Month: July 2025

Posted in Encouragement/Motivation, Food Stuff, intermittent-fasting

Lettuce Entertain You!

Posted on by HeatherLynn

Salads are a great addition for the journey to a healthier lifestyle. They are versatile and varied and nutritious if you choose the right ingredients and practice portion control.  The heart of every good salad is based on the greens you choose.    

Most people conjure up visions of salads where the Iceberg Lettuce is the base.   Iceberg lettuce has gotten a bit of a bad reputation with claims that it has no nutritional value and I, like countless others, bought into this rumor.      

An amazing sale on bagged “garden salad” caught my eye.   I noted the star of the show was Iceberg lettuce and it just burned me that they (whoever “they” are) were offering discounts on food that would do nothing for me.   It prompted me to do a bit of research, and I was surprised to find that I had been misled!   Iceberg lettuce is reasonable and nutritious!    

Nutritionally, it provides essential vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin K, and Vitamin C, contributing to eye health, blood clotting, and immune function. 

Iceberg lettuce also contains beneficial minerals like potassium and calcium, which support heart health and strong bones.     

I’ll stop hating on Iceberg lettuce, for sure.   

There are some other greens to add to your mix.  I like to mix and match to keep my body guessing at what I’m going to throw at it next.  

  1. Raw Spinach  –  a great way to boost up your iron  
  1. Raw Beet Greens –  vitamin A  and vitamin K 
  1. Raw Swiss Chard  –  tvitamin A and vitamin C 
  1. Raw Dandilion Greens – high in calcium, iron, and prebiotic fiber & vitamin C  
  1. Raw Mustard Greens  – a bit of Folate, vitamin C and vitamin K 
  1. Raw Collard Greens  – Vitamin K, Vitamin C, and a small amount of E 
  1. Raw WaterCress – Vitamin K and Vitamin C 
  1. Raw Romaine – Vitamin K and Vitamin A 
  1. Raw Leaf Lettuce – Vitamin A 

As you’ll note, there are two vitamins that seem to be present in nearly all forms of the lettuce family.  Vitamin A & K 

Why you need Vitamin A –   

Vitamin A is essential in your Vision health, aids in Immune Function & Reproductive health, assists in Cell growth and development and is a workhorse for your skin health. 

Why you need Vitamin K –  

Vitamin K is important to contribute to blood clotting and is a major star when it comes to your bone health.   

You cannot choose a “wrong” combination of the lettuce family.  However, do not live on salad alone.  This is only a supplement to healthy journey you’ve chosen.  Continue to make wise decisions and eat mindfully!  

Posted in Emotional Well-Being, Encouragement/Motivation

Pain in the Journey

Posted on by HeatherLynn

Pain.  It is a factor in your journey that will provide a frustrating stumbling block you will feel helpless to overcome.  When you are in chronic or severe pain from an injury, you may want to literally feed that pain.   They call this “maladaptive pain-related coping”.   The term “maladaptive” refers to behaviors or actions that hinder an individual’s ability to adapt or adjust to different situations differently.  ( I hope we have BOTH learned something new today!) 

Overeating in response to pain is basically just a coping mechanism.  It makes you temporarily feel better.  Psychologically, deep down, there is this primitive need to fuel up to replace the energies you are exerting as your body attempts to heal the injury.  

This leads, obviously, to over-eating, knocking you off the journey you’ve worked so hard on, landing on a plateau and falling back into a sea of frustration.  It can be a dangerous time for you as you risk falling back into old habits since your resolve is distracted by the pain.   

There are some things you can do to help. 

1.  Be careful and don’t hurt yourself.   I know, great wisdom coming from the Queen of Klutz.  If I am not injured then something is certainly wrong!   

2.  Don’t suffer through the pain. Get to a medical professional and get the help you need.  

4. Bulk up on the antioxidants. Fresh, leaf vegetables and fruits with complex carbs are much better than simple sugars.  

5. Keep moving as much as you can.  Depending on the injury of course.   Take frequent breaks. 

6. Get plenty of sleep.  Your body repairs itself quite a bit during those hours.  

Ice is your friend when it comes to injuries.  Inflammation is what is causing most of that pain and ice packs greatly alleviate the discomfort.  

Here are some foods you can partake of , that also reduce inflammation :  

Whole Grains :   whole grain bread, oats, brown rice, barly, quinoa, couscous, polenta,     bulgur, and rye bread.  Also stick with multi-grain or wheat pasta.  

Beans,nuts, seeds, pod foods :  peas, edamame, black beans, kidney beans, chickpeas,        white beans,  hummus, walnuts, almonds, pecans,        peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pinenuts etc. :  

Fruits : berries, pomegranates, cherries. Darker colored fruits are especially good.  Avoid     fruit juices.  

Vegetables : yellow, orange and red peppers and tomatoes, Spinach, chard, kale, leaf            lettuce, romaine lettuce, arugula, mixed greens (focus on dark leafy greens)                   Purple and green cabbage, onions, garlic, broccoli, brussels sprouts,            cauliflower, radishes, cucumbers, green beans and green onions. 

Olive Oil:  replace butter and other oils with this for cooking. 

Fish : Go for cold water fish like salmon, herring, anchovies, sardines and mackerel. 

White Meat ;  chicken, turkey and other birds.  No frying or deep frying.  

Dairy: Eggs, natural cheese ( not processed ), low-fat milk, yogurt.  

Herbs ;  cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, garlic, rosemary, cayenne, pepper, black pepper. 

Honestly, looking at the list of “anti-inflammatory” foods, it is not much different than how you should be customizing your diet on a regular basis when you are not in pain.   

Above all, know that an injury does not mean your journey has come to an end.  This is just a setback.   The hard work is not in the physical, its in the mental.  You are going to have to mentally pick yourself up and get yourself back into the driver’s seat and start walking again.   How long will you sit on the side of the road using your pain as the reason you have failed?    

Day five – My Journey Phase 2  

Posted in Emotional Well-Being, intermittent-fasting

I am my own Enemy

Posted on by HeatherLynn

Does Fasting Work?   That’s the one question I am asked frequently.  My answer… its the ONLY thing that has worked for me.   I have tried many variations of fad diets, portion control and calorie counting, and it all ended with me being frustrated.  Honestly, even the Intermittent Fasting brought me to the point of frustration, and I had to sit down and have a hard look at things. 

All my life I have identified as the “fat girl”, the “chubby woman”, the girl with love handles and jiggly thighs.   That’s who I know and that is who society knows.  I am accustomed to a certain way of deference from others… subtle judging glances as I fill my grocery cart,  not so subtle stares as I chuff by in my shorts that insist on riding up the inside of my thighs forcing me to do the awkward pull and leg shake to fix the problem.  I admit, I am most likely only imagining most of this, people are very self-absorbed and have no interest in those around them while in public.   However, being out there, I have always been very aware of how large I am.    It’s like the times I’ve gone in the woman’s section to look at clothes and I just “knew” the women there were asking themselves why I thought I was going to find anything at all that would fit me in that section.  I was up here in the first class, and I needed to get my rotund butt back over to lower-class where the sold the clothes by square foot.   

I dropped 80lbs.  People were smiling more at me.   I was getting appreciative looks and direct eye-contact.    My cart had fresh veggies and fruits in it and not a single item of junk food or sugar.   I was still very aware of being out there, but now it felt amazing!  I was lighter and moving quicker and it was like being on a sort of natural high.    I was actually achieving a goal I had only dreamed of for decades!  

Then the self-saboteur came knocking.    She looks like me, the “old” me.   She told me things like, “Its cool to back off on the fasting a bit now, you got this” and she would look at the clock and shrug, “two scoops of ice cream at 9 pm isn’t going to kill you”.    I was oblivious to her tactics, I still felt good, although I admit my energy wasn’t quite the same.  Then I was watching more tv and finding excuses to sit down rather than get up and move around.    My weight loss stopped.   It went beyond a plateau, it came to a screeching halt, tires squealing.    I gave half-hearted attempts to return to my patterns but my “get up and go” was gone.     Jumping into the mix came a back injury, an excuse not to move much, but also a discovery that when i am in severe pain, I EAT.    

I wasn’t gaining, but I wasn’t losing.   Ten months down the road and I hurt my shoulder.  More pain and realization that things are not going my way at all.   This time I sat down and had a chat with my doctor.   It was obvious that I had lost my motivation and in our discussion we both agreed that I had sabotaged myself.    The question is WHY???   I don’t have the full answer, not yet.   I’m still working on that part.   I think part of it is that I suddenly didn’t know my part anymore.   After decades of being the “fat girl” , I wasn’ t her any longer and it threw me for a curve.    That’s something I’ll need to work on. 

In the meantime,  I am back on track with my Intermittent Fasting.   My doctor visit was the motivation I needed to get me back.   I don’t want to go back to where I was.  The only option is to pick myself up and keep moving forward.  

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