I need a belt.

When I started the clean eating plan, my pants, which are a size 20, fit just right.  Not quite snug, but definitely not loose. At only 8.5 pounds down, my pants are close to too loose.  I need a belt.  That really makes me happy.  I have these dress shirts in closet that I want to wear to work. 8.5 pounds ago they were very tight, buttons stretched tight.  Now, they are just not flattering.  The buttons all close without strain.  In another 8 pounds they should look nice. Today I made sure to get my walk in at work.  I wasn't able to really go fast because of lower back pain.  I had hoped my walk would loosen it up, but no such luck.  

Remember that NYTimes Mag I linked to in my post, it has been on my mind for a while.  I keep thinking back to Mrs. Bridges and her constant focus on food and exercise.  It does sound like she has some hobbies, friends, and family. But much of her day is spent focused on eating or exercising.  I don't have that kind of time to devote to this.  That isn't the life I want to lead.  So I am trying to get over my free of failure.  I am not going to let that fear keep me from trying. I need to figure out why I overeat.  Why do I eat when I am stressed? What can I do at work when I need to give my mind a break?  Walking helps, sometimes it seems impossible to get out of that chair.  If I can't walk the full twenty minutes, why walk, right? Wrong.  The minutes add up, the steps add up.  5 minutes is enough to get blood and oxygen flowing in my body and brain.

Today's Good Reading Links:

(1) Angie Mizzell's Embracing (and escaping) the big black hole of yuck

(2) Glennon's Momastry (the whole blog)

New Food Lessons/Rules:

(1) I stopped eating after 7 unless it is my dinner.  But this plan is really all about planning ahead and taking control of your eating.  So it should very rare that my dinner is after 7 pm.

(2) I have found a few different protein bars that have reasonable amounts of sugar that I can sub in for emergency meals.  Having these available (actually physically available or as an option) takes an edge off the  stress of working as much as we do and trying to keep on plan.

(3) Not sticking to the meal schedule results in unnecessary stress, so stick to the schedule.  You might be sitting at your desk thinking, I'm not that hungry, I can wait.  But then something comes up and 15 minutes becomes an hour and 15 minutes.  And you are hungry, bordering on cranky, unable to focus and just not feeling well.  

  

Day 7 of 28

Here we are at the end of Day 7 & I am happy to report that I am down 6 pounds. (Hopefully, that is still true tomorrow am, although, I'll take better news too!)

I am getting in about 5 meals and I am not really hungry at bedtime.  When I am, I have some almonds or a fruit.  The rule is to have the sixth meal if you are hungry at the end of the day.  As I write this, I am snacking on pistachios & almonds.  I have been using the dry erase board on our fridge to keep track of what I eat every day.  It is a bit freeing to not count calories. This article from the NYTimes Magazine (free but registration required) suggests that my preoccupation with food may gone on for a very long time.  I still haven't managed to get exercise into the picture.  The good thing about work is that I usually get at least a 20 minute walk in every day.  I am planning on 2 - 20 minute walks this week when I go back to work.

This has been an easy week. The real test come Thursday.  Thursday is our earliest start morning.  I need to be at work by about 6:15 if not earlier to make sure everything is together for the 7:00 am morning briefing.  (I am so not a morning person.)  So my cooler needs to be packed and ready to go when I get to bed Wednesday night.  On Tuesday, we have play practice so I have to pack 4 or 5 meals instead of 3.  I can do this.  I just need to keep an eye looking ahead for my traps.  I need to look out for the places I can safely bet I will fall if I am not careful with my planning.

Day 4 of 28

Yesterday was the hardest day so far on my 4 week clean eating challenge.  On day 28, I am going dress shopping with my Maid of Honor.  The MoH is also my personal trainer.  She is an excellent personal trainer.  MoH recommended that I try Tosca Reno's The Eat Clean Diet Stripped.  The 3 big keys for me are: (1) No white sugar, (2) No dairy, and (3) No alcohol.  For 28 days.  The book is written for people at the end of their weight loss goal.  But I need a moral/confidence boost to get going & get this first month and 10 - 20 pounds under my belt.

The first two days were easy.  On day three, things didn't go exactly as planned.  I did stick to the diet with the exception that I subbed a 100 cal popcorn bag for air-popped popcorn. I was cranky most of the day and my meals were not well timed.  I am planning on a much better day today! I just noticed that I am not having enough protein with my breakfast. I think I am going to start adding a 1/2 scoop of muscle milk powder to my oatmeal.  TR also makes the oatmeal with almond milk instead of water.  So I am probably not getting enough calories with my breakfast either. Sleeping until 9 isn't doing much for my eating schedule either.

Good news!
I am down 5.5 pounds. Woo hoo!

Day 4 Meal Plan

Meal 1 (11 am):
Oatmeal (1/2 cup dry)
3 large frozen strawberries
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1 banana
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
water

Meal 2 (1:15 pm)*:
2 T hummus with celery
water


Meal 3 (3:30/3:45pm)*:
3 oz deli chicken
1 oz almonds (may eat with meal 2)
1 clementine
water


Meal 4 (6:30/6:45pm)**:
6 oz lean steak (may go with grilled chicken)
broccoli
dinner salad {romaine, tomato, cucumber}(may go with double broccoli)
water


Meal 5 (9:30pm):
1 oz. almonds
banana
water


text = planned
text = actual


* = cooler packed meal.
** = meal out with fiancé & the Girls

Scavenger Hunt 101

I finally bought my DSLR. I went with a Nikon D90 I found on Craigslist. I love it. It is so much fun. It does so much and I am really enjoying exploring the features of this camera.  I joined the Scavenger Hunt 101 group on flickr.

I tackled some of the easy topics first.

66. A dog

Talus & I were outside grilling up some dinner.  She is a good dog (when she isn't trying to destroy my house). This is the photo I selected for my first entry.  Here are some more of her.

67. Barbequed or grilled food

They were delicious.
 

Update

Oh and this blog needs an update. I am not working in the nonprofit sector now. Although I do sit on two nonprofit boards. And I have abandoned my 101 Goals project. Sadly, I barely have time to post so I am sure getting a general about me section updated will take a bit of time.

What is for dinner?

We have decided to start a year long food project where we eat only food which has not been genetically modified, only meat & dairy that has been ethically raised & produced. Actually, all of our food needs to have been ethically produced at every stage. When we first started talking about this project, I thought we'd have to generate our own list of rules.  I was very happy to find Michael Pollan's Food Rules. 

Tonight over dinner, we talked about what it would mean to follow these rules for one year.  Pollan describes them as guidelines, but we are going to try to treat them more like rules.  Kate is not happy about the "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." rule.  I pointed out that she likes oatmeal and pancakes.  She agreed but she also likes cereal that changes the color of the milk.  Berl is not excited about the "mostly plants" theme of the what do I eat section.  The three of us are difficult, picky eaters who, I hope, will learn to like foods we have previously overlooked/ignored/avoided and foods we've never tried before.   We are all thankful for the "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you make it yourself" rule.  The hardest part will be getting us going on the project.  With my work schedule and their lack of enthusiasm, it will be a slow start.  These changes are long coming in our family, there can't be any downside to trying to eat in a more sustainable way. 

An easy & good homemade gluten free pizza

Pizza & Nacho Cheese Doritos are the foods I miss the most.  I mean fresh, hot pizza with crispy pepperoni pieces.  I loved both thin & deep dish crusts.  I love a good pizza sauce.  I haven't found a good homemade one or a good store bought one (but I have some leads on some good bottled sauces).  I haven't worked with rice flour enough to make my own good crust.  Guido's Pizza over in Okemos has great gluten free pizza, but that is quite the drive and they aren't cheap.  Godfather's Pizza has a decent gluten pizza in Battle Creek and they do take and bake. But again, I'm not often out that way and it is quite a drive.  I have tried two different frozen gf pizzas and a frozen pre-made gf pizza crust.  All three were terrible.  I have been picking up the Chebe bag of crust mix for at the grocery store for a while now. What if I paid $5 for it and put all the effort into it and it sucked?  That would make me sad. (I think it was $3 and change at Meijer.)

Last night, I gave in and tried it.  I was happily surprised.  My complaint with the frozen crusts (and many other gluten free products) is the texture.  It is dry and sandy with little to no flavor.  When I opened this bag, I could smell the seasonings.  It was a pleasant surprise.  The directions were easy to follow and the dough came together as promised by the bag.  The flour had a pretty smooth feeling to it.  Take note GF producers, if the flour feels grainy and hard, the end product will probably not be that tastey. 

 

The crust rolled out niceley and did not fall apart and break up easily.  Places where I pushed too hard came back together easily.  As you can see, I am an easy and simple pizza topper.  Pepperoni and good cheese. 

This picture doesn't give you much perspective.  The cookie sheet is a smaller cookie sheet.  I think I ended up cutting 16 squares from the end product.  I ate the first 2 or 3 and then set about doing dishes and what not.  The family had eaten before I got home but by the end of the night only about a quarter of the pizza was left.  The crust could have been crispier but I wonder if that was due to my technique. I will definitely be buying and making this again. 

I don't recall the packaging speaking to whether it was organic or whether they use any genetically modified ingrediants.  I am planning to check more into those issues (so hopefully, I can keep eating it!)  Chebe's website can be found at http://www.chebe.com/.

I will be posting a review of Guido's gluten free pizza as well as a review of Godfather's gluten free pizza in the future.  For now, I would say that I would eat again at either restaurant!

Why I'll be writing about food

If you know me, you know I love food. So it really can't be much of a surprise that I am going to be writing about food.

A few months ago, I learned that I couldn't eat gluten anymore. Gluten was the source of years of digestive chaos. During the first few weeks of being gluten free, I had been doing a lot of reading and talking about being GF.  A few people had mentioned the idea that genetically modified foods were contributing to the increase food allergies.  The day the third person said this to me I came across this video in either my facebook or twitter feed. After watching the video, I started following Robyn on twitter.  I have learned so much about genetically modified foods and other food issues from her tweets.  Her book is in my To Be Read pile (TBR).  Her foundation - Allergy Kids - has a great section called "Do One Thing" with simple ideas for reducing genetically modified or chemical foods in your life.  Check it out.

We are starting to eliminate genetically modified food from our house and our lives.  The first step is to switch to as much organic as we can find and afford. As part of that effort, I am looking for local food.  One of the first things I want to find is a potato crop I can buy a share of.  I suspect it is too late in the year to get one this year.  I am hoping to at least get a good supply of potatoes.  My second goal is to buy a portion of a grass fed well cared for cow.  I am thinking about buying a cow through our local county fair.  I'll need at least 2 if not 3 families to go in on the cow with me. To be honest, I don't know anything about buying a cow.

 Local Harvest is a great web site for finding local food.  I have found a few farms that offer potatoes in the region. I am pretty close to picking a CSA to participate in (and to finding one that will let us join this late).  

Food

I haven't been blogging because I have been working too much. I don't want to blog from my work computer and I am drained when I get home. Word Press crashes when I launch it on iPhone. I finally found an app I can use with blogger.

I have been thinking quite a bit about what I will be writing about here. I want to spend some time writing and learning about how to avoid genetically modified foods. I want to look at that list of 101 goals and accomplish the goals I still care about.

Now I have to get to a meeting.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Moving

Update: wordpress hates my iPhone so I am back where I began.

I am moving over to wordpress -- my craziness can be found here.