I’m through week two and this process has been entirely different than any other eating plan I’ve been on.  Honestly guys, I’m not being all that successful at sticking to the day to day rules but I’m still shrinking.  You know that phrase, give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile.  That seems to be my problem with starches this past week.

I’ve averaged 4 servings of starches and sweets per day instead of the targeted two.  The problem seems to be when I don’t eat eggs for breakfast.  Also, erm, booze, I’ve been rather social the last week, I’ve seen a burlesque show with friends, went to a dinner party, and out to a restaurant with friends.  All included at least a glass of wine, the burlesque show … well … I had a really good time.

All that said, I’m down another pound and another 1/2″ for a total of three pounds down and 1 3/4″ lost.  I’ll take it.  Honestly I feel I owe you all an apology, I’m not really demonstrating what the diet can actually do.  More like showing you that despite the fact I’m messing up my metabolism seems to be speeding up a little bit.  As far as eating the protein, I get it in most days, 7 servings of non-starchy veggies are no problem, fruit is pretty easy too, mostly I’m just not quite staying under for starches and eating SANE for alcohol.  From here on out, no messing up, I promise!

I’m completing the “eating fit” level and today start onto “how to become hot” level.  Here’s the new guidelines …

• 1 serving of starch of sweets
• 5 thirty gram servings of protein (I’ll do 20 gram portions)
• 9 servings of non-starchy vegetables
• 4 servings of berries or citrus fruits
• 1/4 cuper of milled flax seeds

The hardest thing on that list is going to be increasing the protein amount.  I actually think less starch/sweet is going to be easier, I won’t be as tempted into an English muffin.  Here’s the trick to the veggies, make sure you have some with breakfast and the rest is easy.  A big salad or a veggie soup for lunch helps a lot and the berries are easy to get from a smoothie.  I have a big pile of oranges sitting on my kitchen counter and I’ve been grabbing them as snacks and cooking a bit with pineapple too.

I now get one cheat day twice per month, that means one week of eating pristine, a cheat day and then that’ll be it until the end of the six weeks.  That’s going to be tough and apparently I’ll have to look at my social schedule to time it right (at least I’m learning right?).

The whole point of eating SANE is not to lose weight quickly.  Trust me I know how to drop a pound a day if I have to, but that always leads to a rebound.  The idea of eating this way is to gradually make changes to your metabolism which will shift your set point down and your weight will float to the right, sexy-looking, place.  The process takes five to six weeks which is why I’m doing this over a six week period.  I should be in new metabolism territory by the end and the scale may or may not shift (Jonathan’s got a great post on that!) but the tape measure should be showing some nice results and those skinny jeans should be on my butt.

It’ll be interesting.

How are you doing on the Smarter Science of Slim diet?  Are you seeing progress?  Are you struggling with starches like me?  Would love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Lisa

The Centers for Disease Control came out with a list of the top 10 salt culprits in our diet.  You might be surprised to learn that the number one food source is bread!

Even I went hunh … I wasn’t expecting that … here’s the list of the top ten salty foods

• Bread and dinner rolls
• cold cuts and cured meat
• pizza
• poultry
• soups
• sandwiches
• cheese
• pasta dishes
• meat dishes
• snacks like potato chips & pretzels

The CDC also said the average American consumes 3,266 milligrams of salt daily and that’s before we hit the salt shakers on the dinner table.  Our goal should be no more than 2,300 milligrams a day and if you are over 51, have high blood pressure or diabetes it should be no more than 1,500 milligrams.

One in three adults in the US have high blood pressure and this can lead to things like heart disease and stroke.  We really should be paying attention here.  How do we cut down on salt intake?  Easy …

Limit starches to no more than four servings a day, you don’t need the starch anyway, it has relatively few nutrients, but you knew that already.

Increase fruits and veggies, sub out some starches for something healthier, produce has zero salt, lots of vitamins and minerals and is quite tasty.

Ditch the salt shaker. My parents took the salt shaker off the table in the 1970s and I’ve never looked back.  Salt is an integral part of cooking and flavor, but you don’t need to add a lot to get good flavor and you don’t need it on the table.

Cook from scratch. You will always add less sugar, fat and salt to a recipe than a commercial food manufacturer will.  They doctor up ingredients that will be sitting on shelves for a while with palate pumping substances so we don’t realize we’re eating crap.  The more you cook from scratch the healthier your diet will be overall.

Start reading labels. Salt sneaks up on you, it’s in all kinds of things you wouldn’t think of, from pasta sauce to ice cream, read the labels to make sure you’re in safe limits for you.

Consider these easy changes and live a better life.  Do you check your salt intake?  Do you read labels and glance over the salt?  What’s your favorite salty treat?

Cheers,

Lisa

Many of us watched the Academy Awards last night. Some of us to see who would win, some of us to see the stars and what dresses they were wearing, and some of us to see Billy Crystal hosting. Besides the big awards, many behind-the-scenes professionals are honored for things like costumes, cinematography, and sound effects. But one Oscar they have never handed out is Best Training Montage.

They just don’t make them like they used to sadly.  Then again, I’m not sure they ever made them all that well in the first place. Here are my personal Lifetime Achievement Awards.

You can’t honor Training Montages without including Rocky Balboa. And while no one will likely ever award Sylvester Stallone an award for his acting chops, you have to admit he puts in the effort in the gym. Add in Bill Conti’s stirring “Gonna Fly Now” and count the seconds until the goose bumps rise on your arms. Here are clips from all the Rocky films.

If Stallone is the “Best Actor” in this category, than my winner for Best Actress has to be Jamie Lee Curtis from the film “Perfect” (with a supporting acting nod to John Travolta’s short shorts). Can you imagine any movie today having a 4+ minute  interlude like this in the middle of the plot? It just wouldn’t happen.

If you thought Travolta’s shorts were awkward, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Meet “No Retreat, No Surrender” which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as the bad guy, and Kurt McKinney as the guy training to fight him. While many of Kurt’s moves are impressive, you’ll understand why this clip also receives entry to the “kitsch” hall of fame.

Possibly the worst montage of all time, and therefore one of the best, also wins “Best Foreign Film” honors in this category. Because any time the description of the clip reads Turkish Star Wars rip-off, you need to watch. I don’t know what “force” this guy is using on those rocks, but I think a light saber would have been a more useful weapon.

Finally, if you actually ARE looking to get fired up from watching a training montage, because, after all, the goal of the film-makers when they include these is to get the audience pumped, you should enjoy this clip made by YouTube user Erik393. He includes nearly all of the memorable films of the past 35 years and edits them with a nice dramatic build.

Are you fired up to hit the gym this week after watching those? Fired up to hit the Cineplex with a large popcorn and soda? Shame on you.  So tell me, what’s your favorite movie montage?

Previously on The Reluctant Hubby: “Revolutionary Workouts“

Roaming around the USDA website is an eye-opening experience. The agency was created to help farmers produce more food for U.S. citizens. Over the years, they have become more involved with American nutrition, and you can see this conflict when you go through the pages of their site. The USDA wants farmers to grow easy crops with high yields and good market prices. And, at the same time, they want Americans to “eat well.”

Therein lies the rub.

I was looking for recommended levels of sugar for Americans and came across the aggregate page of crop yields for corn, cane sugar, and beets. It’s pretty interesting to see how much we’re growing and how the farmers are doing yield-wise.

And if the USDA is helping farmers grow all this sugar, then they need to help them get rid of it, too.  So how much do you think the USDA recommends for daily consumption of sugar for the average American?

10 teaspoons of added sugar per day; this does not include naturally occurring sugars such as fructose in your orange or lactose in your milk.   Think about that for a second … 10 teaspoons of sugar is 168 useless calories.  Over the course of a year, that translates to 17 1/2 pounds you need to figure out how to burn off.  Or worse still, carry on your body and live withe every day.

Let’s compare those 10 added calories to the American Heart Association’s sugar recommendations:

• Men: 9 teaspoons total intake
• Women: 5 teaspoons total intake
• Children: 3 teaspoons total intake

While the difference between the USDA’s amount and the AHA-recommended amount for men might not seem like that much, keep in mind the second number is all sugars through all sources, not just added to a dish.  The AHA sounds a whole lot more reasonable, doesn’t it?

By the way, one can of soda has, on average, 9 to 10 teaspoons of sugar in it.

Are we eating too much sugar?  Yes! Do we need to cut back?  Yes!

How do we do that?  The usual ways.  Eat a diet full of fruits and veggies, lean meats, and cut back on processed foods, one of the main ways that sugar sneaks into our diets.  The more you cook from scratch, the better, too; you’re not likely to dump a pound of sugar into a home-cooked meal.

This isn’t my first time writing about how the USDA makes us fat; check out how the recently introduced “Food Plate” has been taken over by lobbyists.

Do you watch your sugar intake?

Cheers,

Lisa

It’s easy in the winter months to just keep your head down and keep doing what you’re doing.  Yucky cold weather and less sunlight make it easy for us to fall into a rut and not even notice it.  It’s time to take a moment and check in with yourself.  Here’s a checklist.

Your diet. How is your diet doing?  Fruits and veggies in February can be a bit ho-hum.  Definitely not the same selection or freshness as an August bounty.  Feel inspired with a new recipe or cookbook and mix it up a bit in the produce section next to you swing through.

Your exercise. We had a lot of gusto a short six weeks ago when we made all those New Year’s Resolutions, if you’re still going that’s great!  But six weeks is enough into a new routine to change it up.  Hire a trainer if you need to, or splurge on a new workout DVD for your living room workouts.  The point is try something new and keep challenging yourself during your workouts.

Your rest.  Are you staying at the screen when you should be shutting down for the night?  Are you pushing yourself to hard at work and not taking breaks?  Remember downtime fuels creativity and execution you’ll do more in less time and your boss will be impressed with your wonderful ideas.  Rest is just as critical as work.

Your spirit. Nourishment comes from many places, a local church or synagogue, a yoga class, a craft class, a coffee shop chat with a friend … make sure you’re feeding your spirit as well with whatever works for you.  If you haven’t done it in a while set something up in the next week.

Your mind. Pull yourself out of your mental ruts!  Go to a museum show for some stimulation, write about something you don’t normally write about (ok that one’s for me), see a movie that challenges your assumptions about the status quo.  Sign up for a class that scares you a little.  Stimulate those brain neurons and it’ll effect all the other areas of your life, it can feel really wonderful.

Those are a few ideas to get you started, I’m sure as you were reading through one or two ideas sprouted up.  Quick! Before you forget write them down and take an action on them today (yes today!) even it’s just a quick internet search.  Your body, mind and soul will thank you.

Where do you need at tuneup?

Cheers,

Lisa

Margarita is a great brand, I love their fabrics, their smart designs and their adorable daisies.  The funny thing is, a Margarita running skirt is the reason I have a job with ActivewearUSA.com.  They sent over a sample and I liked it so much I asked if I could join the company.

The Margarita fitness line is from Israel and the pieces are sewn by hand.  They use only the best fabrics and materials such as supplex instead of the cheaper lycra.  It doesn’t pill, fade or bind, there stuff is truly great.

Honestly, I’ve been wearing Lululemon for years, at one point I had 42 pairs of Lulus in my closet!  But it just seems like they’re not as good lately, turns out they switched from mostly supplex to mostly lyrcra a while ago and that explains it to me.  I’m still holding on to older pairs of Lulus and going through the newer ones more quickly.

So when I found Margarita and ActivewearUSA.com I was smitten.  ActivewearUSA.com is an online retailer of fitness gear that truly cares about what they carry.  Only the best and they test everything themselves before they accept a brand.  (I know this is true, I’ve been a tester on a few products!)

So I work with marketing and social media for the company, is this a biased review, yes!  But would I be working for a company that I didn’t believe in?  No!

Feel free to try out Margarita yourself.  The sizes do run a little small so if you’re not sure size up.  They have some flashier designs, such as the Daisy Pant I now own along with my bright pink running skirt, but they have more sedate designs too.  They are pricey, but when you compare them to Lulus they’re actually a little bit cheaper and the quality is definitely better.

By the way, if you’re a fitness professional they offer a discount!  15% for Fitness Angels, you can apply to be an ActivewearUSA.com ambassador here.

By the way, ActivewearUSA.com has a great facebook page and I’m often the person posting questions, giving away clothes during contests, uploading silly videos and interacting with people.  Feel free to stop by and say hi.

Cheers,

Lisa

I’ve now completed one full week on The Smarter Science of Slim™ challenge (affiliate link).  Normally when I do an online challenge, I’m perfect. I never cheat because I want the reader to really get a sense of what it’s like to do this.  I can’t make that claim this week.

I started off strong on Wednesday; I ate everything that I was supposed to, and when I was supposed to: protein, fruits and veg, starches (I get two a day); all were fine.  By Wednesday night, I wasn’t feeling so hot and then spent two days in bed sick with a fever.  Thursday I pretty much just ate starches and Friday I was back on track for fruits and veggies but I was light on protein.  I was far from perfect.

In the nature of full disclosure, I have to say that on January 30th I finished a 30-day challenge where I ate for a month near the poverty level.  So the two weeks before I began the Bailor challenge, I was eating a bit of junk.  Actually, I planned to start this challenge sooner, but my mind was not willing to go there so fast after finishing the other. Ah, the power of food.

With that said, I lost three pounds of body weight last week.  Bailor says don’t judge by the scale, judge by the tape measure. I’ve taken body measurements too; my chest, arms, waist, hips, and thighs.  Overall, I lost 1 ¼ inches.  My chest and one arm stayed the same, all other spots lost 1/4 inch.

I’ll take it.

What Was Easy

The easy part for me was the fruits and veggies.  As long as I make sure I get one or two servings in with breakfast I am fine.  It was also nice to focus on citrus fruits and berries; I love both and it’s great to have them as my go-to snack.

The bike workout that I did was easy to do (sit on a bike for about 15 minutes total), although it was quite hard to do the super-intense, 30-second intervals that left me breathless, contemplating puking, and pretty darned spent.  I did five intervals of 30 seconds each and truly couldn’t pedal any longer at the end of the 30 seconds. I had to really add resistance to the wheel to get to that point, more than I thought I needed.

I was expecting muscle soreness the next day though, and I didn’t get any.  That said I’m a Spin and Pilates instructor and I’ve already got pretty good muscle mass. I didn’t do the weight training workout because of my cold, so I’ll have to report to you about that next week.

What Was Hard

Protein!  After a discussion with Bailor on the phone, I dropped from 30 grams of protein per serving to 20 grams of protein. I’m definitely getting three servings of protein per day, but that’s only 60 grams total.  The fourth “snack” with protein in it just isn’t working for me.  I’m not that hungry.  I adjusted slightly by taking larger portions of protein with lunch and dinner which is getting me up to 80 grams of protein a day.  I don’t know how important that fourth, separate hit is.  I’ll have to ask Jonathan for his opinion.

So I’m writing this a bit chagrined.  I’m not setting a good example of what the first week of the Bailor challenge is really like having been waylaid by a rather bad cold that took up most of my week.  I’m sure I’ll be more diligent next week.

If you’ve been doing the challenge let me know how you’ve been doing and what you’re finding easy or difficult.  I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Lisa