Tuesday, May 22, 2012
ergorapido
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Welcome to the World Harper Mae
It had been almost 10 months and we have been celebrating and waiting patiently for your arrival...
On April 19, 2012, you, Harper Mae Dunn, were born to my "Bestie", your "Mommy" and her husband, your "Daddy" - Merissa and Jay Dunn!
Congratulations Bestie, I love you SO much and I am so proud and happy for you.
Who would have thought back in high school (13 years ago now, woah) that we would be best friends today helping each other through the best times that life has to offer. We never knew we could be so blessed... don't we look so excited here...
Remember? Somehow, we both decided to have our prom dresses custom made and somehow ended up with the same dress? Who does that?
and here we are 13 years later!
Welcome to the world Harper Mae and welcome to "Motherhood" Merissa!
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Clean Fajita Salad
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 large onion
1 head of romaine
1 can of black beans (no sugar, rinsed)
1 lb of ground turkey or lean ground beef
1-2 tbsp of oil (your choice but not canola)
1 large avocado (garnish)
Greek yogurt (garnish)
Slice the peppers and onions and place in a bowl. Slice and wash lettuce and cabbage.
Brown ground turkey or beef with 1 tbsp of oil. Remove and set aside in a bowl. In the same pan add 1 tbsp of oil and saute the peppers and onions until soft. Return ground turkey to the pan and add fajita seasoning mixture, 1/4 cup of water, and black beans cook for a few more minutes. The seasoning recipe called for a little bit of sugar so you can add a tbsp of agave or sweetener if you would like, but I don't think it's necessary.
Spoon mixture over a large bed of lettuce and cabbage. Top with avocado slices and a dollop of greek yogurt if you would like.. Enjoy!
Clean Tilapia Taco Salad
1 head of cabbage (chopped and washed)
1 head of lettuce (chopped and washed)
3-4 tilapia or other white fish filets
1 jalapeno or sliced jalapenos
1-2 avocados
1.5 Cups or so of Pico de gallo (or tomatoes, onions, and cilantro)
3 tbsp Lemon juice
3 tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tbsp Cumin
1/2 tbsp Chili Powder
Salt & Pepper
Optional:
Cayenne Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
1 can black beans (no sugar added)
2-3 green onions
Place the tilapia in 1 tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp lemon juice for extra flavor while you are cutting your lettuce and making your dressing. Before cooking, salt and pepper both sides of the each filet (cayenne pepper is good too).
Blend in a food processor or blender, avocado, jalapeno, pico de gallo, 1-2 tbsp lemon juice and cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste to make a dressing. It comes out an interesting green color but it is yummy.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan on medium heat, add seasoned tilapia filets. Cover and cook on each side about 4 minutes or until flakey.
Place tilapia filets on a huge bed of lettuce and cabbage. Top with avocado dressing.
If you want, you can drain and rinse 1 can of black beans. I add them to the pan at the end of cooking the fish just to warm them up and then add them to the salad for a little bit more fiber. Green onions can add a good kick to the salad as well.
Sorry, I don't have a picture right now. I will try to add one later!
Clean Noodle Free Pad Thai
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Just made this tonight and took the pictures of it before I tasted it.... the pictures looked delicious and I was crossing my fingers that it tasted as good as it looked and it did not disappoint!
I adapted this recipe from a noodle free Rachel Ray Recipe and another Authentic Thai Recipe I found online and then modified it to fit the parameters of a Clean diet and the principles of the Smarter Science of Slim.
2 tbsp Natural Creamy Peanut Butter
2 tbsp Gluten Free Tamari/Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Water
2-4 tsp of Red Pepper Flakes and/or Chili Garlic Sauce
3 tbsp Fish Sauce (this could probably be optional)
1 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 of each Carrot, Yellow Squash, and Zucchini julienned (matchsticks, thinner the better)
1/3 of head of cabbage, thinly sliced (like noodles)
3 green onions (1/2 for garnish)
2 eggs
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
12 medium to large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tbsp of sweetener (I used agave, Rachel Ray's recipe called for 2 tbsp of packed brown sugar, but you could use whatever low glycemic sweetener you prefer)
2 tbsp cider vinegar
Mung bean sprouts (1/2 for garnish)
Lime wedges (for garnish)
Chopped peanuts (for garnish)
2-3 tbsp of oil of your choice. You could use sesame oil, olive oil, coconut oil.
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Chop all vegetables, slice chicken, and peel shrimp. As you can see, I put all the vegetables into one bowl and all of the meat in another. I saved half of the sprouts and half of the green onions for garnish and put the other half in the veggies bowl.
First, I toasted the peanuts in the pan for a few minutes but this is optional. I put those in a bowl and set them aside. The recipe said to either use a wok or a big pan (I used a cast iron pan because it gets hotter and is less toxic). Next, I heated some of the oil and scrambled the two eggs and set those aside in another small bowl.
For the sauce, mix together tamari/soy sauce, water, fish sauce, chili pepper flakes/chili garlic sauce and peanut butter. Set aside.
In the same pan, heat the remaining oil and add the garlic and ginger and 1/2 of the green onions. Saute for 1 minute or so and then add meat. At this point you can add the vegetables at the same time and cook the meat and the veggies together or finish cooking the meat and then cook the vegetables. My pan was too small to handle it all, so i did them separately. Cook the vegetables as much as you'd like, the smaller you cut the veggies the quicker they will cook.
Once meat and veggies are cooked to your liking, add the sauce, sweetener, and cider vinegar, stir to coat and cook for about a minute or so.
Top with scrambled egg, sprouts, green onions, peanuts, lime wedges and toasted peanuts. I also added some extra chili garlic sauce and another dash of tamari before I devoured my huge plate of super healthy pad thai! It was a bit of work but totally worth it. Enjoy.
P.S. This was more than enough for two people, but we managed to put it all down.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Costco Run
So, the Smarter Science of Slim lifestyle would not be plausible for my checkbook if it weren't for our Costco runs. Costco runs are actually quite comical and the topic of much conversation in our house and we still haven't mastered the art of making it economical but we are doing our best...
The idea is to each as much healthy clean foods as possible. Especially, lean proteins and non-starchy vegetables. I think I mentioned before, 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and 10-12 servings of vegetables. So, you can do your own calculations but that's a wholelotta meat and a wholelotta vegetables! Especially with 260 some odd pounds of Big Joe to feed.
Anyway, the comical part is that we have so much food in our cart by the time we get to the check out stand that on our last trip the checker says "Has it been awhile since your last trip?" My response: "No, we just eat this much!" And it's true. We are eating tons of food. The first "diet" (although I hate referring to it as that) where I am not hungry.
Another comical trip spurred this Facebook post: "So... my Costco trip tonight...not so good. Got a hole in my bag of rice and proceeded to leave a "I'm THAT guy" trail half way around Costco. Crazy lady that packed my boxes took 3 years to pack them and when I picked one up to put it in the car it all fell out the bottom. Awesome."
The idea is to each as much healthy clean foods as possible. Especially, lean proteins and non-starchy vegetables. I think I mentioned before, 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and 10-12 servings of vegetables. So, you can do your own calculations but that's a wholelotta meat and a wholelotta vegetables! Especially with 260 some odd pounds of Big Joe to feed.
Anyway, the comical part is that we have so much food in our cart by the time we get to the check out stand that on our last trip the checker says "Has it been awhile since your last trip?" My response: "No, we just eat this much!" And it's true. We are eating tons of food. The first "diet" (although I hate referring to it as that) where I am not hungry.
Another comical trip spurred this Facebook post: "So... my Costco trip tonight...not so good. Got a hole in my bag of rice and proceeded to leave a "I'm THAT guy" trail half way around Costco. Crazy lady that packed my boxes took 3 years to pack them and when I picked one up to put it in the car it all fell out the bottom. Awesome."
Our cart was so full the last trip that the "Packer" made us transfer into two carts for the trip out. Woopsies!
We are trying (without success) to get limit our Costco trips to once every other week. However, it is hard to fit that much food into our refrigerator and freezer and since we are eating so many fresh vegetables, it is hard to keep them fresh for that long as well.
A typical Costco list:
3 packages of spinach
2 3 packs of cabbage
1 6 pack of romaine
1 5 pack of avocados (we use these for dressings and Malia loves them)
1 pack of broccolini
1 individually packaged pack of carrots
1 bag of frozen broccolli or green beans
1 6 pack of red, green, yellow peppers
1 bag of mandarin oranges
1 bag of apples
2 bunches of bananas
5 bags of frozen berries
1 case of organic whole milk (for Malia)
2 18 packs of organic eggs
1 package of almonds
1 package of craisins
1 package of flax seed (this lasts longer than two weeks)
1 bag of organic chicken breasts
1 bag of frozen tilapia
1 bag of frozen salmon (we try to get the wild caught but it's SO much more expensive)
1 2 pack of flank steak
2-3 rotisserie chickens (we use these for lunches)
1 package of indvidual FAGE greek yogurt (mostly for Malia since I can't do dairy)
1 2 pack of natural peanut butter (lasts longer than two weeks)
1 2 pack of agave (lasts longer than two weeks, used sparingly in desserts)
Sometimes:
Case of Canned Black Beans
Case of Canned Pineapple
Almost Never: the above mentioned bag of brown rice. Since sweets and grains are to be kept to 1-2 servings per day, we use our brown rice sparingly.
Usually adds up to between $300-400. Wowser... a lot of food and a lot of $$ but we are justifying it by reminding ourselves that we no longer do Starbucks, "Gas Station Crap", fast food, and rarely do restaurants. Our grocery bill has consistently been around $1,000 a month since we started in January but we are doing our best to learn how to make the best of the dollars we spend.
Also note: we almost exclusively shop for groceries at Costco now, it is only on occassion that we go to the grocery store for an item that we cannot buy in bulk at Costco such as bean sprouts and water chestnuts for mongolian.
An update: We DID go have our giant cinnamon roll... we didn't make it out to Maltby but stopped at the Black Diamond Bakery instead and it was equally delicious.
On a different weekent, my inlaws were in town so we ate at our neighborhood favorite Pizzeria Pulcinella which we call Upside Down pizza. It used to be an old tavern that was known for it's upside down sign... the new owners kept the tradition and left the sign upside down... thus Upside Down Pizza since Joe had trouble remembering the name. We had a fairly Clean/SANE spinach salad with cranberries, walnuts and gorgonzola that was delicious (I splurged and ate some cheese on the salad and the pizza). Our pizza had Rapini (similiar to broccolli) and sausage and mozzarella and it was delicious. The crust here is thin and the pizza is wood fired. I also had a glass of Proseco, which is sparkling wine also exceptional.
Joe and I decided that it felt good to go back to our Clean/SANE Eating after our weekend splurge but our bodies bounced back pretty well with little effort and we did not feel deprived at all.
This was followed by two weeks of consistent clean eating and then a trip to the Puyallup Spring Fair and a few more well earned and very satisfying splurges there too.
I still need to grab the pics from the Fair from my sister so I will post those soon. Hope to have a little better before and after pictures of Joe and I too.
Till next time... love you all the days.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Clean Mongolian BBQ Recipe & A typical day of food for the Colliers
I figured I would share what a typical day of food looks like in our house lately...
About 6:45 am we are up and moving. Dad fixes an omelet of 5 eggs or so (he doesn't do any whites because he could probably use the extra fat) and probably 3 cups of spinach with a little bit of olive oil.
Malia (our toddler) has her usual Fage Greek Yogurt, we only give her a little bit of the flavored filling they put separately in each container because it has a lot of sugar in it. She gets most of it all over her face and fingers but loves her Yogurt in the mornings. Most days she gets some kind of fruit with breakfast too, kiwi, peaches, mandarins and a few bites of Daddy's eggs too.
Mom comes in the kitchen around 7:30 and wips up a smoothie for her and Dad to take to work with them. This keeps us full for a couple of extra hours and ensures we get at least 2-3 servings of vegetables, 2 servings of fruit, 2 tbsp of flax seed each, and usually around 20g of protein each. Our smoothies usually consist of a couple of kinds of frozen fruit from Costco, peaches, mixed berries, strawberries or marionberries about 1.5 cups, sometimes a banana, almond milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, 1/4 C. of flax seed and 1/3 C. of Hemp Protein. On most days I also throw in 2tbsp of peanut butter. This is split between the 3 of us... Malia LOVES "smoobie" time!
Although there are other proteins powders that contain more protein, my dairy allergies are sort of diverting me away from Whey protein. I may give it another try (mostly because we bought a huge tub and it was expensive) but for now I am still using hemp protein that has about 11g of protein per serving. I find that it is pretty hard to find a non-dairy protein that tastes good, has a lot of protein, and does not have any fake sugar. I bought a different hemp protein the other day and it had Stevia in it... it has a weird aftertaste and I can't stand it... that was disappointing but I will keep looking.
I have heard that hemp seeds are actually even better for you and they have more protein per serving than the protein powder. These are expensive too so it would probably best to buy in bulk from Amazon. However, to avoid any incidents like the previous purchases, I am going to head to the local health food store and try some brands before I buy in bulk.
The smoothie usually last me until 10:30 or so and then I head to the break room to grab my snacks from the fridge. I usually have at least 2 servings of raw vegetables and one single serving of organic hummus (from Costco) to each throughout the day. I was so excited to discover that the single servings of hummus at Costco do not have any "Frankenfoods" ingredients, no dairy, no soy, no weird additives. I believe that I have read a reply to an inquiry with regard to hummus on the http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/ community that said hummus is considered mostly SANE. I figure as long as it is a whole food, it is helping me get in my daily 10-12 servings of non-starchy vegetables than I am good.
Around 12:30 or so is lunch time. I usually have some sort of leftovers. Today, I have a turkey burger and broccoli. Other days, I have a huge serving of lettuce and cabbage and throw ground turkey (taco turkey) and some black beans, pico de gallo and avocado on top or a fajita chicken salad with peppers, onions, and chicken. I have also made a version of chinese chicken salad with tangy rice vinegar and agave dressing with sesame seeds and sesame oil, green onions, cabbage and romaine.
Dr. Mark Hyman advocates this quick meal with brown rice or quinoa, greens, meat, sauteed for a few minutes with hot sauce. Joe had a version of this yesterday for lunch with brown rice, spinach, canned wild caught salmon from costco and a little bit of tabasco. He just warmed his in the microwave at work but I think it would be better sauteed so maybe we will try that next time.
Usually mid afternoon is snack time again. I make sure to refill my water around this time. I always have my trusty insulated Starbucks clear water cup with me. It starts out with a smoothie, the water, then smoothie, then water, then water again.
Anyway, the mid afternoon snack is a couple of handfuls of almonds and a few raisins maybe 20 or so. Sometimes, I will sneak in a few chunks of my favorite Theo 70% dark mint chocolate. It has no dairy and no soy. So the only bad part is the sugar, so I keep it to a minimum just a couple of pieces.
When we get home around 4:30-5:00 we usually make another set of smoothies for the 3 of us. Malia sips on hers sometimes more than others and Joe and i get another couple of servings of non-starchy vegetables, flax, fruit, and protein.
Finally, dinner time. We usually start cooking after we put Malia to bed around 6:45. We would love to try to eat earlier but sometimes its impossible. With both of us working full time and her needing such an early bed time, we like to devote 100% of our attention to her before bed. Thus, the smoothie after work. The early bed time has been the key to her sleeping 10-12 hours straight since about 8 months old. ;) A serious miracle...thanks to this book healthy sleep habits happy child
Dinner is our final serving of protein. Protein could be salmon, tilapia, mahi mahi (all fish is wild caught) or organic free range chicken or ground turkey. Maybe once a week we have some lean beef such as flank steak. We try to add a vegetable or two or three and it covers at least 50% of our plate/bowl.
A really easy way to get in all those greens is to turn almost any meal into a salad. If it tastes good as is, throw it over lettuce! Fish Taco Salad, Chicken Fajita Salad, Chicken Taco Salad, or Steak Salad.
Our absolute favorite is our version of Mongolian BBQ... SO delicious! You can put just about any vegetable in it but basically stir fry in a very hot grill pan (we use cast iron), add a little bit of oil preferably a healthy oil, no canola. I believe sesame or coconut oil are more heat resistant than olive oil.
We add:
Cabbage,
Pineapple chunks (small)
Water Chestmuts
Thinly Sliced Carrots
Chopped Broccoli
Bean Sprouts
Chicken (you can marinate it in a little of the pineapple juice and wheat free soy sauce Tamari while you are chopping)
Green Onions
Grated Ginger
Chopped Garlic.
We line our bowls of the above ingredients across the counter and then use a larger bowl to choose what we want in our stir fry.
At the end, add some
Reserved pineapple juice
Tamari (soy sauce),
Chili Oil and/or Sesame Oil (just a dash)
and stir fry away! It shouldn't take very long to cook and I like the way the cast iron the vegetables char a little bit like they were grilled.. Optional: Top with sesame seeds, crushed red peppers and/or salt and pepper.
You can also eat over a small portion of brown rice if you are into that sort of thing.
OK, so now that dinner is over, you should be stuffed! Jonathan Bailor of Smarter Science of Slim says that you should eat so many non-starchy vegetables and protein that you are almost too full for dessert....
but who am I kidding... I LOVE dessert and it's really hard to talk Joe out of something sweet at night.
I know eating dessert a couple of times a week is probably not getting us to the finish line as fast as possible, but it works and keeps us happy in our new plan. We try to keep all ingredients Clean and usually make some sort of homemade version of a cobbler using Oats, 1-2 tbsp of Organic Butter, Cinnamon, Agave, (a tbsp or so of non gluten flour) and some frozen fruit (peaches, berries, apples). Bake and Enjoy! I never feel deprived when we get to eat this dessert. We don't do a lot of cheat meals at all. In fact, we have been keeping them to about once a month so far, so this dessert is our weekly cheat and its good ;)
We ARE human and are REALLY excited about our next planned cheat meal. Joe has it all picked out for his birthday coming up... a GIANT, I am talking plate sized cinnamon roll with icing from a local small town cafe. The Maltby
.
Hope you enjoyed a walk through our day. Planning to blog our next Costco list next....
About 6:45 am we are up and moving. Dad fixes an omelet of 5 eggs or so (he doesn't do any whites because he could probably use the extra fat) and probably 3 cups of spinach with a little bit of olive oil.
Malia (our toddler) has her usual Fage Greek Yogurt, we only give her a little bit of the flavored filling they put separately in each container because it has a lot of sugar in it. She gets most of it all over her face and fingers but loves her Yogurt in the mornings. Most days she gets some kind of fruit with breakfast too, kiwi, peaches, mandarins and a few bites of Daddy's eggs too.
Mom comes in the kitchen around 7:30 and wips up a smoothie for her and Dad to take to work with them. This keeps us full for a couple of extra hours and ensures we get at least 2-3 servings of vegetables, 2 servings of fruit, 2 tbsp of flax seed each, and usually around 20g of protein each. Our smoothies usually consist of a couple of kinds of frozen fruit from Costco, peaches, mixed berries, strawberries or marionberries about 1.5 cups, sometimes a banana, almond milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, 1/4 C. of flax seed and 1/3 C. of Hemp Protein. On most days I also throw in 2tbsp of peanut butter. This is split between the 3 of us... Malia LOVES "smoobie" time!
Although there are other proteins powders that contain more protein, my dairy allergies are sort of diverting me away from Whey protein. I may give it another try (mostly because we bought a huge tub and it was expensive) but for now I am still using hemp protein that has about 11g of protein per serving. I find that it is pretty hard to find a non-dairy protein that tastes good, has a lot of protein, and does not have any fake sugar. I bought a different hemp protein the other day and it had Stevia in it... it has a weird aftertaste and I can't stand it... that was disappointing but I will keep looking.
I have heard that hemp seeds are actually even better for you and they have more protein per serving than the protein powder. These are expensive too so it would probably best to buy in bulk from Amazon. However, to avoid any incidents like the previous purchases, I am going to head to the local health food store and try some brands before I buy in bulk.
The smoothie usually last me until 10:30 or so and then I head to the break room to grab my snacks from the fridge. I usually have at least 2 servings of raw vegetables and one single serving of organic hummus (from Costco) to each throughout the day. I was so excited to discover that the single servings of hummus at Costco do not have any "Frankenfoods" ingredients, no dairy, no soy, no weird additives. I believe that I have read a reply to an inquiry with regard to hummus on the http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/ community that said hummus is considered mostly SANE. I figure as long as it is a whole food, it is helping me get in my daily 10-12 servings of non-starchy vegetables than I am good.
Around 12:30 or so is lunch time. I usually have some sort of leftovers. Today, I have a turkey burger and broccoli. Other days, I have a huge serving of lettuce and cabbage and throw ground turkey (taco turkey) and some black beans, pico de gallo and avocado on top or a fajita chicken salad with peppers, onions, and chicken. I have also made a version of chinese chicken salad with tangy rice vinegar and agave dressing with sesame seeds and sesame oil, green onions, cabbage and romaine.
Dr. Mark Hyman advocates this quick meal with brown rice or quinoa, greens, meat, sauteed for a few minutes with hot sauce. Joe had a version of this yesterday for lunch with brown rice, spinach, canned wild caught salmon from costco and a little bit of tabasco. He just warmed his in the microwave at work but I think it would be better sauteed so maybe we will try that next time.
Usually mid afternoon is snack time again. I make sure to refill my water around this time. I always have my trusty insulated Starbucks clear water cup with me. It starts out with a smoothie, the water, then smoothie, then water, then water again.
Anyway, the mid afternoon snack is a couple of handfuls of almonds and a few raisins maybe 20 or so. Sometimes, I will sneak in a few chunks of my favorite Theo 70% dark mint chocolate. It has no dairy and no soy. So the only bad part is the sugar, so I keep it to a minimum just a couple of pieces.
When we get home around 4:30-5:00 we usually make another set of smoothies for the 3 of us. Malia sips on hers sometimes more than others and Joe and i get another couple of servings of non-starchy vegetables, flax, fruit, and protein.
Finally, dinner time. We usually start cooking after we put Malia to bed around 6:45. We would love to try to eat earlier but sometimes its impossible. With both of us working full time and her needing such an early bed time, we like to devote 100% of our attention to her before bed. Thus, the smoothie after work. The early bed time has been the key to her sleeping 10-12 hours straight since about 8 months old. ;) A serious miracle...thanks to this book healthy sleep habits happy child
Dinner is our final serving of protein. Protein could be salmon, tilapia, mahi mahi (all fish is wild caught) or organic free range chicken or ground turkey. Maybe once a week we have some lean beef such as flank steak. We try to add a vegetable or two or three and it covers at least 50% of our plate/bowl.
A really easy way to get in all those greens is to turn almost any meal into a salad. If it tastes good as is, throw it over lettuce! Fish Taco Salad, Chicken Fajita Salad, Chicken Taco Salad, or Steak Salad.
Our absolute favorite is our version of Mongolian BBQ... SO delicious! You can put just about any vegetable in it but basically stir fry in a very hot grill pan (we use cast iron), add a little bit of oil preferably a healthy oil, no canola. I believe sesame or coconut oil are more heat resistant than olive oil.
We add:
Cabbage,
Pineapple chunks (small)
Water Chestmuts
Thinly Sliced Carrots
Chopped Broccoli
Bean Sprouts
Chicken (you can marinate it in a little of the pineapple juice and wheat free soy sauce Tamari while you are chopping)
Green Onions
Grated Ginger
Chopped Garlic.
We line our bowls of the above ingredients across the counter and then use a larger bowl to choose what we want in our stir fry.
At the end, add some
Reserved pineapple juice
Tamari (soy sauce),
Chili Oil and/or Sesame Oil (just a dash)
and stir fry away! It shouldn't take very long to cook and I like the way the cast iron the vegetables char a little bit like they were grilled.. Optional: Top with sesame seeds, crushed red peppers and/or salt and pepper.
You can also eat over a small portion of brown rice if you are into that sort of thing.
OK, so now that dinner is over, you should be stuffed! Jonathan Bailor of Smarter Science of Slim says that you should eat so many non-starchy vegetables and protein that you are almost too full for dessert....
but who am I kidding... I LOVE dessert and it's really hard to talk Joe out of something sweet at night.
I know eating dessert a couple of times a week is probably not getting us to the finish line as fast as possible, but it works and keeps us happy in our new plan. We try to keep all ingredients Clean and usually make some sort of homemade version of a cobbler using Oats, 1-2 tbsp of Organic Butter, Cinnamon, Agave, (a tbsp or so of non gluten flour) and some frozen fruit (peaches, berries, apples). Bake and Enjoy! I never feel deprived when we get to eat this dessert. We don't do a lot of cheat meals at all. In fact, we have been keeping them to about once a month so far, so this dessert is our weekly cheat and its good ;)
We ARE human and are REALLY excited about our next planned cheat meal. Joe has it all picked out for his birthday coming up... a GIANT, I am talking plate sized cinnamon roll with icing from a local small town cafe. The Maltby
.
Hope you enjoyed a walk through our day. Planning to blog our next Costco list next....
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Our Progress So Far...
Today and The Scale
So, although our goal is to feel more healthy and happy, I cannot get over the obsessive habit of weighing myself. I KNOW that I have lost lots of inches and at least two pant sizes (I forgot to measure when we started, probably because I figured this would never work) but I have also lost approximately 9 lbs, depending on the hour, the week, or the minute and it came off quickly with little to no exercise. We walk our big great dane dog about 3 times a week for about 35 minutes but I knew I needed to do one thing at a time, so we just decided to focus on food at least until the sun comes out around here....
And Big Joe, my candy eating, donut loving, soda drinking husband has become a ruffage eating, raw food, clean eating, label reading champion! If anyone knows Joe, they would not believe that he could EVER give up sugar. Joe's favorite things were cherry sours, coke, ice cream (mint chocolate chip, cotton candy, bubble gum, or samoa his favorite flavors). You know when people buy you a 5 lb bag of gummy bears for your birthday that you may have a problem.
Those of you who don't know Joe, he is 6'7" tall teddy bear of a guy and ex-football player that seems trim and fit whether he has an extra few lbs on him or not. He usually has the metabolism that never quits but over the last year or so things were catching up with just a little tiny bit and it started to bother him.
Most of all though, I think we were just tired of waking up every day just to "survive" the day. We wanted to feel alive and happy and healthy and we were just feeling SICK.
So far, I think he has lost over 20 lbs... i know makes you sick doesn't it... but he did start out weighing over 270 lbs so he had a lot more to start with.
How thankful I am to have had a willing partner to walk with me on this new path... Joe was already two weeks into a New Years Resolution to stop eating so much candy and sugar when I came home from the Naturopath with the elimination diet plan. So, Joe had already began his road to detoxing, from sugar at least, and he did not blink an eye when I said "We" would be doing the elimination diet.
Elimination Diet:
At first the elimination diet seemed like a bunch of NOs
No Dairy (except organic eggs)
No Beef
No Wheat
No Processed Foods
No Tomatoes
No Caffeine
No Chocolate
No Citrus
No Corn
No Sugar (except agave or honey)
Only Organic Free Range Chicken/Turkey and Wild Caught Fish
I think that was the gist of it....I'm sure I forgot something. The idea was to kind of get my body functioning in a clean state and then introduce these foods back in at controlled intervals to see what I might be sensitive to.
After 8 days of hell (keep in mind these were the 8 days that it happened to snow non-stop in Seattle and we were trapped inside of our houses!) a fog lifted and the cravings and up and downs slowly subsided. Our taste buds started adjusting to the whole foods and spices and I started missing potatoes, coffee, and chocolate a little less...
After 3 1/2 weeks I lost 4 lbs and felt a million times better. No more sinus pressure or ear pain, no brain fog, no headaches (not even 1 Tylenol or Ibuprofen taken after the first 7 days).
Initially, my question to the doctor was "Just 3 weeks right, I don't have to do this forever right?" He assured me that it was only temporary with a slight smile. What I realize now is that I WANT to try to do this forever. OK, well not so much everything on the list.
Tomatoes and Citrus don't bother me and they are whole foods so I will keep eating those.
Chocolate itself doesn't bother me (just the dairy and soy additives that are in almost all chocolate) but I have found "Theo" chocolate that does not have any dairy or soy (made right here in the Seattle - bonus!) and it is 70% dark chocolate.
After much research and a few more books and testing how I felt with adding back in Wheat/Gluten, we have decided to keep these to a minimum, if any. Instead, we have been eating legumes, brown rice and quinoa. They make me feel bloated and overall crappy. It feels great to wake up in the morning without a pooch in my belly :) Less sucking in for the day, if you know what I mean... and I know you know what I mean!
We have added lean beef (usually flank steak) maybe once a week as a treat but I have realized that this doesn't digest as well as fish, turkey, and chicken.
I haven't added back in corn, mostly because I am pretty sure that I will have a negative reaction to it and because it pretty full of sugar. If we can avoid it, we probably will. During the first couple of weeks of elimination diet, I used an old moisturizer I had on my eyes and I swelled up like a balloon, the only odd ingredient I found was corn... so now I am kind of scared to let that one back in and I am not missing it.
Sadly, my beloved dairy had to go. I have tried a few times over to add back in cheese, all different kinds, milk, greek yogurt but to no avail. Inevitably, my sinuses blow up, my ear pain returns and I get a headache within 10-15 minutes that lasts for a couple of hours. That chronic pain and headaches and mass dosages of sudafed was really slowing me down in life, so every time I miss my Skinny Vanilla Latte, I have to remind myself of this.
Added Bonuses
There are so many more details that I have left out but I feel like if I don't get on with it, I will just give up and quit writing....
A few extra bonuses I have noticed.
Shiny Hair
Clear Skin
Increased libido (something I have been working on for 10 years with doctors to no avail)
and improvements in our marriage! All the efforts required to live this life have forced Joe and I to talk with each other about all kinds of things, our future, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. We often work as a team to get lunches packed, healthy dinner prepaired, grocery lists made, and grocery shopping completed.
Our family takes a trip to Costco every other week together and as stupid as it sounds, we enjoy it!
Now before you roll your eyes (in your head of course) remember, I was the biggest skeptic...maybe try giving up sugar, wheat, and dairy for a couple of weeks and see how you come out on the other side. You may just become the annoying girl that is writing a blog and bragging about how great she feels!
Here we are in December after Santa pictures... Before.
So, although our goal is to feel more healthy and happy, I cannot get over the obsessive habit of weighing myself. I KNOW that I have lost lots of inches and at least two pant sizes (I forgot to measure when we started, probably because I figured this would never work) but I have also lost approximately 9 lbs, depending on the hour, the week, or the minute and it came off quickly with little to no exercise. We walk our big great dane dog about 3 times a week for about 35 minutes but I knew I needed to do one thing at a time, so we just decided to focus on food at least until the sun comes out around here....
And Big Joe, my candy eating, donut loving, soda drinking husband has become a ruffage eating, raw food, clean eating, label reading champion! If anyone knows Joe, they would not believe that he could EVER give up sugar. Joe's favorite things were cherry sours, coke, ice cream (mint chocolate chip, cotton candy, bubble gum, or samoa his favorite flavors). You know when people buy you a 5 lb bag of gummy bears for your birthday that you may have a problem.
Those of you who don't know Joe, he is 6'7" tall teddy bear of a guy and ex-football player that seems trim and fit whether he has an extra few lbs on him or not. He usually has the metabolism that never quits but over the last year or so things were catching up with just a little tiny bit and it started to bother him.
Most of all though, I think we were just tired of waking up every day just to "survive" the day. We wanted to feel alive and happy and healthy and we were just feeling SICK.
So far, I think he has lost over 20 lbs... i know makes you sick doesn't it... but he did start out weighing over 270 lbs so he had a lot more to start with.
How thankful I am to have had a willing partner to walk with me on this new path... Joe was already two weeks into a New Years Resolution to stop eating so much candy and sugar when I came home from the Naturopath with the elimination diet plan. So, Joe had already began his road to detoxing, from sugar at least, and he did not blink an eye when I said "We" would be doing the elimination diet.
Elimination Diet:
At first the elimination diet seemed like a bunch of NOs
No Dairy (except organic eggs)
No Beef
No Wheat
No Processed Foods
No Tomatoes
No Caffeine
No Chocolate
No Citrus
No Corn
No Sugar (except agave or honey)
Only Organic Free Range Chicken/Turkey and Wild Caught Fish
I think that was the gist of it....I'm sure I forgot something. The idea was to kind of get my body functioning in a clean state and then introduce these foods back in at controlled intervals to see what I might be sensitive to.
After 8 days of hell (keep in mind these were the 8 days that it happened to snow non-stop in Seattle and we were trapped inside of our houses!) a fog lifted and the cravings and up and downs slowly subsided. Our taste buds started adjusting to the whole foods and spices and I started missing potatoes, coffee, and chocolate a little less...
After 3 1/2 weeks I lost 4 lbs and felt a million times better. No more sinus pressure or ear pain, no brain fog, no headaches (not even 1 Tylenol or Ibuprofen taken after the first 7 days).
Initially, my question to the doctor was "Just 3 weeks right, I don't have to do this forever right?" He assured me that it was only temporary with a slight smile. What I realize now is that I WANT to try to do this forever. OK, well not so much everything on the list.
Tomatoes and Citrus don't bother me and they are whole foods so I will keep eating those.
Chocolate itself doesn't bother me (just the dairy and soy additives that are in almost all chocolate) but I have found "Theo" chocolate that does not have any dairy or soy (made right here in the Seattle - bonus!) and it is 70% dark chocolate.
After much research and a few more books and testing how I felt with adding back in Wheat/Gluten, we have decided to keep these to a minimum, if any. Instead, we have been eating legumes, brown rice and quinoa. They make me feel bloated and overall crappy. It feels great to wake up in the morning without a pooch in my belly :) Less sucking in for the day, if you know what I mean... and I know you know what I mean!
We have added lean beef (usually flank steak) maybe once a week as a treat but I have realized that this doesn't digest as well as fish, turkey, and chicken.
I haven't added back in corn, mostly because I am pretty sure that I will have a negative reaction to it and because it pretty full of sugar. If we can avoid it, we probably will. During the first couple of weeks of elimination diet, I used an old moisturizer I had on my eyes and I swelled up like a balloon, the only odd ingredient I found was corn... so now I am kind of scared to let that one back in and I am not missing it.
Sadly, my beloved dairy had to go. I have tried a few times over to add back in cheese, all different kinds, milk, greek yogurt but to no avail. Inevitably, my sinuses blow up, my ear pain returns and I get a headache within 10-15 minutes that lasts for a couple of hours. That chronic pain and headaches and mass dosages of sudafed was really slowing me down in life, so every time I miss my Skinny Vanilla Latte, I have to remind myself of this.
Added Bonuses
There are so many more details that I have left out but I feel like if I don't get on with it, I will just give up and quit writing....
A few extra bonuses I have noticed.
Shiny Hair
Clear Skin
Increased libido (something I have been working on for 10 years with doctors to no avail)
and improvements in our marriage! All the efforts required to live this life have forced Joe and I to talk with each other about all kinds of things, our future, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. We often work as a team to get lunches packed, healthy dinner prepaired, grocery lists made, and grocery shopping completed.
Our family takes a trip to Costco every other week together and as stupid as it sounds, we enjoy it!
Now before you roll your eyes (in your head of course) remember, I was the biggest skeptic...maybe try giving up sugar, wheat, and dairy for a couple of weeks and see how you come out on the other side. You may just become the annoying girl that is writing a blog and bragging about how great she feels!
Here we are in December after Santa pictures... Before.
Two Weeks Ago at the Ocean...After.
Again, in the interest of getting the words on the page, sorry for any typos!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Picking it Back Up...or trying to at least.
So, it has been awhile since I blogged. Ok, like 6 months. But seriously, who has time to do this? I guess I will try to make time since I guess this can be therapeutic.
Although I would like to assume that we are important and people care about what I have to share about the world. I am pretty sure that isn't the case. As a very cute Pinterest post I recently saw said "People think about you a lot less than you think they do." That can be comforting in some respects but also pretty eye-opening in others.
Anyway, many reasons to get back to blogging.... Joe and I have taken up a new and healthy lifestyle and I would like to document it mostly for myself but also for any others who need inspiration or company on similar journeys. I find myself reading other blogs, reviews, articles, websites and I feel like I am doing a lot of taking and not a lot of giving on that front. So, here is my forum to share with everyone our progress.
I also need to catch up on sharing some of the cutest pics and milestones of our little (not so much a baby anymore) girl. I know it is such a cliche and every parent says it but, man we love her and don't know what we did before she came. What the heck were we living for before her? What were we doing? Not much but positive changes have come from adding Malia into our lives and we are so thankful for her. Those of you that know me, know that I was the typical girl that frowned at other peoples kids, tantrums, Moms gawking over their kids or bragging oey goey over how awesome it was to be a mom... eye roll (in my head of course). But, I'm sorry to all of you whom I ever had an internal terrible, negative thought about. I totally get it now. Just like you told me I would. Go ahead and say it... I told you so.
On that same note, I think the issue with blogging is prioritization.... working full time, trying to be a good Mom, healthy Mom, good wife, daughter, sister, doesn't leave much time for typing nonsense to no one. But as I said, it seems therapeutic (Me Time, as they say) and I will do as much as I can.
On the Health Front....
We are already a couple of months in on this journey so I will give you some history and catch you up as we go....
As many of you already know, Joe got really sick last year with viral meningitis and spent a week in the hospital. I was pretty sure that he was never going to get better. You can read about all the details here: http://lifeinxxl.blogspot.com/2011/09/daddys-trip-to-hospital.html.
A few months prior to that, I had my own bout of post partum depression induced by lack of sleep, a ridiculous amount of emotional stress in the workplace. You can read about that here: http://lifeinxxl.blogspot.com/2011/09/31111-drafted-post-never-got-to-finish.html
In a nutshell, here is how the next couple of months went:
In December, I was having chronic sinus infections (like 10 weeks of Sudafed 24 hours a day). This is not new, pretty much a yearly event that lasts about 6 months on and off, sometimes turning into the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc.
So, I went online to see what else could be the cause of my chronic sinus issues. I found a couple of websites where people were complaining about a long line of symptoms all of which I realized I had too! There are more but I can never remember them all.
Headache
Sinus Pressure
Acne
Bloating
Ear Pain
Canker Sores
Exhaustion
Dizzines
Heart Palpitations
Anxiety (panic attacks)
Mild Depression
Raised Bumps on Arms
All of these were small things that you wouldn't think much of one their own but once you put them together I really realized I was ALWAYS feeling some sort of sick.
I also had massive sugar cravings and have been trying to get off the same 15-20 lbs for over a year. I had lost about half of it over the past year doing Weight Watchers but things were moving REALLY slowly.
Most of the people on the forums mentioned that they believed dairy or gluten was causing their symptoms and recommended followers to seek the care of a Naturopath.
I made an appointment with Dr. Jamey Wallace at the Bastyr Center for Naturpathic Health and was put on a strict elimination diet. (More about that later)
I think I said in a nutshell at first, so in a nutshell, I FEEL GREAT NOW. but I have sensitivities to a lot of foods that were causing me to feel constantly sick. Now that I am avoiding these foods I have more energy, I am happy, I feel awake when I wake up in the morning, I have energy to BLOG!
There are so many details and I will try to fill them in as we go. I will mention two very valuable great resources that I have found and anyone interested can start here...
Joe and I are following this new science basedl philosophy of Clean Eating with a few exceptions for my recently discovered food allergies:
Jonathan Bailor recently released a book that we LOVE: "The Smarter Science of Slim" you can find his website, blog, community site here: http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/
Dr. Mark Hyman has several articles and a new book titled the "Blood Sugar Solution". His philosophies and articles make so much sense to me and I keep finding more articles to read each day. We are also trying to implement most of these health guidelines in addition to those found in the above book to for a new overall well being to be as healthy as we can be. We want to live to see Malia's grandkids!
Hopefully, the next posts will include much more detail on our daily life, grocery lists, recipes, etc. That's my plan anyway... so stay tuned ;)
P.S. In the interest of priorities, I am going to attempt to blog and not try to worry about my grammar and everything being perfect... so sorry if there are typos.
Although I would like to assume that we are important and people care about what I have to share about the world. I am pretty sure that isn't the case. As a very cute Pinterest post I recently saw said "People think about you a lot less than you think they do." That can be comforting in some respects but also pretty eye-opening in others.
Anyway, many reasons to get back to blogging.... Joe and I have taken up a new and healthy lifestyle and I would like to document it mostly for myself but also for any others who need inspiration or company on similar journeys. I find myself reading other blogs, reviews, articles, websites and I feel like I am doing a lot of taking and not a lot of giving on that front. So, here is my forum to share with everyone our progress.
I also need to catch up on sharing some of the cutest pics and milestones of our little (not so much a baby anymore) girl. I know it is such a cliche and every parent says it but, man we love her and don't know what we did before she came. What the heck were we living for before her? What were we doing? Not much but positive changes have come from adding Malia into our lives and we are so thankful for her. Those of you that know me, know that I was the typical girl that frowned at other peoples kids, tantrums, Moms gawking over their kids or bragging oey goey over how awesome it was to be a mom... eye roll (in my head of course). But, I'm sorry to all of you whom I ever had an internal terrible, negative thought about. I totally get it now. Just like you told me I would. Go ahead and say it... I told you so.
On that same note, I think the issue with blogging is prioritization.... working full time, trying to be a good Mom, healthy Mom, good wife, daughter, sister, doesn't leave much time for typing nonsense to no one. But as I said, it seems therapeutic (Me Time, as they say) and I will do as much as I can.
On the Health Front....
We are already a couple of months in on this journey so I will give you some history and catch you up as we go....
As many of you already know, Joe got really sick last year with viral meningitis and spent a week in the hospital. I was pretty sure that he was never going to get better. You can read about all the details here: http://lifeinxxl.blogspot.com/2011/09/daddys-trip-to-hospital.html.
A few months prior to that, I had my own bout of post partum depression induced by lack of sleep, a ridiculous amount of emotional stress in the workplace. You can read about that here: http://lifeinxxl.blogspot.com/2011/09/31111-drafted-post-never-got-to-finish.html
In a nutshell, here is how the next couple of months went:
In December, I was having chronic sinus infections (like 10 weeks of Sudafed 24 hours a day). This is not new, pretty much a yearly event that lasts about 6 months on and off, sometimes turning into the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc.
So, I went online to see what else could be the cause of my chronic sinus issues. I found a couple of websites where people were complaining about a long line of symptoms all of which I realized I had too! There are more but I can never remember them all.
Headache
Sinus Pressure
Acne
Bloating
Ear Pain
Canker Sores
Exhaustion
Dizzines
Heart Palpitations
Anxiety (panic attacks)
Mild Depression
Raised Bumps on Arms
All of these were small things that you wouldn't think much of one their own but once you put them together I really realized I was ALWAYS feeling some sort of sick.
I also had massive sugar cravings and have been trying to get off the same 15-20 lbs for over a year. I had lost about half of it over the past year doing Weight Watchers but things were moving REALLY slowly.
Most of the people on the forums mentioned that they believed dairy or gluten was causing their symptoms and recommended followers to seek the care of a Naturopath.
I made an appointment with Dr. Jamey Wallace at the Bastyr Center for Naturpathic Health and was put on a strict elimination diet. (More about that later)
I think I said in a nutshell at first, so in a nutshell, I FEEL GREAT NOW. but I have sensitivities to a lot of foods that were causing me to feel constantly sick. Now that I am avoiding these foods I have more energy, I am happy, I feel awake when I wake up in the morning, I have energy to BLOG!
There are so many details and I will try to fill them in as we go. I will mention two very valuable great resources that I have found and anyone interested can start here...
Joe and I are following this new science basedl philosophy of Clean Eating with a few exceptions for my recently discovered food allergies:
Jonathan Bailor recently released a book that we LOVE: "The Smarter Science of Slim" you can find his website, blog, community site here: http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/
Dr. Mark Hyman has several articles and a new book titled the "Blood Sugar Solution". His philosophies and articles make so much sense to me and I keep finding more articles to read each day. We are also trying to implement most of these health guidelines in addition to those found in the above book to for a new overall well being to be as healthy as we can be. We want to live to see Malia's grandkids!
Hopefully, the next posts will include much more detail on our daily life, grocery lists, recipes, etc. That's my plan anyway... so stay tuned ;)
P.S. In the interest of priorities, I am going to attempt to blog and not try to worry about my grammar and everything being perfect... so sorry if there are typos.
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