food guru

Hi,
I have a new favorite food guru.

www.caloriecount.about.com

My friend (and yoga teacher), Carol Ann, turned me on to this site yesterday and I am hooked. It lets you set up a personal account, FREE (I love free), that tracks your in put/out put of food and activity on a daily basis. It's fabulous.

Having just come off a 12 day cruise, and a week of being sick, I have gained a few pounds and feel like crap. This is putting me back on track and getting me excited about controlling myself again. You set up your personal info in the web site and it allows you to enter everything you drink, eat & do all day, calculating everything from calories burned to calories consumed plus all the minerals, vitamins, fats, cholesterol and nutritional needs you are meeting, or missing. I have become my own science project.

This will help me own up to what I do right and wrong in my diet and exercise on a daily basis, plus it tracks your progress... I now have 'stats'. How cool is that! Be honest, wouldn't we all like to hit .400 in the diet and exercise hall of fame? Yes, there will be drug testing on this program and I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the plan...how many calories are there in that crap they make you drink before a colonoscopy? Okay, maybe that is taking it to an extreme... I'll back off now.

I don't bother with "New Year Resolutions" but I am planning to keep this project going for a full year and see if it will make a difference in how my body feels and ages. Can I make my skin look a little tighter? Eyes brighter? Have more energy? Maybe, maybe not, but I won't know unless I give it a try. I think I'm pretty active but yesterdays' swim only burned off 249 calories according to my guru. That means I better step it up a notch if I want a treat after dinner, 249 calories doesn't even cover off a chocolate bar. It's all about the in & out in the weight game. My 'out' lags in the winter since I walk less, don't have a garden to tend to and generally spend too much time hiding from the cold outside. I have added yoga to the winter mix of activities but is that enough to keep the dreaded "winter5" off? You know that sneaky 5lbs. that seems to find you every winter no matter what you do. I am a woman on a mission.

I am coming up on the 2nd year anniversary of my cancer surgery. Yes, 2 years next week on January 24th. I can't believe it either. Where has the time disappeared? Since I am 2 years older it is even more crucial that I get this body in it's top working form. It a battle against aging badly, with the operative word being 'badly'. We can't stop aging, maybe Cher can but I can't afford her surgeon, we can only make it less painful and ugly. Will I ever turn heads or stop traffic, nope, but I won't be mistaken for someone older than I really am and maybe I may still be able to take a few years off their best guess. "Gosh, you look about 46" stills sounds terrific to me.... can I keep them guessing another few years? I hope so.

xox
m