I was going to write about something else today, but came across this in my inbox. I don’t know who wrote it, I wish I did. I would gladly give her credit for expressing so well how I feel.

When I was a child in the 1960s the bathing suit for the mature figure was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice-she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney’s Fantasia or she can wander around every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror - my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn’t so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an over sized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan’s Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit…a two-piece affair with a shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top.

It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured. When I got home, I found a label which read — ‘Material might become transparent in water.’

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I’m there too I’ll be the one in cut off jeans and a t-shirt!

I got a little sidetracked yesterday, but here’s the rest of what I learned about dieting and osteoporosis that I was going to share.

First of all, if you are on any of the drugs that are supposed to help build bone mass, please do your research or talk to your doctor. My mother was on Fosomax and it turns out it was a good thing we kept forgetting to give it to her. I have taken her off it completely and her doctor when I spoke to him about it, wasn’t at all surprised nor did he argue with me about it. Many of these drugs are being found to just make the bone harder, not actually help rebuild, causing complications with women’s jaw bones when they go to the dentist, etc. For more info see my blog at http://www.lauriannsnewlife.blogspot.com

Now for the other stuff. I don’t know how many of you have heard high homo-cysteine levels are the true predictor of strokes vs. cholesterol levels, but it turns out high levels aren’t good for your bones either. Both men and women are twice as likely to suffer from hip fractures when their homo-cysteine levels are elevated. Supplements of folic acid, vitamin B-6, vitamin B-12 and either choline and/or betaine can lower elevated homocysteine levels. By contrast diets high in fatty meats and particularly processed meats like hot dogs, sausages, bologna and pepperoni markedly increase the level of homo-cysteine in the blood for several hours after every high protein meal. Fasting homo-cysteine levels and LDL levels are also elevated in people who eat more fatty animal products and fewer whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nonfat dairy products.

This one’s a tough one for me. Caffeine, especially in women who don’t get the recommended daily allowance of calcium, is a culprit in the loss of bone mass density. I drink a pot before anyone in the house is even awake, which is probably one of the reasons my BMD is already in trouble. The lifetime intake of the amount of caffeine in as little as 2 cups of coffee per day is associated with decreased BMD in older women. It’s also important to make teenagers aware of their dietary choices to protect them in the future. A diet high in meat, with the regular use soft drinks instead of nonfat milk as a beverage, will likely reduce peak bone mass in the young and increase the risk of developing osteoporosis in later years.

A diet of potassium rich fruits and vegetables is also reported to help reduce bone loss. For many this isn’t really an option as some of the prescription drugs for high blood pressure warn against extra potassium. The drug itself causes your body to collect potassium in your system, so be sure to read the warnings on the labels.

Many trace minerals are essential for maintaining bone density. The American diet is so full of white flour, sugar, refined carbohydrates, and refined fats and oils, that we generally don’t get the amount of trace minerals necessary. Here again are where more fruits and vegetables help fill the bill. Whole grains, legumes and dark green vegetables are the best dietary sources of magnesium and supply trace minerals and other factors that may improve bone health.

We all try to switch to more fruits and vegetables when we decide it’s time to lose weight, but there are so many other reasons to do it, the weight really is more of the “icing on the cake” and should happen as a natural side effect. Right now is the season to take advantage of so many wonderful fruits and vegetables that are fresh and make such great snacks. Have you tried getting in your “9 fruits and vegetables” (it used to be 5) a day? There’s hardly room or time to be eating all the “wrong” stuff. LOL.

For more info on magnesium of vitamin D deficeincies, see my blog at http://www.lauriannsnewlife.blogspot.com

Disclaimer: I am in no way a healthcare provider of any  kind and the stuff I pass on here is only from my own research. You should always consider consulting your physician if you plan on making dietary changes.

I try to pay attention. I know that with dieting you have to be careful about losing muscle instead of fat. I’ve heard about that forever! I know that as we get older we lose bone mass which can lead to osteoporosis. I didn’t realize that dieting could slow closely also result in bone loss. Where the heck was I during that class?

I also didn’t realize what an astounding effect a sedentary lifestyle has on bone mass density (BMD). As I read more, the opposite is also true. Excessive exercise also can lead to a lower BMD. I’m sure I won’t have to worry about that being a problem in my case. What I do need to worry about is making sure I do some sort of weight bearing exercise and strength training, as definite results were shown in greater BMD after just one year.

My mother has osteoporosis. One year she fractured her back 3 times and spent most of that year in the hospital. I don’t want to go there.

Other things we were not made aware of, and I still don’t hear about and I have 2 daughters, is how teenage girls involved in athletics and also frequently diet, are at high risk for osteopenia (low bone mineral content), stress fractures and broken bones. It also puts them at risk for early osteoporosis. This isn’t only common in teenage girls, but men and boys as well who frequently diet.

These are things that seem to help prevent or help cause osteoporosis. First let me say, with all the hype about soy products, there doesn’t seem to be enough evidence of it really doing any good to warrant using soy for treating osteoporosis. There is the suggestion that vegans, etc. use soy milk as a substitute for cow’s milk for calcium and vitamin D.

We all know how important calcium is. That is a given. Luckily there are many ways to get the calcium we need, but remember that vitamin D is necessary for absorption. If you’re getting your calcium from sources other than milk fortified with vitamin D, it’s probably essential to be taking a vitamin D supplement. We should be getting between 1300 and 1500mg. of calcium per day.

Too much Vitamin A may contribute to Osteoporosis. In Norway and Sweden they fortify low fat milk and margarine with retinol. They have seemed to find that the added retinol is at least partly responsible for osteoporosis in these two countries, along with cod liver oil. They advise people at risk of osteoporosis to limit their intake of pre-formed vitamin A (retinol) to the RDA level of 800 RE or 0.8 mg of retinol per day. This means food supplements with retinol should be avoided, as should supplements of cod liver oil. Now there is a slight conflict here in the way that most dairy products also contain retinol. A better way of getting your vitamin D is to go get some sunshine every day. 10-15 min. should be enough and not to much to harm you.

One I was surprised to hear about that isn’t widely publicized is Vitamin K, or the lack there of contributing to bone loss. Unfortunately if you’re on blood thinners, this is probably not a good solution for you. A recent meta-analysis examined 7 studies in which elderly subjects were given either 15 (one study) or 45mg of vitamin K2 or a placebo. Remarkably those taking the supplements of vitamin K had reductions in hip fractures of 77% compared to those given a placebo. Fractures of the vertebrae were cut by 60% and all other fractures were reduced by 81%. If you’re following a good healthy diet, you should be getting vitamin K from all those green leafy veggies you’re eating.

Tomorrow I’ll go into the minerals etc. for preventing osteoporosis. It’s amazing to me how young I should have been paying attention and what I’ll be telling my daughters now that I know.

Disclaimer: I am in no way a healthcare provider of any kind and the stuff I pass on here is only from my own research. You should always consider consulting your physician if you plan on making dietary changes.

Nothing makes a fat girl say “shoulda, woulda, coulda” like really hot weather.

I “shoulda” stuck to eating right and exercising.

I “woulda” been small enough to fit into some bitchin’ summer clothes.

I “coulda” been there by now.

I had pretty much forgotten how much I hate hot (90 to 100 degrees) weather when I’m overweight. I’ve gotten old enough that I tend to run on the “cooler” side most of the time, so the hot weather when I’m thinner, doesn’t seem so bad. This year I remembered when the temps reached 102, why I usually diet in the fall or winter to be thinner by spring and summer.

One thing the hot weather has done for me is make my attraction to the fruits and vegetables in season much stronger. It must be working, because I’ve actually lost about 5 lbs. in the last week or so. Cookies, etc. just don’t have the same appeal when I’m sweating to death, looking for a way to cool off.  So it’s obviously not due to being post-menopausal, but my crummy eating habits that are keeping me fat. Hate facing that one! LOL

The strawberries have been just beautiful by me this year. They’re huge and so sweet and juicy. Usually at least one store by me (I’m lucky enough to have about 5 different grocery stores all in a circle close to where I live) has a 4lb. clamshell on sale at a really reasonable price. The blueberries not such a great bargain, but I love them in my yogurt and even tho the containers are small, I can still usually find them on sale. I bought a beautiful pineapple the other day, and I’ll probably cut that up for snacking today. To me, the can will never have anything on fresh when it comes to pineapple. When I went to Hawaii, my late husband couldn’t sit me at the bar next to a waitress station because I couldn’t keep my hands out of the pineapple. LOL.

The truly great thing about all this is that it is such a healthy way to eat. I’ve always said “if I truly ate everything they want you to eat when you’re on WeightWatchers, I would never be able to snack on anything else!”

Thank goodness for the hot weather to reteach me how to eat right. I’m drinking a lot more water also, of course, which I’m sure has helped with dropping a little of this excess weight. See, you just never know where help is going to come from. LOL 

is now only 2 months away vs. 10 months like it was when I first started this blog. Evidently my reason wasn’t motivation enough. I just got the dates yesterday for the reunion and here I am, the same size if not a pound or two more than I was 8mos. ago. So now I will be walking etc. like crazy, cussing myself out for not getting serious sooner, and still stuffing something into my face that probably doesn’t belong there! No matter what I do, I still am no magician with the magic formula.

I have known about this for a yr. I actually thought it was in April. Thank God it wasn’t! But why have I been so self-sabbotoging? Or why I haven’t I been stronger? Or if my health and this reunion aren’t important enough, what in the hell would be?

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I better do myself a little sole searching and find out what’s going on in there. Looking over past posts, I thought I had the answer a few times. NOT. Guess again. I know when I truly make up my mind I can do it, so why not now? Am I using it as a crutch while I’m working on my new life? I know I should be doing better than ever now that my schedule, etc. is completely in my hands. Instead I am so stressed and focusing on the new business, I’m not getting anything else done, including stuff with deadlines. Have I just become self-destructive to a certain point? I mean, I’m not going to jump the bridge or anything, but something definitely isn’t right.

Any insights would be appreciated. LOL. My weight is actually a symbol I think of all the kaos in my life right now. One step at a time I guess. It just would be good if I would actually take the steps.

I don’t care what we are doing to lose weight, you have to admit that we all still keep looking for that “something magic” that will make it disappear faster and easier. I for one cannot help but notice the ads, etc. even when I know most of them are bunk, and some I even go for.

I ran across a magazine while in line at the grocery store a couple of days ago, (exactly why they put them there), and the main story on the front was “Walk Off 96% More Fat” “Lose 43 lbs. by Memorial Day”. This is the walking plan used by Kim, the fitness guru from the “Biggest Loser”. I have tried just about everything when it comes to exercise, but I really didn’t have a workout plan, so I end up not doing much. This has a definate 3wk plan, and it includes weight or circuit training, so I am giving it a shot. After the first day of walking 30 min. with “steam engines” in between, I could definately feel it where I was supposed to the next day. Here’s hoping this is one I can stick to, at least for the 3wks. and then decide what to do from there.

My next “new thing” is, I am not one for “cleanses” even tho I am so toxic I could be the next waste dump. I smoke (damn it), I drink a bit of wine, I have mercury in my teeth, and I’m obese. There’s probably more, these are just off the top of my head. I could never stand the thought of going without food for 2 days, having only water or fruitjuice or whatever liquid. I also didn’t like the idea that when my body flushed all these toxins, more than likely it would be at a very inopportune time when I was miles from the nearest bathroom, so I just didn’t really consider it.

Lately I have been reading so much about the benefits of hydrogen peroxide. It does everything! From killing mold and mildew in my shower, to killing all the bacteria in my kitchen, to lightening my hair, it does it all plus some. What I’ve been reading more of lately is the benefits of ingesting it. They make a food grade hydrogen peroxide which when heavily diluted, adds oxygen to your bloodstream, cleanses out toxins, and returns your whole system to a ph balance. (Disclaimer: This is not to be misconstrued as medical advice. Speak to your personal physician before doing anything).

I have been taking it for 3 days now, starting at 3 drops 3 times a day and building up 1 drop every time each day from there. Today is my 3rd day, I’m up to 6 drops in 5 ozs. of water 3 times a day, and already I am sleeping better and my joints aren’t nearly as sore as they have been. This whole thing ends up being quite a process, but if I’m seeing results already, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll have to let you know how it goes as I progress, but I am very concious of when I eat due to how you have to space this out between food, which has also made me more concious of what I eat.

I think 2 new things are enough for one day. LOL.

Anyone see the “World News With Katie Couric” night before last? Yep, tore apart another widely held belief in our self-help healthcare. I’m talking about the fact that we really don’t need 8- 8oz glasses of water a day after all. This news spread almost as fast as “Mammograms Don’t Save Women’s Lives”.  What’s funny is one of the newsletters I get from a doctor who believes regular medicine is just for getting regular doctors more money, and regular doctors say he’s a Quack, has been saying this for ages. He too, says it’s really only neccessary to drink when you’re thirsty, or doing some kind of exercise where you are excreting water. He also says you can tell if you’re getting enough by the color of your urine.

The thing we need to remember, those of us on the weightloss trail, is that we don’t drink water just for hydration. We drink it to help flush the fat from our bodies. Obviously that wouldn’t work if we didn’t drink. Water like many other things, is a tool for us to use.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is the “Sutter Health TV” website. They had an excellent special on the other night about Women’s Health that I thought was excellent. They are a great resource, but I was especially interested because it had a lot of interesting info concerning exercise for women in their 20’s thru 60’s. Which kinds of exercise were most important based on age, etc. If you’re interested at all, you can visit their site at http://www.sutterhealthtv.com.

Have a great weekend everybody!

I previously wrote about my oldest daughter going vegan. I have since learned the difference between “vegetarian” and “vegan”. She is definitely “vegetarian”. The nite she got here, I had made my famous quiche for dinner with a salad. The quiche has ham in it, so she didn’t eat any of that, and I set about to try and find her something that I had that didn’t have meat in it. When you’re completely carnivorous as I am, there’s not much that doesn’t have meat. I offered to make her scrambled eggs and that was about as good as it gets! Even my soups all have either fish or meat. Luckily she hasn’t totally given up dairy yet, as there are a lot of things that have dairy that she uses to substitute for not having meat in her meals. I told her to take it one step at a time, because if she makes it too hard on herself she’s just setting herself up for failure.

 I’m really happy that she has stuck with this so far. She has always had problems with her digestion, and she was never a big fruit or vegie eater. She was drinking diet cokes like crazy and I could never get her to drink water. All of that has changed, plus she’s gotten very pro-active about her vitamins. She had a veggie burrito for lunch yesterday which she said was delicious (Del Taco), that she never would have even tried before.

Last nite I made homemade nachos for dinner for all of us. They work out to about 5pts. per serving for me, and they don’t have any meat for her. My family loves them because on each round tortilla chip is a 1/2 tsp. of warm beans, put a pinch of low fat cheese on top and melt in the micro. Put a tiny dollop of guacamole on top, and a tiny dollop of FF sour cream on top of that and eat. Each nacho is made individually and they are surprisingly filling. They are nothing like the nachos you get nowadays where everything is just thrown on a pile of chips!

We went shopping most of the day yesterday. I couldn’t believe it. I wore her out (my revenge for Las Vegas) and we were back out at it this morning. We both talked about how important it is to get out and be doing something. We both come from kind of the same place. It’s very easy to stay in sweats, looking like hell and never leave the house unless you have to. While her visit was, as always, too short, it was packed with fun and we were able to give each other some great encouragement. I’m rockin’ and rollin’ now. LOL

I picked this up from LadyShanny and Blogher and decided to give it a try. Until I did this, I didn’t realize how resentful and angry I was at the physical me. Hopefully, now that I got it out and examined it, I can get rid of it.

                               A Letter To My Body

Here we are after spending a half a century together, and I figure I know you pretty well. We’ve pretty much come full circle, the baby with her belly hanging out over her diaper, the little girl who was taller than almost everyone in her class, the blossoming young woman who quickly turned into “full figured”, and the older woman who has once again turned into a body with her belly hanging over her underwear. You’ve taken me from being a kid to having 3, and I must say we got along pretty well thru all of them. We’ve gone thru menopause together and it was easy. No matter what I’ve done to you, you have always bounced back and been strong and reliable.

I would love to say I don’t blame you for the shape I’m in now, but to a certain extent, I do. In fact, to be totally honest, I’ve been angry with you since I was 12. We had two parents. Mom, who fought being overweight all her life, and Dad, who was skinny as a rail all his life, right into middle age. You took on all of Dad’s mannerisms, gave me his face, but took on Mom’s fat cells. I have her shape and took on her lifetime of fighting my weight. I do resent you to a certain extent. I resent fighting with you about what I eat all my life. You’ve never given me a chance to relax. It’s always been a battle.

Now that we’re older, things haven’t changed much. I do realize as we’ve gotten older, you are more in need than ever before of the proper fuel for you to carry me the rest of the way. I don’t want to suffer and be limited in my mobility as the days and years pass, and I realize that you can turn on me at any time. You have won the war. Now the tables have turned and I shall be your servant. I am heeding your warnings, the stiffness in the joints, the pain in my hips when I lay too long on my side. My heart says I want to be around to see my youngest child thru life and see my Grandchildren graduate from high school. The Bible says you are a temple. I have never quite figured that and have not exactly brought “presents” in thru your door, but I am starting to see that now. I shall look at you thru new eyes with a new appreciation for what you can do. Hopefully, from this point forward you can accept my apologies and we will get along much better in the future. As the old joke goes, “if I would have known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of you”.

If I was writing a newspaper article in a “good news” paper, that would be my headline. I am getting so much more concious of my need for exercise, that rather than driving home from the bar (yeah, a saloon), I walked.

The other day I needed to stop by the neighborhood bar to see the owner, who is a friend of mine. Since I was in the bar business for the last 10 yrs. most my more recent friends are bar people. The bartender on duty was the same one who has been there working days for at least the last 15 yrs. and we’ve always been pretty good friends. I hadn’t had much to eat and the first drink he poured was pretty strong. (Skyy vodka and water= 2pts). The second one I had to be polite because I had cashed a check (good an excuse as any) and told him to pour it light. It was still pretty good. My friend that I was there to talk to came in while I was having that drink, so I stuck around for another. By the time I was ready to go (3 drinks= 6pts.) I could really feel them. What a sissy since I don’t drink much anymore!  Instead of getting behind the wheel of my car, (last thing I need right now is a DUI) or calling someone to come get me, I decided to use that opportunity to get my exercise in for the day. It’s probably a mile to a mile and a half from home. I sped up, slowed down, sped up, slowed down, trying to make the most out of what I was doing. It was great! I felt better when I got home, I stopped and saw a neighbor that lives just a couple of doors down that I hadn’t seen in awhile, and managed to get some worthwhile cardio in. Plus I was carrying a carton of cigs, a 32oz. bottle of water, and my purse, so essentially I was walking with weight. LOL.

Gotta take advantage of opportunities when they strike!