I was talking to someone this week about exercise. I shared that right now I am mostly doing cardio work at the Wellness Center. I do a whole lot of walking around the track.

“Doesn’t that get boring, just walking around and around and around?” I was asked.

Not really. First of all, I’m trying so hard to stay focused so I can keep track of the number of laps … just because I want to make sure I get in a mile (10 laps) at the very least. Usually, I try to do more than 10, and I just like knowing how I’m doing.

Also, I’ve filled my little purple iPod Shuffle with lots of tunes that keep me going.

I see lots of folks watching TV and reading while they exercise. I can’t do that. For me, it’s music that inspires me to walk an extra lap or two. Or keep on pedaling.

My picks probably aren’t what you’d consider typical workout tunes. I’ve got some Beatles, Fogelberg, Vienna Teng, Garrison Starr, Dar Williams and lots of others that keep me moving … around and around and around.

Whatever works.  

I’ve not always been fond of scales. In fact, I’ve detested them, run from them, avoided them at all costs.

But since early December, I haven’t minded them much. I think I can honestly say I like them.

Two Saturdays ago I worked out at the Wellness Center, then took my shoes off to weigh. I’d not done so since a few days into the new year when I discovered I’d lost my first 15 pounds. Well, I was not very pleased to see I’d stayed the same.

I didn’t let it frustrate me, but it did disappoint me to see no numerical results for my hard work.

Truth is, I’m feeling better and my clothes are feeling loose, so I fretted for a few hours about that trip to the scales, then I let it go and pressed on.

This morning just before 7, I decided to weigh again. (I try to weigh every two weeks. Some folks like to weigh daily. I can’t do that because that does cause great frustration for me.) Anyway, I was pleased this morning to see that I’d lost 6 more pounds. That brings me to a total of 21.

And that makes me very happy.

Sure, I’ve still got a long road ahead of me, but I’m trying hard to enjoy the trip and not worry so much about reaching my destination regarding the numbers on the scales. 

Having finally found Miller’s Bran early this week on the organic aisle at Kroger, I made bran muffins last night. I ate one hot out of the oven and they were delicious. I brought one to food editor and friend, Ginna Parsons, today and she has just proclaimed it “fabulous.”

I’m not sure of the calories per muffin, but it can’t be much. When I can, I’ll sit down and try to figure it out.

One good thing about this is the muffins can be wrapped individually and frozen, then zapped in a microwave whenever you want one.

Here’s the recipe:

 Bran Muffins

1 cup 100 percent bran cereal

1/2 cup Miller’s bran

1 cup skim milk

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg (I used Egg Beaters)

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) melted butter or margarine

Cinnamon and/or nutmeg (optional)

Mix milk, bran cereal and Miller’s bran in bowl and let stand five minutes.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, salt and spices in another bowl. Stir egg and melted butter into bran mixture.

Stir flour mixture into bran just until combined. Don’t over mix.

Fill 12 muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees 20 to 22 minutes.(If you bake and freeze, microwave about 35 seconds when ready to eat a muffin.)

I am not a fan of nutmeg, so I used cinnamon. In the future, I may throw in some flax seeds or some blueberries or cranberries for a different taste. Enjoy. 

While in my I-really-don’t-like-to-eat-breakfast mode several weeks ago, I read about others who don’t much like breakfast drinking smoothies instead.

I spoke with a friend in Huntsville, Ala., Saturday and she promised to send a recipe for a smoothie. She did and I made one this morning before coming to work. I wasn’t sure about it at first. I mean, it’s very easy, only a few ingredients, but a couple of the ingredients seemed a bit scary to me.

I’ve just recently embraced yogurt. It’s always been one of those things – like oatmeal – that I just could not make myself eat. Oatmeal is still questionable, but I’ve decided yogurt’s not half bad. I’m having a difficult time broadening my flavor horizons, though. So far, I’m sticking with blueberry and peach. I may get brave soon and try key lime and others.

Anyway, when I opened a very large container this morning of plain yogurt, I was sort of taken aback. But I made the smoothie and I liked it, very much.

The Eggbeaters egg whites in the smoothie are for protein. My friend said she used to use protein powder but it tasted terrible.

Smoothie

1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 cup frozen berries (I bought a bag of mixed berries – blueberries, red raspberries and blackberries)
1/2 cup Eggbeaters egg whites
1 or two packets Splenda to taste

Blend all ingredients until smooth and enjoy. 

My co-worker Emily LeCoz shared several recipes yesterday.

Since I promised a recipe for bran muffins and have not yet been able to deliver, I thought I’d share one that Emily shared. I’ve not tried it yet, but Emily said it is fabulous and I trust her opinion.

It’s called Orange Roast Pork and calls for a pork shoulder roast, but Emily used a pork tenderloin instead, which is good for me because it’s very lean. I plan to try this soon. It’s easy and is a Crockpot meal so it can cook while I’m at work. 

Orange Roast Pork

1 3 1/2-pound pork loin
1 onion, chopped
6-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cold water

Trim roast of visible fat. (Won’t be much at all on a pork tenderloin.) Place onions in bottom of a 3- to 4-quart Crockpot. Sprinkle salt and pepper over roast and place on top of onions.

In small bowl, mix together thawed orange juice concentrate and brown sugar. Pour over roast.Cover Crockpot and cook on high for 3 hours, then reduce heat to low and cook another 3 hours.

(There’s another paragraph about skimming the fat from the juices, but with a pork loin there should be very little fat. The fat is used to make a gravy, but we’re not going to go there!)

I would imagine this would be good served with brown rice and some roasted asparagus.

Thanks for the recipe, Emily. 

I know I promised a recipe for bran muffins. My plan was to make them this past weekend and share the recipe if they were good. 

However, there’s an ingredient in the muffins that I can’t seem to find – Miller’s Bran. I looked with the cereal, but it’s not there.

My sister told me it’s likely to be wherever the flax seeds and flax seed meal are. So, I’ve got to go back to the store and look on the short aisle where the organics and other health food items are.

If I can’t find it there, not sure what I’ll do. Does anyone know what exactly Miller’s Bran is and where it might be found? 

Just finished watching Jeff Bailey on Oprah. She visited Meridian last week to challenge “fat people in Mississippi” to help knock our state out of first place in obesity.

Health writer Michaela Morris has written about Jeff and his own journey to better health in years past. Right now, she’s at the Wellness Center at a party where folks are gathering with Jeff to watch him on national television.

If you missed it, I hope you can somehow catch Jeff’s story again. At his heaviest, he weighed more than 700 pounds. He has lost at least 150. He said he’s come a long way, but he’s got a long way to go. But he isn’t giving up.

He is at the Wellness Center five days a week. Amazing.

I’m going to think of Jeff Bailey when my alarm clock goes off in the early mornings and I am tempted to hit the snooze and stay under the covers. I’m going to think of Jeff Bailey and when I do, I’m going to get up and make my way to the Wellness Center.

Thanks, Jeff. What an inspiration you are! 

I was talking this morning with a co-worker about exercise. We agreed that it makes a powerful difference in, well, everything.

But especially the way it makes you feel about yourself.

I have found once I get going on an exercise program, I miss it when I don’t do it. I get used to it. And, eventually, it becomes second nature, a natural part of my day, FUN.

When I had my initial assessment when joining the Wellness Center, Heather Thorn, a great trainer who worked with me, wrote on my aerobic exercise instructions that I should “walk briskly” around the track a number of times.

I chuckled my first time around the track several weeks ago. I doubt anyone watching me would have used the word “briskly” to describe my walking. Lumbering, perhaps, would be more accurate. I’m probably still lumbering, but lumbering along a little more briskly!

At first, I felt bad about my speed – or lack of it. But I am moving. I’m doing more than I’ve done in a long time. And I know the more I do, the better I’ll get, the easier it will get – and the faster I’ll move.

A week ago, however, I almost had a great moment. I almost passed my first person on the track. I’m sure he was either warming up or cooling down, but he was moving slowly. And I was feeling fabulous, seeing his back loom into view. I was going to pass someone rather than be the someone passed. I had a brief (but fleeting) urge to yell across the room to my friend Ginna so she’d witness the event. Sadly, the slower walker stepped off the track just before I passed him. (Sigh.)

But I’m holding out hope that one of these days, I will be able to step into the passing lane! It’ll happen. I believe.

After lunch yesterday, my friend Ginna voiced her concern that she didn’t think I was getting enough to eat. I assured her I was satisfied and not experiencing great bouts of hunger or urges to binge or cheat.

But I want to do this the right way, so today I started keeping a journal of every single thing I put in my mouth each day. And I think Ginna was correct. Today after eating breakfast, a mid-morning snack, a good lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, I’ve consumed only 768 calories. According to Leanne Davis, nutritionist at the Wellness Center, I need 2,000 daily.

I’m struck with several thoughts:

First of all, not eating enough is a brand new problem for this old girl. Believe me, it’s not one I’ve ever before experienced. It sort of tickles me.

Secondly, it’s amazing that when choosing healthful foods, you really can eat a lot. But when choosing high-fat, sugar-laden snack foods, it doesn’t take much to shoot your daily calorie count way out of the ball park.

So, I may not succeed today at getting enough calories, but starting tomorrow, I’ll do better. I plan to continue writing down what I eat and drink daily because I think that’ll be the easiest way for me to get it right.

I also think I’ll splurge and purchase one of those fat little books that lists thousands of foods and the number of calories in each.

Lesson learned.

On another note, thanks for the really good breakfast suggestions. They’ve helped greatly. My sister sent a recipe this week for low-fat bran muffins that you can bake and freeze individually in a zip-lock bag and zap in the microwave a few seconds to eat for breakfast or a snack. I plan to try them this weekend. If they’re good, I’ll share the recipe.

This is certainly not rocket science, but it’s something I’ve just started doing. Instead of parking as close to the front door at work as possible, I have begun parking at a distance.

I figure every step counts.

I have allowed myself one exception: If it’s a horribly rainy day, I will park closer to the building. Now, if we begin to have daily monsoons, I’ll just buy a better umbrella, roll up my pants legs and sing in the rain!