This is how we do it...

www.sparkspeople.com


Know your portion sizes. Make your own "portion pack" to take with you or keep the following common items in mind when preparing and eating meals.

A golf ball is the size of a serving of nuts (including peanut butter) or cheese.

A deck of playing cards is equivalent to 3 ounces of any meat.


Use a die to estimate a proper serving of oils and fats.

For fruit and veggie servings, use a tennis ball.

One serving of cooked grains or potatoes is about the size of a computer mouse.


Divide your plate.

When cooking at home, looking at pictures on menus, or shopping ala carte at the work cafeteria, your plate should look like this:

Half (or more) of the plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables.

Protein-rich foods (meat or legumes) and starches (grains, potatoes, bread) should take up one quarter of the plate each.

Fill your "divided plate" only once. If you’re still hungry, have another half-plate of vegetables. It’s that simple.

The 50's-enlarged...

Far Left: The largest I have ever been in my life. Mar 2007 age 57

Middle: 2005 age 55

Below:2006 age 56

Top: 2006 age 56

Bottom left 2001 age 51

Yesterday as I was going through photographs proud of myself that I learned a little about cropping, I came across pictures that I wanted to use to see visually when and how my weight escalated and what coincided with the gain.

And I can see easily in 2007 which was the zenith of my weight gain. I also knew what had been transpiring in my life about that time too. Stress level was through the roof as I was swallowing on more the one area a lot of swallowed anger & resentment, frustration from the lack of regard and being diss and dismissed worked to death by folks personally & professionally that in their eyes I had no value. Also during this time I produced some of the best art I had ever done. I purposely have not included 2008 pictures as I am saving that for somethng else. I want to compare it to spring 2009

I saw my income slowly diminshed while my work level, the demands and the disrespect increased and it was weighing me down. Literally & figuratively. I made a decision that even as I agreed to do it, I knew I had made a huge mistake, but I could not slow my mouth down.

SOme part of me whether it was pride, plain stubborness or what, but whatever it was refused to let them people beat me down.

So I thought. It was the lie I told myself because I was indeed being beaten down. I went from an active happy vital woman who was creating lovingly joyously and felt I had impact to one who what had been a job became a chore. I was not sleeping well and the day when I realize my walk had slowed to the gait of an 80year old woman, I knew something was horribly wrong in 2007.

But I kept on making excuses, finding some faux nobilty in why I continue to put up with it all until I landed myself in the May in the cardiac unit of a hospital for a week. But before that happen I had started taeken measured steps to turn things around. Thankfully I did not have a heart attack or a stroke. The MRI. heart Cat and all the test came back showing I had a beautiful mind and a big heart and I had not had a heart attack or a stroke, but the stress had caught up with me and my body was rebelling. But I do believe the changes and adjustments I had put into place may have savedme from having a heart attack or stroke, but I needed to do more, to step things up and that meant I had to take a big step...

I tell you there is nothing like having a tube stuck up your heart to face some hard and real facts. I needed to get out of Dodge!

And I did.

I ran away from "home". The thing was that NC was never home for me. In the 4 years I was there I had formed very limited realtionships. Colleagues who I thought were my friends turned their backs on me. The were people who pretended to be my friends but in actuality was using me for connections to other people and when they thought they got what they wanted I was dumped like 5 day old fish.

There was no way I could pretend or lie to myself that I had to literally run away. Or maybe I should say run to myself.

For the next 4.5 months I was all over the country . Twice. During that time I spent with some absolutely wonderful people, met new people and in the process also had to invite some folks out of my life as their visa had expired. I notice as I did each of these things, a few pounds melted. I had not really noticed because I was on the move.

The people who saw me in July when I feld and resaw me in Nov first thing they comment on was how much weight I had lost. I could not see it, but then a picture I took few weeks later I could clearly see in my face looked thinner. And I looked more rested.

In the travels I got a chance to do something honestly I had bever tried before and that was to eat raw foods. I also have tried a variety of healthy eating, reduced considerably the level of soda I had been consuming to where now it is maybe once a week and I do not miss it (much).

I cannot sit and say I have any interest or desire to become a vegan or a total raw food diet. But I am interested very much so how to incorporate more of it into my life.

But the biggest change is my stress level has decreased and for the first time in a year I actually feel like I want to create again.

I have learned a lot this year, but even more importantly have put several things into action one being that I am in a lovely enviroment which is more condisive toward my having a healthier balance life. Not perfect but far better then where I was.

One of the things I really got was "Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there". But ithas to be clear and decisive... One cannot, I cannot wait for someone else to give me the high sign that this is ok for me to do. My judgement or decision making skills cannot be any worse & actually is better because the advantage I have is I know me better then anyone.

Just because some one is blowing air and waving and hollering at you means they really have anything to say that is relevant to you (or to me). Movement is one thing but as this quote state:""Never mistake motion for action."~Ernest Hemingway

So we will see where this will go.

·

Something Fishy:Mercury, fish & Health watch-

Consumer Guide to Mercury in Fish

The list below shows the amount of various types of fish that a woman who is pregnant or planning to become pregnant can safely eat, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. People with small children who want to use the list as a guide should reduce portion sizes. Adult men, and women who are not planning to become pregnant, are less at risk from mercury exposure but may wish to refer to the list for low-mercury choices. Protecting yourself -- and the fish: Certain fish, even some that are low in mercury, make poor choices for other reasons, most often because they have been fished so extensively that their numbers are perilously low. These fish are marked with an asterisk (read more below). This list applies to fish caught and sold commercially. For information about fish you catch yourself, check for advisories in your state.


LEAST MERCURY Enjoy these fish: Anchovies Butterfish Catfish Clam Crab (Domestic) Crawfish/Crayfish Croaker (Atlantic) Flounder* Haddock (Atlantic)* Hake Herring Mackerel (N. Atlantic, Chub) Mullet Oyster Perch (Ocean) Plaice Pollock Salmon (Canned)** Salmon (Fresh)** Sardine Scallop* Shad (American) Shrimp* Sole (Pacific) Squid (Calamari) Tilapia Trout (Freshwater) Whitefish Whiting

MODERATE MERCURY Eat six servings or less per month: Bass (Striped, Black) Carp Cod (Alaskan)* Croaker (White Pacific) Halibut (Atlantic)* Halibut (Pacific) Jacksmelt (Silverside) Lobster Mahi Mahi Monkfish* Perch (Freshwater) Sablefish Skate* Snapper* Tuna (Canned chunk light) Tuna (Skipjack)* Weakfish (Sea Trout)

HIGH MERCURY Eat three servings or less per month: Bluefish Grouper* Mackerel (Spanish, Gulf) Sea Bass (Chilean)* Tuna (Canned Albacore) Tuna (Yellowfin)*

HIGHEST MERCURY Avoid eating: Mackerel (King) Marlin* Orange Roughy* Shark* Swordfish* Tilefish* Tuna (Bigeye, Ahi)* *


Fish in Trouble! These fish are perilously low in numbers or are caught using environmentally destructive methods. To learn more, see the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute, both of which provide guides to fish to enjoy or avoid on the basis of environmental factors. ** Farmed Salmon may contain PCB's, chemicals with serious long-term health effects. Sources for NRDC's guide: The data for this guide to mercury in fish comes from two federal agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, which tests fish for mercury, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which determines mercury levels that it considers safe for women of childbearing age. About the mercury-level categories: The categories on the list (least mercury to highest mercury) are determined according to the following mercury levels in the flesh of tested fish.


Least mercury: Less than 0.09 parts per million Moderate mercury: From 0.09 to 0.29 parts per million High mercury: From 0.3 to 0.49 parts per million Highest mercury: More than .5 parts per million Intro Effects Sources Protect Yourself For Medical Professionals Trim your intake of mercury with these useful guides. An Interesting Article by NRDC's Mercury Calculator Plus: Eating Tuna Safely Guide to Mercury in Fish Mercury in Sushi Sportfish Highest in Mercury

In All Fairness

Serotonin Levels Determine Sense of Fairness Serotonin Levels


You can read in full at www.sparkspeople.com
Less of brain chemical makes people more likely to reject unfair offer, study shows

By Ed EdelsonHealthDay Reporter


THURSDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- Levels of a brain chemical known as serotonin govern the way people react to unfair offers when they play the game of life, a new study indicates.Serotonin, which carries messages between neurons, is involved in emotional control.

One recent study found that the expression of anger in women was affected by variations in a gene governing the receptors for serotonin in brain cells.

The new study, reported in the June 5 issue of Science, had people play what is called the Ultimate Game, which is being used widely in psychological and neurological studies. The game has one player proposing a way to split a pot of money. If the offer is accepted by the other player, both get paid. If it is refused, neither gets a payment.


The researchers had some players make deliberately unfair offers: "I get 80 percent, you get 20 percent." They found that players given a chemical that lowered serotonin levels were more likely to reject an unfair offer.

Serotonin levels have that effect, because the chemical is involved in the activity of the prefrontal region of the brain, explained study author Molly J. Crockett, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge in England.

"One recent study on the Ultimate Game showed that when an unfair offer is accepted, you see activity in the prefrontal cortex," Crockett said. "Down-rating the emotional response makes it more unlikely that an unfair offer will be accepted."

In other words, lower serotonin levels also meant a higher level of resentment, so that an offer that wasn't as good as it might be would be turned down. Conversely, higher serotonin levels would make it easier to live in an imperfect world.

It's hard to apply that knowledge directly, Crockett said.

"What we did was have people fast overnight," she said. "On some days of the study, they took either a pill with all amino acids or a placebo. On the experiment day, they took a pill with all the amino acids but tryptophan. Over the course of several hours, that would have been converted to serotonin."

Knowledge about the role of serotonin in the emotions already is being put to use, sometimes legally and sometimes not, said research team member Matthew D. Lieberman, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Prescription medications such as antidepressants are known to affect serotonin levels, and the same is true of MDMA, the psychedelic drug whose street name is Ecstasy, Lieberman said. It is, he said, "a quick serotonin enhancer."

One everyday implication of the study is that brain chemistry "is going to affect how we judge other people and are treated by other people," Lieberman said.

A proposed experiment would have people play the Ultimate Game inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine that would produce images of brain activity, Lieberman said. "We could see, as we change serotonin levels, how the brain responds in an imaging study to fair and unfair offers," he said.

Discovery~ Looking back for a minute

(l) Moon age 49 yrs presenting at Detroit-Riverside Hospital on behalf of Johnson Baby Products.


(below)Moon age 47 yrs after a conference with grandson Chance now 13

(l) Moon age 44 in my gallery Jambalya Ya Ya in San Diego holding granddaughter Dell now age 14. (below) Moon age 46 presenting at a conference

Me age 42 when I first started out as a visual artist. I made the hat & bolereo thinking I would design clothes initally. Not...

I discovered a picture of me with one one my granddaughters who I call Della Bella now 14 when she was as tiny as my newest granddaughter Salli. I was delighted to see it and then in the next instant I notice wow how thin I was! In this picture I was 44 years old, and I recalled how people treated me like I weighed 400 pounds! Of course at that time I lived in Southern California which has somewhat a distorted idea of what slimness was. I was active, still dancing zydeco though slowed somewhat due to knee surgery, busy in my career and looking back now how happy I was. I had a dream that became a vision and I was pursuing it though i had many a detractor or lots of tsk, tsk, tsk

How many times have you heard someone say or you said yourself slim & healthy? And why people think that is really the case when then I could tell you women I knew half my size who were anything but healthy. And some who were lost emotionally, who did not know what they could do with themselves or felt they had no purpose or goal.
Moreso for me was I paid far too much attention and gave far too much power to ones who really were not even working on themselves and gave a lot of validity to their view of me which was as skewered as mine. So if I am to have a skewed image at least let it be mine and not someone else opinions of who I was (am). Tripped me out and I swallowed it,store the rage in the soon to come fat and stopped caring and let my vision's light dimmed. It never went out, just dimmed... A lot.I got mad at myself,misdirected instead of properly putting the anger where it belong, dealt with it and then let it dissipate, because I kept lying to myself that it didn't matter when it did. And the n'er-de-wells hurt me, when they did. I wore my heart on my sleeve in full view & my hurt, disappointment and betrayal encased in the fat that was to come and kept on going.

A quote of Dr. Angelou stated that being careful about whining. "Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the room". Brute is a word you do not hear a lot of today but I think it is an accurate one. The dictionary describes it as (n) A brutal person; a savage in heart or manner; as unfeeling or coarse person (adj)
Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking as a brute
Rough uncivilized, unfeeling.

Most people who not characterize themselves as a brute or unfeeling, rough fierce etc. But thre are those who actions at the least are boorish or un feeling, lacking in regard for another that has cause a lot of people unnecessary,undeserved and in some cases irreparable harm because of their actions. So Dr.Angelou's statement is well taken.

I then looked up the word whine: noun
A long-drawn high pitched complaining cry or sound
Verb: To complain or protest in childish manner or about trivial things

My complaints or protests may have indeed been legitimate but view by somewhat else who had brutish tendency may have trivilized them seeing me as vulenerable enough to take advantage of and they did my opening the door, putting out the welcome mat and preparing a meal for them without knowing that their purpose was not a good one.

I am not talking about trivial/fluffy things as they were not, but the reality is people are what they are, not everyone has your best interest at heart so it was something I had to work on to rewire. People will do what they want to do no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary and protesting or complaining will not change that fact. And passivity or being the victim was a spiritual open invitation to feast on another’s sorrow.

So I have rewired which can be a long tedious process not for the faint at heart. Sometimes it means looking at something you have done contributing to this. My contribution was extending the welcome mat. I believe in people, still do, but needed more discernment that not every one needs to be given a carte blanche invitation to dine in your life. My failure in having that discernment previously cost me a lot. But I have learned & correcting.


But for one’s who can & do behave in a brutish way , changing can be so awesomely scary & frightening a proposition for some that they rather keep the status quo getting a faux sense of power from hurting other people. We are in this culture appear to be wired (not by nature but nurture) to be stagnant to not expand or change and if anyone dares to step out to do something a little different will be met with the figurative things breaking loose. But change adjustment movement happens whether we want it to or not because everything must change and fighting against an inevitability is exhausting, fruitless & pointless. We may slow it down a bit, but it will happen. So now for me rewiring has been a long process and still not over. It may not be over until the end of my life. It’s called growth, maturity, work in progress or anything you may want to call it.

I love this quote of Dr. Suess and is right about in its wisdom where I am:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"

Did you know that~Exercise Keeps Your Mind Sharp

A recent study from the National Institutes of Health found that the most sedentary individuals (i.e. couch potatoes) are 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia than regular exercisers.

Dementia is a condition of declining mental abilities (especially memory) that affects your personality, skills (like driving a car), and verbal abilities.

Action Sparked: Stay on a consistent exercise program throughout your lifespan. Try not to view exercise as a temporary means to and end such as weight loss. It is part of a healthy lifestyle, and while it does help you lose and maintain weight, it can ward off plenty of health problems, from heart disease to depression.

Exercise also helps your kids concentrate better in school and sets the foundation for healthy habits that will help them prevent future health problems as well.

Thanks SParks People! www.sparkspeople.com

Shifting Plates~no pun intended

Introducing Salli Addis born 11-10-08 at 1:25pm to Traci (seen above) and my son Jay'son.

Now I cannot tell it, but I am told by some who saw me this summer and see me now say I've dropped some weight, but I am too close to tell, but that's ok too. I am looking forward to see what the next few months will bear and just pay attention to the weigh I do the things I do. But then when I saw the above pictures I can indeed tell my face has thinned out and my ankles are not swelling any longer.

My DIL swears I've lost 30 pounds but the scales did not show that unless I actually weighed more then I initially thought. But whatever it is let me continue to progress to a healthy well being.

Now as my thoughts wander around:

For now I will say that no one would ever no matter how good their plans may be can prepare well for the unexpected. And recognizing what is and what is not in your control is a good way to be. Do what you can and leave the rest alone. 08 has been a year of new beginnings but if I recall some time back when I spoke of the word orogeny, mountain building and the earth plates shift back & forth you will build mountains, but with it comes some valleys too.

Do one stop and stay put? Sometimes yes for a moment. To skip over something is not always a good thing as the shift has to be given its honor and time to settle in place. Nothing is instant not growth, weight release, or life. You remind yourself again and again why you are doing this and keep on. Believing even if it seems hard at the moment. Or painful or exhausting. Or overwhelming frightening ...

Or tiresome...

Or endless.

I know when I started this new beginning this year, of walking on air armed only with hope, faith and determination was not going to be easy, but sheesch I did not expect all this!

But I wrestle and came forward.

These are indeed new beginnings and while I am nestled in this little studio in the woods (or I should say hills) looking out at all of the lovely nature, enjoying clean air, and quiet I feel my creative energy reviving. I am living in a space a fraction of the size I had before with none of my trappings around me and it feels clear & light. There are no distractions that are silly ,foolish or fool hardy. I am in a space where there is a bounty of cultural events and things while not my beloved New Orleans, can hold its on.

How cool is that?B-)
Moon

To Whet Your Appetite~ No pun intended

You could pick up the book "Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever" by Roger Gould. at amazon.com , but please go check out the website:

http://www.shrinkyourself.com annd sign up for the course.

There is a free 4 course you can get too.

Here's a small excerpt:

Article 1: Emotional Eating & Emotional Hunger
When it comes to emotional eating, people aren't eating to feed their body. No one needs a candy bar after a fight to make it through the night. When people eat at times like these, they are eating to satisfy, numb, or avoid their emotions.

And unfortunately, it's all too common.People who are suffering from emotional eating are driven to eat so they won't have to face what's bothering them internally. And in many ways, they become addicted to this way of handling life. They feel compelled to eat in this way and can't control what they eat. That's why diets don't work. ..

Emotional Hunger is what fuels emotional eating. Unfortunately, you will always have emotional hunger no matter what you do. That's part of being human. However, emotional hunger is not so much the problem as how you deal with it.People who suffer from emotional eating usually only deal with emotional hunger by eating. And, since life is rife with emotional turmoil, emotional eaters are normally overweight.

They are so attached to dealing with the ups and downs of life with food that any suggestion that they can stop emotional eating makes them nervous. Many people cannot imagine being able to handle a bad day without turning to food for comfort.

In this way, the tendency to handle emotional hunger with food is no different then a smoker's tendency to handle stress with a cigarette.When you are an emotional eater, the odd thing about emotional hunger is that you feel truly hungry, and at the moment when the craving for food grips you, you can't tell that your hunger originates in your mind, not in your belly. People who are not emotional eaters, who never really satisfied emotional hunger with food, usually eat less when they are troubled by emotional hunger.

Their emotional hunger doesn't feel like physical hunger, just as a non-smoker's stress doesn't give them the urge to smoke.I like to think of it this way: emotional eaters eat when they aren't really hungry because they have two stomachs--one real, the other a phantom. The hunger in your belly signals you when your system has a biological requirement for food. If that was the only signal of hunger you received, you'd be thin. It's the phantom stomach that causes the problems.

The phantom stomach sends out a hunger signal when unruly emotions and unsolved personal agendas start pushing themselves into awareness. A short-circuit occurs, and you feel so hungry that you're compelled to eat.

How about this for "Ah-ha!" moment?

The book is "Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever" by Roger Gould.

The book refers not to dieting the psychology of emotional crutches.The author contends that an immature and overly critical conscience that has avoided developing ways to cope with emotions leads us to feelings of powerlessness, which in turn drives the urge to eat (or insert alternate emotional crutch here).

Gould says that people who have "installed food as a preferred way to cope," stop developing new ways to deal with stress, fear, anxiety, anger and other emotions that they have (for whatever reason) deemed to be negative (the critical conscience). By choosing food, they totally relinquish their ability to deal with their emotions in a mature and empowered way.

He states that emotionally mature people ride out their emotions knowing that they are only temporary and that on the other side there will be relief and resolution.

Food (or other) serves as a temporary comfort and distraction from having to deal with those feelings, thereby impeding our ability to be informed by those feelings and, in effect, stalling our emotional maturation. [Side note: He's not including severe clinically-diagnosed emotions like depression or panic attacks.]

He asserts that a person's powerlessness over the urge to eat is simply a superficial layer, masking what he calls "the five layers of powerlessness" in their lives:

You feel powerless about how to deal with your self-doubts.

You feel powerless about how to get real satisfaction in life.

You feel powerless to insure your own safety.

You feel powerless to appropriately assert your independence.

You feel powerless to fill yourself up when you feel empty inside.

When a person crosses over the line between food as a source of life and food as a source of comfort, all these layers compound one another and food becomes a psychological thing instead of a biological necessity.

As a result, you eat when you feel powerless in one or more of these five ways, because the experience of powerlessness is almost instantaneously transformed into the uncontrollable urge to eat.

And here was the ah-ha for me... Some get so adept at swapping food for emotions that they no longer feel the emotion, all they feel is the craving to feed their addiction, be it food, alcohol, drugs, sex, cutting or other distractions.

What the book purports to do is "help bring the spotlight back to the real issues and take the focus away from food and weight, so you'll begin to see who you really are, what you really want, and how to get it. Once you do this, you'll become like... the child at play who doesn't want to come in for dinner, or the artist in the studio so fixated on creation that he forgets to eat. You will have recovered your power."

It may be something interesting to pursue as a read.