Post 18 / Day 114 ~ Cultures, Foods & Celebrations

This week has been a week of celebration.  Oh boy!  I wish there was a happy zone where it all can make sense and agree to disagree.  HUH?


Okay.  When you think of the word "celebration", what do you think of?  I think of food... not just food, but delicious, decadent food... I think of drink... and you guessed it, not just any ordinary drinks too... and then there's dessert!.. and I mean yummy, delicious, sultry dessert. 

When the thought of a celebration comes to mind, the last thing that comes to mind is healthy eating, getting all your fruits and vegetables in, let alone diet food all together!  Quite honestly, none of these food scream CELEBRATION!  LOL!  Quite the opposite.  

Funny how society, and our different cultures have conditioned us to think a certain way about different foods.  I mean really, growing up, did we run after the ice cream truck when we saw it, or what it the fruits and vegetable truck?  Get what I mean?  A little funny imagining what that would look like!  You can barely get your kids to eat spinach per say, yet their running after broccoli and carrots! 

Here's to another glass of water!  Do not over do it, please.

Stay healthy and Think Positive!

Blessings to you and yours. 

Images courtesy of google images, or property of Carla Barila Karam and of My LifeStyle ReDesign (c)

Post 16 / Day 100 ~ Nothing Wrong with Being a Size 10

This past week my blog reached not only its first milestone, but a second one too!!  1,000 views!!  WOoo HOoo!!  And 100 Days of My LifeStyle ReDesign!!


Well I sincerely hope that some of my collective thoughts on health, dieting, non-dieting, life style and life in general have helped you in one way or another in the past sixteen weeks.


In the near future I will be diving further into food and its consumption, aging, life's cycles and the reality of life itself.


If you have any suggestions, input, corrections (because I'm not perfect wink, wink)... please, please do not hesitate to send me an email or leave a comment.


I read and find dozens of blogs online about dieting, exercising, and life... and this is absolutely fabulous.  They are very regimented, informational and educational.  The only difference with my blog I would have to say, is that it's all of that plus the reality of life itself combined into one.  I know that my blog is very informal... better yet, a better way to describe my blog would be an average woman (reality) vs a top runway model (a little unrealistic).


That was just an analogy to get the point across that my blog is realistic, meaning... we always do not have time to exercise, let alone a personal trainer that comes to our house and works our butts off; sometimes our diet could use a little tweeking and this is where a personal chef would be AWESOME- however, how many of us can really afford one?  


I, by no means was degrading other blogs... all the blogs I have seen and read are terrific, informative, full of what we should be doing.  Granted, I have a little of that in mine too... however, the average woman feels a little more comfortable getting motivated from a size 10 as opposed to a little intimidated from a  size 0.


If you are a size 16 or better, arriving at a size 10 for most women is a little more realistic, than ever becoming a size 0 let alone size 2.  It's doable.  It is also doable being a fit, healthy size 10.. and if you happen to get to a size 8... better yet!


... and... How about Ms. Marilyn Monroe?  She was a size 12!


Here's to another glass of water!  Do not over do it, please.

Stay healthy and Think Positive!

Blessings to you and yours. 

Images courtesy of google and or Bing images, otherwise they are the property of My LifeStyle ReDesign and Carla Barila Karam.  All copyright laws apply.

Post 13 / Day 79 ~ Are Your Portions Off?

Proper food portions?  You mean I can't eat all that I want, as much as I want? 

Not if you want to live a healthy life.

 I last spoke of healthy foods to eat, and dabbled a little about nutritional labels.  

Those darn nutrition labels!!  I wish they were a little more straight forward to help the consumer, and not so sugar coated to help out the food manufacturer.  

Huh?

The funny thing about all of this is that as the food manufacturer starts putting their numbers together, they start seeing how unhealthy their product may be.  What will we do?  I know!  Lets make the serving size five chips!  The numbers will go down then!!

OK!  Who eats just five chips?!  I don't know about you, but you can not just eat five.  Even if you are "waist" conscious, you will still eat more than five chips!  

I personally know that I do not want to eat a piece of steak larger than my palm, did you?  To make life simpler for some of us, I have come across some images that may help you when you're putting your meal together.  

And no... you will not need to carry measuring cups, measuring spoons or a food scale with you!

First off... when serving meals for my family... I do not use my dinner [size] plates!  I use salad [size] plates for us, sometimes even pulling out the desert [size] plate for Calley!  You trick your mind into thinking that you are eating more.

For when we are our family's home, I use the following [mental] pictures to assist me in serving for my husband and daughter.  For us visual people, I  have collected a few different pictures for you to help you with portions.  Then there's a couple for those of you that are less visual.

Finally, some creative nutritionists have put some plates together as to what our plates should look like...

Sure hope this helps put proportions into perspective for you.  It did me!

Here's to another glass of water!

Stay healthy and Think Positive!

Blessings to you and yours. 

Images courtesy of google images.

Post 12 / Day 72 ~ Shopping The '99' List

Well, that was easy!

I was starting to break out in hives at the thought of changing out products I normally.  I don't know why I did that to myself... all that needless worry.  

I have been eating healthy for years, and feeding my family the same way.  Years I tell you.  I started getting health conscience back in the late eighties right after the birth of my first son.  After all, I was not about to feed anything unhealthy to my baby.

I adjusted how I cooked, which was not all that difficult being that I had not been cooking long.  When I was single, there really wasn't a need to cook - I spent my time with my family and ate with them or I went out.  So needless to say I had not developed many bad habits.

I stopped making fried chicken, fried anything for that matter, which was not a difficult task.  After all frying foods somehow ended up being messy with all the splatter, and a hassle afterwards with the clean-up.  So... that was a welcomed adjustment.

Since my early twenties was at the height of the workout frenzy with Jane Fonda showing up everywhere in her workout clothes and leggings to match, being health conscience was almost done for you.   Living in Los Angeles was an added bonus... the skinny capital of the world... being healthy and being weight conscious became second nature.  

Twenty-five years later my cooking has not only gotten better and healthier, but with the help of television networks such like the Food Network and the Cooking Channel (which I have been watching since they came on,) cooking has become an all time love of mine, as well as  my five year old little girl (or rather my Sous Chef as Calley likes to be referred to.)

When it came to shopping this weekend, granted I had "the list" with me, it wasn't all that difficult.  I even ended up putting the list down... I was reassured that I was already shopping healthy.

I use shopping as an opportunity to teach my daughter.  I have taught my daughter to not only compare prices, but to compare nutritional values.  Looking for things like the "white check mark" on General Mills cereals,  white checks = whole grains, or looking for the "Zero Trans Fat" label, to mention a couple.  And of course, we have had lessons in picking produce and checking expiration dates as well.

As I mentioned in the past, I do not buy tv dinners or processed foods.  I will, however buy frozen organic fruits and vegetables, they end up being less expensive and stay fresh longer.  I must add that the freezer is beginning to get a bit crowded... guess we need to start looking for a stand alone freezer.    Wink, Wink.

Don't forget that when you are reading nutritional labels on foods, look at the portion amounts.  Remember the labels are misleading.  In order for the numbers to look good, manufacturers list the per portion values, as opposed to the whole container.  Not only that, but what we may think a portion is to us, more times than not, it is not what the manufacturer has in mind.  They want to sell their product as being healthy and listing "per portion" nutritional values helps their products sell, as well as making their nutritional numbers appear healthier.

In conclusion, while the list of 99 healthy foods that Dr. Oz provided was a great help, it proved to me that I was already doing the right thing for myself and my family.  I will continue to read labels, include plenty of fruits and vegetables and stick to whole grains in my family diet..  

Here's to another glass of water!

Stay healthy and Think Positive!

Blessings to you and yours. 

Images courtesy of google images.