Here’s our latest skinny wisdom interview as we seek to learn from those who are on their way to mastering their health.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
Betsy
“Be mindful. You get XX calories each day. Do you want them to be ones that fill and nourish you?” ~Betsy
OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
I am 51 (will be 52 in May) and my husband, Gavin, is 49. We’ll be married 19 years this September.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We don’t have children and I am an only child, but my husband has two sisters with two children each and we enjoy spending time with our niece (22) and nephews (18, 22 and 23).
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We live in Northeast Ohio about midway between Cleveland and Akron. Our community is pretty typically suburban. We’re fortunate that the “Emerald Necklace”, Cleveland’s extended MetroPark community runs through our town and is great for hiking and biking.
What do you do for a living?
For the past decade, I’ve worked as a Planning Analyst for a small healthcare consulting that specializes in marketing and strategic planning for larger hospitals and health care systems. Gavin and I both work out of the home which makes healthy meal planning and fitting in regular workouts a bit easier. In 2017, I started a blog called Natty Gal as a creative balance to my analytical day job. Natty Gal focuses on cultivating a simple, stylish and satisfying life and covers topics related to fashion, lifestyle (including health/fitness) and travel.
What is your current weight and height?
5’4” and about 115 pounds (my winter norm). During the summer months, I’m usually about 110-112.
FOOD
Describe what you eat in the course of a typical day. Please be specific! How do you eat differently on the weekends or special occasions?
Our eating plan has a saint/sinner approach. We try to eat very cleanly and lean from Sunday night – Friday lunch and then one the weekend, indulge in whatever! We almost always eat at home during the week but are usually out Friday night, Saturday for lunch and dinner and Sunday for either brunch or lunch. Using MyFitnessPal to record our meals keeps our calorie intake on track.
Typical breakfast items include: steel cut oatmeal, fruit/berries, yogurt, Kashi GoLean Toasted Berry Crumble cereal, fruit smoothies, avocado toast. Maybe one weekend a month in the winter we’ll make waffles or something like that.
Lunches are almost always salads comprised of mixed greens, a handful of nuts (walnuts, pecans or almonds), a hard-boiled egg, a small amount of blue cheese. I like Ken’s Lite salad dressings but don’t like soupy salad so only use about 1 tablespoon per salad. Roasted veggies (butternut squash, sweet potato, etc.) are a winter time lunch favorite. For something super quick, I keep a supply of Morningstar Black Bean burgers on hand.
Dinners are all over the board. We still eat pasta about once a week and enjoy meat. The main adjustment we’ve made is to cut most white products: potatoes, noodles, rice and bread. Pork tenderloin is a favorite. It’s super low-cal and filling when paired with a good quality sauerkraut. Salmon is also a big hit and pretty versatile. My husband doesn’t enjoy veggies as much as I do but ever since I started roasting them, that has changed. It gives beans, Brussels sprouts, squash, etc. a fantastic, carmelized flavor.
What are your food rules, if any?
Other than choosing very well Sunday-Friday, no real hard-fast rules! We tend to buy very few processed/packaged products. As we get older, fried and cream-based items (like Alfredo sauce) just don’t sit as well so we tend to avoid those unless it’s small or something really special! Sharing portions of something especially rich is also a good way to experience the taste without going too far overboard.
We both enjoy wine at the end of the day, but more than one glass starts to skew my judgement when it comes to eating. Suddenly I’ll find myself adding on a dessert where I wouldn’t typically have had one or taking an extra portion. It’s a slippery slope and I now try to keep away from alcohol Sunday-Thursday nights.
What food(s) will you not eat, specifically because it will derail your health or weight, and why?
I can’t really think of any other than what I mentioned above. Nothing is 100% off limits on our plan.
What is a food you cannot resist? How do you handle this food when you encounter it?
My cravings fall into two main camps: salty/crunchy and sweet. Salty/crunchy is the harder for me to control. Snack mixes like Chex, chips, etc. all call out to me. At home, I just don’t buy these items. If it’s not there, I can’t eat it. At parties or events, I’ll indulge. Hopefully the fact that other people are around will keep me from going to crazy (although not always)! Same for the occasional weekend lunch – if chips come with it, I’ll just go for it.
My sweet tooth leans towards cookies/brownies and ice cream. Cakes, pies and pastries don’t really do much for me. Cookies and brownies are the hardest to resist. This week has been tough as we just had the Girl Scout delivery. Ice cream and dark chocolate we DO usually have on hand but I’m better about indulging in these things only when I really, really want one. For us, dark chocolate is much easier to keep in check than milk chocolate and still allows us to experience that flavor.
When we have people over and end up with leftovers of these items at home, I’m just toast! No control at all, they’ll be gone in a week and my weight will go up. I just chalk it up to a post-holiday or post-entertaining week and get back on track the following week. That’s also my philosophy for the Girl Scout cookies.
Do you take any vitamins or supplements?
Not regularly. Maybe twice a year, I’ll go through a month of probiotics (Garden of Life brand is great) to rebalance gut health, if needed. And I’ll take some Vitamin C tablets in the winter to help ward off colds although I think that is largely a wives’ tale.
How do you emotionally think about food? Is it a large part of your life?
Living in a colder climate, we do sometimes get in the winter mode of wanting a heavy red wine with richer meal. It’s warming and can feel comforting. But I’m not a real grief or stress eater. If anything, just the opposite and I quit eating when life goes downhill.
Have you ever gained weight (10 lbs or more), if so what were the circumstances?
Over the course of the first decade of our marriage I gained about 10 pounds, ending up about 118-120. It was slow/very subtle and didn’t particularly bother me. Then I went through a large depressive period and lost a lot, too much, actually, clocking in at about 95. When I started to even out and get healthier, I invested in some new clothes and from that point on have wanted to stay in them so have worked to maintain a 110-115 range depending on season.
Did you lose the weight and if so, how did you accomplish this? How long did it take?
When grief-stricken or depressed I quit eating and will drop quite rapidly. The period above was about a 3-month change. More recently, when we lost our dog last year, that triggered another low and I dropped about 10 pounds in 2 weeks. It was a short down-spin and I evened back out again a month or two later.
How would your friends describe you and your relationship to food?
When I’m with friends, it’s usually out so they’d likely say I eat a lot for my size. But they are only seeing me at a special restaurant meal. Not the daily efforts put in to be able to enjoy those restaurant meals.
And I’m a bit of a nut about food waste. A group of us goes on an annual girl’s trip and one of the girls commented about my always cleaning my plate. As we often travel in less fortunate countries, I feel bad about leaving food that might mean so much more to the people who live there. In general, we waste too much in the US – it feels so entitled to me, like we can just afford to throw out all the stuff others would love to be feeding to their kids! A real pet peeve and kind of odd as I didn’t grow up in a “clean your plate” family.
FITNESS
Do you exercise or do any physical activity and why?
Yes. Regular exercise helps me not only maintain my weight (which I really need, now that I’m in my 50’s) but also helps me manage depression and anxiety, mental conditions that I’ve struggled with for most of my adult life.
When exercising, how often and how consistent are you? Do you take time off?
I try to maintain a five day a week, Monday-Friday exercise schedule. Typically two days are devoted to cardio (running or hill walks) and the other three days are devoted to strength training or flexibility. I do take time off, most notably when we travel or are sick. By scheduling work-outs M-F, I think of them as just regular work days, and part of my normal work-week life. On the weekends, I may do something active like hike or bike or ski but just as often, we’ll go a see a movie, run errands or go out to eat. So I can’t consistently rely on the weekends for workouts.
How do you emotionally think about exercise? Is it a chore, a stress outlet, positive, negative, etc?
Honestly, like many people, I don’t love the thought of approaching a workout. Once I start (and certainly once I finish) it feels great and I’m so glad to have put the time in, but it can be hard to take those first steps. Which, again, is why I think scheduling it as part of my work week really helps. It’s just one more thing on my “job” list. The fact that it’s a good stress outlet during tough weeks is an added benefit!
YOUTH
Growing up, how did you think about food and what if any changed over time?
As a child, I was an incredibly picky eater. I liked peanut butter, plain/buttered noodles, homemade bread and citrus fruits. Really weird! Not much meat other than chicken. No fish. Nothing with tomato or cheese in it, like pizza or macaroni and cheese. Wouldn’t eat foods that had touched each other.
Things started to change when I went to college. Suddenly a switch flipped, and I was open to most everything. Now among family and friends, I’m considered to be one of the more adventurous eaters. Really nothing is off limits although I still have some issues with textures like puddings and cottage cheese. [Editor’s Note: As the parent of a very picky teenager, this gives me hope!]
Was there a specific event in your childhood, either positive or negative, that you remember even to this day?
Not especially, just that my picky eating made it stressful to eat or sleep over friend’s houses when I was little. And I had one babysitter that wouldn’t make a plain PB sandwich. She sat for a group of us and made all the sandwiches with jelly. She just wouldn’t budge and leave the jelly off mine. Never really understood the thought process behind that.
What were meals like in your family growing up?
My maternal grandmother lived with us and my parents both worked full time so dinner was when we would all reconnect. It was the 70’s so we did a lot of the traditional meat and potato kind of thing. I can remember when “foreign” foods like lo mein and chop suey came into fashion. It was a big deal! There really weren’t many options back then.
How did your family or those around you influence you about food when you were young?
My parents were both pretty good eaters but they didn’t make a big deal of my picky habits. No special meals were provided, I’d just make do with whatever I could eat out of what was being served. Usually this meant either noodles or bread and a bit of vegetable. I don’t remember any foods being off limits. Restaurant meals were a big deal. My mom seems a bit shocked at how often people either go or order out these days.
Who influences or teaches you about food today, if anyone? Or….”I never think about it”?
I don’t think about food a lot although I have grown more interested in the connection between food, gut health and brain health.
PHILOSOPHY
What would you teach your children (or others) about food for them to have a healthy slender body?
Not having children, this is so tough to answer. I think I’d try to encourage them to try new things periodically as taste buds change as you get older and to enjoy the things they like in moderation. And to take a little before taking a lot – you can always add more but don’t heap up your plate and then throw 80% of it out.
Growing up we were big on outdoor play and I’d try to inspire children to do more of that. Go for a walk, play tag or toss a ball around after dinner. Keep moving!
What is your best piece of advice to the readers of this blog about how to live a healthy life?
The
best advice is hard to hear because it’s a bit boring. Consume
fewer calories than you burn. That’s it. It is how people have lost or maintained
weight since the beginning of time. It
doesn’t matter whether you eat a 1300 calorie slice of cake as your meal of the
day or whether your 1300 calories come from some steel-cut oatmeal with fruit,
a huge pile of veggies and some fish. If
you burn 1400 calories in a day, you’ll lose weight on either. But you’ll FEEL much worse when only eating the cake. Be mindful.
You get XX calories each day. Do you want them to be ones that fill and
nourish you? Or do you want them to be
gone in the flash of an eye and feel hungry an hour later?
When it comes to exercise, use it or lose it. Your mobility can have a huge impact on your quality of life as you age. It’s the difference between playing with your grandkids or watching them from the window; traveling to sites like Machu Picchu or thumbing through the tour book. Don’t let that slip away quietly.
If you’re healthy now, stay on top of it. If you’re not, start making some small/maintainable changes immediately and add additional healthy habits at regular intervals. Things can get ahead of you quickly if you don’t pay attention. You’ve got this!
~Betsy
Natty Gal
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