I tried to log in this morning, but I forgot my own URL. I had to stop and think about it for about 30 seconds. BAD SIGN.
I just really wanted to share this:
[via]
Updates coming soon.
Jan 132011
Apr 272010
After a night of reflecting, I think that my biggest problem with me and healthy foods is that “healthy food” is constantly associated with “losing weight“. Since I don’t want to lose weight, I have never thought I needed to know what “healthy” was. But, as I discussed in my last post, I have changed my outlook on that. Figuring out how to be healthy is my newest hobby.
All of my mom scolding me regarding any familiarity I had with fats and dieting has really taken a toll on me. I don’t believe in dieting (in the ‘carefully select what you eat’ sense). I don’t believe in counting calories. That’s why I am trying to take over Dan’s dieting – I don’t think he needs to force himself to eat disgusting, tasteless foods to lose weight. He has finally allowed me to have my way, but he is doing so very distrustfully. I think he’s secretly counting calories and putting my food in the garbage and replacing it what the nasty rice/chicken/frozen vegetable/weird sauce mixture he makes in bulk every week for lunch.
For some reason, nobody around me seems to understand my point of view. “But I need to make sure I don’t get too many points on weight watchers!” they claim. “I CANNOT EAT THAT COOKIE BECAUSE IT GOES STRAIGHT TO MY HIPS!” And then I return with “STOP YELLING AT ME” while crumbs from the 2 cookies I’m eating simultaneously are spewing out of my mouth. “GOD I LOVE COOKIES!”
So imagine my excitement when I was greeted this afternoon with an article on the MSN.com homepage – 8 food Secrets of Skinny People
Typically I click on articles that supposedly tell people about my habits and my feelings to see how inaccurate they are. Those “What she’s really thinking” articles NEVER get me right, and don’t even get me started on any article that tries to tell men “What She Pretends to Hate, but Really Loves”. But this skinny people article… it really got me right. And at 5’6″ and 128 lbs, I think I can say that I am one of the people that this article represents.
8 Food Secrets of Skinny People really articulated all of the food habits I have tried so very hard to explain to Dan. These are all things that I practice (except the fruit thing… I’m working on it). And if you, dear readers, are struggling with weight as well… I would recommend the same to you.
The 8 secrets?
- They choose satisfied over stuffed
- They realize hunger isn’t an emergency
- They don’t use food to cure the blues
- They eat more fruit
- They’re creatures of habit
- They have a self-control gene
- They’re movers and shakers
- They sleep — well
To me, life is too short to deny yourself of anything tasty. Notice that none of the secrets say anything that could be perceived as “avoid anything deep fried”.
I have supplied the link to the 8 Food Secrets of Skinny People article several times so that you can read the details of it for yourself since I only summarized. Give it a read!
Apr 262010
I grew up in a home that didn’t really emphasize nutrition. Aside from telling me to eat a vegetable with my dinner every night (usually consisting of canned corn or canned green beans), my parents were really hands off. Eating brownies for breakfast wasn’t unheard of. My childhood was every little kids dream. Ration halloween candy? Uhh.. try… Kids, go ahead and eat it for dinner.
So imagine the day that I learned about calories in my high school health class. And imagine my mother’s reaction when I came home and tried to talk about it with her. “HEAD HEAD, THAT’S STUPID. JUST DONT EAT TOO MUCH AND YOU DON’T GET FAT!” End discussion. Never to be brought up again. And from that day on, I thought of health class as a waste of my time.
Flash forward to today – I still know nothing about nutrition. Dietary Fiber? Magnesium? Gamma-linolenic Acid? If someone were to present me with some magical food with all of those things, I’d throw it on the floor and accuse them of poisoning me. Then I would run next door and order a cheeseburger and some fries. Extra oil please.
My ignorance regarding all things healthy really puts Dan in an unfortunate position. He wants to lose weight, but my diet won’t let him. I eat anything and everything — I have no regard for things that are healthy or good for you. “How about fried chicken tonight, pizza tomorrow, and maybe on Friday we’ll just eat an entire cake.” If he decides he doesn’t want to eat with me, I get all whiney because food doesn’t taste as good if I’m eating it alone. Isn’t eating regarded as a social activity on most occassions? And then I bat my eyelashes and he does my bidding (BWAH HA HA HA).
So a few days ago, Dan pleaded with me. He wants to be healthy and lose weight. He suggested buying his own groceries, but I had a better idea. How about we just stop eating out and learn to cook for ourselves every day. That in itself will save him tons of calories PLUS we won’t be wasting a miraculous amount of food by throwing away who-knows-how-many leftovers that we, as individuals, will not finish. After we get in the groove of cooking for ourselves every day, we can reevaluate our diets from there and get a better handle on our shopping list. He agreed.
So we decided to check out the food co-op – a grocery store with a lot of emphasis on local, organic products. I had suggested that we buy only a few fruits, milk, and beef there, but he wanted to do all of our grocery shopping there because it was convenient. Well… half a cart full and $90 later… our fridge looks something like this:
And no, not ALL of those things were bought at the co-op. I’m not sure that they make an organic version of Smirnoff Ice.
I like the idea of shopping organic, but seems so expensive at first glance. Our bill could have easily been around $50 had we gone to a typical grocery store with typical items and with typical prices. BUT… while I’d love to whine and bitch about the $90… I’m not sure that we got the raw end of the deal. We will easily save $40 on a single night by eating in and not going to the Indian restaurant nearby that we frequent almost weekly. And having good, quality food really inspires me to eat at home. I’m actually excited about it!
I had heard that every piece of plastic ever produced still exists today. That statement in itself pushed me to want to recycle. Recycling pushes me to wish to be more “natural”. Natural = natural food. I think you’re starting to understand my thinking patterns now. That’s good. Next time, when I’m talking about the plant on my desk and then, all of a sudden, I’m somehow on the topic of that time my step dad ran over a snapping turtle with his van, got out and beat it to death with a stick, and then took it home for us to eat turtle stew you’ll understand how I got there. Buuut… yeah… probably not.
Feb 112010
Right now I am stuck in that “post-graduation” but “pre-real job” limbo. You know, the one where you’re no longer qualified to be on your parents’ health insurance, but you don’t have a job yet to provide you of your own. That period of your life where, if you were to get some kind of life-threatening disease or in some terrifying accident, you’d basically be out of luck. Where you’ve got so many student loans and credit card bills that hospital bills will pretty much destroy your life and make your current debt situation more hopeless than it appears to be right now.
I was on my parents insurance. They had asked for proof that I was a student prior to my graduation date, so I just assumed I was a-okay. WRONG. I got the notice that I was booted off of the policy today. After I went to the doctor. And after I dropped off my prescriptions at Walgreens to be filled. And now said prescriptions are just sitting in Walgreens because they cost over $300 to break out of there. $300 I’m not really in the mood to pay. $300 my non-existant insurance will not be… insurance-ing.
And so this evening and a little throughout the afternoon, I have been looking through websites trying to figure out what kind of stellar health coverage I can afford. Some health plans start around $80 a month. Those deductibles are around $10000. The ones that are around $100 to $120 a month have deductibles around $2000 – $3000. They don’t really offer much as far as benefits, though. It’s more, “Go to the doctor when you need to, but have fun paying all $3000 before we even think about kicking in to help you. Sucker”.
I did just find a few with Medica that do offer what appear to be reasonable, and obviously the more I pay the more I get. I was actually looking to find their “accupuncture and massage” plan, but I can’t find it. I wonder how much that would run me, because I would be there every day.
Although I do have a job, health coverage is not offered, so I’m on my own until another job comes along. And while I considered just going insurance-less, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. I appreciate going to the dermatoligist for skin problems and having the freedom to visit the dentist once in awhile for nice, clean teeth. I don’t really want to let those things go.
Health insurance… a luxury that not everybody has.
