Some good tips from good friends....

One of my friends and fellow pet sitters saw my blog about sending hubs out for fat--free half & half. She sat down and wrote me a wonderful email. She wanted to warn me to watch out for fat-free foods and included the ingredients of Land O Lakes Fate-Free half & Half to illustrate this to me:

Land O Lakes Fat Free Half & Half
Made by Morningstar Foods Inc.
Ingredients

Nonfat Milk, Corn Syrup, Cream (Adds a Trivial Amount of Fat)Artificial Color (an Ingredient Not Normally Found in Half & Half)Sodium Citrate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono & Diglycerides (Adds a Trivial Amount of Fat)Carrageenan, Vitamin A Palmitate.

That's alot of crap that I'm putting into my system that does not need to be there. YUCK! She also went on to say this:

Something I have learned - if you can't read the ingredients, don't eat it!

I avoid anything with Carrageenan in it. That is MSG. MSG is monosodium glutamate. There is a site called http://www.naturalnews.com/ that I read a lot, that has great info re: your food, toxins, drugs, etc. This is an excerpt from an article:

(NaturalNews) Monosodium glutamate, also known as MSG, is a common food additive. It`s toxic and physically addictive. Fast food companies and other food manufacturers use MSG as a "flavor enhancer," so consumers will become "hooked" on their products and keep dishing out money for more. When people consume unhealthy foods containing MSG, they often gain weight and feel sluggish, and some also experience "MSG symptom complex." The symptoms can include headaches, chest pain, heart palpitations, nausea, and other heath problems.

Although MSG is normally associated with Chinese food, processed meats, and salty snacks, it`s also frequently found in bouillon cubes, canned soups and vegetables, barbecue sauce, salad dressing, and virtually every other processed food you eat. "Monosodium glutamate," or "MSG," won`t likely be listed in a products` ingredient list. It`s often disguised as calcium caseinate, gelatin, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed yeast, yeast extract, soy extracts, "spices," or "natural flavorings."
Here's more:

Now, let`s cut to the chase. YOU MUST READ LABELS!!! If is says, autolyzed yeast, yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed protein, or textureized vegetable protein, IT IS MSG.

If it says, maltodextrin, barley malt, whey protein, soy protein isolate (or words to that nature), IT IS MSG.

Gelatin (used in vitamin capsules) contains MSG.

Most smoke flavor or "flavorings" contain MSG.

Soy sauce, made from the fermentation of soy beans contains MSG and pure MSG powder can be added to cheaper brands of soy sauce to enhance its flavor.

Confirmed with Fearn Foods, the manufacturer of Spike, Spike contains MSG.

It is in vegetarian meat analogs, "hot dog analogs", soup broths, bouillon, and products using the words containing protein fortified, enzyme modified, rice syrup, brown rice syrup, citric acid, milk powder, dry milk solids, annatto, spice, carrageenan, guar gum, and lecithin (if from hydrolyzed soy products).

But wait, there`s more!

Candy, drinks, gum, packaged salads with citric acid, low fat milk, stevia (if coupled with maltodextrin), Accent, Lawry`s Seasoning Salt, Torula Yeast, Adobo salt, Chinese Seasonings, and believe it or not, internal feeding materials and some fluids administered intravenously in hospitals.

She also told me there was a really good Oprah show on January 21st about the movie Food, Inc. I'm definitely going to check it out!


WOW! I must say...I DID feel addicted to fast food..I can truly say that after a week of pushing through and passing it by in my car and NOT pulling in I have possibly KICKED the habit! As long as I have something in my car to grab I am okay! I wonder if the chemicals in the food had me craving it....possibly...

One of my wonderful clients gave me some great information that they had received from a nutritionist based here in Cincinnati, Sound Bites. The info they gave me was great and contained great articles on trans fat, fiber, and probiotics. I headed to the website listed on the articles and found even more great stuff including some cool weight loss tools that are very helpful. I calculated my BMI-EEK! It is 28.35-OH DEAR! The neatest thing I found on there was a "Calories Burned" calculator.  You enter your weight, what you've done, and how long you've done it and it comes back with a number of calories that have been burned during that activity. I learned that a 15 minutes 2 mph dog walk(the dog like to stop and smell the roses) burns 68 calories! Not bad considering I do that 8-10 times per day! Now that explains how I shed 18 pounds without trying when I started this job!


So, in closing, I would say my SMALL STEPS FOR FEBRUARY 8th include:

Learning many things I did not know about the foods I choose, including the yucky stuff that is added to them to give them flavor....

Packing my lunch again and eating it in small portions...It kept me feeling good, steady, and pleasantly satisfied...I'm going to stop adding this one to the list because I think it may have just registered as a habit! Yeahhh! That only took a week-NOT BAD!

Contemplating trying to wean myself off of coffee-the fact I'm even CONTEMPLATING it is huge-(for me)!

Have a trememndous day, everyone!