Components of Nutrition
Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners.
William Shakespeare

Every morning for the past few years, I walked around my garden collecting the fresh fruits and vegetables, popping many into my mouth as I walked. Will power has never been my strong suit when it comes to food. My suggestion is that if will power is not your thing, grow a garden and get full on what grows in it. Chocolate cake doesn’t grow on trees.
Even in this high-tech age, the low-tech plant continues to be the key to nutrition and health.
Jack Weatherford

I can go for low-tech plants, can you? Carol’s relatives introduced me to pavlova on my trip to Australia. Fruit never tasted so good!
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.
Doug Larson

I’ve shared this picture before because it is so green. It doesn’t smell a bit like bacon when it’s cooked. In fact my husband has been known to come in and say, “What’s that terrible smell? What are you cooking?” That’s not a great recommendation for eating well. Are there green vegetables that you love to smell when they cook?
Old people shouldn’t eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.
Robert Orben
We did not buy a single treat at this stop. That’s not saying we didn’t help ourselves elsewhere, but we practiced Shakespeare’s advice for the moment. Of course, we’re not old!
Diet + Exercise
Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.
Jack Lalanne
As a teen, LaLanne suffered from headaches and bulimia, and temporarily dropped out of high school at age 14. The following year, at age 15, he heard health food pioneer Paul Bragg give a talk on health and nutrition, focusing on the “evils of meat and sugar. Bragg’s message had a powerful influence on LaLanne, who then changed his life and started focusing on his diet and exercise.” Wikipedia
Grandma Golda, my mother’s mom, and I exercised in front of the television with Jack LaLanne. I’m glad nobody had a video camera on us. I was about five. Grandma was about 50 and neither of us could do the exercises.
Exercise is easy in the open air if you are having fun, learning something, or exploring new territory. We hiked miles or kilometers in the Bunya Mountains, and it was great fun and with good company and at a slow pace, not even a struggle. Walking doesn’t make you skinny, though. Jack L. is right, you have to eat right, drink moderately or not at all, and exercise.

My goal this month was to lose seven pounds. During the first few days, I put on two. I am back down to my original weight after fifteen days. I’m hoping that my goal of no sweets and 7,000 steps a day will take me closer to my goal.

This Australian “health food” was to die for! Pumpkins abound in Australian cuisine. I believed that Carol and her friends and family and I hiked enough miles over the Australian landscape for me to deserve this treat.
Fair Warning
The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it.
Jackie Gleason
After finding this quote, I read an article about Jack Gleason’s like. Even though I grew up seeing him on television, I didn’t know much about him. He died when he was 71, just two years older than I am now. Perspective makes a huge difference. He was just old to me when he died. Now, not so much! No only was he overweight, but he drank huge amounts of whiskey.
Unlike Jack LaLanne, he was never the poster child for fitness and nutrition.
My Story
President Kennedy pushed exercise and fitness when I started high school, and it probably changed the lives of our generation. Even though I’m not in great shape, I’m 69 have survived cancer, and I still hike, bike, and workout in the gym irregularly. Sadly, I am the poster child for someone who loves to eat.

Jackie Gleason joked about diet and exercise and sadly, I do too even though I didn’t think he was funny. What wrong with that picture?
It is no joke. I am a little schizophrenic about diet and exercise. My mother was obese, and I never wanted to do that to my body. But I learned at her knee to eat sweets and and they still tempt me. She had heart issues and survived kidney cancer living to the age of 80.
My father was not overweight, but could and did eat a half pound of bacon a day and a cup of hot chocolate made with real cocoa and sugar every morning for most of his adult life. He boasted that he could eat a 12 oz. bag of Hershey’s Kisses at a sitting. He seldom exercised either, and he died of colon cancer at age 63.
What’s Your Story?

Please take a few minutes to visit one or two posts and get acquainted with the #WQWWC community.

30 responses to “#WQWWC #21: Nutrition or Nourishment”
Hi Marsha, here’s my post;
Thanks
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] Marsha is the host of WQWWC […]
LikeLike
Thanks, again, Sadje. 🙂
LikeLike
Finally got my post finished. It’s been a long week….lol.
https://troyerslovinglife.blogspot.com/2021/04/wqwwcapril-21st-themenutrition-and.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your post is full of wisdom. Great words to live by! I’ll comment on it when I get home. My password isn’t working right now.
LikeLike
[…] It’s not to late to share your thoughts about Nutrition on Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays. […]
LikeLike
Good morning Marsha….I think you do quite a bit more that what many who are “69+” do…sometimes I think the mentality diminishes so much as people get older (sometimes), like “oh, I’m too old to do that”. My MIL who just turned 76 loves to swim at the health club, and made it a goal recently on a beach trip (over her birthday) to walk from their hotel to their favorite restaurant and back…it was between 6-8 mils. She did it. She tripped part way through and scraped her toe, but kept going.
I’m going to do my post tonight. I was on an airplane yesterday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your MIL sounds like an amazing woman. I have to admit that I use the “I’m too old excuse sometimes. I’m not going to try downhill skiing. Even water skiing, which I did a lot as a teen, my legs aren’t strong enough and I’d never get up! I might try roller or ice skating if I had the chance, swimming definitely, but no races. I’m recreational only. I’ll look forward to your post soon. I hope you had a good trip. There aren’t many people going on airplanes yet. 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, there are definitely things that we very likely are “too old” to do now…lol. I know better than to do some things now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes! Some things I would have been too old at 10, like learning how to be in Cirque de Soleil. Our neighbor’s little girl is learning “silks,” which is acrobatics at the level of learning Cirque de Soleil.
LikeLike
Mmmm, pumpkin! Delicious.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You know I love them. I bought some chopped butternut squash this week and had it on salad and on pizza. It tasted just as good as I remembered it from Australia. Vince had some in his tacos. Such great memories still coming back to life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] This walk is also answering Marsha’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesday Writing Challenge about Nutrition. […]
LikeLike
Right on, Marsha. So much comes down to balance – especially the balance of calories in vs. calories out. Then again, each of us is given a metabolism that is difficult to adjust. We can’t control the effects of gender or aging either. Yet – we can do something! Hey – is that broccoli? ….. FYI: I’ll be linking soon. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Its a composit of broccoli and something. Isn’t it gorgeous?
LikeLike
👍
LikeLike
Great post Marsha… Love Jack La Lane added him in a post too! love the colors of the rainbow and your 7 lbs off
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well my 7 pounds isn’t off yet, so no hurray’s just yet. I’m working on it, though. I’ve been getting my 7,000 steps in and more and watching my diet. I’m not still gaining at least. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re on the path and that’s the main thing!
👏💖👏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
💃🤲🏼
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] check out today’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesday […]
LikeLike
[…] is Writer’s Quotes Wednesday. The topic for today is Nutrition. I need a lot of help writing about that. My favorite food group […]
LikeLike
Love the quotes too. So sorry about your father’s early passing. I do understand you use at as a reminder though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, even though I might like to eat tons of sweets, unlike my dad, I would balloon up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post. Loved the quotes and Romanesco (I am trying to grow some in my allotment this year, it’s delicious). Thank you very much for including a link to my entry too. KL ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi KL, How wonderful. What is your allotment. Is that like a garden plot somewhere? That must be fun. We live in a small condo now, so I have two pots with herbs – basil and cilantro (coriander) and a large pot with a tomato plant. I will miss broccoli and larger plants like that which I grew in California.
LikeLike
Oh that’s lovely Marsha. It’s a garden for the specific purpose of growing produce, a community thing, there are 42 plots together and we share seeds etc. It’s been a wonderful learning experience. KL ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love it, KL. I’ll have to see if we have something like that here.
LikeLike
[…] written in response to Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge (WQWWC – Nourishment). A wonderful prompt hosted by Marsha Ingrao at Always […]
LikeLike