The Sun News Skinny

An old time tradition

Funeral Food has got to be the best. We counted over 30 chickens brought into the house. There was fried chicken, baked chicken, chicken casserole, ham, beans, mashed potatoes with lots of creamy butter, potato salads, cake and more cake. 

I haven't blogged this week because I attended my Grandma Ashley's funeral in the heart of the country across from a little apple orchid in Bassett, VA. Grandma had nine kids and each kid had friends who brought enough food to feed an army and that they did.

The kitchen table and counters were full of goodies to comfort the soul. Everyone gathered to eat in the living room and on the front porch. I did good at first only eating the baked chicken and green beans, water instead of the many choices of two liter soda bottles lined up on the counter. Later came the potato salad and ham and another baked chicken. And then it happened, there on my plate was a piece of cake and something called pink panther with yummy fruit in it and half of a piece of chocolate cake.

While I sat there eating all that good stuff, they brought Grandma's coffin into the living room and placed her coffin in the corner for her last night at home. At first I felt a bit disrespectful eating there by her coffin. Then I thought of all the Sunday lunches she had prepared over the years. Dad said that he always remembered as a child that a preacher always came to the house on Sundays for lunch after services that lasted all day at the Old Center Primitive Baptist Church. The wake was exactly the way she would have wanted it.

Food is a comfort to people and this was the first time Grandma was not in the kitchen feeding her large family. Food brings people together and families share their joys and their sorrows over a meal. Breaking bread together is a long tradition in most Churches beginning with the Lords supper. I'm sure if someone had not finished their plate Grandma would have sat right up in that coffin and said eat. Grandma's legacy is her wonderful children and her large family. Her gift in life was her cooking that she shared with the family and her the community. To diet in her house would have been an insult and one day did not make me gain back all my weight. It reminded me of what is important in life and that's sharing loving thoughts of this woman with her children over a hot meal.

      

Which is worse?

I've had this question burning through my head today...

As far a diets go, is there any difference between drinking one beer a night for an entire week and drinking 7 beers in a night once a week?

The reason I ask is that the past two weeks I have had events (an awards ceremony, and a visit from an old drinking buddy) that have drove me to throw caution to the wind and put back quite a few drinks over the weekend. However, without anything much going on this week, I have managed to not go overboard with the alcohol. Instead, I have chosen most every night to save up points and use my last two on a light beer after dinner.

I'm assuming this is OK, as it fits into my normal Weight Watchers allowance. But still, I can't help but wonder if this really satisfies the "Good Health Guidline" which says "limit excess sugar and alcohol."

Two Aces in the Hole

by Mark Webster

Here we go.  It has been three months... I mean, weeks since we started this competition...I mean, new way of eating.  Okay, what I really mean is I want a bag of White Castles.

As I mentioned, I have a history of yo-yo dieting.  I have a hard time making permanent changes.  I can take the weight off, but I can't keep it off.  Weight Watchers does a good job with variety, you can eat practically anything you want, but let's face it, I have to change something to get results.  If the way I was eating now was working, I wouldn't be wondering how late White Castle is open on Sunday night.  Bad habits die hard.  They die slowly, too.

I think this time will be different.  The thing that is different is that I am taking off the weight for a different reason.  It's more about my health and less about appearances.  Life just seems to get better as I get older, and I want to be around for a long time.  I don't have any health issues now and I want to keep it that way.  I don't mind so much how I look on the beach, I just want to be able to run up and down it with my two little grandkids.  They are my "aces in the hole" this time.  So maybe I can skip the White Castles so I can build more sandcastles.   

I did good!!

The Sun News pushed my temptation doorbell, but I refused to answer.

It's me Barb holding all these chocolate cupcakes but I'm proud to say I didn't have one. A little icing brushed against my finger which I had to lick off. Yummy.

Fat Free Chips

Here's an excerpt from one of my Marathon blog entries, written less than a month ago:

I don't know think many people know this about me, but I'm addicted to potato chips. So much so, that basically every day I eat some form of chip -- whether potato, corn, or tortilla -- usually for lunch, but also sometimes as a snack.

I'm not really big on cookies, I don't crave sweets, and triple cheeseburgers aren't my food of choice, but for some reason I enjoy these salty snacks above pretty much everything else. I think it must be hereditary. My dad is the same way.

I had tried to give them up for a few weeks before the race, but failed miserably. I found myself in the same boat again when starting my weight loss, but this time I was smarter. I knew I couldn't give up salty snacks for good, so I tried to find an alternative.

I went with pretzels for the first week and they worked fine (at only 2 points per serving), but I got bored with them and decided to give in a bit and try some "Light" potato chips. I bought them assuming the "light" meant "a little less horrible for you than regular chips," but instead I found that these particular Lays Light Ruffles chips are fat-free and only counted for 1 point in Weight Watchers. Not so bad, eh?

Now they are made with Olean, which I have heard differing opinions on...but overall I figure if chips are something I want to keep in my diet as a treat, then these have got to be better than the alternative.

Fried Pickles

Natalie Burrowes Pruitt:

I shouldn’t crave pickles. It’s been nearly seven months since I gave birth to my first child and there’s surely not another one on the way. But there I sat Sunday afternoon at a seafood restaurant in Murrells Inlet, indulging in fried pickle chips smothered in a creamy dill sauce. For many, it probably sounds down right gross – far from an indulgent treat. But fried pickles are definitely my new weakness.

Two weeks ago I signed back up for Weight Watchers and surprisingly I weighed exactly the same (off by a few ounces) as I did when I first joined in March 2006. The diet plan worked great for me then because I was able to shed 18 pounds and keep it off. That was, until I got pregnant. At least now I have a pretty valid excuse for the extra weight. But the clock is ticking and that excuse is starting to wear thin… Thin. Yes, that’s what I’m looking forward to.

While I officially became a reinstated Weight Watchers member two weeks ago, I have been loosely following the diet to get off the majority of the baby weight. During my pregnancy, I gained 60 pounds! And it’s hard to believe how I actually did that. But then I remember… ice cream sandwiches at midnight, pizza for breakfast and cheesy poofs all the time.

But now it’s time to get serious. I’m down to the last 15 pounds and arguably the hardest to lose. I’m back to writing down what I eat and in the Weight Watchers program that means counting “points.” If I could just figure out how many points for a fried pickle chip…

How to eat like a child

I've got two words for you: kids meals.

When I started this weight loss journey about a year and a half ago, I was a recent college graduate determined to get rid of my awful eating habits (I'm looking at you, pound of Sour Patch Kids candy). I was also determined that no matter what, there were things I absolutely refused to give up: bread, chocolate, cheese, Sun-Drop and Swedish Fish. So how was I going to strike a balance between being healthy and indulging in guilty pleasures?

Easy. If I'm in the mood for a burger and fries, I don't fight it; instead, I'll opt for the smaller-portioned, but equally delicious kids meals. I've lost 45 pounds so far and love to fulfill my fast food fix as an occasional end-of-the-week treat. Taking this mentality and applying it to all my other guilty pleasures has helped me maintain not only a balanced eating experience but a consistent weight loss as well.

Plus, let's be honest, there's nothing like a new toy.