Eating & Thriving, the Low Carb Way

The first time we went to the grocery store to stock up on low-carb food items, we were flummoxed and frustrated. We didn’t understand enough about the do’s and don’t’s – the good foods vs. the “bad”. What freaked us out is that we knew we couldn’t eat the way we had been eating for years.

BASIC THINGS TO KNOW
1. Eat three meals a day, or four or five smaller ones.
2. For the first month consume only a total of only 20 carbs a day. As your body learns to burn fat more easily, you can re-introduce a few more carbs. (Get a carb counter guide for frequent reference.)
3. Read nutritional information labels on any prepared foods! Look for how many grams of carbs are in a serving size. Be sure they are what you would really consume in a sitting, because some serving sizes are ridiculously small.
4. Supplement your fiber intake using Psyllium Husk Powder - a taste-free additive to salads, eggs, or sauces.

THE GOOD NEWS
1. Protein is good. Most proteins have no carbs. Eat steak, chicken, seafood, and eggs guilt-free.
2. Berries are the best fruit to eat. A half cup of raspberries is 3 net carbs.
3. Fiber is good. A gram of fiber negates a gram of carbs. But beware - a gram or two of fiber in a “healthy” snack bar won’t help much if the bar contains 23 carbs that mostly come from sugar.
4. Many veggies are high in nutrients and low in carbs. Go for lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, eggplant, cauliflower and cucumber. (See the bad news veggies.)
5. Get your dairy via cheese (5-6 oz per day).

THE BAD NEWS
1. Avoid bread, pasta, rice, potatoes and cereal. Sorry.
2. Most fruit is fairly high in carbs (e.g. a medium-sized apple has about 17 net carbs).
3. Corn, peas, carrots and beans are starchy veggies higher in carbs.
4. Some “healthy” snacks are loaded with carbs. A quarter cup of raisins has 30 carbs.

Now for some ideas about how to change your eating habits:

Instead of a Cheeseburger, have a bunless Beef patty with cheese
Instead of Potatoes, have Mashed Cauliflower (we use butter & cheese & a touch of cream)
Instead of French Fries, have sauteed Eggplant
Instead of Potato Chips, have "Soy Crispettes”
Instead of salad Croutons, have Parmesan Crisps (add Psyllium Husk Powder for more fiber)
Instead of Crackers & Cheese, have Salami & Cheese
Instead of sugary Desserts, have Sugar-free Candy or Berries
Instead of a Milkshake, have an Atkins shake blended with ice
Instead of Pizza...well, if you find a replacement – let me know!

It’s not always easy, but it works! In restaurants, ask for extra vegetables in place of potatoes or rice. And send the busperson with the bread basket away forthwith! Sometimes it’s just best not to be tempted.

Mastering the Carbohydrate Challenge

I inherited many wonderful attributes from my father. Unfortunately, I also inherited a problem with high blood sugar. Two years ago, I began taking prescription meds to help my body absorb insulin. I had developed Type 2 Diabetes. Some of this was my own doing, as a result of an unhealthy diet, weight gain, and a lack of exercise. One of our goals for the first year of retirement was to “Get Healthy”. I needed to lose weight and wanted to get off my meds. No excuses anymore.

A low-carb approach seemed to make sense for me. Not only would it result in weight loss, but it would deprive my body of the simple carbs (e.g. glucose) that go right into the bloodstream and spike insulin production, making it difficult to control my blood sugar level. Complex carbs (starches) break down into glucose molecules more slowly, so don’t have as quick and dramatic an effect on blood sugar. Carbs are not bad – some are required to fuel the body with energy. But too many carbs (simple or complex) can be problematic, especially for people who tend toward diabetes.

I used a lot of information from the Atkins Diet to modify my eating habits. I replaced sugar with Splenda, stopped eating bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice, and ate more carb-free proteins, salads, and low-carb veggies. I also started being more physically active. Every morning, I tested my blood sugar.

Here’s the amazing thing… After just 3 days of lifestyle changes my blood sugar level dropped dramatically, to the point where I had to discontinue my prescription medication to allow my blood sugar to rise into the normal range! Now it stays there without medication. In 8 months I have lost 25 pounds by reducing my carb consumption and doing cardio exercise 4 to 5 days a week. I am thrilled, and so is my doctor.

A sample of a meal plan for an average day follows. I don’t specify portions here, but they should be reasonable, as calories can’t be completely ignored.

BREAKFAST: Coffee w/Splenda, 2 eggs scrambled with cheese, 2 slices bacon, 2 tablespoons Greek yogurt, 6 fresh raspberries.

LUNCH: Canned tuna fish with mayo, sliced cucumber, 1 small sugar-free Peppermint Patty.

DINNER: Caesar salad, tilapia baked in olive oil & lemon with capers, cauliflower mash, several glasses of wine.

Sorry for my soapbox, but I’m not quite done with this subject. Next week, a few specifics about counting carbs, “healthy” foods with “hidden” carbs, and some tips on how to avoid feeling deprived on the low-carb lifestyle.

I'm Not Always in My Pajamas...

The question people ask me most often about life in retirement is, “What do you do all day?” (One friend calls and asks, “Are you still in your pajamas?” He hates it when the answer is yes. Life has settled into a casual routine here on Bittersweet Place…

MORNING: Coffee first! Then a little morning news and some Today Show. This is usually followed by powering up the PC and checking eMail, Facebook, and LinkedIn to see what’s shakin’ among my network peeps. Then I unload the dishwasher and we have a low-carb breakfast. Time to make the bed and dress in workout clothes. Workout in the Man Cave (5 days a week, for about an hour and a half) includes time on the elliptical, some weight lifting, and/or some Wii games.

AFTERNOON: A light, low-carb lunch (more on the low-carb discipline next week) followed by a shower or bubble bath. Throw in some laundry – then fold and put away clothes. Check eMail, etc. again. Write for one of my blogs. Recreational or educational reading for an hour or two – or run an errand (grocery, hardware, or drug store). Make some phone calls (social or “administrative”). Check to see what the stock market did today. It’s almost Happy Hour…

EVENING: Begins with a glass of wine or two in the front room, watching the neighborhood go by, talking with Ron, and planning dinner. Ron is the family chef, and usually makes dinner (low-carb again). I’m the cleaner-upper; loading and starting the dishwasher and wiping up the kitchen. The rest of the evening, we usually watch something on TV, pop in a movie, or read for a while. Between 10 and 11pm we head off to bed.

That’s the norm on an uneventful day. We can’t believe how fast days go by, with just these simple activities. How did we ever get anything done when we were working? Thank God for the luxury of time we so sorely needed for our mental and physical health. So far, this has truly been a period of recovery for us.

Now that the weather is finally getting nicer, there are more and more activities available. Our neighbor has started a book club. We have tickets to a handful of Cubs games. Next week, the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago opens, and as members we get a pre-opening preview. On occasion, we like to go out to lunch or dinner (Alfredo at Fornello’s knows us by name). There is great theatre here, and we have been to see a half dozen shows already. Summer will be full of opportunities to go to street fairs all over the city. Lake Michigan, the beach at Montrose Harbor, and the golf course at Waveland will soon be beckoning. It’s great to be in Chicago in the summer.

Decorating Whiplash

I find it intriguing that along with our early retirement life change, came a pretty drastic change in our taste in interior decorating. In my 18 years of marriage with Ron (21 years together including cohabitation), we’ve decorated 3 homes before moving to Chicago. Until we bought the condo, we always decorated in a very traditional style.

Color schemes changed from home to home as I went through very distinct phases, and as different houses seemed to call for different colors. In Las Vegas, I selected a pale green carpet throughout the house because it was visually cool. Moving to Memphis, the house seemed dark after the large windows and ever-present sun of Vegas, so almost every room was painted a different hue or shade of yellow.

Early on, we bought furniture from Bombay Company – lots of dark wood, Queen Anne style, and green marble table tops. When the budget was a little more accommodating, we added Thomasville. Since our combined taste remained pretty constant, we merely incorporated a few new items when we moved into larger homes.

The Chicago condo required new furniture for rooms much smaller in scale. When we began to shop, we discovered a drastic change in the design style that attracted us. Suddenly, we wanted contemporary furniture with clean lines. We bought a simple cherry wood Scandinavian bedroom suite. Next we added an ivory leather sofa with chrome legs and an entertainment cabinet and coffee table of recycled wood. The office desk/tables/shelves are aluminum with frosted glass tops. Everything we selected was 180 degrees from where our taste had been before. What a heady feeling of freedom!

So what happened? To begin with, I believe we were enthusiastically embracing the shift in our lives to more simplicity, and wanted an outward manifestation of that change. And we were (and still are) enamored with the idea of adopting a modern urban lifestyle, after so many years of suburban dwelling. But it’s amazing to me that both Ron and I would feel the desire to make these changes to our living environment at the same time. It made the whole process so fun and satisfying. We put this new home together exactly the way we wanted it, and everything about it gives us pleasure.

Did I tell you about the new color scheme? Apparently I am going through a distinctly orange phase, complemented by splashes of red, grey and ivory. The living room and the office are “Calypso Orange”, while the hallway and kitchen dining area are a lighter, almost peachy color. At Ron’s bequest, I relented and provided him some relief from orange by painting the bedroom pale denim blue. The Calypso Orange feeds my spirit in a way that’s difficult to explain. It just makes me happy! Even Ron reluctantly agrees that in the depths of the cold winter, it provides visual warmth.

( Memphis vs. Chicago living room comparison in the photos above.)

Beginning a new chapter of your life brings some unexpected changes. Enjoy them! Tell me…what changes would you make?

Embracing Simple Pleasures

When I was working, sometimes I felt upset (to tears) about not having enough time for myself. I’m not sure that I even knew what I would do with that luxury, because I was so bound up in battling the resentment. Now I know! I needed to have more fun, relax, take up a hobby, be more giving to my friends and family, and pamper myself.

Consider the appealing prospect of pampering yourself and a wide range of thoughts or mental images will emerge – potentially very different for all of us. Now that I have more time, I am discovering deeply satisfying pleasures in pampering myself in these simple ways:

· Taking a leisurely bubble bath instead of a shower
· Reading a few chapters of a novel before going to bed
· Exploring a new software package
· Splurging on olive oil and coriander-scented dishwashing liquid
· Savoring fresh raspberries with my Greek yogurt at breakfast
· Washing up with lavender and chamomile-scented foaming hand wash
· Napping with a golf tournament on TV (those commentators have such soothing voices)
· Shopping from my sofa by looking through the latest catalogs
· Reading books that help me explore myself
· Sending greeting cards to family and friends
· Going out for an extended lunch, accompanied by good wine
· Treating my feet to a luxurious softening crème as I slip into bed
· Calling a friend out of the blue just to chat
· Cooking an elaborate new dish for a meal
· Chatting casually with a neighbor
· Taking a walk in the park or on the beach
· Writing this blog

It’s telling that these fairly normal things qualify, in my book, as self-pampering. It’s not good to get to the point where Job = Life. When I had any free time while I was working, I would too often become a zombie in front of the TV, or go to the mall and shop for things I didn’t need (aka “Retail Therapy”). Not surprisingly, neither of those activities made my leisure time more fulfilling.

Be kind and take time to pamper yourself – not only will you be happier, but so will those around you!

Just A Year Ago

It was just about a year ago that we sold our house in Memphis and readied ourselves for the big move to Chicago. Ron and I are thankful how well everything fell into place – although the pace was fast and furious. Planning and execution are critical. Adding your energy and tenacity (sprinkled with a little luck) will help you achieve your goals.

We worked HARD to prepare our house to go on the market. You know how this happens… All the things you meant to do the years you lived in the house now must be done immediately. We refinished stairs, painted the hallway, renovated a bathroom, replaced the front door, added baseboard molding in the guest bedroom – and those are just the projects I remember off the top of my head. Personal clutter was packed away to depersonalize space, avoid distracting potential buyers, and make rooms look bigger. The house was carefully staged to help people imagine living there. We cleaned everything until the house was fresh and sparkling. The day of the Open House was beautiful and sunny, so we flung open windows to let the spring air in. The lawn was lush and green, azaleas and dogwoods were blooming, the birds were singing… You get the picture. We had a good turnout and accepted an offer on the house that evening. Planning and execution paid off quickly!

Takeaway: Sweat equity invested in house prep and staging is CRITICAL to a fast sale. (We watch a lot of HGTV.)

The next big step was divestiture! We planned to move from a 3200 sq ft home to a 1500 sq ft condo with a 500 sq ft basement. Simplifying our life meant brutally paring down our belongings, which turned out to be spiritually liberating! We sold most of our furniture to friends, the family that bought the house, and our housekeepers. There were numerous trips to Goodwill and the Hazardous Materials disposal center (for paint and old electronics), and a satisfying stop at the Memphis Music Academy to donate Ron’s trombone. Then, the Moving Sale extravaganza in our driveway, where we sold whatever was worth selling. When the sale ended, we had $1600 in cash and a pile of unsold items to put by the curb for trash pickup. Another step in the plan had been successfully executed. Exhausted, off we went that evening to the farewell party thrown by our friend Dave Byerly. Champagne, anyone?

Takeaway: Simplifying your life means letting go of “stuff” you don’t truly need.

Movers arrived just a few days later and helped us finish packing and getting out of the house. When we drove away for the last time, we breathed deep sighs – very cognizant of closing one chapter of our lives and stepping into a new and exciting one that we had to freedom to write for ourselves.

Takeaway: Be sure to budget for professional movers. This process is physically and emotionally exhausting, and you have a hard deadline to vacate your home.

Memphis looked good in our rear view mirror when we left on May 31, 2008. I was glad we had the 8+ hour drive to Chicago to decompress and let reality sink in. In a 6 week timeframe, we had quit our jobs, sold our house and many belongings, said goodbye to friends, and moved. Our heads were spinning, and everything felt a little unreal. Our carefully nurtured dreams had begun to come true. It wasn’t magic and it wasn’t all luck. It was the result of more than 15 years of planning – and it felt AMAZING!

When One Door Closes...

By departing our corporate work life, we allowed a door to close behind us. Instead of assuming that another door would open, what we envisioned was an open field where we could run in any direction, pick daisies, swing at golf balls, or even lie down and take a nap. The feeling of freedom was heady. Still is.

For months, we have gloried in our ability to relax and enjoy ourselves. We are healthier and happier than we have been in a long time, because we are not working and have more time to spend taking care of ourselves and each other.

But in the midst of the relative isolation of a Chicago winter, I began to reach out to friends and former colleagues by networking online. I’m frankly surprised by the joy and satisfaction I’m experiencing as a result of this contact. Connecting with close friends in a different way, finding lost friends and catching up, reconnecting with former colleagues whose careers have taken fascinating paths, and making new acquaintances based on mutual interests – all of these things are now easier as a result of social and professional networking on the internet. Personally, I am tuned in on Facebook and LinkedIn. The more I put into these channels, the more I seem to get back in return.

For example, let me tell you about this week:

On Monday, I had a delightful and stimulating lunch with an admired colleague I worked with 20 years ago at Hilton. She now works for a strategic meeting, incentive and event production agency headquartered in Chicago. We reconnected via LinkedIn just a few weeks ago (because of a mutual connection). She showed me examples of some of the work her company does, and we talked about the possibility of me doing some freelance writing for them on proposals. We have decided to meet for lunch on a monthly basis so we can share stories and ideas. I’m thrilled!

Wednesday, I headed to Evanston to meet a Northwestern student for whom I have been providing some pro bono Marketing consulting. He has an eco-friendly office supply company, and is looking for ways to grow his business. On Monday, he distributed a press release I wrote on his behalf, and is currently hoping for responses that will result in some exposure in the local media (including WGN TV). Our relationship also came from meeting up through a Northwestern group on LinkedIn.

After meeting with my new entrepreneurial friend, I moved on to a Career Day sponsored by Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism – an opportunity extended to me via email as an NU Alum. I was a bit of an anomaly in the crowd of attendees (because of my…ahem…experience), but I made two great new contacts. One is a producer at WGN TV, who is now interested in the story about our eco-friendly entrepreneur. The other is a “Creative Web Director” for a company who uses freelance writers to develop content for web sites. With my love for writing, this is something I’m interested in exploring. It was a great visit to campus – and I got to see the purple and white crocuses blooming in full force on my walk from the el station to the student center by Lake Michigan.

What a stimulating week I’ve had! Being retired doesn’t mean I’m lying on the couch watching Oprah. To me, it means I have the freedom to explore my passions and to live the next chapter of my life.