They say "Ignorance is Bliss"

I know this is true in many cases. As I look back, I now realize that not knowing how many calories certain foods represented made it much easier for me to enjoy eating. That way I could eat what and when I wanted without being held accountable for any of my choices! Wow, what's not to like about that? Well, extra fat for one thing and forty additional pounds of fat on my body that I carried for close to two decades. At times I looked just like our grabby octopus!


When I was younger my dad would take me out to a restaurant with a friend or two and allow us to order. He would always say, like clockwork: "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" He was so right of course, he was always right and he would sit and wait while we finished only 1/3 to 1/2 of our food. Dad never ordered because he knew that we could never finish what we had ordered and Dad didn't like throwing money down the drain. Dad was funny like that but he was also one of those rare type people who ate properly in the correct amounts, left out the extra oils and fats and exercised before it was really popular to do so. I think Dad was way ahead of his time.


Over time I realized Dad was right about that time in my life, my eyes really were bigger than my stomach but as I grew older something eventually switched over. Somewhere along the way my stomach did become much larger than my eyes. Somewhere along the way, I wasn't leaving so much on my plate, in fact, there were many occasions where my eyes strayed to my children's plates and I managed to eat what they had not eaten. It's one thing to not order or not eat and then eat the leftovers of your children, then to eat your meal and add other's leftovers! Gee whiz! What was I thinking at times.


Many people, especially when raising a family or dealing with the stresses of everyday life, eat for emotional reasons or voids in their lives. I have no idea of what the actual percentage is but I can imagine it's a whopper. No pun intended!


Well, I sure hope Dad has been looking down on me. Maybe he's saying, "That's my girl; she has finally figured it out!" "It took her over half a century of her life but at least she did it!" I know he and my mother would be extremely proud. No one is perfect, that should never be our goal. All we can aim for is to be the best we can be each day.


It's been well over a year now that I've learned to be accountable for what I eat and I keep my intake at the proper level 95% of the time. I'm here to say that "ignorance is not bliss."


Approximately 66% of our nation is overweight or obese. The 1/3 of obese is now larger than the merely overweight. Prediction's by experts are that by the year 2015, approximately 75% of our nation may be overweight or obese.


Ignorance is not bliss. We need to know and we need to become accountable for our health and the health of our loved ones.


All of us have the ability to educate ourselves on the amount of calories our bodies need each day in order to maintain our own particular ideal or healthy weight. I pulled all of my information in order to set up my healthy eating pattern from http://www.mypyramid.gov/ it is there where you can determine what your body needs to eat from the different categories on a daily basis. It is listed for you by your particular age group. From there, you can choose where you would like to cut back in order to create a deficit in order to lose any unwanted pounds or set up a balanced healthy eating pattern if you don't need to lose weight but wish to maintain.


I'm very happy that I took a time out to learn how to set up a healthy eating and fitness pattern for my own personal use based on the foods and exercise routines that I like.


Anyone can do this and it sure makes life so much nicer.


I had a half of a toasted English Muffin today with 1 teaspoon of Smucker's All Natural Peanut Butter. I added a third of a sliced banana on top and sprinkled it with a teaspoon of honey. I had a half of a cup of 5 minute grits with about 1 teaspoon of whipped butter. The total for this breakfast was @ 300.

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Have a great day!

Have You Created a Standard Personal Grocery List?

This may sound so simple yet many people don't have a standard weekly grocery list. Many people sort of "wing it" each time they go to the grocery store. This is not a good thing because we open ourselves up to impulse buying. If we forget to eat and we grocery shop when we're hungry, then we can really get into trouble in purchasing items we had no intentions of buying.

I'm not saying you have to plan out every meal for the week. I don't do that but I always have my staples on hand so that I can choose from those healthy items in order to create each meal, whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's there and ready for me and my family to enjoy.

Creating a standard weekly grocery list is important for many reasons. Here are but a few:

1) It displays what your standard weekly shopping items are so that you don't forget anything.

2) It helps you stick to the same healthy choices that coordinate with your healthy eating pattern for the entire week. Your foods will always be available in your home and you won't run out and be left to resort in trying to figure out what to eat at any given point.

3) It helps you to save money and shop wisely by not having to think on the go.

A great suggestion that I have enjoyed is setting up your grocery list in Word. This way, you can put it on your desktop and click on it when you're ready to modify it in order to print it out to go to the store. I keep another tablet in the kitchen so I can jot down what I run out of during the week also. Before I print out the list I go through my refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what I need to replenish. Of course, you have to check the disposable items needed for the kitchen and bathrooms also.

Many of these items don't change, especially when you set up your healthy eating pattern. It sure makes shopping easier and it is extremely important when it comes to staying "on track" with your healthy eating pattern.

Have a great day!

Do You Know Your Daily Caloric Intake?

If you don't; it's not unusual and you are in the majority. Actually, there's little doubt most people don't want to know. When I was overweight and like our grabby octopus, I sure didn't want to be held accountable. I guess it's just one of those cases, where what you don't know might hurt you. I knew that and that's why I didn't want to know.

I now know what my count should be in order to maintain my weight of 120. In fact, a recent article from yet another expert confirmed my conclusion. He stated the average adult woman should have an intake of around 1,600 calories a day. That was the approximate figure I had already figured out on my own. It's good to know. It's something I feel I have to know in order to maintain my weight for the rest of my life. Ignorance is not bliss in my opinion. It is what keeps us from being held accountable and it was what once kept me in the overweight situation I was in for a near two decade span.

Actually, this was the second article I read in the last two days that stated that figure. Another article was referencing the fact that people who maintained their weight, stayed in the area of 1,600-2,000. That makes a lot of sense and is a further confirmation. Of course there are variables to always consider.

This is all great information but it doesn't help much if people don't take the time to look up and figure out what they are eating on any given day. Once you learn these things, over a short time period, you won't need to look up the calorie counts of what you're eating. You'll automatically be able to approximate. We must be accountable for everything we "choose" to eat. If not, we're eating out of control, like the grabby octopus, or we may easily be eating many more calories each day then needed. That is what makes us fat.

I guess I feel most of us have enough aggravations in our lives at times. The last thing we need is an extra burden of being overweight or obese. This is an area of our lives that is within our control. It is something we can tackle as we educate ourselves in the area of what we are eating versus what our bodies truly need in order to maintain our ideal healthy weight.

It sure beats waking up everyday, like the movie "Groundhog Day" and repeating the same old actions and asking yourself "Why can't I lose this weight?"

In most cases you can't, until you figure out how many calories you are eating each day and how many calories you need to lose weight or maintain.

Trust me, it is as simple as that...

Do You Eat Based On Your Emotions?

Have you ever stopped to realize that many of us eat based on our emotions? Just take a glance at the following to see if you have ever eaten based on any of the following descriptions:

1) I eat in order to celebrate a particular occasion.

2) I eat when I'm sad or depressed because it makes me feel better temporarily.

3) I eat when I'm happy in order to reward myself.

4) I eat when I'm tense, worried, stressed or nervous about something.

5) I eat when I'm trying to subconsiously fill a void.

6) I eat because I can, it's there and I love food.

7) I eat because I don't have a healthy eating pattern set up on a daily basis.

8) I eat because it's fun and it provides me with a certain amount of happiness at that particular moment.

9) I eat because I have unhealthy habits that I have formed over the course of my lifetime

10) I eat because it provides me with something to do all throughout the day and I look forward to it any chance I get. If I'm not eating, I'm thinking about my next opportunity to eat.

11) I eat foods in the right amounts because I love healthy foods and I need great fuel for my body.

All of the above reasons are the reasons many people eat and overeat, except for the last one. That's the correct outlook we need to have in order to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight over the course of a lifetime.

There's not a thing wrong with loving great foods. We need food as fuel for our bodies each and every day.

We need to appreciate healthy foods by setting up a healthy eating pattern throughout the day.

We need to learn the amount of calories our body needs to lose weight in order to create a deficit and how many calories our body needs to later maintain our ideal weight.

It's important to not eat based on any particular emotion at any given point.

The goal should be to aim for three healthy, balanced meals a day, with healthy snacks if necessary in between meals while staying within our daily caloric requirements.

Have a great day everyone!

Realizing the importance of savoring your food

In the past I can remember so many instances where I seemed to haphazardly shove food in my mouth while on the go. Yes, I was just like the grabby octopus! Thank goodness I've broken that bad habit and I don't miss my random eating patterns a bit.

I now take the time to savor my foods at breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with my snacks. I know I am eating the appropriate portions because I have learned the importance of measuring from the start when I first set up my healthy eating plan.

In the past, when I was overweight, I don't think I appreciated food like I do at this point in my life. I think I used food for various reasons associated with whatever particular mood I was in throughout the day. That's not a good thing! It didn't matter much whether I was in a happy, sad or anxious mood, food was always within reach to comfort me or help me celebrate whatever was happening in my life. This is not unusual but it is never a good thing to eat based on our emotions at any given time.

I'm glad I noticed that connection and I'm happy that I've learned to overcome it. I love great food. I love healthy food. I am happy that I am able to eat on track, in a healthy manner 95% of time. It's been a year or more since I've lost the weight and it has truly been an incredible year for me. What a burden to have lifted, after carrying around the extra weight for close to two decades.

Breaking unhealthy habits is never easy but putting forth the effort creates tremendous rewards when the goal weight is achieved.

So let us always remember to take the time to savor our foods!

Cross Training makes exercising fun!

There's one important thing we need to remember regarding our exercise routines and that is to change them occasionally or mix in different routines. It's important for many reasons. One great reason is that it makes exercising more fun and challenging so that we don't become bored with the same routine.

It's great that we may lean towards certain areas such as yoga, Pilates or conditioning DVD's but we can easily become bored over time with the same routines. It's also true that our muscles become conditioned to the same routine over time and become less challenged. That's why it is great to look for new sources in the same areas. It could be new DVD's or simply turning into TV programs like Exercise TV on Demand.

It's great to mix things up on different days. Walking/jogging, swimming, weight lifting, tennis, etc., are great ways to get your workouts in all while presenting new challenges.

Remember staying fit and in good shape is all about creating a balance!

Key West Vacation for July 4th was incredible!

Wow! Our family vacation to Key West was incredible! What a wonderful new experience for me. This was the first trip my husband and I have taken with our adult children since I lost all of the weight I had put on over the course of two decades. It was also a year from the date I had reached my goal weight.

It was so great to be able to wear the new clothes I have purchased since I lost the weight. I can remember struggling so many times to find the best clothes to camouflage my extra pounds for so many years. Not fun! This was so different. I purchased two new bathing suits before the trip, one for snorkeling and one for pool side.

The heat was intense but I was able to keep up or walk ahead of everyone at times because I'm in the best shape I've ever been since my 20's! Trust me, I could not have withstood the heat for that long a time period with the extra weight I had carried previously.

Guess what? We entered the Key West 4th of July 5k! It was so much fun; I had an awesome time. I walked/jogged 3 miles! My husband walked and everyone else jogged from our family. It meant the world to my children that I was able to do these things with them at 54, when for so long I only dreamed of participating in these type activities.

Wow, setting up a healthy eating and fitness pattern for life has been a tremendous blessing in my life and for my family. It wasn't that hard once Sharon and I came up with a plan through our research. It boiled down to common sense and it has worked beautifully. It can work for you just as easily. Both of us reached our dream goal weight of our early 20's. From a personal standpoint, I'm so happy that I've left this great example to my adult children for the remainder of their lives. It is never to late to do something you never thought once again possible. You can and it has to be the most liberating, confidence building experience I have ever had in my life. You can do it too. Our forthcoming book, "TAME YOUR INNER OCTOPUS!" sets out in detail how to do it in a totally easy to understand fashion!