Regarding our food intake and eating pattern:

It is ultimately in our own hands.....

What we choose to live with.                 
                   and
What we choose to live without.
 

                          

"The body stubbornly clings to what it knows."

I found this phrase in a June 8, 2011 New York Times article about barefoot running.
I am not a runner,
however, I have friends who are runners,
and this makes me interested in the subject.

The article said:

"Most of us grew up wearing shoes. Shoes alter how we move. An interesting review article published this year in The Journal of Foot and Ankle Research found that if you put young children in shoes, their steps become longer than when they are barefoot, and they land with more force on their heels.

Similarly, when Dr. Lieberman traveled recently to Kenya for a study published last year in Nature, he found that Kenyan schoolchildren who lived in the city and habitually wore shoes ran differently from those who lived in the country and were almost always barefoot. Asked to run over a force platform that measured how their feet struck the ground, a majority of the urban youngsters landed on their heels and generated significant ground reaction forces or, in layman’s terms, pounding. The barefoot runners typically landed closer to the front of their feet and lightly, without generating as much apparent force."

Going barefoot is only one behavior involving the body,
there are many others. 

I find the barefoot running example to be a good illustration of the way
the body adapts to what has always been its normal lifestyle pattern,
and how it "stubbornly" attempts to keep that as the status quo.

This is one of the biggest difficulties which must be dealt with
when working toward weight-loss and maintenance of weight-loss.

Everybody wants to be beautiful,
but the definition of beauty is subjective.

Beauty is always judged by the receiver, but each of us
has an “inner-observer” that helps provide objectivity,
which is how individual perceptions of beauty,
....which factor in other characteristics such as personality and intelligence, ....
are often aggregated to form a consensus opinion.

Although beauty is subjective, our notion of what is beautiful
is also greatly influenced by the media, which leads us all to think
that having a fat free and svelte body is the ideal figure.

In fact, beauty is actually a combination of all the qualities of a person;
the things that delight the senses and
please the mind intellectually or emotionally.

In no particular order, here are a few things
to remind us how beautiful we truly are:

• Love makes you beautiful.
• Your good manners contribute to beauty.
• You’ve got a unique way of doing things and that makes you beautiful.
• Your eyes, hair, mouth, legs, shape make you beautiful.
• Your kindness and warmth makes you beautiful.
• Your smile makes you beautiful.
• Your good heart makes you beautiful.
• Your soothing or husky voice makes you beautiful.
• Your patience and empathy makes you beautiful.
• Your interest in others makes you beautiful.
• Your fashion sense and style makes you attractive.
• Your ripped abs and muscles makes you attractive.
• Your charisma makes you look beautiful.
• Pregnancy makes you beautiful.
• Your height (tall, short or average) makes you beautiful
• Depending on how you present them, at times even your flaws make you beautiful.
• Your friendly personality makes you beautiful.
• Your positive attitude to life makes you beautiful.
• The way you toss your hair, keep your nails, shrug your shoulders,
................walk upright, all contribute toward making you beautiful.
• Your specific interests play a role in your beauty.
• Your humility also makes you beautiful.
• Your overwhelming charm makes you beautiful.
• Your healthy eating habits make you beautiful.
• Your nice smell contributes to what makes you attractive.
• Wearing bright colors make you beautiful.
• Celebrating others and giving sincere compliments adds to your beauty.
• Your talents make you beautiful.
• Your thoughtfulness makes you beautiful.

Regardless of how you define beauty, you’re right.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…it’s subjective.
Nobody can prove that what you see as beautiful is wrong.

Sometimes I choose not to organize my Thoughts,
and just write about them in a random manner
Today is one of those days.

This is my first morning weighing in without any cast.
I am pleased about this.
However, even a slight use of my wrist, arm and hand is painful.
I am unable to grasp anything; can’t curl my hand into a fist,
or position my wrist above the keyboard in a typing position.
So recovery appears to be more distant than I anticipated,
and I am working to readjust my expectations
about being able to quickly resume my normal activities.

Today my weight is only one pound higher
than it was on Good Friday morning,
which is the day I broke my wrist.
During this period, I’ve managed to keep my calories
lower than is normal for me, but I’ve had to spend
a great deal of time at rest, which reduced my energy burn.
I am both grateful for, and dissatisfied by, my weight results,
and I believe that is a fairly normal reaction.
 One of my sisters-in-law died this week, 
which reminds me that life is short and precious.
Looking at the Big Picture shows me that
my temporary disability and discomfort is actually
only a minor inconvenience.

Sorrow comes to us all, and there are times we feel sad.
But even during times of sadness, I believe that each of us has the ability
to work on adjusting our mental attitudes toward Acceptance and Gratitude,
and that by placing our focus on the things that are positive
we can make life far more pleasant, both for ourselves and for others.

                             

Many people appear to be confused about
the amount of protein that is actually needed by the body,
and eat far more than their daily requirement.

Protein eaten beyond the amount needed by the body
triggers the process of gluconeogeneses,
which means one’s body turns that extra protein into glucose.
This glucose triggers insulin release and the body handles that glucose
the same way it handles the glucose generated from eating carbohydrates.

 So how much protein do we really need?

To find out the body’s protein requirement,
first we need to fix upon a number that we call our ideal weight
because our extra weight from fat doesn’t create a need for additional protein.

The simple formula for an active person is to take one’s
Ideal Weight number and divide it by 2.2 (lbs to kilos).
Next, take that resulting sum and multiply it by 1.2.
This result is the approximate amount of protein grams required.
If one is Sedentary, the multiplication number is 1 instead of 1.2.

Using this simple formula, and setting my ideal weight as 115 lbs,
with my activity status as Sedentary, results in a protein requirement
of about 52 grams daily. Increasing this to active results in a protein
requirement of 62. This shows my ideal daily protein intake
to be between 52-62 grams daily.

Protein has a role in everyone's nutrition plan,
and is an essential nutrient that is important for building and repairing muscles.

For the purpose of building muscle mass many respected bodybuilding experts think the goal should be a general recommendation of 70-120 grams of protein per day, and this should be an average intake. As long as one averages around 70-120 grams per day (number depending on individual ideal weight) one could be lower on some days and slightly higher on others, but muscle growth will still occur.

Even if one isn’t interested in bodybuilding. It probably makes sense to try and consume SLIGHTLY ABOVE the recommended amounts, with the general population aiming for around 70-120 grams of protein per day, depending on one’s body weight and current calorie intake. Women to aim for the lower end of this scale, and bigger men to aim for the upper end of this scale.

Below are some detailed formulas:

One of these detailed formulas is:

A standard method used by nutritionists to estimate our minimum daily protein requirement is to multiply the ideal body weight in kilograms by .8, or weight in pounds by .37. This is the number of grams of protein that should be the daily minimum. According to this method, a person weighing 150 lbs. should eat 55 grams of protein per day, a 200-pound person should get 74 grams, and a 250-pound person, 92 grams.

Another detailed formula is as follows:
Step 1  One way is to find out what percentage of your body weight is fat. 
The rest of it is lean body mass.

So if you weigh 122 lbs, and your body fat percentage is 19%, that is 23 lbs.
That means your lean body mass is 122 minus 23, which is 99 lbs.

Lean Body Weight Formula,

After determining lean body mass one can use Sears’ formula, in which the pounds
of lean body mass are to be multiplied by the following, depending on activity level,
to get the daily protein requirement in grams:

• Sedentary - multiply lbs of lean body mass by .5
• Light activity (e.g. walking) - multiply by .6
• Moderate (30 minutes of vigorous activity 3 days per week) .7
• Active (1 hour per day 5 days per week) - .8
• Very Active (10 hours of vigorous activity per week - .9
• Athlete - multiply by 1.0

OR we can use simply use

Woman's ideal body weight:
US measure: 100 pounds for 60 inches in height
+ 5 pounds for each additional inch over 60 inches
Metric: 45 kilograms for 150 centimeters in height
+ 0.85 kilograms for each additional centimeter in height

Men's ideal body weight:
US measure: 106 pounds for 60 inches in height
+ 6 pounds for each additional inch over 60 inches
Metric: 48 kilograms for 150 centimeters in height
+ 1 kilogram for each additional centimeter in height

Step 2 - Use your ideal weight to determine your daily protein requirement.

The World Health Organization established a daily protein requirement less than the
UK Department of Health and Social Security, and the United States RDA.
Using the high and low recommendations together provides an acceptable range
for daily protein requirement.

Men and women protein intake range based on ideal body weight:

Minimum Daily Protein Requirement: W.H.O. recommends 0.45 grams of protein
per kilogram of ideal body weight per day.

Maximum Daily Protein Requirement: US RDA recommends 0.8 grams of protein
per kilogram of ideal body weight per day. The UK Department of Health and Social
Security is approximately the same. 

  Applying the above formula on myself using:

Calculations for Ideal Weight :
US – 100 lbs + 5 lbs per inch,
Metric – 45 kilograms + 0.85 k per centimeter

Phyllis Collins : Female: 5 ft 0 in, or 152 centimeters 

Ideal Weight: 100 lbs (US) or 45 kilograms (Metric).
Protein Requirement (World Health Organization):
         weight 45 kilograms x 0.45 = 20 grams
Protein Requirement (United States RDA):
         weight 45 kilograms x 0.8 = 36 grams

Therefore based on this formula,
my Protein daily requirement is between 20 and 36 grams.

So, depending on what my ideal weight actually is,
all of these formulas place my daily protein requirement
between 20 grams and 62 grams. 

1 protein gram = 4 calories.
Therefore the calories of my body’s daily protein requirement is:
somewhere between 80 and 248 calories of pure protein.

Like the majority of people who look into this subject,
I am often am very surprised to see how little protein
that my body actually requires for ongoing good health.

Note, that there are only two other nutrients used by the body.
These are fat and carbohydrates, and major research studies show
that the only one of the three nutrients that are NOT ESSENTIAL
for the body’s health is carbohydrates, and.
this is one of the major reasons that the body processes
prioritize burning carbs for energy before using the other two nutrients.

Please don’t misunderstand me here.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t eat carbohydrates.
  I do eat them.
I’m saying they aren’t an essential requirement.