Posts Tagged ‘healthy choices’
Food Choices
As I was eating my fancy breakfast of yogurt with cereal and a side of peanut butter toast all by myself yesterday morning, it occurred to me that there is a pretty well-defined difference of choices I make when it comes to eating for nutrition vs. eating for pleasure. The most obvious influence is directly related to how much sugar has been added. It’s a fact of our human nature that sweetness is very high on the pleasure scale. There are people who can claim to be exceptions to the norm of appreciating sweetness, but I believe the number is a minority.
If a well-balanced diet didn’t matter, I’d choose ice cream at every meal. For uncooked breakfasts, I tend to select yogurt with my cereal. That is not a choice I would make from the side of pleasure. I select a yogurt with little to no added sugar because it’s good for me. Instead of hardly being able to wait for the next bite, yesterday, I found myself noticing that I wasn’t all that excited to put the next spoonful in my mouth.
But it’s good for me, so I eat it anyway.
If healthy nutrition didn’t matter, I would eat even more pizza than we already do. I’m okay eating fruit and vegetables, but I would choose a lot less fruit if I didn’t know it was good for me.
I’m not always hungry, but that rarely stops me from eating food when I see it. When I am on my own, like I have been the last few days, my laziness keeps me from eating all the food Cyndie sends along. For lunch, I could heat and eat the beef stew she provided, but it is quicker and easier to grab some cheese curds and crackers, mixed nuts, and beef jerky. Since they were convenient, I also grabbed a bag of pea pods and carrots to munch.
Of course, all I really wanted to eat was ice cream.
Rural Development
While out on a walk yesterday to get some exercise in the high heat of early March, I spotted new additions to the landscape in the forest across the highway from the Wildwood lakefront properties.
An electric company has wired power to the edge of the wooded land across the road. I passed two of these boxes that make it look like a new subdivision is going in. Maybe they are putting in the infrastructure to support a massive influx of climate refugees who will want to move to the Midwest after fleeing rising seas, intensifying hurricanes, and inhospitably hot high temperatures.
This area is probably not immune to drought and wildfires, but we are close to the Great Lakes, which might ameliorate those risks some.
We used to bushwhack our way through those woods to explore, at one time bouncing over downed logs on mountain bikes. We found several routes that reached all the way to the Birkie trail for skiing or cycling. More recently, I’ve noticed “No Trespassing” signs going up in those woods, so I’ve greatly curtailed explorations other than very close to the road.
Those new utility installations gave me a real sense of how much time is marching on.
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Sweet Treats
Just three days to go until the great trick-or-treat traditions burst forth on countless doorsteps. In the twelve years we’ve been here, only one time did someone show up at our door. It was a neighboring couple and their young son from a mile or two down the road. After that, silence for all the years since.
This is just fine with me. It’s a good event for kids, but there aren’t many kids I know about in the surrounding vicinity. It would be an extra burden on my sugar addiction to have an excess of candy in the house for possible giveaway. I have not been very diligent about managing my daily sugar intake lately.
Just a few repetitions of allowing myself to cheat triggers the return of cravings that are so much easier to succumb to than exterminate. I am my own worst enemy.
Since we don’t keep a lot of candy in the house, my brain simply points me to alternative carbs that I love dearly and will happily binge in excess. The healthy choice of snacking on unsalted nuts, which I am also a fan of eating, interestingly becomes less satisfying when my good practices lapse.
Bagel chips have a much greater allure to my addicted brain.
My mischievous mind lets me think I’m getting away with a few days of consuming an increased percentage of unhealthy sweetness until an expanding paunch around my middle soon exposes the inevitable outcome. When my mirror reveals the return of a growing belly, my awareness of the relentless craving comes back into focus.
Thankfully, I don’t fool myself indefinitely.
If we somehow do get surprised by a costumed trick-or-treater Thursday night, I have a half-bag of bagel chips left that I’d happily share.
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Diet Transition
Imagine if people had to be as careful about changing their regular diet as the animals in our care. Full disclosure: this line of thought is coming from someone who doesn’t have any food allergies.
For two completely different reasons, we are currently in the process of changing the foods of both our dog and the horses. It is a long period of gradual transition from the old food to the new, serving a portion of each at a sliding percentage.
The horses don’t appear to care much about the introduction of something different thus far. I haven’t seen any indication of change in preference for the mixture we’ve been serving them.
Asher may be happy with his changing mixture because it was starting to look like he didn’t care for the food he’s been served since we adopted him. He’s shown no hesitation with the new brand.
I feel very lucky that the food I can choose to eat isn’t dictated by someone else. Unfortunately, that leaves it up to me to make smart choices. I was thinking the other day that it takes constant mental energy for me to avoid succumbing to my cravings for carbs or sugar foods.
It’s always great when you are granted a free pass to have as much as you want of a healthy food. Why doesn’t spinach taste more like chocolate? I love the feeling when I am thirsty and my body seems like it can’t get enough of a tall glass of ice water. Guilt-free reward.
Oxygen is something else I can consume as much as I want with no limitation. When my mind yearns for something my body doesn’t need, I can think about the total free pass I have to inhale as many huge breaths of air as possible.
Yeah, I’m weird like that.
This time of year there is a lot of tractor time when thoughts can meander. Yesterday afternoon, I was finally able to drive on and mow some of the areas that were saturated two days ago.
It amazes me how fast conditions change. The high ground around here is getting bone-dry. After I finished mowing the backyard, spotty thundering rain clouds rolled past. I put away the tractor and prepared for a downpour.
All we got was a spattering of drops.
I’m guessing all that ground moisture is getting sucked up by plants and trees making leaves. There is now a fresh new batch of phytoncides to absorb while bathing in the atmosphere of our glorious forest.
I’m going to count that as part of my spring diet transition.
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What Priorities
Looking at the topic of mass shootings from this perspective really struck me this morning.
Sorry. We’re all out of mental health care.
Ouch.
Back up from the point a person is in need of professional health care and consider the years that led up to it. Every little action and experience contributes to our future selves. Day after day after day. We make our future by how we choose to behave today. Parents, you are molding your children’s future health.
What are our priorities?
Imagine a world where we focused our resources on education and family health, working to reduce poverty and inequalities for all people.
Sending love to all who are struggling or in crisis. There is no quick fix but if a person spends whatever limited energy they can muster on choosing a healthy option instead of an unhealthy one this day and then does so every day after that, improvement is made possible.
Maybe that will buy the 90-week wait time for access to talking with a professional.
Or not. Where are your priorities?
I vote we seek to enable a better world.
Prioritize HEALth! Love yourself enough to show yourself love. Loving ourselves is the first step to loving all others.
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Embracing Compassion
When the day comes that somebody asks you which side you are on between love and hate, how will your choices align?
Seeking to become a more compassionate person is not rocket science. Learning to open our minds to concepts beyond our comprehension takes a little practice, but since we start practicing the expansion of our understanding from the moment we are born, it is something we know how to do.
Unless something stifles our progress or we let ourselves forget that we can do it.
Compassion: | kəmˈpaSHən | noun …sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
If parents raise their children with compassion, demonstrate compassion for others, and nurture the art of practicing the expansion of understanding, generations of more loving people will multiply.
We all do better when we all do better. – Paul Wellstone
There was a time in my life when I felt an unwarranted level of confidence about the way I perceived the world around me, and it involved a lot less grey areas than I am inclined to accept today. There was also a time when I could read small print without glasses. My understanding has expanded and continues to expand.
Sometimes, I find myself unable to understand things I see about the way people behave and the messages they convey, but I strive to become open minded enough to choose to love them as best as I can muster. That effort is a work in progress at times, I’ll admit, but the desire to be more compassionate endures.
Last night, Cyndie and I stumbled onto the CBS broadcast of “Play On: Celebrating the Power of Music to Make Change,” a benefit concert of music crossing multiple genres that radiated compassion and love. The pandemic and renewed push for social justice in the face of repeated police violence against people of color are igniting an energy momentum that deserves to burst forth with a new level of compassion throughout the world.
I hope people will choose to join the side of love.
Too many are facing hunger every day. The world needs more love and compassion.
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Occasional Lapse
Despite any perception my blogging may lend to the contrary, the path I am on in a quest toward optimal health in mind, body, and soul is not one of unwavering perfection. It is not uncharacteristic of me to fail to live up to my own expectations at random intervals along the lifetime trek of intending to make healthy choices.
The secret to success hides in one very simple and obvious step. Never let an occasional lapse permanently redirect focus away from the primary long-term goal.
In an exercise toward teaching by example, I am sharing today’s post for your reference, but I am really writing this message to myself. I need to take heed of this:
It is okay that I failed miserably on Saturday to control my impulse to eat too much Chex mix. Also, overindulging on the arguably best blueberry scones Cyndie has ever baked, in addition to the generous serving of her banana cake with homemade dark chocolate ganache frosting, and then, come dinner time, agreeing with Cyndie that neither of us felt hungry enough for a meal.
An hour later, giggling like kids left unsupervised, we decided to have a bowl of ice cream as our dinner, instead. Oh, so despicably decadent.
Does this mean I have given up on striving to limit my daily dose of added sugar to World Health Organization suggested levels? No, it does not.
It means I ate more carbs than I should for one day, despite my goal to do otherwise. That’s all.
By the next day, I was back on track measuring my servings to monitor my intake.
Luckily, I have a new taste treat to satisfy cravings on the cereal front, thanks to Cyndie’s willingness to explore the grocery shelves for lower sugar options for me.
Even though it was Gustola Granola I was gushing over a month ago, my desire for variety drives me to seek alternatives to exclusively eating granola for breakfast during the week. Today’s cereal-crush is Heritage Flakes® from Nature’s Path Foods.
It’s got millet! Say no more. I have a thing for millet.
Oh heck, I will say more. Heritage Flakes cereal has only 5 grams of added sugar in a serving size of 1 cup! That’s impressive. I generally need to limit my serving sizes to 1/4 cup of most cereals I like in order to stay close to 5 grams.
That doesn’t mean these flakes don’t have a sweetness to them, though, but it’s a more satisfying sweet coming from the multiple grains. That wonderful flavor is then bolstered by a fantastic crunchiness that really helps to set this cereal apart from most others.
With that, I will say, “Onward toward optimal health,” regardless my occasional temporary lapse!
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Relative Something 