Last week…actually two weeks ago, we talked about healthy food items that are staples in our lives now.  But what about our old eating habits?  I had a lot of really bad ones, and besides choosing unhealthy things to eat, I also had some issues with portion control.  To illustrate, I once ate an entire “Tall Cake”, which is a dessert at Ruby Tuesday.  It’s basically a generous piece of a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting topped with a multi-scoop hot fudge sundae.  It’s intended for, like, 6 people, but I ate it by myself, even after downing an 8 oz burger, a plate full of fries, and a soda.

I have many stories of binge-eating, but the most “extreme” night I can remember, the one night that really makes me stop an wonder why I never needed any sort of bypass surgery, was back at the beginning of September, 2004.  Fair season was approaching, and the previous year I had discovered a stand serving deep-fried oreos.  They’re pretty much what they sound like: about 6 or so oreo cookies dipped in batter then put in a basket fryer for like 3 minutes, and tossed into a styrofoam bowl.  The man at the stand had asked if I wanted them topped with whipped cream, which I of course gave him the go-ahead on.  The cream filling vanishes; the hot oil totally vaporizes it.  The cookies themselves turn into a blackish-brown goo inside the ball of grease-soaked dough.  They’re actually pretty good.

My sister, Katie, and then-boyfriend Jim, lived in an apartment in Biddeford, and I spent many weekends there.  My visits typically centered around playing Playstation 2, watching DVDs, and eating something new.  With fair season approaching, I got to reminiscing about the deep-fried oreos, and Katie wondered if maybe she could find a recipe, you know, to warm up our gall bladders for the fair.  Over the following week, she managed to find one, and get tips on the existence of several other deep-fried delicacies.  We were so excited, that on the next Friday night we decided I should spend the night there and we should make and try them ALL.

So, our Friday night cuisine started with the deep-fried oreos.  In hindsight, I can’t imagine there’s much of a recipe to it…maybe for the batter, I guess.  We followed that with deep-fried twinkies, which are prepared the same way as the oreos (we certainly didn’t waste any batter that night), with the added touch of being skewered on the end of a wooden stick.  As with the oreos, the cream filling vanishes, and oddly enough the yellow-sponge cake grows and expands to fill in the holes; you’d never know that it had ever been stuffed with whipped sugar.

Not to end our special celebration of peanut oil early, Jim graciously brought home a big wad of pizza dough from the italian restaurant he worked at at the time, which we promply fried.  For the record, pizza dough makes excellent fried dough.

But wait, there was more!  For “dessert” (yes, this abomination of fried sugar was our dinner that night) we brought out three Snickers bars and gave them the twinkie treatment!  Those Snickers got awful soft after being drenched into 400 degree oil for 3-5 minutes, but luckily the batter held them together!  As I recall, Katie was getting full and I ate a good portion of her’s, as well as mine.

And I believe that’s it.  We fell into an uneasy sleep, and the next day woke up and went to Funtown and tried not to hurl on the rides!  What an exciting life I once led!

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Unfortunately (for you), the tales of my extreme eating are somewhat less thrilling than that of my husband.

When I gained the majority of my weight and passed the line from overweight to obese, I was living with my best friend Stacey and deep into college life. And by college life, I mean. . . busy and broke. After the first year of college where I lived on campus, we got an apartment and job(s) to make some money to keep our apartment. Unfortunately, when you’re 19, any job you get isn’t going to make you much money. So after rent and bills? There wasn’t much left for groceries. If you’ve got $10 to spend for a week of groceries, you’ll end up on my extreme eating diet. . . macaroni and cheese! Now, I didn’t just have a serving (which is over 400 calories in and of itself), oh no folks, I would eat the whole box in one sitting. Sometimes this would mean eating two boxes of macaroni and cheese in one day. 2,400 (ish) hundred calories, not counting breakfast or drinks. To put that in perspective, I currently stick pretty closely to a 1,200 calorie per day diet, (with the exception of when we were triathlon training and I upped my calories to 1,800 due to the extreme exercise).

When Stacey and I reached a “comfortable” level of living, having gotten better paying jobs- (freshly out of the share a package of ramen noodles phase) we took to ordering out meals. This was a period of definite gluttony. No other word for it. I would order a full pound of buffalo wings, onion rings, fries, and sometimes a buffalo chicken wrap. For dinner. I can’t begin to imagine the calories of that particular meal, but it wouldn’t surprise to me if it was upwards of 5,000. Insanity when I look back on it now. Not to mention the sodium.

In the last few years, I found I have stage 2 chronic kidney disease (taking after my Mom in a not-so-great-way!). I can’t imagine the sodium I added to my diet was any help to the development of this. I wish I could take so much of that time period back. But we are what we are, and I’ve certainly learned from my mistakes.

So, I urge anyone trying to lose weight that is reading this. . . just consider your meals, consider what you put into your mouth. Is it really worth it? Full fat, high calories meals . . .they may taste better, but the fact it – your body just doesn’t need it. You never know what the path will hold for you health wise, and I now believe it is best to prepare fully by living as healthy as you can.

Have a great weekend – and watch what you eat 😉

“Honey, can you get me a beer?  I’m trying to watch the game.” “I’m going shopping with the girls, see you tonight!” What I’m trying to say with my weird phrases is that there are couples out there that live in the same house, but don’t really seem to see much of each other.   I’ve been told by people that they’d be bored going on vacation with their spouse because they wouldn’t know what to do with each other.

I feel lucky that this is not the case with me and Jenn.  I think this is one of the reasons why our marriage works so well; we truly enjoy being together and never get sick of each other.  As a result, we spend almost every bit of our free time together.  This Monday, we want to talk about some of our favorite activities we engage in on weeknights and weekends when we just want to enjoy each other’s company.

The list is quite extensive and overwhelming, so I’ll just pick a couple.  We do most of our exercising together, and I love going to the gym for “gym dates”!  Jenn is great at coming up with spur of the moment strength exercise routines, and we’ll often go over to the free weights and balance balls, and she’ll lead me through a routine of squats, lunges, and various arm curls.  She’s a lot better than I am, so typically I will lag behind while she patiently remembers what my next exercise is so she can instruct me what to do next (she’ll be two or three exercises ahead of me in no time).  Those are two qualities that I love about Jenn; her desire to exercise and keep me motivated, as well as he patience with me!

One of my other favorite actitives is spending Sunday afternoons watching a movie on the couch, snuggled under a blanket.  Sometimes she’ll lay down and put her feet or head on my lap (which I love).  We have quite a range of movies we like, from chick flicks to movies about Jeffrey Dahmer!  Don’t judge!

There are a lot of things that go into making a marriage, I’m learning. But first you have to get through dating. And what attracks you to someone? I thought I knew, but turns out I didn’t have a clue until I met Casey. Well, here is my top ten list of things I love about Casey, my fabulous boyfriend-fiance-husband!

To up my protein levels, I eat hard boiled egg WHITES. Due to the high level of cholesterol in the yolk, I throw them away, and just eat the egg whites. Now, there’s nothing saying you have to throw away the yolks – but if you have any cholestrol issues, I would. I don’t have these issues anymore, but when I was super overweight – my cholesterol wasn’t great. So I do what I can to make sure that I’m keeping it in check.

While I also drink a lot of water, I’m going to talk about two staples in our healthy dinners.  When I lived alone, I used to eat a lot of hamburgers.  Why?  Well, because they’re good, but the reason for eating hamburgers probably 4 to 5 nights a week is simple convenience.  It’s easy to come home after a long day and just throw one on the grill.  I had no desire to cook a big elaborate meal for just me and this was a quick and easy solution.  Now that I am married to Jenn, I still don’t want to take the time to cook a big meal every night (and neither does she), because our time together is too valuable to worry about fixing something complicated after work.  But eating hamburgers every night will pack on the pounds and clog your arteries; how can you eat healthy and fit it into your busy schedule?

The solution is turkey burgers, one of the foods we eat most, specifically the Jenny-O pre-pressed, frozen, ready-to-cook kind.  In fact, we currently eat them about every night for supper.  They have the same convenience as their beef cousins, but without the excess calories and fat.  And they have a lot of lean protein.  I typically get home before Jenn and can throw them on when she leaves her last appoinment and they’ll be ready to serve when she walks in the door.  Can’t beat that! And of course we don’t bother with having rolls; they’re just extra carbs.  A little seasoning is nice, but we are sure to measure a serving size first, so we don’t take in too much sodium!

Hopefully that didn’t sound too much like a Jenny-O commercial, but it’s true.  Something I have trouble eating is vegetables.  As a general rule, I tend to dislike most of them.  But there are a handful of them that I like to eat, and one of them is baby spinach, which also happens to be quick and convenient.  We eat it raw, thrown on the plate with our turkey burgers, add a few sprays of the salad spritzer-style dressing and a few croutons and we’re good to go!

Hello readers! Are you excited yet? This is the debut of our Monday feature- blabbing about marriage. Having been married less than 2 years, we are FAR from being experts on the subject of marriage. However, I do believe that we have a very strong and blessed marriage, considering we have already gone through some very tough times, including a stroke, a miscarriage, and an unexpected $5,000 tax bill. So, we want to document for each other, and for others some of the things that we love and value in our marriage – through good, bad, ugly, and indifferent.

Today, I’ve picked the topic – because we were unsure of where to start. But, this morning, I sat in the office of my husband’s neurologist and I realized where I wanted to start. Gratitude. Because a little over 6 months ago, I was following an ambulance to the hospital after Casey had collapsed having suffered what we now know was a stroke. In those moments in my car, I was absolutely terrified. No less than 30 minutes before we had dinner with Stacey, and then had changed into our workout gear to get our daily work out in. Nothing unusual. Everything can change in an instant.

This is not to say that I wasn’t grateful before Casey had his stroke. Not a day goes by (sappy as it may be), that I don’t thank my lucky stars that I get to spend the rest of my life with a man who cares about me, cherishes me, makes me laugh, and that I can be my whole self with. But moments like these, when everything is taken out from underneath you – reaffirm that life is so brief, and each moment matters.

Since that evening, I have done my very best – as I always did – to let Casey know how much he means to me. That hasn’t changed. But the little reminders….when he has to take his medication (he never took medication before), or these follow up visits…they bring the memories crashing back to me, tears into my eyes, and a wave of gratitude into my heart. It could have been so much worse, and from every experience we must take what we can from it and move on. So we do. Casey can walk (mostly) okay now, without a cane. His slur only comes now when he’s tired. His face droops mostly only at night. He continues to improve his hand grasp.

He’s different now. We both are. But as a couple, we’re stronger. And for that, I have immense gratitude.

There are a lot of things that make us who we are. People, places, things, experiences, jobs, love, loss.

Today, I remember and honor one of the people who made me who I am today. I wore her earrings on my wedding day. In my closet still hangs her sweater she used to wear all of the time. I have a bottle of her perfume, because when she died I was terrified about not being able to remember how she smelled, and what her voice sounded like. I cannot have more time with her, but I can value and treasure the time that I did have. The sleepovers in her bed, popcorn and movies, buffalo wings from the Grand Union, gardening, going for walks, time spent in the greenhouse, watching Regis & Kathy Lee, and her willingness to be my pen pal for years. I remember you today, and every day Grammie Pat. I am proud to have known the woman you were, and I know that you are with me in my heart. I am proud that part of where I come from – is you. Happy Birthday.