Health Movie Review: Super Size Me

Wow. I'm watching "Super Size Me" and I'm blown away. I'm so glad that I have started to eat healthier than I was. This movie should be mandatory viewing before you graduate from high school.

Synopsis: Morgan, a healthy, active man experiments by eating nothing but food from McDonalds for 30 days and walking less than 5000 steps a day.

Crazy thing? His girlfriend is a vegan chef! It must have killed her to watch him go through this experiment.

Why do I think that you need to watch this movie? It's really eye-opening to see what living on McDonald's food does to you--physically, mentally. Not only does it destroy your health and increase your weight, it also addicts you to it. When you see what happens to Morgan, you realize what is happening to you every time you eat this food. You also see what goes on in schools and learn about the way that the restaurant and food industry is keeping us down. Did you know how much advertising we see for unhealthy food options every day? Made me glad that we don't watch "traditional" television with commercials so my kids don't see them. But then I remembered when my daughter came up to tell me all about a commercial she heard on her radio. She was so insistent that the information she was giving me was important, and of course it wasn't. What are we teaching our kids?

My ultimate goal in eating better is to show my daughters how to be a healthy weight. I don't want them to struggle with obesity like I have. I think my next step will be cutting out the Diet Coke. I don't drink coffee, so I've convinced myself that this is the way I get my caffeine. I almost stopped drinking cola entirely a couple of years ago, then my work changed and I was struggling to stay awake, so I started drinking Coke. I eventually changed to Diet Coke because I didn't want all the sugar in my system. So, now I have Aspertame in my system instead. Yeah, I think it's time for the Diet Coke to go. I have kept myself at 1 can most days and lots of water. Think I'll up the water and pitch the cola now.

Making Some Resolutions with Jillian Micheals Wii Fit

Today, I got a great gift from my husband and kids. Bless him, but my husband always struggles with buying me gifts. I usually try to give him some ideas of what I might be interested in, and sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn't. Well, this year he listened and he didn't listen. Yup. My list contained just a few items, but most of them were things that I thought might help me get more active. He didn't get me any of those items though. Oh now. He bought me this:



The poor man was worried that I'd be mad that he got me something to do with weight loss. I wasn't though, because I had another of those moments this week where I realized that my weight was creeping up again. It's one thing when it stays the same, but when it goes up? That's really frustrating. I've said it before, but I don't want to be skinny. I want to be healthy and right now I'm not. I can be healthy and curvy though and that is my goal.

Hubby told me he didn't think the Wii Fit on it's own was doing me much good because it's pretty easy. The truth is, it would do me more good if I would actually do it! He hadn't heard of Jillian Micheals before, but he thought this program looked like it would be a real workout. Ha. I told him that Michaels was one of the trainers from Biggest Loser and that she was mean. He told me that maybe mean was what I needed. Yeah. That's what he said until he did a workout on it and he didn't do so well and heard the comments. He looked at me with his jaw on his chest, "She's so mean!" Yup. I did it--"I told you so!".

I started pretty "easy" today just trying out a couple of single exercises. I did the sledge swing, running (and I think I've mentioned before how much I love running--sarcasm intended!!!), and jumping jacks. I'm sorry, but I don't think that 90 reps of the jumping jacks should be the easy level. That's crazy! Anyway, it felt good to get my body moving again. I set up my first resolution for one month and chose my own excercises to start off. When I set up my profile, I found out that my weight is higher than it's ever been. Now, I don't know what my highest pregnancy weight was, so it may not be my highest weight ever, but definitely excluding pregnancy, my highest weight. And it's time for it to come down, baby.

The funny thing is that I was starting to think about signing up for Weight Watchers Online again, so this comes at a really good time for me. I like making resolutions on my birthday anyway (rather than New Years'--I'm weird like that). And I've made hubby sign up for a month long resolution as well because he is supposed to be getting more exercise. So hopefully we will be getting healthy together.

I'll let you know how it's going.

My Wii Fit is Evil, I tell you!! Evil!!

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Originally uploaded by zebedee.zebedee

I'm pretty sure my Wii Fit is out to get me. It lulled me into a sense of accomplishment--"you've lost 0.7 kg!" and just as I'm feeling good about that, guess what? I get on that damn board today and the bloomin' thing tells me I've gained 0.7kg. Gained! Then it has the audacity to ask me the reasons for my weight gain. I don't know, you tell me, you evil piece of technology. It's like adding salt to an open wound...not only did you gain weight, now we want you to think about it and tell us why. Hello! It was 0.7 kg, nothing major for weight loss or gain, so why the big question? And why for the love of all that is good when the change happens over 24 hours?

The real kick in the teeth is that I've been making a real effort to eat more healthy, avoiding the snacks and stuff and then whammo! That's OK, I'm pretty sure I'll get on tomorrow and the weight will be something else entirely and my Wii Fit Age will probably double or triple as well, just to mess with my head some more.

On the plus side, I did the Tummy and Leaner Mii workouts tonight. I really felt the Tummy one--hopefully that means I'll be able to see a difference if I keep it up.

My 7-year old is doing much better at some of the Wii stuff than the rest of us. She's got the advanced or expert in the cycling. I'm not sure how she does it, because I've watched her ride and it is painful to watch her almost fall off the bridges and things. She's a crazy driver. I guess I should be glad she hasn't taken to her bike in real life--I'm sure she's going to be a kid who will ride into parked cars (not unlike her father was). She has also found the trick of getting a dog to follow her on the course. While the dog is following, if you near a flag, push A and the dog runs ahead and tags the flag for you. That's probably how she's able to score so well even though she can't steer to save her life.

30 minutes down today, that's 4 days and counting. 3 more days to make the week.....