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.