The Gym Myth

Worth their weight in weight loss

I tend to live in waves of fitness brought on by fatness. Basically. I live the healthy life for years, and then one day my mind overrides my habit and convinces me that I really don't feel like eating a salad, much less taking a bike ride.

I had this mental ambush about three years ago. FINALLY I conquered it, but what I discovered is this. The gym didn't do diddly for me. The gym is a scam. I'm 53 years old, and months of well meaning workouts alone amount to nothing. My most recent victory over sloth brought this fact to light. And here's why.

Sugar Sweet Talked Me Into 20 Pounds

God, I love sugar. As my head slowly killed my motivation to move faster than a stroll to the bathroom, I convinced myself that 3 Oreos a day was nothing. Then I blanked out and never saw the other crap I was eating. I appreciate those movies where guys decide to eat crap diets for sixty days. You know why? Because they are right. That mental and physical decline is real. 

If I felt bad, stressed or bored, I went for the sweets. I came home and agreed to taking a night off from cooking and had myself a greasy, fattening plate of restaurant food. A cooking break is welcomed by me, but the problem wasn't the break. It was what I ordered wherever I dined. Plus it became a frequent practice to split dessert.

I religiously made my way to the gym, and nothing happened. Nothing happened.

This fat Christy went to the gym daily

Step Back - She Could Be Dangerous

If a person pays $50 a month to stay in shape and that person loses nothing but the $50, that person will finally accept the truth. It isn't how hard your work out, it's what you eat. And with that admission, I stopped eating sugar and gluten cold turkey. I abandoned the gym and went back to a simple nightly yoga routine. I took more walks on the very nice greenbelt at the end of our street.

I lost 5 pounds a week for 3 weeks. Then it slowed down just a bit and finally settled back to my normal weight - my healthy weight, and I never went to the gym. I should have been a total crank, but after about day 3 I was o.k. I then stopped dairy and corn. I was a little depressed by the food deprivation. But I survived. I stabilized and now I can think like a rational person and maintain a healthy diet, yoga, and even running in the greenbelt.

It  is a mind game to do this. It requires will power. It requires resistance to peer pressure. No matter what you read, or what some celebrity promises you, it is not the workout as much as it is the food. If you accept that sugar and junk foods are demons, you'll be able to enjoy even the richest foods without guilt. Bacon has nothing on an Oreo cookie when it comes to weight gain.

Hoppin' John made from scratch

So let's do a little food budget analysis to see if I'm spending more money on whole foods than a quick, processed version of the same dinner. Option #1 has hidden fats, sugars, salt and preservatives. Option #2 is completely fresh and whole.

A Weekday Dinner

This is something most of us feel is impossible to cook, so we either skip cooking altogether or we pick something up on the way home. If you're like me, and you do cook dinner, you're probably looking for something fast and easy.

So I'm going to pick a meal and make it two ways, and compare:

Chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans.

Option #1
(Fast and maybe cheaper.)
Heat & Eat Chicken Nuggets - $4.62 - bake for 20 minutes
One boxed mash potatoes - $.91 - about 5 minutes
Can of green beans - $.50 a can - about 5 minutes
Total Cost & Time - $6.03 - Including prep time, 25 minutes tops.

Option #2
(I'm assuming you have basic spices and butter/milk to season your meal.)
Fresh Boneless Chicken Breasts - $4.27 - season and broil in about 15 minutes

Fresh Russet Potatoes - $1.83 for 5 lb bag. Use 3, so really $.61 - 20 minutes
Fresh green beans - $.75 - about 10 minutes

Total Cost & Time - $5.63 - Including prep time, 35 minutes tops.

Honestly, there isn't much difference here, so why choose processed foods over whole foods?
To be fair, I can prep a meal pretty fast because I cook all the time, so it might take you 40 minutes the first few times, but the quality of the food and the control of calorie intake is worth it.

Snacks:

Option #1 - Potato chips - $2 for 11 ounce bag - It says there are 11 servings per container, but come on. We know it's more like 5 servings; which adds up to 240 calories per honest serving.

Option #2 - Apples - $2.98 for 3 lb. bag. There are about 15 small apples in a bag. Even if you eat 2 at a time, the apples are going to last longer than the chips and cost about the same amount per serving. A small apple is more like 70 calories, so two wouldn't be more than 140 calories.

It's the way you choose to think about your eating and exercising habits. You can tell yourself the whole food way is too difficult, but you can't tell yourself it's more expensive. If you're not a big fan of exercising, then the diet change alone will be of benefit, but it makes total sense to at least take a walk.

To sum it up, I can drop my gym membership and save $50 a month, and I won't have to use any of my savings to offset the cost of a healthy diet.
It's nice to be back to my old self.

Back to normal

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Brew Your Own Kombucha

Kombucha has become rather popular. This fermented tea has been around for centuries with many unsubstantiated claims to cure just about anything from cancer, to GERD to hangovers. Depending on what you read, you'll either get the hell scared out of you and avoid it, or you'll start draining your bank account on $3-$4 bottles of tea fizz.

An integrative medicine doctor recommended I start drinking the stuff to right the bacterial and yeast balance in my body, and hopefully calm my overactive thyroid. It did not cure my overactive thyroid, but it didn't kill me either. In fact, Tammy and I are somewhat addicted to the stuff. This same doctor told me to make my own to make it cost effective. So I do.

What is Kombucha?

It is literally fermented tea. It ferments due to the addition of a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. Also known as "mother" or "scoby." This thing looks like a big, flat, grayish brown booger. However, the scoby is the good bacteria and yeast our bodies need. One gallon of sweet tea will turn into fizzy kombucha in about 7 - 10 days. The scoby will grow until you have two scobies, and so forth.  I'm currently up to 4 scobies and 4 gallons of kombucha. We have a lot of fizzy tea in the refrigerator.

Whenever you grow any bacteria culture, you have to be very very sanitary. Although kombucha has been brewed since pre-sanitation days, it is entirely possible to grow yourself the wrong bugs and get super sick. So rule #1. Be very clean.

An Inexpensive Kombucha Recipe - Make Your Own Scoby

I used a recipe from The Kitchn because it was simple. I made a few modifications for cost and convenience sake.

There are a number of recipe books available; including ones you can download onto our kindle or phone (if you're a clutter free reader).

You will need the following:

4 Family-sized tea bags - I use 2 Lipton black tea and 2 Lipton green tea. You need some black tea to give the scoby and you some real nutritional benefits.

One Cup of Sugar - Again, I'm not going fancy. The scoby couldn't give a hoot whether your sugar is organic or fancy. I use HEB sugar.

One 16 oz bottle of plain Kombucha - I use GT's Original. GT makes the very best kombucha, if you ask me.
3.5 Pints of Water - Regular old water. I use tap water. There. I admit it. Not distilled. Not bottled. Not spring. Tap water. I'm practical like that.
Six 16 oz. Mason Jars - I know it's trendy to bottle in those cool Grolsch-style flip top bottles, but they're expensive, and this is about saving money. You can get 24 mason jars for less than $9. You'll need the other 18 if your scoby grows and multiplies like mine has.
One Gallon Glass Jar - Even a cookie jar will work if you really don't want spend $20 on a fancy jar with a spigot. In fact, the spigot will just get clogged with scoby and present a sanitation risk.
Tightly woven cloth and rubber band - A bar towel or cup towel works well. Not the terrycloth kind, but the smoothly woven kind.

Here's how to make your own scoby:

Scoby in starter tea

1. Bring 3.5 pints of water to a rolling boil.
2. Dissolve one cup of sugar in the water using a wooden spoon.
3. Turn off the heat and add your tea bags.
4. Let the tea brew to a preferred darkness. The longer it brews, the more nutrition for the scoby.
5. Let the tea cool to room temperature. I recommend brew at bedtime, and let it cool overnight.
6. Add your starter tea to the glass jar.
7. Pour in your sweet tea.
8. Tightly band the towel to the jar opening.
9. Place jar away from direct sunlight and keep it at about 70 degrees.
10. Let it sit until you form a scoby. It will take about 2 weeks.
11. When the scoby covers the surface of your tea, and is about 1/4 inch thick, remove from the jar.
12. Put the scoby in 16 oz of the tea and set aside.
    

You're Ready to Brew Your First Batch of Kombucha

This is short and sweet. Follow the above directions to make sweet tea.  Then do this:

1. Pour one 16 oz bottle of original kombucha into the glass jar.
2. Pour in your cooled sweet tea.
3. Remove the scoby from it's tea and place it in the jar.
4. Your scoby may sink or float sideways. It's ok. 
5. Cover with the towel and band it tight.
6. Set the jar aside out of direct sunlight, at 70 degrees (this is a recommended room temperature).
7. Let tea ferment for 7 - 10 days.
8. Start tasting at 7 days until its the right combination of sweet and tangy to suit you.
9. When you're satisfied, remove scoby and pour 16 oz of your tea over it. Set aside to start your next batch. At this point, the you can use this tea as your starter tea and free yourself from the $3 bottle of GT's.
10. Pour tea into Mason jars.
11. Set aside for 3 days.
12. On day 3, move to the refrigerator.
13. Don't drink more than one a day. 

I like to zest ginger into my jars before I add the tea. It makes a fantastic flavor.

I've also added shredded apples. Add any fruit you want. It's really up to you at the bottling stage.

As you brew more tea, your scoby will get thick or make a separate offspring. When this happens, you can start a second batch.

Fresh batch of kombucha ready to ferment

Watch out for green or black bacteria growth. A healthy scoby is grayish, tannish or brown. Little stringy bits of it will also float in your tea. Boy howdy, you'll know if the bacteria's gone to the dark side because it will smell nasty and rank cheesy. Healthy kombucha smells vinegary.

My Perceived Benefits

I'm less hungry.
My skin looks better.
I'm maintaining a steady weight (because I got fat, y'all).

All of the above could also be attributed to knocking sugar and gluten out of my diet. I have a free day, but not every day. I also eat whole. I do not eat processed foods if at all possible. I drink a lot of water. I run, bike and do yoga. I lift a few weights. Therefore, I can't promise kombucha will do anything by itself. You'll need to make a 100% commitment to being healthy. 

As an anecdote, we do give it to our kid. She went on a junk food spree that included throwing away her healthy lunch and hustling up unbelievably massive amounts of chips and cookies. This was her primary diet. She was a monster. She was rumdum. She was in serious trouble. Currently, she's doing better and drinking kombucha. I WILL NOT SWEAR BY THIS. Any moment, she could decide to eat herself to death, but for now, kombucha is helping.

Try it. See what you think. 

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Water - Get It While It's Free

I heard on NPR that the "desert" has moved as far east as Ft. Worth. Climate change is real. Whether you believe it's a man made event or just the natural evolution of the planet, it's not to be ignored. Ranchers, farmers, gardeners, and naturalists pay attention to the seasons because natural resources are seasonal. We're in the water season, y'all. I'm taking this opportunity to get some free water.

Guess What We Use More Than Electricity

Water.

That's our April utility bill. 

I've pointed out that water and wastewater are the biggest consumption in this family of three women. If you check out the Product Recommendation page, you'll see that I recommend you think about how much water your family uses everyday. Not only will you understand how valuable the resource is, but you'll probably get the urge to conserve.

Rainwater Collection Tank is Fully Operational

We put a 500 gallon rainwater collection tank on the cabin. My goal is to keep it off the grid forever. We would have a water well rather than city water if we ditched the rainwater collection system, but a water well requires electricity. A water well is regulated, and here's a news flash. Water wells are not like personal holes in the ground. They are taps into the greater water table that everyone uses. So consumption is not controlled by you.

In the current set up, this tank catches water from half the roof, and that's about 168 square feet. With one inch of rain, I'll collect about 100 gallons. 

How did I do that math?  Simple. Write this down - Sq ft of roof x 60% for every inch of rain. 

Rain is free. Rain is celebrated. This is the rainy season. 

Rainwater Showers are Divine

Once the tank and gutters were in place, and I knew I had some water in it, I went about setting up a way to get water from the tank to our little outdoor shower/washing station. Basically, I set it up the same way one would set up an RV system. I used a Shurflo 4008 water pump, attached it to a small accumulator tank (aka pressure bladder), and mounted the set up on an old piece of 2x8 scrap board. Tammy always keeps her lumber scraps, and this is a smart thing to do.

Purchase both on Amazon for $110

I also added a little pre-pump strainer to catch any debris that might come from the water tank.

You'll also notice a light switch attached to the set up. This is super easy to do. It's DC (direct current) wiring. This means I will get my power from a battery rather than an electrical plug. The pump comes with a DC wiring configuration. You will need to buy extra black wiring and extra red wiring. Get it in the auto department at Walmart. Also buy some electrical tape because you need to splice your wires to get enough length to get to a battery.  

The end result looks something like this.

Here's step by step instructions:

1. From the pump, securely attach the red wire to the light switch. Secure the wire under one screw. 
2. Secure the rest of the wire to the other screw in the switch. This wire will go to your battery.
3. A 10 amp fuse is recommended between the switch and the battery. I couldn't find that size fuse, so I skipped it. Don't be a fool like me. Find the little fuse, and wire as it is in the image.
4. Extend the length of your black wire so that it is long enough to make it to the battery.  I have my battery a few feet away from the pump.
5. Purchase battery connector clamps, and attach them to the ends of your wires. You can find these at Walmart or any auto parts store. They are smaller versions of the clamps on your jumper cables. 

Pump Wiring

Battery Connector Clamps

If you are unsure of how to wire this pump, take it to an auto parts store or local hardware store. Go local. The people at the box stores probably don't know how to really help you. Your local store has someone who really wants to help you. Or ask for my help in the comments. I'll PM you on Facebook.

I did not permanently install this pump set up because it's not weather proof. I set it up each time we go to the country. I push it under the cabin and set the switch up on a floor beam to keep it from getting wet and shorting out.

Finally, I have a water hose from the tank to the inflow side of the pump, and a water hose from the outflow side of the pump bladder. That hose has a hand controlled sprayer. That means extreme control of the water. We don't need much because that little pump and bladder make incredible pressure. Short blasts work great, and we greatly conserve water; which will be pretty scarce after June. 

All of this lo-fi plumbing and electric are powered by a lawn mower battery. It's such a small amount of power that I don't need a big juicy deep cycle battery. We only flip the switch to "On" when we use the water. Otherwise, it's off to avoid a short or fire or unwanted shock. 

Finally, I connected a propane on-demand hot water heater that can be purchased at any store that sells camping equipment. I purchased an EcoTemp L5 Portable Tankless Propane Water Heater from Walmart. 

I've had a few rainwater showers.

OMG

My skin and hair.

OMG

This was a lengthy post, but well worth it.

If you are thinking about rainwater catchment, now is the time to set it up.
If you're in Texas, get it in place by Memorial Day. We historically have big rain storms around that weekend.
And finally, don't drink the water. It's not safe due to debris that invariably gets in the tank. If I find an effective way to filter it, I'll share my recommendations.

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