Free Foods

I am a huge fan of freebies.  I subscribe to a blog written by a local woman who posts great deals in the Sacramento area and online.  She often includes free stuff.  I just signed up to get Kashi cereal bars, wrinkle-fighting eye cream, and Glade air fresheners, all for free.  It has me going to check the mail a lot more often.

I have heard of some foods as being freebies.  Free foods are foods that have a high enough fiber count and low enough caloric and fat count to make it virtually insignificant calories.    

My sister Jillian is big on these foods.  Jillian has lost 153 pounds, and part of her recipe for success is to never run out of free foods.  She says she makes at least two grocery store runs a week for fresh vegetables.  They are always on hand at her house.  When she exhausts her calorie intake at the end of a day, she pulls out the free foods.  “I have a limited amount of calories for each meal.  At the end of a meal if everyone else is still eating, I can nibble on free foods,” she says.

These free foods include some of the following:

Low-calorie fruits: apples, blackberries, cucumbers, grapefruit, melon, strawberries, and tomatoes.

Low-starchy vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, peppers, spinach, squash, and watercress.

Packaged foods: fat-free salad dressing, fat-free vinaigrette, popcorn, rice cakes, sugar-free Jell-O.

Worth a Thousand Words

My daughter Eden shows us all how to have fun and be healthy.

A Matter of Taste

Do you ever munch, and munch, and keep on munching when you are not even hungry? Many times we blame emotions or compulsive behavior on why we overeat. But there may be simple, logical reasons too. Sometimes it has little to do with emotion, and all to do with our physical reaction to food.

Our tastes buds are one of the biggest reasons we eat. Do you ever eat a salty, garlicky dinner, and spend the subsequent hour nibbling on more foods to get rid of that aftertaste? Sometimes a simple need to cleanse our palate gives us reason to overeat.

Then there’s the food-that’s-so-good-I-can’t-stop-eating-it. Lay's Sour Cream and Onion potato chips used to the have the slogan, “No one can eat just one”—and they were probably right. Foods that are temporarily addicting usually have salty and savory flavors. As soon as our taste buds get a sample, they crave more. A cleansing of the palate would be the solution here too.

See the two lists bellow. “Problem foods” are foods and flavors that may cause a person to overeat, based on after-taste or a temporary taste-bud craving. Note that not all these foods are bad foods—some of them are quite nutritious. “Solution foods” are foods and flavors that will help cleanse the palate, and to help stop the momentum of snacking.

PROBLEM FOODS	SOLUTION FOODS
Artificial sweeteners	Apple
Cheerios	Celery
Cheese	Cucumber
Chili peppers	Fruit sorbet
Chocolate	Grapefruit
Curry	Green pepper
Coffee	Gum
Garlic	Lemon
Milk	Lime
MSG	Lotus tea
Onions	Mint
Potato chips	Orange
Salad dressing	Parsley
Salty foods	Toothpaste
Soda pop	Water
Spicy foods

Double the Workout

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I went on a long bike ride along the American River Bike Trail. We strapped the two kids in the bike trailer, hoping they wouldn’t fight or get too bored. It’s not easy to find activities to push us physically when our kids are both toddlers, but this seemed to be working.

The trail was surprisingly beautiful. I didn’t expect much since it’s in the middle of the city, but the area is a nature reserve and with the trees it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We crossed under a freeway here and there, and watched a train go by—Eden loved it!—but it was mostly just us, nature, and a few cool bikers who zoomed past us in their skin-tight biker shorts.

We rode until we were satisfyingly tired and the kids were getting a little fussy. There was a picnic table off the road in the shade, and we pulled out our lunch. After eating and trying without success to catch the squirrel that came to visit, the kids piled back into the trailer and off we went.

It was then that I realized that we would have to bike the entire distance back to the car. It’s one thing to run on a circular track until you get tired; it’s another thing to get tired and realize you have to retrace your way back to the starting point. We were only half done! I felt every muscle in my legs and my rear end, believe me.

It actually wasn’t too bad though. I have now formed a new strategy: if you want to push yourself to go longer and harder in exercise, go on a trail instead of a track. It will force you to exercise longer. I would have stopped at the picnic table if this had been a track. Instead I got double the workout.

Keep Moving

My daughter Eden recently went to an amusement park called Fairytale Town. It was an enchanting place to explore, and she was fortunate enough to have her cousin Evan with her. Alone she would have wandered around in mild excitement at the attractions, like the moat-enclosed castle, the humongous shoe with a slide, live pigs, and pirate boat. But with Evan at her side, the two of them were literally screaming with anticipation for what was next. They ran up to each fascination, climbed, jumped, slid, and ran off to the next.

I was glad that the park had many attractions because it kept them enthralled for hours. Halfway through the adventure Eden abandoned her shoes. Apparently they were bothering her feet. It wasn’t until later at home that I saw the huge blisters on each foot. One was white and puffy, the other was raw and red.

As soon as Eden saw the sores she began to complain about the hurt. The complaining escalated until she was wailing on the couch and refusing to move. In her biggest whiny voice she proclaimed, “I can’t walk!” I refrained from rolling my eyes, having witnessed her run quite unaffectedly through the many attractions at the park.

I can’t be too hard on her because I have my moments when I nurse my wounds. It can be very easy to use this ache or that ailment to drop my active intentions. I lie on the couch sometimes, inwardly screaming, “I can’t walk!” I suppose I need a mom, rolling her eyes at my dramatics. Telling me that if I can manage to walk to the refrigerator, I can manage to walk a mile and back. Or perhaps I need an energetic cousin to inspire me to run with excitement for hours.

Eden eventually got off the couch, and within a minute or two she forgot about her owies. Even if I don’t have a coach cheering or jeering—or whatever I may need at the moment—I still can be my own coach. When I get up and start moving I usually forget the reasons I had to stay on the couch within a minute or two.

A Break

I was care-free and independent last weekend. For the first time since my first child was born, I left my kids for more than a couple of hours. I flew 2000 miles away to St. Louis, Missouri, to visit with my parents and sisters.

I didn’t know what to expect when I left. My one-year-old Lance may be outgoing, but if someone other than mommy or daddy picks him up he cries his little heart out. My daughter is doing better with other adults, but she has been struggling with some other 3-year-old issues such as toilet training.

When this opportunity came to join my sisters in a trip without kids, I knew it was exactly what I wanted—even needed. Unfortunately, my husband discovered he was needed at work, and it didn’t look like it would work out. My reaction to the disappointment surprised even me: I felt crushed! Somehow I needed this trip even more than I had realized.

The answer came from Grandma, my husband’s mom. She generously rearranged her schedule to watch the kids so that I could go. (Hurray for Grandma!) All I had to do was have a good time, and not worry too much about the kids.

It was easy to relax and enjoy myself because every time I called them, the kids were happy and content. They were having such a good time, in fact, that I began to wonder if they missed me at all! But it really was a blessing, and I was able to get the much needed break.

I confess that I did not eat the best. But I am back home, back on track, and feeling oh-so-refreshed. My healthy goals are easier to shoot for than ever. Sometimes a time away is just what we need to continue the sometimes laborious path of being successful.

Lost on the Mountain, Part Five

We just lay there a few moments, too weary and cold to move. Slowly I became aware of my surroundings, the scratchy rock beneath my back, the tuft of wild grass at my feet. We were perhaps three-fourths the way to the summit.

I looked down from where we had climbed and noticed how much closer everything looked than it actually was. The trees below us hardly seemed any great distance away, but we had just expended nearly all our strength to make it from there to here.

As we gazed around, unexpectedly we saw it. Running off the ledge was a rough path. I sat up. I was having a hard time thinking clearly, and suddenly I wasn’t sure what to do. Should we take it? Would it evaporate as our previous trails had done?

In our muddled state, we did the best thing we knew to do. We stood and prayed. I simply asked God, should we take this trail? I felt a warm presence at my back, gently nudging me forward, and I knew that God had answered my prayer. I told Laura, and she said she had gotten the same answer.

Within a quarter mile of walking we spotted a small stack of rocks, balanced one on top of another. A quarter of a mile farther we saw another such formation. These were markers from some other hikers. Someone had been here. It was a real trail.

Then we saw the thing that will always make me marvel. It was a three-foot wooden post that was the only official marker on the main trail. The small trail we had found had brought us to that very spot. We had found the main trail at last!

The descent is a blur in my mind. I remember we veered off the trail a couple of times, but found our way back. After we were below the timberline we entered a mist of clouds, but the temperature was warmer. When we heard the river for the first time, I made a joke about it just being the wind in the trees. We finally saw the bridge, and then Laura’s car. We were safe.

Before leaving we took time to write in the hikers’ log the time that we returned, and added, “Trail hard to find on the way down” next to it. In the car was a delicious gallon of water and energy bars. We blasted the heater the entire 45 minutes to my house, arriving at 6:00 am.

That experience changed my life in many ways. Soon after that I moved to Portland and went back to school to get my master’s degree. I became much more active physically. My faith in God grew stronger. I pushed myself to try harder at everything.

I feel that my mountain experience taught me how to live deeper and fuller. Through it I had been forced to exceed my expectations, and my eyes were opened to vast more possibilities. I would never want to go through that night again, but I will forever say that my experience on the mountain blessed my life.