Food Inc.

Things You have to Remember with PCOS

PCOS is a bitch. There, I said it. Lately I have been really really frustrated with the idea that it is really part of my life. It is just not any fun and there are so many things you can’t do anymore that you have to remind yourself about.

For example-

-skip the yummy lemon cupcakes your kind co-worker brought in for everyone

-skip the yummy cake you other kind co-worker brought in to celebrate another co-worker getting citizenship

-skip the yummy cookies that your boss brought in to thank the receptionist for being so great

-skip the bagel on bagel day and just enjoy the veggie toppers instead

-That your favorite hobby of baking is no longer really something that you should be doing since it is rather self defeating to have batches of warm cookies cooling all over the kitchen.

Crap, I forgot to do those things.

Now, I am not saying that I don’t have to butch up and learn to live with my reality but it is hard to just switch gears from “It is ok to eat what you want and no food is bad food in moderation” to “you need to not eat sugar cause in your case it is definitely going to kill you if you don’t stop”.

I don’t want to have PCOS, I want my cookie and I want to eat it without thinking about insulin resistance, how tired it will no doubt make me in 30 min and how if I don’t make these changes pronto and can be sure to look forward to a future of possible diabetes and infertility.  But you can’t not think about this when you have PCOS. You have to dig in again and try to remember that unlike (so it feels) eveyone else in the world who’s hormones mostly work properly that yours don’t .

Then you  have to remember that wishing you didn’t have PCOS is not going to get you anywhere and is rather juevenille so it is time to grow up and do what you need to do. So stop whining, put down the pasty, take a deep breath and get moving.

Food on Friday 6/12/09

So Friday was my first day of Ph”ood’ journaling.  I must say it is kind of fun to see peoples funny looks at work going “why are you taking pictures of your lunch?”

Breakfast was unfortunately grabbed on the sly via the local Starbucks, and while the fruit looks good it was pretty much either under ripe, over ripe and all tasted like citric acid that they use to keep it looking good. The tea and the morning bun where good but  a morning bun is not exactly low GI.

Lunch was yummy left overs. Millet (hurray whole grains) with homemade beans, some chicken and crushed tomatoes.

Cookies, had about 3 of these. I made them with whole wheat flour, oatmeal, walnuts and dark chocolate chips. They where supposed to be for a picnic today but who can resist freash out of the oven cookies I ask you?

For dinner I forgot to snap a picture but it was basically two fired eggs for about a cup of the more of the beans that I made with a bit of salsa.

I can already tell, the biggest challenge for me with photographing my food is going to be remembering for each meal or snack. When you are thinking about eating it is hard to really remember to take pictures. Hopefully soon there will be some trends that emerge that will be helpful in my quest to eat healthy without counting calories or stressing about every bite.

Ph”ood” Journaling

Wow, things have been a little crazy around here lately and I am afraid the blog was backburnered a bit but I haven’t stopped working on things and I have been thinking about ways to make this blog more useful for myself as well as fun to read.

The one thing that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is Ph”ood” journaling, as in taking pictures of the food you eat instead of writing it down. I really like this idea for a few reasons. Reason number one is I am lazy and it is faster to snap a picture rather then write things down. Reason number two is that photos are honest about what is on the plate, I can’t misremember just how much lasagna I really ate when I am writing things down at the end of the day (cause I forget to write things down at the time). And last but not least some folks at the University of Wisconsin are finding that it may be more effective the writing everything down. So, I have decided that I am going to give it a try for a few weeks and post my pics up in the evening.

The idea is not so much to eat less but rather to get an idea of what  I am eating and from there make adjustments. It is time to find out just have many veggies I am REALLY eating. Our brains are so good at fooling us, even when we don’t want it to, the camera has no bias. So starting this weekend I will start posting pics, so I suggest you eat lunch first so the blog doesn’t make you hungry.

For now here is some Rhubarb Ginger Cream Pie I made a couple weeks ago.

Click for Recipe

It’s International No Diet Day!

Ways to celebrate No Diet Day:

• Have a cookie.
• Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are a great person, no matter what the number on the scale is.
• Feed yourself REAL food, not too much, with lots of your favorite fruits and veggies.
• Throw the scale away, it is not your friend.
• Do something (everyday!!) with your body: run, jump, swim, make love, dance, surf, stretch, etc.
• Tell your loved ones they are beautiful
• Learn some facts about the diet industry and how it perpetuates eating disorders.
• Wish everyone you know a happy No Diet Day!

Go Kate Go!!!

by Brij

Check out this article from Reuters with Kate Harding from Shapley Prose. Kate recently co-wrote a book with Marianne Kirby titled Lession from the Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body.

Pearls Before Swine Flu

by Brent and MariLynn

Well, as I am sure you have heard there is a new flu virus known as Swine Flu that is making quite a lot of air time and has lots of folks worried about a pandemic, but at this point you are really more in danger of your standard run-o-the-mill head cold then piggy fever. So here are some common sense tips to prevent getting a cold.

There are no known cures for colds and flu, so cold and flu prevention should be your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier. The most effective way for preventing the flu is to get the flu shot. It may not be natural, but it works better than anything else. But there are other strategies you can employ as well.

• Wash Your Hands
  

Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand, and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours — in some cases weeks — only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. So wash your hands often. If no sink is available, rub your hands together very hard for a minute or so. That also helps break up most of the cold germs. Or rub an alcohol-based hand sanitizer onto your hands.

• Don’t Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands
  

Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don’t have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.

• Don’t Touch Your Face
  

Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds, and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.

• Drink Plenty of Fluids
  

Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day. How can you tell if you’re getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you’re getting enough. If it’s deep yellow, you need more fluids.

• Get Fresh Air
  

A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.

• Do Aerobic Exercise Regularly
  

Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body’s natural virus-killing cells.

• Relax
  

If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. There’s evidence that when you put your relaxation skills into action, your interleukins — leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses — increase in the bloodstream. Train yourself to picture an image you find pleasant or calming. Do this 30 minutes a day for several months. Keep in mind, relaxation is a learnable skill, but it is not doing nothing. People who try to relax, but are in fact bored, show no changes in blood chemicals.

If you do get a cold be curtious of the general public and take a day off work if you can and avoid crowded places like movie theaters, malls, resturants, etc, it is just not polite to share germs.  For more specific information on the developing swine flu situtaion check out the CDC’s official page.

OKC in the SF Gate

Our favorite kettlebell guy just got an article written about him and the OKC in SF Gate, check it out!

Take That Stairmaster!

This last weekend my old man and I tackled the 302 stairs down to the Point Reyes Lighthouse and back. According to the sign at the top of the stairs it is equal to climbing a 30 story building. Aside from a bit of huffing and puffing we both made it back up. Then it was a 0.4 mile walk back to the bus pick up.

It was a beautiful sunny day with little wind and the wild flowers are starting to bloom, so if you are in the Bay Area a trip to Point Reyes Drakes Beach and the lighthouse would definitely be worth a Saturday afternoons drive.

Back on the Bike Seat

New bike lane! by Gabi

It finally didn’t rain on a weekend last week. We are in the middle of a pretty bad drought here in California and we need the rain, I really would just rather it came when I am stuck inside at work and not on the weekend when all I wanted was to try out my new wheels. Last Sunday we finally took the bikes out for a joint ride to Border, which is about 4 miles according to Google Maps.

Anyone who has ridden a bike knows it takes a bit to break you hinder end in on a new seat, especially after you haven’t been on a bike in basically 3 years. But I choose to forget/ willfully ignore this truth and the fact that our in need of repair urban streets are not the nice smooth flat roads of Davis with bike lanes everywhere you go. Needless to say my tookus was pretty sore pretty quick, I wasn’t even sure if I could stand it all the way there. In the end I made it but Will had to come back with the car and bike rack. The new plan is to take some short 1 mile ish trips and get used to the seat. If that doesn’t work out then I will be getting a new seat. Oh, and did I mention that is was gray, freezing and windy? And that I didn’t ware a jacket? I am pretty sure IQ fluctuates on a daily basis that this was not a high day for me.

Now that you a done snickering over my silly use of the word tookus here are some links to check out:

A great post over on Shapely Prose about the possible updates to guidelines for ad endorsements and testimonials under final review by the Federal Trade Commission.

Team Estrogen- A gals one stop shop for sports gear in sizes up to about 4x! I think some bike shorts are in my future.

Terry- Another source for plus sized bikeing threads, they have some very cute looking skorts.