1 Pound = 3500 Calories

Now you know the secret of life. Go forth and prosper.

But some of you may be wondering, how do I do that? Burn more than I consume?

You can workout like the ladies in my class. Here we’re doing a cardio workout; they are hugely dedicated.

But if this is intimidating to you, if you don’t want to do a step class, if you don’t even want to get off your couch today, and you won’t put on shorts because you don’t like how your legs look, then start by simply eating less.

There’s a lot of very easy things you can do, but first, we are going to do some math. Yippeee! Don’t worry, it’s not differential equations.

In order to burn off one pound of fat, you need a deficit of 3500 calories. All things being equal and you have consumed less than or burned off more than 3500 calories in a week, you will lose one pound that week.

3500 calories, divided by seven days per week, is 500 calories a day.

To a lose pound a week, you must eat 500 calories less a day. Get it?

A can of Sprite is 150 calories.
A candy bar is 250 calories.
A small portion of french fries is approximately 290 calories. Can you please have your hamburger without french fries today? Better yet, take the bun off too, but one step at a time.

That’s already 690 calories. And you didn’t do anything else that day.

I know, you guys don’t eat junk food. So we’ll talk more about portion control later. That’s a little bit longer discussion…in the meantime, have a tomato.

It’s one of God’s perfect foods.

Doctor Tortoise

Take me away to the Himalayans Google maps.

 

Wait, the Himalayans looks suspiciously like a turtle’s shell.

 

And not just any turtle, but Doctor Tortoise who lives at the farm in a turtle condo and eats all the lettuce she wants. Now that’s the life.

 

And she’s beautiful, you just have to look beyond the scales, the wrinkled skin and the missing leg. Maybe it ended up in someone’s soup.

 

And all the carrots she wants from the girl. Look at that face.

Neighbor Suzanne And The Dog

Neighbor Suzanne is a big fan of the dog and the dog really likes her a lot too. Maybe because their hair is the same color.

 

The dog loves her so much that she will sing to her.

 

“Neighbor Suzanne, I looooooove yuuuuuuu!”

 

“You have the best treeeeeeets!”

 

“And I waaaaannt some mooooooore!”

The dog starts her world tour in Jan 2009. Get your tickets now!

The End Of The Week 10/10/2008

Haaaave aaaa graaaaat weeeeekend everyone. Is there something on my faaaaaace?

Grass…My New High

Every since becoming a “photographer” I have learned a few lessons about human nature.

 

 

First, some people don’t like their images captured. They are suspicious of the motives behind the camera. Second, some people have something to hide so they will beat you up if you don’t ask permission. Third, be very very careful of your subject and always honor their wishes. Lastly, you are capturing someone’s soul so the relationship between photographer and subject should be honored.

So I’m licking my wounds and I’m taking pictures of grass for a while instead.

 

And mushrooms. It’s a great high man.

 

Grass is very photogenic and as long as you don’t smoke it, perfectly harmless to the photographer.

Perhaps all of us have skeletons in our closets, things we would rather not have other people know and somehow a photo would open that closet and prying eyes can see inside. Or perhaps we think a photo would misrepresent us in some way.

 

I get a rush when I see a great subject, so now grass is my new high.

How Not To Die

After the events of last weekend, I have been thinking about death. I know it’s morbid.

My pastor is fond of saying the death rate waivers around 100% and I’m not afraid of death. But last weekend, I was afraid of how I die and who I would leave behind.

The husband and the boy were in Alabama at a NASCAR race last weekend. Their fascination with racing is another story all together. Needless to say, it’s ok with me that I’m not included in their race plans.

The girl was at the farm, doing an endless riding lesson.

I was in downtown DC getting choked by a homeless man. It’s not how I thought I would go.

To say that my life flashed before my eyes is an exaggeration because it didn’t. To say I was totallly terrified is an understatement and I was. I knew there was going to be pain from the moment the man’s hands went around my neck to the moment I was actually going to die.

I always thought that I would die peacefully in my bed, with my family surrounding me. Not in a park in DC, strangled by a homeless man while the husband and the boy are cheering on Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the girl was riding a horse.

We really do not normally have this much excitement in our lives. Most of the time, we are going to work, going to school, going to church and yelling at kids to clean up their rooms. I’m ready to go back doing just that.

“You Handled It Well”

I’m amazed at the generosity and courage of people who devote their entire lives giving to and caring for those less fortunate than we are. I can never imagine what it would be like to be homeless, it never crosses my mind. But there are those whose lives are totally dedicated to the homeless and the afflicted. Praise-N-Thunder is an organization whose mission is to do just that – help the helpless. They are formed primarily of bikers – not the Cannondale crowd, the Harley Davidson crowd.

I live very close to Washington DC and I absolutely love that town. I am never fearful of walking around by myself. I was in DC last weekend to help serve the homeless – shoulder to shoulder with Praise-N-Thunder. I was with a whole group of people, most of them youth from our community.

I have walked the streets of Bangkok, trudged through the back alleys of Seoul, and weaved through drunks in Torrejon, Spain and have been perfectly safe. It tends to make an individual overly confident. So I wander away from my group, camera in hand. The homeless are everywhere. I take out my camera to get a picture of a man sleeping on a bench when I get tackled from behind. The man hits me so hard, my glasses go flying and my camera flew to the ground. He nearly knocks me off my feet. Then he came back at me, his face full of rage. He screams, “No pictures, no pictures!” He grabs me by my throat and pushes me back. And he grabs me again.

I feel animalistic fear. I say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no more pictures.” Then another homeless man comes over and grabs my attacker to get him off of me. And they start to fight. I have been terrified before, but not like this.

I run back to my group, in a daze. I was crying. There were hundreds of people in that park, the only person who came to my rescue was another homeless man.

The man who was running the show that day for Praise-N-Thunder, Wayne, heard my story and said he would take care of it. He has me point out my attacker and he goes over and talks to him. By this time, I needed a change of scenary and I go with another group to the next park, a couple of blocks away. People have recounted to me what Wayne said to him.

Wayne – “Hey man, is there anything I can do for you?”
The attacker - “Yeah, I can use something to wash my hands with.”
Wayne – “I hear you touched one of my people. If you want anything from me, you keep your hands off of my people.”

Men like Wayne are the ones God uses to impart justice in the world. They are the ones who walk softly and carry a big stick. They are the order keepers yet the compassionate servants. They are the courageous.

I see my responsibility in this event and I’m embarrassed. It was born from the sins of over-confidence, pride and cockiness. I was cocky and I lost all common sense. I shouldn’t wander away from my group, and I shouldn’t take pictures of the homeless without asking them first. As Wayne says, “They may have something going on.” No kidding.

I was thoroughly shaken but I couldn’t go home. It would have felt like I abandoned the mission. I had my camera jammed in my bag and I was terrified to take it out. As the afternoon wore on, I met a homeless man named Jack. He and I talked a while and I told him I was hit in the other park. He was so sympathetic that I start crying again. The attacker hit me so hard that the shutter release in my camera was stuck. The lens was stuck as well. I finally got the kinks out and I ask Jack if I could take a picture of him. He said no, so I asked him if he would take a picture of me.

This was the picture. I cried so hard that most of my make-up came off so I had to do a little touch up on this, but this is what he saw through my camera. He said he was an artist and that if he had a pencil and paper he would draw me.

As I was talking to Jack, another man came by. He said he was sorry about what happened in the other park. I said, “You were there? You saw it?” He said yes, and that sometimes there are people with mental problems. He said “We’re not all like that.” I thanked him for his kindness and I cried again. Then he said, “You handled it well.” It was such an odd statement, from a homeless man to someone who thinks she’s got it all together.

“You handled it well.”

When I got home, I was doing a thorough check on my camera and found this picture.

I was about to push the shutter release when my attacker hit me. This was what the camera showed at the moment of impact.

I’m going again next month by the way. I don’t believe my intentions were truly pure. I believe I went there to get another photo opportunity, not to truly learn and put my heart in the mission. This time, it won’t be about getting pictures, it will be about helping the helpless.

The Secret Of Life

Since starting this blog I have been filling it with pictures and posts about photography, and I’ve only had my camera since – oh – July. I’ve been a fitness instructor for 22 years, maybe 23, and this is my first fitness blog. Hmmm, I’m not sure what that means but since I’m not very self-perceptive, I won’t think too much about it.

I turned 40 a few years ago and did what every women who turns 40 does, take a long, hard, critical look in the mirror. It is such a pivotal moment, knowing that there’s no turning back. However, Oprah says that it’s the best time of a woman’s life, the 40’s. Since everything she says is true, I’m going to embrace it.

The fact is, as we get older, we must work harder. I know, no one wants to hear that but it’s true. Remember when we used to stay out all night, drinking, carousing, coming back to our dorm rooms and eating pizza until 4 am, and wake up the next morning, skinnier than when we went to bed? Well it ain’t happening in your 40’s. It’s life.

So here it is, if you eat more than what you burn, you will gain weight. I say again, if you eat more than what you burn, you will gain weight.

That’s the secret of life, and you read it here, on my blog. So live with it. Don’t eat more than you burn and you won’t gain weight. Period.

So, in some future blogs, I’ll give you tools to do that. It’s tools that I use. It’s food that I cook. It’s the struggle that I live with every day.

That’s the secret of life.

Like the pony tail flying up behind my head?

The Equestrian Mom With Lipstick

All this recent talk in the news about hockey moms, soccer moms and lipstick has got me thinkin’. Nothing is more fierce than an equestrian mom. That’s right, don’t mess.

She and Joker look beautiful together. I love the display of power and athletism. It’s juxteposed with the girl’s little vulnerable body. They have been together for a couple of years now and the girl has decided to take this whole horse riding thing to another level.

She was asked to join the equitation team and it took her all of about five seconds of thought before she said yes. She then had to talk us into it, and the first question we asked was, “How much is it?”

So now instead of riding for hours each week, we are riding non-stop each week. Yesterday, she rode for six hours straight. And I pray she doesn’t fall off.

I’m not sure what’s really involved in being an equestrian mom yet but I’m sure I will find out in the next few months. In the meantime, I’m going to put mac and cheese on the dinner menu three times a week so I (we) can afford the honor of being an equestrian mom – with lipstick.

A Study In Green

The girl loves my camera almost as much as I do and was in the garden, shooting weeds.

I think she’s quite the photographer. I find however, that even good photographers can use a little help. I don’t know how to use my camera very well. So when I take a picture, I fiddle with it a little bit in Photoshop to see if I can make it better.

There’s a fine line in Photoshop. You can cross that line and take something  good and produce something that looks like it crossed the line. But then on the other hand…it can be fantastic.

Here’s what we started out with.

It was nice, I knew the look the girl was going for.

but the difference side by side is really amazing.

Along with boosting the color, sharpening the image, I added a sparkly texture. I liked the sparkles so much that I added it to everything, with mixed results.

Here’s my niece getting attacked by sparkly dishwater bubbles.

But Photoshop applied correctly, I believe, in my dreams, I can be an artist.

Photoshop can turn weeds into works of art.

In spite of how powerful Photoshop can be…it starts with a good eye for composition. I do believe the girl is a budding genius.

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