Loser week 7

So I lost .6 lbs this week for a total of 12.4 lbs in 7 weeks. I'll take it. :)

I worked out 5 days this week, and I can see my body getting smaller, and my clothes getting looser, so even when the scale doesn't change much, I know I am building muscle and losing inches, so I'm ok with that.

It takes alot of time and planning to eat healthy and workout 6 days a week, it really does. I have been getting up each morning a little earlier and making a big healthy breakfast for the kids, rather than them eating cereal or toaster strudels or whatever. My meals take time and planning, and sometimes it's really hard to take that time when it's so easy to zap something unhealthy. There are some days I just don't want to do it. BUT I keep healthy quick options for those days, healthy high fiber cereal, fresh sandwich fixins, healthy snacks, so when I don't feel like it, I still can stay on track.

And did you know that breakfast is supposed to be your largest meal of the day, loaded with carbs (the good kind though!)? Because it fuels your body for the whole day, and you have the whole day to use those carbs as energy, they more than likely will not turn into fat. They say you should "eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner". Boy do we as Americans have it backwards! Your dinner is supposed to be mostly protein, and very little carbs, because unless you do a workout after dinner (and granted some people do) you probably aren't going to use those carbs and they turn directly into fat cells as soon as you go to sleep (so if you want to indulge in a high carb treat, do it as early in the day as possible!) and in fact carbs can inhibit deep sleep, and cause you to not fall asleep as quickly, and you have less time in that good deep sleep. That deep sleep also causes your body to make a human growth hormone, which makes your metabolism work faster and builds muscle, so the less time you spend in it, the worse it is for your body. You should never eat carbs after about 7pm (of course this really depends on when you go to bed, but at least 3 hours before bed, 4-5 hours before would be better). It's amazing the things I am learning. Simple steps you can take to help lose weight and stay healthy.

The kids' blodwork results came in the mail friday, and although Bourbon is the only one with high overall cholesterol, all of them have at least one of their numbers that are elevated and not good. So I have been educating Bourbon on the importance of fiber in the diet, and how it takes cholesterol out of the body, and how he should get alot of it in his diet each day. We went grocery shopping together last night and he picked out some high fiber oatmeal, and fiber bars, and high fiber cereals. Hopefully we can get it knocked out now at an early age, and he will benefit from it the rest of his life. I am also trying to make sure I take him to the gym 2-3 times a week, which is hard with our busy schedule, but I think it is neccessary. It is really hard to make time to eat healthy and to excercise, and I think that it why so many americans are so obese. Fast food and TV dominate our country. And I think that alot of people just don't educate themselves on what it healthy and what isn't. The more I learn, the more horrified I am at what we put into our systems on a daily basis. It's scary.

Like the plastics in our lives. EVERYTHING is plastic these days. Did you know that plastic puts off a chemical, and if it comes in contact with your food, especially if it is heated (like microwaved in a tupperware container) that you are 100% getting these chemicals into your system. And our bodies don't recognize man-made synthetic chemicals, it confuses them and they just stick it wherever it will fit. This particualr chemical happens to be the right size and shape to fit into our estrogen receptor, so it acts like estrogen in our bodies. Studies show that this is causing our girls to go into puberty faster because they are getting so much "estrogen" at an early age, men are having low sperm counts and are getting man-boobs, and breast & cervical cancer are hitting women at younger and younger ages than ever before because of this excess "estrogen" in our bodies. How scary it that?! And why don't we know this? Why isn't that infromation just out there everywhere?! But really it is, you just have to go looking for it though. We drink our water out of plastic bottles, we eat our food out of plastic containers.....babies drink out of plastic bottles....our world it made of plastic. So my goal is to take as much of it out of my families lives as possible, but this will have to be in babysteps. I don't have the money to replace all the plastic stuff in our lives all at once. But I am going to buy glass "tupperware" type storage dishes and throw out all the plastic, I am going to get us the aluminum water bottles, never use plastic wrap again, never buy the steamable in a bag veggies (oh that hurts too, because we eat those almost every night, so quick, so easy, but not at the expense of our health!). It will take time and effort, but I don't want to end up with breast cancer in 5 or 10 years, I don't want Starla to hit puberty at age 10, or the boys to have low sperm counts and not be able to have a family when they are older. That's some scary stuff.

I have learned so much more too, more than I can put in one post, but each week I try to share some of this knowledge, so that I can help you guys to make healthy choices too!! :)