Guilt Free Bread

If we ever decided to market Rhonda's bread, we would probably label it, Guilt Free Bread. Here are some good reasons why:

1)Carbohydrates. Rhonda's bread is made from whole wheat flour that she grinds at the moment she needs it. Unlike most commercially available wheat breads today, which are basically refined white flour with the wheat germ and bran put back in the dough, the flour in Rhonda's bread hasn't been processed. It is a complex carbohydrate and the human body takes longer to break it down. What this boils down to is that you don't need to worry about carbohydrates!

2)Low fat content. Bread is usually made with vegetable oil, which, as you can imagine, has a high fat content. Rhonda makes her bread with lecithin which is made from soy beans. It has about half the fat of vegetable oil, and one uses only half as much, so basically, Rhonda's bread has only a fourth the fat of regular whole wheat bread. Whether you have one slice or several, fat is so minimal that you don't need to worry about that, either.

3)Starch. Your eating whole wheat bread for crying out loud. Don't worry about starch! By the way, don't ever listen to anyone who tells you to cut out whole potatoes if you want to lose weight. They are a complex carbohydrate too. Unless you deep fat fry them. That's a sure fire way to kill any benefit from potatoes. Another interesting fact is that potatoes have 200 chromosomes. We human beings only have 46!

4)Calories. You shouldn't be counting calories. Never worry about those! Rhonda has lost 50 pounds and I've lost a 100 pounds and we have NEVER counted a single calorie!

I hear people who are on diets complain that they wish they had something substantial to eat. With Rhonda's guilt free bread, they could eat something substantial and they will lose weight!

This week, Rhonda and I have been feeling the effects of missing 3 days at the gym last week. We are finding that things we did, or didn't do last week, come back to haunt us this next week. So I lost only one pound since last week and Rhonda stayed the same.

Samesies, Twice

Rhonda and I were both at 224 pounds last week. The month of June was not a good month for weight-loss. There was my company's 100th anniversary and all the food festivities of that. Then we ran into girls camp. We didn't make it to the gym because of that, but for the most part we were diligent going to work out five mornings a week, most weeks. We didn't have opportunity to weigh ourselves on Friday mornings and that made it difficult to hold ourselves accountable. But we are making ourselves accountable to you, right now. Actually, we both weighed in this week at 220 pounds. It is the first time that both of us have been the same weight for two weeks in a row. It's also the first time both of us have lost 4 pounds in the same week.

Thanks for your continued encouragement and support!

Picture: Rhonda and Hillary at girls camp.

A Memorable Night!

We wanted to share some of the pictures from the 100th Anniversary of the Hotel Utah/Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was such a wonderful night. Hillary worked in the kitchen for two days preparing the suptuous feast for us. This is Borscht Soup a Hotel Utah specialty from decades ago. It is made from beets and Hillary helped peel two boxes of them.

This was our table.It was set with gold plates. The table cloth had gold embroidery on it. We were each given a gold medallion with the Hotel Utah building on one side and Joseph Smith's profile on the other. We had assigned seating.

OK its kind of a family joke that I can't keep my eyes open for a picture. But look behind me. I want you to see the white plumed centerpieces with the flowers. I am standing by Alan Osmond's place (He had a little card by his plate)

Here is my favorite picture. The blue hat is from Hillary; the black hat is from the host taking our picture. The car that we are standing in front of is a 1912 Cadillac. This is in the lobby of the JSMB and will be on display as well as other memorabilia all summer.

This is an ice sculpture taken from the back. Bill was on the committee that planned the celebration. He mostly helped the KBYU documentary maker with contacting past employees to interview them. The documentary will most probably be coming out to the public in November.

The 3 “E”s of Weight-Loss

Rhonda using the Arc Trainer at Gold's Gym

I've lost a hundred pounds and I've kept it off for over a year. There are a lot of weight-loss programs out there. Here's mine. It's called the 3 “E”s of Weight-Loss.

These are:

Emotions
Eating
Exercise

These are listed in order of importance, but you need all three to be successful.

First, Emotions.

You've probably heard that the Earth was created spiritually before it was created physically. That's exactly what you've got to do with weight-loss. You need to visualize it! You need to see yourself as a lean person. You've got to believe it is possible, too.

Second, Eating

This blog has addressed the topic of eating many times over the last two and a half years. Starvation diets might produce results initially, but once a person goes off that kind of diet, they grain the weight right back again. Successful weight-loss requires exercise – that's the furnace. The furnace requires fuel. That's where eating comes in. And it needs to be done a lot. However, it needs to be the right food! Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy amounts of other things – Successful weight-loss depends on these.

Third, Exercise

This is where you really need to be dedicated. Long, rhythmic, and many times a week – aerobic exercise. That's what you need! This blog has also focused on that.

So there you have it!

This past week, I gained a pound and Rhonda lost a pound. We are both in the low 220s. A few weeks ago I was at 214, which would have been the lowest for this year. But, the scale at Gold's Gym – which has been dead-on accurate for 3 and a half years, might have been malfunctioning and gave a false read, because the next week I gained 7 pounds. It makes it sound like we were chucking down cookies all week, which we certainly haven't been. Weight is just one indicator here. Next week, we measure ourselves. That is a very important indicator. How we feel is another indicator. We feel great!

The Authors of How to Lower Your Fat Thermostat

Today's blog focuses on the three authors of How To Lower Your Fat Thermostat. They are Dr. Garth Fisher, Dr. Dennis Remington and Dr. Edward Parent. They all have ties to BYU and/or Utah. Here is a paragraph from their forward:

"We had all been reading the literature relating to weight management and were excited when we read the new ideas concerning the weight-regulating mechanism, setpoint, and energy conservation and wasting. As we continued our study, it became clear that the conventional approaches to weight control would never work and we began to develop treatment principles to lower the setpoint so that the body would allow excess fat to be lost naturally and permanently" page x.

It works for Bill and Rhonda. Bill has kept off 100 pounds since February of 2010 and Rhonda has kept 50 pounds since June of 2010.

They have good results to report from this week. Bill lost 4 pounds and weighs 214, Rhonda lost 2 pounds and weighs 221.

How to Lower Your Fat Thermostat

Here is our report for this last week's progress. Rhonda stayed the same which is OK with her. She has a goal for the next two months to get 95 out of 100 points in the How To Lower Your Fat Thermostat book. She weighs 223.

Bill lost another 3 pounds! He has done nothing unusual, so we figure that his body is adjusting back to where his thermostat was set before surgery. He gained 5 pounds not being able to exersize for two weeks after surgery, but has now dropped 6 in two weeks. He weighs 218.

Make Over Month

We had an amazing month last month. April 4th was the day of Bill's surgeries. They went well. His right eye was lowered from seeing 60% from the normal plane to 8% from the normal plane. This has moved the two images he was seeing closer together. Now his brain just needs to figure out what he is seeing! His facial reconstruction has so far held his cheek up. The right side of his mouth is in a lovely upward curve. We are going to give it another month to see if it is going to hold there (the cheek is a heavy thing) and then we will break out the party hats, print a before and after picture, and get him new glasses! Thank you for all of your prayers.

Your prayers are very effective as they spilled over to bless our house. Just a week after surgery John and Vera, Bill's brother and sister, put a new roof on our house. Brandon, our son-in-law, cut down two irksome trees (one was dead) and an even more irksome bush. Valerie put those branches in her jeep and drove them to the dump. Emily and David Haralson painted the front of our house while visiting here on vacation. Christopher Nay, a friend of Hillary's, dug out the stump from the bush and planted an apricot tree in our back yard. Hillary scraped old paint off the window sill and started the painting of the accent color, hunter green. I painted the flashing with rust proof paint. Even the full-time missionaries came and help paint the side of our house.

As far as the month of April Bill gained only 2 pounds for all the sitting he did recuperating. Rhonda gained 3 pounds. But she is encouraged by the thought that the same truths about weight loss that led to her losing 50 pounds can be followed with just as good results for another 50 pounds.