Are You Exhausted?

I read this interesting article on the reasons why we have so much trouble losing weight. One is our lack of sleep.

Yes, not getting enough sleep leads to obesity!

You know how it is, a late night, an early start and suddenly you're eating for energy. Shoot, I did that myself today. I just don't run well on four or five hours of sleep.

Check out the study: http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2010/20101004-sleep-dieting.html

And in the meantime, maybe I should get ready for bed.

The Potato Diet

Wow, somebody has realized that potatoes are NOT fattening.

The skinniest I ever was in my life, I ate a baked potato with cheese and butter every single day.

It was delicious.

I eat more potatoes now. It's NOT the potato that's fattening, it's the stuff you slather on it. Potatoes fill you up, not out. Really.

The potato diet ends: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20024131-10391704.html

The potato diet blog: http://www.20potatoesaday.com/blog.php

My View of the Twinkie Diet

The Twinkie Diet.

Ewwwww........

Sorry, that's my instant reaction to eating Twinkies every day.

But there's some important points to note about the weight loss involved. He limited his calories to 1800 calories per day.

Now, you may say "I LOVE Twinkies, I'm going to do this!"

Bad idea.

You have no idea of the vitamins and minerals that you're missing out on. Where's the calcium? Where's the iron? Where's the components of fresh fruits and vegetables that we don't even know about yet?

And hey, where's the fiber? I don't know about you, but without fiber, I'm miserable. Things DO need to pass through your system and fiber helps push it all out.

This is one way to lose weight but to be brutally honest, it's not a healthy thing to do. Your body needs more than sugar and fat to maintain itself.

Even though he lost a bunch of weight, the bottom line is -- he limited his calories.

Links:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Recipes/twinkie-diet-short-term-fix-long-term-problem/story?id=11756710

http://www.healthhabits.ca/2010/11/09/twinkie-diet-success/

Surviving the Holiday Season

Well, I made it to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving and only gained two pounds. Pretty darn good. My Mom can COOK, oh - my - goodness!

The day after, we had Mom's world famous Gluck. (Go check out my how-to blog, I'm posting the link to the recipe there in just a minute!)

But on the rant side -- what the heck are people thinking?

My Dad is highly, and I do mean HIGHLY, allergic to mushrooms. We tell everyone, not a shroom in the house, not in the kitchen, not nowhere near Dad.

Sigh.

So my sister's well-meaning and very nice friends brought salad to Thanksgiving dinner. Actually, they brought two salads. One was a nice plain green salad. And the other had freaking MUSHROOMS on it!

Double sigh.

Yes, Dad only ate the salad that was "safe". And four hours later he was starting to itch and swell. His allergy is as bad as a peanut allergy. Yes, it's really bad!!

Why, oh why, do people get the idea that if someone says they're allergic to a food item, either "they don't like it" or that it's OK to bring it along anyway. Obviously, they managed to get some cross contamination from the cutting board, the knife, or when they tossed the salads. We were all kicking ourselves for not warning Dad that the friends just aren't as careful as we are about food prep.

Fortunately, this didn't turn out to be a tragic holiday story, he took Benadryl in time and kept his reaction to a mere two days of swollen itching misery.

As my sister said, "So much for letting people bring stuff to the holiday meals." From now on, we have a menu and don't even think of bringing a dang toadstool into any of our houses!

(FYI: I love mushrooms and I do eat them -- but NOT when my Dad is around!)