eating right... or not

There are a couple of big issues that I have narrowed down as most impacting how I want to be and what's not working. The one I am thinking about right now is physical condition. Part of that is being overweight. I am, and have been for quite awhile, heavier than I should be. I also find myself too often not eating right or exercising enough. This impacts not just weight but cholesterol and could soon impact blood pressure if I don't get a handle on it.

Now I am not desiring to be slim again. I am not sure that's even possible. What I do want is to not have to be careful how I stand for a photograph or wear something that covers up the excess. I do not want to take medicine to lower my blood pressure unless I've tried everything else. I think my knee and hip joints would be happier with less weight pressing on them. I think this would take losing twenty pounds which is not all a chart might say I should lose but I'd be happy with that.

They say the worst thing you can do is to gain and lose weight; so any diet plan I come up with must be a way of eating with which I can live. I know what works short term to lose weight, but what good is that if I go back to eating the way I got into this position.

I read that the Mediterranean diet is one that lessens the risk of breast cancer and such information is always of interest to me. When I looked online for what that meant in diet, it does seem like something with which I could live (allowing for a little cheating now and again) Some of it I already do:

1. High consumption of virgin olive oil.
2. High intake of vegetables and fruits and legumes.
3. Use of non refined carbohydrates (portions sized according to physical activity).
4. Eating fish, specially oily (or “bluish” one) 3 or 4 times a week. This has to be watched also for it not being all fish at the top of the food chain or mercury will go too high and that's not good.
   
5. Including milk, cheese or yogurt in the diet. Since I cannot do cow dairy, thanks to a skin allergy, I do seem able to eat goat and sheep cheese which I like. Rice milk lets me fix white sauces.
   
6. Three or four eggs per week would be the toughest part of this as I love eggs for breakfast. Still I recently read that too many eggs makes someone more prone to develop adult diabetes; so maybe I must adjust this also. Eggs aren't actually bad for cholesterol as they have HDL and LDL which my doctor said balances out, but still moderation has to be the key and where it comes to eggs, my favorite food, moderation is not my middle name... well actually it's not with anything...
   
7. Moderate consumption of meat and saturated fats. Where I eat mostly grassfed beef, when I have beef, this is healthier than it would be to buy the usual fatty stuff from the grocery store but even then too much meat doesn't set well with me.
8. One or two small glasses of wine a day, preferably red and at the main meals. White wine and beer are alternatives.
9. Nuts as snacks

I don't see myself dieting as it simply won't happen but I could see myself changing my diet to something I can live with permanently. I want to lose the weight I gained in the last ten years not go back twenty years. I am working on things to convince myself like writing about it here.

Besides watching what I eat, I should be doing more aerobic exercise and get back to walking as much as I did five years ago. Well maybe not that much which was around two miles a day (at a brisk rate) but even if I walk less, it has to be enough to increase my breathing and heart rate.

And here's the reason more than the weight loss-- [Forget thinner thighs-- new study on regular walking]. It's healthy emotionally and physically and I still haven't done as much of it this last year as I used to do. I could come up with a dozen excuses for why not. One thing I can say is everytime you let something like that go, at my age, the harder it is to get it back.

I know I could find more things to not like about my physical self right now. A lot though of what a beauty magazine would find fault with-- like fine facial lines, I am not unhappy about. They are indicators of the life I have led and it's not been sitting inside. (Recently I saw a movie (Letters to Juliet) where Vanessa Redgrave beautifully makes the case, just by how she looks for why lines aren't bad in an old woman.)

Realistically I don't want to try to change too many things as that won't make any of it happen. My goals are not just about losing some weight but about living a healthier lifestyle than I am currently doing. It won't be easy to change as I am definitely a woman of appetites...


Photos were both in Montana, up Rock Creek, in late September. We have seen the mountain sheep herd there quite often over the years. Recently I read that their numbers were severely thinned by disease going through the herds; so we were lucky to see them and looking so good.

The animals obviously have little fear of humans since hunting them is regulated and very limited. In another improvement since our last time there, the state has set aside a parking area and trail to walk into the habitat region to see them with their babies high on the rocks where they stay until the babies are big enough to run from predators. The trail is closed during the birthing months.