Starbucks!!!!!!

Starbucks does it again!!!  Our Heros. Not only did they pack a huge amount of Emergency Food Boxes that will go out into Phoenix area communities, all 50 Starbucks volunteers took the pound for pound challenge pledge!  You can too!  http://www.pfpchallenge.com/
The poundage these volunteers pledged  x  .11cents for each pound will bring an approximate donation of $200 to St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance!!! 
I of course availed myself of half a Starbucks cinnamin donut.. yes they did bring plenty of fresh brewed coffee and bakery items... but isn't that what volunteering is all about? Partaking and participating!
Gotta walk off that half donut.
GO STARBUCKS!!!!!

10 States with the Deadiest Eating Habits

Yep, Arizona is on the list. Time to change things!

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112083/10-states-with-the-deadliest-eating-habits

SEVEN POUNDS

Even with the infiltrating girl scout cookies.......SEVEN POUNDS....   slowly but surely. Just think what would happen if I super focused....   walked every day..  didn't eat the girl scout cookies (but I can substitute them for healthy foods as long as I keep within my weight watcher points... and Thin Mints have the least amount of points.of all the Girl Scout Cookies)...)  hee hee
You know, I thought I had left the Girl Scout Cookies in my desk drawer at work...   so I would be safe...
I get home and open the fridge and guess what is staring at me from the center rack....  THIN MINT GIRL SCOUT COOKIES  that someone had given my mother. Did they have to put them right in the front middle of the fridge?????

Okay enough already about the cookies. I have to get over it. There will be a point in the near future when our Food Bank will receive Lots and Lots of those Girl scout cookies to distribute to agencies and
other folks. Of course we who work here cannot grab and gobble them but they will be staring at us, driving us to hunt down girl scout selling them at our neighborhood grocery stores...hee hee...
OR maybe they will act as a catalyst to propell me away from them faster as I race towards the Government Commodities racks in the back of the warehouse... then I can race all the way around the tip of the warehouse up the front aisle past the freezers and again quickly past the towers of boxed girl scout cookies...
Maybe they should be considered a power food.... it takes power to disengage ones self from them...

Powering out!!!

Girl Scout Cookies???

Okay whose great idea was it to order girl scout cookies... mint girl scout cookies.. oh yeah that would be me... I thought I was doing myself a favor by ordering JUST ONE BOX,..... NOT..
Well here it sits... delivered today by a 7 ft tall surrogate girl scout who made sure I knew they were here. Thank you Chris...  You're seven foot tall, you don't have to worry about the effects a box of girl
scout cookies have on you... they go straight to your socks...
I on the otherhand , midget girl who has lost 6 lbs on weight watchers because of rigid carefulness and the new POINTS PLUS SYSTEM , now risk gaining it all back just by looking at the dang box..
Okay, I ate two... three...plus crumbs..
I didn't think girl scout cookies were allowed in Feeding America Food Banks...    not the correct nurtritional content..
WHO LET THE GIRL SCOUT THRU THE FRONT DOOR....  oh yeah, her Aunt works in Agency Services...
I put them in my bottom drawer. they smell very lovely....  really..
Hmmmm... I wonder how many points they are....  hmmmm...  well, I have 49 extra points for the week..
oops, I ate another one..
Maybe I'll give them to Jerry Brown in the office down the hall.. he's going on vacation back east... it's cold there... these could warm him up... ya know... mint toasty warmth.. oops..   another..
gotta go....  oh... maybe Stewart our official Guiniea Pig mascott would like them... they are much better than carrots or celery...  oopps.... you know what i just did...

So Lucky

I'm grinding away. I've lost 5 lbs. I have friends here at the food Bank who have dropped 20... but they are going to extreme measures. That's okay, I figure theyare younger than I and their bodies less prone to implode if they don't take in the proper nutrition.

I can't imagine being forced on an extreme diet. Apparently many American's are. According to the article linked below, 43.6 million Americans are receiving food stamps. Over 1 million of them live in Arizona. I took my laps around the warehouse today and looked at our shelves and racks of food. I began to appreciate the fact that our programs are designed to help these families by supplementing their food supply with nutritionally balanced food boxes. No one should be forced to go on an extreme measure diet, yet so many in our society are. For the number of people who receive food stamps you better believe that their are an equal number who need them but just miss qualifying or are just to proud. They have lived for so many years maintaining in a healthy economic diet. Now it's all changed.

So I will be thankful for the guidance I get nutritionally and for the ability to be able to purchase the food I need and also enjoy.

I can tell stories about living on Top Ramen in NYC....  next time.
Her's a link to a sobering article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/02/02/some-43-million-americans-use-food-stamps/

Coffee....now

Stairs, Elevator...Elevator...Stairs.... Elevator...

When I lived in New York I walked 5 - 6 hours a day. Dragged my laundry in a basket to the laundromat..
Used a cart to walk 8 blocks to the grocery store   squeeze thru the narrow crowded aisles...  and walk 8 blocks home..walk blocks and blocks to the elevated subway line... haul anything I was carrying up those stairs.. get to a main underground subway Station, where the elevators were unapproachable because of certain odors that were wafting from them so I would scurry to the 1/4 mile steep escalator that would carry me up to street level unless it wasn't working and then would have to utlize the steep stairway, my carrier banking behind me as I climbed to the street... and then the walking began....

I was lot's thinner...   actually had muscle tone...

Today, in Phoenix, when I get  in the car to drive to the Circle K around the corner  and don't have to worry about whether or not I can wear heels because I never have to walk that far in them or over

cracked and pottholed streets...   my delema      
                          STAIRS                            .........................        ELEVATOR

 

In New York the Elevator was my friend. I'll be danged if I am walking up to the stairs to the

the 89th floor of any Building.

But this is only one floor.   One floor at the Food bank. One flight of Stairs.

Just think of the calories that will be burned. The muscle tone that will be gained.

How happy I will be with the results.....    Oh, but look at that elevator. My friend.... I think I'm having flashbacks to having to climb the sairs to my second floor apt and my friends 4th floor walkups....

But....   yes.... my butt.......

Stairs

maybe I should carry a few canned donations...   burn more calories

I just noticed the names of deceased donors on the wall next to the elevator.... is that a hint???

                                                                                               

Where have I ...

...Where have I been. There is so much that can distract you from goal. Life just throws things at you and you have to keep on track...  That's what I'm doing right now. Tracking my food consumption for Weight Watchers.
I joined on Friday (to all you weight loss leaders, perkiness is not a prerequisite ...realness is. So please get real!)
Saturday, I tried to finish all the housework, Yard work and Mom work so I could concentrate on figuring this Points Plus program out. Never got to it.
Finally, Sunday afternoon I was able to sit down and study it. Points plus...STUDY. I am the kind of person who likes to get all her calories in a row before I embark on losing them. This is a good program and my ability to utilize it will evolve over time as I have more time to embrace it. But I am sloshing foward.
I have also joined the YMCA. I like it because I don't have trainers pestering me to pay for training sessions. They have a great pool. I just have to get brave enough to disrobe and use it.
Brianna our graphics designer extraodinaire is taking dance classes after work. I think that is marvelous. What a great way to tone up . Creative movement. I think that is what I will eventually do when I get my stamina up. If I can figure out how to set up my ipod with cool dance jam stuff I will just dance around the warehouse and my house till then.
Any thoughts on good dance jam music.... I'm an old disco girl...   really....

Loss and loss and fighting thru...

I am a survivor of 9/11 and the ensuing hours days months and years following. I overslept by and hour and a half that day and missed the appointment I had on the floor above the line of terror delivered by the first plane. Wasn't my time. But living through the moments, days and months to come in a devastated but determined city, walking always through the technicolor streets below and above ground zero and peering daily upon a scene presenting itself in black and white enveloped in a fog of gray, took an invisible toll on my psyche. Post traumatic stress syndrome. In the past years it presented as times of isolation and overeating as a form of protection. If the tragedy can't get through the outer layers then it can't touch me. It won't hurt me. I don't have to feel it.
Saturday morning, I lay in bed. I was fighting off symptoms of the flu, pedometer hooked to my sleep attire  with the TV on when the news flashes started coming. And as the tragic moments in Tucson began to unfold I felt myself slipping into the mold I had adopted during the weeks of 9/11. Transfixed
by the happenings on the screen and the need to isolate myself.   And maybe eat. Or not.
But this time I came to the realization that I can't stay still for long. I felt the stillness trying to keep me trapped and discovered that movement releases. It releases all that would try to deter us from our futures.
It was hard to pull myself out of that and I am still in process. I look at the strength of all those who are directly affected by the loss and grief of Saturday's tragedy. And their determination to heal.
I lost two pounds last week.
Those families lost their loved ones.
I can certainly find strength to  get healthy so my life can be extended.
I can find the strength to move.
God Bless all the souls who through the act of their passing re ignite something within all of us that wakes up compassion , caring and hope.

TIRED

I'm tired and I haven't done anything. Maybe it's all catching up with me. Today I came in without drinking any coffee and had to breath into a tiny machine for a metabolic rate test. I had to let myself go real zen for about 10 minutes until it beeped. This would establish my resting metabolic rate.. or how many calories worth of cookies can I eat and not gain any weight if I slept all day.
I have the metabolic rate of a turtle. That means i get to eat less calories.  I'm going home. Look at all my diet books... just weight... wait...

PEDOMETERS and PARADES

8229 steps. 8695 steps.6520 steps (and that was a three lap around the warehouse day.)Today...4295 steps. There is still time for  some more. The midday is young.
Poor warehouse guys. They have to witness a constant parade of employees who have barely stepped foot on the sturdy concrete floors. The high rise of rackings provide citylike inquisitiveness as many peer upwards to see what those racks may hold.
Unfortunately for the fork drivers, the warehouse lookey loos have a tendancy to gravitate straight to them. Not to worry,  Feeding America, we've figured out a mini bullhorn system so everybody knows everybodys positions whereever thy tread or ride. Oh, here comes our Safety Manager. Side step into that rack aisle till he passes.
It's great for those who don't get to witness the daily activities of hardworking production folk or the vigorous activity of all the wonderful volunteers. Briskly walking thru the warehouse definitely has it's moments. Especially when you spy cool stuff on a pallet going out to agencys and you realize that so many items are on their way out to those in need and you are a part of it.
Okay so lets talk about those long lanky legged 14000 step a day employees. I'm 5'2" and take midget steps..oh wait, then that would be to my advantage. It would take me more steps to get around the warehouse 3 times than ol long lanky legged guy. Hmmmmm.
Still, 14000 steps...
Tomorrow I get to be zen and breathe into a machine so it can tell me what my resting metabolic rate is.
This will take about 10 minutes and I have to lie on the floor of my little office to do this. Then I punch a bunch of numbers into a weight loss computer program that will tell me everything I need to know to loose 2.2 lbs a week or more, though it's not helthy to loose more than that a week.
WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO LOOSE 27 LBS A WEEK on the BIGGEST LOOSER!!!!
That's what I want.... oh yeah, I have a job so I can't train all day and have someone yell at my chubby legs.
Yes I actually do do work....

THe BIG WEIGH

The day has come. The question remains, "Is there a proper way to weigh in on a scale that has it's own parking spot? Do you jump on the middle or is it necessary to have all points covered so the weigh is accurate? Shoes on or off? Are lookey loos allowed? Will the weigh in supervisor be descreet? Can two people weigh in at the same time so no one will know the truth?

Luckily the 46 employees who chose to participate in the weight loss segment  of St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance Wellness campaign were guided gracefully thru the weigh in process by our own

Sue Kaplan Anderson.  With great dignity and accuracy ( we had to stand center scale 2 times to insure correct weight) Sue got us all thru it. There were alot of different emotions but everyone was pretty calm.

Besides the weigh in part of our Wellness campaign 60 employees are participating in our

Pedometer challenge. We have to log our steps every day. Lots of laps around the warehouse.

Any ideas on what else we can do?

THE SCALE.....

When you work at the largest food bank in the United States things seem to work out in a BIG way...
including the scale. It's big . We actually have quite a few of these big scales. The more food that gives its weight over to those big scales , the more meals that go back out into the community. Those scales make the life of many of our employees easier as 72 million lbs of food equaling 72 million meals into our community pass over them at one point or another during the year.
SO, the powers that be thought it only appropriate that we have the weigh in for our company fitness program ON THAT BIG SCALE. Need I say more.

And subconciously that big scale worked on me as I was trying desperately to get to work this morning. I couldn't find my YMCA membership card...  The windsheild of my car was frozen over (yes in Phoenix)  I get to the parking lot at work and get halfway to the warehouse and realize I forgot my ID Badge in the car...  the lanyard to the ID badge breaks and it is somewhere in the parking lot..
I see the scale as I come thru the warehouse door, put my coat and the stuff I'm carrying down on a
pallet of stuff that gets taken away...

Then, the weigh in.....

The Prep is worse than the pounds...

Okay, anyone who says it's easy to just jump in and start the weight loss, healthy new me thing is lying.
Like any good process it takes some preperation and sometimes the prep can get overwhelming if you decide that you ned to do it all at once. "I want what I want and I want it now and if it all isn't laid out there in front of me I just might not do it because if I don't have the one thing in place how can I start to do the other.
For example (this has nothing to do with te prep part... this morning I came into work. I had intended to
put my stuff in my offiice and then do a pedometer walk around the warehouse (because today is the start of our company fitness pedometer competition).... well, I walk thru the warehouse door and there is Channel 12 TV set up to do a piece on our Super Citrus Saturday coming up soon. My mind immeadiately says... oh no... you better wait to do your pedometer walk, because you don't want TV cameras capturing inadvertent shots of a crazy foodbank lady striding back and forth behind the main shot!
Our minds will do these things to us (I know I'm not the only one). If you don't have the right food available, well just wait till the next day to keep going. If you haven't bought the lock to the locker at the gym, just wait another day to go. If you don't have the new shoes you needed, don't start exercising.... and on  and on.
Lots of things have to be in place for the start of all this to go smoothly. That is not happening in my case so I just have to push thru all a pice at a time and keep moving ahead.
I will go to the YMCA today after work. I signed up last Wednesday, I need a lock for the locker, don't have it, so I'll dress before I go and throw everything in my car. Carry around the big set of keys. Who cares.
Don't have my diet in place. I think I will do weight watchers. The meeting I want to go to isn't untill Friday....so I will do yogurt and slim fasts until I get that established.
 Then I don't have to figure out a shopping list yet....
A bunch of little things that all take time...that can stop you in your tracks if you let them, I can't let them.
FORGE ON!!!
I really need to get my nails done. I wonder if the TV crew is gone.