I started off my Friday with stovetop oats with a small banana, pumpkin puree, apple slices, and wheat germ.

This was the first time I remember having wheat germ, although the taste was familiar. My mom said she buys it, so maybe I had it at my parents’ house before. I liked it! I especially loved the apple slices in the oats. I think I’ll be adding those again soon. I seem to be addicted to apples lately. When I run out of them, I instantly feel like I need to go and buy more.

I left work a little earlier than normal today because it was just so beautiful outside and I couldn’t stand being indoors anymore. Before Craig came home, I went on a long walk around our neighborhood while listening to the Dishing Up Nutrition podcast about diabetes.

One of the nutritionists mentioned working with a Minneapolis area based company where their cafe actually charged more for junk food than for whole foods. The whole foods were cheap on purpose so the employees would choose the healthy options more often. Pretty cool!

The “haunted house” in our neighborhood had this guy outside. Eek! The house actually has haunted house tours every Friday evening during October. Kind of fun for the neighborhood kids.

Craig and I decided to hit the tennis courts after work. We both like playing tennis, but hadn’t done so all summer! Can’t believe the first time we played this year was October 7th! I guess it was a hot summer, but the other excuse is that Craig hurt his knee doing some yard work in May and didn’t want to risk hurting it more by playing tennis. It felt good to get out with my racket! We weren’t the best, but that’s ok. We had fun and got some exercise in. There was a cross country meet at the park we went to and that was neat to watch.

I had half of this Berry Almond Crunch Pure Fit bar before we played. It’s gluten free, dairy free, low glycemic, vegan, no wheat, and has high protein at 18g per bar.

I really liked the texture. It was chewy and tasty! Can’t wait to try more of the Pure Fit bars.

I picked up another Matt Damon movie at the library today, The Adjustment Bureau, so that’s what we’re watching tonight. I already saw it in the theater with my friend Laurie, but Craig hasn’t seen it yet.

And tomorrow morning, I will or will not chop my hair. Either way, the side bangs will give me a bit of the change that I am yearning for with my style. Thanks for all of your feedback on which styles you like from what I posted yesterday.

Hope you’re having a fantastic start to your weekend!

You have heard the proverb “You are what you eat”. This is most certainly true, but equally true is “you are what you see” & “you are what you hear”. Just as our bodies are made up of the foods we eat, our minds are made up of the words we hear & the images we see. Information does us no good if we don’t access it. And just as we seek the best quality food to nourish our bodies, we should be very careful what information we take into our ears & eyes. In this age of instant gratification, sight & sound are easily the fastest ways to take in information. If you want to become an instant expert, just watch & listen up!

Podcasts

It’s killing me to have to admit this, but in a way, I owe my life to Steve Jobs. No, I am not becoming a Mac fangirl. I am a Windows geek & proud of it.  I despise Macs, each one with its satanic maker’s mark, an apple with a bite taken out of it. Macs are counter-intuitive for a Windows addict like me.  I would not own a Mac, but I do have iTunes on my computer. I don’t own a Mac, but I do own an iPod, an iPhone, & an iPad. I love my gadgets. It was the iPod that saved my life.

I work from home, which means I can listen to whatever I like while I work. I love good music, so much so that I once helped open & run a music store back in Erie, PA in the 1990′s. But these days, I don’t find myself listening to music very much at all. My love for music has been replaced by a new love for talk radio that comes to me in form of podcasts. What is a podcast? It is a portmanteau of the words “pod”— from Apple’s iPod —and the word “broadcasting”. It is a multimedia digital file, either in a video or audio format, made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, a computer, a television, etc.

Thanks to the internet, you can find shows about on any subject you like, store the shows you like, listen or watch them whenever you like, as often as you like, without commercial interruption. It’s the best & most painless way I found to learn something new. There are podcasts both on low carb living & on Lutheranism, both audio & video. Although this list is far from exhaustive, here are my personal preferences:

Low Carb Audio Podcasts

Dana Carpender’s Low Carb for Life

Dana Carpender‘s Low Carb for Life Podcast is hosted by the author of “How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds and How You Can Too” plus nine other cookbooks. She is a knowledgeable, funny, & often opinionated Every Woman who knows how to make eating healthy, fun,  & delicious! Dana has lived the low carb life-style herself for 16 years, & shares recipes, health tips & the occasional rant on her show. Recent topics are in-depth reviews of best-selling nutritional books like William Davis’ “Wheat Belly”, the history of low-carbing, & fascinating interviews with low carb celebrates as George Stella of the Food Network & Jimmy Moore of Living La Vida Low Carb. Dana is even making a TV pilot this fall which may lead to a low carb television series on the Food Network. Here’s hoping!

Dishing Up Nutrition

Dishing Up Nutrition is the weekly podcast of Nutritional Weight & Wellness from St. Paul, MN. It is co-hosted by licensed nutritionist Darlene Kvist who has counseled clients for over twenty years on the biochemistry of food and health. Teaching people about the power of nutrition is her passion. She has been quoted in Time Magazine on low-carb eating. She is joined by other members of their staff, all licensed & registered nutritionists & dieticians. You will learn how your food choices affect your energy, focus, moods and overall health. You will hear practical, real-life solutions for healthier living through nutrition. Here are some recent show topics:

Superfoods: Your Protection in a Cell-Phone World
Foods to Manage Arthritis Pain
Preventing Osteoporosis
Are You Carb Sensitive?
Childhood Obesity
Shopping and Eating Gluten Free for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Acid Reflux
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: The Connection to Insulin Resistance
Anti-Aging for Your Brain
Sleep Your Way to a Better Memory, Metabolism and Moods

Folks who live in the Twin Cities metropolitan area can listen to these broadcasts live on MyTalkRadio 107.1 FM every Saturday morning at 8:00 AM & repeated on Sunday evenings at 6:00 PM. The rest of us, all over the world, can download them here or listen to them individually on their webpage.

Low Carb Video Podcasts

Atkins Diet in the Kitchen

Kent Altena’s Atkins Diet in the Kitchen is a video series about a real guy living low carb style in West Des Moines, Iowa. How real? Well, having graduated from the University of South Dakota with a M.A. in history, Kent is a husband, a father of four, a former network engineer who has now become a firefighter for Polk City, a member of the National Guard, & an amateur athlete who enjoys running half

& full marathons. He also lost 211 pounds on the Atkins Diet. One of his missions in life is to help as many people as possible be as successful in losing weight as he has been. His cooking videos are staged in his home kitchen, showing you not only what to cook but how to cook it. His educational spots explain how to be successful in the low carb lifestyle from his living room. Neither a professional nutritionist nor a technical guru, Kent’s videos ring true with experience & candor. This may not be a slick “Biggest Loser” reality show, but it smacks of low carb realism!

Low Carb 360 YouTube Channel

Jay Becker is another true life Atkins supporter. After trying & rejecting both the Nutrisystem diet plan & Weight Watchers, at 265 pounds, Jay was dianosed with type 2 diabetes. This was the wake up call that changed her life. Now she is on a journey to lose the weight & proactively become healthier. After doing personal research & consulting with her doctor, she has  concluded that the low carb lifestyle is the best way to lose the weight & control diabetes. A Military wife & excellent cook, her videos at Low Carb 360 YouTube Channel display her real life

struggles with her weight & her great love for good food. Designed to be informative as well as encouraging, her videos are also a means of accountability with her viewers.   In her own words, Jay is “simply a woman on a mission to save her life from this devastating disease and get healthy.”