Day 2

Today was a great day!  I have spent a lot of today thinking of my Grandmother Caroline Marie Chaffman, who would have been 94 today.  She passed away Feb. 17,  2006 but she is always in my heart and my mind!  My Grandma was always careful with her weight as long as I can remember.  She was very health conscious also. When I was about 5 years old I remember her getting up every morning and having black coffee with a little bit of liquid sweet and low and then watching Jack Lalanne and exercising with him! She was very diligent about it!  She would then have a hard boiled egg, a piece of whole wheat toast,  and a hand full of All-Bran cereal with fat-free milk.  If she got hungry after that she would eat fruit all day. Usually fruit from her trees in the backyard at her home in Temple City.  She had a fig tree, cumquat tree, oranges tree and an lemon tree. She loved fruit! She drank nothing but water strait out of the tap!  Can you imagine? lol  She would sometimes squeeze lemons into ice trays and freeze them and add them to the tap water.  My sisters and I thought It was delicious!  Dinner was always a nice full dinner that included lots of green salad. She would just rip up the lettuce and slice some Roma tomatoes add a little olive oil and vinegar salt and pepper and that was it!  Sometimes she would add kidney beans and chopped celery to the salad.  With the salad she would  usually make  baked chicken breast with the skin and on the bone covered in herbs and seasonings light bread crumbs and crushed crackers on top. Deli-sh! We would also get a potato that she cut into wedges drizzled with a little olive oil and herbs covered them in foil and backed them for an hour.  She was 100% Italian so you know she made spaghetti a lot also. As I reminisce about her cooking and exercise it is such a reminder to me of how much simpler things used to be. Today I am inspired to cook more and stay out of restaurants because of these memories of her today!  She always talked about staying at a healthy weight and trust me so did her girlfriends, they all almost seemed obsessed with the whole idea.  Were they?  I don't think so, I think they were smart and knew that one day when they grew older the heavier they were they harder staying active would be.  I was recently watching a Television program called Food Revolution hosted by Jamie Oliver and he said that "We are the first generation with a life expectancy shorter than our parents"   He contributes it to the astronomical number of obesity in the U.S.  I really thought  hard about that and I wonder, will I live to be 89? Will I still be walking without any assistance and healthy as can be like my grandma?   The answer... probably not if I don't start to make consistent changes now.. Which I am, Praise God!  One day at a time!  I didn't come anywhere near perfect with my diet today but I did eat healthier than yesterday and stayed within my calorie limits.  I am now going for a walk with Bradley and Bryan because it is beautiful outside and has cooled off enough to be out there.  One last thing I would like to mention,  I am so inspired by my sister Kimberly Boehm  Wilkins who lost a lot of weight last year. When I asked her how she did it she said " I used to ask the kids to go get me this or that and then one day I  decided to get off my booty and get it myself" Great advice...

Mimi Tea