A Better Bag of Groceries

Monte Meyer: Motivational Tips and “Cauliflower Crust”!

Friday, February 15, 2013 at 07:00 AM

Hi to all my Better Bag of Grocery friends!   Everyone would agree that the components to any successful weight loss has to be 1) Diet  2) Exercise and 3) Accountability.  Let’s talk a bit about exercise.

 (Before I start out I assume you have been seeing the doctor on a regular basis and are checked out for physical activity.)

Here is my pep talk to all of you who are finding it difficult to be motivated.  I don’t care if we are the fattest one in the gym, waddle or have thunder thighs.  We paid the money for the gym – we have a right to be there – and we are the only ones who can change our lifestyle!  

After all these years of working out, I am convinced that more people are rooting for you than are judging you.  I can’t tell you how many high fives from elite runners I’ve received when I was out on the running trails, flopping around, lumbering like a pregnant Wildebeest at a 4.7 mph clip.  Just get out there and do it.  It’s your life – it’s your body.  So what if you can’t bounce a quarter off of your rear end!  So what if lots of things shake on your body when you move.  It’s your life – you deserve to feel good – to be fit – to extend your life by living a healthy lifestyle.  So get out there and do it!

Here endeth the sermon! 

I offer a couple real world pieces of advice related to exercise. 

1)  If you can afford it – get a personal trainer or join a group fitness class, at least for awhile.  They are motivating, you learn better techniques which can prevent injury and you work out harder.   If you feel you can’t afford it – try cutting eating out so much.  I used to eat out a LOT.  Changing my spending habits away from fast food and soda and putting that savings towards exercise changed my life.  It can happen for you too.

2)  Bring a notebook to record your workout.  Later, you can refer to your notes when you are in the gym by yourself.  I personally use my iPhone after workout and write down everything I can remember.  Soon, you fill find yourself with pages and pages of routines that will take the boring out of your workout regime. 

3)  Purchase a wearable device to measure how much you have exerted in a workout.  I use a Polar watch system to count the calories I burn.  Don’t trust the Tread Mill calculations at the gym – if you burned the amount of calories they regularly estimate we would all look like Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser.  Use a watch or device as a benchmark.  For instance, a really hard workout for me would burn upwards of 800 plus calories in an hour.   The accuracy of the burn is not as important to me as using it as a benchmark to compare other workouts.  It’s a motivational tool. 

Exercise is a huge component to a healthy life.  But so is eating.  To that end, I submit to you this great Cauliflower Crust Pizza recipe which scores high in the NuVal ratings.

If you “Google,” you will find any number of recipes for Cauliflower Crust Pizza.  This is the one I used for the crust.    For the toppings, we used pizza sauce, m ushrooms, green peppers, onions, part-skim mozzarella and turkey pepperoni.  

Here’s what it looked like before baking…

after baking…

And completed. 

It’s low cal – good for you – and if you do some shopping for trade-ups with the pizza sauce and toppings – extremely NuVal-terrific! (No, I don’t know the score of the glass of Cabernet in the background – give me a break, I’m still a newlywed! Haha!)    Best of all – it tastes GREAT!  Give it a try! 

I hope you all have a terrific week!  Get out there and move your body – you deserve to be healthy!

Monte

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