Vegetarian Nutrition

I have been trying to keep an excel sheet of what i eat. However i think i'm going to try and babble about my thoughts on diet, so that i can be more clear and get some feedback. In addition to my diet i'm also trying help my dad (who is obese) to figure a better diet.

So, things which are deficient in Vegetarian diet are Protein, Calcium, Vitramin B12, Iron and Zinc.

Few initial general tips:

• Tofu can be an amazing source of protein, iron, zinc, and calcium.
• Vitamin B12 - The best source is fortified cereal.
  

Some specific Obesity tips in general:
When BMI (Weight / Height Squared) in kg/sq.m is more than 30 its termed as Obesity. Treatments include -

• Low Calorie Diets
• Exercise - spinning, walking
• Make a goal (half marathon walk??)
• No Caffeine
  
• More water 64 oz ie 8 glasses
• Measure Cholesterol
  

Ma and Bapu in Seattle - Week One !

I have been looking forward to my parents' visit. They arrived to Seattle last Sunday and below is a video diary and here are pictures of what we have been up to last week. We had a fun time camping in Fort Casey State Park on Whidbey Island - this was first time camping experience for my parents :)!



I took extra care to make the experience a little pleasant! The forecast was rain so we headed for a little less damp and open area. I also switched to an air mattress instead of sleeping bags - and yep brought in all the big pleasures of car camping like chairs, grill, firewood and yep - watermelon!! Oh my parents love the sweet corn!

On a side-note I have been trying to motivate and encourage my folks to pay more attention to their health. The great success is now they track their weight and blood-pressure every day!! A sweet result of this is that now we can correlate the days they have high blood pressure to the days when they are sitting at home!! So yep going on walk is an incentive to see those numbers do better. I think the next step for me is to get a pedometer for Dad so that he can keep track of how many steps he walks every day!!

However the big deal in whole deal of parents' health is healthy eating!! With typical east indian cuisine a lot of oil, and unhealthy fat makes way in to ones diet. My elder sister who is a Dermatologist gave a tip to try and control the salt intake first, and stress a little more on fruits. I need to make sure that Mom now starts cooking healthy stuff and yep! not give in to pressure/ craving from me or Dad :)!!!

Split it

Fitness Challenge 2005 Describes a nice way of how exercise should be split up. I'm going to split the way I exercise in two One day do chest and back and Other day do Biceps, Triceps and Shoulders. Abs and Cardio should be done everyday.

Primarliy I have to figure out more chest exercises. The above link has some nice suggestions which i should explorer.