Call for guest bloggers

It's hard to believe we're winding down another year. Didn't 2009 just start?

We're getting ready for an exciting 2010 here at Healthy Writer, and one of the things we bring you each week is a guest blog each Friday (except today). Are you a writer? Would you like to blog with us one Friday about your personal weight loss/healthy living journey? About some aspect of living a healthy life? If you or someone you know is interested, please have him or her contact me at trishmilburn AT yahoo DOT com to be considered. We love to hear what other writers have to say about the challenges and joys of the journey to healthier living.

And speaking of which, I've worked a tad of running into my treadmill routine. I was on the treadmill for 65 minutes today, and about 2 1/2 of those minutes were running (split up; a minute is about all I can do right now). I'm hoping to gradually work in more. I don't see myself running any marathons, but any amount of running is more than I've done for years. It isn't my thing, but I'm trying. Even when I was a teenager and thin and on the track team, I wasn't very good. I might hold the school record for slowest 800m. :)

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All Those Little Things Count!

‘Tis the Season of jammed schedules, overwhelming stress and cookie overload. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that people gain more weight during the months of November and December than they do the rest of the year combined. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and busy, and to skip workouts. Or in the rush from here to there, the busy shopping sprints and plethora of holiday parties, to make poor food choices.

So how do we avoid working our way to a Santa-esque silhouette? In keeping with the Twelve Days of Christmas, here are twelve ideas to keep you on track toward your healthy goals this holiday season.

1. Make your shopping trip a workout. Wear your pedometer. Park as far away from the store as possible. Use the stairs instead of the escalator. Bicep curl those shopping bags. Power walk from store to store.

2. Crank up the holiday tunes and dance. Sing loudly and move your bootie while you decorate, wrap gifts, bake and clean house. The music will pump you up, the movement will help energize you while giving you a little bit of a workout.

3. Make a one-a-day rule for holiday treats. Instead of denying yourself the seasonal goodies you love, allow yourself one treat a day. That means one cookie. One piece of fudge. One small piece of fruitcake. One treat will translate to roughly 100 calories – but for smarter tracking, calculate it before you eat. And don’t forget to write it in your food journal.

4. Speaking of, keep that journal up this season. Having to honestly track and write down everything you eat –before you eat it. That habit will force you to take a brief pause, usually enough to let you decide if the food is really worth the calories.

5. Eat a salad or light soup before you hit the holiday party. If you’ve already filled up with healthy veggies or soup, you won’t be as tempted to scarf down at the buffet.

6. Drink carefully. Most alcohol packs a caloric wallop, as well as lowering your inhibitions. And sometimes there is only one inhibition standing between you and that spinach dip, so losing it is bad news. If you do drink, alternate a lower calorie choice like a glass of wine between every two or three glasses of waters.

7. Bake goodies. Yes, I know, being surrounded by all that tempting goodness can be scary. But my experience is that after spending a day slaving over it, you’re so sick of even the smell of fudge, divinity, caramels and cookies that you won’t be tempted to even taste a bite (your mileage on this may vary, so use this tip with caution).

8. Take time to de-stress. Even if it’s only fifteen minutes stolen between commitments, allow yourself to totally relax. Meditate, power nap, read a chapter in your latest romance novel.

9. Add pampering yourself to your holiday to-do list. Get a massage, a facial, a pedicure (be sure to check out the cute holiday nail art, too!).

10. Create a budget and stick to it. Both for shopping, and for calories.

11. Find non-food ways to celebrate. Go caroling, walk the neighborhood and admire the decorations, ice skate. Dive into that snowball fight with the kids, go sledding, experiment with different ways to enjoy the wonder and magic of the season.

12. Cut yourself some slack. We’re often stuck on the Super Woman track. We expect ourselves to write, decorate, bake, shop, diet, exercise, party and be the perfect holiday hostess, wife and mother. If you give yourself permission to only do half of your list this year, you’ll be so much more relaxed and quite likely find yourself even more productive.

How about you? Do you have any tips or ideas to help keep the pounds off, the smiles bright and the joy of the season front and center?

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Biggest Loser, Week 12

We've made it to the final week of the show before next week's finale. It wasn't unexpected that we got a lot of retrospective in this episode, showing just how far the contestants have come. Seeing how unhappy they were at the beginning, I'll admit, caused me to choke up. We got to see their homecomings, including Danny asking his wife to renew their wedding vows and Liz telling her husband that they need to work on their marriage but that she wants it to work, for them to have a second chance like The Biggest Loser has given her a second chance.

The final four got surprise visits at home from Jillian and Bob, and they talked with the trainers about how hard it is to maintain a workout regimen in real life, when working out isn't their only "job." Rudy, especially, seemed to be struggling with this since he works really long days and wants to spend time with his wife and daughters.

Curtis Stone also showed up at Danny's house to give his family a healthy cooking lesson, and I have to say those baked potatoes he made looked fabulous. I'm going to have to give those a try. And bonus -- they were less than 290 calories a piece versus 850 calories for a typical loaded baked potato.

The shock of the night for the contestants was when they heard they were going to be running a marathon, an event that marathon runners train for well in advance. When marathon day came, Rudy continued to be a machine and ran the entire 26.2 miles in 5 hours, 12 minutes and 41 seconds, achieving the goal he'd set for himself -- run the entire thing and in less than 5 1/2 hours. Amanda came in second 16 minutes later. Danny and Liz, probably the closest team during this season, stuck together throughout the race and crossed the finish line about an hour and a half after Amanda. It was inspiring to see everyone keep going, determined to finish, despite their intense pain.

Then it was time for the weigh-in, time to see how the contestants had done at home over the past 60 days. Danny won the weigh-in by clocking in a huge 59-pound loss, bringing him to 229 pounds, down from his starting weight of 430. Next was Rudy with a 43-pound loss, bringing him to 253. Amanda and Liz both lost 16 pounds, putting them below the yellow line and in the position of asking America for votes to make them the third person vying for the title of The Biggest Loser. I just placed my vote, and I urge you to do the same at www.nbc.com.

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Starting Over, Feeling Good

Struggle is a part of most things we do to improve ourselves and our lives, and that's definitely been true for me the past couple of weeks with my weight-loss/healthy living efforts. As I have before and may have to again, I'm in a bit of a starting over spot. For the past two weeks, I've allowed myself to get away from tracking my calories and exercising/eating like I should. I have all manner of excuses (board meeting, stress in various areas, travel, Thanksgiving), but I hate that I let those things derail me. But I'm not going to beat myself up over it because that won't do me any good either. So, beginning today (Monday), I'm looking ahead and rededicating myself to this effort again. And I'm going to do it by sharing my actual weight with you. When I stepped on the scales this morning, I weighed in at 164.8 pounds. Tonight, I weighed a little more, as was to be expected since we weigh the least in the morning, but I used a new scale to check my BMI, which registered at 27 -- in the overweight range. I need to shave 3 points off that BMI to get back below the overweight range, and my goal weight by my birthday at the end of May is 140. My more immediate goal is to hit 155 by the end of the year -- yep, 31 days from now. So, how am I going to do that?

1. 2 hours of exercise each day, no excuses -- I got that in today with 1 hour 10 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes of stretching/elastic band work/sit-ups, and 30 minutes house cleaning.

2. Keep track of my food intake, no excuses -- 1,483 calories consumed today; need to shave 200-300 calories off that in the days ahead.

3. Read something to inspire me each day -- Today, I read a few pages in the latest issue of Prevention.

4. Writing progress each day -- This will help me to not feel guilty about taking 2 hours out of each day to exercise if I am also putting in the hours necessary to make good progress on my writing projects. I feel good about today's progress because I finished the second chapter of a new proposal, then printed out and read the first two chapters I'd written (copy edited, made notes about characters/setting to refresh my memory, jotted down ideas about future scenes) since those two weeks of dismal health choices also included dismal writing progress.

5. Don't forget to reward myself for good behavior. Today, I still had enough time in amongst all the writing, editing, exercise and other tasks to watch two episodes of Gilmore Girls (just started season 6). Just call me one of Pavlov's dogs. :)

6. Cook a healthy dinner at least 5 nights a week. This will also help in my husband's weight-loss efforts, something that is extremely important to me. I'm off to The Biggest Loser Web site now to look up a recipe for tomorrow night's dinner.

I have to say that Day 1 of this renewed effort has left me feeling good, physically and emotionally. I just need to remember that feeling to keep going.

How are the rest of you faring in your journey? Share your recent ups and downs. Anyone interested in joining me in my extra efforts this month. Let's see how many pounds the Healthy Writer community can lose in December! Seriously, I challenge yourself to weigh yourself today, post that number somewhere you'll see it every day (above your computer, on the refrigerator door) to inspire you to get in that exercise and make healthy food choices. Keep track of how much you lose this month, and report back on Dec. 31.

Here's to a great December!

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What Are You Working Towards?

Even though I now have lost 30 or so pounds, I still hate the scale. The number it shows almost always disappoints me, and it’s not enough of a reward to keep going. I’ve worked on finding other ways to measure my progress and establish short-term goals to work towards. One of my favorites is clothing.

The outfit you see to the left is one that I worked towards fitting into the past 11 months. I got the size 12, Ann Taylor, A-line skirt in New York City during a visit to my sister a couple years ago, and I always thought it would look very sharp paired with a red shirt. It was one of my fantasy outfits I dreamed of wearing when I finally got thin.

When I first tried on this skirt, I was able to fasten only the top button if I sucked it in, and the gapping sides formed a large triangle. Whenever I reached a particular milestone in my journey to becoming a healthy writer this year, I’d try on this skirt and watch that triangle get smaller and smaller until I was finally able to close all the buttons. Once there were no gaps between the buttons and the skirt was no longer too tight to wear in public, I proudly and very happily donned this outfit and wore it to work Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009. I even was able to top the outfit with a very stylish, size 12, Ann Taylor Loft, short, winter coat. I made a colleague take my picture so I could document this accomplishment.

I’ve used other pieces of clothing, such as the outfit pictured to the right, as ways to measure my progress this year as well. I discovered that once I started to fit into more and more pieces in a particular size, I needed to start using a size smaller pair of pants, skirt, dress or top to measure my overall progress. I still have plenty of size 12s that I don’t fit into: a lovely Ann Taylor pencil skirt suit, 3 Tahari pants suits, and several other pants, but now that I can wear several size 12 outfits, I need to have some size 10s to work towards.

I did not own any size 10 clothing until mid-October. It’s been a very long time since I could fit into any, and I did not keep my thin college clothes. I did have some clothing I’d bought massively on sale through the years to thin into, but I never dared to dream I’d get back into a 10. Contrary to the fact that I am admitting to how many pieces of clothing I’ve bought when they were still too small to wear, I really do have a frugal streak. I only ever bought clothes one or two sizes smaller than I currently was and only when it was really, really on sale. (Yes, the frugal Yankee in me does feel a little guilty about this.)

In the past month, I have bought three size 10 pieces of clothing: a size 10 Evan-Picone purple dress (very Michelle Obama), a medium (sizes 8/10) Ann Taylor green silk shirt dress, and a size ten Ann Taylor Loft pair of corduroys. All three pieces were bought massively on sale. The two dresses were in the 30s and the pants were $22.04. I even tried the clothing in a size that currently fit to make sure they would be flattering when I reached a size 10. For less than $90, I have great encouragement to keep going and something to measure my progress against. I think it’s worth it.

What are you working towards? Have you found ways to measure your progress other than the scale? What helps you succeed on your journey to becoming a healthy writer?

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Recovery

If you all are like me, you're recovering from the big meals of the past couple of days. We still have one more family gathering today, and then it'll be back to eating more sensibly. I haven't tracked my calories over the holiday, choosing instead to start anew tomorrow when I'm home. I also got my new pedometer, so I can start tracking my step counts again. I really want to challenge myself to see how much I can lose before Christmas. To be half way to my goal, I need to lose another 10 pounds by the end of the year. I think if I really dedicate myself to keeping the daily calorie intake to 1,200 and exercising a couple hours a day, I can do it. It will be a huge milestone, and I'll be at a weight I haven't seen for awhile. When I get to the 20-pounds-lost mark, I plan to do some before and after photos of myself here as inspiration to keep going.

This blog will also return to normal on Monday, once everyone is back home from visiting family and indulging a bit in foods we normally eschew. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and here's to all of us having a great rest of the year of healthy living and weight loss.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Here in the U.S., today is notoriously the biggest eating day of the year. A day of excess. Overeating, over drinking, over doing. How to keep from being an over-doer today? Here are 3 tips to stay on top of Thanksgiving overload...

1) Don't deprive yourself. Denying yourself the once-a-year treat of Aunt Mabel's sweet potato casserole will only create frustration and quite likely lead to a third piece of pie later to make up for it. Instead, give yourself permission to taste just a small amount of all your favorite foods.

2) Eat slowly. Savor each taste and put your fork down between bites. Give yourself plenty of time to enjoy the meal, which took many hours of love and energy to prepare. Eating slowly will let you hear your body's full signal, keeping you from over eating.

3) Get up and move. After dinner, help with the dishes. Get some activity in. Then gather up the kids and relatives and go for an autumn afternoon walk. The exercise will not only help you digest your food, but it'll work off a few of calories so you won't feel guilty when you have a tiny slice of your favorite pie.

But most of all, give yourself this day to focus on all the wonderful things you are thankful for -and take the time to express that gratitude. A hug, a smile, a happy word will feel great, and these blessings will last even longer than that extra helping of pie and whipped cream!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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