the fine line between inspired and perspired

Lately i have been looking for inspiration. Aha, i thought, I need to find a good magazine to keep me motivated, give me new diet and exercise ideas, keep me from getting all my fitness tips from episodes of the biggest loser.

So i've looked at a couple (oh my but how many fitness magazines are in circulation right now?!) and finally bought a 'self' mag to start the ball rolling. It was pretty good at the start -- Live your dream life, Secrets to younger skin -- but the more i read the more guilty i felt. An article on healthy hair had me feeling doomed to brittle, thinning hair for the rest of my life - unless i throw away my blow dryer and straightener and buy all sorts of fancy (expensive) hair balms. An article on butt exercises had me feeling like i might need to start saving up now for some derriere plastic surgery to lift the inevitable droop. A celebrity interview had me thinking I might actually be a bad person for eating carbs, sugar, and not attempting a cleanse of some sort at least twice a year.

And maybe I am a bad person for all of the above. I try hard to exercise and eat right - but not nearly hard enough. And reading in a magazine all of the ways i could be trying harder is not motivating, its exhausting. There are too many things i don't know, too many variables to consider in any attempt at fitness. Is all of my exercise pointless if i'm not eating the right combo of protein/carbs directly before/after? Will my butt eventually reach the backs of my knees if i don't perform 10 leg lunges a day? And, most defeating of all, is my personal goal of becoming 'someone who runs' doing more harm than good as it impacts my knees, my feet, and my hips?

At the end of the day i have a lot of healthy confusion. I don't know the science so well as i should and i'm sure this keeps me from my optimum fitness in a profound way. And yet I feel like I can't really do all that much more. So what is this motivation i'm looking for? Maybe its just stories from friends and families of positive things that are working for them, with the full knowledge that we all have very different physiologies. Maybe its just adopting a personal mantra involving a sentence or two about exercising well and avoiding mnm's generally. Or even just embracing where i am now and how far i've come. And when i find a magazine with just the right balance of all these things and more, i'll definitely be the first one in line for a lifetime subscription.
~middle sister

Epiphany in a Grocery Cart

I had an epiphany.

Waiting in line at trader joes (and there's always a line at trader joes) to purchase my groceries for the week, when it hit me. Maybe it was the bright lights, the neon orange cart, or the fact that I was going to fall asleep waiting to check out, that my cart started to look like a veritable adults shopping cart. What the...?! Someone had switched carts on me! Where's the old lady that switched out all my mac and cheese for bell peppers?! My licorice sticks for frozen fruit? Where's that tortuous "finish your greens" woman who chops vegetables for fun? She stole MY CART! OH... THE TRAGEDY, THE PAIN, THE... Oh wait... is that a chocolate hazelnut bar? Phew! It is my cart! BLESSED LORD, when did I become a "eat your tomatoes" girl with a hankering for dark chocolate bars?

And it was in this moment I realized how much my eating habits had changed. I adopted a more primal eating lifestyle in October '09 as part of a yoga bootcamp. (Will discuss in more detail in next blog). As someone who's favorite food was Saltine crackers and Mac & Cheese this was a challenge. But yesterday at Trader Joes, I realized that the hard work (aka eating things that have natural color) had become effortless.

And I gotta tell ya... It feels GOOD. So to all you out there working hard, changing your eating habits, working out, and getting healthy... KEEP IT UP. It took 4 months for my epiphany, and it is SO SWEET.

PS. my cart is nothing compared to these folks groceries - my heroes.

Happy Tuesday! Em (the little sister)

I am so sore!

This week it was time to shake up the routine a bit. My usual alternation of biking, weight-lifting, ellipticalling, and occasional running was broken up by a pilates class tuesday and a boot camp class on thursday. And wow but these classes kicked my butt! Its a funny thing exercise... the reward for success (short-term at least) is only aches and pains.

My goal all these years has never specifically been to lose weight; my goals have always been measured in clothing sizes rather than numbers on a scale. More generally i've just always been committed to 'being healthier every day'. And its a good thing, because while i have gotten smaller, i have gotten healthier, and i have lost some weight - the weight has not been very compelling in the short term. Sure its nice to say, i have lost x amount of weight in the last dozen or so years, but less exciting is to think back one year ago, one month ago, or even one week ago and measure my success by numbers gained or lost.

To any and all out there looking for their own health-related goals i would say this - find out what you really want and go for it. But beware marking your journey by something as potentially disappointing as your weight. In my opinion the real success is to be happy, healthy, and wise - and bit more of all of these each day of your life. And for me this includes being sore, trying new things, and getting my butt kicked into shape by a slightly psychotic boot camp instructor every once in a while. Find your bliss.
~middle sister

My money's worth?

Another side of the "why is it so expensive to be skinny?" story is the "I paid for it… I should get my money's worth and eat it." This is probably just a corollary to the "clean plate club" which was thrust upon us growing up: "Think about the starving children in…" That would be Haiti this year, but could be Africa or India or even the Appalachian Mountains.

Ah, but I live in Tennessee, in the United States of America. The food I leave on my plate isn't going to any of those places. Instead it will either make a visit to my refrigerator from whence it will either be eaten or be tossed in a few days when the mold begins to grow, or it will go down the disposal. The only solution is if that food never gets on my plate in the first place.

Consider my dilemma this week when faced with two days of eating out. Lunch with the ladies was three small prime rib sandwiches (think mini-burgers), a lovely salad and I opted for broccoli instead of fries. It filled me up. Less than five hours later, the cheap dinner entrée (we were being treated by friends) was a pasta dish with shrimp. Yes, I should have asked for a container and brought half of each meal home. That is the lesson I will learn from my stomach's discomfort that day. Food on my plate went in my body!

Actually, watching our diet may mean paying a bit more for quality food, but ultimately, we should actually be helping out our budget by not buying processed and quick foods. The real issue is being prepared. Anything that is "last minute," whether it's a snack on the run or a dinner to take home, is going to be more expensive. Here's a blog that discusses the perceived expense issue: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/04/06/is_healthy_food_too_expensive.php. I now carry a ¼ cup of roasted (unsalted) almonds in my purse.

My update: success on several levels. I have done a cardio workout four times this week and reduced my food intake. It looks like I may have lost a couple of pounds. Lab work from my doctor visit shows that I am low in vitamin D. That's a twist. We'll see what information we get on that in February. 'Til next time, keep up the good work, girls!

Delish Chicken Recipe- Love it for the Superbowl!

Found this recipe in the most recent Good Housekeeping magazine (thanks again marmy for the subscription!). If you know me, you know that I am NOT a cook. Not in any way. Cooking for me is making a bag of popcorn or microwaving soup. So hear my sincerity when I say, this recipe is EASY. Found all the ingredients at safeway in less than 10 minutes and cost me about about $15(other than the chicken, which I already had). So, without further delay the most DELISH chicken wing (without the wings) recipe to DEVOUR hot and fresh from the oven. (Oh and did I mention it's only 230 cal/serving) HAPPY COOKING!! - Em :)

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound(s) chicken-breast tenders, each cut crosswise in half, then lengthwise in half (I used chicken breast and just sliced it into tender like pieces)

1/4 teaspoon(s) ground red pepper (cayenne)

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoon(s) cayenne pepper sauce

1 tablespoon(s) water

1 tablespoon(s) margarine or butter, melted

1/3 cup(s) reduced-fat sour cream

1/4 cup(s) (1 ounce) crumbled blue cheese

2 tablespoon(s) light mayonnaise

2 tablespoon(s) fat-free (skim) milk

1/4 teaspoon(s) Worcestershire sauce

Carrot and celery sticks for serving (I added some red and yellow peppers too!)

DIRECTIONS:
Place oven rack 6 inches from source of heat; preheat broiler. (There is a broil setting on the oven...I checked :))
Spray 15 1/2" by 10 1/2" jelly-roll pan with nonstick cooking spray. Toss chicken with ground red pepper and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Place on prepared pan and broil 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, in microwave-safe small bowl, microwave cayenne pepper sauce, water, and margarine on High 10 seconds. Add to chicken in pan and stir to coat. Broil 2 minutes longer or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

While chicken is cooking, prepare blue cheese dip: In small bowl, combine sour cream, blue cheese, mayonnaise, milk, and Worcestershire sauce.
Serve chicken with carrot and celery sticks and blue cheese dip.

Here is the link to the recipe for more info: http://preview.tinyurl.com/yceuj6c

Marmie reports in

Oh, no! She posted it on Facebook! My secret will be out! I'm trying to get fit…. Again. Okay, my doctor says I must do it. And the girls have been on me for nearly a year. Do I care enough to feel hungry once in awhile? Am I willing to feel the pain, literally, as I make my body learn to do sit-ups again? Today, the answer is 'yes!' I walked (with Becca) to the gym and did thirty minutes on the cycle, plus a turn on the fancy abdominal machine and a few arm lifts with some 4-lb. weights. I've been hungry all day, but am reminded that there are people in Haiti who eat one meal a day of rice and beans, and even that is iffy right now. So, it's the beginning of a journey to health for me. Now, I'm accountable to you… and you…. and you….

Why is it so expensive to be skinny?

So what's the deal? I'm starting to believe that there is a massive fat conspiracy in the US. It goes something like this... $1.49 for a yellow pepper or $.99 for a McDonald's cheeseburger. $29 a month for unlimited tv or $69 a month gym membership.

What brought this to my attention (again...)? Yesterday, while picking up an air filter at my local Ace store, it hit me, I was STARVING and needed a snack. What were my options? Soda, so-called energy drinks, the $.59 cent candy at the check out, taco bell across the street, or god forbid the dairy queen next door. For those of you wondering, I got the $.59 cent cherry candies... it resembled a fruit if nothing else.

So why is it that the only "cheap" "fast food" "healthy" restaurant around is a smoothie company so heavily laden with fructose and carbs that they can't bring themselves out of a sugar induced coma? And don't get me started on the cost of fitness! Yoga, gym membership and dance run me over $200 a month... A MONTH! And swimming this summer?! Not if I want to pay my mortgage.

So what are we supposed to do about it?

In California, they've been talking about putting a tax on sugary treats and sodas just like the tax on cigarettes. Hm... did taxing cigarettes stop smokers? Let's think about this one more another time.

Another idea... In the news today, two local non profits recieved a hefty amount of federal grant money to reduce obesity in children in CA by 2015. One of the major issues they are looking into is bring a grocery store into their town to provide fresh food options instead of a trip to see Little Debbie at the corner store. I have to say, although I generally disapprove of my tax dollars being spent on non profit endeavors, this seems to be a last good resort to begin restoring health in our community.

What do you think? How do we make healthy food options more affordable and more prevalent? How do we make fitness more affordable?

Happy Monday

- the little sister- EM

Middle sister reporting. :) I really like this idea, because i think so often woment feel like its them against the world when it comes to their health and wellbeing. Even working out with friends its like, oh is she in better shape than me? do i look like an idiot attempting this yoga stretch? how is it possible that there is not a hair out of place or a shortness of breath in this friend running next to me?? So not fair. The same a bit with food - everyone has their own food demon.

My journey has been an unusual one, progressing from very unhealthy and out of shape for my entire youth (reaching the awesome weight of mid to high-200's by 18). Something clicked for me around then (it might have been meeting a woman who had been chubby as a youth but was at that point a lean, healthy 20-something) that it was time to engage in a healthy life. I knew that for me an all or nothing approach would never work (not a diet and discipline kind of girl) so i just started to make baby steps, knowing that if I worked at being healthier every day I could not fail.

And its worked in many regards! I am definitely the turtle in this race. About a dozen years later and i am about 50 pounds lighter - and 100 times healthier. Its a good thing, as martha would say.

So that's my very beginning, and right now is a very good place to start. Keep up the good work ladies.
xoxo

Hmmm Maybe

All right--biggest sister will right at least one blog. I just finished re-reading "Little Women," and I loved how the sisters did play acting and had clubs together. I guess this is kind of like that. SO, if it must start with diet and exercise...
I am well past my former active exercising life and most likely in the worst shape of my life after 3 children. But, I am ready to get back into the swing of things. If I can just find the time! Here is my plan to a healthier shape, stage 1:

So, my goal right now is to spend 30 mins a day on the treadmill; mostly walking, but with some running in between. I’m also hoping to get to the clubhouse (just 30 mins) for stairstepping and weights 1 or 2x a week for crosstraining. Looking forward to the 5K on Memorial Day!!!

Don't ask me about diet. I have never followed one, and have no plans to in the immediate future.

Smile big littlest sis--this may be the one and only one blog from me.

The first post!

The first email amongst the girls suggesting we blog... and yes, they are in total fragments. Why? I guess because that's how I think. So... as the amazing Julie Andrews would say, "Let's start at the very beginning..." Hope you think this is a very good place to start.

I think that we should have a blog.

This blog should be about you, me, sister and mom.

Initially, I thought we should have it and talk about fitness, we are all in different places, different challenges, different successes and i think it could be really motivating- at least to ourselves.

But I could see it being motivating to others too.

There is hardly anything out there for people like me. There is nothing out there for people like mom. There's a lot out there for people like sister, but it's usually by A-personality types (scary!) and then there's you... I don't think there is anyone else out there like you.

So here are some ideas for names...

HUGS!