Healthy Eats in Edmonton

Good morning! It's a snowy, blowy Sunday morning in Edmonton. I had a gorgeous morning (thank you to the parents who hosted my girls at a birthday party sleepover last night!!!). I've just finished a two mile walk with my Leslie Sansone dvd from the library. I'm listening to Nina Simone singing Feeling Good, and the Muse version, too. I've got a bowl of my favourite winter brekkie next to me... large flake oats with a handful of blueberries, a generous pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a lovely spoon of brown sugar on top (it is SO worth the time to cook slow oats!). Life is good and the endorphins are pumping, thanks to my ménage-à-trois with Leslie and my man this morning!

I've spent the past two weeks carefully weighing and measuring my foods at home so that I can be honest with myself about portion sizes. I've had some surprises, mostly with some of my favourites (go figure!). For example, my estimation of a cup of cherries came out to be a 3 point (approx 225 cal) serving, instead of a 1 point serving (approx 75 cal). Bummer! Anyway, feeling that I've got a pretty good handle on the portion sizes now, I enjoyed three of Edmonton's restaurants this week. All three were fabulous (two are favourites of mine and one new one was a big hit)... here's a replay for any of you who live in or visit Edmonton.

My man and I went on a fabulous date last night. It was his turn to choose the movie, so we saw The Book of Eli (violent, post-apocalyptic... pretty blah, but made bearable by the delectable presence of Mr Denzel Washington). More importantly, we tried out a restaurant we had heard about... the Wild Tangerine (10383 112 St, http://www.wildtangerine.com/old%20site/menu.html). I had the Pineapple Chicken Stir-Fry with Steamed Organic Wild Rice. No, silly, not that goopy, pineapple sauce crap that you find in food fairs... fresh slices of pineapple stir fried with green beans, red, orange and yellow peppers on top of wild rice. Deliciously fresh, appropriately portioned (what a miracle!), and healthy... no tell-tale oil slick left at the bottom of my plate.

The night before, we celebrated my sister-in-law's 40th birthday (actually, she just turned 39 but I put 40 on her cake to get it out of the way and make next year easier...hee hee) at Sweet Mango at 9120 82 Ave. I discovered this Vietnamese restaurant a couple of months ago and my family loves it. I go for a big bowl of steaming hot, healthy Pho (Vietnamese soup). I choose number 32, Pho with chicken breast pieces (comes beautifully cooked and skinless), squid and shrimp... I get them to leave out the squid and add a couple extra shrimp. It's a beautiful lemongrass broth (not salty) and is full of vermicelli noodles (too many for me, so I carefully eyeball 1 cups worth... I've practiced this at home against my scale and am pretty darn good at it). It comes with a side plate of fresh basil, bean sprouts and lemon that you can add in to your taste. I LOVE it! As for the cake I brought from the Bee Bell Bakery... I had a bite and skipped it. It was darn tasty, but creamy is a trigger for me and not worth it at the moment.

My last yum yum of the week comes from the Millcreek Cafe at 9562 82 Ave... the kind of place I would open, if I were in the biz. It's a casual, completely homemade joint where business folk can hang with Whyte Ave tattoo artists and families alike. They're best known for their baked goodies (especially cinnamon buns)... What I love 'em for is their two homemade soups each day, their couple of salads and their fresh sandwiches on their homemade oat and carrot bread. You can order half salads and half sandwiches, which is great for portion control. The roast turkey sandwich is my favourite... real roast turkey and I load it up with sprouts, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. My favourite salad is the spinach salad which is topped with fruits like strawberries and blackberries, a small handful of seasoned, roasted pecans (approx. 4 points worth) and a lovely mustard dressing (which I get on the side and portion appropriately). Scrummy!

Don't fear the food! I purposefully choose local, independent places where they take pride in their ingredients, work hard to make little adjustments that customers request, portion more appropriately, and have the expertise and passion to flavor food with herbs and spices... instead of fat and salt. If you have a favourite healthy Edmonton eatery, I'd love to hear about it!

Week Two - A Round of Applause

Week Two Stats
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Age: 38
Height: 5'6"
Starting Weight: 310lbs
Current Weight: 304.5lbs
Calories/day: 1600-1850 (32-37 points)
Calorie average this week: 1750 (35 points)
Exercise: 8 min Billy Blanks Tae Bo tape, 30 min Leslie Sansone walking video, 1 hour aquasize, 1.5hr drumming class, swimming with the kids
Week 2: -.05 lbs

My bod' is feeling great! My eating was spot-on and I enjoyed the activity I did this week. My muscles are singing a sad song of "we're tired, let us rest!"... which means that I am doing it right.

Aquasize was a hoot. I wore a tank top over my suit, as I wasn't confident that my suit could adequately contain my Ta Tas when in full bounce. Luckily, there were no Janet Jackson costume malfunctions. The workout was at Bonnie Doon pool and was an hour long... sounds like a lot, but I found it well paced and quite manageable. I pushed myself to work to 80 percent of my capacity and worked up a sweat while splashing those unlucky enough to be stationed next to me.

The water is very kind to my knees and allows me to do exercises I couldn't do on land. The 'both knees up, frog hopping' is great for the tummy muscles (which I am told exist, but are currently A.W.O.L.). Thank goodness that no one can really see what is happening below the surface of the water (except for the creep with the goggles who was lurking in the corner of the pool). If I had been doing those exercises on land it would have sounded like a standing ovation... given all the slapping my thighs, boobs and butt were doing! I've decided it was my bod's way of saying thanks for all the movin'!

Making Exercise Routine

Hmmmm... an odd couple of days. I find myself flummoxing about with exercise. I am adding steps by doing the little things... parking at the back of the lot, stairs not elevators, etc. I even carried my groceries in to the house one bag at a time, instead of performing the usual Sherpa act of carrying all at once and almost permanently cutting of the circulation to my fingers. I have now set up a little mini home gym with a core ball, inflatable punching bag and a skipping rope (for good knee days). I also found (at Winners) 3 lb hand weights to use during my videos. I have researched aquasize classes and found a few to hit each week, perfect for after dropping the kids at school.

I now have all my ducks... I just need to get them in a row...


I could list out the many excuses/reasons I have had over the years for my delays in jumping in. However, I don't think I need to reinvent the wheel on this one... this blogger summed it up perfectly for me...

http://iamthatgirlnow.blogspot.com/2005/04/exercise-motive-impulse-and-goad.html

I will say that I have a persistent fear that I will hurt myself. Truly. I have a tricky lower back at the best of times, and in the past year my knees have occasionally protested loudly when going up and down stairs. The kicker is that I know that both problems are as a result of my weight and poor muscle tone. I know that I need to strengthen my body in order to give my body the relief it is asking for.

Time to be compassionate, but firm, with myself! Last night I had a good think, allowed my mind to wander and play out all the possible scenarios (even the nasty ones... you know, the I will hurt myself and end up incapacitated in bed until I grow to the size that requires a team of ugly firefighters (yup, I don't even get the cute ones) to come and rescue me). Low and behold, it helped. When I allowed myself to move through every thought, from the the ridiculous to the inspirational, I felt better. I reassured myself that I can apply my compassionate firmness to my exercise, listen to my body's needs, hit the forgiving water when I need to care for my knees, skip when I feel great (I loved it as a kid!), beat the snot out of my punching bag when I let the world pile up on me, and get from the library a book or video of seated core ball exercises for icky back days.

I also took a moment to appreciate the fact that I am an educated, literate woman who can get a book and learn about proper form, that I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being able to afford tools and an occasional personal training session, that I live in Canada and have access to excellent health care, etc. Having just returned from living in a developing country for the past 3 years, I am constantly struck by how much I used to take for granted.

So, having finished checking in with myself... I am left with the getting down to the nitty gritty... routines, routines, routines. My M/W/F morning routine now looks like this:

• Wake/make bed
• Shower/teeth
• Get kids up
• Make healthy breakfast
• Kids to School
• Tidy Up
• Aquasize
• Shower/Hair

Once my list is complete, I move on to the rest of my day. It's like the bottle says, "wash, rinse, repeat." It's just the way it's done. In addition to my aquasize, Tuesday night I have drumming class (GREAT upper body work out and soul affirming!), Thursday is my restin' the bones day, and Saturday and Sunday are my movin' it with the kids days... which are great because they are spontaneous fun (one day I am a 300+lb woman hurtling down the toboggan hill like a freight train out of control, the next I am tramping 5km into the woods to look for a geocache). If you need to put the fun back into exercise and you don't have kids, do some good for you and for your community... become a big brother or sister!!!

2...4...6...8...Let's Go!

CAUTION - Reduced Visibility

Good Morning! It's been two days since my weigh in and I am feeling energized! Eating and tracking are going really well. I have found a new favourite lunch... discovered yummy wheat pitas, at Superstore, that I stuff full of salad and various protein nibbles (grilled chicken, egg, turkey peperoni, chick peas, etc). The pitas are just 2 points (130 cals, 2g fat, 6g fibre!) and I usually stuff them to a nice 5 or 6 points (250-300 cals) as a meal or have just a roasted vege one with soup. Scrummy!

I've been wrapping my mind around exercise options... When I was living in my south pacific paradise a mere 7 months ago, I was loving my tropical, sweaty walks with my soul sister walkin' partner. Now that I have moved, I can't seem to find the same enjoyment in tramping without her. Walking with my man or the kids is lovely, but only realistic on the weekends (due to evening lessons). I need to find something reliable and fun... so I decided last night to delve into the world of fitness videos as a back up to stimulating outdoor pursuits.

This morning I went to the library and signed out Leslie Sansone's walking videos and a couple of Billy Blanks tae-bo videos. I couldn't face the prospect of walking alone (even though I am sure that Leslie would have rigorously cheered me on), however I immediately came home and hallumphed through Billy's 8 minute workout. Billy warned me that I should participate in his introductory tape first... alas, the library did not have it, so I plunged in. It's fast paced for a beginner like me, and I am sure that he would have keeled over if he had seen my "form," but it's a peppy burst that I can handle. Experts say that getting exercise in 10 minute bursts can be just as beneficial as doing it all in a lump... we shall see!

When I finished my tape, I was full of get-up-and-go and on the spur of the moment thought I might head to our local pool for a drop-in aquasize class. While packing my gear, it hit me that if I were to turn up in my current state, I would be giving Austin Powers a run for his hairy money. In order to survive the 70 degrees temperature transition from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, I had relied on not only my walrus thick layer of blub, but also had insulated myself by growing the hair on my southern regions to a length that Chewbacca would be proud of. Needless to say, I guessed that my current state would not necessarily endure me to possible new friends (it would be one of those awkward "I didn't know where to look" moments)... so, with not much time to spare I opted for socially acceptable stubble and my man's clippers, as opposed to the whole showering/shaving option... this story bring's me to...trumpets, please...

My Reason of the Week
For Wanting to Lose Weight:

Being able to see my own pubic region. Yup, you heard me right.
Rushing while clipping is never advisable. Rushed clipping while experiencing reduced visibility due to DDD cups and gut specific soft tissue mass is downright reckless. No amount of squatting, stretching and contorting improved visibility. When all was said and done, it looked like someone from an insane asylum had attacked my Wookie. A barber would describe my work as looking like a patchwork of number 1s, number 2s and one spot that shines like Telly Savalas' head. After my own masochistic version of hair trimming yoga, and having delivered myself a nasty little nick to the groin, I was exhausted.

All's well that ends well, though! Realizing that sometime soon my man would notice that I had been attacked by a weed wacker, I texted him about my indiscretions in the bathroom... to which he texted back that he was sorry to hear about my environmental catastrophe and that he would be available shortly to assess the deforestation and administer emergency TLC. Hee hee...I found a way to get my exercise time in...

Week One - Ups and Downs

Starting Stats
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Age: 38
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 305
Calories/day: 1600-1850 (32-37 points)
Calorie average this week: 1700 (34 points)
Exercise: 3.5km walk, 5km river valley walk (hills!)
Week 1: -5.0 lbs!!!!!!!!!

I'm really happy with my results. I don't know what I enjoyed more... my lbs going down or my butt going up the last hill on my river valley tramp!

I did a 3.5km walk earlier in the week and I had such a great 5km river valley walk with my man and kids a few days later! It was a blue sky, -2 degrees (very warm for January in Edmonton) day and I managed to keep my booty shakin' the entire time. Not a single stop on the hills... just a slow, steady pace. Normally, I would crack a joke about needing to either stop for a breather or have someone else carry my bum up the hill for me... not this time... this time I proudly announced at the bottom of the hill that I would be carrying my own bum and therefore would not be available for trail side observations or jovial conversations until I reached the top. My man and one daughter decided to take the 170 stair challenge to the top instead of the hill, my other daughter answered that she was fine with not chatting because she needed to do some training for the school running club she belongs to... she ran up and down the hill 2.5 times before I reached the summit. We both chuckled and felt great afterward!

Had a great week of eating. Kept it simple so it would be easy to re-learn all of the points/calorie values. I also didn't eat out this week, so that I wouldn't have to estimate. I needed a week to remind myself of what food looks like when it has been weighed and measured properly. I had a few hungry moments and filled them with protein rich snacks. Here's a snap of my favourite yum yum of the week...3 Wasa Hearty Rye crispbread slices (you can get a Light Rye one that is lower in points, but I prefer this one) with a tablespoon or two of light cream cheese, tomato slices and purple onion rings on top...or, 3 crispbread slices with tomato slices, crumbled feta and basil... a touch of sea salt and a generous grind of pepper and you've got some serious crispy, crunchy flava'!!!



My Reason of the Week
For Losing Weight:
To not have to carry an extra 100+ pounds up and down hills. Despite my size and because of my adventurous spirit, my love of nature and my joy in participating in shenanigans with others, I have never let myself get to the point where it is difficult to walk around the block. That said, most of the time it ain't easy, I don't always do it with dignity, and it ain't always pretty to see! In fact, it is my adventurous spirit which leads me into situations like diving off a boat in Fiji to snorkel with the sharks... only to discover that getting back onto a boat with no ladder in the middle of the ocean is no easy task for even the slim and trim among us.

As my friends and family all shimmied and slithered there way up onto the deck, I looked at my two Fijian guides and we all began to laugh nervously in acknowledgment of the mammoth (pun intended) task ahead of us. I sidled up to the boat, gave my flippered feet a whale of a kick... and managed to raise myself approximately 2 inches out of the water (somewhat short of the 2 feet I would need to get my hips to a level where I could potentially grope my weigh onto deck). At this point, the captain took note of this unfortunate situation and came to my side. As I was now profoundly aware that I was stuck bobbing like a snack in the ocean, I assured the captain that if my friends could be allowed to hum the da-na, da-na, dun-dun-dun-dun sounds of the shark attack scenes in Jaws, that I would find the strength to haul my butt on board. Needless to say, my 2nd attempt failed. In the end (pun, again, intended), the captain took my arms and hauled and the delicious guides each shoved a buttock, and I was unceremoniously beached.

Did I die of embarrassment? No. Would it stop me from doing it again? No. There is no failure in trying and no joy in sitting out. Do I want a different experience next time? Yes. Swimming in the open ocean and snorkeling down to reefs is physically demanding. I had to turn back much earlier than I wanted to. Being unable to get myself onto the boat was dangerous (what if we really had needed to evacuate the water?!?). A healthy, strong, fit body is worth it!

Learning to Weight

Welcome, friends!

I am a 38-year-old honey, born and bred in New Zealand, mother of twin pre-teen daughters, madly in love with my man for the past 24 years (yup...high school sweethearts), african drum playing, nature loving, movie watching, music groovin', socialist, who secretly wishes she could be a singer/back-up dancer/basketball star! Oh, and I weigh 310 pounds.

For the past 3 years, my family and I lived on the largest of Fiji's glorious 322 islands and have recently moved to... drum roll... Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (and the crowd goes silent). I know, I know. What possessed us to make the 70 degrees temperature transition from the sweat drenched tropics to the frozen tundra? That would take a whole other blog to answer! This blog, however, is about what I am dedicating myself to... balancing my lifestyle in order to achieve a healthy weight and fitness level.

Was I always big? Yes, I was big from birth... my mother had to cut the sleeve seams of my baby outfits to fit my arms into them. Does my family have issues with weight? Yes, like me, my father and brother gain weight from smelling food and have to work extremely diligently to take it off. My mother is a runner and passed her love of wholesome foods onto me. Have I "dieted" before. Yes, twice with Weight Watchers. First time was in University (19 years ago) and I managed to go from 250 lbs to 190 lbs and maintain it for 2 years. Second time was nine years ago, after the birth of my twins. I dropped from 324 lbs to 230 lbs and kept it off for a year before slowing regaining it.

Am I active? Not on my own. I love to swim, hike, bike ride, play tennis, etc with my family and friends. Do I eat fast food? Very rarely, and if I do it is pizza. Do I eat junk food? No pop, chips can be ok, nachos and cheese with homemade salsa is gorgeous, but chocolate makes the world go round. Do I enjoy healthy foods? I ADORE veges, fruits, nuts, whole grains, lean meats, skim milk, eggs, yogurt, cheese... the picture is getting clearer, isn't it. I am a BULK eater of fabulous foods who tops everything off with too much chocolate and not enough movement of the booty.

Why now? I could rail off a multitude of reasons why I want to get healthy, but if you are reading this, you are almost certainly living the reasons along with me. Suffice it to say that I feel claustrophobic in my own skin and it is time. I am ready to live to my potential and nurture my body and soul.

How? I joined Weight Watchers yesterday. It's not that I think that WW has a profoundly ground shaking philosophy on weight loss... in fact, I joined the program because it doesn't purport to be something that it isn't. It is simply the food pyramid put in different terms... 1 point is approximately equivalent to 50 calories and a gram or two of fat... eat reasonable, reduced portions for your weight, move your butt, etc. What I really get from belonging is that weekly meeting where I check in with my progress (or lack thereof) and a place to talk through challenges and learn about new products. The truth is that I need that touchstone. My man is supportive and even eats maintenance points to share the experience, but being naturally slim he cannot understand the bulk eating experience. Also, having just moved to Edmonton, I don't have my fabulous Fiji soul sisters to walk and share with.

What's with the title of the blog, 2...4...6...8...I Can Weight? In the past, I was daunted by the monstrous amount of weight I needed to lose to get to my "goal weight." That is no longer the case. One of the amazing life lessons I have taken away from my time in Fiji is the sheer freedom that can be found in patience. You've heard of island time, I am sure, and in Fiji NOTHING happens quickly. It's glorious! In the past, I became discouraged by how long it would take to reach a healthy weight and I would lose focus. Hearing that I should aim for a steady loss of .5 - 2lbs a week sounded like torture. I wanted it now, Now, NOW.

So, for the first time I am practicing patience with my weight. Not patience disguised as lazy, passive waiting... I mean I will do my job: persistent, daring, tenacious, brave, consistent effort to balance my eating and fitness AND I will live patiently, accepting my body's rhythm and rate of weight loss. If I lose .5lbs on average each week (2 pounds a month), I will have lost 25 pounds by Xmas 2010. If I lose 2 lbs on average each week (8 pounds a month), I will lose 104 pounds by Xmas 2010. 2...4...6...8...I Can Weight!

Starting Stats

Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Age: 38
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 310
Calories/day: 1600-1850 (32-37 points)

*for perspective, the lovely woman in the photo with me is a size 12/14...I am a 26/28