I recently overheard a group of men discussing how women typically “let themselves go” after marriage. Some of their major points of complaint against married women in general are weight gain, some form of laziness (with laundry? cooking? I dunno.) and lack of motivation to look presentable in nice outfits (including wearing sweat pants or stretchy pants too much, and NOT wearing matching bra & panties on a regular basis).

Oh my.

My own physical appearance has had its ups and downs throughout my marriage, especially in the earliest years. I admit that. Did I let myself go? Well, maybe a just little. But my inattentiveness to my well being was because of the busyness and stressors of managing a growing family while working full time and trying to keep house. After all of that, I DO deserve to throw on some stretchy pants and couch-azz for awhile, dammit!

But I suppose there’s also a fine line that should be drawn between “relaxing while dressed down” opposed to “plain ‘ole lazy and unkempt”.

It’s easy to get comfortable in a marriage and allow your physical appearance and health to take a back seat to everything else going on in your life. It wasn’t until I adopted a healthy lifestyle attitude that I convinced myself it was NOT okay to let my appearance (including a healthy weight) be an afterthought.

I’ve worked hard to be healthy. I enjoy looking good, feeling pretty and having the energy and strength to do everything that’s required of me, plus all the extra stuff I just feel like doing. And although my husband benefits from the way I care of myself physically, I do it for me, not for him.

Yes, my husband was indeed among that group of men who were talking trash about married women, but I’m proud that he defended us ladies. Very proud, indeed. But, nooo. My bra and panties do NOT match 100% of the time. So what?

So tell me ladies: Should this group of men I overheard be given frontal wedgies and a swift kick in the azz?

I am a part-time vegetarian. I still get down with the sea creatures in full force, yet chew on chickens sparingly. But as for the beefy things? No moo-cow for me about 99% of the time. So my stomachs got happy when I tripped upon the Gardein fake azz beef tips (aka, Beefless Tips). I cooked them up in a stir fry with fresh green peppers and onion. It took me less than 10 minutes to prep the veggies AND cook the entire meal.

Hell yeah!

Then I packed it up for work-lunch, and when it became noon-ish, I poured my beefless, vegetable-infused creation over a bed of Minute Whole Grain Brown Rice. Can somebody say “peppered steak”?

“Emmm…but what the hell did it taste like, Josie?”

Just in case you’re wondering, Gardein is a play on words for “garden + protein”. We’re obviously not dealing with real beef here. This was only visually reminiscent of cow meat. The texture is not as dense as real beef. It’s got decent flavor that isn’t necessarily strong in beefiness, yet it’s a pleasant and happy compromise for the vegetarianites.

Yet there is a thing called spices and I intend to use more next time to “beef up” the flavor. Spices are magical, so I can make that happen. I’m sure the end result will be an even tastier experience than it was this time around. I shall continue to chew on the fake azz beef tips. I love taking control over my food choices and getting creative. The beef-ish tips helped make that happen.

FAKE BEEF NOTES

• Price Paid: $4.99
• Serving size: 3/4 cup
• Calories: 150
• Fat Calories: 50
• Total Fat: 5g
• Sodium: 400mg
• Carbs: 8g
• Fiber: 3g
• Sugars: 1g
• Protein: 18g

Ingredients: water, vital wheat gluten, soy protein isolate, expeller pressed/canola oil, organic ancient grain flour (kamut®, amaranth, millet, quinoa), onion, natural flavors (from plant sources), modified vegetable gum, malted barley extract, yeast extract, garlic powder, onion powder, potato starch, organic cane sugar, sea salt, pea protein, carrot fiber, organic beet fiber, spices. rub: dehydrated vegetable (red bell pepper, garlic, onion), spices, organic cane sugar, salt.

Gardein also carries fake azz Buffalo Wings, fake azz Stuffed Turkey and fake azz Tuscan Breasts as part of their entire line of meat imposters. It’s a whole schmorgasbord of fake food. So go get some, why don’t ya.

Yum UP! to: Tasty food imposters

Yuck Down to: Cutting up vegetables. Perhaps I shall learn to like it one day?

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

(If you’re a Finish What You Started Challenger, this week’s “Finish It Monday” message is hitting your Inbox, so watch for it!)

I love EatSmart. Not only because their Precision Digital Bathroom Scale was part of my journey of healing from scale obsession (yup, it’s a real condition), but it they’re a trusted company run by wonderful people. EatSmart has a full line of bathroom scales, plus kitchen scales and a luggage scale that are all reasonably priced, and include a 2-year warranty.

So before I Get To the Giveaway Part: My Story of (former) Scale Obsession

Obsession with anything is a very unhealthy thing. I could NOT stop weighing myself. At the time I had more than 40 pounds to lose. I was shooting to lose 1-pound per week to get to goal weight. Pretty reasonable, right? But is it normal and reasonable to weigh yourself 3-4 times per day?

I hadn’t yet discovered EatSmart. I was using some other scale at the time. It was heavy and clunky and ugly, but I’d drag that dang thing out, strip completely naked, making sure to have already used the potty (uh-huh) in hopes of the best weight loss reading possible.

If my number was neutral or higher, I’d blame water weight or a sammich that hadn’t fully digested yet. I’d even blame a water-logged head of hair if I was fresh out the shower. If my weight was lower, I’d celebrate, but still find an excuse to hop on the scale many more times that day. At this rate, I was weighing in up to 28 times per week.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit this former obsession. It went on like this for close to 2 years before I acknowledged what I had been in deniable about for so long: I was obsessed with the scale. I knew my behavior was not normal. It took many more months before I had the courage to remove the batteries from my scale and stick it in the attic forever. It was sooo liberating to NOT have the ability to weigh in obsessively. After this, about a year passed by and that clunky old scale was still very much out of reach. I was doing okay and continue to drop weight. I could tell from the way my clothes fit.

In December 2010, EatSmart reached out to offer me my 1st scale giveaway. I also received a complimentary scale of my own. This is when I decided that I would not longer hide from any scale by banishing it to the attic. I would take control over my weigh-ins and maintain a healthy relationship with the scale. Keeping an EatSmart around would be the litmus test to show whether or not my old weigh-in habits had truly changed.

So did I go back to obsessing? Well, yes. I did for awhile. I had some ups and downs. It took effort and continued practice in self control over NOT weigh-in with the scale in plain view. But it got easier and easier over time. And now? I only weigh-in about every 1-2 months. Victory!

A major part of my recovery from scale obsession involved having the courage to keep my EatSmart around – not hiding from it. The other part of my healing involved ditching a goal weight and embracing non-scale victories like losing dress sizes, looking sexier in photographs (yeah baby!), making good food choices and simply having a healthy lifestyle mentality, NOT a “weight loss mentality” which very much obsesses over numbers.

There is more to our weight loss journey than the number on the scale. Do NOT use your scale as the absolute law that tells the entire story of your fitness efforts. A lot of people do that and it’s wrong. Instead, use your scale as a partner and tool in your journey. Use it to attest to your progress over longer periods of time.

I’ve lost over 16-pounds since March 2011. My EatSmart scale told me so. And it didn’t involve weighing in every week. I’ve only weighed-in about 5 times since March.

The Giveaway

Two (2) winners will each receive an EatSmart Precision Digital Bathroom Scale courtesy of EatSmart Products (you lucky peeps) AND a Shakeology Sampler 2-pack, courtesy of yours truly.

Required Entry: Leave a comment and tell us all how aim to maintain a healthy relationship with the scale.

*Bonus Entry: Get your booty on over to Twitter and tweet @EatSmart your fitness goals using the hashtag #HappyScale. They’ll been tickled to hear from you and I’ll also be following that hashtag, so join in!

Your chance to win ends Friday, 10/7/11. Winner announced on or before 10/10/11 on the top right sidebar. United States entries only. Totally null and void where prohibited.

Ready? Set. EatSmart!

I didn’t even know Wendy’s carried extra large shopping bags.

Sometimes my healthification does not have the power to usurp control over the Greedy Family’s feeding trough. They forced me to buy them Wendy’s. But I didn’t order any of that for myself. I ate a turkey sammich.

This is a multiple choice quiz. Now take a wild guess at what happened to the Alexia Sweet Potato Puffs:

a) They burned in the oven.

b) The dog ate them.

c) Water spilled on the leftovers.

d) I ate waaay too many Puffs.

Welp, I didn’t burn them, we don’t have a dog, and I surely didn’t eat too many. So the correct answer is C. The leftover Puffs did get water logged, but I didn’t give a damn.

Even after cooking them a few minutes longer than package directions, the Puffs only get sorta crispy on the outside and stay mashed potato-ish on the inside, so forget about a regular tater-tot experience with super crispiness. The flavor problem I keep getting with any kind of packaged sweet potato product is that they somehow lose the bold flavor that comes with a fresh sweet potato. I hate that.

Alexia’s Puffs are just fine and dandy: edible and likable in a ho-hum kinda way, but it’s like eating a sweet potato with 50% of your taste buds removed. The flavor is ghostly. It’s kinda tasty, but really only just a shadow of real, fresh flavor. So why even bother?

I thought these would be a hit with the Greedy Family, but I was almost stoned with stale dinner rolls for bringing the Puffs to the table. This is why I didn’t give a damn when the mound of leftovers got water logged. Someone (and it certainly wasn’t me) manged to run the leftover Puffs under faucet. How convenient, huh?

PUFFY NOTES

• Price Paid: $4.59 for 6 servings
• Serving Size:  2/3 cup
• Calories: 130
• Fat Calories: 30
• Total Fat: 3.5g
• Sat. Fat: 0g
• Sodium: 230mg
• Carbs: 23g
• Fiber 2g
• Sugars: 8g
• Protein: 1g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: Eh, they’re just okay.

Greedy Kid #1: These are a fraud. They’re not like real tater tots.

Greedy Kid #2: Nope. I only eat this vegetable in sweet potato pie.

Yum UP! to: Sweet potato pie. Gimme summa that!

Yuck Down to: Burning flames in an oven. Been there, done that.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheats Sheets.

Get printable grocery coupons at Coupons.com.