I haven't been by here in so long that my first journal is buried. I figured I'd just go ahead and start a new journal, since I'm restarting!

For my first entry, I just want to write out my new goals for my healthier lifestyle. Relating to food - I am going to eat more fruits and vegetables and add dairy. I just read a great article in Reader's Digest that said that eating 3- 4 servings of dairy a day will help lose weight. This guy had done all kinds of research on it - trying that one out. I also want to avoid eating unhealthy snacks. My mom was here for a week with my kids and left all kinds of not so great things behind. I've just about got them cleaned out. Another goal is to drink more water - I want to drink 3 or 4 of my 32 oz. water jug. :water:
As far as exercise goes - my plan is to walk everyday M-F on my treadmill - first thing in the morning or it's likely it won't get done. In another week or 2 after I get my body used to that, I want to add weight training with my handheld weights 2 or 3 times a week.

Well, I guess that will have to do for now - I appear to have a teething baby on my hands!!

Hi Heather! Welcome back! Your goals sound awesome. :up:

How old are your kids? I am guessing they are named Ashley, Emily, Ryan and Tyler? Those grandmas do love to bring treats, don't they? lol My mom says its her divine right to spoil them. :)

It is such a challenge to find time to do something positive for ourselves as moms, so I think it is so smart of you to exercise first thing in the morning. That is when I do it too, because it is cooler and it is DONE, out of the way, and by 8 am I have already accomplished one of my most important goals for the day. I am a single mom and when my kids (a girl 9 and a boy 7) were little, I used to wake up at 4:30 am to workout before they woke up, lol.

I will check on you and cheer you on :cheer: We Heathers have to stick together!

Keep smiling :D Heather

Hello and welcome. well i have 4 children too. 3 are my own and 1 step child. my kids are Stacy, Alissa and jamie (short for james) and my step child is Michele. how old are yours?
Mine are 12 1/2 and 10 and almost 9 and my step is 11.
well take care and glad to meet you.:rose:

Hi Heather! I am a Heather C too! When I first saw posts from you, I had to stop and make sure that wasn't me :laugh: You got my kids' names right!! They are stacked close together! 6 (almost 7), 4, 3 and 1! I notice you live in Portland - I have a lot of family there. I've never been out there, but it's possible we will make the trip out there next year. Thanks for stopping in my journal!

Thanks for introducing yourself to me Minnie!! It's nice to meet you!

Well, looking over the goals I wrote out, I have to say that I accomplished all of them - except for the snacking and eating more vegetables. I got more fruit in, just not the veggies and the snacks haven't been good at all. I exercised every day but today. I did 5 miles in all and I will increase that next week. I drank around 96 oz. of water a day. My husband and I are going out to eat tonight (by ourselves!!!!!!! yippee!!) and I'm a little worried about that. I wonder if I could talk him into halving something with me???? He is also trying to lose weight, so who knows!! I'm also worried with the weekend coming up - I tend not to do so well on weekends. I'll check back in on Monday!

I had this nice, long entry typed out last night and one push of a button by the baby - *poof* it was gone. GRRRRR
Anyway - I did splurge a little on our date Friday night. After dinner, we ended up going bowling!! Jeesh I haven't done that in years!! I did still have snacking problems over the weekend, but for the most part I think I did ok. I have to get back to writing everything down. Something to work on for this week!!
I couldn't get out of bed yesterday morning before all the kids, so I missed yesterday, but I did walk today and I feel a whole lot better!
So, this week I am going to focus on writing down everything that goes into my mouth and eating more vegetables.

I did great with my walking this week - a total of 6 miles, up from 5 miles last week. Next week, I will add some weight training with my handheld weights.
I'm just having a hard time getting my eating under control. :( I do ok for breakfast and lunch, dinner is mostly ok, but my evenings are the hardest. I just continually want to snack. Especially when dh isn't home. But, I have to say I did better this week than last week. I keep meaning to pick up a small notebook to write down everything I eat. I still haven't been very good about doing that.
Trying to be positive, now: My walking is helping me feel better - more energy and I just feel good!!! I am drinking lots of water - I can feel that in my face, it feels softer. Even if I am having a hard time wanting to eat foods I shouldn't, I am eating healthier. The scale is beginning to come down again a little bit. And I just got my third star here on DT!! :laugh: It only took 6 months!
OK, I feel better now. But, here comes the weekend again. UGH *I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.*

Hi Heather!

Nice to see you! I am also going for a lifestyle change. This will work for us, with a little patience!

I saw where you wrote about the article in Reader's Digest about dairy products. This has been mentioned in another forum. I am interested knowing more about it but RD doesn't have the article on their website. Do they give any specifics about it, like what kind of dairy, etc? What issue was that in? Trying to learn everything about food and how it effects us is like going to school again!

Good job on your exercise! It does help us feel better, doesn't it?

Cheers!
Linda

Hi Heather! You ARE doing great with the exercise. I was watching Oprah with her trainer and he was saying that it is much more successful in the end to master one good habit before trying to do another. And guess what? He said start exercising before you start changing your eating habits! So you are following expert advice even on your worst days, and on your good ones you deserve a little halo.

The evenings and weekends are hardest for me, too. We can do it, though. Have a great weekend! Love, Heather

Hi Tmayder! Thanks for stopping by! I have my issue right here! It is the latest issue - it has Giulianin on the cover. I saw it at the grocery store last night. Here are the highlights: This man was researching a possiblity that a calcium enriched diet might bring down blood pressure, so he added 2 cups of yogurt a day to obese men with hypertension. After a year, their blood pressure was down and so was their weight by an average of 11 pounds. At the same time, 2 women were doing bone health research and saw the same thing. A known osteoperosis researcher heard about this connection and thought about all the women he had been keeping a record of their calcium intake. At each of their visits, he had taken their weight. When he looked at all the records, "he found that a higher calcium intake went along with a lower weight, on average". The connection has been shown in a study of kids as well.
The first man "put 32 people, each with lots of weight to lose, on a diet." 500 calories were cut from their diets and some were asked to add 3 - 4 servings of dairy a day. After 6 months, those who ate dairy lost 19 pounds, while the others, who were avoiding dairy lost 11 pounds. And, the "high-dairy group lost 64 % more body fat than the other group, trading flab for lean body mass. The fat mostly came from the midsection. In another study he did, he had three groups - one who took a calcium supplement, one who added dairy, and the last one only cut calories. The people who took a supplement lost more than those cutting calories, but the ones eating dairy lost more than everyone.
This researcher says that calcium tells fat cells to start burning the fat instead of storing it.
He says that this isn't magic - "This doesn't mean that people can eat all they want and exercise as little as they want and think nothing will happen because they're having a couple glasses of milk. But if people are cutting calories and they're not including dairy in their diet, I think they're making a mistake."
On an inset in the article, it spells out what you should add and what isn't all that helpful. Lowfat and skim milk are the best. But, "One dairy serving equals 8 oz. of yogurt or approx. 6 tablespoons of shredded low-fat cheese". The list of things that don't help are cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese (I was kind of surprised to read this), or ice cream. "They're either poor sources of calcium or too high in fat to include."

Well, that's almost the whole article. :laugh: I thought the whole article was so good, that I had a hard time leaving anything out!!!

Hi Heather C! Thanks for the input about exercise. Made me feel good reading that!!

Hi Heather!

THANK YOU! That's great information! I'm glad you wrote that out because Reader's Digest Canada doesn't have that story :(

I'm wondering if I can find a website about this. Did it give a researcher's name or organization name that I could look for?

Again, thanks!!!
Linda

Michael Zemel is the name of the researcher. I haven't thought to do a search on him, but I found some studies on a milk website. The National Dairy Council, maybe?? Who, by the way did fund some of Zemel's research, but it says he has spent more than a decade researching this link. I think I will do a search on Zemel and let you know if I find anything.

Well, while I'm here I might as well do an update. UUUUGGGGHHH This weekend has been horrible. Yesterday, we had an activity at our church to go to. They served hamburgers and hotdogs, potato salad, chips and homemade ice cream and pie for dessert. Then, last night we had a wedding reception to go to. Good thing I didn't eat before we went!!!! That's all I have to say on that!! Then, I teach a Sunday School class at church. The kids are all 3. That was super stressful today. I came home feeling like an utter failure and did a little bit of stress eating. UGHHHH I will be ready to jump on my treadmill in the morning!!!!

OK, tmayder ~ I did a quick search on Zemel (on Yahoo!) and there was quite a bit out there, but here were 2 that stood out to me.

http://www.nationaldairycouncil.org/lvl04/newsres/releases/press_releases6GKQIK.asp


http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1728.56703

Pretty interesting, eh? :)

Thanks again! You and others on a cycling message board got my attention when you mentioned dairy. I love all dairy products but this reminded me that I'm getting as much as I need to. I remember now that last year when I was getting depressed over not losing someone suggested that I should increase calories and that it should be in the way of dairy. I lost 5 pounds right away. How could I have forgetten that? DUH! What makes this article interesting is the claim about dairy's role in fat storage and breakdown. Good stuff!

Oh, it is so hard to be a southerner on a diet, isn't it? We are trained from birth that all socializing is done over food. I just got back from Tennessee where I actually ate stuff just to keep from hurting people's feelings. I also ate it because southern food is soooo good! The biggest problem is that the social events never take healthy food into consideration as an option. It's either eat it or skip dinner.

Cheers!
Linda

Thanks for sharing that experience with me Tmayder!! I've realized this past week, is that I thought I was getting around 3 servings of dairy, but looking closer at the servings, I was only getting 2 servings. Have to readjust that!!

This week hasn't been so hot. I did walk 4 out of the 5 days. So, that's better than nothing, but I've been soooo tired and out of sorts lately. My mom thinks it's possibly my body still getting used to the exercise on a daily basis. My husband thinks it's the kiddos (one in particular) that keep getting in bed with us and not letting us get a full night's rest. I think it may be both of those combined with the fact that I haven't been eating all that great. I just hope that's all it is. I think I may be PMSing a little bit too. My hubby is gone this morning and I will be heading to the grocery store this afternoon to stock up on my healthy foods again when he gets back. I just hope I can get out of this funk this week!!!
My SIL's sister works at some kind of food plant and gives them stuff all the time and lately she(SIL) has been passing some of it on to us. I don't think she knows I'm trying to lose weight and I know she's just being nice. This week we got 2 boxes of toaster pastries (generic pop tarts), and a whole bag of canned biscuits, crescent rolls and breadsticks. UGH!! I don't feel like I can ask them not to give them to us. FIL, who lives with them would get offended and tell me just not to eat them. They all know I love bread and it's just so hard to have them in the house!!! So, that will be a big challenge this week. It's nearly impossible to fix them for the rest of the family and not eat any myself. And, they're not healthy for anyone!!
Well, enough venting. I should probably get off of here and get moving.

Hi Heather! Great job getting all that exercise! I was feeling super tired last week, no apparent reason. Some times when I have felt like that I think my body was trying to fight off getting sick. But I bet it is a combo of the sleepy kid and the exercise adjustment. I would suggest a nap but I am sure you would get a good laugh with 4 kids to take care of, lol.

Dang, that is such a problem, someone providing you with free and yummy temptation! Is there any way you could donate it to a homeless shelter? Otherwise I would just toss the stuff (but what a waste) or give it to neighbors who will probably love it. My mom always said it is no less of a waste if we eat something we do not need instead of throwing/giving it away, in fact it is worse because we are keeping it from someone who could use it. My mom was good at guilt! But seriously, if that stuff was in my house I know it would be in my face! Congrats on not giving in so far!

Keep smiling and have a wonderful Saturday!
Love, Heather