Thursday Reading – Calorie Counting Resources

Today, I am repeating the two resources for keeping track of your HEALTH progress:
Livestrong
Sparkspeople

I’m also telling you about an interesting perspective. The book was written by someone who knows what we are talking about. Tosca Reno is now a different person. When she was 40 she was overweight. She went to the editor of a health publication and asked him to help her shape up. She learned about clean eating and wrote a book about it. The link below is for that book. If you click on it and buy the book, I will get about a quarter. This is not about me getting money, this is about you getting healthy. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Procrastination Enabler: Calorie Counting Part 3

Why is this important? Because your life is important. I personally don’t believe in calorie counting. I know other people swear by it and that is fine too.

Weight issues are in our heads, not our stomachs. The weight problems are a symptom of something else and until you fix that, all the calorie counting in the world is not going to help you. Go ahead and work on the issues that are keeping you from taking care of yourself first.

AviddivA, you are a woman over 40 and it is time to put your health first. This is your time. Stop blaming everything and everyone else. Take care of yourself and work on you now. We are here every step of the way. Good luck and let us know how you are doing by commenting below.

Procrastination Enablers: Calorie Counting Part 2

For all those beautiful AviddivA’s whose weight is an issue, I share your frustration with calorie counting. It does not work. I will take it one step further: I think counting calories is part of the problem. According to the Law of Attraction, you get whatever you focus on. Therefore, if you are so obsessed with food and the numbers associated with it, then you get more of that.

The most frustrating part is trying to figure out portion sizes and how many calories each meal contains. For my own health and well-being, I got rid of my microwave and started cooking most of our meals. I just taste as I go. Then, I use a smaller plate for my serving. I am not going to weight and measure every little thing (again with the obsession of counting). I have an idea visually and I eat a little of everything.

In the interest of fairness, I give you a possible solution. If you must absolutely keep track of your calories, or have an idea, you can check Sparkspeople and/or LiveStrong Membership for both is free. They share recipes, exercises, motivation and more. I use Sparks and I have friends who use LiveStrong. When I use Sparks, I might not count calories every day, I might not even be accurate. However, I have an idea of how much I am consuming and how many calories I am burning. When in doubt, I round up. If I think I have three ounces of chicken, I will write four. Maybe you have the patience to have exact weights and measures. The important thing is that you do what is comfortable for you.

Tomorrow I will share with you the importance of this particular type of procrastination. In the meantime, go ahead and leave your comments below.

Procrastination Enablers: Calorie Counting Part 1

If you are like me, an AviddivA over 40 years young, who is putting health first, at some point you counted calories. I am referring to any attempt to count calories: in and out, calories consumed, burning calories a day, etc.

Here’s the thing. One of the easiest ways to procrastinate is the counting calories game. From not knowing where to start, frustration at the numbers game, and every other aspect in between. It is self defeating and a great excuse.

I’m on to your game. I use a simple system. I don’t loose weight. Humans have a tendency to find what they loose, always. What I do is to take care of my health and slowly, I’m seeing improvements. Tomorrow, I share my frustrations with calorie counting and one option I use. Make sure you leave your comments or stories on calorie counting below. Thanks.

Friday Update: Not Much to Say

With two weeks to my husband’s visit, you would think that I have a lot of things accomplished so that I can spend more time with him during this visit. And yet, the Procrastination Princess is procrastinating herself.

I have spent most of the week working this book to help him finally land a job here. In the process of working the book and his resume, I have done nothing for my business this week. So this is a working weekend for me.

You might see more posts about this topic during the day. Maybe on twitter. Maybe not.

Wish me luck and leave me your comments below.

Procrastination Enablers – TV Part 3

I’m sure as you read parts 1 and 2 of Procrastination Enablers this week, you had a thought. There is a lot of things to be learned from certain channels and shows on TV. There are decorating, cooking, history, sports and other hobbies and academic pursues on cable channels all over the world.

It is not a matter of learning. It is a matter of what you want to do with your time. Would you rather learn about decorating from a TV show or spend some time decorating your apartment? Would you rather watch a chef do a complicated recipe, or print the recipe of their website and recreate it at home? It is up to you how you choose to learn.

You will never see me say that you should not watch TV. I love television. What I am saying is that there are so many other experiences you can have for yourself. You can travel inside your town, your state or your country. You can learn to cook, teach yourself to sew, learn to paint. Take the bull by the horns and do it. The experience will be more rewarding if you go through it yourself.

The Parthenon

The Parthenon

Procrastination Enablers – TV Part 2

Today we discuss the enabler’s family members – Cable TV, show recorders and video games.

I know what you are going to say. “I need some distraction from work and family”. My answer is simple: save it for the weekend.

We all have free time and you can do with that time whatever you want. What I am asking you to recognize is that all the time you spend in front of the TV is time you are not dedicating to other activities, including time with yourself. That is why they call it the “boob tube”. That is not a reference to your anatomy.

So what can you do? I’m no expert. I am trying to cut my TV time to less than 2 hours a day. What I do is I tape all the shows I like. Then, I only watch what I want. And yes, some times, I do watch some commercials….because they are funny. I also turn the television set off to avoid the distraction all together.

In the end, what you do with your time is up to you. Just keep in mind, you want time with yourself. The same way you make time for your friends, you can have some time to read, play, learn and grow.

Procrastination Enablers – TV Part 1

For any woman over 40, I think this is an obvious enabler. This week, we will focus on television and it’s cousins, the recorder, cable and video games.

When we were young, we loved to watch those cute shows about young people just like us. Now, we might like talk shows or entire channels devoted to our interests, like decorating, cooking, investigations or nature. Some of us just like the noise because we don’t like to feel alone.

I have two good reasons for you to turn that television set off.
1) The more TV you watch, the less things you take care off.
2) The more you turn the TV off, the more electricity you save.

I admit, I have the boob tube on all day long. I like to hear that something is going on. As I get older, I like reading more and I enjoy silence. We also noticed that every month, the electric bill is getting higher. We want to trade all electricity use in the house for the ability to have the air conditioner on. So, we implemented a new rule. At least two hours a day the TV has to be turned off and when we go to sleep, it has to be turned off.

The idea is that we work it up to six hours off during the day and completely off at night. I will let you know if it is worth it when I get the bill next month. As a point of reference, the last electric bill was $160.

How much TV do you watch? Could you turn it off for even an hour a day? Tomorrow, we attack the cousins. Leave your comments below and thank you for reading.

Friday Update

Another week just flew by. I have a couple of updates.

1) I had a breakthrough in my process. I now know what it means to act as if you already have what you want. I had a disconnect before. I thought affirmations and action steps were enough. I forgot to make every decision as if I am already there. That means, I have to be careful of what I eat and why I am eating. No more comfort foods for me.

2) I feel really happy when I surround myself with things pertaining to writing. Yesterday I was reading my copy of Writer’s Digest and I noticed that I was smiling all day. I wonder what that means? Will be exploring this further in the coming days.

3) My husband is coming, hopefully, in two weeks. I already told him that I was going to set him up with interviews for every day he was here. I better get to work.

Transparency is our trademark. Everything we are working on we share with you. If you have any questions or suggestions on how things are going, make sure to comment below. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.

Procrastination Enablers – Emails Part 3

After discussing the issues of having many accounts on Monday and the need to trim down your subscriptions in the second, today, we talk maintenance.

You are a woman of a certain age, with certain responsibilities, and now, you are using email as yet another excuse to not get things done. Emails enable you to procrastinate. No AviddivA has to release her power to her email account. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind.

Tip #1: Every year, when you are writing those resolutions that you may or may not keep, take a little time to do some email maintenance. Decide what you want to keep coming and what no longer serves you. If you are like me, you get most of your email in your cell phone too. That might be an issue. Between Facebook and your email account, you barely have memory on your device. Trim the fat.

Tip #2: Monitor your subscriptions often. I am getting into the habit of revising my accounts every six months. It is amazing that in the last six months, I subscribed to eight new weekly e-zines. I took a good look and realized I rarely read any of them. Some of them are in two different accounts! Enough. If I don’t read it, I press the unsubscribe button.

Tip #3: If your family likes to send you chain emails, and you don’t like receiving those, LET THEM KNOW. I sent a message to all my family and friends explaining that I had no memory in my email accounts for that stuff. I also don’t have Microsoft Office installed, which makes it a little bothersome to get that stuff. I also explained that if they kept sending them, I would identify their messages as spam and that when they had an actual message to send, I would not get it. They don’t send those anymore.

You teach people how to treat you, in life and on the internet. Make sure that you respect their boundaries as well as your own. Don’t subscribe to twenty e-zines if you only have an hour a day to check your emails. Chances are, they will pile up.

Let me know how it goes in the comments section below.

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