When I first started exercising,  I knew two things.  One was that I really hated exercising.  The other was that I was desperately out of shape.  I knew I needed a tape that would be a good work out but wouldn’t be so overwhelming that I couldn’t keep up.  I didn’t want anything that required a lot of fancy moves, and if I could find something that let me know how far I had to go until I was done, that would be great too.

I had pretty much dispaired of finding anything that would work until I found the workout DVDs by Leslie Sansone.   I started with Leslie Sansone – Walk Away the Pounds – High Calorie Burn – 2 Miles. This DVD had a meter on the bottom so I could see how far I had to go. There were all different sizes of people in the video, so I wasn’t watching impossibly chipper, thin people jump around. It was also easy to learn the steps. I wasn’t required to learn a lot of terminology or fancy moves. The video is mostly simple marches, kicks and sidesteps. It’s a good work out, but not too hard.

I still do the 2 mile video on occasion, but I have graduated to slightly harder and more demanding stuff. My current favorite is Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds – Walk and Jog. This is a tougher video, it’s at a much faster pace and it does have a higher cardio requirement. The nice part about it is that the steps are still simple. There isn’t a meter on this one, but it goes fast and while I know I’ve worked out by the end of it, I don’t feel like a limp dishrag.

I’m always looking for recommendations for good exercise DVDs, so if you have some, please do share. I’m about ready to move on to some new exercise programs, so I’d love some advice about what I should get.

I love pot roast.  It’s probably one of my favorite meals ever.  I’m a purist about it, I don’t want tomatoes or mushrooms or anything else in my pot roast.  I just want carrots and onions and potatoes and lovely roast beef.  This is the meal I always requested when I was a kid and my Mom was making a celebratory dinner on my behalf.  It simply soothes the heart of this meat and potatoes girl.

My mother had a great recipe for pot roast and it’s the one I’ve always used.  It wasn’t hard to make and it tasted divine.  The only problem with the recipe is that it relied on a particular soup stock to give it flavor and the bouillon in question is very high in sodium.   You may be able to see where the problem begins.

Since my heart issues I’ve been on a low sodium diet.   Eating a lot of sodium leads to high blood pressure (bad) and may lead to fluid build up (very bad) which could ultimately lead to congestive heart failure (very, very, bad).  My heart is battered enough as it is and eating right and exercising and getting enough sleep are things that can help it have to work less hard.  Watching my diet and my sodium intake is a pretty easy thing to do, and it has big benefits, so I try to be really aware of how much salt I’m eating.

Most of the time that’s not a hardship.  Every once in the while, as in the case of my beloved pot roast, it is a sacrifice.  I’ve tried several low sodium pot roast recipes and none have come out right.  The meat is tough.  The gravy is flavorless.  The recipe just doesn’t taste like the meal I love.  I’ve tried recipes using red wine, and using soy sauce and various and sundry no sodium bouillons, and I’ve tried cooking the roast in the oven and in the crock pot and nothing seems to work.

I knew that adjusting my diet would require some sacrifices and, for the most part, I’ve been o.k. with that.  Losing my roast beef dinner would be a real blow though, and I’d like to find a recipe that works for me while still staying within the guidelines of my diet.

Anyone have any ideas?

When I started this blog I had been “scared straight” I guess.  I had just come off a health scare and I knew things had to change.  I needed to lose weight and exercise not only to look and feel better but also because my lack of fitness and my excess weight was starting to effect my life in new and scary ways.   I started this journey as a person who had never successfully stuck to a diet or an exercise program and someone who was pretty much convinced I was doomed to be overweight forever.

Fast forward to now and I’ve lost a respectable about of weight, probably in the 50 pound range right now.  I exercise at least four days a week and I can now do with ease all the exercise tapes that used to make me huff and puff and sweat.  I life weights at least twice a week.  I can see based on changes in my body and in the fact that I now move and lift and exert myself much more easily, that my exercise program is working.   My body is fitter and thinner and healthier.  My doctor and cardiologist have confirmed it.  So, by all rights, I should be excited and happy.  Somehow, though, I’m not.

I guess my problem is that the newness has worn off.  Exercise is simply another thing that has been added to my daily routine.  Eating isn’t as much fun because most of the stuff I loved to eat is now off limits or I need to revise the recipes to make them healthier and I haven’t had much success with that yet.  I’m working on retraining my palette and my eating habits, but the fact is that I”ll always be a meat and potatoes girl with a side of cream sauce, cheese and bacon.  You can probably imagine how well my cardiologist likes that diet.

The urgency of getting healthy in order to save my life has worn off too.  My heart is better and the reality of the situation is that being in shape and losing weight and eating better may not have any bearing on whether or not it decides to go on the fritz again.   I know that losing weight and getting more fit is definitely the right thing to do, but I don’t get the same rush of accomplishment that I used to get.   Now it’s just something I do.

If there are any of you out there who have faced this problem, I could really use some advice.  I know I don’t want to go back to where I was, but I also don’t want something that is this big a part of my life to be nothing more than a dreary chore.  If anyone has any suggestions, please do share them.

As for me, one thing I do know I want to do is to start writing posts for this blog more frequently.  Maybe if I post about some of the things I’ve found difficult, I can get some suggestions and perhaps develop some solutions that will help others with the same problems.   Maybe that should be my new goal for this year.  I’ll have to ponder that.