Author: admin

Wordly wise – an easy way to teach spelling

One of the unique results that stem from being the all-powerful Earth Mother is that other moms will ask me to tutor their kids.

This morning I was requested to help an 11 year old memorize her 15 Wordly Wise spelling words. I first asked her, how do you study? “Well, I use flash cards and memorize them.” Apparently this was not too effective, as past grades had shown.

So! Instead of just ‘memorizing’ the words, I had her do the following:

  1. Write down the word, stare at it.
  2. Close the eyes, picture a blackboard in the mind, and then write the word mentally on the blackboard.
  3. Repeat back to me what the blackboard says
  4. Open the eyes, see if the recital was correct
  5. Repeat twice more

I did this for each word, and then added repeating back other words at random.

It took 40 minutes, but eventually we worked thru all the words until they were down perfectly.

So we’ll see how the test goes.

This study method has proved to be extremely effective because it utilizes all sorts of learning – visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. I figure that at least one of those styles must adhere! :-)

Thus, if your kids are having problems with spelling tests, try the above. You might be surprised at how useful it can be.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – want spelling help?

Need to figure out your BMI Body Mass Index?

Morning,

Ever want to figure out just how much fat your body should be composed of, based upon your weight and height?

Worry no more! There are some excellent calculators out there like:

Calculate your BMI

Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women.

* Enter your weight and height using Standard or Metric measures.
* Click on “Compute BMI” and your BMI will appear in the heart of the figure……MORE….

and

BMI Calculator: Harris Benedict Equation

The Harris Benedict Equation is a formula that uses your BMR and then applies an activity factor to determine your total daily energy expenditure (calories). The only factor omitted by the Harris Benedict Equation is lean body mass. Remember, leaner bodies need more calories than less leaner ones. Therefore, this equation will be very accurate in all but the very muscular (will under-estimate calorie needs) and the very fat (will over-estimate calorie needs).

First, determine your BMR using our BMR Calculator or our BMR Formula…..MORE…

Do visit the sites above – they’re quite excellent and will give you some great ideas about your own personal situation.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – need some calipers? Lookie here:

I can do a 20 pound assisted pullup!

Morning,

This is major news for me!

You see, back in early 2007, I made a promise to myself that by the end of summer, I’d be able to do one (only one!) pullup by myself.

At the gym, we have this super cool assisted pullup machine – when I started, I worked against a 90 pound offset (‘course, I was 170+ in weight).

I’m now 133, and am able to do an assisted pullup against 20 pounds! This means that instead of lifting 80 pounds, I can now lift 110 or so via my beloved biceps, triceps, deltoids, etc.

I really enjoy trying pullups. They’re quite a super exercise for strength training!

Need a good site? Consider Mistress Krista! She writes:

…..

Pullups are a cool exercise. They look tuff, they feel butch, they’re low-tech, and they are one of the best exercises for all-round upper body strength. Not only are your back, biceps, forearms, and shoulders involved, but you may also feel them in your abs. (Gawd, my abs were sore for a week after my first attempt at pullups… felt like I’d pulled my ribcage out through my nostrils)

Pullups are also darn hard for the average woman to do. Most untrained females who are older than 10 and heavier than 50 lbs can’t do them. The good news, though, is that most trained women CAN do them. It just takes practice, patience, and time. So, if you’ve always wanted to do a pullup, or you have to do a few to pass a military or police fitness test, this article is for you!

The first thing to mention is the role of strength relative to mass. The heavier you are, the more weight you’re going to be pulling up. If you need to do pullups for something like a job-related fitness test and you have excess body fat to lose, then consider dumping some of that body fat overboard (of course, using a sensible nutrition plan of moderate caloric restriction and perhaps some interval training, as recommended elsewhere on this site). The lighter you are, the better your chances. That being said, the heaviest woman I’ve ever seen do a pullup was nearly 200 lbs., so it can be done even if you’re bigger. It’s just that this is one of those areas of physical unfairness where it’s better to be smaller….MORE….

And here’s another inspiring article:

….

On January 1, 2001 – I set a goal to be able to do five chin-ups and three pull-ups by December 31, 2001.

A chin-up is when you pull yourself up with your palms facing you (using a lot of biceps) and a pull-up is when your palms face away from you (using a lot of back muscles). Most people find the chin-up to be the easier of the two.

Looking back to when I first set my goal I remember that my course of action was to gather as much information as I could, make a plan, commit to it, and then make the necessary adjustments along the way.

I gathered information by speaking with several different people including, exercise physiologists, personal trainers, fitness trainers, and athletes. Some thought that a girl wouldn’t be able to do a pull-up, others thought that a girl shouldn’t worry about doing a pull-up; others simply knew a girl could do a pull-up and gave suggestions on how to go about it.

One trainer told me not to worry about doing chin-ups or pull-ups from a dead hang. He thought it was too hard for a girl to do because of her physiology. Does that also mean….MORE….

Now, true, it has passed the summer…and I still cannot do one pullup by myself. Oh well! I can honestly say I did do my best….and there’s always next year as well. Every day is one step closer.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – want a pullup bar?

Dealing with chronic pain but not succumbing to it

Morning,

I am really coming close to the end of my rope.

And I’m learning some ‘way useful knots to design so I can hang on! :)

Every day I’m made more and more aware of my leg problems…and every day, I tell myself, I can DO this. “This”, of course, is anything from walking to the kids’ computer to check their homework to lifting weights to sparring in karate to …. well, to anything where my body threatens me, you will give up and you will give up NOW.

I choose NOT to give up.

You know, sometimes it’s really tough not to feel life is just plain unfair. I’ve lost 40+ pounds but because of all that padding going byebye, my bone problems have been aggravated past all get out. :(

It’s not fair!

It really isn’t.

True, I keep my physical activities to just below the breaking point. I refuse to coddle myself and yet I refuse to go past the point of no return. Maintaining that fine line is beyond character-building. :-/

This morning, I was about to dash off to my beloved circle walk when I realized, golly gee, my thigh muscles are snapping again over my exostoses with every step. Joy. I suppose I could do that walk and hold my thigh (actually, now that I think on it, it’s definitely doable). But for now, I simply returned home and did some isometrics instead.

Today is advanced karate (yay!) but more importantly, kendo (double yays!). And I want to keep indulging in those activities until the day of surgery.

Courage consists of hanging on, one minute longer…. I never really internalized that until I chose to walk my current path. It’s quite character-building, indeed.

My afternoon whine,

Barbara

ps – here’s another activity I enjoy.

Coffee flavoring goodness with zero calories and zero carbs for diets

Morning,

My beverage of choice is coffee. Coffee is life, life is coffee! Life cannot exist without that precious morning beverage awakening my inner soul and warrior spirit, my mommy persona and my guardian angels, my …. you get the idea.

I’ll tell you now, if a lifestyle change required me forgoing my coffee, Hollywood would not be able to fully capture the searing agony thru which I’d go.

But I digress. :)

Anywhos, I’ve never been a fan of caloric-punch coffee. You know, the stuff you can get at StarBucks and Duncan Donuts etc.? Even some of the flavored coffees have tons of sugar and stuff that would make it equivalent to chocolate bars and creme cakes!

So instead I learned over at the Low Carb forums there are sugar free and carb-free coffee flavorings one can use. Here are 2 some suggestions.

I’ve tried both, and while both are yummy, I confess I love the Sweetleaf the most. The English Toffee and Milk Chocolate flavors make coffee indescribably yummy!

So if you’re on a diet and a weight loss adventure and you too are addicted to flavored coffee, don’t think you’re stuck with millionCalorie drinks. Some creative searching online will always reveal other goodies you can use…to satisfy your coffee cravings while helping you continue to lose weight.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – here are some more Sweetleafs…..

Making math fun for kids and school – no more fear anxiety!

I love math.

Alas, I’m not a person to whom it is intuitive. I really have to struggle with understanding aspects of it well. That’s when when I became a mom, I promised myself my kids wouldn’t have the same handicap as do I.

I’m pretty pleased to announce I’ve achieved this goal!! My kids are in honors math and are doing superbly.

Here’s how I did it. Every day after school, I’d prepare additional MommyWork from EdHelper – this site lets you produce 100s of individualized worksheets and lessons. I’d make certain to add elements of fun by retyping up the questions with their friends names, their favorite hobbies, etc. It worked really well.

Math is embraced in our family. On our kitchen wall, I designed 4 posters for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – all of my kids know that word problems which involve area generally mean, multiplication. “How much of each” generally means division. And so on, and so on.

Math means “fun” and “challenges” for my family. Think of the benefit my kids will have once they encounter pre-calc, Calc, diffiques, etc….it will be something into which to dive instead of something of which to fear and shun.

You can do that too for your family! Here are some excellent math resources:

Math is a great subject to love. Give your kids the love of math today – it will definitely help them in the future.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – Want math? Consider:

You have only yourself to blame or congratulate for your diet

One of the toughest things I’ve learned over the past 4 or so months is taking ownership of my own emotions and responsibilities.

You see, back in July, my right leg started giving me some major problems. At that time I was 144 pounds or so, and the melting of the fat on my leg reduced the needed cushioning of my femur exostoses. Regular minor front kicks in karate became impossible to do, and more often than not, I had to hold in my right thigh to complete my beloved 2.4 mile circle walks.

Looking back now, I can see now that I had several choices back then. I could have decided, okay, exercise is becoming too tough, and just plain stopped (instead, I modified my workouts).

I could have said, okay, I’m deteriorating as I speak, and forgo my karate and kendo (instead, I modified that as well and do mainly hand techniques).

I could have said, I can always take off the weight while I’m in recovery from surgery, and returned to my original eating habits (instead, I figured EEEEEK! that would give me even more weight to remove in the future).

In other words, I have only myself to either blame, or congratulate, for my choices.

I cannot hoist responsibility on my spouse, my friends, what have you…. for any choice I have made regarding my diet, my health, my weight loss journey, etc.

I own it all. If I had let what others say influence my behavior, then I would have to assume responsibility for being swayed.

My dieting and weight loss results are mine and mine alone. I am the only one who controls what I ultimate choose to do.

Have you internalized this yourself yet? So many times, I’ll hear people say, I want to lose weight, I really do, while they’re snacking on ice cream or reading at the gym instead of working out. I think that happens because they have intellectualized the desire….but it’s not emotionally engraved in their very souls.

When you really and truly want to lose weight, when getting healthy tastes better than any chocolate cake in creation, when you can seriously say, tempt me with calories I will not budge….THEN, and only then, will the weight come off.

But you have to turn the key.

So tell me….at the end of your journey, will you be blaming….or congratulating yourself? I send you lots of good wishes that it’s the latter.

Barbara

ps – Here are some rewards I could imagine congratulating myself with:

The Touch Diet – Acupressure weight loss!

Morning,

I’m a firm believer in many holistic ways of being. I love my aromatherapy (pine, rose and lavender in a hot bath makes heaven close to a place on earth!), I regularly relieve aches and pains in my husband and kids via acupressure massage, and the like.

Recently, I discovered that acupressure can also be used for weight loss too! The theory is there are places behind the ears that help suppress your appetite. Interestingly enough, a good friend of mine reported quite a lot of success for her weight loss journey when she tried it out.

Here are some resources for this:

I always believe the mind works in mysterious ways, so who knows…perhaps it might help you.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – here are what acubeads look like:

Teens, individuality, red streaks, oh my!

Morning,

You know, back before the earth’s crust cooled, and when “java” meant “beverage of life” (ie coffee), I was quite the sorry pathetic loser of a person. Zero self-confidence, zero ability to feel good about myself, etc.etc.etc. It never would occur to me to buck any trend and showcase my individuality. True, I’m an entirely different person today, but wow, how I remember my childhood.
Zoom up now to the present. My teen decided she wanted get her dark brown hair streaked with a vibrant red; I took her to the salon yesterday. After 3 (count ’em 3!) hours (when I was told, oooooo, it will only be, hmmm, 45 minutes!), she was done; the contrast brought me up sharp. Talk about carrying a presence…my kid looks utterly awesome.

Which brings me to the point of this post! Hair color is an individual thing…and I’ve heard many parents decree, my kid will never get weird colors in their hair!

I used to think the same way. And then I realized…the ability to stand out from the crowd confidently is something I never had myself. What must it involve to say, okay, I’m going to be me!

So I changed my opinion. My kids know that no piercings shall enter our home (I can only take individuality so far!), but as far as hair color and style goes, more power to them!

Growing up. It’s a hero’s journey.

Barbara

ps – hair color can come in many different packages! Just look:

A neat diet way to beat food cravings while driving the kids

Morning,

You probably have heard how 6 small meals every day is optimal for losing weight (so you always keep your metabolism stoked). ‘course, others vouch for Intermittent Fasting, and still others prefer 3 meals and 2 snacks, and wow oh wow, you simply have to see what works for yourself instead.

That being said, I’ve found that one way to help beat cravings while in the car and away from your home food is to keep a baggie of acceptable snacks by your driver’s seat. In my case, as I’m generally a low-carb person, I’ll pack a bag of beef jerky (yum!) and should my time to eat arrive while I’m in the car, I can quickly grab a bite to satisfy it.

If I wasn’t in low-carb mode, I’d probably slice up an apple or some chicken and keep that while driving. Beverages help a lot too; ever notice how expensive single-servings can be from convenience stores? Buying 2 litre-sized diet sodas and pouring some in your commuter coffee cup is a quick and cheap way to beat those prices.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – can’t beat beef jerky!