I haven’t posted since January 10th and it would seem I had quit on this battle, but I was pretty active watching what I ate and exercising for the first three weeks in February. That was until I bought Chinese food.

The Ol’ Man has been having a series of health issues and lost a lot of weight. Now that he’s feeling better, he needs to fatten up and suggested we buy Chinese food. So last weekend, I bought enough food to keep him happy and full. The problem, though, was that he’s not keen on leftovers and that

means either to food goes to waste or it goes to my waistline. Of course, it was the latter. I hate wasting food and throwing it out. We do a lot of that here at the beach because the Ol’ Man is under the impression that we have a restaurant attached to the house. He wants a brand new menu daily. I refuse to play this game, and usually eat the leftovers as I did with the Chinese food.

But now that March 1st has arrived and all the crap is gone, I’m back to eating healthy and going to the gym after a week’s hiatus. During my February fitness foray, I was working out on the treadmill logging in six miles four times a week. I had started the Couch to 5K program again, but in the middle of the second week had to stop after my right calf seized and knotted into a cramp. Instead, I opted to walk as much as I could and was doing well until that blasted Chinese food which turned into bingeing fest and resulted in bloat and lethargy.

Within the next hour, I’m off to the gym and getting back up to speed. And tomorrow is the moment of truth: the weigh-in. We’ll see if I declare war on the Chinese (the food, not the country).

I recently read in an Op-Ed piece by John Tierney on willpower in the New York Times. According to the article most people fail at reaching their goals because they lack the willpower, which was previously known more as a metaphor for restraint. However, willpower appears to be an actual form of mental energy that’s powered by glucose in the bloodstream and gets used up when you use it for self-control. Tierney writes the following:

The result is “ego depletion,” as this state of mental fatigue was named by Roy F. Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State University (and my co-author of a book on willpower). He and many of his colleagues have concluded that the way to keep a New Year’s resolution is to anticipate the limits of your willpower.

One of their newest studies, published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tracked people’s reactions to temptations throughout the day. The study, led by Wilhelm Hofmann of the University of Chicago, showed that the people with the best self-control, paradoxically, are the ones who use their willpower less often. Instead of fending off one urge after another, these people set up their lives to minimize temptations. They play offense, not defense, using their willpower in advance so that they avoid crises, conserve their energy and outsource as much self-control as they can.

I suppose this might be part of the explanation of why I’ve been feeling like an exhausted sloth of late because I have been battling (and losing) temptations, not exercising enough, and feeling in general an overall blahness.

Two of my problems of late have been not sleeping well and having the urge to nosh all day long and fill myself with cars (bread and pasta). From my post, To Sleep, Perchance to Dream, we know what leptin and ghrelin will do to appetite. And that’s what been occurring—I’m tired and it feels like I want to live in the kitchen pantry 24/7.

Each morning, I wake up around 6:30, it’s dark and cold, and even though I swear that I will get up that morning to go to the gym, I just turn over and sleep for another two hours. Then when I get up, I promise myself to go at 4:30. When that times arrives, I make another excuse and it’s usually because I am tired.

My health is good, but every night I’m woken because of hot flashes or because the person I share this cottage with has his share of health issues and rises frequently to use the bathroom. Once he’s up so is the entire household. But while others tend to fall asleep quickly, I’m awake for at least 45 minutes.

To write this post, I fought the urge for a second cup of coffee. I’ve avoided taking naps so I can sleep better in the evenings, but today I know I won’t make it to the gym, if I don’t get at least an hour of shut eye.

Four hours later….

Well, no gym today, but I am back in the land of the living and, hopefully, tomorrow will be back to getting on track.

Fields of Greens: New Vegetarian Recipes from the Celebrated Greens Restaurant
by Annie Somerville
Bantam Books, 1993
437 pages
Amazon Price: $23.02

I lived in San Francisco for many years—fifteen to be precise—I attended university there, both undergrad and grad schools, and after graduating I stuck around because I lived with someone. That someone liked to eat and so did his friends. We didn’t do much cooking, but we ate out a lot and we went to some pretty good places in the City and in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Our friends, who were foodies, liked to cook and they created some fabulous meals. One close friend Mourad Lahlou, owner and chef of Aziza, made one of the best chicken bastillas I’ve ever had. Nothing has ever come close to his and believe me when I say this, I’ve eaten a lot of bastillas.

I’ve dined at a number of well-known restaurants and one of the most memorable meals I’ve had was at Greens Restaurant located at Fort Mason. Although this was several years ago, I distinctly remember Annie Somerville’s exquisite carrot soup. Since then I’ve never had one that had the right balance of sweet and savory and the perfect creamy consistence. Like Mourad’s bastilla, I’ve tried many carrots soups (and even made my own) and none can compare to the one I had so many years ago at Greens.

When I discovered that Somerville had a cookbook, I plunked down my cash because I knew I had to have it as part of my collection. Fields of Greens is a vegetarian cook book. The premise of the book is to use the freshest and seasonal produce with pasta, beans and grains. Some dairy products and eggs are essential ingredients for some dishes, but Somerville uses them sparingly.Fields of Greens is about “big flavors” in most of the dishes, but as Somerville writes in the introduction, “…but leave the final seasoning of salt, pepper, and vinegar to your taste.”

Somerville provides a nice little primer on planting an organic garden and suggests to start small and expand your garden as your knowledge develops. The advice is basic from cultivating the soil to starting your plants. From there she moves on to her recipes and there are a lot: salads with leafy greens, beans and grains, and marinated vegetables. She has recipes for grilled vegetables and for soups galore, including my favorite: Carrot Soup with North African Spices.

If you like your carbs, Somerville has recipes with pasta and risotto. One of my favorites is Spring Risotto with Asparagus and Peas made with a tomato and mushroom stock and with tender asparagus and sweet sugar snap peas—a perfect summer meal!

Not in the mood for pasta or risotto? Perhaps some pizza with onion confit, walnuts and gorgonzola cheese? Or maybe a Mexican pizza with salsa roja, cheddar cheese and cilantro pesto?

If you’re like me and want to make a healthy or rich dessert, Fields of Greens has an impressive selection of recipes to choose from. Some of my favorites include Lemon or Ginger Pots de Crème, Ginger Pound Cake, Gateau Moule – a very rich steamed chocolate cake.

Need advice of what to serve that’s in season? Fields of Greens has seasonal celebration meals. Also included is a section on pairing wines with vegetables, and a low-fat cooking guide.

I restarted the Couch to 5k program once again with the hope of finishing it this year and not get thrown off schedule. The days I don’t run, I usually walk on the treadmill for 40 minutes or until I burn 300 calories and then head on over to the elliptical machine and glide of another 40 minutes or burn 300 calories.

However, I had to stop that routine because my right knee hurt. At first, I thought it was the running that was aggravating it, but I was uncomfortable before I started that routine. I commented about it in thread on Facebook and a friend (a real one from college) commented that working out on the elliptical hurt her knees as well. I stopped to see if that was the issue and sure enough my knee stopped hurting.

The question was what other machine to use for my other 40-45 minutes of cross training? I don’t like the stationary bicycles because they’re boring. For some time, I’ve been eyeing the rowing machine and I was finally motivated to try it after an article in Shape that praised this piece of equipment.

For those obsessed with calories, rowing vigorously burns about 125 calories in 15 minutes. Hard to believe, but it’s true. I rowed for less than 15 minutes and according to my heart rate monitor, I had burned about 114 calories. Row for an hour and you’ll have burned about 500 calories.

I’m not much of a weight training fan, but I know I need to do it too maintain and build my bone mass and increase muscle to burn calories. Rowing helps by working the legs, the buttocks and hips with each stroke. Upper body muscles in the arms, shoulders and back are strengthened, and your torso and core are also engaged in the routine. To build muscle, just increase the resistance.

Once I figured out how to increase the tension and played around with the monitor, I got into the zen of rowing and I discovered that when I got into this space I was able to enjoy the rowing movement with its accompanying whoosh-whoosh sound.

Its certainly no rowing “gently down the stream” but I at least am getting a good workout.

As much as I wanted to get a jump ahead in December with the weight-loss process, the holidays did get in the way. I need to learn to be realistic of what I can do during a time of temptation, cooking, and get togethers as well as winding up the year at work.

I got serious on December 26^th, and weighed myself to see how much damage I did and it wasn’t too bad, but it still put me at highest weight: 162.4. This is too much for me. Although I’m tall,(5’8”) and small framed, the bulk of the weight is in the middle. In any event, the first thing I did was to start writing for this blog to get motivated, but I also chugged water, measuring my portions, and trying to eat as whole as possible. I did have a couple of sweet lapses (chocolate and too much dulce de leche), one day I ate too much homemade bread, but I upped my veggie serving, cutback on my coffee, if I snacked I ate a small portion of cashews, and I went to bed at a reasonable hour.

The biggest obstacle I face is that I am in the process of going through menopause. Will 2012 be the end of fertility for me? I hope so because the various triggers  have played havoc with losing weight. The biggest one is the hot flashes that I suffer at night and keep me awake, but either I’m getting used to them or the 64+ ounces of water I drink or the fan I have blowing in my face seem to help in getting a decent night’s sleep.

In spite of the excuse of hormones going crazy that interfere with my weight loss, I have to work harder and set weekly goals to change bad habits into good ones. Although I had promised myself not to do any resolutions for 2012, the big one I have is to plan and organize myself better with a series of baby steps.

The goal this week was to drink a minimum of two quarts of water daily and lose 2+ pounds. I succeeded. Next week’s weight goal is the same, but the challenge is to restart week one of the Couch-to-5K program and go to the gym early five days a week. That means renewing my membership today. As for food, adding at least two daily pieces of fruit either as dessert, an ingredient, or snack.

Here’s to all of us who want to lose weight and get healthy. May we succeed in 2012 and that we keep it off … Happy New Year!

Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook
by Nancy Clark, MS, RD
Human Kinetics, 2008
461 pages
$19.95

Okay, I’m putting it out there, I’m no athlete. Not by a stretch, a jump or even a jog. I consider myself lucky if I can walk briskly in heels to catch a bus. However since I embarked on this current fitness obsession, I know that I’ll need to fuel my body so I can workout efficiently. To help me make the best nutritional decisions, I’m using Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook, which is considered the number one resource for active people.

Nancy Clark, MS, RD, CSSD is an internationally known sports nutritionist and nutrition author. She is a registered dietitian (RD) who specializes in nutrition for exercise, health and the nutritional management of eating disorders. She is board certified as a specialist in sports dietietics (CSSD).

Clark is also the nutrition columnist for New England Runner, Adventure Cycling andAmerican Fitness . She’s a frequent contributor to Runner’s World and is on the advisory board for SHAPE magazine. Clark also writes a monthly nutrition column called The Athlete’s Kitchen, which appears regularly in over 100 sports and health publications, including Active.com and the Running Network. So, in a nutshell, she’s the gal to turn to if you have any questions about sports and nutrition.

Clark cuts to the chase in her book by opening on how to build a high energy food plan. In this chapter, in the book’s first part, she breaks down each food category, offering suggestions for the top choices with meat, fats and oils, vegetables, grains and starches and fruits, and how much should one consume. The chapter has several sidebars, tables and charts that break down nutritional elements in several food items. Clark is an advocate of a rainbow diet, i.e., one that includes a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. For “colorblind” eaters she includes several suggestions to spruce up your meals with a palette of colorful food items.

For those who battle the carbohydrate quandary, Clark provides a comprehensive chapter on the subject to eliminate any confusion on the subject. Here she explains the chemistry of simple and complex carbs in language that won’t glaze your eyes.  Clark also answers the question whether carbs are fattening. She writes:

Fad diets preach the message that carbohydrate is fattening. Wrong! Carbohydrate is not fattening. Excess calories are fattening; in particular excess fat calorie are fattening. . . Fat provides 36 calories per teaspoon compared to with 16 per carbohydrate. Additionally, the conversion of excess carbohydrate into body fat is limited because you burn carbohydrate when you exercise. Your body preferentially burns the carbohydrate and stores the fat because  the metabolic cost of converting excess carbohydrate into body fat is 23 percent of the ingested calories. Excess dietary fat, on the other hand, is easily stored as body fat; the metabolic cost of converting into body fat is 3 percent of ingested calories.

Clark provides these points:

• Carbohydrate-based foods are less fattening than fatty foods.
• You need carbohydrates to fuel your muscles.
• You burn carbohydrates during hard exercise.
• Carbohydrate is a friendly fuel; the enemy is excess calories from fat.
• When dieting to lose weight, you should energize with fiber-rich cereal, whole-grain breads, potatoes, and other carbohydrate-dense vegetables but reduce your intake of butter, margarine, and mayonnaise that often accompany them.

Further in the chapter, Clark examines quick and slow forms of carbs, sugar highs and lows. There’s a side bar on whether white bread is poison or not (she says it can be part of a wholesome diet as long as you include whole-grains. She adds that white bread has a bad reputation because of its high glycemic effect in other words:

If you eat just plain bread without butter or sandwich filling that dampens the glycemic response—digest quickly and cause the blood glucose and insulin to rise higher than would the same amount of a whole-grain, fiber-rich bread.

Clark notes that if your physically fit, the muscles will store the sugar from the digested bread as glycogen with much less insulin than a sedentary person.

So the next time you hear one of your friends say (and I have one who tells me how he avoids carbs) make a photocopy of this chapter and give it to them to read. Hopefully, they will learn that not all carbs are bad and that our bodies require them to fuel our muscles.

The second and third parts of Clark’s book consist how to eat before and after exercise. She has a chapter about supplements, performance enhancers, and covers age-specific nutritional needs. Chapters 13 through 16 are all about balancing weight and activity. The last chapter in this section is in an important one, recognizing eating disorders and food obsessions.

The final section of the book provides a wide range of recipes ranging from breakfast ideas to snack and desserts. Some recipes include:

• Greek Shrimp with Feta and Tomatoes
• Spinach Salad with Sweet and Spicy Dressing
• Carrot Raisin Muffins
• Oatmeal Pancakes
• Oven French Fries

Each recipe comes with nutrition information, including total calories, calories per serving, carb, protein, and fat grams.

Last, but not least, Clark offers a fairly extensive appendix of publications and web sites, how to become a sports nutritionist, references cited throughout the book, and sports drinks and energy bars.

If you’re looking for a book that’s not too heavy on science, and you’re serious about eating healthy and keeping active, Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook is the ideal book. She’ll  answer all your questions about how to feed your body and in an easy to digest format without the chemistry and biology class jargon. Buy it, read it, get fit and get healthy.

Last August when Hurricane Irene hit our tiny island, we were left without electricity for four days. That meant we had no running water to cook, clean, or drink. Luckily, there wasn’t a water run and we were able to go to other parts of the island that did have electricity to fill jugs for the toilet and to wash ourselves, and to drink.

Not having clean, running water for those few days was a true eye opener of how necessary it is for us to live and how this free resource needs to be protected from the destructive nature of human beings. Let’s face it, if we manages to destroy our water supply, we destroy ourselves.

We seem to take for granted the true value of water. It’s always within reach to clean, wash, cook and in some cases drink. It seems that Americans have a love/hate relationship with water. We carry around bottles of it like a lifeline, but we still have an addiction to soft drinks that poison us.

Why should we drink water? According to a nifty slide show on WebMD, here are the top seven reasons:

1. If you’re trying to lose weight, water helps speed up metabolism and helps you feel full. Replace empty-calorie soda with water, and drink a glass before meals to help you feel fuller. Drinking cold water also helps with metabolism – especially if your glass is icy cold. Your body must work to warm the water up, burning a few extra calories in the process.
2. Dehydration makes you feel fatigued. Drink water and it will boost your energy. Water helps the blood transport oxygen and other essential nutrients to your cells. If you’re getting enough water, your heart also doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood throughout your body.
3. Seventy to 80% of your brain tissue is water. If you’re dehydrated, your body and your mind will be stressed. If you’re feeling thirsty, you’re already a little dehydrated. To keep stress levels down, keep a glass of water at your desk or tote a sports bottle and sip regularly.
4. Drinking water helps prevent muscle cramping and lubricates joints in the body. When you’re well hydrated, you can exercise longer and stronger without “hitting the wall.”
5. Fine lines and wrinkles are deeper when you’re dehydrated. Water is nature’s moisturizer. Drinking water hydrates skin cells and plumps them up, making your face look younger. It also flushes out impurities and improves circulation and blood flow, leaving your face clean, clear, and glowing.
6. Along with fiber, water is essential to good digestion. Water helps dissolve waste particles and passes them smoothly through your digestive tract. If you’re dehydrated, your body absorbs all the water, leaving your colon dry and making it more difficult to pass waste.
7. The rate of painful kidney stones is rising because people — including children — aren’t drinking enough water. Water dilutes the salts and minerals in your urine that form the solid crystals known as kidney stones. Kidney stones can’t form in diluted urine, so reduce your risk with plenty of water.

Don’t know how much to drink? As a rule use the 8×8 rule used by nutritionists: eight ounces of water, eight times a day or 2 quarts per day. If you exercise and sweat a lot, drink more water to keep hydrated.

Now throw away all that nasty soda and fill your glass with some refreshing water. Bottoms up!

You can always depend on good ol’ Will Shakespeare to come up with a good quote to use in a title. This is from Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “To be, or not to be” act II, scene I, in the Bard’s Hamlet.

All I can say is that if I don’t get enough sleep, there’s no way in hell I can say what’s to be or not to be. I walk around in a  brain fog and I’m cranky as hell. Apart from the moodiness and not having the capacity to focus on anything, not sleeping well can adversely affect your health, but also sabotage your weight-loss efforts.

If you suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, a multitude serious medical conditions can develop from hypertension (and all its related diseases) to fetal and childhood growth retardation. But for this post, let’s just focus on how not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc with the pounds.

In an article by Colette Bouchez for WebMd, Bouchez writes that there’s substantial evidence that the sleep and the quality of it are tied to hormonal activity and appetite. It’s been known for a while that sleep and hormones have played a part, but recent research on two hormones—leptin and ghrelin— influence appetite and that their production is based on how little or how many z’s we get per night.

This hormonal duo work together to control to control feelings of hunger and fullness. Ghrelin, which is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, triggers appetite, where as leptin—found in fat cells—send a signal to the brain when you’ve eaten enough.

What happens, though, is that when you don’t get enough sleep, these two hormones go haywire. Leptin levels drop, which sends the wrong signal that you’re not full, while ghrelin levels rise, stimulating that incessant need to eat. Working together, these two hormones ultimately lead to overeating and to weight gain.

So is the rule to go to bed a reasonable hour and get at least 8 hours of sleep to keep the pounds from creeping up the one to follow? Easier said than done because now we enter into the realm of quality of sleep and sleep apnea.

People who suffer from sleep apnea—who are more likely to be obese — may stop breathing up to a minute, sometimes numerous of times during that eight hour down time and that disruption in sleep prevents you getting the important rest you need. But there’s a glitch with the levels of hormones.

According to studies of patients with sleep apnea, the levels of leptin are high instead of the usual low levels. But once they’re treated, the levels drop and it helps them lose weight. This loss might be due to possibly to sleeping better, which leads to more energy and exercise.

So why do leptin levels cause weight gain in some people and not in others?  Ultimately it all comes down to how our individual systems are wired and how each person responds to the level of these hormones. Also to take into account are a slew of factors ranging from our environment to stress levels that influence these two hormones.

Although leptin and ghrelin are important when it comes to sleep, experts agree that poor sleep patterns combined with other problems is what eventually leads to weight gain. However if you find yourself nodding off, it’s best not to fight the fatigue with sweets or high carb snacks to keep awake. Instead go for a walk or have a tall glass of cold water. And when the sandman comes knocking on your door, you know it’s time to say “Good night!”

I took my measurements this morning and I was dismayed to see my waistline’s numbers. I’m still in the safe zone, but another ten pounds to my frame and then I would find myself in a serious health situation.

Have you ever noticed older women with skinny legs, but their torsos look like barrels? The explanation behind this–especiallyfor menopausal women–is that body fat tends to shift from the arms, legs and hips to the belly. When this occurs, it also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

We all know the rule of calories in versus calories out. Eat too much and there’s no doubt you’ll start packing on pounds. And as we get older, muscle mass decreases. What takes the place of that lost mass? You got it: fat. As women come to the end of the “curse” that’s when it truly  becomes one because estrogen levels decrease, which influence where the fat is distributed in the body. We also can’t forget how genetics play into the entire scheme.

But belly fat and those love handles go skin deep. What we don’t see is that our organs have a nice padding of fat. This visceral fat is what causes all of the health problems because too much of it produces hormones that raise blood pressure, alter cholesterols levels (the good and the bad) and make us insulin resistant, and it plays havoc with our estrogen levels by boosting them. As a consequence it leads to a slew of health problems like:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Stroke
• Type 2 diabetes
• Breast cancer
• Colorectal cancer

According to the Mayo Clinic, women with waistlines of 35 inches or more run a greater risk of suffering from one of the diseases. To trim the waistline, the standards of good health rule: Eat a healthy and nutritious diet and remember portion control. Concentrate on fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats, low-fat dairy products.

Exercise is also key. Try to get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity like fast walking  or 75 minutes of vigorous activity like jogging. To build muscle mass, start a weight training program. And remember, crunches will tone muscles, but won’t get rid of that layer of fat. To lose fat weight and to keep it from coming back, shoot for a two pound loss per week.

Follow these guidelines and your chances of going belly up will be greatly reduced.

About two years ago, I launched Fit & Svelte with the intention of recording my fitness goals without going crazy over the process. What happened—apart from life getting in the way—was a slew of incidents: the beginning of menopause, injuries, diplopia caused by stress. Later, an overall feeling of ennui set in and I stopped writing and recording my progress.

When I started the blog, I was hovering at about 150 pounds and now I am 11 pounds heavier. Some of which has to do with waning hormone levels, but most of it has to do with not maintaining a consistent fitness routine or eating properly.

About two months ago, I learned my blood pressure was 157/95. High enough, according to the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, that  it could require medication to regulate. My family has a history of high blood pressure and heart disease, but for some reason the numbers didn’t register that I was in this danger zone. I realize now that I should have been worried about those blood pressure numbers, especially since I was having dizzy spells every time I would lie down. Instead, I followed a doctor’s advice from long ago to cut caffeine and sodium and to drink more water. The dizzy spells, thankfully, went away.

The truth is I had a delayed reaction in fully comprehending the dangers of hypertension. Looking back to that day, I see how foolish I was about being so lackadaisical about my health. Hypertension can lead to serious problems like heart attacks and strokes, but also aneurysms, heart failure, weakened and narrowed blood vessels in your kidneys. Thickened, narrowed or torn blood vessels in the eyes. As well as metabolic syndrome, which is, according to the Mayo Clinic: “a cluster of disorders of your body’s metabolism — including increased waist circumference, high triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or ‘good,’ cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high insulin levels. If you have high blood pressure, you’re more likely to have other components of metabolic syndrome. The more components you have, the greater your risk of developing diabetes, heart disease or stroke.” Lastly, trouble with memory or understanding.

It’s taken me two months for this wake-up call and this time–without excuses–I need to take charge of my health. It’s not about fitting into a size six pair of jeans, it’s about having a good quality of life. Why is the tagline “A Year’s Journey of Turning Back the Clock?” The purpose is regain the fitness of the past when I was at a healthy weight, physically active, less stressed out, and ate nutritious food.

I admit when I start a new fitness regime, I’m gung-ho for a week and I get into this obsessive-compulsive mode of recording every calorie consumed and burned, weighing myself daily, and updating Facebook with all my progress and then the boredom sets in and silence.

For this next year, I want to take a relaxed approach. No obsessive daily weigh-ins, just once a week (and this will be a difficult habit to break). No Facebook announcements for accountability (that’s the purpose of this blog). However, I want to be strict with myself and get in a minimum of three workouts per week, but push for a maximum of five workouts, in addition to taking longer afternoon walks with the dogs before it gets dark. When it comes to food, the main goal is to be able to eat everything I want, but with certain limitations on snacking, high fat foods, sweets. I’ll go into further detail as I post more entries.

And now let’s start turning back that clock…