Dinner Time

Recently I had to watch a movie for my food and nutrition class and write a paper on it and I did some major reflecting on my family and our daily interaction with food. Not only do I want to pull out my kitchen aid (have Devin fix it) and start making bread again, but even more so I realized how much I have allowed my busy life to get in the way of healthy eating for my family. It is WAY too easy to open a box of corn dogs and say “here is dinner” when I am running behind on a school assignment or jetting out the door for class, well let’s face it.....anytime I'm being lazy. Is it really worth it?? I think its fine once in a while, but we do it WAY too much over here.

Another HUGE influence on some of the changes I am making around here is the TV show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. EVERYONE should watch this show: it really makes you stop and take a look at what we are feeding our kids. ALL 5 of my kids in school have put on weight this year and I am convinced that 90% of it is because they eat school lunches! We made huge changes a long time ago to the snacks we keep around the house for our kids (which were not even that bad to begin with, it's not like they had a box of cookies for an after school snack), but that’s a whole other post!

Back to dinner time; not only am I cheating my family on healthy eating by not preparing my own healthy meals, but I realized how much I am missing out on quality time with my kids by having them help. ALL my kids love to help cook, so I created a chart that contains the days of the weeks: meal for that day, the ingredients, the helper and an overall shopping list. I can't wait to start doing this! I think I am more excited about the time that I will get to spend with each of my kids; I don't want them to ever feel like they don't get time with mom so I am looking forward to eating healthier meals and spending time together.

(I'm also curious about how many times I use things out of a box or can, that I could make myself? Hmmmm, that’s a whole other post too!)

P.S. I tried to figure out how to attach a word document to give you my chart for meals but wasn’t successful. Let me know if you want it and I can email it to you. :)

When do YOU weigh in?

Many different diets, magazines and articles will give guidance to when you should weight yourself. Once a week, every day, clothes on or off, before you eat?? Here are my thoughts; I say weight yourself as often as YOU need to stay motivated! For some it would be once a month, maybe if they weren't necessarily dieting but just to check in and see how they are maintaining. Others need to do it every week, maybe stepping on the scale every day is discouraging and you can stay more motivated by working hard all week and waiting to see what the result will be. For myself, I like to weigh every day. No, if I have a crappy night and give in and pig out on a package of Oreos it probably isn't going to show up the next morning on the scale. BUT if I am eating like that for several days in a row, I'm going to step on the scale and notice that maybe I better lay off the Oreos! For my own personal motivation weighing everyday helps to keep me focused on working hard.

What do you do? How does weighing in effect YOUR motivation??

Fact OR Crap?

Fact or Crap? Ice cold water causes you to burn more calories than room temperature water? My finding is Fact AND Crap. I did a little bit of research last night and here is what I found. It is true that cold water causes your body to warm the water itself, burning calories. BUT, the Crap part is that although it is said to be true, the amount of calories you burn by drinking ice cold water doesn't even equal the amount of calories in an apple. One article I read said for 16oz of ice cold water your body would burn an additional 17 1/2 calories. So for ME, it's not worth it. I like room temp water because when I am thirsty I can chug it as fast as I can, if it's ice cold I can only sip it and I don't drink as much.

 So there ya go.....this one is FACT and CRAP, according to me :)

To stretch or not to stretch?

I always knew it was important to stretch before and after a workout, but my understanding stopped at "for preventing injury or increase flexibility". That all changed when I read an article in this month’s Women's Health. The most important thing I took away from this article is that by stretching before a workout your muscles respond more effectively during your workout. Without waking up your muscles before a workout you "spend more energy during your workout fighting against your body's limitations, rather than burning calories" That statement right there was enough to make me never skip my stretches again! In short, your workout will "feel easier and you will see faster results" by taking the time to get those stretches in.

A few points to remember when stretching:

* NO BOUNCING!!!! You run the risk of injury when you do this.

* AFTER your workout stretch again to help increase flexibility and prevent injury, after you have cooled down.

* Hold the stretch until you feel the muscle loosen a bit, then stretch a little bit deeper (as long as there is no pain) for an additional 15 seconds

* ALWAYS warm up for 3-5 min before beginning your stretch, this makes the muscles more supple (again, prevents injury and maximizes the effectiveness of the stretch)

* DO NOT hold your breath! Concentrating on your breathing so you don't forget.

* STOP if you feel faint, dizzy, or have any pain. You should stretch deeper to increase flexibility, but you should NEVER be in pain.