Twelve Pounds to Go Project

My Facebook status this a.m.:

"Twelve Pounds To Go Project: Started last week, managed to drop the 2 lbs I'd gained over the winter & now I'm poised to go for the final weight loss stretch. Goals: weigh 126 lbs, build a little more muscle & create an exercise routine I will actually maintain. Would love to have this accomplished by May 19, which would be one year since I began my fitness quest."

 I've gone back to my faithful food-measuring tools,  keeping a detailed food log, with calorie counting. 1200-1300 calories a day.  This works well for me.
Over the winter, I ate well, maintained my 'no refined sugar' status (well, except when my husband made brownies) and added some high-calorie things that have super nutritional value: peanut butter, avocado, pumpkin & sunflower seeds.  I think the 2 pound gain came from not measuring those so much!

Over the winter, I began working to improve my lung function & reduce asthma.  I am working with my doctor on this, have gotten off two medications, added a minimal amount of inhaled steroid.  In addition I'm also looking to nutrition to reduce inflammation and bronchospasm.  Making sure I get enough magnesium is a goal in that latter endeavor.  Exercise, visualization, stress reduction and learning to play the didgeridoo (!) round out my plan.


At first, when I got off the long-acting bronchodilator, I had to use my rescue inhaler much more often. But eventually that shifted.  I actually went nearly 4 weeks and only used it once!! Got a respiratory infection and had to use it a bit more, but as I've gotten better, I'm doing well again.


I'm sure that my weight loss & fitness project has helped in improving my breathing.


I have a pedometer and try for 6-8,000 steps daily.  10,000 is what is recommended, but I'm working up to that.  Walking a couple of miles in the early morning at the mall makes a huge difference in meeting the step goals!  Yesterday I had a total of 8, 400.
Will post on this weekly!

Fitness Tuesday Update on Wednesday - No Deprivation

Here's yesterday's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Despite enjoying Saturday's chicken cherry chili, the pumpkin whoopee pie, the fabulous Indian meal at Martha's (which ended with Lana's brownies AND chocolate ginger) I still lost .6 lbs for a grand total at the end of Week 21 of 32.4 lbs lost. BMI now out of the "overweight" and into the "normal" range.

Yes, still going without the safety net of the food journal AND eating socially at special occasions AND still losing a wee bit. This is good. This is practicing for maintaining my weight at whatever winds up being my final goal.

The special occasion was a daylong "Celebrate Fiber" event out at Sycamore Farm on the east side of Terre Haute. I taught an afternoon weaving workshop, but went out early to, well, celebrate fiber! That meant I was there for lunch.

In the evening, Martha, the owner of my local yarn shop, had a wonderful dinner at her home for the shop teachers - takeout from the local Indian restaurant (my favorite of world cuisines.) There were five different entrees, a mountain of rice, naan, and a variety of...condiments, I guess...a sort of relish, raita, etc.

So. I think I made some wise choices and decisions. At Sycamore Farm, I opted for the chili offering instead of the local beef hot dog with corn slaw...and did not eat quite all of the serving. At Martha's I had a little of everything and then just a little more, one tiny brownie and not two, and I did not eat all I wanted to eat. But I certainly ate well and ate enough.

After ending the meal with a cup of raspberry tea and enjoying the company and conversation, I felt nourished and comfortable and had not one pang of guilt.

Not even over that little pumpkin bread whoopee pie I had at the Farm. (I actually ate only half of it then, the other half as my late afternoon snack.)

Fitness Tuesday Update - Weight Loss Should Be Easy

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Still struggling with exercise issue. Still grateful for Tai Chi. Still eating without a net (food log.) Still losing steadily. At the end of Week 20, another 1.4 lbs released, for a grand total loss of 31.4 lbs.

That really says it all. I've done nothing this week to up the exercise. Nothing. Just going up and down the stairs a lot as I'm working more in my basement office/studio. And using my next pound down number as a sort of mantra. I think the latter really helps to keep me focused, to keep my eyes on the prize, and the food portions appropriately sized.

From the beginning of this project, I've had a strong positive sense that I will definitely reach my goal: change poor lifestyle habits, lose weight, get stronger. As I have gone into the Last Ten Pounds(Maybe) phase of the journey, I'm getting a lot of negative suggestion from well-meaning people about how difficult that last ten pounds can be, about what a struggle I have ahead of me.

I reject that. I reject that any of this journey to care for my Self by caring for my body is a difficult struggle. It is a joyful challenge.

And from the beginning, I've also had this strange recurring thought:
Losing weight should be as easy as gaining it. I'm not saying it is, but I think it should be and I think it can be. And it begins in the head, with thoughts and conscious attention to them.

The idea of losing weight as easy is heresy in the current religion of weight loss. I've never watched a Biggest Loser episode - but I have seen bits and pieces of that and other televised weight loss/fitness shows. The overriding image is of sweat, tears, faces contorted in pain and misery...and buff people yelling "encouragement."

Is it required that we suffer in order to feel that we've accomplished something?

My life won't begin when I reach my goal. My life is now. My life is the journey. And I'm going to cultivate an attitude of joy and excitement for the duration. No suffering. It feels good to eat well, to sleep enough. It feels good to move...it feels even better to move with ease.

I should sweat a little more, get my heart pounding a bit faster on a regular basis. And I will. But I don't need anyone yelling at me. I'll do it and it will feel good.

Fitness Tuesday Update on Wednesday -The Last 10

A day late....my Facebook status yesterday (which was my birthday):

Thank you all for the lovely happy birthday energy! One of my Fitness Project goals was to give myself the birthday present of being 20 lbs lighter - halfway to my ultimate weight loss goal. Well, the gift turned out to be even greater - I'm 3/4 of the way! At the end of Week 19, I've lost another 1.8 lbs, for a grand total of 30.4 lbs lost!


So, I'm heading into that infamous Last Ten Pounds to Goal.

Or is it? My plan was to get to a weight of 135 and assess how I feel and move, how my clothes fit and, yes, look. So it may not really be the Last Ten.

In any case, I've just gotten through a major project (a booth at the 3-day Arts Fest) and I have some temporal space in which to breathe and focus again on my fitness.

I am still not exercising or doing strength training as I want to be. As I should be. That is the toughest thing for me. How many times have I written this here?

I am much more consciously active now, and I do my Tai Chi regularly. But the minimum 30 minutes of cardio 3X plus strength training 3X a week is eluding me.

I've got all the Stuff to do a variety of workouts and exercising: my pedal exerciser, resistance bands, weights....I finally ordered a pump to firm up the 55cm exercise ball that's hanging about the living room. And a book from Amazon:

And yet....I... am... not...... exercising....

Obviously, I am slowly and steadily losing weight doing just what I'm doing. And I feel, well, fabulous! Better than I felt in my thirties!
But if my ultimate goal is fitness and moving into my crone years with health and strength and stamina....then I've got to get more exercise.

I've got to stop saying, "I hate to exercise to exercise."

I think I need to approach this the way I approached changing how I eat - a holistic approach from a variety of directions. I think I've got a good start on that, but one thing I haven't done is use guided imagery/visualization/hypnosis tapes. So that's where I'm going next!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Broken into 140s

Here's my Facebook status today:

Fitness Project Tuesday Update: Feeling especially fine the last few days. I have a constant sense of gratitude for that. At the end of Week 17, I've lost another 1 lb (have just moved into the 140s) for a grand total loss of 27.4 lbs.

So...I have not seen the 140s for a very, very long time.

About 10 years ago, when my panic disorder resurfaced in astounding strength, I weighed close to 180 lbs. I started walking as part of my program to deal with the panic attacks. (And that's hard, physical exertion effects are very much like panic attack symptoms.) While I hadn't originally intended to lose weight (though I certainly needed to do so), I found that I was indeed losing and then began to consciously work towards more weight loss by counting calories and walking more (I used to walk 4-5 miles a day in two sessions.) I lost about 30 pounds.

What I've just lost recently is pretty much the same weight I lost in 1999, most of which returned during the last 5 years as I dealt with all the family sorrows...and did not take good care of myself.

In any case, ten years ago I never pushed to lose more once I reached 150 or so. Occasionally, my weight dipped into the 140s, but it wasn't coming off as easily and I didn't make the effort to overcome the plateau I seemed to have arrived at.

So I'm determined that this time will be different. I'm certainly going to go for 140, probably for 135. Then it will be time for assessment - will I want to drop 10 more pounds to be at 125? I know that in my long-ago past, I felt wonderful at about 127. That was during the time I was losing the weight I'd gained after my second child. But I didn't stay there for long - back then I was generally underweight and, unless I was pregnant or just post-partum, it was a struggle to keep my weight up at 105.

But I sure wasn't really healthy then!

And right now, even with more weight to lose, I feel physically great. Stronger and more limber. Better than I remember feeling in my 30s - and it seems like an extraordinary blessing to me, to feel this way at just 2 years shy of 60.

Awesome Cronehood - now that's a good goal!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Changes

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: I can't believe I'm actually still doing this, that I haven't missed a week and that I'm starting Week 16. I believe it's because I completed NaPoWriMo, writing a poem a day for a month. It set me up for success! This week's stats: 1 lb lost for a grand total loss of 25.8 lbs.

An odd thing has been happening - my appearance is (to me at least) so dramatically altered that it's a bit disconcerting, even a bit frightening. Sounds weird, doesn't it?

I lie in bed at night and when I fold my hands across my stomach...it's not the stomach I've had for years. I move and it's not the way I've moved for years. The physical sensations, the way I occupy space in the world, in my clothes....all different.

Visually, I look in the mirror and see...not quite a stranger, but it's not quite the face I've been seeing for years, nor is it quite my young thinner face. It's not my mother's face...it's a bit like her mother's face, though.

And then this makes me think of my late son Patrick - 16 months before he died, he was in a terrible wreck with serious facial fractures. The surgeons did a fantastic job of putting together the jigsaw puzzle of his facial bones - only a tiny scar near one eye, and he still looked handsome. But his face...was different. Not until he was able to wear his contacts again did he really look in a mirror, weeks after the accident. He said, "I look different." And that was all he ever said to me about it.

If I'm having such an odd time with the changes in my face and body, even though it's on purpose and I know I'm moving towards better health, I can't help but think about Patrick at 18 and how difficult that must have been for him to just wake up one day to his new face. He felt like he couldn't complain because he survived, because the accident was entirely his fault and he was driving impaired. And he continued to drink and use drugs until he overdosed.

I know it's all done and past, but still I often wonder if he had been able to talk about his face and the trauma, had been able to acknowledge and grieve that loss instead of self-medicate....
if...if...if...

Maybe I'm thinking about this too because I'm in the thick of planning for the annual workshop held partly in Patrick's memory: Creating a Path Through Loss / The Arts as Healing Tools. Maybe that's why I do this every year, and why I'm working with the local integrative health center on programs that focus on the healing power of expressive art.

I didn't expect this entry to move to these places. It feels melancholy here. But I am at a melancholy stage in this weight release/fat reduction journey. Most of my favorite clothes no longer fit me. Even my underwear....eeek...it used to fit snugly around my 8-inches bigger waist. Now, well, as my daughter says, I'm wearing "granny panties" - either they're sort of....billowing...around my mid-section or pulled up practically to my chest!

I know, I know. These are good problems to have. Still these are profound and fundamental changes in my life and my body...my Self.

It's going to take some time and inner work (and certainly some new underwear) to adjust to them.

Namaste,
Zann

edited to add a Before / During picture (not ready to call it After yet!!)
(mysteriously, I don't seem to have too many full-body photos from before...)

Fitness Tuesday Update - On the Move Again

Here's today's Facebook status:

Fitness Project Tuesday Update: Still wanting to be more regular with cardio, but my diet is tuned up, only doing the meticulous calorie-counting here and there - I now just KNOW what and how much to eat. At the end of Week 14, I've lost another 1.2 lbs for a grand total of 24.8 lbs lost (15.2 more and I'm at my goal!!)

Not much more to say. I'm very happy to lose a pound a week.

Some of my favorite clothes are now too big for me and I'm in Transitional Wear now - some things I'd grown out of, and some cheap new things, as I'm not spending money on clothes that, hopefully, won't fit me well by the winter holidays.
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In Caroline Demoise's book, Tai Chi as Spiritual Practice, she advises to choose one aspect to focus upon when doing a form - breathing, flow, knees, the way the foot comes down -- to choose just one aspect out of all the things that make a satisfying Tai Chi practice. To try to get it all together all the time is difficult and frustrating, but if you choose one thing to put your concentration on, that aspect will deepen and improve, become less effortful to maintain.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately and how it can apply to other things in my life. And for my Fitness Project, it means that I choose one aspect of my plan to focus on each week.

This week I want to focus on building muscle. I want to add some new strength training exercises to the basic ones in Strong Women Stay Slim. So I'm checking through some other books (Body for Life for Women, for one) and various articles I've clipped for reference.

Namaste,
Zann

Fitness Tuesday Update - Plateau Indeed

Facebook status this a.m.:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Feeling better, working on stress issues. Definitely need to move more. My Tai Chi kicks (if you can call something that slow a kick!) seem higher, feel stronger. Weight loss has slowed to a crawl, but hey, at least that's still movement. Lost 1 pound this week, for a grand total at the end of Week 13: 23.6 lbs.

Notes from my Fitness Journal this morning:

A.M. Notes: Am ecstatic that the scale this morning showed one pound lost over the last week. I wasn't sure if I'd lose at all, the scale sure wasn't showing progress through the week!

Something definitely shifted for me around Week 12 when I got the stomach virus.
My weight loss has slowed to a crawl (Turtle has long been one of my totems, I’ll need to keep him in the forefront right now!) and my mood and optimism are pretty low. I’m terrifically stressed on several fronts, too. Combine all that with the simple fact that less calories are burned when one weighs 23 lbs less, and I think that may be a good explanation for the shift.

I don’t feel I can reduce calories any further and still have a balanced and healthy diet. Obviously I need to move more. That’s hard for me, except for Tai Chi, but I’m trying!

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The good things from this last week:

I didn't food journal a lot, but I know I ate within my calorie budget. I feel as though I have a very good sense of what and how much I can eat now.

I did walk twice last week, had good Tai Chi practices all week.

So, I start Week 14 with renewed determination: my goals are to move more and to revitalize that optimism that characterized the first weeks of Fitness Project.

When I thought of Turtle, I remembered this image I created for an Illustration Friday back in 2006:

Seems like a good image to hold for this time!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Appetizer

My Facebook status update today:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update -spent a lot of time this week feeling grateful at how well this is going, at new limberness, flexibility...and the weigh-in shows I've lost another 2 pounds, for a grand total at the end of Week 9..do you hear a drumroll? I hear a drumroll.....18.4 pounds (drum turns into chant: new jeans, new jeans, new jeans)

The above was my late-morning nosh yesterday. I want to title this picture "Why I Don't Get TOO Hungry and Why I Am Totally Enjoying My Food."

That is 1/4c organic cottage cheese, 1 multigrain cracker, 1/3 peach, sliced, 3 carrot sticks, and 6 oz Snapple Red Tea. That is about 150 calories.

The other elements of this satisfying mini-meal between breakfast & lunch, were calorie-free: a small blue plate, a pretty rice bowl, a tablecloth in pleasing colors, sunflowers, a good book. What you can't see is the wider ambiance in which I ate: the rustic screened porch, the sublimely balmy summer air, the deep greens of grass & leaf, the clear blue sky and my beloved dog friend, Clover, dancing in and out.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a lucky woman - that the circumstances of my life right now allow me to make my fitness and weight loss Priority #1, that I can afford to buy organic cottage cheese, fresh vegetables & fruit, the pretty little bowl, and that the weather this summer is so glorious.

I have the time - and I make the time - to prepare my food and eat it with a bit of ceremony and thought. My calories come from small amounts of a wide variety of foods, and are not consumed mindlessly, but thoroughly enjoyed.

There are times, like yesterday's elevenses, when I feel nourished by just the sight of my meal.
That's the perfect appetizer for someone on a 1200-calorie budget!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Metabolism

Here's my Facebook status this morning:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: still feeling great, stamina & strength & flexibility up & Sophia's birthday cake notwithstanding, lost 1.4 lbs this week for a grand total at the end of Week 8 of 16.4 lbs.

I've written a little bit about my food & exercise choices and this week I thought I'd write about another component of the personal fitness/weight loss plan I've created for myself. In addition to cutting calories by eating less & better, and moving to burn calories, it seems wise to support and possibly enhance metabolism - the rate at which we burn calories, a rate which naturally slows as we age.

There are a zillion tips on things to add to the diet which are supposed to boost metabolism. I have added some. I did not have conscious criteria for what of all those things I would add, but in thinking about it, I believe it has to:

be sensible (i.e., not wacky or risky) & easy to add.
be tasty & not add too many calories if any.
have other possible benefits to my health in addition to raising metabolic rate.

So I have added the spice turmeric, red pepper flakes, green tea, and ice to my water.

Other things I'm paying attention to that I believe help my body to run more efficiently:

protein - I'm getting it from a small amount of meat & tofu, beans, lentils, eggs (super protein & I make scrambled eggs with 1 whole, 2 whites a couple of times a week)

good fat (I take an Omega 3 supplement & I use freshly ground flaxseed here & there)

quality & quantity of sleep

hydration

strength training

frequency of meals (I eat every 2-3 hours, hearing the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh in my head, " Time for a little something!" Little being a key word!)

This isn't meant to be comprehensive on the subject of metabolism. I'm not sure why what I'm doing is working so well for me, except perhaps that I have chosen to approach my fitness goal holistically - to do a wide variety of things in moderation, to support my mind, body & spirit, and to create a way of eating & moving & being that won't end when I reach my weight loss goal.

Fitness Tuesday Update on Thursday - Exercise

Running late on everything, but better late than...you know!

On Tuesday, my Facebook status report:
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I am loving what I eat, am rarely hungry, have boatloads of energy - need to be better about cardio exercise - Lost 1.2 lbs last week, so at the end of Week 6, the total lost is 12.6 lbs

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So I seem to be settling in to about a pound a week weight loss, which is what I had originally planned. It was a big boost to me to lose 2+ pounds each of the first couple of weeks, but I'm pleased to have a slow & steady pace.

I thought I'd write about my exercise this time. Exercise is always the hardest part of fitness for me. I truly hate to exercise to exercise. It seems to me that's a very modern problem - once upon a time, human life was filled with moving as part of daily work and life.

I remember reading a study that showed that even the simplest things (like having to roll down car windows manually rather than push buttons) burned calories here and there, adding up to hundreds in a week.

So my goal was to figure out what would get me moving and keep me moving. I needed to find ways to make my exercise be (a) part of my daily work & life and (b) tolerable, if not pleasurable.

So to meet the "a" requirement, I park farther away from where I want to go, I take stairs instead of elevators, I go up and down the stairs in my house more often (it's very nice not to feel chagrined that I've left something upstairs or downstairs, but instead see it as an opportunity.)

Theoretically, I could clean house for fitness, and I am doing a little more. A LOT more would help the decluttering, too. Another thing is to stand rather than sit while doing something.

The cornerstone of my moving for fitness & weight loss is Tai chi.
I love Tai chi. I have been doing it for nearly two years and it is astonishing to me that I've kept with it for so long. That's because I love it. It does things for me physically & on another level entirely - an emotional/spiritual level. Here's a poem I wrote during the National Poetry Writing Month challenge: When i do Tai chi sometimes

I do the Tai chi forms created by Dr. Paul Lam, called Tai Chi for Health, in classes at The Maple Center. Pretty soon, I'm going to expand my range a bit in another class and learn 24.

I do my Tai chi practice every day, along with some stretches. I do it outside early in the morning (it's been glorious) and I do it for 30-40 minutes. Many days, I do a sunset practice as well. Calorie burn tables show 30 minutes of Tai chi is very close to 30 minutes of walking.

In addition to Tai chi, I have my choice of walking or exercising with a small pedal exerciser called the Magneciser. I do my walking at the nearby mall because the air & heat just don't agree with me.

When I walk, I generally do 2 miles. I have an iPod and I listen to lively music or interesting podcasts or audiobooks. I try to do 18-min. miles. I stretch afterwards, a special stretching that I created using one of the benches. Sometimes I even do Tai chi there at the mall. It feels good to do it right after the walking.

The pedal exerciser can be used with the arms on a table or with the feet. Sometimes I do both. I try to do at least 20-30 minutes. I have my online friend fiber artist Diana to thank for sharing her experience with the Magneciser and the link to getting one at the best price I've seen. (About $112 with shipping.) I'd put the link here, but the company site seems to be inaccessible.

Finally, I added some strength training - the very simple program in Marian Nelson's book "Strong Women Stay Slim." That's on my schedule for 3 days a week.

So - I feel like I have created a plan for myself that is very tolerable - and truthfully I feel SO good when I exercise that I have become a tad less averse to exercising to exercise.

I'm not doing the walking and pedaling as often as I should, though, and so my current goal is to step up the efforts in those departments.

Finally, I'm thinking of adding "dancing improvisationally and wildly" to my exercise choices.

Movin' on....

My Fitness Project: Tuesday Update

This is Tuesday, which has become my weekly day to measure my progress in the weight loss part of my plan to get fit. Here's what I posted on my Facebook status update:

Lots of energy, knees thanking me, started strength training & I finally learned how to make some delicious marinated baked tofu. 1.4 lbs lost this week, grand total after week 5: 11.4 lbs.

I promised some details, so here goes.
I probably spent about a month thinking, planning, journaling in a serious way. The most important part of this time was building my commitment, coming to the point where I was able to make this project my number one priority. And not feel guilty for doing so.

I also created a vision of myself, limber, energetic...not thin, but...lean & focused, grounded and centered, comfortable in my clothes, in my skin.

As I go on, I'll try to write more about some of the things I've thought about fat, about how I came to be so overweight, about how hard it's been to think of myself, my physical self as a priority.

Food
I chose what is generally considered a minimum for daily calories: 1200.
I eat something every 3 hours or so.
I take a multi-vitamin. (I also take other supplements for health reasons, ones recommended by my doctor.)

I religiously keep a fitness log, writing down everything that goes in my mouth, and adding up the calories for the day. This is a vital part of my plan. Many people would find this tedious, and some days I do. But I know that eventually this will pay off in my having a better sense of healthy eating, of portion size. I won't have to do this forever. I will just know. Finding how many calories in a food is blissfully easy with Google.

The log also helps me to balance my diet - I can see that one day I had too much fruit & not enough veggies, or that I need to get a little more protein. I'm not sure that I can get a perfect balance every day, but feel I can over a 2-day period.

I have made a set of measuring spoons & cups my best friend. I divide suggested serving sizes in half & have discovered that a little bit of the higher-calorie things can go a long way in complementing the lower-calorie foods.

As for what I'm eating, here's yesterday's log entry:

Tea: black, honey, milk (26)
Snack: 1/2 Luna bar (85)
Breakfast: scrambled eggs (1 whole, egg whites ) (115), 1/2c chopped onions, gr. peppers, zucchini (30), tomato slices (15) 3 carrot sticks (10) 1/2 tsp olive oil (20), 1 T 2% grated cheddar (20) (210)
Lunch: 1/2 pita (80) baked tofu (125) 1T hummus (25) spinach & cut veggies (30), 3 carrot sticks (10) (270)
fruit cup (melon, 5 rainier cherries, apple wedge, 1 prune) (100?)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
Snack: cacao nibs (30) caramel rice cake (50) 1/3 small banana (25) (105)
Tea: black, honey, milk (extra) (31)
Supper: 3 oz. chicken baked bbq marinade (130) 1c broccoli (30) sliced tomatoes, onions (25), 3 carrot sticks (10) (195)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
1 square dark chocolate 6 gr. (28)
Snack: 1/4c yochee (43), 3/4c mixed fresh fruit (peach, apple, blueberries) (50) 1T Special K cinnamon pecan (8) (101)

(1186)


My biggest food problem has always been sweets. My basic diet preferences are pretty healthy, whole grains, lots of fruit & vegetables, yogurt, small amounts of meat. (I probably ate too much cheese, though. )

But once I'd eaten the healthy meal, it was as though it permitted me to have a big ol' sugary, fatty reward: the red velvet cupcakes w/ cream cheese icing at Bella Rossa, the tiramisu or Boston cream pie at Crossroads, a bag of cookies & brownies to take home. Newman-O's!

This remains somewhat of a mystery to me, but since May 19 when I began this journey, I have not had any of those treats, nor have I actually fought serious cravings for them. In fact, I have almost an aversion to them. There have been two exceptions: when friends got married ten days ago, I chose to enjoy their wedding cake (and it was lovely indeed - a strawberry cake, with a perfect rich icing/luscious cake ratio) and I had a small chocolate cherry nut cookie baked by my friend Marta who has recently opened a bakery. I put that one cookie on a blue plate, put milk in a little 2 oz glass, and took 6 mindful bites.

In any case, I am pleased to report that my sense of sweetness has become much more acute since I stopped bludgeoning my palette with refined sugary treats. I have even switched to 1/2tsp honey instead of a heaping tsp of sugar in my tea- something I thought I'd never be able to do. Another shocker to me was switching to nonfat, plain yogurt from lowfat vanilla yogurt.
I will occasionally add a bit of honey, but most of the time I'm quite content with how it tastes with fresh fruit.

("Yochee" on the last snack above is drained yogurt. It is a bit denser and therefore more calories in a cup than non-drained yogurt, but it has a wonderful rich creamy texture.)

So that's a little something about what I'm eating and what I'm not eating.
Next time I'll write about exercise.

Namaste,
Zann