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Eat Well to Live Well – Heather Lentz

December 11, 2018 / Chris Brown / 3 Comments

Fit Strong Women Over 50 Podcast Episode 23

Jill McCauslin and Chris Brown talk with Heather Lentz about her opinions about food, diets, her roles as a health coach and director of wellness at at a well-respected green grocery chain and about her KOI Gourmet Skincare. She is a certified holistic health practitioner, food wellness advisor and good food advocate.

In episode 23, Heather discusses:

Food is medicine: Selling food-based supplements, super foods, and proteins, is the pharmacy of the future.
Veganism is great if you thrive on it. Not everybody does. Paleo/Keto works well for some. People should eat in the way that’s right for them, but there’s no one way of eating for everyone.
Obsessing too much on how to eat gets us into trouble. We think way too much about food. We give food way too much power.
A lot of it starts with body image. We think we have to look a certain way.
Our society is in a nasty cycle because we eat to lose weight and then we stress about it and the stress releases hormones that make you unable to lose weight or to gain weight.

Benefits of Eating Well for Women Over 50

Suggestions for women over 50 for ways improve their eating program for better living:

Greens are a power food and an excellent way to add vitamins into your eating.
For meat eaters: the best meat is grass fed (or pastured) local meat from some grocery stores or local farms or farmer markets. If can’t get that, look for (non-local) grass-fed. If can’t get that, look for organic.
Make sure you’re enjoying life and not obsessing over food and weight.
Know the source of your food, including where your fruits and vegetables are coming from and where your meat is coming from.
Switch to natural peanut butter.
If you eat meat alternative products, be sure to check the labels because some are highly processed. Look for ones where you recognize all of the ingredients.
Be sure to get Omega 3 fats
Everyone could benefit from taking turmeric, a good whole-food multi vitamin, a good B complex, and a probiotic.

Koi Beauty Bar

Heather created KOI Gourmet Skincare, a line of artisan crafted skincare products, formulated with select organic superfoods and essential oils, to nourish and replenish the largest organ we have… our skin. As a former cancer research technologist, Heather has developed a unique perspective about food and its impact on the human body. She has come to believe that just as we need to pay close attention to what we put in our bodies for optimal health and wellness, we need to pay equal attention to what we put on our bodies.

The skin is a living, breathing organ with an important and often overwhelming job to do. When not properly fed, it can develop issues (eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, acne) that are difficult to resolve. That’s why, if we want our skin to stay fresh, clear and youthful, it’s vital that we feed, nurture and protect it.

Bonus: We will be giving away a free Wheat Grass Beauty Bar from Heather’s line. Call the Becoming Elli Voicemail by December 31, 2018 at 330-970-6662. Leave your name, that you’re interested in the beauty bar and be sure to include a way for us to contact you.

Links mentioned in today’s podcast:

Koi Beauty Bar
Facebook
Instagram
Recent book she read Missing Peace (affiliate link)

Listening to Music During a Workout

December 8, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Finding the perfect playlist to match the type of workout I am doing is an ongoing quest of mine.

There’s probably no way that your taste in music matches mine. I was reminded of this during a spinning class on Wednesday. Everyone has different tastes in music. I loved it when my spinning instructor played Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies! (It starts slow and gets fast.) Run Run Rudolph is another holiday favorite of mine. It’s a fun and fast one that I love. Not everyone appreciates those I guess.

I find that exercising to music makes exercise fun. In fact it’s not a work out, for me it becomes a “play out”, but there are some challenges in getting the music worked out.

Here are the 3 problems that need to be overcome with music:

Finding the music itself (right beat, keeps you going, are the words right or even not even important, even the right version of the song makes a difference I think. I usually prefer instrumental over vocals)
Actually obtaining the songs to play them when you want them. – do you use Pandora or Spotify? Or do you buy music from iTunes? Or move a song to your playlist from your CD?
Getting the right device to listen to them – Bluetooth speakers? Ear buds? Built in speakers in a beanie? Play the music out loud for everyone to hear?

This past Sunday afternoon, when the weather hit 63 degrees here in Ohio in December, I took a bike ride with 7 of my friends. The group of us witnessed a runner crossing a road right in front of an ambulance with lights and sirens. It seemed impossible he didn’t see or hear it. There is a dip in the road, so when he glanced to the right, the ambulance was obscured by the hill. But we decided that it was the Noise Cancelling Headphones that made it so he could not hear the ambulance. WOW was that scary. Luckily the ambulance driver was alert and averted a bad accident. We were all waiting at the edge of the road on the bike trail and witnessed the whole scene unfold just five or six feet in front of us. He was totally oblivious. In fact, he looked at us weirdly because of the panic on all of our faces. It was almost like a scene from a movie. He just continued running down the bike/hike path behind us like nothing had happened. It took about a half mile on the bike before the adrenaline washed away from my arms.

Please, if you use noise cancelling headphones, don’t use them on a bike trail or anywhere when you’ll be crossing a road. It can be really bad. I had no idea that they worked that well.

Listening Devices

My preferred way of listening to music during a run was with my old headband. I had cut some holes in the headband and slid some old headphone speakers into it for my outside runs. Sometimes for a bike ride, I would pull the headband down around my neck like a scarf. Much safer. Pretty ugly. I still don’t have the right answer.

When I’m running I have the neckerchief or headband fit under the baseball cap. You can see me with a version of it on in this photo and the old white headband in this photo. I tried using it for the 2018 half marathon but it failed me and I had to do the run music less.

During the winter, I use my iBeanie hat (a swag gift from the first FitBloggin’ conference I attended in Baltimore.) I don’t think the company makes these anymore, but here’s a link to something similar. This Bluetooth Beanie Hat that has built in speakers, which is great in the winter but way to hot if the weather is over 50 degrees out. (Mine is old and has wires that plug into my old iPod.) I like to keep the speakers off my ears so I can hear foot steps behind me. Because I run slowly, all runners (for the most part – and even many walkers) pass me and I don’t like to be startled.

I got some Bluetooth headphones last year for Christmas, but have had only some luck getting them to connect all the time.

Selecting the Songs

After getting a way to play the songs, I judge if I will like the music for a work out is to imagine if the song just started… would I want to get up and run out to the dance floor? If the answer is yes, then I’ll probably add it to my play list. Some songs make it to the play list only to be deleted a few weeks later.

There are lots of songs that end up going on the play list over and over.

I have different songs for running than I do for yoga or walking or even bike riding.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to write about – workout music that matches the workout. I like songs that have a beat that matches my cadence. I’m not a fast runner by any means. My playlist matches my age, taste in music and pace.

Unfortunately as I list these out here, I realize the words to most of these songs are not good, and actually go against my more thoughtful side, so please ignore that part. I guess I am not listening to the words at all, but getting the beat into my bones.

Jackson Browne Running on Empty – kinda slow but a good warm up song.
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes Got to Find a Better Way Home. This one is peppy!
Devo Whip it good – Strong steady beat.
Rocky Horror Picture Story – Time Warp (but not if I am doing hills, this is a fast one!)
J Geils Band – Freeze Frame (also fast)
Tag Team – Whoomp There it is (Easy run song)
The Proclaimers I would walk 500 Miles – Seems slow, but it keeps me going.
Parliament – Flashlight – Neon Light – I like the beat of this one
Gwen Stephani – the Cheerleader song B-a-n-a-n-a Hollerback Girl – Good pick up
Pittbull – Bon, Bon, Bon
Weird Al Yankovick’s Can’t Watch This

Obtaining the Songs

My method is to use my CDs, put them into the computer. I create a playlist folder and then move them onto my iPod. It’s frustrating that I can’t move my playlists onto my iPhone, but it does help that I can save my iPhone battery by not playing music on it. If I don’t have the CD, I can usually get it from the library.

My other choice is to use my iPhone and listen on Pandora. I don’t have my channels worked out very well on Pandora because I don’t use it often enough. The results are usually less than satisfying.

I am curious about Spotify. Some of my friends use it – I know Jill has really enjoyed using Spotify and she shared one of her playlists earlier this year. Some people listen to the podcast on it.

How about you? I’m curious. What are your best workout songs from your playlist? Do you listen on headphones? How do you build your playlist?

Meal Prep: The Secret to No Weight Gain During December

December 2, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Weekend Meal Prep

One of the best tools I know of to keep me from gaining weight during the holidays, is a simple one. It’s not hard, if I do it right and it’s amazing how helpful it can be.

Weekend Meal Prep is no secret, actually. I think we all know that meal prep makes a huge difference in maintaining a weight loss. I find that it is especially true during one of the most challenging months – December!

This weekend I prepped three dishes: lemon chicken in the crock pot, roasted sweet potatoes fries and a protein filled quinoa salad with veggies.

During the winter I also like to make veggie soups. Having a nice big bowl of soup to start dinner is a great way to get extra liquid and vegetables into my daily meal without much work. It is a win win win: filling, good for me and easy.

The most important keys for meal prep:

Before I start to prep: Probably most important for me is to do the prepping when I am NOT hungry. Just after breakfast or lunch is the perfect time for me. It’s kinda like that other non negotiable – don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach.

Secondly, it’s really important that I need to love the food. (Which is why it’s so important for me not to try to prepare the meal prep when I’m hungry!)

Obviously before I can do meal prep, I have to have an idea of what I’d like to have waiting for you in the fridge or freezer. Making something “too” healthy or “too” hard is not a good idea for me. I usually fall back to something that I know I love. A soup or salad already made up, the kind that if I see it in the refrigerator, I want it.

Super healthy somethings, are a no-no. They just don’t do it for me. I was on a morning green smoothy kick for a while but found out it is too healthy for me too early. So when you’re deciding what to make, figure out something that keeps pretty well. I not only wasted all the ingredients by setting out all my smoothies ahead of time, I wasted my time. So when you’re choosing what to make, select something that looks good several days later, that you’ll actually want to eat.

Smoothies just don’t keep that well. They tend to separate or taste too watery to me.

It does need to be more on the healthy side however. I did meal prep before I lost the weight too. It wasn’t always the healthiest. And I didn’t pack my lunch. Back when the kids were little, I made 10 PB&J’s and put them in the freezer on Sunday night. It made it super easy to pack their lunches for day care or school so I would just add yogurt, veggie sticks and a drink into their paper bags before heading out the door in the morning.

If I didn’t meal prep back in those days, I’d be making bad choices all the way around.

For me, it is easier to make a bunch of one dish that can be frozen and/or refrigerated. Most things only last 4 days max in the refrigerator.

Containers are the other stumbling block for me. My container cupboard ends up like my sock drawer – lots of miss matched pieces. Periodically I have to do a purge and replace.

I start by pulling out all the containers ahead of time. Lids and bottoms. The type of container varies – sometimes I use glass jars, sometimes plastic with lids, depending on the meal and if it needs to be reheated or if it might leak. I spread the containers out on the counter ready to be filled helps me start with the end in mind.

Depending on what I have to do in the week ahead, I like to have them in containers that can be transported, so that I can bring them with me if I’m away from home at lunch time or dinner time. These days I’ve been traveling to my parent’s home quite a bit and its invaluable for me to have a healthy, easy and yummy choice available.

The fries and the chicken work for evening dinners, but I will use the salad (with maybe some tuna stirred in) as my lunches during this upcoming week.

What is your favorite dish for meal prep? Do you use just pre-cut the peppers, onions and celery for the week – or do you go all out and make full meals? I’d love to hear your ideas!

Inspirational Messages with Vicki Prussak

November 27, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

Episode #22 of the Fit, Strong Women Over 50 Podcast

In episode 22 of the Fit, Strong Women over 50 Podcast for the Becoming Elli community, Chris and Jill talk with Vicki Prussak about the value of inspirational messages. Vicki is a life-long learner, the eternal optimist, a certified wellness coach, ACE Fitness Nutrition Specialist, animal lover, artist, retired belly dancer and jewelry maker.

Vicki has had several careers including wellness coaching and graphic design for various large corporations. At one time Vicki practiced belly dancing to stay fit and agile. In her latest career, Vickie has developed a line of jewelry to encourage others to stay focused and positive.

Vicki’s inspirational line of handcrafted jewelry, Carry Your Message, involves tucking an inspirational message into a necklace to helps us stay motivated and focused. She created this line of jewelry when she realized that her wellness clients were not remembering or focusing on their goals.

Chris and Jill talk with Vicki about how she overcame the despair following an accident with her eyes and how she got the weight off after three years of being sedentary following that accident. As part of that discussion, Vicki talks about eating naturally and how she uses intermittent fasting or, as she calls it, intermittent eating.

Mainly, though, they discuss the power of words and how focusing on the positive improves our self-esteem and increases our ability to make a change. Vicki explains how internal inspiration—those things we say to ourselves—is more powerful that external motivation. It’s this that allows you to use your strengths and natural abilities to excel. During the discussion of the power of positive affirmations, Vicki gives us the three words she uses for her inspiration: feel, focus and flow.

Vicki meditates every day and finds it to be of great value. She recommends looking at the Deepak Chopra and Oprah 21 day free app

https://chopracentermeditation.com/article/6-oprah_deepaks_21_day_meditation_experience/

There are lots of other meditation apps, including Headspace app which Jill has used.

Chris and Jill conclude the episode by discussing some healthy tips for the holidays, focusing mainly on how to work in some fitness and how to manage food and alcohol at social events.

Vicki’s jewelry can be seen on her website, www.carryyourmessage.com and she can be found at these social media locations:

Facebook https://facebook.com/carryyourmessage

Twitter https://twitter.com/wellcoachvicki

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/carryyourmessage/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/carry_your_message/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickiprussak

Becoming More Healthy by Eating Healthy Fats

November 24, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Healthy Fats and Non-Healthy Fats

I am on a bend, trying to learn more about nutrition and healthy fats in particular. I am seriously trying to learn more about the role of fat in my diet. There is a lot to it.

For most of my life, I lumped all of the different kinds of fat together — things like belly fat, saturated fat, and Omega-3 fats. Most of my eating plans would revolve around calorie counting. I have a better handle on it now, but I’m still learning about nutrition, macros (protein, carbohydrates and fat) and how to be more healthy as I work on maintaining my weight loss. Note: I am not a dietitian or nutritionist, just someone trying to sort it all out.

Today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Although it has been about 12 years since I gave up baking hundreds of Christmas cookies, that I would allegedly give away to friends and family or to have available if someone dropped by, I still remember pulling cans of Crisco shortening, sticks of butter and bags of sugar in preparation for this baking tradition.

Now, I have replaced this activity by pulling out the lights and putting Santa decorations on the mantle instead!

I guess my lack of knowledge had me just figuring that anything with a lot of fat in it would probably make me fat. I didn’t actually know that there were so many types of fats.

Of course, I’m still learning. Jill and I named this Becoming Elli because we are still learning and working at it. However, now my cupboard is stocked with a big can of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a jar of coconut oil and stack of sardine cans. I haven’t bought corn oil for a very long time. Crisco is a distant memory.

It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I bought my first avocado. Now during my visits to the grocery store, I’m always giving the avocados the squeeze test to find the best ripe, but not too ripe, ones. I’ve really developed a taste for sardines too.

I have learned that there are a lot of good reasons to add healthy fats into my food plan. I’d rather eat my healthy fats than take a pill. Taking a gel tab from my big jar of fish oil gel tablets tend to make me burp.

Good to know facts about healthy fats and oils

Perhaps you already know these facts about fat. I’m probably late to the party. It is still relatively new information to me, as I wasn’t brought up knowing this and have been learning it as I go.

- Certain fats (omega-3) helps your brain think – Psychology Today – Have you fed your brain today? “Omega-3 fatty acids are great for mental clarity, concentration, and focus.”
- Low fat isn’t always a good thing. Lots of times something that is low fat has been changed to taste better by adding in lots of sugar. Too much sugar in your system ends up with extra fat being stored because it cannot be processed. Your body processes sugar first, then fat. But it won’t get to the fat if there is too much sugar.
- Certain fats help you feel full and satiate those hunger urges. (Sugar causes the hunger urge in me.)
- Some fats help to regulate hormones which helps regulate body weight. I think the hormone is called leptin but there is still some mystery around how that all works.
- Healthy fats protect you against some diseases – diabetes, cancer, heart disease.

The word fat is a bit deceiving to me. I know that I don’t want to be fat, or at least I don’t want to have too much body fat. The word fat is used different ways and not always for describing the same thing. Fat, floating on a soup or the top of a gravy, is pretty unappealing. Fat hanging over my blue jeans isn’t good either, but healthy fats keep you thinking, satiated and protect against some diseases.

I know I can’t trust my taste buds anymore. “It tastes too good to be healthy.” That’s not always true either. I love the taste of avocado. Things that taste delicious are sometimes very good for health and that is the case with avocados for sure.

Healthy Fats

Like most things, in many cases healthy fats are a matter of degree.

Eggs, a wonderful source of fat and protein that I consider a staple, used to be considered a potential cholesterol-raising food. We’ve now had the all-clear on eating eggs. Apparently cholesterol in our bodies does not really come from the cholesterol in our food. I have 11 chickens laying eggs, so you know how I feel about eggs!

Omega3 fats are important for us to eat and most of us don’t get nearly enough of them to eat. That’s why I have sardines to my diet. Oily fish like salmon and sardines are great sources of omega 3 fats.

I’ve heard people argue about coconut oil, which turns to a solid under 76 degrees. Some say that cooking with coconut oil when using higher temperatures is the way to go. Others say that coconut oil has the most saturated fat of any fat. People are arguing over saturated fat now. Some say we need it; others still insist it’s bad for you. Here’s the reason people like to use coconut oil. Some of the fats in it are what’s called medium chain triglycerides. These types of fat go straight to the liver and are used for energy rather than being converted into body fat. You’ll have to make up your own mind about coconut oil because many of the food experts advice against using it, while many others recommend it.

Of course, there have been much discussion about the virtues of dark chocolate. I gather the darker the chocolate, the less sugar and the better it is for you. I’ve seen recommendations for dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa and others as high as 85%. The darker the chocolate, the less sweet it is but if you give yourself some time, you’ll get used to it and really think of dark chocolate as a treat.

Unhealthy Fats

I am still skeptical about “smart balance” and “healthy choice” brands. While many foods are under discussion, I think we can all agree that trans fats are bad.

Trans fats were found in fried foods, fast food and certain baked goods… or at least they used to be. Trans fats raised the bad cholesterol and lowered the good cholesterol. In 2015, the US government passed a ban on all trans fats, which had 3 years to take effect (June 15, 2018, almost 6 months ago!) So, in theory, they are gone.

Trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats) had a very weird chemical bond. It is where hydrogen was during a manufacturing process to make a liquid oil into a solid.

It can still be confusing about which are healthy fats and which are not. Saturated and unsaturated fats are on the spectrum, with saturated fats being on the bad side, and unsaturated fats on the better side.

I figured I could just go to a chart (put out by the USA government) and it would be clear to me which fats are the right ones. Ha ha! Not so fast!

Healthy Fats chart from the health.gov website

Courtesy page 26 of the PDF on the Health.GOV website. Click for full 144 page report.

See the chart about common fats and oils shown on page 26 of this 2015-2020 PDF from the US government.

What is the difference? (Here is where my eyes start to get glazed over, as the memories of high school chemistry class come back.) It has to do with the bonds, double bonds versus single bonds and if it has been manufactured. I’ll spare you the diagrams.

Saturated fat are usually a solid at room temperature… in general saturated fat is a solid or a liquid, depending on the temperature. like butter, cheese and animal fats.

Some, if not many, people think saturated fat is linked to heart disease and high cholesterol. Saturated fat is “packed tighter” than unsaturated fat.

Others say we should avoid most vegetable oils except for a few oils like olive oil and avocado oil. They recommend using butter, coconut oil, and other oils high in saturated fat. Not to be wishy-washy, but this can become a bit confusing.

I’ve seen articles saying – “choose” soft butter (processed?) or choose choose “low-fat” ice cream (more sugar?). I’m not convinced that either is right. These may be worse. (Editor’s note: I do tend to drink light beer, but most beer drinkers scoff and wonder why someone would drink any beer if it is light. But I digress, as beer doesn’t have fat in it and that’s the subject at hand.)

So now, leave a message below with your take on the healthy fats. Which do you eat? Which do you avoid? Do you disagree with my take on the situation?

Time for me to go decorate the mantle and put on some Christmas music.

Being Grateful at Thanksgiving

November 22, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

Since this post is being published on Thanksgiving Day, I thought I’d share a few things for which I’m thankful. You know, being grateful at Thanksgiving is what the holiday is about.

Chris wrote last week about her plan for navigating food at Thanksgiving this year and shared her very fun veggie turkey. I loved that photo. Go check it out if you didn’t see it. It’s also a good post if you’re looking for ideas on how to eat or not eat at the holiday table.

Grateful at Thanksgiving

So Thanksgiving is really a harvest festival, I think. We’re supposed to express our gratitude for a bountiful harvest and health and our preparation for winter. Since its inception, of course, Thanksgiving is about gratitude but most of us are pretty removed from the actual harvest. Instead, I think we give thanks for other things in our lives. I’ve been mulling over what I’m thankful for, related to my fitness and heath.

So, this year has been a tough one for me. I’ve had injuries and problems with my Achilles tendon, which has led to lack of training. I think it’s important to recognize that we can’t always set records or be super-amazing. Instead, sometimes, we just have to do what we can. I’m thankful that I managed to run two half-marathons this year and, while I didn’t set the world on fire, I completed them.

I’m also thankful that I’ve managed to do enough strength training that I’m able to use my muscles to offset some of the problems I’ve had. When my hip was sore, I had enough upper body strength to lift myself out of the chair. (This is me, trying to see the glass as half-full!)

I am also thankful that I’ve managed to surround myself with people who care about me and have lots of advice on ways to keep myself healthy. A friend ran over late in the evening to bring me a heating pad. Another friend gave me advice on how best to use ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Friends invited me to go to yoga with them or encourage me to attend classes at the gym.

Becoming Elli Community

I’m thankful that Chris and I have created this Becoming Elli blog, podcast, and community. I think I’ve learned a lot about being a fit, strong woman over 50 from both writing and reading the blog and in creating the podcast. Some of the people we’ve interviewed are so inspirational and others have been so informative. As we finish our first year of the podcast, I’m grateful that we’ve had such amazing people join us.

The Becoming Elli community has also provided me with inspiration and support. I’m very grateful for those of you who share your wins and your losses. Having a community of like-minded women is such a gift.

I’m so thankful for my fitness community. Whether the friends are in our hometowns or online, we can support each other in all kinds of ways. While I can’t bring you a heating pad, I’m happy to encourage you and tell you about my experiences with fitness or injury or running or what I eat for breakfast. The more we help each other, the more we can all become like Elli and be fit and strong. So, thank you for being a member of the Becoming Elli community. I’m grateful you’re here.

Inspiration to Maintain a Weight Loss During Thanksgiving Weekend

November 17, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

The big weekend is approaching. The four-day food and shopping fest is next weekend. In the past six years of {struggling} to maintain my weight loss, I work to find inspiration for maintaining my weight loss.

Having the Becoming Elli Community helps me. I know I needed a lot of support to lose the weight. It took me about five years to lose the weight. I found that originally losing it was one thing. I still need support and more knowledge to keep it off. Staying fit, strong and healthy is definitely the ultimate goal. I need to go step by step to stay on the path.

Thanksgiving can be a slippery slope for me. I know that there are many people who say things like – just eat until you’re satisfied – or don’t worry about it on one day – just enjoy everything. Inside my head, I know that doesn’t work for me. At least not yet. Maybe next year.

But this year, I know I need to have an action plan for Thanksgiving day and actually the whole weekend because of all the oh-so-easy to pick at and eat leftovers from the feast.

Sometimes other people refer to it as a goal, but in reality, it is more of an action plan. Things I will do, rather than focusing on the desired end result goal.

My action plan this year. I will:
1) Exercise Thanksgiving morning
2) Bring complex carb roasted vegetables that I absolutely love
3) Make the day all about people and talk, talk, talk
4) Drink at least 64 oz of water
5) Take a deep breathing break at least 4 times during the day to de stress
6) Listen once again to Marsha Friedman’s Coping With Holiday Stress podcast episode & re-read her tips
7) Look for the fun in the holiday beyond the food/shopping extravaganza to make up a gratitude list

I’ll probably make a clumsy turkey out of assembled vegetables – here’s the one from last year. Although this year I might try a variety of those big Mediterranean olives for the body along with peppers, carrots, celery and cauliflower.In a way I look at this vegetable turkey and see a huge pinterest fail, but in another way, no one was too intimidated by its beauty to not eat it! Most the raw vegetables were gone and the ones left over found their way into turkey soup!

Coping with Holiday Stress Podcast with Marsha Friedman

November 13, 2018 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Episode #21 of the Fit, Strong Women Over 50 Podcast

Today Jill and Chris discuss coping with stress with Marsha Friedman. She works out 6 days a week at Planet Fitness – alternating between aerobics and weight training. Her goal is to keep the “Grandma arms” – loose skin dangling from the triceps – at bay, permanently!

She is currently a Leadership and Personal Development Coach who is passionate about guiding individuals to their full potential. As a coach, she helps her clients find the spark to ignite their own fires.

In Podcast Episode 21, Marsha shares many excellent techniques on how to cope with holiday stress:

Deciding how you will take care of yourself (great suggestions!)
How to embrace the emotions (and how to manage your mood when you need to)
The who-how-when of accepting help to improve your stress levels
Managing Expectations of the things that cause holiday stress: Food, Family, Finances, Fun and Friends

Marsha has a broad range of business experience from finance to customer service and from operations to organizational development.

Marsha is also a devoted mother and step-mother of four… and a grandmother of nine.

As someone who has dealt with a variety of challenges over the years, Marsha has the grit and determination not to let anything stop her.

Because she has rebuilt her credit, rekindled her spiritual life, raised successful independent children, reestablished her career, and reclaimed love again (and again) she is known as the Comeback Queen.

In addition, Marsha has offered a free 30 minute consultation to the listeners of our podcast. For a download checklist quiz, a more detailed explanation of her stress busting techniques and more information about the consultation, visit the website page that she set up, just for us!

Contact information for Marsha:
email: marsha@consultmef.com
website: www.consultmef.com
webpage for this podcast: http://consultmef.com/holidaystress

How do YOU Measure Fit?

November 10, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

How do most women over 50 measure fit?

I am guessing that the first answer would be weight. Maybe stamina vs fatigue?

As women in 2018, we have the opportunity to access so much information, it can be overwhelming and obsessive. Those who know their numbers may point to BMI or A1c or VO2Max. Or waist size or blood pressure.

As I go deeper into focusing on fitness, strength and getting healthy, I’ve discovered that there are always new numbers and measurements to fine tune things.

When I first started running/walking/jogging in 2009, I wanted to know how long it took me to go one lap around the track, one mile and a 5K. Those became numbers I worked toward improving. I hadn’t even heard of VO2 Max and even now, that number is something that I associate with athletes who would be knowing and tracking their numbers.

During my years of going to Weight Watchers from 2007 to 2013, there were weekly weigh ins. During the week, I would be counting points that WW had assigned to various foods. After I reached my goal weight, I stopped counting the points and started focusing more instead on fiber grams, protein and looking at healthy omega fats. I became much more focused on counting the number of minutes I exercised each day.

I began to follow my resting heart rate numbers and maximum heart rate. I learned there are lots of ways to measure fit.

As my health improved, then I was looking into complex carbs vs simple carbs vs processed food. Is white wine really better than red wine (or just NO wine??) Fish vs chicken vs red meat vs beans and other legumes? I joined the nutrition club at my gym.

And the numbers started to become more refined as well. Blood draws to get much more accurate numbers than jumping on a scale in the morning.

For lipids, I’d used to just track only my total cholesterol number. Then it was tracking my HDL and LDL along with triglycerides. Next I was focusing on the particle sizes. For glucose, most of my tests included just one number. Now I’m more interested in A1c.

During this past year I began tracking my sleep — not just the number of hours that I sleep. (I used to count the hours I went to bed and got out of bed.) Now I have information about how long I have had deep sleep, REM, light sleep and awake hours.

Maybe I’m too obsessive about measuring my fitness, but at the same time, I find that tracking is a powerful tool for measuring improvement. It helps me to find out that what I am doing isn’t working or is working.

I’m curious about the other members of the Becoming Elli community. Do you follow your numbers? And if so, which ones and why?

Coffee with Cream or Butter or Coconut Milk or What?

November 8, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 11 Comments

What do you drink in coffee? Do you drink coffee with cream? Or coffee with butter and coconut oil? Hard to believe this is an issue but it’s a question that I’ve been pondering.

I used to drink my coffee with cream and sugar. Then my doctor at the Trim Life program at the Cleveland Clinic told us to cut out the sugar from the coffee. She said in three days you’ll be over it. And she was right. I quit adding sugar to my coffee and very quickly adjusted to the change in flavor. I haven’t put sugar in my coffee in a long time but I do, however, still put half and half in my coffee.

The standard light cream for coffee in the United States is called half and half. It’s as you might think, a combination of milk and cream. It runs about 12 to 18 percent milk fat. Apparently in the UK, this is called half cream.

Cream in coffee is so tasty because the fat interacts with the coffee and gives it a better “mouth feel.” In other words, it makes it a bit thicker and smoother. The proteins in the cream softens the bitterness of coffee.

The reason I refuse to use skim milk in my coffee is that there’s no fat in skim milk. That means it has much fewer calories but it does nothing for the coffee but turn it an ugly mud color.

Now that I’ve written this, I realize why I abandoned sugar in my coffee without much difficulty but really struggle to move to drinking my coffee black. I like that smooth taste that I get with coffee with cream.

So, here’s the dilemma I’m pondering. Everyone is down on half and half in coffee (and I mean that in the way that 50+ people mean down—it’s not considered to be good.)

The keto people say don’t use half and half because it has too many carbs from the milk. Instead, switch to heavy whipping cream (HWC). HWC is about 36 percent milk fat, still has protein, but apparently has fewer carbs.

Dave Asprey, the inventor of Bulletproof Coffee, suggests that we abandon all dairy products except for grass-fed butter. So, he makes coffee with grass-fed butter and MCT oil. If you look online, you’ll find many variations on this coffee but almost always made with butter and coconut oil. I’ve tried this coffee and I admit, it’s pretty tasty. The fat in this gives you that good “mouth feel” and it’s filling. You can’t drink multiple cups of this stuff all day long. Well, if you did, you’d be consuming huge amounts of calories and even if you’re not a calorie-counting kind of person, trust me, it wouldn’t be good.

Oh, there are the non-dairy flavored creamers, like hazelnut and French Vanilla creamers. I don’t drink these because they’re usually full of sugar and the kinds of fats that I avoid. They are just not particularly good for you.

A lot of the functional medicine doctors suggest we move away from dairy and those flavored creamers so they often suggest using coconut milk or almond milk in coffee. I think almond milk doesn’t do much to enhance coffee. In my mind, it’s the skim milk of non-dairy creamers. Coconut milk isn’t too bad but it does have an odd taste for coffee.

Vegan coffee tends also to be almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk. A lot of the manufacturers of these milks make thicker versions that they sell as creamers. You have to be sure to check the ingredients of these to make sure that the sweeteners and thickening agents are things you want to consume.

So, I’ve tried all of these different creamers. Heavy whipping cream overwhelms the taste of coffee. The almond and coconut creamers are expensive and don’t really cut it. They don’t have the same flavor or “mouth feel” for me. Adding butter and coconut oil to coffee actually tastes ok but it’s more work than I like when it’s first thing in the morning. To be honest, nothing beats regular half and half cream so that’s what I use.

My mother who always drinks her coffee black used to tell me, “it’s a lot easier to drink black coffee.” As usual, my mother was right.

Feel free to let me know how you drink your coffee. Coffee with cream? Black? I’d really love to know how someone went from drinking coffee with cream to drinking it black.