It's Another "I Love Food!" Day :)

You all know I love PB2 by Bell Plantation – a dried peanut butter that mixes with water or jelly. I eat it almost every day. Last month, my maintaining diva friend AJ asked me if I’d tried the new chocolate PB2. I hadn’t explored the Bell site in awhile, so no, I hadn’t heard the news, but being such a huge PB2 fan, I went online immediately to order a few jars. I wasn’t disappointed. Chocolate PB2 has nearly identical nutritional information as the plain PB2 – 2 T for around 50 calories and less than 2 grams of fat – and so far I recommend it as a really nice dip for bananas. I’m looking forward to trying some of the recipes posted on their site.

PB2 is part of my monthly food budget. I order a case every month and the good folks at Bell ship it to me ASAP. Imagine my surprise when I found out this morning that I can get PB2 locally, right here in little tiny podunkville Clarion at a store called The Bathtub and Kitchen Sink! PB2, here in Clarion! I don’t have to trek 100 miles to Pittsburgh like I have to for so many other food products I like and can never get here.

I’m going to the Bathtub next week to thank Andrea, the owner, for carrying PB2 and to ask if she can order some low-fat cheese for me, too. While I’m at the Bathtub, I’ll stop in next door to Sage Meadow, a great little health food store that carries red lentils, edamame, my favorite tea, and low-sodium vegetable broth. The grocery stores around here don’t carry (very good) vegetable broth, let alone low-sodium broth, even in chicken or beef flavors. When I asked for it, the manager looked at me like I was questioning his hygiene or something. “No one will buy that,” he said. It reminded me of the time (and I promise I’ll be done bitching after this one) when I asked the bread manager (as in the guy who runs the bread department) where the pita bread was. He said, and I kid you not, “What’s pita bread?” Oy.

Anyway, why not browse the PB2 site to find a store near you that sells PB2? You might get lucky, like me, and find it’s being sold right down the street!

A few of you might remember several months ago when I asked about flax seeds and how you use them. I got some great suggestions and now add it to soups and cereal. I’ve also been putting it in the Hungry Girl pumpkin/pudding concoction (scroll down to #3) I love so much, too. That’s what gave me the idea to add it to Jell-O’s new sugar-free dark chocolate pudding. Seriously good. And filling. Grind up a tablespoon of flax seeds and throw it in the pudding. Maybe eat the pudding with a graham cracker instead of a spoon. Not that I do that or anything…hehe.

It’s time for lunch and then a hair cut. I’m thinking a bigass salad. Hmmm… Then maybe some pudding. Hmmmm… Then maybe some PB2 on Wasa with just a little homemade blackberry jam. Man, I’m really having an “I love food!” day. Oh who am I kidding? Most every day is an “I love food!” day! LOL

Have a great weekend, folks! I’ll check in with ya’ll on Sunday.

Read More

Mentors Make The Journey A Little Less Lonely

In the last year, I’ve gotten several emails from people who seem to have no one to talk to about losing weight, no one to guide them or show them the ropes. I know there are countless books out there, programs to follow, websites to read, but there’s something about having one or a few people you can talk to, ask questions of, and follow their example that takes weight loss from a lonely, sometimes scary proposition to a successful venture.

I’ve been thinking about the people who mentored me in this journey. I’ve received a lot of good (and some bad) advice over the last four years, but mentoring goes beyond advice. It’s a relationship, either formal or informal, in which someone more experienced teaches or models behavior or concepts to someone less experienced.

I owe a great deal of gratitude to a few folks I met on the Weight Watchers message board I joined in early 2005 who patiently answered my questions about food and exercise. They went beyond advice and offered not only their personal experience, but directed me to other sources of information as well. They also took the time to follow up with me to see how I was doing.

Mentors are more than role models. It’s the personal interaction between two people that gives the relationship depth. I know it’s possible to lose weight and exercise without mentors, but perhaps alone is what makes the journey more difficult.

I’m curious: Who were/are your mentors? Is there someone who got you started or keeps you going on your weight-loss or fitness plan? How did you find them?

In the spirit of mentoring and offering help to those who are just starting out, I thought I’d throw a reader’s question out to you for your feedback. Jo wants to know about strength training. Because of my arthritic feet and knees, I don’t do much lower-body specific strength training (I’d never get up again if I tried a lunge!) so I’m wondering if you could help her with some advice on what you do, both upper and lower body.

Here’s what Jo wrote: “I am anxious to introduce exercise into my daily routine, but like you, I don't jump out of bed looking forward to it. (I've never exercised in my life!) I intend to start walking this week, but I'm also interested in some weight training exercises. I have a torn rotator cuff, too, so I'd be curious to know what you do. Could you possibly share that with me?”

I first need to caution Jo not to do anything until she talks to her doctor, particularly about her rotator cuff injury. After an MRI and diagnosis, I chose not to have surgery, but rather I consulted my chiropractor who recommended Active Release Muscle Therapy and physical therapy exercises to strengthen my rotator cuff muscles. I have been doing both for more than a year now and while I still have some pain and weakness in my shoulders, much of that is related to arthritis and not the tear, something surgery will not cure.

I have found several exercises – using dumbbells, a barbell, and my own body weight – to strengthen my abs/core, biceps, back, triceps and shoulders that don’t aggravate my condition. I recommend the books “Body For Life for Women” by Pamela Peeke, “The Body Sculpting Bible for Women” by James Villepigue, Hugo Rivera, Nicole Rollolazo, and Robert Kennedy, and “Strength Training For Women” by Joan Pagano. Also, look to your local gym for personal trainers who specialize in training people with arthritis or sports injuries. Be very careful not to overdo it and always, ALWAYS listen to your body. While some pain is to be expected when you first start to exercise, excessive and long-lasting pain isn’t.

Thanks, as always, my awesome readers for inspiring me and keeping me on the right path. I can’t imagine walking this path alone

Read More

Goodbye to Summer, Hello *foot stomp* Winter

I don’t want to do it, but unless I want to freeze my butt off, it has to be done.

Time to dig out the winter clothes.

Just last Sunday it was 80-something degrees and I wore a thin, short-sleeved white shirt to my granddaughter’s birthday party. I took full advantage of summer’s last gasp, driving with the windows rolled down and sitting on the deck like it was July. But alas, it is mid October and the 50-something highs and 30-something lows blew in at the end of the week like an obnoxious house guest.

Bye bye crop pants and t-shirts. See you next year tank tops and sandals. I’ll miss you.

This the first winter season in many years that I won’t have clothes to take to Goodwill or to give away to friends and family members. For the last 12 years, I was either getting bigger or getting smaller. Finally, I’m the same size I was last year so I know everything will fit. This is a huge relief given the state of our economy and my checkbook.

As soon as I finish my afternoon snack – steamed broccoli sprinkled with parmesan cheese (it’s comfort food) – I’ll open the narrow closet I stuffed – literally stuffed – all my sweaters, leggings, boots and winter workout clothes into. I’m so happy when I get to take out the summer stuff that I don’t fold the winter stuff. I just shove it all in the closet and shut the door. The winter me hates that about the summer me. I really wish I wouldn’t do that.

Mental note: fold and stack next year, Lynn. Fold and stack.

I know what awaits me. Clothes will fly out as soon as I open the door. Then I’ll have to go through them and separate the tops from the bottoms, decide what has to be washed, and then try to find room for it all. It’s not like I have many clothes, but you know how bulky winter clothes are. One sweater takes the room of six t-shirts (…sniff, sniff…I miss them already).

I don’t like the feel of winter clothes anymore. I used to worship winter because it meant I could hide behind layers of shirts and wear sweaters that covered my butt. The irony, though, is now I NEED clothes that layer and cover my butt because I get cold – really, really cold – in the winter.

Which reminds me, I have to go to the basement and dig out the space heaters.

Winter is complicated.

…sigh…The broccoli is gone. I’ve rid my teeth of the green remnants of the florets. No more dragging my feet. It’s time to divide and conquer the winter mess upstairs. Time to say, “Adios little pink shirt that goes with the white pants I wore in California. Au revoir strapless dress with the yellow flowers. Arrivederci ballet slipper-style shoes with the cute strap across the top. I will fold you and and stack you and give you the respect you deserve as you hibernate in the closet. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing so that I will fit into you all once again next summer. In the meantime, enjoy the lavender sachet. I’ll peek in on you every once in awhile, especially when it’s snowing and 10 degrees outside.”

…cue closing song from the Lawrence Welk Show. By the way, I know the guy in the back of the video, Tom Netherton. He was my big brother Marty’s oh-so-dreamy friend when they were in high school…But I’ll leave that for another blog.

Read More

Eating Should Be Fun

I posted this blog back in April on my ZenBagLady site. Some of you might have already seen it (and I apologize for the redundancy), but I decided to post it here today because Claire’s aunt Carlene sent me photos today of Claire after eating (and thoroughly enjoying) her pasta lunch. It was a good reminder about how much fun food should be. We plan it, debate it, weigh the good and the bad, count calories, count points, and fuss so much with it that we forget sometimes how much FUN it is to eat. Really really fun (see photos of Claire’s birthday cake destruction in my last blog entry).

So in spirit of fun and mindful eating, I give you this regurgitated, but pertinent, blog (along with the pasta photos):







The best part about driving to Pittsburgh from Clarion is the time. Seventy-five minutes of whatever I want to listen to or not listen to and think about or not think about. I pack a bottle of water or a travel mug of tea or coffee, and a plastic grocery bag filled with some fruit, like a banana or prunes or apples or grapes; maybe a few crackers and Werthers hard candies; definitely some gum and Altoids and Tic Tacs (I’m all about keeping my mouth minty happy); and often a homemade extra, like hummus or the pudding/pumpkin/cinnamon thingy I make, which requires a spoon.

Yesterday I really needed to see my girls – both daughters and grandbaby Claire. You know how you have those weeks when stuff just gets crazy and you need to walk away from it and surround yourself with the love and humor of the people you love the most?

I packed up my usual travel bag, such a classy couture, and included the pudding/pumpkin/cinnamon thingy in a recycled margarine container. I grabbed a spoon and I was good to go.

Forty-five minutes later, I passed Kittanning and merged on to 28, the four-lane to P’burgh. Eating the pudding thing while winding along Route 66 would have been cotton fiber suicide so I waited until I could put the Jeep on cruise control and safely balance the margarine container on my thigh. I turned off the Sirius radio, dug around for the spoon in the bag, and dug into the creamy goodness.

Two spoonfuls in, I realized I was just eating to eat. What’s the pleasure in that? I thought about Claire, who loves cold sweet potatoes and sweet peas. How would she eat this pudding concoction? Claire leans forward in her high chair and watches you bring the spoon to her mouth. She clamps her lips around the spoon and sucks and chews it until all the food is either in her mouth or spread out around her upper and lower lips. And sometimes her chin and neck, depending on how firm a grip you’ve got on the spoon. The food that’s in her mouth she swishes around like mouthwash, cherishing every flavor until she swallows and leans forward for another round.

So I tried eating Claire style. I scooped up a spoonful of pudding/pumpkin/cinnamon and sucked it off the spoon. I let it wander around in my mouth for awhile and on every exhale, tasted every last flavor it offered. (Have you noticed you can’t taste much when you inhale?) I observed the soft texture and the cold before swallowing it and thought of nothing more.

I’m trying to be more mindful in the small moments to train myself to be more aware in the big ones. Claire eats without thinking about money or work or her weight. She just concentrates on that moment of food. Eating like Claire, it took me 15 minutes to down a cup of pudding. That’s 15 minutes I can still recall and enjoy in my memory. How many meals or snacks have you eaten that you remember like that?

It’s not the specific food I remember so much, but the taste and the texture and the pure joy of eating. I tried the same thing with an apple today as I drove to pick up my dogs at the groomer. Same thing. I felt and was aware of the crunch, the sweet, and the red skin that caught in my molars. It was time spent not worrying about things I couldn’t change and things I couldn’t do.

Next time you’re tempted to multi-task while driving – paying bills or answering email via your Blackberry, talking mindlessly to pass the time – try eating some grapes or orange slices or even M&Ms. Really eat them. Think about them, each one, their texture and the feeling in your mouth. Breathe in their scent and exhale their flavor. Appreciate the moment for what it is. It’s a moment that you are simply being alive and not planning, not regretting, not wondering about the next moment. Just let it be what it is. It’ll give you a whole different appreciation and perspective of about darn near anything.

Read More

Claire's 1! And, Yum in a Cup

Yesterday, Princess Claire turned 1 year old. That means I’ve been a grandma for a whole year! And I’ll be Grammy Lynn squared when baby Claire gets a new brother or sister at the end of May. Double the fun! I’m pretty sure being a grandparent is as close to heaven on earth as we mortals get.

My daughter and son-in-law threw Claire a family party. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Matt’s family so it was fun to catch up, at least a little. Claire got most of the attention. So did my chicken barbecue sandwiches. It’s a simple recipe that’s been in my family for many years. It can be used on ribs and whole chicken breasts for dinner, or you can shred chicken or beef and use it in sandwiches. And…it’s fat free and low cal. Here’s the recipe:

Lynn’s Barbecue Sauce
Serves 4-6

1 C chili sauce (or ketchup if you don’t have chili sauce or want something a little less zippy)
1 C water
½ - 1 C finely chopped onions (or use 2-3 T of dried minced onions – that’s what I do when I make this recipe for sandwiches)
2 T Worcestershire sauce
¼ C vinegar
¼ C brown sugar
2 t dry mustard
1 t paprika

Whisk all the ingredients together and throw over a couple pounds of chicken breasts in a roasting pan. Cover and cook at 350 degrees for 2 hours. You can also put it all in a crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Shred the chicken (or beef if that’s what you used) and remix with the sauce and serve.

I’ve made this ahead of time and frozen it until I needed it. Just add a little chili sauce or ketchup to it because the meat absorbs much of the sauce if it’s not used right away.

Claire got a little taste of the chicken and she liked it. She seemed to like her cake, too, but mostly because it was fun to play in. I can’t be trusted to just play with cake. Cake finds its way into my mouth quickly if I’m not careful. And yesterday, I was very careful. One bite is all I had. One very small bite. But before you think I’m a woman of iron will, I didn’t eat more than one bite mostly because the frosting had way too much fat in it. It lined the roof of my mouth like a film. If I’m going to indulge, I want it to be something I find palatable and not something that sticks to my palate.

And speaking of palatable, I found another something at Starbucks yesterday that will become a permanent part of my food repertoire. I’m probably the last person on earth to discover this, but I love, and I mean seriously love, their Skinny Caramel Latte. I’ve never had a shot of syrup in my coffee before and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. People blog about how they love sugar-free syrup, they post on message boards how much they love sugar-free syrup. Now I know why they love sugar-free syrup. It’s blog worthy and post worthy. It’s a very yummy way to get a dairy serving in, too. And you all know how much I hate skim milk.

So Claire’s first birthday will go down in my dietary history as the day I discovered syrup shots. Not a bad way to end my first year anniversary as Grammy Lynn.

Read More

Meditate Your Way To A Healthy Body

I’m a realist. But in the last few years, I’ve become a “kinder, gentler” realist.

I used to beat the crap out of myself when I was obese. I lived on the negative end of life’s battery, spending all my positive energy on other people.

As many of you know, before I started this journey in January 2005, I took a long hard look at the way I treated myself physically and emotionally. As I wrote in a blog for CNN last January, “I had so many feelings floating around in my head when I weighed 300 pounds – inadequacy, anger, and overall helplessness. I vacillated for months between accepting my body as it was and choosing to lose weight. I journaled tough questions: How did I feel about my body. How much did I love myself? Was I worth changing for? It was difficult and often uncomfortable work, I won’t lie, but once I was honest with myself and became better acquainted with the emotions that bothered me most, I was ready to lose weight.”

The reason I know this last time is the last time I’ll lose weight, particularly more than 100 pounds, is because I know who I am now and am my own best friend. This was never the case in my previous attempts at weight loss.

The emotional journey I was on at the time of my weight loss journey got a little more focused when I was introduced to mindful meditation via Jon Kabat-Zinn. Then earlier this year, I took my practice even further after discovering Pema Chodron. I implement her teachings as a way to develop more compassion toward myself and others.

You might think that meditation and Buddhist teachings and Zen are all ethereal and maybe even mumbo-jumbo, but take it from me, a true realist, there is nothing more real and grounding than learning to love yourself.

I often get emails asking me to review books and other “diet” programs. Most of these requests end up in my junk mail, but a few books caught my attention and I thought I’d pass on the name of one of them today (the other will be in a future blog).

It is through my (still small) understanding of Buddhist teachings that I can recommend “Wake Up To Your Weight Loss” by Alyson Mead. Mead’s approach to weight loss combines writing and meditation to help readers cultivate loving kindness toward themselves and their bodies. I like how she sums up what meditation is: “The mistaken belief about meditation is that it is somehow magical, bestowing peace and light on whomever it touches. But meditation is simply a tool, to help you focus in on and, more importantly, learn to cope with the stuff your mind may fling at you.” And if your mind is anything like mine, what it flings is often a lot of s*it.

Along with writing and meditation, Mead offers helpful “off the mat” exercises to take into real-life situations throughout the day.

I truly believe that knowing ourselves, becoming our own best friend, being compassionate toward ourselves, is the real key to weight loss and maintenance. As Mead writes in chapter seven, “Losing weight is, in a sense, losing part of yourself. The closer you get to learning who you are on a very intimate level, the more power you will have when emotional issues arrive.”

“Wake Up To Your Weight Loss” is a good companion piece to diet and exercise. It’s better than pills and there are no side effects except feeling more at peace and at home in your own body.

And I didn’t get paid to say that :) I’m just keeping it real.

Read More

The Hiatus is Over!

To celebrate the fall season, I decided it was time to dust some things off.

First, this blog. I’m back from hiatus, not because I’m done with the book (I’ll let you know when that not-so-small feat is complete), but because I’ve missed Lynn’s Weigh and you and I keep writing blogs in my head and it’s getting really annoying not having a place to write them all down.

I also dusted off an old nemesis-turned-friend in the garage: my stationary bike. I bought the bike used seven or eight years ago when I thought I was ready to exercise and lose weight, but all it did was serve as a clothes rack. The few times I tried it when I weighed 300 pounds, I could barely do two minutes on low without feeling like my lungs and thighs would break. Of course, rather than keep at it and get progressively stronger, I called myself “fat” and “useless” and gave up. Even when I got serious about losing weight in 2005 I didn’t ride the bike because I didn’t want to get frustrated and give up. My psyche was still that fragile. Losing weight was all I could do at the time. Adding exercise could have hampered my efforts because I was afraid to know just how much riding I still couldn’t do even after losing 50 or 100 pounds.

I realize now how sad that is and I don’t advocate not exercising because of fear of failure, no matter how much you have to lose, but that was my reality. The good news is that I feel empathy for the 300-, the 250-, and the 200-pound me who was afraid. I don’t beat myself up for being afraid of failure. I chose, instead, to learn from it.

This lesson came in real handy last Sunday.

I do my strength training at home three days a week. On those days, I do 15-20 minutes of cardio to warm up and then 45 minutes of lifting dumbbells and the barbell while mixing in a few ab/core exercises. I usually warm up on the elliptical since it used to be the only piece of cardio equipment I had in the house. Then I remembered my bike in the garage. On Sunday, my husband and I hauled it to the porch where I dusted it off before hauling it into my “gym.”

I was feeling really confidant. After all, I ride my real bike for 60-90 minutes and work out on cardio equipment at the gym for 40-60. What was 15-20 minutes on a stationary bike? Piece of cake, right?

Um…that would be the big NO.

My thighs were yodeling – I mean they were SCREAMING – by minute 15. Granted, I didn’t have it on low. I had it cranked pretty high. But still, my thighs were saying, “What the…? Remember what we told you back in 2001 when you tried this?” I lowered the resistance for the next four minutes, but cranked it up really high for the last minute just so I, not my thighs, could get in the last word.

That bike kicked my ass! That I could do two minutes when I was 300 pounds is amazing to me now and I wish I hadn’t given up. Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been 300 pounds in the first place, but we can’t live our lives looking back, now can we?

I have some “new friends” on order that I hope will shake up my body a little more, too. I love Perform Better. They have the best variety of exercise equipment I’ve seen on the Internet, and their prices on hand weights are very reasonable. It’s time to up the weights I use for the triceps kick-backs, but no retail outlet I’ve been to has 6-pound dumbbells. Perform Better does, so I ordered a pair yesterday. They have all those odd sizes. I’ll probably get the 7-pound weights next year when I’m ready to up the pounds again. I have to stay ahead of my batwings!

I also put a bid on eBay for an aerobics stepper, you know the kind with a platform and two risers that will take the step from 4 to 6 to 8 inches high? I don’t plan to do step aerobics (that kills my knees), but I want to use the platform for calf raises and for some low-impact lower body work. I’ll know tonight if I won the auction. If not, I’m sure there will be others listed.

So how have you all been? Have you made any new exercise “friends?” Tell us about them. What do you do to switch things up from time to time? You ARE switching things up once in awhile, right?

It’s good to be back! I’ll be in touch very soon.

Read More