Butter

Butter comes in a double package!!! Now I have an excuse not eat it.

Butter, Cream, and Mayonnaise

What is it about those three ingredients that make your brain think yum. If you try any of them by themselves they are not very good. Who wants to eat butter? Plane whipped cream maybe, but mayonnaise? And what in the world is mayonnaise anyway? This is one that I gave up long ago, before I even started thinking about dieting, losing weight, the healthiness of foods, or any of it. Why might you ask? One day I just decided it was gross. You see it a picnic, out in the sun, on top of otherwise perfectly healthy items, and making them a food poisoning risk. How long has that coleslaw been sitting there anyway? Hello potato salad, out in the heat, do you think you have anything growing in you that shouldn't be? Had you just been left potatoes, you would have been fine. Seasoned with olive oil and seasonings that don't need refrigeration you would have been all the yummier. But instead we put in hard boiled eggs, and mayonnaise. Don't we leave those things in the fridge? Next time you are at a picnic, and want all that mayonnaise laden food, think that should be in the fridge, and walk away. Yuck!

I have not yet tricked my brain into thinking it doesn't like butter and cream. I will let you know if I come up with anything.

More Activity

It seems that very few skinny people have a sedentary lifestyle. Be it tennis, yoga, or cycling, they have something that they do on a regular basis usually OUTSIDE. I don't know why, but exercising outside seems to be an important factor of being skinny. I am having trouble finding an exercise that I like. I take that back. The exercises that I like, get my heart rate up to about 200-220 and my doc says I shouldn't do those. That is not a good sustained heart rate. Which leaves all sorts of exercise that I don't like. I liked step aerobics and cycling. These were both at a gym, with a person telling you what to do in the front, non competitive, without a ball. INSIDE. Running has the same heart rate effect, and other sports have a competitive component. Yoga, and palates I find incredibly boring and painful. This looks like a list of excuses not to exercise but if I don't love it I am not going to do it.

Goals:
1. Try to find a way to cycle or do step aerobics w/o getting my heart rate up to 200 and still like it.
2. See if swimming, or regular biking can accomplish the goal.

Another big factor is the children. There are 4 of them, and only 3 of them can swim, only 2 of them can ride a bike. If I could just find a way to exercise outside with them without losing anyone...

Reading the Label

Some say, avoid X, Y, Z, P, D, and Q. Some say count the number of ingredients and if it is less than 4 or 5 it is probably just fine. But what I am wondering is, why are we eating so much processed food. If it has more than one ingredient, it is no longer an ingredient. You don't have to read the label if it is called flour, milk, eggs, or oatmeal.

Tangent! I always forget this is going to happen, but it has happened ever time I go to visit someone. I always tell them the same thing. "We will go grocery shopping the day after we arrive. Just make anything for dinner, and buy some oatmeal, and then we will shop before lunch the next day." I say all of this, because when you take four kids anywhere, it is a bit of an imposition to ask anyone who is not used to feeding six people to cook for you. Or buy groceries for that matter. What I forget is people buy packaged foods. So when I say buy oatmeal, rather than just buying the big singly packaged container, they buy the individually packaged, artificially flavored, box. Yeah, so, um, hmmmm, my kids aren't going to eat that stuff, and yuck. Any wonder oatmeal isn't more popular. If we would just use the oats, and add our own flavors, I think people would like it just fine. It seems that cinnamon, raisins, and honey can't be dried and packaged into one of those individual packages and shipped to us ready to go. If it could be, oatmeal would be popular. But as it stands, we say "Oatmeal is healthy, I should try it again!" We buy those individual packs, try it again, and say "Yuck, I guess I don't like healthy food." and give up on oatmeal. Next time, just buy the big one, put in less water, and add some other stuff, and say "Yum, where have you been all my life!"

Clear Fats vs. White Fats

I think I have figured out the white food comment from the skinny person a few months ago. She said she didn't eat white food, which I found curious. Reading in Cooking Light yesterday I saw something that cleared it up a bit. It seems that foods like cheese, milk, steak, vegetable shortening, and coconut milk, all have the kind of fat that is bad for your heart and happen to be white in color. The clear fats like nut oils, avocados, vegetable oil, and flax, are all the kinds that are good for you heart. So what I think she was saying is that if she was going to eat a food with fat in it, it was going to be a clear one, otherwise, she was not going to eat it at all.

More Birthdays

Birthdays mean cake. A little bit of self control could have prevented this week's dieting from going down the tubes. Oh well. Guess I don't have the skinny mindset yet. Those cupcakes are just too tempting.

Meanwhile, I had another pantry purge today. (After the party of course. But don't tell the kids.) Into the trash today goes that giant bag of Skittles, why do they make such a large package anyway? Jelly Bellies:( I noticed that the food coloring was double packaged today. Box and individual squirt bottles. I investigated farther. Yellow 5 and Red 10. You have got to be kidding me. I know kids that are allergic to both of those colors, and I was going to drip them into my frosting. Hello trash can!

I know how to get red (beets) but where can I get yellow and blue? I guess the cakes are just going to have to be plain colors until I figure it out. Maybe I should learn to make cakes w/o butter and shortening. I have approx 3 months to figure it out before the next birthday.

I am still in denial about the crackers. They are double packaged, and highly processed. I guess I can put my hummus on raw veggies instead of crackers, but I am just not ready to give up the crackers.

Throw It Away

Sometimes kids leave pesky, tempting, enticing objects on their plate. We wouldn't eat after granny, why then do we moms feel the need to eat that piece of ________? Is it because we weren't appreciated for the work we put into making it? (Rejection) Is it because it would be wasting food? Or is it because we like carrying those extra pounds on our hips? Ask yourself those questions next time you are about to eat that cinnamon roll fragment, and instead of spreading it on your hips, scrap it into the trash can?