Nutrition Guide

In the column to the right, you may have noticed I have listed a few sites related to weightloss and health. The newest addition is the Nutrition Guide for Men and Women.

This site tells you how many calories you should be eating to lose weight and to maintain. It will also tell you how many calories you need based on exercise.

***************Disclaimer***************

1. I am not a doctor. I do not portray one on television or in my real life.
2. As far as I know, Weight Watchers has not approved this information.
3. I believe in being fully armed with knowledge as we battle to keep healthy.
4. Take this (as well as any information you may find here) with a grain of salt (and a shot of Vodka). **Sheesh! No! Not really about the Vodka... unless you really really want too. Don't believe everything you read and don't do everything you read! Do I have to tell you everything?!**

***************Disclaimer end***************

Aside from calories, you get an idea of how much fat you should be eating, as well as carbs, and protein. I think too often we forget we need fats in our diet as we strive to purge our bodies of our excess fat.

The key to everything seems to be moderation and correct proportion.

Hope you find these helpful.

Ai Yi Yi!

I try to be creative with my son. I try to make moments both educational and fun. We say things like "Yessiree Bob-er-rooney!" (One day he'll laugh about it!)

So as I was driving, I hit a dip in the road. My mind works pretty quickly sometimes.

I say, "Ai, Chihuahua!"

My son's mind works quickly too. At his age, he loves being right and correcting us.

My son responds, "No! You're a mommy!"

Apparently "Ai" am not a chihuahua.

Hay'r it is!

Oh What Fun
It is to be
3 years old

in a circle of hay

with a great Buddy!

"Look Mom! There's a party!"

It took me a few minutes to understand what my son was talking about. I scanned the living room until I came upon this sight.


Notice the fancy party hats...

And some are having a great time as you can see...

Excuse me?

After endless questions on car rides of "where are we going", we've begun to tell our son (after telling him about 3 times where we are going), "Don't worry about it. Just enjoy the ride."

So yesterday, I was trying to distract him and keep him occupied in the car by asking him questions.

Apparently my line of questioning was getting too difficult to answer (or just not worthy of answering)... he says to me "Just enjoy the ride, mom."

Excuse me???

And so it starts...

Hurry, Hurry! Eat Curry!

People in India eat curry. The United States has four times more cases of Alzheimer's than India. Coincidence? Maybe not.

According to an article in Reuters, 1010 Asians were studied. Their curry consumption was monitored along with results from the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE).

Improved MMSE scores were noted in even those who had low levels of curry consumption. The researchers believe that their study provides evidence of the link between curry and "cognitive performance". It may prove to be the key to preventing Alzheimer's.

Which may be why many engineers are coming from India.

So you may soon be saying to your children, "Put down the spinach. Hurry, Hurry! Eat Curry!"

But then again, look at all the ups and downs we've seen. DHEA, tofu... who really knows what's good for you or not? Just do like I do... tuck this away in the corner of your brain.

And eat some curry once in a while so you won't forget it.

Sleepless in LA

I am sorry to report I have nothing of great interest to write about today. So I will blog about me. I said I have nothing of great interest to write about today.

I am just tired.

We are still doing my son's breathing treatments at 4 am, 10 am, 4 pm, and 10 pm. We split those odd hour treatments so we can get the most rest. I do the 10 pm and my husband does the 4 am. I normally sleep at 9:00 pm. These "late" night treatments are seriously affecting my sleep.

Instead of waking up at 5:00 am, I wake up at 6:45.

Which affects my normal routine.

But the good news is my son is doing much better. I hear "Come on, run with me" and "go fast". It is not accompanied by wheezing. It is music to my ears.

Ladies Man

He is a true connoisseur of women. He knows what is really important. He looks deeper, beneath the surface.

His eyes don't care if there are wrinkles or firm breasts. He doesn't care how smart you are or how much money you make. You don't have to be an amazing cook. He would be happy with McDonald's.

What he looks for is attention. He looks for interaction.

Are you open to him? Will you spend time with him? Will you be playful? Will you laugh? Will you share?

He wants to know about you. What are you doing? Are you happy? Are you sad? Why are you sad?

He is honest. He is not afraid to share his emotions. He will cry when he is sad, and you will know when he is mad. He will tell you what you want to know. He will tell you he loves you.

He is the perfect man.

Perfect to his mom anyway.

He is my true love.

And he has shown me what an open heart can do. He loves anyone and everyone. And everywhere he goes, he makes friends. He is friendly, so others are friendly too. We speak to the cashiers, the mail carriers, people in line. He makes people smile. No one is truly a stranger. Just someone we haven't met yet.

You know how a truck driver of a big rig might honk their horn at you to say "Hello?" My son gets that from the garbage truck! It surprised me and delighted me, but I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. My son brings that out of people. The good.

So I learn from him. Because of him, I talk. I talk to complete strangers. I connect. And as I do so, I become a better person, a richer person. And not just for him. For me.

So take a cue from a ladies man, a people man, be honest with yourself and the people around you. Open your heart and your mind and invite love in. You won't be sorry.

Trust me

**cough, cough**

He said with a smile and excitement, clapping his little hands together:

"Mom, I'm better 'n better. I know! Let's go to the park. That would be a great idea mom!"

**cough, cough**

I said:

"That is a great idea! But...."

Quality Care

Los Angeles made the news.

For dumping patients on Skid Row.

Again.

Homeless patients leave hospitals in ambulances and taxi cabs and are mysteriously dropped off on Skid Row. Sometimes against their will. Sometimes just wearing a hospital gown.

Even Kaiser Permanente is guilty of this.

All that comes to mind is "What the hell?!"

This is not the America I am proud of.

Pomme Frites!

If I said "Paris", what would come to your mind? No, not Hilton! I meant the city in France.

There are usually two ideas about Paris. You would either say something like love and beauty or dog poop and rude people. Well, apparently there is something to be said about the power of French dog poop and rudeness.The French have helped to create mental illness in the Japanese who visit.

It was first written about in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004, something called the "Paris Syndrome." According to the article I read online from Reuters, Japanese tourists (my poor misguided brethrens) have a certain expectation of Paris. Unfortunately their romanticized dreams of Paris clash violently with their own cultural practices.

In Japan, the customers are treated quite royally. In France, the French prove to be royal *&%*^! The sales clerks don't pay them much attention. The people look harsh and severe. And to top matters off, the Japanese fall prey to the purse snatchers.

It seems that each year, about 12 Japanese tourists require pyschological help after visiting Paris. And I don't mean our western versions of needing a shrink to talk to about our problems. I mean these people are bonkers! Looney toons crazy! They are imagining that they are being bugged! Or that they are Louis XIV! Or that microwaves are attacking them! Like I said, bonkers!

So if you are Japanese or nice and polite or prone to losing it completely, I guess the best advice is to forget Paris. Remember you have been warned.

A trip to Paris may get you French Fried!

Motivation

People ask me, when they hear about my weightloss, "What motivates me?"

It's hard to come up with an answer.

First, I want to say I am proud of the fact that I actually lost the weight I wanted to and then some. I didn't think I would. I just hoped that if I followed the plan it would happen. And I did, and the weight came off. And I am maintaining through watching my points and exercise.

I'm stubborn. My husband would be the first to tell you. So, back up against the wall, I made a commitment, dug my heels in and fell whole heart into WW. (Of course paying $12 a week was also an incentive. I did not want to be the one who "wasted" hard earned money by failing. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know.)

Along the way, I made a lot of discoveries about myself. I hadn't realized how much of me I'd buried under the weight. The funny silly creative Me began re-emerging as I posted on the board with my fellow Weight Watchers. I found an outlet to help others and myself. The more I wrote, the funnier I got and the writer in me surfaced again after a long, long hiatus.

I found I was much stronger than even I thought I was.

Words that became important to me: Perseverence, Motivation, Determination, Fortitude, Attitude, Faith, Hope, Love.

I did a lot of reading. Reading books like Chicken Soup, reading sites like Sparkepeople and Prevention. I kept the quotes that touched a cord in me close at hand. I found motivation in other people's stories and other people's words until I could feel it in myself, believe it myself.

Yes, I first started WW to lose weight, but I ended up changing my health and my way of thinking about food and myself and life. WW is not just about losing weight. It's about control of me.

As far as continued motivation in the maintenance phase, fear of failure is a motivator. I don't want to fail. I don't want all my hard work to just go down the toilet. I made it, and I will do my best to stay here. That means I cannot feel too complacent about where I am. Maintenance is an everyday monitoring that I cannot slack on.

I believe that WW works. I need to follow the plan and keep following the plan all my life. I need to persevere through the rough times when motivation fails me. I need to keep a fighting spirit, a sassy positive attitude. I need to use the tools around me, WW, BCB, friends and family. I need to search for the things that will help me when I need it.

So to answer the question, in a nutshell, I motivate me.

Just Breathe

My son has asthma.

I discovered this on Friday when I took him back to the doctor's office. We had gone on Thursday because he had a cold and labored breathing. He received a breathing treatment and was given a prescription for liquid albuterol syrup. I brought him back on Friday for his recheck. I was told the syrup albuterol was not working too well. He received another breathing treatment and I would need a nebulizer for home. And an inhaler.

My son has asthma.

I spent Friday and Saturday running to all the pharmacies and medical supply stores in the area looking for accessories for the new nebulizer such as a pediatric face mask. I've come to the conclusion that some pharmacies and supply stores have idiots working there. My unit has a rectangular mouth piece. Most masks have a circular attachment. I can't tell you how many times I had to convince someone "A circle does not fit into a..." ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!! Idiots!

No offense to you if you do not fit in this catagory. I did say "some."

So I finally ordered through one company that seems competent.

And now, after the hectic weekend of going hither and yon, after round the clock treatments every 6 hours, after worrying and worrying as only a mother can do, I've decided it is my turn.

I'm having a moment. Slowly.

Just breathe.

Things that make you go hmmm...

Found this on one of those quiz sites. I know some of you will find it funny:

• You know the signs on restaurant doors? No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service? what if someone goes in with No Pants? Would the restaurant still have to serve them?
• If an African elephant comes to America, is it an African-American elephant?
• If a doctor suddenly died while doing surgery, would the other doctors work on the doctor or the patient?
• Why do we sing "Rock a bye baby" to lull our little ones to sleep when the song is about putting your baby in a tree and letting the wind crash the cradle to the ground?
• Why do we say we're head over heels when we're happy? Isn't that the way we normally are?
• If bald people work as chefs in a restaurant,do they have to wear hairnets?
• Why do sleeping pills have warning labels that state :'Caution: May Cause Drowsiness?
• Do nudists have pin-ups of people with clothes on?
• If there's a wheelchair-bound comedian, is it still called "stand-up"?
• When the French swear do they say pardon my English?
• Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
• If you have a cold hot pocket, is it just a pocket?
• In libraries, do they put the bible in the fiction or non-fiction section?
• Does a two-humped camel store more water than a one-humped camel?
• If you pamper a cow, do you get spoiled milk?
• Why is it that if someone yells "duck" they are helping you, but if they yell "chicken" they are insulting you?
• If you fart and burp at the same time, would it make a vacuum in your tummy?
• Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
• When Jewish People go to Court, they can't swear on the bible, can they?
• Why when people ask you "what three things would you bring with you on a desert island?" no one ever replies, "A BOAT"?
• Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
• If you only have one eye...are you blinking or winking?

The O's have it!

• Jen and Vince did not get engaged.
• Jen's boobs got big because of a 10 pound weight gain. Not from breast surgery.
• Jen and Vince did not break up.

This is the type of "who the f*ck cares" information we see all around us. Newsworthy apparently.

It ticks me off. Especially when I want to know about the earthquake in Hawaii. Or what's going on in Darfur. Or why Pluto is no longer a planet (newsflash if you didn't know!).

So I rely on Oprah to give it to me straight.

I get to sit and listen for an hour and learn. And cry. And have hope. I see others in the world who care and are doing things to empower others and themselves. It moves me and motivates me to do more. Thank you Oprah!

Which brings me to yesterday's guest: Barack Obama.

Each time I see him he impresses me.

He says what we need to "instill in our country, in our children, is a sense, are you useful? Are you useful to other people? Are you making other people's lives a little bit better?"

Damn! I hope so. I hope I have and continue to do so personally and through the beliefs and values I teach to my son.

He says "My mother taught me empathy—the basic concept of standing in somebody else's shoes and looking through their eyes. If I did something messed up, she'd just say, 'How would that make you feel if somebody did that to you?' That ends up being, I think, at the center of my politics, and I think that should be the center of all our politics."

Empathy. Not apathy. Empathy.

When he was asked about his mother and how sad it must be that she wasn't alive to see him in the limelight as Senator, he replied it was difficult knowing she had never seen her granddaughters.

WOW! That says it all right there. Who he is. An amazing man. An amazing human being raised by an equally amazing mother. I wonder what the world would be like if everyone thought a little more like they did.

Some Been There, Done That & Not

I caught a chameleon in Saudi Arabia.
I have eaten pizza in Greece.
I drank cappuccino in Italy and coconut juice in Malaysia.
I have visited the Mauna Kea Observatory.
I jet skied in Papua New Guinea.
I saw the battlefields of Virginia.
I shot an AK-47 in Pennsylvannia.
I road Space Mountain in Florida.
I bought a rug in Tijuana.
I have ridden the subway in New York.
I have had my haircut in Hong Kong.
I have seen where Shakespeare lived and Robin Hood's domain.
I have watched Colin Raye, Alan Jackson, and Bon Jovi in concert.
I saw a beluga whale in Washington.
I have ridden a camel in Saudi Arabia, an elephant in Thailand, and horse in Egypt (and gotten thrown in Canada).

I have not seen Garth Brooks in concert.
I have not skiied (water nor snow).
I have not sky dived.
I have not learned how to drive a motorcycle or a stick shift.
I have not published a book or even written my name in snow.
I have not dyed my hair with koolaid.
I have not visited Japan (but I have been inside the airport).

I started this list because I did not know what to write about today. But as I wrote I discovered I have done a good number of things. Different things. I guess it shows me that my life has indeed been rich with experiences. I am full of "haves".

Remember your haves.

Eye of the Beholder

Have you seen this advertisement for the movie "The Grudge 2"? Centered in a pale, bloodless face is a wide, frightened eye. Scary enough to provoke nightmares in adults!

My son saw this billboard as we drove in the car. He pointed it out to me... "Look mom! The number 2 picture!"

"Yes, it is a number 2 picture!" I replied, much relieved that was all he saw.

Just a quick example of that old expression "in the eye of the beholder".

Thank goodness!

Time

Time. It is finite. For us.

On Friday the 13th, I discovered my vet had Cancer, had had cancer since 2001. She had won the first battle, but as Cancer is the most cunning of evils, it had come back. She has lived 1/2 of the 1-6 years of life the her doctor had given her.

The Cancer continues to make life difficult, invading her spine, ribs, and neck. She is in pain, forced to cut back on the job she so loves, her clinic, her animals.

If you see her, you see a short ball of energy. Quick, happy. If she had not left that note hanging from her office counter, such a innocuous looking note, I would never had known.

After reading the note, I was overcome with a wave of sadness and anger. The anger was what bothered me the most, rolling over and over me.

I was filled with such a boiling rage that Cancer would win yet again, that it had affected not just another life but lives. It affects not one. It affects a family, a community. We all suffer.

I wanted to see her, to hug her, to say how sorry I was, how much she will be missed, to say Gambate and all those senseless things we say when we hear the awful news that someone is dying. Remember that poem we all had to read by Dylan Thomas? It was all I could think about. I wanted to tell her "do not go gentle into that good night ". "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

But I am so glad I didn't. I think those words are more for me than for her. She sounded like she had accepted death. I would only have made her day worse by my tears and my grief. She's made some peace with the idea. For me, having just learned, my grief is new and alive.

She is doing everything in her power to live normally in the time she has left. She fights through her pain to come to work. She really doesn't need me to remind her with my sadness. So I fight through my ideas and wonder if I am doing the right thing. Should I send her a note? What would I say? And would doing this make her feel better? Is this a selfish thing on my part? What I want her to know may not be what she needs to hear.

I'm sure her main worry is for the family she leaves behind. Certainly, I am sure, she is not dwelling on what I think or do.

So for now I do nothing.

California Freaks

After moving to California in 1997, I began working at a nearby hospital. On one memorable occasion, a patient proved resistant to doing his exercises. While this was a new patient for me, it was not uncommon to have patients that needed to be persuaded to do the required therapy. Normally, we (therapists) do a little give and take and try our best to convince the patient of why they should do XY and Z. We listen and motivate.

Well, this guy wanted me to do his personal exercise routine first before he would do mine. I was game. First I had to take off my shoes. Then my socks. Then he put my feet and toes through a series of "exercises".

Now I try to divert him back to the exercises I wanted him to do. But, no. He has more foot exercises he want me to do first. Okaaaaaay.

My brain is beginning to sense something is wrong. Disturbingly wrong. Huge willies wrong! I am now thinking about everything I have just done for this man regarding my feet. Is he staring? WTH?!

Dear God I think I have a foot fetish dude here.

Now you may not think it is so weird, foot fetishes, but I felt seriously violated. I know. It's just feet. Not a boob or anything. But just the thought of someone deriving some sort of physical, sexual pleasure from you... secretly, covertly... like a peeping tom or those guys who carry video cameras and look up your skirt. It's... oogie! (For all those not from Hawaii... oogie is like when something is just gross to all hell and you get the uncontrolled shivers - pronounced ooo Gee - gee like the letter "g".) It was like that. Very very oogie!

Did I ever have that patient again? Hell no! And I made sure to warn the schedulers to place him with a male therapist next time.

Has it scarred me for life? Hell yes!

I do not wiggle my toes for strangers.

Other body parts? Well...

A plus B

One day at Target, we were standing in line waiting to pay for our items. My son notices the lady behind us. Never a shy soul (my son will talk to anything that breaths... and even that is not a requirement) he begins his litany of questions with this lady. But this time, there was a change in his questions. He asks "Are you going to the doctor?"

I'm a little puzzled and taken aback. It seemed to be a strange question. Then I notice. She was carrying a large envelope which she was purchasing.

My son had made the connection from his limited life experience.

He has never seen us mailing a large envelope. But, he has seen Daddy taking a big brown envelope (for x-rays and MRIs) whenever he goes to the doctor. For him, large envelopes equal doctor's office.

I am constantly amazed at how little minds work. It makes me wonder what else he may have seen or heard and what that might mean to him. We make such an impact in the lives of children. Is it the right one? It is certainly something to think about.