a ramble about treadmills etc

It's taken me a few weeks to get into the groove with the treadmill, but I'm back to exercising at least six days a week now. Back in the day when I used to go to a *regular* gym, I hated the treadmill. Actually, I didn't enjoy any of the cardio machines; there were only degrees of dislike. My least favorite was the stationary bike; the treadmill ranked barely higher, and then the stepper was, by default, the favored one. That's all that gym offered. I always thought I'd enjoy a cross-country ski machine, but I've never been a member at a club that had one.

More recently elliptical trainers have come on the market, and that was what we planned to purchase this fall to keep me working out over the winter. But when someone offers you the use of a good quality treadmill free of charge--and you're not exactly rich to start with--it's easy to push off the purchase for another year.

I believe in strength training. As a member of Curves International, I've come to see first-hand what strength training can do to benefit weight loss.

Gary Heavin, Curves' founder, says:

If you have failed in the past with your exercise and weight loss plans, let's assess your experiences. If your exercise program omitted strength training, you may not have been protecting muscle tissue as you lost weight. With up to 40% of your weight loss in the form of muscle, you drastically lowered your metabolism, thus setting yourself up for failure. If you had no exercise regimen while you were dieting, you never experienced the physiological advantages of exercise. Exercise required energy. Sustained cardiovascular exercise burns more stored fat as energy. The more regularly you exercise, the better your body becomes at accessing fat stores. A complete exercise program will burn more fat and protect metabolically active muscle tissue. Every study shows that those who add exercise to their weight loss program are most successful.

If you followed a traditional low calorie/ low fat diet plan, chances are that you were feeding fat while starving muscle. When you consume as little as 1200 calories, and only 10 to 15% of those calories are in the form of protein, your muscles do not have an adequate supply of essential amino acids. With 65% of your calories coming from carbohydrates, insulin levels are kept high, which feeds and protects fat stores.

Conventional dieting methods have no way to deal with metabolism which has slowed in response to dieting. Whenever you start to burn stored energy, your body protects itself by becoming more efficient. This survival mechanism lowers metabolism when you are dieting.

The Curves recommended diet is quite similar to South Beach, urging protein regardless of fat content and shunning carbs regardless of glycemic index rating. I've come to believe that the Curves workout and a low GI diet gives me the best possible combination. But either way, the key is to REV up the metabolism rather than shut it down.

Strength training requires *off* days to allow time for your muscles to heal. The goal is to over-work them and stress them: true strength training requires that you move a resistance that is greater than the muscle is accustomed to. However, to keep the metabolism going, cardio training on those *off* days is still a good thing. Plus, of course, it burns calories.

Over the spring and summer, I walked (moving up to a walk/ run combo) or rode my bike most mornings that I wasn't at Curves. Now it's the treadmill. A benefit of the treadmill is that you can see exactly how hard you're working out. On a day when I wasn't running up to snuff outside, I might not really know that until I got back home and discovered that extra time had elapsed.

I'm actually enjoying the treadmill now. I think a lot of it has to do with my attitude. Ten years ago (when I went to a gym) I hadn't wrapped my head around this commitment to lose weight and to get AND STAY healthy. I'm there now and I want to stay there. A half hour walk/ run on the treadmill three days a week is a small price to pay.

Besides, sweating actually feels good. Whodathunkit?

Helpful newsletter

You can sign up for a monthly newsletter about the GI Way here if you haven't done so already. I've had the link over on the sidebar for a few weeks now.

The most recent letter hit my mailbox tonight, and it is so chock full of good advice, interesting recipes, and an inspirational story that I want to draw your attention to it.

If there's any diabetes in your family, be sure to have a look.

Recipes galore!

Here's a great link for healthy recipes: Recipe Rumble. This link was passed on to me by Karenee and I've only taken a cursory glance through it yet. If you find recipes you think sound great in there, why not let us know?

Slacking off

When I look back on the past few weeks, I find that the whole health and nutrition thing goes very hand in hand.

My weight is wobbling all over a four-pound range. On the plus side, it spent a few days lingering at a new all-time low before wobbling back up. There have been a few issues, I think.

The bear didn't help! I do now have a very good quality (though elderly) treadmill upstairs and took it for a good run yesterday. It clanks and clunks a lot, so I'll have to get hubby to have a look at it when he's home on the weekend. It's noisy on walking mode but gets rather frenzied at a jog. So we'll see how that works out. I'd like to get back to daily exercise. Once I start skipping days its easy to skip a couple more.

I wound up with a minor flare-up of the arthritis earlier this week. I did manage a couple of Curves workouts during that time frame but I'll be the first to admit they weren't real fat-blasting programs. Even not feeling 100%, it seemed wise to keep moving as best I could rather than reclining at leisure. Things seem back under control on that front now, for which I'm glad.

And when I'm not feeling well, I eat. Hovering just above my goal weight is frustrating. On the one hand, I think I can drop those last few pounds any time. Such as *later*. On the other hand, I'm hunting for comfort food, because how much harm can a little slippage do at this stage? Sigh.

All these things work together. When I'm exercising regularly, I feel stronger mentally. I feel I can tackle absolutely anything. (Well, except for bears.) I can say no to just about any tempting food. But if one area slides, it's a slippery slope.

This evening I baked me some healthy comfort food to tuck in the freezer for when I need it most. It's not stuff I should eat with abandon, but it certainly will do less damage than some of the things I've reached for lately when I wasn't prepared. So now I should get off-line and freeze the pumpkin snack bars and the carrot bran muffins so I don't go on a feeding frenzy at midnight!

Tomatoes and zucchini and pumpkins--oh my!

The garden has officially frozen over. I must say it's a relief.

But then, I'm kind of surprised it took this long. Usually we have killing frost by mid-September, and here it is, well into October. I did have the tomato plants covered Sunday night when it froze, but when the frost is heavy enough, it goes through the tarps anyway. Most interesting, the leaves were wilted looking and black but the tomatoes themselves didn't look affected. Monday afternoon I picked off anything that looked orangey to red and covered them again, as well as the pumpkins which I'd forgotten to cover Sunday. The ones tucked under lots of leaves had survived the first frost, but the ones on the outskirts were frost-bitten. The zucchini are simply toast, but I've eaten enough of them to do me for a few months anyway.

This afternoon my sis-in-law came down and picked off the remaining tomatoes and pulled the plants. She didn't have room in her car for a pumpkin as well, but she wants one. I've quadruple covered the three surviving pumpkins in hopes of finding them homes tomorrow. Hubby's sisses' all say they want one but keep not coming to pick them up.

We butchered one of the biggest on Saturday, though. Hubby rolled it over to the compost pile, hacked it up with an axe, and *gutted* it there. The chunks filled our wheelbarrow. Mom-in-law looked interested so we gave her a bunch of it, maybe a quarter. I spent the rest of the day prepping pumpkin for the freezer. Folks had told me the fastest way to do it was to bake the pieces and remove the peel afterwards. Way too slow. It took about 90 minutes to do one pan-full, and the wheelbarrow (which we drove right into the kitchen) had too much in it for that rate to be effective.

I kept a couple pots on the stovetop going as well as two large broiler pans in the oven. I peeled and cubed the pieces and put enough water to steam. The broiler pans I covered with foil. With all these pans going simultaneously it was all I could do to keep ahead prepping--and pureeing at the other end. (By then hubby was out in the field, plowing a pasture under.)

Adding water to pumpkin that way makes it kind of soggy, so the next step was to fill a couple of pillow cases with puree and tie them up from the beam in the kitchen ceiling with empty pots underneath to catch the drips. Not very beautiful, but it works.

45 2-cup packages of pumpkin now live in my freezer. There will be pumpkin recipes coming to the forum, trust me...

Really, I haven't forgotten about the forum, I've just been kinda...busy.

The Bear Wins

The winning score officially goes to the bear. His masterful stroke was leaving a pile of scat on our road, a hefty stone's throw from our house. I no longer have a running date outside on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 6:45 and am scrambling for a new plan. I'd thought all would be good until the snow started to fly and the road got slushy or icy; that could take a couple months yet. I hear rumors that someone in the family has a treadmill that's not in use so we're looking into bringing it to our house.

I'm not so concerned about Saturdays and Sundays because I can go later in the day when there are more vehicles on the road. (Imagine considering contending with traffic to be a bonus...) On Saturday afternoon I took my bike out for a nice long ride (while the salsa simmered!). It was a very pleasant day, sunny and warm with a light breeze. Sunday was when I saw the bear droppings. Monday I went to Curves. Tuesday (today) I slept in an hour because I was NOT getting up to run. Maybe after work. I'll have to see how the day goes.

Behold the Tomato

I've finally come up for air from the vast mountain of ripening tomatoes that has been gracing my house for a few weeks. I'll miss having garden fresh tomatoes for sandwiches, salads, and stir-fries, but at the moment, I'm just relieved. There still are some in the garden--we haven't had a hard frost yet--but the rush is over. I've processed enough to see us through the year. Perhaps two.

Roma tomatoes, also known as Italian or plum tomatoes, are much firmer than *regular* tomatoes. There is almost no juice to them. I've dehydrated enough of them to fill an ice-cream bucket. I've made a big batch of salsa and canned 10 pints. I made pasta sauce, also canning it in pint jars (the right size for two people). For both the salsa and the pasta sauce, I filled two 5-quart slow cookers with all the ingredients, then let them sit uncovered on low for 16-20 hours until the right thickness, then canned them. Works good for batches the right size for us.

Also with the romas I canned over 30 pints of roasted tomato sauce. We just love this stuff; the flavor is so rich. It can be used as a base for soup, as a pasta or pizza sauce; last night I used it in a spinach lasagna. Mmm.

The regular tomatoes just got chunked and canned for future reference. I still had some on hand leftover from other years so only canned about 20 quarts and 25 pints. I was thinking of making tomato vegetable soup to can but I ran out of energy, and with the canned tomatoes I can make the soup any time in just a few minutes. With hubby working out of town, having ready-to-eat homemade soup makes a nice lunch for him at work.

Of course, there still ARE some tomatoes in the garden and if it stays warm this week, I might get tempted to make a big batch of soup yet. Or not. I'll have to think on it.

I think NOT

A few weeks ago Jim and I were packing for an out-of-town funeral. He asked what I was going to wear and I told him I planned to wear the dress I had made for our daughter's March 2003 wedding.

He raised an eyebrow. "Have you tried that on lately?"

"Um, not precisely lately, but I did wear it in late May."

"Go try it on."

Sounded reasonable, so I did. The dress absolutely hung on me. When Jim got done laughing, he suggested the pantsuit. I was doubtful about that, remembering the shape I'd been when I bought it, but the weather was supposed to be cold and wet and I needed something with coverage. I tried on the pantsuit.

Instant replay. For some reason he thought it looked pretty funny, too. I added it to the stack of clothes I've been accumulating to drop off at the thrift shop and scanned the closet. It's looking rather bare.

Eventually I remembered a bag of clothes I'd stuffed in the spare room closet, things I couldn't bear to part with even though they no longer fit. There I found a dress I'd bought in 1990 that I absolutely loved. The colors look so perfect on me. I tried it on; it fit. But the style. Oh, my. Reluctantly I put that aside as well, wondering if there was enough fabric in the skirt to make a blouse out of (like I'll ever do that, but still...) At the bottom of the bag I found a pair of dress pants that, paired with a silk blouse from the closet, would do the trick. Actually I don't like those pants so I'm not sure why I saved them, but they do fit well (again) and I needed something.

The pile of stuff to donate is growing as I dig out more and more of my fall and winter wardrobe and realize no-can-do. There are a few things I'm really sad to put in the pile, things I absolutely loved. But I'm not going back there. Why would I keep just-in-case clothes in sizes that are now several too large for me?

I've lost an average of four inches off of each of the statistical portions of my body. I shouldn't find it so surprising that things don't fit. Jim has been promising me a shopping trip for awhile now, telling me we can afford to NOT shop at Value Village. But you know, honestly, there's a lot of really good clothes in thrift shops so my goal always is to find what I can there, and then pay real money for the other things I need.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, that shopping trip continues to slide into the future. We had very little extra time on that trip to the funeral a few weeks ago. But in the meanwhile, I've resorted to rolling up most of my pant legs because the waistlines are resting on my hips, causing the bottoms to drag.

Anyway, Tuesday I went to the local thrift shop on my noon hour. I hate buying pants there because all the women's pants and jeans are on one long rack, unmarked by size. The store is crowded even when there are no other shoppers--and there are NEVER no other shoppers. So, Tuesday's goal was to do nothing but dig through the jeans.

I came out with three pairs: two blue jeans and one slightly dressier black jeans that I can wear to work (I had one pair of khaki colored cords I've been wearing every day for a month.) Also found two t-shirts and a fleece button-up shirt for Jim. Grand total? Eleven bucks. What's not to love about thrift shops?

I'm really needing workout wear for cooler weather. The stuff I wore in spring is (like the rest of my pants) hanging kinda low. There weren't any decent ones at the thrift shop, so Wednesday on my lunch hour I went *real* shopping. And quickly remembered why I love thrift shops.

Eighty-five bucks for a sweatshirt? Fifty-five for sweat pants? I think NOT. They're not cute in the slightest. They're not thick fabric. They're thin and gray and white with a pink stripe. They're UTILITY clothes. I'm not spending that kind of money. That is final. Apparently I need to go shopping out of town.

Popeye

I'm trying not to be like Wimpy in this weight-loss cartoon from the Popeye collection. Cute though!

Tomatoes

It occurs to me that healthy living this week is going to revolve pretty much around tomatoes. There are six boxes of tomatoes in various shades of orange to red in front of the bookcase in the living room--the only place in the house big enough to hold them all. They haven't been weighed but I'm guessing 80-100 pounds total. If I were to can them *straight* there is about a pound of fruit per pint jar--which is a LOT of canned tomatoes!

I spent an hour and a half picking them this afternoon and they are beautiful. They got off to a slow start this season...I think I say that every year, but it seems we never get enough to start canning until into September. My sister-in-law and I garden together, and that's kind of nice because we take turns with the tomato picking. That means there's a bigger batch to deal with half as often, so it's kind of *worth it* to get everything out and process them. She took the last picking and the weather has been cool and rainy in between so they haven't come on fast. The last few days have been sunny though. There are zillions more green to yellow ones in the garden so we'll see how much longer the weather holds. Once we both have enough canned and night-time frosts hit, we'll pull the plants and likely give away the remainder of the tomatoes. Anything with color is likely to ripen after that point if they are completely blemish free.

With the roma tomatoes, the thing I like best is roasted tomato sauce. In my last picking there weren't a lot of ripe romas but I did make up a canner load (my canner holds seven jars). The flavors are so dense and rich with the roasting that it is my new favorite thing to do. It's also nice because you don't have to peel them; once they're roasted you just whiz them in the blender, peels and all. It makes a decent pasta sauce or pizza sauce as well as a good soup base. Guess I should post that one, come to think of it!

I've also dehydrated two batches of roma tomatoes. We call them sun-dried tomatoes even though they aren't. I got about an ice cream bucket full of pieces which I enjoy using several different ways. Terrific on pizza, in foccacia bread, in scrambled eggs to give some examples.

A couple weeks ago I canned tomato chunks in pint jars. I want to do another canner load or two in quarts as well, later this week when more of the tomatoes are ripe. At the moment, I have two slow cookers (I borrowed my mother-in-law's as well) of pasta sauce on. When I get home from work tomorrow they will be nice and ready to put in jars and process. I like them to simmer down to about half of what went in.

I'm eyeing those boxes and I'm not sure my ideas are grand enough yet compared to how many tomatoes I've got! Maybe I'll make a big batch of salsa to can as well.

I know, I know. I should also make a bit pot of soup. I've posted the Hearty Tomato Soup over at the forum, and Jean has adapted that over to a vegetarian soup. It would be perfect for canning for the winter.

My in-laws have an over-abundance of beets in their garden and invited me over last night for Curried Beet Soup. Unfortunately it contains foods that are fairly high on the glycemic index (beets and potatoes both) so I won't be posting it over to the forum unless I get a brain-wave on adaptations for it. But because I'm so close to my target weight, I could can some of that too. I'm to the point where I could have something like that sometimes. It's a vegetarian soup--if anyone wants the recipe, holler.

Thar's a Bar out Thar

We live on a farm along the edge of a long valley. If I turn right at the end of my driveway, the dirt road ends just a couple properties down (at the river), so I turn left towards the hill where I almost immediately have to choose between right and left--south and north. In either case, the west side of the road is wide open across the farms, and the east side is snugged up against the edge of the hill.

Today I went north as I do roughly half the time. I wouldn't want either part of the road to get lonely without me for too long, so I try to split it fairly evenly! :P About half a mile north I stopped dead in my tracks--imagine a cartoon character doing that little skid. Not far ahead of me, a young bear clambered out of the ditch, crossed the road, and carried on up the hill.

I suddenly realized that I'd been meaning to go south all along, turned around, and scooted on out of there. Just a young bear, a smallish bear...but they are often accompanied by mama bears who take exception to the presence of others.

I should start looking seriously at indoor cardio equipment.

Sidebar

I've been adding links to the sidebar that have to do with the G.I. Diet and information about it, as well as the existing books and cookbooks I've found so far. It will be an ongoing project, so feel free to mention anything you come across that you think I should know about.

I have read very few of the books and none of the cookbooks to date, so I have no opinions as to the worth of one or the other. I've posted them for info only, but if you happen to order any of them and read or use them, I'd love to hear about it. Maybe you could guest blog a review! :)

What do most people do at lunchtime?

I've been hunting through recipe books at my library and at the bookstore, and I don't see much specifically for lunch. Okay, I've seen NOTHING specifically about lunch.

What do working people do at lunch? Brown-bag it? Eat out? Drive home? Do people NEED recipes for lunch or are they content with life as it is? Enquiring minds want to know.

(For the record, I have an hour break and work a ten minute drive from home. When hubby's home, I drive home and cook a hot lunch or re-heat leftovers. Sometimes we eat out. Once every couple weeks, maybe? And when he's away at work, I nearly always brown-bag it.)

Breakfast

Are you into eating breakfast? Is it habitual?

We all know the Talk: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In our house, breakfast wasn't optional. I didn't know, growing up, that there were people who hated eating in the morning.

I married one.

Then I gave birth to two more.

How did THAT happen?

My husband breaks all the rules about eating. He goes for several hours without eating, then begins to pick up momentum. By evening he is grazing non-stop. He ought to weigh four hundred pounds. He doesn't. Every few years he says to me, "I really should start getting up a bit earlier and having breakfast." It lasts for a day or two. If that.

For him, the answer isn't breakfast food. On a workday, it means he eats his lunch in bits and pieces over his coffee breaks as well as his lunch break. On Saturdays, it means a brunch somewhere around 10:30 or 11. On Sundays his first meal is lunch when we've gotten home from church. Always he needs coffee.

Even surrounded by non-breakfast-eaters and fighting with my kids every schoolday morning through their growing up years, I've never stopped eating breakfast. I like it. If I haven't eaten within an hour of getting up, I'm starving and useless.

Just thought of something. Do you think it has anything to do with being a morning person or a night owl? My pack are night owls, whereas my brain pretty much ceases to function in mid-evening. I'm not a TRUE morning person, either. I don't want to know that five o'clock exists, for example. But I'm willing to get up early enough to have a habitual morning routine before going to work. And that includes breakfast.

For years, breakfast consisted of a slice or two of homemade wholewheat bread, toasted, with butter and cheddar cheese. Because I'd read that women should consume more soy products, I'd also have a smoothie, usually just a banana hucked into chocolate soy milk and whizzed.

In March I took a closer look at my breakfast. While a limited amount of whole grain carbs, such as my bread, was permissable, I didn't want to eat it without the butter and cheddar. The soy milk was REALLY high in calories. Bananas are on Gallop's *yellow* list, meaning they're not going to help with weight loss. I thought I'd been eating a perfectly healthy breakfast! (We won't talk about the butter...)

My mom used to make porridge on school mornings, and I've done so occasionally. In March, I began to make porridge from large flake (also known as regular or slow-cooking as opposed to quick or instant) rolled oats. (Bring a cup of water to a boil with a smidge of salt, add 1/2 cup rolled oats, simmer until thick, 5-10 minutes--use the time to go get dressed or something!) As a child, I'd have this with sugar and milk. Sugar was out. The milk was boring. I thought about it while I turned my attention to the morning smoothie.

I bought soft tofu in 340 gram (about 12 ounce) containers and split a package into quarters. Several people had told me how good bromelain (in pineapple) is for arthritis, so I decided pineapple would be acceptable even though Gallop says its a *yellow*. That opened the door for bananas to come back in. I'd see how I did on this smoothie: 3 ounces of tofu, one banana, a quarter of a tin (1/2 cup) crushed pineapple, then skim milk to the two cup line of the blender. This makes slightly more than two tall glasses, but with my desire to eat two servings of fruit and/or vegetables for every meal plus snacks (8-10 daily), I just drank the whole works.

Then I eyeballed the porridge again, and poured some of the smoothie over it. Voila! A breakfast that (mostly) met the GI guidleines, tasted reasonably good, and was quick to make and consume. As you know, I lost 13 1/2 pounds my first month on the GI, so obviously the banana and pineapple weren't holding me back too much. I ate this for breakfast daily for more than three months. Apparently I don't mind a boring breakfast.

We went tent camping in mid-June for a week. A blender wasn't an option! Thankfully fresh summer fruit was becoming available and I started making fruit salads (kept on until just recently). For the grain part of the breakfast, I turned to the muesli method of porridge-making. The evening before, mix 1/2 cup of large flake rolled oats with 1/3 cup milk and a smidge of salt and stick the container in the fridge (or cooler if you're camping). Add some fruit salad and yogurt in the morning. This became my standard breakfast for the next few months as the varieties of locally available fresh fruit wandered through the season. (My yogurt of choice is non-fat and sweetened with Splenda, such as Silhouette by Danone or Source by Yoplait. I go through a LOT of vanilla flavored yogurt.)

Recently its been fresh peaches, most everything else having petered out. So I chop a peeled peach into a large bowl, add a sliced banana, a good shake of Fiber One cereal and some yogurt.

These are no-brainer breakfasts. I'm not good at thinking in the morning, so for me it works just to reach for the same thing for weeks or months on end. I get variety in my other meals. I see by the produce shelves at the grocery store and at the fruit stands that I will soon be back to my porridge and smoothie. I don't mind the thought. I kind of welcome it, actually.

What is your experience with breakfast? Is it an easy meal for you to make and eat or is it a constant struggle? Do you even bother? I'm curious.

So, what am I doing here?

Why did I start another blog? Seems like I barely can keep up with the one I've been running for a couple years now. My other blog, In My Little World, is a place for me to talk about my novel writing, as well as books and general life. But so many times lately I've felt like yakking about cooking experiences, and the tediousness of mucking with new recipes. Somehow it seemed that the other blog wasn't the appropriate venue for that discussion. Folks who are curious about how my novels are coming are likely not interested in my gastronimical habits, and vice versa.

I actually spent a week talking myself OUT of starting this blog. I should have started it in the spring, I told myself. Chronicled the whole saga. It seems kind of odd to start blogging the experience at this stage. Well, that's okay. If you're bored, you don't need to come back!

I've tried so many new recipes in the last few weeks that I sometimes get tired of new stuff and just want my old diet back. Maybe not the one I had a year ago, but the *just for me* GI Diet of a few months ago. The one where no one depended on me for newer and brighter and tastier ideas. (Yes, I remember that it was me and me alone that volunteered to drag the rest of you into this!)

Today for supper I made Tofu Moussaka. Oddly enough, Jim loved it (4 out of 5). I say oddly because his supper is incomplete without meat on the plate, and this is strictly vegetarian. However, he said it was a definite do-again. Sometime this week I'll get my notes typed up and post the recipe over on the forum.

I got the original recipe from my sister, who spent nearly 20 years in North Africa. I'd made a number of changes early on, as I never was fond of eggplant soaked in oil. But changing it to a vegetarian dish actually worked quite well. There's not much the same from the original, actually...except it is still moussaka!

On the other hand, maybe he liked it because he loves nutmeg, while I am indifferent to it. Or possibly against it. At any rate, I thought it was pretty decent too. (3)

I've experimented with lettuce wraps twice in the past few days. I've found a variety of recipes for these in several different cookbooks. You'd think the sky was the limit as to what you can wrap up in lettuce leaves and have for lunch. Well, um, ...sure. If you're fond of eating lunch leaning over the sink because everything wants to drip or fall out. Lettuce doesn't hold together like a wrap, and it definitely doesn't absorb excess liquid. Instead, it makes a little skating rink for food to fly off of.

Green-leaf lettuce does NOT work. It has too many ripples in it, so you get far too much lettuce per bite compared to anything else. It would be easier to eat salad out of a bowl, because then the filling wouldn't go squeezing out the cracks. Romaine works slightly better. Even crushing the stems, though, as recommended, doesn't make them roll up worth a darn.

I haven't given up yet, though. It's a terrific idea, if I can only figure out how to build the things so they stay together for five minutes. Or at least long enough to devour.

History--in case you care!

Childhood

My mom was a great cook. She had grown up in a large Mennonite farm family during the Depression and she certainly knew what to do with the raw ingredients. She was always willing to try new things as well, and Dad was willing to encourage her.

I thought it might be because I was the youngest of five daughters that Mom hadn't really taught me how to cook (though she was happy to pass off the cookie-and-cake baking early on). Checking in with my sisters, though, I find that some of them learned less about cooking from Mom than I did. I think she found it easier to do it herself than teach us how...and we certainly made a messier kitchen than she did.

Couple that with the fact that I attended a boarding school during my high school years and you got a gal that knew great down-home cooking but didn't know how to get there. When I lived at home between college years, Mom continued on with her cooking plan: making my favorite meals the first half of the summer because I'd been away...followed up by making my favorite meals for the last half of summer because I was soon leaving again!

No one in my family had a particular weight problem when I was growing up, though I weighed a little more in high school than would have been necessary. I got sick once (a 'flu?), lost the excess, and didn't gain it back for years.

Adulthood

When Jim and I got engaged I was three years out of high school and couldn't cook, but knew I wanted to...NEEDED to! His mom also was a cook-from-scratch kinda person, and he was used to good home cooking. In the months before the wedding I followed my mother around the kitchen with a pen and paper, writing down what she was doing. It drove her crazy when I counted the number of peppercorns in the palm of her hand before she threw them in the soup pot. "The exact number doesn't matter," she would insist, but I knew I needed at least a rough idea!

We were married in the summer of 1980, two kids on a lot of love and a very limited budget. We lived near Jim's family, and I learned more about cooking from his mom, who treated the whole teaching affair quite differently from my own mother. To Dea, teaching someone else how to do it meant she didn't have to do it herself.

When our kids were born in 1981 and 1984, I knew that I wanted them to grow up healthy. Fat and cholesterol hadn't been invented yet, so it was relatively easy. After the first baby, my weight dropped quickly back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 117#, but after the second, I hung onto a few pounds. As the years went by, my weight crept up a tiny bit at a time.

Occasionally I would notice that I wasn't as slender as I used to be, but I certainly wasn't fat by anyone's definition. I went for more walks and more bike rides. I switched to skim milk and lower fat mayonnaises and sour cream. And still the pounds snuck on.

In 1996, at 25 pounds over my earlier weight, I decided to do something about it and started a "serious" walking program with a neighbor. It made no difference. I began reading up on weight loss, and decided that weight training was the answer. My friend and I walked down to see the three local gyms and talked to folks there, decided on one, and plunked down our money for a three month trial.

I was a little daunted that the guy figured 90 minutes 5 times a week would be the appropriate regime for me. I had a full-time job, a husband and two young teenagers in the house. I had a busy life and did not see how I could fit this in without taking time away from my family. Major time. However, the guy said that's what it would take for serious results and Jim said to go ahead if I wanted to, that life would bend around it.

I kept at the gym for over a year, going several times a week for at least an hour. I hated it. I didn't lose weight. I did gain fitness, though, and stamina. I knew I was healthier, that it was good for me and that numbers on the scale weren't everything.

The money crunch came when we started renovating our house and I switched to a lower paying but less stressful job. There was no money for gym fees. I let it drop.

Several years went by. In 2000 we moved to the farm we purchased from Jim's folks. I hung loose for the first few months, then got disgusted with myself and decided BY GOLLY I was going to lose weight. I'd added another 10 or so pounds in the meanwhile.
I exercised every day and counted every tedious calorie. By starving myself, I managed to drop about five pounds before I landed a job that started at 6 a.m. and blew my program out the window.

A few months later I switched jobs, but my momentum was gone...and the new job was completely sedentary. Add pounds here.

In the spring of 2003, with our son and his fiancée living with us, Jen and I decided to lose weight before the August wedding. We joined Curves, setting a target of 20 pounds to lose in the five months. The gals at Curves thought that was doable and encouraged us to try just the exercise program at first. Lots of people lose weight just by exercising more, we were told. Only do the diet if exercising doesn't do it. I was at 156#.

I should have known my body better than that by then. I lost a few pounds (less than 5) and some inches. I definitely felt better. But the extra weight was sticking to me like glue. Some months I would lose a pound or two, and the next month I would rediscover them. I thought back to counting calories and shuddered. It was the closest I had ever come to being successful, but I couldn't bear the thought of being that harsh with myself again.

Meanwhile, my loving husband was telling me things like: "You look good for a woman your age." What the heck is that supposed to mean? He was trying to be supportive, really he was. But he didn't know how to help me anymore than I knew how to help myself.

Fast forward to the summer of 2005. He got a job out of town, working four days and then home for four. Several nights a week there was no one to cook for but me. That was really hard. I vacillated between eating terribly and conscientiously. But I was getting near the breaking point.

I didn't like it when it came. At the end of August I was lifting bales to feed the cows when Jim was out of town (I DID mention the farm, right?) and my neck and back just seized up. I had often been sore after doing the chores, but a good hot shower usually took the worst of it away. Not that night. When I awoke the next morning, I knew I was in trouble. First stop was the chiropractor; she encouraged me to see my doctor and get x-rays done.

The result? Degenerative damage to the discs in my neck (third and fourth vertebrae if you're into knowing such things). What did that really mean? Arthritis. And a rootin' tootin' flare up of it. (No, the damage was not caused by lifting bales, but all my sisters deny dropping me on my head as an infant, too.)

I spent ten weeks in a lot of pain. At first I hung onto the fact that my doctor said it was a flare-up, and that what flares UP must flare DOWN. It was hard to stay optimistic in the light of a wall of pain from morning till night. I hunkered down into survival mode as I just wished someone could unscrew my head and screw it back on straight. I felt as though my neck was cross-threaded.

In mid-November my headaches started lifting, and some days I didn't really have one at all. And then there was Christmas, and I was still in survival mode, so you know I baked (and ate) all the goodies I love. While I did nothing at all to keep active, because, you know, it hurt.

My doctor had said that long term, going back to Curves would be a good thing. So with his approval, I went back in January. The first day on the circuit, I moved very slowly, just testing out the feel of each machine and noticing which muscles were used and whether or not it was going to hurt. Of course, they ALL hurt. I spent a few days back on painkillers, but a week later I went again. I still could put no effort into the workout, and it still set me back a full week. And again.

In February, I added a few walks to my exercise plan. Short ones, if the weather was nice. Still once a week at Curves.

On March 8 I stepped onto the scale and nearly had heart failure. One hundred and sixty eight pounds? And a half? Not a chance in the world was I going to take THAT sitting down. If I'd been looking for a wake-up call, I now had it.

The Dedicated Era!

The time had come. I literally hit the wall. There was absolutely no way in the world I was going to gain one single pound more, and all this excess bulk had to GO. I could barely reach down to tie my shoes.

I made two decisions that day: I was going to exercise every single day BY GOLLY if it killed me. And I was going to watch what went into my body even if it meant the dreaded calorie counting.

The exercise regime turned out to be the easy part, because by then my body was starting to acclimatize back to the Curves routine. I vowed to go to Curves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday without fail. With Jim's shifting schedule, that meant I could go on my lunch hour when he was working out of town, and when he was home I'd get up an hour early and do my workout before going to work. On the other days I'd get up early and walk. Briskly.

Food was harder. I "like" to eat. I eat for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. I eat because I'm bored, because I'm stressed, because it feels good in my mouth, because there's just a bit left over and who will know? Trying to figure out the calorie count of homemade food that first week nearly drove me loopy. It did give my fingers something to do besides put food in my mouth, though. And my willpower was absolutely solid. I decided the first step would be to up my intake of vegetables and fruit. I had been woefully bad at this.

A few days later my mother-in-law noticed my calorie counting notebook open on the table when she dropped in and mentioned that I might be interested in seeing this new diet book she'd bought, called The G.I. Diet Book. She loaned me her copy and I read the whole thing through.

I was skeptical. Not counting calories sounded too good to be true. I'd previously read a bit about Atkins and diets like that where carbs are bad and all protein is good, no matter how fatty it is. That didn't make sense to me. Even counting calories was deceiving, because brown rice has more calories than white rice, so you'd get more calories if you ate healthier food???

But the G.I Diet made sense. It stands for Glycemic Index. The author of the book, Rick Gallop, says:

The glycemic index measures the speed at which you digest food and convert it to glucose, your body's energy source. The faster the food breaks down, the higher the rating on the index. The index sets sugar (glucose) at 100 and scores all foods against that number.

Sugar is quickly converted into glucose, which dissolves in your blood stream, spiking its glucose level. It also disappears quickly, leaving you wanting more.

When you eat a high G.I. food and experience a rapid spike in blood sugar, your pancreas releases the hormone insulin. Insulin does two things extremely well. First, it reduces the level of glucose in your bloodstream by diverting it into various body tissues for immediate short-term use of by storing it as fat--which is why glucose disappears so quickly. Second, in inhibits the conversion of body fat back into glucose for the body to burn.

Where do carbohydrates fit? In the handy (but not all-inclusive) chart Gallop includes in his book, you will find carbs in every category from low G.I to high G.I. This made total sense to me. The low-carb fad seemed to me to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The idea of figuring out which foods--carbs or otherwise--were good for my body by NOT causing an insulin spike sounded awfully good to me.

I went out and bought the book and read it again.

Gallop's handy chart is color-coded. He lists a great many foods in three categories: Green (as in the green from a traffic light, meaning GO), Yellow (caution is advised) and Red (if you want to lose weight, don't even go there.)

In my second week post Hitting The Wall, I jumped into the G.I. Diet with absolute determination. Not to mention glee at leaving the calorie counting behind. According to Gallop, I could eat any amount of Green Light food that I wanted, and I lived by that list.

On April 8, I weighed in at 155#. If you are doing the math, that was thirteen and a half pounds lost in one month. I could feel the difference in the way my clothes fit, and a few people (besides my supportive husband) were looking at me as though they couldn't quite figure out what was different about me. New glasses? New hairstyle? (You know the look!)

We went out for lunch one day and I discovered a Thai Chicken Salad that was right on the diet. Jim, who has no need of diets being 5'11" and 170# and having an active job, ordered a burger and fries. With gravy. I eyeballed it while I ate my salad. It was a good salad, but it wasn't fries and gravy. Then he did the unthinkable. He decided he was full, and pushed the plate away. It now rested at the table's midpoint, well within my reach. I eyeballed it and had another bite of salad. Then, with my left hand, I reached down and felt the extra in my jeans at my hip. These jeans had been tight a month before. Now I had fabric I could hold, a good half inch folded over.

I had a freeing thought. I could eat these fries if I wanted to, but I don't want to. Not today. Today I like having loose jeans. Another day I can choose to eat fries if I want.

Another day I was home alone and sorely tempted for a really bad snack. I can't even remember what it was now. I thought, who will know if I cheat? Then I laughed out loud. Who was I doing it for? My body would know, and that was what mattered, not whether Jim or anyone else would find out.

The exercise plan has worked also. When we've been away from home on Curves days, I've substituted more walking. I've starting running and am up to 6 km of combination walking and running. For my birthday in May, Jim bought me a new bicycle with shocks and a raised handlebar that allows me to ride upright without stressing my neck. I often ride for my exercise, particularly on Saturday mornings when I can just pop in a water bottle and ride for as long as I feel like it.

Today it has been more than six months since March the eighth. I have lost 30 pounds and am within five pounds of my goal weight. Since March I have lost a total of 26 inches from my bust, waist, abdomen, hips, and thighs. My body fat has gone from 38.4 to 27.2.

I have more energy than I can shake a stick at. I doubt a day has gone by that I haven't been at least aware of my arthritis, my pain in the neck. It rarely is bad enough to take meds for, but I certainly overdo things from time to time and pay for it. Some day I will probably have another flare-up, but my goal is to keep as strong as I can and postpone that day as long as I can. I'll be in far better shape going into it.

I've even had French fries a couple of times. They didn't taste quite as good as I remembered them.

The Recipe Book Project is born

One day in June I began to come to terms with the fact that I was changing my diet permanently. While I could see allowing myself some higher G.I. foods once I reached my goal weight, it didn't seem likely that I would ever be comfortable going back to eating the way I had before.

Up to that point I hadn't messed with all that many of my recipes, choosing instead to eat things that were already G.I. friendly. But faced with accepting a total lifestyle change (and surprisingly, doing so quite willingly) I began actively recruiting new recipes and facelifts for old favorites.

Meanwhile, people in my church and my local Curves now knew what was different about me. I was down 20 pounds and was meeting life head-on. It was hard to miss. I was able to share with people what changes I had made, able to encourage other people, able to mentor some of them. People told me with tears in their eyes how great it was to see the hope for themselves.

My online friends began noticing the new me as well, though they couldn't SEE the difference in my body shape. I had learned so many new things that I couldn't help but share.

Did I mention that I'm a writer? I've spent the last several years honing my skills as a novelist in preparation for (hopefully) launching a career as a writer. So one day the inevitable thought strayed into my head. I write. Why not a cookbook? Why not share what I've learned, what I've been doing, in a tangible form?

The thought wouldn't go away. I began researching how to take on such a project and determined the shape it should take. My talented daughter designed a bulletin board for me and I began writing up the recipes and tips I'd been developing. In August, I launched a request for volunteers to test recipes, and people from all areas of my life showed up, willing and eager to try new things.

Some of these people have weight to lose, or cook for people who do. Some are inexperienced cooks, some are old hands who substitute and "wing" everything that comes their way. All have signed on to test at least 50 recipes in the next year and give me feedback on each.

These are a long way from Better Homes and Gardens test kitchens. There is no one caring that a five year old puts however much lettuce into each bowl that he feels like without measuring it. There is no one to make sure that each stove is working correctly, that everyone knows how to chop an onion, that the aprons are matching and tied just so.

Personally, I think that's the beauty of the project. There are plenty of recipe books out there written by doctors and nutritionists and tested in the aforementioned perfect labs. This project is written by the people for the people. It's not designed to be a coffee-table book, though I'm not against great photos in a recipe book. It's designed to be used, to be useful to the average harried cook who has a real life to juggle, picky palates to work around, and wants to find ingredients at her local grocery store. Exotic food is fine, but who wants to make it every day?

Will this recipe book find a publishing home at the other end? I honestly don't know. I'm sure that searching for publication for it will be different than for a novel. Right now I'm concentrating on keeping a step ahead of my testers, making sure that recipes posted on my (private) forum are ones I've tried and liked. This step is going to take the better part of a year as far as I can see. We will see where it leads at that point. Of course, I'd love for it to be picked up by a major publishing house.

However, I will tell you the honest truth: it's already been worth every minute I've invested. A dozen and more families are trying new food, learning from me and from each other. They are tackling weight issues and healthy eating issues in a supportive forum. I've found dozens of new and adapted recipes that Jim and I love as much as most of our old ones. Going public with my diet has helped keep me accountable.

Everything is win-win. The only lose-lose has been the weight and the inches. For some reasons, that's a loss I'm willing to bear.