Sept. 4: Digging In

Now that the number one stressor in my life is resolved (money, employment and lack thereof), it's time to get things back on track.

I can focus because:

a.)  I have a job that will pay enough for me to actually live on.
b.)  I know what city to focus my apartment hunt on
c.)  I know things are turning around for the better

So, now to attack the things I have let go:  my diet and exercise plan.

I'm disappointed.  I thought that I had conquered emotional eating.  What I've learned is that you don't conquer it - it's like being a recovering alcoholic, and it's something that will always be there.  I can manage it through most things but if the stress is intense enough I will cave.

I have to forgive myself, first of all.  I need to look at the situation as a friend would see it.  I need to take a look at the things I have been going through, understand that it was an intolerable situation, and let it go.  I have to be kind and understanding to myself, which is way easier said than done when you are a perfectionist. 

So what do you do when you've screwed up and put on 8 hard-fought pounds during "maintenance"?

I'm no expert (except for the putting on pounds part), but I guess I just need to start dieting again.  After 8 months of it, I should be darned good at it.

I'm going back to the beginning of my plan and starting from there.

I'm going to combine Tosca Reno's Clean Eating diet with calorie counting.  My biggest mistake occurred when I stopped tracking my food.  If I had logged it and seen that I was consuming 2000-3000 calories a day, I think I would have caught this before I gained 8 pounds.  But maybe I didn't want to catch it.  Perhaps I just wanted to indulge and try to feel better.

Anyway, today I begin tracking my food and cutting out all the processed junk.  There is nothing "bad" in my house right now, so no purge is needed.  I have delicious and healthy groceries in the fridge and I'm going to do some food prep for the week ahead.  I'm going to leave the debit card and cash at home so that there is no way to veer off course through a handy drive through.  I'm going to start boring you all by posting my eats, calories and macros, as well as my work outs.

I'm glad I have a long weekend to detox myself and get back on track!

Aug. 14: CanFit Pro

As you know, the last year has been rough for me.  Today was an absolute highlight for me!

My youngest daughter and I went to Toronto for the CanFit Pro Conference and Trade Show today.  I was fortunate enough to get to meet Tosca Reno, who was the inspiration behind my weight loss.  I wrote here about that moment that I saw her "before" picture and suddenly believed that a 40 year old overweight single mom could really do it - lose weight, change her life, and be an example for her children.  It was a privilege to meet her.  She was warm and friendly and seemed sincerely interested in everyone's story - and there were many of them.  Here is a picture of my daughter and me with Tosca. Yep, I'm kinda geeky and pale!

My little girl, Rachel and I wandered around the many displays.  There were cooking demos, weighted hula hooping, Zumba - any kind of exercise wear or equipment you could imagine and some you couldn't!  We had a few "what the heck is that thing?" moments when looking at the equipment.  Rachel tried every single protein bar that was cut into sample sized pieces and decided quite definitely she does not care for protein bars.

We ended up back at the Oxygen booth and got to meet Bob Kennedy.  What a nice man!  I wasn't quite sure what to expect after reading some of his more acerbic comments in his editorials, but he could not have been kinder.  He asked Rachel if she ate clean also and she told him she did.  He told her she was just beautiful.  He asked how much I'd lost and I replied about 60 pounds.  I said, "I still have a bit to go."  He looked at me and said, "Not that much - you're looking pretty good."  Now coming from Bob Kennedy, I took that as a HUGE compliment.  I was nearly star struck and giddy.  So then I shut up and let Amanda, one of the super nice Oxygen people, take our picture together.

We had an excellent time.  Tosca is a very motivating speaker - even Rachel was pumped about good eating habits when we left.  I had an excellent day sharing something I am passionate about - nutrition and fitness - with my little girl, and hopefully helping to kindle the flame for fitness in her.

On the way home, we were starving.  I asked, "What do you want to eat, Rachel?"

She replied, "Well, we can't really have french fries after that!"

We settled on pitas.  Rachel got a whole wheat pita with meatballs, marinara, mozzarella, and red and green peppers.

I had a flat baked Thai Beef pita - also on whole wheat - it was so delicious!  I was pretty astounded to discover that it had just under 500 calories and 28 whopping grams of protein!  (Sorry Tosca - I'm still a calorie counter - but a clean one!)  It was loaded with marinara sauce, red onion, mushrooms, broccoli, steak, a light sprinkling of mozzarella and a drizzle of Thai chili sauce.  Yummmmm.....I'm going to recreate this one at home!

Aside from this meal, my day has not been a protein winner, I'm going to have a protein shake as an evening snack. 

m1: Bagel with light cheddar and butter, berries
m2: the above deliciousness
m3: pita crisps with light ranch dip
m4: protein float

Okay, today was not a nutritional goldmine.  Tomorrow is weekly food prep and I have some spectacular foods to make!  I'll take pictures and also go over my weekly food prep plan - I haven't done that in quite a while!

Jan. 17: A Rant About Excuses

I have to preface my rant with saying that I used to have a million and one excuses as to why I was heavy. I could still come up with a whole new pile. But what I have discovered on my journey thus far is that if we make excuses for ourselves, we will never succeed. You have to just take it to the mat every single day. Anytime you are successfully and obviously losing weight, people have a million questions. I've noticed they only seem to want the answers so that they can tell you how your plan does not work for them. Some recent examples:

Q: Wow, you've lost a lot of weight - what are you doing?
A: I'm doing the Eat-Clean plan. I don't eat processed foods at all - no chemicals, nothing artificial. If you are interested I could recommend some great books by Tosca Reno .
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1552100677/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=485327511&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1552100383&pf_rd_m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&pf_rd_r=105YEXFFHMAB639X8QGJ
E: Oh, I don't have time for something like that right now, but you keep up the good work

Q: How do you eat out?
A: I don't, really. I can't know what is in the food served at restaurants and fast food does not fit in with my goals.
E: Oh, I don't have time to cook every day

Q: How do you find the time to make everything from scratch?
A: I prep most of my food for the week on the weekends - it never takes me more than 20 minutes to get a great dinner on the table during the week
E: My family won't eat leftovers

Q: How can you afford to eat all of that health food stuff?
A: After purchasing some initial staples, I have found that my monthly food bill has gone down dramatically. Initially I had to get some things like honey, organic sugar, natural peanut butter, and pure vanilla, for example, and that was a big bill, but know I just replenish the big ticket items when I run out of them. I have also cut money by not eating out.
E: Well, I know how expensive all that organic stuff is (Picture someone with their fingers in their ears saying, "lalalalalalalala!")

Q: How can you afford a gym membership?
A: I can't - I do the best I can at home. I have some DVDs, a stability ball and one set of dumbbells, and I walk the dog.
E: Oh, there isn't room in my house, I don't have any DVDs, and I don't have a dog.


So let me recap. I am a single mom, currently unemployed, and I live in a 1400 SF house. I have a pretty low income at this point, am very busy with two kids, job hunting and a business I am working to get off the ground. My kids have activities after school a couple of days a week, and I have obligations in the evenings too.

I do make nearly everything we eat from scratch, we eat high quality meat from local farmers that is hormone free and grass fed, and I buy organic when I can. We have a nice family dinner nearly every night of the week.

I work out at home 4 times a week, and am really looking forward to spring so I can take it outside.

I did NOT wait until after Christmas, after New Years, or after my best friend's brother's birthday to start. I started the day I got the book and decided to make a change in my life.

If I eat one bad meal, I try to do better the next meal. If circumstances are out of my control and I have limited options, I do the best that I can and get right back on the plan as soon as things are within my control.

I read every single label and if the food contains chemicals, it goes back on the shelf. I don't say, just this once or I don't have time to make that from scratch. I find a wholesome option or I do without it.

I spent a lot of years making excuses and all it did was get me up over 200 pounds. If you really want to change your life you have to do it immediately because the perfect time will never come. The opportunity isn't going to come knocking on your door. Make your decision to change your life and do it immediately - it's the only way.

Having Ourselves a Clean Little Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas this year is so different. Last night for Christmas Eve, I cleaned up a recipe that is a regular of ours. I made 7 layer dip. (I'm counting the veggies as 2 layers!)

~~~~~

7 Layer Dip

Layer these ingredients in the following order

Fat free re-fried beans

Drained plain yogurt

HM guacamole

Diced peppers

Diced tomatoes

Mrs. Dash

Shredded cheddar

I serve these with baked multi-grain tortilla chips. The leftovers (when we have them) are wonderful fillings for wraps!

~~~~~~~~

So that was dinner on Christmas Eve - we had this before church. After church we came home and had cheese and crackers, veggies and cookies. Yes, cookies. I'm a clean eater - not a saint!

I paid for it a bit this morning with what I like to call a "food hangover" - woke up with a nasty headache and feeling of general laziness. I'm going to enjoy today but I'm not going overboard. I like feeling good!

This year, like I wrote yesterday, I am streamlining a little. So last night I prepped my breakfast. Our Christmas morning breakfast was Pumpkin Bread with Yogurt Cheese Icing and fruit salad. I mixed the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately last night for the pumpkin bread so that this morning I only had to stir them together and bake. The Pumpkin Bread recipe was clean. I got if from Tosca Reno's The Eat-Clean Diet for Family and Kids. http://www.eatcleandiet.com/about_the_diet/the_books.aspx#The+Eat-Clean+Diet+for+Family+and+Kids I love the recipes in that book because they are not so exotic and "health-foody" that my kids refuse to eat them.

I had to modify the Pumpkin bread because DD9 is allergic to eggs, but it turned out very nicely. It made 2 loaves so I put one immediately in the freezer for a treat on a school morning. The fruit salad contained Blueberries, Blackberries, Cantaloupe and Banana. The kids had seconds of everything. One thing that pleased me: The icing is not specifically clean, as it contains confectioner's sugar. They thought it was too sweet. I felt like that was a major breakthrough - their taste is changing too!

For Christmas dinner (which is actually lunch in our house) we are having Greek food, instead of the traditional turkey, stuffing and casseroles. (We refer to this as our "Tradition of Non-Tradition). See the photo above! Here's the menu

Turkey Breast roasted with Lemon, Garlic and Oregano

Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes with feta cheese and tzatziki sauce drizzle

Greek Style Pita triangles brushed with olive oil and roasted garlic

Greek Salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, and red onion (we share a universal hatred of olives)

I'm not sure if I will have the pita bread - that is more for the kids. For dessert, if wanted, we have an abundance of cookies and fudge floating around, and I have one perfect, fabulous dark chocolate truffle to savor.

I feel very blessed this year to be on the road to health. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and in years past, when I have been "dieting" I either felt horribly guilty or horribly deprived. Life is good when you eat clean.

Merry Christmas - remember - NO GUILT! Whatever you have done, not done or eaten yesterday and today, what makes you a clean eater is eating clean again tomorrow!

Dec.16 - the Chaos of the Holidays.

I've made my plans to help with the chaos this time of year brings:

1.) Sleeping in my workout clothes and doing my DVD the second I get the kids out the door in the morning.
2.) Froze some single servings of clean food - soups, chicken breasts, etc
3.) Prepacked steamer bags full of veggies
4.) Making cookies I hate (coconut haystacks and mint chocolate truffles) There's no way I will be desperate enough for sweets to nibble on those!
5.) Planning outfits for the next week for DD9 and myself - that way special occasion items are pressed and ready and we don't have to scramble around looking for matching tights
6.) Bartered some stuff from my store for house-cleaning services

I figure minimizing the stress will minimize my urges to eat unClean foods. The more stuff I have done ahead of time, the more I can just relax and enjoy the season. I know if I let myself down on the eating plan I will feel awful, which will just lead to eating more of the stuff I shouldn't be.

I seem to be really slowing down on the weight loss. Why does PMS have to be a week long extravaganza? Why can't I just get it and get it over with? I am sure I'm retaining water cause I am fluffy looking today (more than usual). A lot of places had tightened up a bit that are now looking lumpy and bumpy again. I know the food has been okay, so I'm going to hang in there and stay off the scale until next Monday.

I keep reading Tosca's books for encouragement. If I am eating the right things the weight will come off. I must NOT let it get to me that I seem to be stuck this week. It is hard to get out of the mindset that I need to be really hungry to be losing weight. When the scale is stuck I just want to drink water for a week. According to the Eat-Clean principles, that's what got me in this situation in the first place, so I'm going to just follow the plan.

Sometimes I recall looking at people in the fitness industry that seemed to be constantly downing protein shakes and egg whites, thinking to myself that they were just out of control, they were really weird and taking things way too far. I've re-thought that perception.

Take Tosca Reno, for example. She truly knows what it means to be overweight and to make an enormous change through dedication and perseverance. In the past I got a clean-eating magazine and I thought, "That woman is going overboard - there is just no fun in the way she eats." But now I consider these things.

First of all, Tosca practices what she preaches. It is a lifestyle that takes effort but just a different kind of effort. Look at the results she has achieved. I would have loved to look at 20 the way she does at 50. It's very obvious by looking at Tosca, her plan WORKS.


Secondly, all the people whose physiques I admire have the same focus/obsession with nutrition and fitness. Clearly, this is what it takes to look like that! People have been telling us for years, we just don't want to make those changes that take us out of our comfort zones of fast food and channel surfing. No one tried to keep it a secret from the rest of us, we just didn't want to hear it.

Finally, as far as fun goes, what could be more fun than to be vibrant, healthy and energetic for the rest of your life?

I have a couple of parties to go to this weekend and I am just going to do my best to keep working the plan. I'll eat before I go, take a clean treat to share and realize that unhealthy food and fun are NOT the same thing.

I have a bit of a sinus infection. The medicine is killing my appetite. I'm trying to be balanced but I'm choking the food down today.

Today's eats:
m1: hm iced latte made with skim milk
M2: clean toast w/ natural pb, small apple
M3: hm trail mix w/ kashi crunch, raisins and nuts, banana
M4: the rest of the above meal
M5: hm veggie beef soup

Tonight is the Christmas concert. Can't wait to watch my little sweetie sing!

Dec 15, 2009 - A Much Better Day

Yesterday I had the cranky pants on. I am feeling much better today. It makes me realize that in only one week, regular exercise is a habit that makes a big difference in my day. It makes me excited to realize how good I'm going to feel after I have been doing it for a month!

I got my new exercise DVDs and Tosca's Eat-Clean Diet for Family and Kids in yesterday's mail. I finished the book last night and can't wait to try some of the recipes. The only challenge for me is that I have a child with an egg allergy and many of the recipes contain a lot of egg. I'll have to do some experimenting to come up with results my whole family can eat. I shall persevere!! I really thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I have a new theory. (No wonder people find me eccentric) All of these "new" diseases and allergies that seem to have occurred over the past 20-30 years MUST be related to the imaginary foods people are putting in their bodies. We've all thought it, but when we were kids were there foods that were banned from schools because of anaphylactic allergic reactions? No. Had we ever heard of Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? No. I think that North Americans have systematically poisoned themselves and caused these diseases to occur. Back when people simply ate what God provided, these things, if they occurred at all, were extremely rare. My family is going to be a clean-eating family. There is not a single doubt in my mind now.

I did my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD. I like Jillian. She is very matter of fact, yet encouraging. I do not have to resist the urge to bash her in the head with a weight because of her inane perkiness. In fact I'd be scared to. I'm pretty sure Jillian could take me. She sure kicked my butt with that workout. I was thrilled to be finished and really felt like I accomplished something this morning. My workouts have been rejuvenated. I also found that she explained the moves thoroughly and provided modifications that didn't hurt my knees.

I made some clean "junk food"for breakfast. I used the turkey sausage I made yesterday (I posted that it was chicken but oops, read the package and it was turkey) and I made a sausage egg McMuffin. LOVED IT.

Here's my day:

M1: Sausage McClean Sandwich ( hm turkey sausage patty, ciabbatta bread, 2 egg whites, clean lf cheddar cheese) Should have had fruit with it but too full - I'll catch up later today
M2: Yogurt and fresh pineapple
M3: Spinach salad with chicken and fresh veggies, hm dressing
M4: HM trail mix
M5: Soup is in the crockpot: Xtra lean g. beef, tomatoes, onions, garlic, sweet potato, carrot, green beans, finely chopped spinach, basil, oregano, bay and thyme. I have cooked brown rice that I will throw into my serving if I stick to the rest of my lower carb day today.

Have a great day, everyone! Off to the showers and a busy productive day.