Staying Healthy: Eating & Exercise (11/7 – 11/13)

I came across a great article this past week written by the daughter of a woman raised in France but now working and living in England. She gave five lifestyle choices employed by the French as the reason so many French remain slim in spite of eating lots of high fat and high calorie foods, and it turns out two of them are ones we (unknowingly) started using last year: we’ve cut back on snacking and we practice mindful drinking and eating. Those were two things we paid absolutely no attention to last time we traveled. We wanted to try everything, from fresh croissants in France to small-batch gin in England to Italian cookies, and we tried them all . . . every day, and with abandon. Although we walked a lot, it was not enough to overcome the huge number of calories we were taking in. As someone once wrote, “if you are eating two croissants a day, it doesn’t matter how much you walk . . . you will gain weight.” We were consuming the calorie equivalent of far, far more than two croissants each day.

That does not mean we will not be enjoying fresh croissants, cheese, and wine in France, or having biscuits (cookies), scones with cream and jam, or gin in England. We most definitely will be having those things! Plenty of them, in fact. But, they will be enjoyed in smaller doses, (mostly) planned before eating, and definitely not consumed every day. We’ve hopefully learned our lesson this time. These days snacks are limited to once or maybe twice a day, portions for everything we eat are measured, and calories are recorded.

We missed our Friday evening cheese board this past week, but since both of our stomachs felt better for not eating so much cheese at one sitting we’re only going to only have them occasionally going forward. There’s no way we’re giving up cheese, but we have come to realize maybe we can no longer eat and enjoy cheese with the abandon we once did.

Sunday: Grilled vegetarian cheeseburgers (with brie for Brett, Irish cheddar for me); onion rings

Monday: Vegetable spring rolls; vegetable fried rice

Tuesday: Tofu patties; leftover fried rice; namasu

Wednesday: Pasta with marinara; roasted peppers

Thursday: Mini pizzas with roasted peppers

Friday: Chili shrimp; steamed rice; namasu

Saturday: Butternut squash ravioli with pesto; roasted cauliflower

We had cream puffs on Tuesday, finished our big apple pie on Wednesday, enjoyed campfire s’mores on Friday, and are now having a very small but satisfying slice of key lime pie each evening. We’re Big Shopping tomorrow but have no idea yet what we’ll find or want to buy for our next round of desserts.

There’s nothing new on the menu this week; we’re mostly eating what we already have in the freezer as we need to make room for all the meat we’ll be buying before the end of the month.

• Vegetarian lasagna

• Vegan mabo tofu

• Soup with toasted cheese sandwich

• Vegan corn dogs

• Chick’n tikka masala mini pizzas

• Vegetable yakisoba

• Curry with tofu & vegetables

Last week was a great one for walking. We were at the park every day from Monday through Saturday, covering over four miles most days and over five miles out of a couple of those. Walking on the paths again is frankly not as enjoyable as walking out on the golf course, but we are moving at a quicker pace and getting in more hill climbs so know it’s better exercise. We got in over 10,000 steps on the two 5+ mile days, and were close (over 9,500) the other four. We even found a few golf balls last week, five of them on two different days. All of them were just sitting there beside the paths, and four of the five were in mint condition. They’ll be added to the boxes we’re currently selling.

Brett just had his annual cholesterol check and his levels are his best ever, thanks we think to our vegetarian/vegan diet and exercise. I can only hope mine will be as good when they’re tested next year. My weight is still right where I want it to be, although maybe with our once again increased amount of exercise I can drop a couple more pounds. As I wrote above, our greatest fear as we travel is that we will get lazy and start gaining weight again. We’re already talking about steps we need to take, signs we need to look out for, and things we need to stay away from so that we maintain the current shape we’re in.