A calorie is a calorie

Howdy!

It's a rainy, grey day here in Silver Spring. See, even the daffodils are sad. However, that's not stopping Rob from going on a run. Bless him. I however am keeping my butt, along with the rest of me, in the house nice and dry.

I've been managing to keep on track with my diet. Last weekend, I made it out for a lovely walk while it was warm, sunny, and dry. I was out for almost an hour with an average heart rate of 127. It was a good walk. Unfortunately, the rest of the week I'd been feeling on the bad side. Just one of those things when the body says to stay in and rest. Most times, it's good to listen to the body and I'm heading it's call this week. So with this resting and recouping, here's some of the thoughts in my head.

Calories

A few weeks ago on Science Friday on NPR, a scientist was interviewed who did a study on different diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates to see if the compositions made a difference in the amount of weight lost. Each diet they used emphasized a different macronutrient. They saw no meaningful difference in the amount of weight lost between the different diets. Their conclusion was that as long as you reduce calories, you'll lose weight. They were trying to address whether you have to have low carbs, no carbs, high protein, low fat, etc. As far as this scientist was concerned, if you want to lose weight, eat less.

This was supposed to address whether you have to have low carb, high protein diets like Atkins. They were saying that from what they could tell, weight loss can definitely be achieved without Atkins. Critics of the study say that they didn't really use a truly low carb diet as part of the study. The lowest carbohydrate percentage diet used was 35% and the highest protein percentage was 25%. Atkins shoots for you to have 30% to 50% of your calories be protein.  That's much protein and there have been a number of documented issues with this kind of diet. These issues may be why they didn't use this type of diet.

For me, I have never restricted the amount of carbohydrates I eat. Just this morning, breakfast was a big hot bowl of steal-cut oatmeal with almonds, currants, and honey. *yummmmm* My current body mass index is 24. It's a healthy size. When I as dropping weight, I was also not limiting my carbohydrate intake. What I was and continue to limit is my intake of refined carbs. Oats, corn, quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat, and amaranth are all part of what I take in. I eat very little of things made of white flour or white sugar. Every once in a while, I do have white rice since I eat out. It doesn't seem to be as big a problem.

I just found a great tool to help you figure out where you are in terms of weight and size, a BMI and Body Shape calculator on WebMD. I already 'fessed up to my BMI. My waist to height ratio is .45. It's a nice boost to hear I'm in good shape when I'm a bit under the weather.

The joys of being married

Rob just returned from his run. He claims that it was actual a lovely warm run. Once again, bless him. He just asked me what was the difference between oak milk and regular milk. He then asked where regular milk came from. He swears to me that he has an education. :)  Today is our third anniversary. We're celebrating that and his birthday (which was yesterday) by having dinner out with a bunch of friends this evening. I'm looking forward to many more years of married bliss along with questions like the ones described above.  :)

Shout outs

Hearty greetings to Rob, Cynthia, Gina, and Renata who have commented on my few blogging attempts so far. Thanks for checking in.

Slackin' and a birthday!

Greetings!

It's has been way too long since I blogged and, according to some recent studies, I'm less happier for it. :-O It seems that bloggers tend to be happier people.  Who knew? Speaking of studies (and continuing on to work on increasing happiness)......

Do you floss?

Continuing with the focus on heart health, it has been shown that regular flossing helps deter heart disease. Apparently, dental plague can harbor some of the bacteria related to cardiovascular disease. I first learned about this when I took the Real Age Test. Your score/age is lowered if you floss regularly. Since first reading that, I keep seeing an emphasis on flossing in articles that discuss heart health. Think of flossing as scrubbing your heart as well as your teeth and gums.  (FYI - My RealAge 7.5 years lower than my actual age.)

My birthday!

Thursday, March 12 marked another full trip around the sun for me. It had been a pretty busy month up to that point. As far as eating goes, I've been staying on track. Now, on my birthday, I indulged myself with some Thai sweet sticky rice at my birthday dinner with Rob. On Saturday, I went with a bunch of friends to Mandalay Restaurant in Silver Spring.  It is one of my favorite places to eat and the only  Burmese restaurant that I've ever tried.  Once again, they did not disappoint. I indulged myself in their sticky rice dessert as well.  It was a good evening. 

So now, it's back to work. As I said, with the exception of the sticky rice, I've been on track with my eating. The exercising has been lacking.  There's been some walking here, a bit of yoga there, but it's been about twice a week over the last two weeks. There is definitely room for improvement. 

It's not easy being green, but it's more exercise

In the walking front, I'm going to get back on mass transit tomorrow. With walking to the bus, then walking to the train, then from the train stop to my job, you get the idea, the steps add up. The negative side? It takes more time than driving. The positive side? There is definitely less parking hassle, I get more exercise, and my car burns no gas.

Hobbies

Back on the happiness topic, it helps to have hobbies, things we like to do. One of the things I do that makes me quite happy is knitting. Earlier last week, I finished up some items from friends who just had a baby girl.

The hat and baby booties are made with a super soft acrylic yarn called Sirdar Snowflake Chunky.  It is made to change colors like you see here as you knit. It's a yarn I use often for baby items as it is machine washable and it's so soft. Did I mention that it's really soft?

The multi-shaded plum thing in the upper right corner of the picture is a hoodie I made for myself. It's taking me an incredibly long time to sew it together. I love knitting. I don't like joining seams. The hat and booties? No seams.  I always wonder if there is some deep psychological thing going with me with finishing up knitting when there are seams.....  Nah....I just don't like them.  The hoodie will get finished though. I want to wear it before it gets too warm. I've finished a couple of other projects this winter so I'll post some pictures later of everything.

More mushrooms, less breast cancer

According to a case studio conducted in China, mushrooms may reduce the risk of breast cancer. I just got this in an e-mail from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.  The study looked at the mushroom intake of 2,000 pre- and postmenopausal women with breast cancer and a group of matched controls without breast cancer. Intake of fresh and/or dried mushrooms decreased the risk by 64% and 47%, respectively. The most commonly consumed 'shroom was the white button. They also saw more protection when mushrooms and green tea were consumed. I'll see if I can find a good recipe combining both. :)

Spring, then Winter, then Spring all in one week

Spring ... then Winter .... then Spring forward

Last Friday, it was absolutely lovely here, warm, sunny. It had all the looks of Spring. Outside my front door, I saw this:
Pretty nice, huh?

This was Monday:
   

And now, we're back to spring again. Luckily, the flowers seem no worse for the sudden and absolutely freezing cold snap. As for my working out and eating, well, that didn't get affected too badly either.

I've been walking outside when the weather cooperated. I'm waiting for brunch to digest and I'll get my walk in today.

SOUP

I've been in a mood for soup. This happens on occasion, a feeling for a particular food or type of food gets in my head. There are many discussions out there that the body lets you know what it needs so I try to listen.  I do have to ignore when the call is for pumpkin spice cake but I have a feeling that that is my sweet tooth imitating my body.

I made two soups this week. Earlier in the week, I experimented with White Bean and Kale Soup.

It came out OK. I forgot the bay leaf and left out the vinegar since Rob doesn't like vinegar. I think the next time I make it, I'd increase the seasonings. The recipe has potential but definitely needs tweaking.

This, African Chickpea and Spinach Soup, I made last night. It's a total winner. Tasty, savory, and a meal in one. The one tweak I did last was substitute swiss chard for the spinach, once again taking into account Rob's dislikes.

OH MY BACK

Last weekend was a fairly busy one. I shot a job all of Saturday evening, lugging camera equipment around the Tyson's Corner Ritz Carlton for the American Hear Association's Heart Ball. Sunday, I photographed a bunch of things that Rob and I are trying to sell that we no longer need. Then Monday morning, I woke up with a sore back. *ugh* The kind of sore back that made it tough to sit for long and transition from sitting to standing. So I actually did yoga Monday and Tuesday in the hopes of slowly getting that tight muscle loose again. I seems to have helped, along with some heat therapy and acupuncture. This weekend, I'm just about back to normal.

Planning for the week

One way to make sure that exercise and good eating happens is to plan ahead. Today, I'm going to figure out what I'll be cooking for the week and make sure that I have the ingredients needed. I'm thinking that there is going to more of the African Chickpea and Spinach Soup definitely. I'm also going to chart out when and what exercise is going to be happening. Please let the warmth last at least a couple more days.

More thoughts on minding the heart

Organization is happiness

About a month ago, I was woken up by a large crashing sound. It was a familiar sound and it was coming from our closet. Yet another couple of shelves tore off of the walls. This happened once

before on Rob's side of the closet. It woke us up then, too. Is there a law that structural failures always happen at 3 am? I took this opportunity to take EVERYTHING out of the closet and, once everything was fixed, put back only what I wanted to keep.  It's always an eye opening exercise to purge what accumulates but it feels good to let go. I'll be contacting a charity soon to get what's getting purged.

I like organization. It's nice to have the closet back to a very organized state. Now I have to get the rest of the house back to an organized state and it will really help with keeping my mind at ease.

Focusing on sleep

It often seems like I'm playing catch up with sleep. When the shelves came crashing down, it took me a while to get back to sleep. My tendency is to be more of a night owl. I can easily stay up late or remain awake if my sleep gets disrupted. It probably has a bunch to do with doing night shifts at the rescue squad for the last six years or so. In addition, I'm married to a night owl.

Long ago, we recognized that we need to get better about getting enough sleep. Now, more studies are coming out enforcing the importance of regular, sufficient sleep. *yawn* Seriously, though, sleep deprivation is getting linked to many other health issues including weight gain. Lack of sleep actually causes the hormone that tells you to eat less to decrease and (you've probably guessed) the hormone that tells you to eat more to increase. It's really a vicious cycle because sleep deprivation also cause your stress hormone, cortisol, to rise and this all causes the body to crave calorie dense foods with a high carbohydrate content. Glamour Magazine recently had an article about this where the only change they had participants make was to get a full night's sleep and the women who did this lost weight.

So, if being able to think clearly and keeping your immune system healthy wasn't enough to get you to bed, think of getting more sleep as another tool in getting more fit.

The vegan thing

For those that aren't as familiar with my diet, you may have noticed that none of the food I've talked about eating has any animal products in it. I admit it, I follow a vegan diet. This means I eat nothing from anything that had a face. For the smarty pants among you, shrimp have faces, too.

Being vegan has been a very healthy choice for me. My cholesterol has not tested above 150 in years. It seems like I get less colds.  My doctor tells me that I should just keep doing what I'm doing so I do.

On the not-so-healthy side of this, I've gotten to know some pretty good vegan bakers, myself included. Vegan cakes and cookies still have a bunch of sugar so eating them as often as I was probably wasn't good. Now that I'm eating significantly less sweets, my size is going down. Clothes are definitely fitting better now. I recently put on a pair of pants that were tight 3 weeks ago that buttoned very easily. *yeah*

I was thinking that listing exactly what I've been eating everyday is getting tiresome. Instead, I thought I'd highlight some things I've made lately that are especially good.

Breakfast

In the morning, I love to have a shake. There are two I make over and over. There is the peanut butter carob shake that is about a cup of whatever milk I have on hand (soy, almond, oat) blended with a banana, a couple tablespoons of peanut butter or almond butter, and a tablespoon of carob powder.  Sometimes, I slice and freeze the banana first, sometimes not.

The other shake is from a book I have on skin care that I've adapted to my tastes. Once again, it's whatever milk I have on hand blended with either a banana or strawberries or both (when I'm in my wild mood), almonds, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds, molasses, honey, oats, sesame seeds, and some nutritional yeast. This thing is packed with all kinds of vitamins, minerals, fiber and all that other good stuff.

Sides

I tried making a sweet potato gratin a few days ago and it was so good, I made it again yesterday. The basic idea of it is that you layer raw slices of sweet potato with leeks sauteed with garlic and rosemary. Then you pour a little vegetable broth over it all and bake covered. After about 30 minutes, you uncover and sprinkle with bread crumbs and more of the rosemary and bake about another 15 minutes.  Well, I had green onions, not leaks, no rosemary so I used chives, and no bread crumbs so I ground up some cereal. It still came out good. I'm going to have to try it with the leaks and rosemary just to see if it's better.

Dinner

On Saturday, I made a baked pasta dish that is supposed to be a vegan Mac and "cheese".  I got the recipe from here. The recipe wasn't followed quite to the letter. (You may notice a trend with me.) Rob doesn't like carrots so I used sweet potatoes instead. He doesn't really like those either *oops* but I used them since I didn't have regular potatoes. I used onions which I've seen used in another recipe that's similar. In addition to the broccoli, I added some sugar snap peas to finish them up. Still no bread crumbs in the house so I once again substituted ground up cereal flakes. The verdict? Rob and I finished the whole pan Saturday evening. It basically became lunch and dinner. Mmmmm.....

Exercise

I've been getting in either yoga or walking about every other day. It's so cold out so I'm having to make due mostly with doing yoga in the house. The walking that has come in has been from using mass transit more. It's green and healthy! *woo* It's also *&&^%#@@(!! cold. It's supposed to warm up later in the week so maybe I'll get a longer walk in soon.

Keeping the heart in mind

My last post ended with me heading off to Valentine's Day Diner. It was so good! Rob and I went to Great Sage for their special 5 course vegan dinner for the day. They included champagne and a long stemmed rose as we left. Since I have a unrelenting sweet tooth, the dessert of pomegranate "cheese" cake is especially memorable. Hmmmm........   If you find yourself near Columbia, it's worth a detour over to Clarksville to give this organic, vegetarian restaurant a try.

SUNDAY

Full from that lovely dinner, I wasn't that hungry on Sunday. Breakfast was steal cut oatmeal with raisins and almonds, along with juice and herb tea. If you're not familiar with steal cut oatmeal, find it and try it. It takes more time to prepare but it is definitely a winner.

I managed to get a walk in for my exercise. My abs remained pretty tight from the yoga that I did before. The routine is one of Cyndi Lee's from her OM Yoga serious. There's lots of transitions to and from downward facing dog so those muscles really get the work needed.

For dinner, Rob and I went to California Tortilla for their roasted corn soup. They assure that it's totally vegan, full of roasted corn, beans and other veggies. I paired it with a salad of beans, guacamole, tomatoes, and greens.

MONDAY

SLEEP! This was the first Monday after I resigned from the Rescue Squad so with no getting woken up at butt-thirty in the wee hours, I was feeling so well rested. I stayed home ALL day. It was grand. Breakfast was a repeat of the day before, since I'd enjoyed it so much. Lunch was veggie burgers. Dinner was sauteed onions, peppers, broccoli and carrots over quinoa. 

I was an exercise slug today, just putzing around the house getting chores done as the mood struck me. Sometimes, you have to have days like this.

TUESDAY

I started the day with more yoga by Cyndi Lee. Breakfast was flax granola with rolled dates and juice. Lunch was the quinoa leftovers. Dinner was out with Rob at his weekly after-spin-class spot, Tako Grill. It's a Japanese spot that now expects us every Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY

There was lots of errands this morning so I started with a quick breakfast of blueberry museli and rolled dates. I picked up lunch at Java Green . I had their bibimbob salad of kale, rice, and assorted veggies. For dinner, I made some tahini noodles. I adapted the recipe from my favorite vegan cooking blog. I lightly steamed the vegetables, left out the carrots because Rob doesn't like them, added sugar snap peas, and served the whole thing warm. It will be my lunch today.

Heart health

February brings lots of articles on heart health. With my current history, these things always catch my eye. There are the typical recommendations like lowering your fat intake, maintaining a healthy weight, and getting regular exercise. There are some other particular compounds that are very important in trying to reduce the risks along with some good food sources.

1. Potassium - dark leafy greens, bananas, avocados, almonds
2. Soluble fiber - whole grains, beans, okra, brussels sprouts
3. Omega-3 fatty acids - flax, walnuts, dark leafy greens, canola oil
4. Carotenoids - kale, sweet potatoes, red bell peppers, watermelon
5. Flavonoids - green tea, extra virgin olive oil, pomegranates, apples
6. B vitamins - broccoli, spinach,  potatoes, sunflower seeds

I'm off to get in some more yoga today and eat broccoli.

Introduction

If I'm going to actually get this blog underway, it should start with an introduction.

This is me to the right there. This picture was taken 4 weeks ago.  I was feeling pretty good and thinking that I was ready to get down to the business of exercising and eating better.  WELL......

Since then, I've been exercising maybe twice a week. *ugh* I've also ingested many pieces of pumpkin spice cake by Sweet-n-Natural. (That stuff is so good.) Nevertheless, now is always the best time to start. Let me give a bit more history.

The idea for this blog has been in my head for quite some time. It seems like many of my friends, particularly my female friends, are struggling  with issues around their health.  This all comes on the heels of having my mother

pass away very suddenly in November, 2007, from probable sudden cardiac arrest. Maybe I'm more sensitive still towards this happening, but it seems like many of my friends have suffered the passing of their mothers recently as well. It just seems like there needs to be more work with our health, particularly women's health. My hope is that this blog turns into a dialog on  living a more healthy life, physically and mentally. There is also the spiritual aspect of life but I figure that, of those three aspects of life, spirituality is what I know the least about.

What I'm aspiring to is living a more balanced life, keeping mind and body engaged. I'm going to track here what I'm doing for exercise, diet, work, play, and relaxation. I'm going to invite some folk to also track their activities so that this blog can show different approaches to getting more healthy.

One thing that I'm not going to talk about, though, is weight.  REALLY?  This comes from my personal trainer husband, Rob. We talk often about this. He even talks about it more on his blog so check that when you get a chance.

 He noted that women often focus WAY too much on their weight, ignoring that, as they exercise more, fat gets replaced with muscle. Since muscle weighs more, some can incorrectly assume that their exercise efforts aren't working because their weight doesn't necessarily lower greatly even though they are more fit.  So how to track fitness? There are many ways like body fat or size of various body parts like waist and hips. So, I'm just noting the fit of my clothes for this blog. Right now, there are a few too many articles of clothing that are tighter than I might like.  :)

What did I do today?

Exercise - I started the morning with about 40 minutes of yoga.

Breakfast - I had an omega-3 granola along with a banana, dates, and some apple-cranberry juice.

Lunch - veggie sushi

Dinner - Rob an I are off to Great Sage for a special Valentines 5 course dinner. In fact is time to go so I'm off.....

A new beginning

Welcome to the Big Build Blog!

This blog started as a chronicle of the renovation to my and my husband's home 2 years ago. I let the blog lag once all the major work was done. Thanks to a number of factors that I'll talk about in more detail, I realize that the major work is not done. But the focus of that work is now on me! The more I think about my life and my health and all the factors that keep it going, I realize that the term "Big Build" can be applied to keeping healthy and happy. It continues to be an ongoing process. I plan to focus this blog on health and wellness, using what I do and what I observe others do as examples, both good and bad. I'm also going to invite some others to be contributors to this blog so that you get to hear other people's approach and voice. As with life, this is going to be an evolving effort. I hope that you'll stick with me.

Lisa