You say potato, I say, don't eat it!

I broke my own rule today. I don't feel bad about it though because I had one of the toughest workouts I have ever had with Amy, which I will get to in a second.

My rule on complex carbs: Don't eat them. And when I say don't eat something, I mean don't eat it often. My general rule of whether I should eat a baked potato for example, is if I can remember the last time I ate one, I should skip it. The sister of the white potato, the sweet potato, isn't as bad. The general rule is WHITE -- in meats -- GOOD ... in anything else -- BAD. This goes for rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and so on. But my other rule, which is not related to just weight-loss, but to life in general, is if you are a guest in someone's home, you eat what they serve you. In my book, it is considered rude to not at least try a little. As you may guess, sometimes these two rules get jumbled up together. So I made a third rule: Rule #2 always trumps Rule #1. So when I went to a friend's house today for lunch I had some potatoes, and they were good. On a side note, the rest of the meal was simply baked chicken and corn, so it wasn't an altogether junk food fest or anything, but I thought I should bring it up.

Like I said, I had a great workout later on the day that I am sure canceled out the very small portion of potatoes I ate. I bring this up to point out the importance of balance in life. It goes the same for weight loss. Losing weight and maintaining it isn't about entirely cutting out certain foods, it's about balancing them with healthy foods and excercise. And don't forget, while too much carbs are a bad thing, your body actually needs carbs, the good and the bad, especially if you are excersicing regularly. Your body uses those carbs for energy, and if you are doing it right, your excersize will take care of the carbs for you.

Now onto this killer workout I had with Amy. From time to time, Amy will bring equipment from the school she works at to supplement the gym's stuff. Today she had an armful of miniature hurdles. And you guessed it, I had to jump over them through a course she set up about 12 times. In between jumping sets, I was alternating among an array of excercises including bicep curls with bands, lunges with bands, alternate sit ups, regular sit ups, push ups and so on. And boy was I sweating. Before I started my workout with Amy, I did the difficult stair stepper for 13 minutes, as a means to get a little extra in to burn off the potatoes.

Well, I hope you get some workout tips from the routine I shared with you today. And don't be rude: Always eat what hosts serve you. They won't be offended if you only have a little. Typically hosts are so busy doing the entertaining that they don't have time to be food police, monitoring how much of each food dish each person has consumed. There is no need to explain to a host that you are trying to lose weight and so on. When they ask if you want more, a simple "no thank you" will suffice. If they ask why and badger you to eat more, then they are the ones being rude.

Happy losing,
K