Wii and Wine

Wii and Wine : The new wine and food series

After a year of blogging about food and wine I have noticed something I am not too happy with, weight gain.  Like most people in this world gaining and losing weight is a constant battle.  I have been battling my bulge since I took my first steps into adulthood, entering college and living on my own.

Growing up, I had an overall healthy outlook about food, and was not too self conscience about my weight.  My mom cooked healthy meals and always stressed the importance of eating our fruits and veggies.  Enter high school, all the pretty and popular girls made me feel insecure and heavy.  Being a girl with Polish and German blood running through my veins, I have always been heavier than my friends but never fat.  However, when you are not a size 0 or 2 everything thing else is considered pudgy.  Hence high school, is when I developed an unhealthy body image and issues with food.  I have battled those issues ever since, and it was not until recently I got a better handle on it.

I lost 25 pounds after having my son, and was very happy and satisfied with my weight.  However, in my opinion I was still not perfect even though everyone, and everything else pointed to the opposite.  Slowing the weight crept back on since I never got to the root of my body image problem.

Enter in present day.  Since I started the blog, I have dealt with many body image and food issues and overall have a better since of where it all belongs.  Eating good is important, drinking good wine is fun, but not at the expense of my health.  While I have only gained between 5-10 pounds over the coarse of the last year, those pounds are not good on my frame, and make me feel uncomfortable.  Therefore, with all the holiday stress and business behind me now I have had a chance to really evaluate my weight and overall health.  With that evaluation I have come up with an idea for a new series on the blog.

I received a Wii Nintendo system this Christmas, yes I know I am late to the whole Wii stage, but hey better late than never.  Since it was given to us to use as a fitness system, we went out and purchased the Wii Fit Plus and a few other fitness video games.  I am not a video game player, and believe they are a time sucking vortex that only wastes time and brain cells.  However, the Wii can be a useful system to use as a fitness and health device.  I have always been a home fitness fan, because you don't have to drive anywhere to workout and I can look like a complete idiot and no one can see it.  So the Wii balance board and other fitness games play the perfect role to help me attain my new goals.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept the Wii Fit, it can calculate your weight, and track your progress for you with the handy dandy balance board.  It can also help you set goals and work on other various aspects of you fitness and overall health, plus the games are just fun.

My goal with this post series is simple, to blog my progress with losing that initial 5-10 pounds and then how I keep that weight off while still enjoying great food and wine.  I think it is so important to not give up the things we love, as long as they are not destructive, but figure out how to make them a part of our lives in a healthy way.  After all, wine itself is not the devil and neither is chocolate cake.  If you are using those things to cope with life, than yes they are destructive.  Wine and whatever trigger food you have, was not made so that life can become easier, and nor were they made just to taunt you.  They were made for enjoyment, not gluttony or enlightenment.

For the first month, I will chronicle my eating habits along with my progress with the Wii Fitness.  I am planning on cooking out of Cooking Light magazine for the month of January.  As I have written before,  Cooking Light is a wonderful resource for great tasting, healthy meals, and I have a ton of magazines to draw from.  I will note my progress with this plan, as well as how I incorporate wine into it.  I do not believe on giving up on wine, however I am just not sure how I will fit the whole thing in yet.  My goal is to find the right balance and finally get a grip on the whole weight, food, fitness, and wine thing, and chronicle that journey with you.

I am not quit sure how this series will look yet, but I know it will be fun to share, because I am not the only person in the world who enjoys good food and wine and is still looking to stay in shape.  So please join me on this discovery, and if you are looking for the same thing, please share your journey with me here on the blog, on twitter, google+, or facebook.

Thank you and as always enjoy!