basis. Our goal was to set up a healthy eating pattern while sticking to a certain amount of calories each day in weight loss mode and thereafter, once we reached our "goal" weight for life.

It is extremely important, from the beginning, that we take time out to realize how and why we gained 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50+ pounds over time. This happens because we are continually going over our daily 1,800 or 2,000 calorie budget!

We're grabbing from all over the place and throughout the day like the grabby Octopus! We need to Tame Our Inner Octopus, stop grabbing, pull in our tentacles and start becoming accountable for everything we put into our mouths! Trust me, it can be an enlightening experience.

This is how we start the process. We begin to write down everything we eat each day as we set up a healthy eating pattern for life. We will get into this further in the next post but for now, you can look up the counts online at any calorie counting website or you can purchase a calorie count book if you don't have one you've purchased in the past.

This way of eating is not a diet! Diets don't work and if they do work, we're doing it with a temporary attitude from the start. That's where the wrong mindset comes in and why diets continually fail us throughout life.

Tame Your Inner Octopus is here to stop that way of thinking and we are here to assist you in setting up a permanent healthy eating and fitness pattern for life. Our goal is as simple as that and we'll provide the necessary tools for you to do so.

So, let's get started. There is no magic way to take weight off but there is a guaranteed way to do so. There's a smart way to lose weight and it comes down to basic facts. Please realize the following:

1) In order to lose weight, you need to create a deficit of calories.

2) It takes 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound.

3) Experts recommend losing between 1 to 2 pounds on a weekly basis.

These facts tell us that we should aim to cut back on our daily intake from the start. We can assume that women who consume approximately 1,800 calories or less a day are not experiencing a continual weight gain over the years. Same scenario for men who stay in the area of 2,000. This tells us that we who have gained excess weight over time, have consumed more calories than our bodies needed. We can also assume that we ate more than our body burned off or needed as fuel. This means that we could simply cut back to 1,800 calories a day and we would probably lose weight over a significant amount of time.

But a guaranteed and faster method would be to simply cut back from our required intake of 1,800 calories for a woman and 2,000 calories daily for a man by creating a deficit of a few hundred calories. If we know what our average daily count should be as a man or woman, then we should simply cut back 400 or 500 a day. This would mean that the average woman could drop from 1,800 calories to 1,300 or 1,400 calories. Experts recommend going no lower than 1,200 calories because the body could think it is in a starvation mode and hold onto the calories as fuel for storage. No lower than 1,500 for a man and please check with your Dr. before starting out on any new fitness or eating pattern if you have concerns. At the end of the week you should see a weekly weight loss most weeks between 1 to 2 pounds as recommended. Now isn't that awesome!

Please realize as you embark on these changes in your eating pattern, you will experience slight discomfort due to the reduced calorie intake. This will subside after a couple of weeks as your stomach shrinks.

A wonderful part of this process is realizing that you have taken control of this area of your life, once and for all. You can now relax and watch week after week as the pounds steadily and slowly slip off your body. We will also be discussing ways to slowly add in exercise if you do not have an exercise pattern in place. We strongly feel that it is extremely important to work first on setting up a sensible eating pattern so that you do not feel overwhelmed by adding in exercise at the same time.

Now doesn't this make sense? You can do it and you can do it for life!