Getting Serious...

I'm so GLAD the holidays are over. I tried to eat clean, but there was just too much room for error while out at gatherings with the family. Today we got back on track.

For Christmas, Jonny got me the Eat Clean Diet Recharged book which has recipes, but it also explains the hows and why's behind the Eat Clean Diet. I read the entire book in less than a day. I was just soaking it all in like a sponge. On FB I posted that I have a goal to lose another 35 pounds before going back to the doc at the end of march, and another 100 pounds total by next Christmas (with the exception of unless I get pregnant in the next year). Lofty, but attainable goals.

The book is teaching us about what combinations of foods to eat, and how to measure portion sizes to not overeat. Today, I had the following:

Breakfast: Cream of wheat (Starchy carb) with 2 hard boiled egg whites (protein)
Mid morning snack: apple (carb-fruit) with handful of pecans (healthy fat & protein)
Lunch: Tuna (protein) and leafy greens with carrots and mushrooms (carbs - veggies) tossed with a home made vinagerete of olive oil, honey, balsamic and red wine vinegar, all rolled up in a whole wheat wrap (carb).
Mid afternoon snack: protein smoothie with ground flax seed, pinto beans (carb OR protein - beans are both!)
Dinner: pork medallions with couscous and sauteed mushrooms, with a side of applesauce (weird, I know, but I got the recipe from the Clean Eating magazine, and OMG it was SO good! I would have never thought to have applesauce with pork - buuuut, it works!

So... now that the holidays are over, we'll have to see where I go from here. Jonny is on board with me and he's excited about this process as well. I am hoping to lose enough weight that i can actually shop at VS and NY&Co again.

I re-joined the YMCA today - and this time, I'm going to make it worthwhile. My company reimburses me for a gym membership if I prove that I went an average of 3 times per week, or 12 times a month. I cannot afford the gym membership otherwise, so that in itself is motivation to get my ass moving so I don't have to pay for it out of pocket.

Right now, I'm loading the ipod with some work out music so I can drag my butt in to the gym in the morning. Woo!

Oh lord, I'm gonna pay for this...

Happy Birthday to me.

To celebrate my birthday, I decided to splurge.... just a little. Hubby and I went to Red Robin, because I could get a FREE gourmet burger. Much to my delight they had WHOLE GRAIN BUNS. Yes!!! So, I ordered my burger with a whole grain bun and no mayo. Yes, it was still beef, and yes, it still had cheese and ketchup on it....Was it clean? No not really, but it was alot better than having it served up normal like I would have in the past. We also skipped having an appetizer. I enjoyed it down to the last 2 bites, where I was full and couldn't eat anymore. If you can't splurge a little on your birthday, then when can you?

Bread, Canning, etc

With the exception of about as many things as I can count on one hand, my food pantry is officially clean! A few weeks ago, I pulled out what I thought was most of the "un-clean" products from my pantry and donated it to the church who was taking it to a local food shelter. However, I realized there was still alot of stuff I missed. So Wednesday night, I pulled the rest of the garbage out and boxed it up. When my family was here on Thursday, I told them to go through it and take whatever they wanted, because the rest would be going to the pantry. Between all of our family members, it all got taken, which makes me happy.

I'm really beginning to enjoy this whole bread baking thing. I haven't quite got the hang of it just yet because whole wheat dough isn't fluffy like white bread, or bread made with white flour. Even when they fortify it, or enrich it, the good nutrients have been sucked out of it, and it makes your body process it as sugar. The bread I've made so far has been pretty dense. It's good, but it really makes you realize how much crap is in "regular bread" that we're used to buying at the supermarket. Even fresh bread from the bakery has sugar or salt, or regular flour instead of only whole grains. I'm choosing to only eat breads made of whole grains now, and as a result, it looks like I'll be baking my own bread from now on. Tonight I'm going to make a loaf of sandwich bread using the recipe in the healthy bread book I just bought. I really hope that it turns out okay.

I think my weight is doing pretty good, even after turkey day. I am crossing my fingers that I will have a successful visit at the doc on Monday.

Some people think I've gone too extreme with this lifestyle change. Here's the thing though: I HAVE to be extreme. I don't feel that it's an option otherwise. Sugar is an addiction. It's the legal cocaine. Our bodies have grown accustomed to it, and "need" it to survive. While, yes, I can "cheat" every so often, I am choosing not to when at all possible. Sometimes I won't be able to help it. If I'm eating out, my options are very limited now. Yesterday for Black Friday, I chose to go to Atlanta Bread Company, a deli place, similar to Panera for those of you who have never heard of it. I got a bowl of butternut squash soup. Short of getting a salad, which I wasn't in the mood for, I felt that this was one of the best options for me to choose from as a quick decision. I will be downloading their nutrition guide, and educating myself on what other menu items may be safe for me to choose from in the future.

This takes ALOT of planning. It's hard because I have to think about it. But the payoff will be worth it. It's worth it to me to bake/cook without sugar. If I need salt, I can use sea salt. There are lots of websites that I've been referring to for menu ideas, and I'm learning to how to make some of my favorite menu items clean by substituting certain ingredients. Some people may so "Oh, I could never do that..." well, bullsh*t, yes you could. If you received the ultimatum that I did, that basically, I was going to become a diabetic, and my health would continuously deteriorate if I didn't stop eating garbage, and oh yeah, my body isn't healthy enough to have a baby right now, you would find it impossible to NOT make the changes I've made. I have needed this for years. I KNEW that I needed to make changes, but I didn't know how, and it wasn't ever severe enough for me to be forced to make the changes. Now it is, and I want to be successful at this.

My dad is a big guy. All the women on his side of the family were big women. I was becoming one of them. I told him on Thursday as I was explaining what changes I'm making and why that I didn't want to be like the other ladies in the family. He said he didn't blame me, and he encouraged me.


Just for giggles, here's what I've had to eat today:

Breakfast: Cream of Wheat with unsalted sweet cream butter (real stuff - not margarine spread) and honey for flavor.

Mid-morning snack:Garlic bread made with whole wheat bread dough, olive oil, left over roasted garlic (i roasted garlic bulbs on Thursday and mashed these up to put on the bread today) and mozzarella cheese.

Lunch: oatmeal protein smoothie (oatmeal, salt and sugar free Peanut butter, honey, protein powder, cinnamon, skim milk, ice cubes, flax seeds and sunflower seeds). This smoothie has become my breakfast staple during the week. I usually have this rather than coffee in the mornings now. I wasn't really in the mood for a full lunch so I made this smoothie instead.

left over pieces of ham as a mid afternoon snack. Not exactly clean due to fat content, but I tried to watch the pieces I ate to stay away from obvious fat pieces. At some point in the afternoon, I also had a small sliver of chocolate pecan pie - which I cleaned up the ingredients on. Definitely not something you want to eat every day, but it was a clean version of a fun treat.

Dinner: Turkey Broccoli Quiche. I found this recipe online by googling left over turkey recipes, and it was delicious. I used skim milk rather than half and half, and I did not add salt. This recipe won over the hubby seal of approval.


One last thing I wanted to mention - I'm learning to can. I bought a pressure canner yesterday and canned turkey stock left over from the bones. There's nothing like homemade stock which you know isn't loaded with salt like the stuff you'll buy at the grocery store. Stock is GREAT for cooking whole wheat pasta. I'm also looking forward to canning my own tomato sauce for pizza and pastas, homemade sloppy joes made with ground turkey meat, chili, etc. If I can just learn what I'm doing, I think I will be canning ALOT more often. I'm so excited about what new things this new lifestyle is forcing me to try - baking my own bread, canning pantry staples, etc... It's actually quite fun.

Tosca Reno Interview

Great interview by Tosca who explains why clean eating is so important.

Bread...yummmm

My copy of Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day arrived today. I cannot WAIT to start trying some of the recipes! In fact, I have my first batch of dough rising right now. I am hoping that I'll learn enough about this that I can stop buying store bought bread. There are recipes for sandwich bread loaves, pizza crusts, crescent rolls, dinner loaves, hamburger buns, etc. I'm SO EXCITED about this. Especially considering that when I went to the grocery store to buy whole wheat bread this weekend, I couldn't find a single solitary loaf - not even that in the bakery section, that was whole wheat, no refined flour, no salt, and no sugar. I can have sea salt, but not regular table salt. I'm cutting out sugar completely. Even the loaves that said sugar free had a degree of refined white flour. I was very disappointed, but that just proves it's time for me to learn to bake my own bread at home. Check out my bucket o' rising dough:

I decided I had to have this book after watching this video. Tomorrow morning I plan on getting up early so I can bake my first loaf. I'm excited to see how it will turn out :) The only difference is that I did not use the all purpose flour. All purpose flour is refined, and I'm trying to stay away from it, so I substituted rice flour instead. It was all I had for now. I ordered some whole wheat pastry flour from amazon since I cannot seem to find it in stores, but it hasn't arrived yet.

In other news, it's been 17 days since I had a french fry. Laugh all you want, but sadly, that's kind of a big deal for me. It's also been 17 days since I had a soda or ate at a fast food restaurant. I never ever thought I would be able to do this.but I can, and I am, and I will continue. When I drive past a fast food restaurant, I have that initial thought of "OMG I want a burger..." but it's followed up with a thought of "Manda, you're doing SO GOOD, don't blow it now..."

I'm far from being perfect on this Eat Clean journey. There has probably been at least 1 thing every day that I eat that is not truly clean. In fact, the peanut butter I'm currently using has regular table salt in it rather than sea salt. It doesn't have sugar, so it's not as bad as some other peanut butters, but once this batch is gone, I'm going to have to shop for a different kind. I've been eating alot of apples with PB as my mid afternoon snacks at work.

I currently have kidney beans soaking, and ground turkey thawing. Tomorrow morning before I head out to work I'm going to make a crock pot of chili. I learned this weekend that I will never again be able to buy canned beans...unless I buy organic, which is ridiculously overpriced. Regular canned beans have salt or sugar in them :( However, I HATE waiting on beans to soak. I am considering soaking all the beans I bought this weekend and putting them in the freezer so that when I need them I just need to thaw/cook them, and wont have to wait on the soak process.

Thanksgiving dinner is coming up. It's not going to be completely clean. I'm using this as an opportunity to continue to get rid of stuff in my pantry that I don't need. 2 boxes of cheap mac n cheese, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cream corn, dressing, etc. It sucks that the turkey is literally going to be the only clean item this Thanksgiving - wait, no the pumpkin pie will also be clean because I'm subbing some ingredients to make it clean. I think I'll be able to plan better for next year. I'm too new at this process to throw it together in such a short period of time and really research my options without feeding my family/friends tofu who may think I've turned into a hippie health nut.

Enough rambling for now. G'night.

Hi, My name is Amanda....

...and I'm tired of being a blubberbutt.

Two weeks ago, I went to an endocrinologist at the insistence of my OB/GYN. Long story short, we haven't been able to get pregnant, and while we haven't been trying long enough to be considered infertile, my OB ran some tests which discovered that I had high insulin, which could lead to fertility issues, etc.

Soooo, I went to this endocrinologist, who told me that if I didn't get my crap together, I would soon be a diabetic. I'm NOT diabetic, and hopefully with this new lifestyle change, I can keep that from happening. He told me to go on a 1500 calorie per day diet, and to avoid white foods: pasta, rice, bread, potatoes. He said to eat more fruits and veggies. More grains. At first I was skeptical. I still am at the 1500 calories thing, but this ultimatum is a serious one. If I ever want to get pregnant, if I want to be around to raise those kids, I've got to get my weight under control.

While I'm not too thrilled with the idea of counting calories, I felt confident that his intent was to get me to make better choices all around. I posted the devastating news about my visit with him on a couple of message boards, and one of the suggestions i was given was to look into Clean Eating. Clean Eating, in a nutshell, is eating the way God intended. Lots of fruits, veggies, grains, etc. No processed crap. No fast food. Lean meats only. Whole grain breads only. No salt, but when necessary, sea sat is an acceptable alternative. And definitely no SUGAR. While it sounded scary at first, it's been 2 weeks, and I feel like I'm doing pretty good. I'm still learning, and while I've gotten rid of alot of foods that are not okay in this new lifestyle plan, I'm still working on on "cleaning" my cupboards.

Follow me, as I learn this new lifestyle, and post new things I learn, such as yummy recipes. I will also update my weight loss progress, and health effects. More to come. Thank you!