Back From The Beach

I resurrected this blog with the intent to write most days about something.  Things have been very busy the last week or so.  The good news is that my husband found a new job and starts work next week.  We have vacation plans at the end of the summer to rent a house in North Carolina with some friends of ours, but had no other travel plans.  We decided to take a trip to the beach for a few days before my husband starts his job.

It was a good trip.  We went during the week and left just as Memorial Day weekend crowds were expected to roll in.  We stayed at the Hilton on 32nd street so we could have access to a great kid's pool as well as a nice indoor pool, in case the weather refused to cooperate.  Fortunately the weather was great; we got in plenty of time at the beach and the pools.  Also Paul purchased a bike rack for my car so we could bring our bikes down with us.  I think this was my favorite part.  There are no restrictions for bikes on the boardwalk prior to Memorial Day so we could ride anytime of the day.

Riding was a good way to work off the food.  I found it hard to stick to my usual eating rules.  When I was a kid, and later when Paul I and would take Gigi to the beach, The Captain's Table at  the Santa Maria was a must for breakfast.  They had a dish called Eggs Chesapeake which consisted of an English muffin topped with poached eggs, jumbo lump crab meat and hollandaise sauce.  So yummy!  Well, they closed a few years ago and demolished the whole property.  This year when we arrived we found that they built a new Marriott Courtyard there and that the Captain's Table was back!  And so was my favorite breakfast dish (aside from Huevos Rancheros at Chilly Billy's In St. John USVI).

Other favorite stops included lunch at Fager's Island, the rides at Trumpers and dinner at Mackey's where you can eat on the beach (bayside).

Practice What You Preach

In the past ten years or so I've been very good at maintaining my weight.  It's not my preferred weight, but not far off.  But in the past year and a half it has crept up a solid 5 lbs.  I know there are many people who are struggling with a lot more than 5 lbs, so forgive me, but really this isn't the last 5 lbs, it's 5lbs over my steady weight which again is not my preferred weight. So lets say a collective 10lbs is what I would like to shed.

I know how to maintain weight, I also know how to lose weight, I guess we all do, we just don't practice what we preach.  We also like to over rationalize our choices, or at least I do.  So I've drawn a line in the sand for myself, because I am not going buy anything the next size up. Nada.

The thing about losing weight is people like to get extreme, but while that may serve a short term goal, it usually ends up in a a lose/lose situation and I'm not talking about weight.  Number one - Move.  Exercise more days of the week than not.  You can get military about this if you want, but I think it's more important to do it, whatever form it takes.  Go to the gym, walk, ride your bike, whatever, just do it.  Also, make sure you are incorporating strength training in there, this gets even more important as you get older and your body starts losing muscle mass. 

Exercise is important, is helps keep us from turning into weaklings who have trouble just getting out of bed in the morning or climbing a flight of stairs.  But in the world of weight loss, eating right is key.  I again apply the theory of tipping the scales in the positive direction without going crazy.  My rule is to make good or at least better choices most of the time.  And when you don't or can't do that, don't over indulge.  I also find that my metabolism responds well to eating frequently.  It's best to try and get something in your system no later than an hour after you wake up, and then try to have something every three hours or so.

What does making the right choices mean?  It means lean protein as much as possible.  Good complex carbs are important, choose whole grain whenever possible and know the difference.  This is why defaulting to cheese tortellini on lazy nights has not benefited my waistline.  I also think less animal products and more tofu and veggies is helpful.  This is probably because of my next guideline, keep your saturated fat intake low. 

Reading food labels makes a huge difference.  I have saved myself many a bad chunk of calories by educating myself and using black and white facts to overrule my rationalization that something like having three Lindt dark chocolate truffles is not that bad. If you are curious, those three truffles contain 12 grams of saturated fat.  One is enough.  The next thing to look out for is sugar.  Try to avoid added sugar whenever possible and beware of the empty calories from alcohol.  Yes, that means I need to drink less wine.

Now that I've said all that, lets go back to the most important rule - making good or better choices most of the time.  This I cannot stress enough, because what I am really talking about is moderation.  Live a little, deprivation will only result in failure.  Have the cake at the birthday party, it's ok.  Just don't eat cake everyday.  If you can get this into to practice you can live this way forever, which probably means you will live longer.

I've finished my preaching, so as the title of this post states, I need to practice it.  I've done well the past few days and am already reaping the benefits.  I love healthy food, it just needs to be tasty.  I get bored easily and I get lazy.  I picked up a new cookbook today to help me out.  It's Tosca Reno's East Clean Cookbook.  Lots of good healthy and tasty recipes.  I'll provide some reviews as I test some of the recipes out.

Need a New Dish

I am making pork chops for dinner tonight. Those who know how much I like to cook will probably be surprised to hear how I plan to prepare them. Shake and Bake. Yup, I am in a food rut. Big time. I also have boxes and boxes of Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes in my pantry as a sidedish stand by. But no Betty Crocker tonight, the Shake and Bake is bad enough. I'll have to rifle through the refrigerator and see if enough I have enough fresh ingredients for a salad.

I need a new dish and I need to do some new dishing here on my blog. I think it is time to freshen things up a bit. I started school a few months ago and it seems to have monopolized most of my free time and creativity. Now I have a short break before the next semester starts and I would like to spend more time on other creative endeavors such as cooking, gardening, and writing. It's not happening tonight, pork chops are one of the few things I don't do well. I don't know why.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

So recently my daughter asked me "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I skirted the question by answering that I was already grown up. But at 6 years old my daughter is quite smart. As absurd as it is, this is a question that has been on my mind lately.

I guess there are a few things making this the current question in my life. It's been over a year since I stopped working due to a layoff. I had in my mom's words, always been a "career girl". Even after I had Gigi, I continued working full time and climbing the corporate ladder. We managed our house well and I enjoyed "having it all". But in the fall of 2008 that all changed. I figured I would enjoy some time off, after all I had held a full time job for 24 years, a break was not unreasonable. But this is where the limbo set it, because that's what I saw it as, a break. I didn't really want to get involved in anything, such as going to school or a volunteer program because sooner or later I would get back into the full time work groove and would have to bow out.

Now after a little over a year of being home and incorporating some volunteer work at Gigi's school into my schedule, I realize getting back on the HR corporate full time horse is not for me. In fact, I would be happy never to be involved in human resources management ever again. I would say some of that is burn out, being in HR through a year long trickle of layoffs is super awful. But also maybe because I never really sought out HR as my career choice, it just happened that way through opportunities that opened up to me. I guess that's what happens to many folks. I always wonder if Laura Tums (a girl I went to school with) ever became the marine biologist that she set her mind to early in school. Since the memory has stuck with me I guess I envied her drive to purposely create her own destiny.

Anyway I've been floating around the house for over a year now, and when the layoff happened I thought a year off would be nice. And that year has come and gone, working on year two right now. It's been good being home. I get so much more time with Gigi and more importantly she gets so much more time with me. I'm not ready to trade that in, not sure if I'll ever be ready to trade that in.

About a week ago there was a story on the news and there was a high school girl talking about her goals in life and she said something that really struck me (these kids are so smart). Basically she said, if you are not working towards a goal (set of goals) you are just floating through life. That's what I am doing right now and maybe that's OK for the short term, but not for the long term, no way.

So Gigi's question is very timely. If I don't want to go back into HR, what do I want to do? Well right now the answer seems to be one that many moms come to, work in the school system. I've enjoyed my volunteer work and like the atmosphere in the school, I also like the possibility of having a work schedule that is close to my daughter's school schedule. Doing what, I am not sure, but it's a good start in the process and the first step is that I will need get my educational house in order.

I have hesitated on going back to school for many reasons over the years. Not because I don't like it, I do, I love school. But once I got into management and then especially after having a child I felt I was already stretched too thin to continue working towards my degree. Plus I was doing well without it, always had.

Yesterday, I reapplied to school and in the next few days I will decide how much I want to take on in my first semester back. I am looking forward to putting some new goals in place and stepping out of the floating limbo that has become a little too comfortable.