Eating strategies

I've gone back and forth about posting something on this, in fact I did a post and deleted it before.   I wanted to put down a little bit on my diet.  I've found that it's really easy for me to lose control and overeat.  When you're a 5'3" woman in her late (OK, VERY late) 30's, you don't have a lot of leeway with your eating.  One normal restaurant meal a week can easily add up to a pound gained a month.  On Sundays I don't exercise, which also makes a big difference in my calorie burn (on Saturdays I'm usually near 3000, on Sundays near 1800).

You can see I have a pretty good idea of what I burn.  This is from my Bodymedia fit armband. I don't know what I'd do without it at this point, although I'm hoping to break myself of it eventually.  It records my burn automatically, and I enter my food in.  I started weighing stuff too, to get a better idea of how accurate I am.  Putting butter or honey on toast?  How do you know how much you're really putting on?  Anywhere from 3-7 grams of butter looks the same to me.  Anyway, I track calories and weigh food.  I know this sounds OCD, but it's really freeing because I then pick whatever food I want to eat and eat it.  Pretty much anyway.  I don't bring things like chips and cookies and most kinds of crackers in the door because I don't look good wearing them (on my butt).  I don't do juice usually or drinks besides water or herb tea, because who wants to track calories that don't make me in the least bit full?  I let my kids make cookies when I go out on a date with Jeff. Perfect time because I'm not there :).   Sometimes I let them make some for the neighbors, but usually that ends up with me eating 1-2 cookies worth of dough, so flowers are a better choice for gifts.

Here's my plan:

For breakfast I shoot for around 400 calories including a protein, greens, and a whole grain.  With the protein and grain together I stay full.  Sometimes I do the grain first, work out, then do the protein after.   For lunch, I do some sort of  grain (usually bread or tortilla), a protein, and then fill in with fruit or veggies up to around 550 calories.  In the afternoon I shoot for a 350 calorie snack, usually a protein shake and a fruit, or a piece of toast with nut butter.  Dinner is around 600, with a big salad being part of it.  I try not to eat after dinner.  I do at least two quarts of water in the evenings to rehydrate for the rest of the day, so that's how I think about it: my time to get in the rest of my water.  At least half is a big ol' thing of herb tea.  It's wonderful sitting on the couch with Jeff watching a show if we've got a free evening.

So you see I get in around 1900 on most days. I go a little lower on Sundays to make up for the no exercise thing, and Friday nights when I go out with Jeff, I plan on going about 1500 calories over maintenance. On Saturdays when I burn a lot with long training runs and yard work I usually have a 1000 calorie deficit easy so that helps to make up for those Friday night treats. When all goes well I lose 1/2 pound to 1 pound a week.  Why haven't I lost a ton of weight then?  Well... when I go off of my plan I REALLY go off.

I went on vacation early in the month to a camp for kids with cochlear implants (my second daughter has one), and they had a cafeteria with a big long buffet for every meal.  I kept thinking I was doing OK, and then I sat down with twice as much food as I needed.  They also had treats a few nights there, and I stayed with my in-laws for a night on the way there and the way back and they know my weaknesses in ice cream.  Since I couldn't plug in my arm band, and had no good way to track calories (I'm very dependent on the computer), I fell off of the wagon with a thump.  All of those disadvantages might have been nullified by exercise, but when I get discouraged or extra tired I just start eating like a crazy person.  I get a book or a movie, and just eat and eat as an escape.  That happened a couple of times while I was gone.  I've been working on spiritual solutions to this, since I feel like it's an emotional/spiritual problem.  I'm feeling really good again now, but it was discouraging that I fell into the trap again there for a while. 

I've looked around in my psyche, and I don't think there are any deep seated issues I'm ignoring, except that I've been deficit eating for a long time --probably too long --, so my body rebels when I let my guard down.  Overall, over the past 5 years, I've dropped my maintenance weight down 6-7 pounds.  Not a huge difference, but I'm still pleased with it most of the time. I hate to say it, because everyone does, but if I could just lose 5-10 more pounds..... anyway, I'm still lifting, which makes me a lot happier with how I look than I used to --even at a higher weight.  If I didn't lose any more but dropped bodyfat I'd probably be happy, but I'm not willing to give up more carbohydrates and replace them with protein powder or engineered vegan "meats" (I try to do mostly vegan), so I doubt that's going to happen.  I got really close to hiring a bodybuilding specialist dietitian until I realized I finally have found a plan I can feel truly satisfied on (except on vacation!), so I hate to change anything.

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Personal Trainer

Just thought I'd give an update on the personal trainer thing. I passed (yay!), and now I'm trying to get the business thing up and going. I've got some forms I need to get copied, but at least I found them all, and I'm ordering some equipment, but I've got one (count 'em one!) official client (my sister-in-law), and one other potential client (my OTHER sister-in-law).

It's a little hard to give Training the time it needs because I'm teaching 6 classes a week, and I take a lot of time preparing them (this last week I taught 7 classes). Tia and Ari are doing classes after school, and once again we have speech twice a week up at BYU.

I gotta tell you though, I REALLY like it. I've put together a few programs for people so far and I'm loving it. I do the same kind of thing for 4 of my classes, looking for new ways to work your muscles, and researching safety and things, and I just love it.

Also, after that comment from my brother "you're crazy", I realized I was. I stopped being so strict and regimented with my diet, and went back to tracking calories online. It is sooo working for me. OK, I'm not losing 10 pounds a week, but I'm able to control my eating a lot better with a little more leeway in my choices. I am glad I did the other diets just to help train me to make better choices, but now if there is a fun-size butterfinger offered to me in my YW class, and I'm starving, I eat the dang thing and just enter it in when I get home. My only guidelines are that I try to get in at least 100 grams of protein a day, avoid junk food for the most part, and I try to get in a lot of vegetables at every meal. If I do those three things, I usually do pretty great in my eating. No comments from girls on my bowling team!! :0 We had some treats there at our Friday tournament, and I swear --I had close to 900 calories of stuff that left me hungry in a half an hour!! That's rotten. I did some extra exercise, but then didn't beat myself up when I didn't make my calorie goal. I just tried to go a little lighter the next day, and I was OK.

I plan on counseling clients to use the free calorie counter I'm using, but if they want a nutrition plan, will work with a dietitian from the Utah clinic to develop one for them. I know it was helpful in training me to figure out good choices . It's just that when my diet's too restrictive, I binge. I guess that's a common problem with restrictive diets. 

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New rotation

So I started the third diet rotation on Sunday; and by coincidence it is a three-day rotation plan. I have to say though, my stomache has been bothering me since Friday night. I don't know if the seitan (gluten) is finally getting to me, or the stevia is adding up with all of the shakes, or what. Maybe it was something I ate Friday that just won't go away? Yuck.

Day 1

¼ cup oatbran, soy protein shake

5 oz. Seitan ; 1 cup vegetables

1 large grapefruit (or 1 cup fruit) 1 T. omega butter

¼ block tofu with 1 cup peppers, cucumbers or tomatoes, balsamic as dressing

salad with ½ cup beans, whey or hemp protein shake

Brown rice protein shake with 2/3 cup mixed berries.

Day 2

¼ block tofu with mushrooms, peppers, onion ; ½ cup oats

whey protein shake with 3 large strawberries or ¼ cup blueberries 1 T. omega butter

5 oz. Seitan 1 cup vegetables

Apple with 1 T. omega butter

brown rice protein shake, salad, tahini dressing, 2 rice cakes

hemp or soy shake ; 1 cup green veggies (can add spinach to shake)

Day 3

soy shake with spinach; ½ cup oats

4 oz. Seitan with 1 cup veggies

whey shake with 1 T. omega butter

double brown rice shake ; 1 cup beans

salad with ¼ block tofu, hemp shake

Apple with 1 T. omega butter

I think this is doable once again for bodybuilding, but I don't feel like I'm really giving it a fair shot like i did the diets last summer. I'm not as motivated not to cheat maybe? When I thought I was doing the show it was a great motivator: someone was going to be seeing all of these cheat days in a couple of months on my thighs! I think I need a new goal. Anyone want to do a show with me this fall?

In other news, I'm learning how to swim (again)! I had swim as part of P.E. in High School (I grew up in San Diego), but I swear I forgot how to freestyle. I can still dog paddle.... Anyway, Jeff and I went to the Cayman Islands a few years ago, and if you're a snokeler or scuba-er, it's the place to go. Yum. Plus, on the diving side of the island we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. We decided to swim out to the reef one afternoon. On the Grand Cayman Island, a reef surrounds the island all of the way around making for a beautiful, sheltered place for viewing fish and coral. We thought though, that there must be a ton of stuff out ON the reef so started making our way out. When we got a ways out, I realized I was being PULLED out. There was a huge hole they had blown in the reef to allow ships to pass out and in, and we didn't know it was there. I found I couldn't make any headway against the current and panicked. I told Jeff to bring me in. I tried to keep my mask in the water and kick, and not look up to see our lack of progress. About 200 yards back, we hit a sort of boulder/sandbar we could stand on a nd rest. Jeff later confessed he didn't know if he could have brought us in if it hadn't been for that boulder. We literally could have not come back home to our kids if that boulder hadn't been there. We would have been swept out to sea. Ever since then I've been terrified of waves, and how weak I feel in the ocean. In Hawaii, I was fine scuba-ing because it was under the water and didn't feel the same, but snorkeling I kept having panic attacks, and couldn't go out past where I could touch the bottom. Does that even make sense? Fear doesn't always make sense (but it sure helps me be more compassionate with my kids when they're afraid). Anyway, my friend Pam is a swimming teacher, and started last night to teach me technique. I'm going to go Mondays and Thursdays to learn, and Wednesday mornings to practice on my own. Yay me! I already feel more secure in the water. Thank you Pam already for your patience with my flailing arms....

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Flowers and food

Thought I'd do a post and tell y'all what I've been up to. The coolest stuff I don't have pictures of. I went with our young women to Girl's camp last month down near Capitol Reef and Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument. We did two major hikes: Calf creek, and Sulfur Creek. I was telling my sister about them, and she said maybe her boys would like to do one of them when she came up to visit from California. So this weekend, we loaded up all seven (!) of our kids, and went down sans husbands to do the Sulfur Creek hike. We spent the night in The Cowboy Homestead Cabins which were cute, but a little cramped with seven kids and two Mom's. That's what we get for doing it on the cheap. I was pretty nervous about driving to the area, and then a little nervous about actually doing the hike carrying her baby in a backpack carrier the whole way because some of it is pretty technical. You're hiking down a riverbed the whole time, and you need to cross small waterfalls. I was pretty sure we could pass the baby along OK, and we did. It was a little nerve wracking though. One cool thing about this trip was that we found a number of geodes. I cracked one of mine open already, it was small, and the crystals were plain white (not purple or anything really cool --but still neat) and I'm saving the rest to do with all of the kids.

I've gotten a few striking bouquets out of my garden recently. The one above was for a family friend who had a stroke. I love that purple and gold color combination.

Buddlea, Yarrow, Tansey, and Canterbury bells.

The other thing I've been working on has been veganizing the diets from my personal trainer from last summer. I really liked where my body ended up last fall, and I felt pretty confident I knew how to eat to maintain it, then I read The China Study and decided I needed to go as vegan as we could in our daily fare for long term health. THAT threw me for a loop! We're not perfect by any means. My kids sprinkle cheese on their burritos, I'll throw an egg white into muffin batter, and it seems like at family parties the kids are always begging chicken off of someone (annoying). If I'm somewhere I can't get any other protein, I go for the leanest meat I can, but, day to day, for our family meals, mainly dairy and meat free.

I've been maintaining my weight at about 7-8 pounds above where I was at last fall, but I'd really like to get back down. I thought, well, I paid for those diets, maybe I can use online calorie/macro calculators to figure out a similar menu that's all vegan. It took some work, but I've translated two rotations so far, and it's doable. Wanna see?

My Diet rotation number 1

Low Carb Days (Mon. Tues. Fri.)

Wake up drink 16 oz. Water

Cardio

Meal 1 1/3 c. oatmeal, 2 T. cocoa, 1 T. omega butter; 25 gram protein shake

Train

Meal 2 25 g. shake with ½ grapefruit

Meal 3 6 oz. Seitan, and 1 cup green beans

Meal 4 1 ½ servings protein shake with 3 cups spinach

Meal 5 2 cups tvp 2 cups vegetables

Meal 6 protein shake

Meal 7 25 gram protein shake with 4 cups greens

High carb days (wed. thurs. sat. sunday)

Cardio

Meal 1 ¼ c. cream of rice, protein shake

Train

Meal 2 1/3 cup oats, 2T. Cocoa, 1T. Omega butter, 25 g. protein shake

Meal 3 8 oz. Seitan ½ cup green veggies, whole wheat tortilla

Meal 4 50 g. protein shake, 3 oz. Yam or pumpkin, 10 asparagus or cup of green veggies.

Meal 5 Salad with 1 cup tvp

Meal 6 25 g. protein shake

Meal 7 4 oz. seitan

For the shakes, I mixed protein powder with water, and rotated between soy, brown rice, hemp, and whey (I kept whey when going more vegan, as it didn't show up in the studies as a major cancer or heart disease contributor.) Tvp you can buy in bulk in any health food store, and for an easy seitan recipe go here . I know it's fashionable to be gluten free, and soy free, but personally, I never have had digestive problems with either. Give me cabbage in any form or too many nuts, and my stomach is toast, but grains and soy? never. I depend on both.

Here's my current rotation:

Cutting diet rotation #2

Meal 1: ¼ block tofu with slice toast, 2 tablespoons salsa; green drink:3 cups spinach, ¼ lemon juice stevia

Meal 2: 4 oz. Seitan, cup green beans, 1/3 cup oats

Meal 3: Apple& cinnamon (or 1 cup berries), 1 T. almond butter (or omega butter)

Meal 4: Protein shake w/ 1 T. omega butter

Meal 5: Salad, w/ 1 cup beans, 2 brown rice cakes, 15 g. protein shake

Meal 6: Chocolate tapioca pudding and ½ c. raspberries

Meal 7: (if you need it) 1 whole grapefruit

Recipe for chocolate tapioca pudding:

1 c. almond milk

1 T. tapioca

1 T. cocoa

stevia and salt

So I'm really liking the second rotation better. It's about 700 calories less, but the higher carb content, and variety of foods is a lot easier on me mentally. When I make the seitan, I finish it, slice it thinly, dredge in whole wheat flour, and cook in a nonstick skillet coated in cooking spray. I do the whole weeks worth of meals at once, and pack them up so I'm ready to go. I also mash up the portions of tofu, and cook them with a chopped onion, and turmeric, chili powder, curry, etc. so they are like a tofu scrambler and ready to go. The tapioca is all made at once in the beginning of the week too. The other night, everyone had cake at a family party, and I wanted some so bad! i was able to come home and have that chocolate fix, and be OK. It really worked. Sometimes it doesn't work, I'll be honest, but it's a good weapon.

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Am I green??

(baby spinach)

Jeff and I watched "Food Inc." a couple of months ago. It talked about food as "big business" in the United States and was actually a little scary. No, it didn't say everyone should be vegan, but it did say that the fact that our food comes from only a handful of sources that are HUGE and have major lobbying power in Washington D.C. is something to be concerned about. If one of these mega-businesses decide that some sort of quality control issue isn't important to them (or isn't as important as their profit margin) their customers are probably the ones that will take the hit health-wise. That's all I'm going to say, but it's an interesting movie. If you decide to watch it you won't get bored that's for sure. Anyway, they mentioned CSA'a : Community Supported Agriculture. Right afterwards (it seemed like the next day, but probably not) my sister-in-law came over and told me about Jacob's Cove . This is an organic farm located right in Orem that sells "shares". You buy a "share" in the beginning of the season, and then get produce every week for three months. This isn't "Bountiful Baskets" which frankly is probably a better deal for more produce but gets its produce from a distributor (google it and look it up if you're in the area though --everyone I know that's done it has been very happy). The point of this is that it's all locally raised, for sure is organic and sustainable practices, and you're directly supporting the farmer.



(collards)

When this farmer brings you his produce, you know it was picked this morning and didn't spend a couple days on a truck, and a couple days in the distributor's cooler. Think vitamins and flavor. Here's another reason I'm doing this: I was at Ream's the other day and picked up a bunch of asparagus and whistled at the price: "2.99 a pound?" geez. An older gentleman next to me said, "how much would they have to pay YOU to go out and cut asparagus for an hour?". He had a point. We've all got a budget to worry about, but it seems like we're willing to make the farmer take a little less and a little less to compete with farmers in Chile and New Zealand (which bugs me that that they're getting the shaft anyway), or to compete with the lower quality soy or corn-based processed product that gets government subsidies for its huge mega-producer. Sorry, I wasn't going to get more political --I just lost control. :)

(lettuce mix)

Anyways, we bought a couple of shares this year, and then we had a cold, wet wierd spring, and everything is behind season, the farmer is struggling to organize his pickup sites and contact everyone (his messages keep getting lost in spam) and basically we're the guinea pigs this first time around for him. He sent out an email last week (which I didn't get by the way) saying the greens were ready now although nothing else is yet, and if you want some to come on up and cut them. OK, greens are my diet mainstay, so I was all over it as soon as my sister-in-law told me. I was prepared to kinda give this guy a tongue-lashing when I got there with all of the mistakes going on, but once I met him it shut me up right away. He's just this nice guy who seems swamped. His "office" looks like a snowstorm hit it (with paper), and he seemed pretty distracted (kind of like a chicken with its head cut off). I did tell him he needed to get someone to help him, and he said "there IS no one else". Well maybe the bugs will be straightened out by next season. when I went outside though, you could tell this guy was a farmer.
(beautiful red-speckled lettuce)

(Lola Rossa --Sam's front lawn)
Me and the kids got a little hack saw from the barn, and walked out to the field with bags to cut us some greens! We wish we had more bags. There were gorgeous rows of lettuces, collards, kales, chards, mixes, you name it. We went crazy. When we got home, I split it with my neighbor who is also signed up, and washed it up, put it in the frisge, and then immediately took it out again for a big salad dinner.


I peeked in the greenhouse to see how the tomatoes were coming along, and it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen! If you close up on the picture, you can see that each tomato plant has a little rubber collar around its vine, and is tied up with twine to trusses in the ceiling. It was so cool! You'll notice he grows the plants directly in the ground though (none of that water-slurry base crap) for extra flavor and nutrients. He just built the greenhouse on the ground, and the sides are a soft plastic to roll up in warm weather, and roll down for protection in cool. The greenhouses cover 1/3 acre --the size of my whole lot. There were also cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplants, and lots more. These greens are the freshest, crispest I've ever had (except out of my own garden!). I can't wait to taste the rest.

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China Study versus Paleo diet/Weston Price

I'm not qualified to answer this question. Ready for me to get preachy? Just skip this whole post if you think it will make you uncomfortable. I'm struggling with some things I've seen around lately, and sometimes just have to get it all out on (ha! I was going to say paper!) my blog to straighten my thoughts out.

One of the favorite blogs I follow: Heather Eats Almond Butter has moved over to a high saturated fat diet (her words not mine). Weston Price has a "Cholesterol for Health" website. Then there's the Paleo diet and its followers that claim that prehistoric man would fast for 18-20 hours and then gorge on high fat animal protein. I also read an article in Outside Magazine "The Athlete's guide to food", where a man tried 4? 5? different diets over the course of a year, and tracked his cholesterol, and body fat, and a bunch of other markers for health, and this type of diet does seem to work. He got the best results following the paleo or the atkins. There are a lot of people that swear by this too --there's the whole Atkins following, and man, a lot of these people really look lean and sculpted. Bodybuilders are probably a lot closer to Weston Price than anything else.

The China Study guy wasn't trying to sell a diet and merchandise however. He was just stating results from peer-reviewed scientific studies he conducted, and those of others such as Esselstein. Long term health, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other auto-immune disorders are most positively affected by this type of diet according to these studies. What may be less important to many people, but is a little concern of mine, is how the large scale meat industry runs (I'm not talking about small family operations, but the big industrial operations). They are using so many resources that are subsidized by our tax dollars (I'm talking a lot of oil to transport for one thing, and not just their product, but the corn used to create their product), and raising these animals so inhumanely. This, like I said, is not the reason I'm doing the vegan thing, I'm doing it for health.

I'm puzzled though by all of the anecdotal evidence however that says that people's healthy cholesterol numbers went up, and their bad numbers went down following these high animal fat, "grains are the bad guy", diets. Maybe it's a case of short term results versus long term results, or maybe it's a case of these diet promoters doing what my grad school professors called "massaging the data". Maybe their test subjects were eating fewer calories, and hence the results. Maybe though, there is something valid here.

We've been doing this vegan type of diet for a few months now, and although we're not perfect, (sometimes my one free meal a week is REALLY FREE), we seem to be doing OK. My strength has gone up in my lifting sessions, I recovered from a bout of stress-induced Graves just as quickly, replacing the muscle loss, and Jeff says his muscle mass has literally gone up during this time. We've been really careful whole food, high protein vegans, and we haven't skimped on the nuts and nut butters, but then again overall, we've been pretty low fat. Jeff uses no salad dressing, and mine is usually based on a blended vegetable or fruit, with a pinch of nut butter sometimes to smooth it out. We use salsa as a topping on our bean burgers or burritoes, and use tamari alone on stir-frys. I've been really slow taking off pounds gained during the holidays, but then again that's not unusual for my body, especially when I've had a Graves attack, and I've had about three since then. I always get more in winter (especially with Christmas treats), and this has been a pretty stressful couple of months for me.

I just can't see how it's possible that eating a lot of saturated fat can be good for your arteries and heart. It doesn't make intutitive sense to me. These articles claiming it's the way "nature" intended it, have to believe that nature intended us to heavily rely on cow's milk and its fats for our diet, and intended us to kill a lot of animals, and I'm not sure either was the case. Once again, this isn't about the "poor animals" though, it's about what's good for us. We do have a couple of canines, so maybe once in a while meat eating is reasonable. We don't however have a mouthful of shark teeth. We don't nurse beyond infant stage, so I'm thinking dairy (even just dairy fat) is probably not the most logical diet base. Who knows for sure though. My free meals will still probably always involve dairy or meat in some form, and more power to everyone I know who do great on whatever diet they choose. I'm a caterer too, and I still have my Paula Dean side that periodically gets me into trouble. Sigh. You can't beat cream for making almost any recipe taste better, unless you use butter.

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Finally! a stevia I can use.

No.

No.

YES! Finally a Stevia that works. I took the recommendation of a fellow blogger, and finally tried this kind (after HATING the other two kinds above) and it works. If you want a zero calorie sweetener that won't hurt you, and actually tastes good, I recommend this stuff unconditionally. The serving size is 1/4 teaspoon, but even if you quadruple it (like in a blender full of smoothie) you won't taste the bitter. Love it. It also actually makes things sweeter, which isn't really the case with the others (at least with my taste buds). I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, but no, I just like sweet when I'm promised sweet.

In other news, I started the yoga thing. There's a girl that teaches classes in the city next door to us, and I've been going Thursday nights. It is so intense! I really get a muscle workout, and she's so good about walking around adjusting everyone into place, which I really need, since I've got a few wacky joints. I then found a place online that podcasts free 20 minute yoga routines everyday (for free! --I'm all about free): here so I can just do a little on my own everyday I've got a little extra time. I usually do a short cardio sesh in the evening (I'm trying to work off a few Halloween parties), and maybe I'll do one every other night. I don't know. I know yoga may not burn as many calories as a hard cardio, but I really feel I'm getting some usable, functional strength and balance doing it. It just feels GOOD. At least with this teacher, It's a real intense class. Have you ever tried yoga? What do you think? My experience has been that it really depends on the teacher.

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Email discussion on food.

My friend sent this link to me and a couple of my friends, and it really struck a nerve with me. It's about food, and its significance in our lives. I thought I'd publish it here and see what you all had to say about it. After the link is my response, then the responses of two of my friends. Each paragraph is someone new. What do you think?

http://www.choosingraw.com/what-food-is-not/

Me: OK it's true. But saying it's true doesn't change my feelings most of the time. I found when I was starting the diet with Sandy this summer, that I had a true mourning period -- I said this before I know: I would drive by pier49 pizza and remember the time Jeff and I got a pizza to split at home while watching a movie --still remember which movie, at BYU I remembered truffles I ate while reading art books in the bookstore, EVERYWHERE I went, I had to let go of the good times I'd had with food. I would use food as a sensory pleasure to enhance a good time --almost always. What I found was that having control over my eating was also a really good feeling --a real powerful feeling, and I could create great memories without food, and it really didn't seem like these memories suffered from the lack. I went to the Springville MOA without chocolate in my pocket and it was still a wonderful time. But is it wrong to feel good about the control too? I would argue no. I think with something as prevalent in our lives, something that takes up a good deal of our time and is so strongly involved in our social lives, it is going to be associated with our happiness. Think about it, sunshine is another example. We have a lot of memories associated with sunshine, and summer. The truth is that it warms our bodies and gives us the vitamin D we need and that's all. True, but it will be strongly associated with our happiness. Food is what we create our bodies out of! Our whole material being is created and maintained with food. The China study guy argues that it is the most intimate way we interact with our environment and I agree. To say this is a small role is a statement of denial in my opinion. Sensory input is the major part of our mortal experience, and food uses ALL FIVE senses. Facing it is smart. I agree with what she says, I really do, it's just that I've heard similar things before, and looking for your happiness outside of food isn't as easy as it sounds. I would say be aware of emotions, and why you're eating, but to disassociate happiness completely from your relationship with food is not going to happen. hhmmmm --maybe I'll post this on my blog.

Friend 1: You're right too, of course. And she says on a post right after that that's part of what she meant, that she was trying to uphold the complexity of it even as she made her point. I just know for me, it was an important reminder that food is not my friend or my enemy. That's huge, to let those go. And difficult. The sunshine is an interesting and apt comparison, I think.

Friend 2: The biggest truth about food is that it is hard to erase old habits. So much of what we eat and how we feel about it are habits. If you spend the time to change the habit, you can create good memories around the new habits.

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Pumpkins and Beans

Well, we carved our pumpkins this year for the first time in three years. I always put it off until Halloween is over, and am secretly a little pleased that I have a few more pumpkins for decoration through Thanksgiving. Aren't I an awful mom? OK, but I repented this year and we carved, The kids made the faces, and we did our best to try and carve them. Tia did hers by herself. She's so cool. Ari got a little sick this week so we were so grateful Halloween was a little warm, and the neighborhood "street of treats" was earlier so she didn't get too chilled. If you know Ari's personality, she would have had to have had two broken legs to keep her from trick or treating.




Made some cool recipes this week. This was a Lentil-Carrot loaf. It turned out really yummy. We sliced it on toast (and the kids added cheese ---I find I can serve them just about anything as long as it has cheese on it. My mom says it was the same for her.). Here's the recipe:
2 cups carrot (from my garden yay!)
1T. evoo
2 cups vertically sliced onion (from my garden too yay!)
1 T. minced fresh ginger
2 cups cooked lentils
2 T. ketchup (I tried not to think about this I hate ketchup)
1 T. mixed Italian herbs
2 egg whites, 1 egg ---(I just bought xanthan gum: 1/4 t. plus 1/4 cup water =1 egg white)
1/2 cup quick oats (I used old fashioned with a quick pulse in my spice grinder)
1/2 cup garlic and herb breadcrumbs (I added my own garlic and herbs)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 t salt
cook carrot until soft, saute onion and ginger until soft, blend everything in food processor except walnuts, oats and breadcrumbs, then stir these guys into the rest. Put in a oiled loaf pan at 350 for an hour. The ginger with the herbs is really good. Who'da thunkit?

I did the vegan brownies Meesh. I called them " Chocolate banana bars" for my family though. The banana flavor really comes through. They LOVED THEM. OK this is really cool, because no added fat except for the nuts on top, and no processed sugar, although my bananas were a little green so I added a pinch of ground dates to sweeten it up. I am SURE with ripe ripe bananas I wouldn't have needed it though.

Here's the reipe again:

1 15 oz. can black beans rinsed and drained
2 bananas
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup agave (or honey)
1 T. (yes tablespoon) cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
1/4 cup quick oats (I used my spice grinder on old fashioned again)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

blend all ingredients except oats and nuts in food processor, then stir in oats, and spread batter in greased 8x8 pan. Sprinkle nuts on top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. I added a little "date sugar" maybe a quarter cup.

In other news, I finished "The Mysterious Benedict society" Cute book. It reminded me a little of Wrinkle in Time without as much spacey stuff. I had a nice binge on Halloween Treats while I read it. I beat myself up about it for a day or so, but realized, I really enjoy reading a good book and eating treats. I've got to face my problem and accept it if I'm going to move on right? I'm glad I had such a good book, and such good treats if I'm going down anyway. Might as well look at it as a GOOD memory and not a bad one. A full pound heavier the next day. Really. I decided, I the only thing to do is get back on track, and eat a lot of greens the next day to kind of cleanse all of the sugar out of my system. I don't know if this works physiologically, but if I stick to green drinks and salads the next day, my sugar cravings go away that much faster for me. So I'm back on track and feeling pretty good again. But then Kelli came over yesterday with the sequel....

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Laate dinner...Rustic tomato tart and Italian chickpeas and vegan sausage.

Didn't get dinner on the table until late tonight, but it was worth waiting for! Rustic tomato tart with whole wheat and cornmeal crust made with Deja's raw zucchini dip as the wet, and sliced multicolor tomatoes from our garden.



Based this off an Italian white bean and sausage recipe, but used soy crumbles, chickpeas, zucchini, red bells, and lots and lots of garlic and italian herbs. Yummy. Dinner was a little heavy though with these two dishes, I probably should have done just one and a salad. I had a salad for lunch at least, and we all had salad for dinner last night with just some quinoa on the side. It's just harder for me to portion control with denser foods. I had to stand up and leave the table while everyone else was still there. Oh well.

On the vegan diet front, I read the critical article written about the China Study that my friend sent me, and the author highlights some jumps in logic that the China Study author made. Honestly, they were nothing major, this was a man in hard science for decades, but he does draw a few personal conclusions. When we looked up the credentials of the guy that wrote the article though, it turns out he only had a bachelor's in history. He also was a member of the "Cholesterol for Health" group, so he may have had his own axe to grind. Don't we all? Take home message: still read the China Study if you're considering it. It is an amazing amount of important info. However, you don't need to be scared that any animal protein will promote cancer in your body. That may not be true. A LOT of animal protein, yes, I'd still say was a bad idea, but this is something we all knew if we're Mormon (see D&C 89. Does "eat meat sparingly" mean eat a little every day? I'm doubting that that counts as sparingly--but make your own decision).

On the totally unrelated news front, I had a breakthrough in my Halloween costume. It's going to be SOOOO COOOL!!! (OK maybe not, but I'm hopeful now.). Love you guys --thanks for reading.

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Rollin' with it.

I sucked it up people, and I think everything is going to be Okay. Thanks for all of your helpful comments and advice. Plus a friend of mine sent a very interesting review of the book which cause all the vegan mayhem in my brain, so stay tuned, I may be adjusting again! Anyway today I had a little more time, so it was a big cooking day. First I boiled up some red quinoa. I was never a fan of the flavor of quinoa before, but it's growing on me (ha --virtue of live food). Plus it looks so cool when it's cooked, with the little white quotation marks that form all through it. Neat.



Next I made the "Oat Milk". I soaked 4 cups of old-fashioned oats overnight, then blended in the soaking water, with a dash of salt, and a dash of agave, then added water to make two quarts. Pretty yummy, but it does get a little thick with all the oat fiber activating. I think next time I may use half of the oats.

Finally for the morning cooking I made "Terry's extra special secret granola". This is my Dad's recipe that he made all the time when we were growing up. Should I post a secret recipe? actually he can't find it so I'll post it for my Dad: 6 cups oats, 2 cups wheat bran, sesame seeds (1/2 cup for me), coconut (I only used about 1/2 a cup), sunflower seeds (I used 1/2 cup sliced almonds instead), whey protein (1/3 cup not vegan, but was in the recipe --you could omit it, or use soy I think with really good results), cinnamon --I put in a whopping 2-3 T., mix it all up, then add the wet ingredients: 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses, 1 cup honey (I used agave), 1/4 cup --yeah i'm serious that's all sesame oil (I used toasted for extra flavor, but I think any vegetable oil would be fine). Mix dry with wet, and bake at 250 on two cookie sheets for 45-50 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through cooking time. OK, YUMMMM. You could even leave out all the nuts and seeds and still, with plain oats it would be good. It was even a little too sweet. I'm cutting back on the honey/agave next time to half I think.



For dinner we had quinoa bread, based on a HEAB recipe . The kids didn't love it, but Jeff and I did.
.....And a Gingered Carrot soup with caramelized onions. Amaaaaaazingly good. The kids all had two bowls. Easy recipe too (I changed it a little of course):
6 cups broth, bring to boiling
2 pounds of carrots peeled and chopped, dump in broth and boil until soft
meanwhile --4 onions thinly sliced --caramelize in 2 T. EVOO. When about halfway done, add 2 T. grated FRESH ginger.
Blend up most of carrots in the broth with HALF of onion mixture.
Add 1/2 cup coconut milk, and 1/2 cup oat milk (could use soy or rice milk)
Top with remaining onions. YUM YUM YUM.

We had a great dinner, and a great food day. Knock on wood for tomorrow. :)

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This is going to be harder than it looks.

I'm a little panicked here. We did a simple salad of three kinds of local apples, and mixed greens with a honey-lemon vinaigrette, and the a big pot of grains. I used a five type rolled grain cereal, and some oats for creaminess, 2 kinds of dried fruits, some sliced almonds, agave (which worked great --thanks Aunt Lynn), and cinnamon. My family ate it, and I've got plans for the rest of the week, but I'm just overwhelmed. The salad could really have used some CHEESE that the original recipe called for. It needed some sharp tangy something in it. I'm just not used to the whole balancing thing with all vegan ingredients and I was in a hurry after getting home from speech therapy at 6:30pm. I wasn't really planing on this whole vegan thing --it's freaking me out. Do I tell my kids to not eat birthday cake? We're trying not to turn into junk-food vegans. Are we not using our freezer full of grated cheese, chicken, and beef? What about all of the homemade jam I've made from strawberries out of our yard? I finally got my years supply of food storage --I'm not kidding --ingredients for 6 months of dinners included in with a year of basics, and suddenly half of it is obsolete? What about butter? Do I bake with coconut oil instead of butter? Won't that cost a fortune? Are we the weird family now? Do I do this thing in stages with my kids? How do I keep myself from eating nut butter all day (panic attack induced binging was a problem today :( )? Any help would be great. I know some of you experienced vegans out there really cook.

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China Study Dinner

I haven't blogged in forever I know, but I just was keeping a few things to myself, and then those things started to take up most of my energy and focus, and there wasn't much left to blog about. I was on a really strict diet all summer as you know, and it was great for me in a ton of ways. I learned so much about controlling myself eating-wise, and with the training regimen I was on, I also learned a lot of self-discipline in getting all of my workouts in. Towards the end of the summer it was weekdays was a 40-50 minutes hard cardio in the mornings, 40-45 minutes weightlifting, and a 30 minute cardio session at night. It was hard scheduling that all in, and sometimes I was freakin tired, but it was so worth it. I finally had a body I was proud of. I've worked for so many years trying to get these results, and frankly didn't have the tools I needed. Thanks so much to my trainer Sandy for all that she did for me. She's well worth her fees. After I reached my goals I finally started reading The China Study that's been recommended to me over and over again by almost everyone I know interested in health and fitness and IT ROCKED MY WORLD. This is a book written by a national reasearcher (he has written over 350 peer-reviewed published articles in major scientific journals) regarding a major study spanning ovr 30 years of the rural Chines peoples, and a number of other studies he and other researchers have done supporting his findings. What findings? Take home message: the higher the animal protein in the diet, the higher percentages of most cancers, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases. This ROCKED MY WORLD. I was almost sorry I read it. This summer was all about animal protein. I am still worried I won't be able to keep on the muscle I've gained going all plant based, but there is a vegan bodybuilding site and while there aren't too many girls on there, I'm trusting if I'm careful I should be OK. I got into a lot of good habits this summer: eating a LOT of veggies, no sugar, LOW LOW fat, and portion control. I couldn't move into this without my training. Thanks again Sandy. OK, so here's what we had for dinner tonight.

Roasted vegetables --including two giant eggplants from my garden

Raw zucchini hummus: 3 medium zucchinis, 1 1/2 t. cumin, 1 t. salt 1 1/2 cups raw cashews, 1/2 cup lemon and 3/4 cup cooked garbanzos (because it was a little thin)
Kale chips: cover a baking sheet with potato chip size pieces of kale, spray lightly with vegetable or olive oil cooking spray, sprinkle with salt and pepper, or whatever seasoning blend you want (try salt, chili pepper, &garlic powder!) and bake at 250 for 30-40 minutes until they are all crisp. These are super good. The kids love them. You might be surprised.

I spread some of the hummus on a big lettuce leaf, piled on the roasted veggies and went to town. DELICIOUS! The kids had theirs on corn tortillas, but I was conserving a few calories because of the cashews, and I had a huge butternut squash shake earlier in the day. What??? No really. 2 cups of roasted butternut squash, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, ricemilk or soymilk or almond milk or nonfat if you have none of these, and my vice: splenda. (I suck I know, but I've tried stevia and it doesn't do the same thing for me. suggestions?) It was like pumpkin pie in a glass. Yum. I froze the last half of the shake, and blended it up later with some more water and Pero and that was fantastic too: like a frozen pumpkin pie latte. Sorry no pictures. I was considering it.

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Explanations

Well, it took me a while, but I thought I'd make some explanations as to why I'm doing this bodybuilding thing. When I was in college, I took a couple of weight lifting classes, but never did much with them. Then Jeff and I did "body for life" after I had my second baby, and I learned a little more. Jeff has always pretty seriously trained and I wanted to learn more about it. I've always exercised, but there are some ways that are more effective than others apparently. Still I've always felt pretty strong, a pretty strong person. When Kai was just a baby, I was training for the Salt Lake marathon(by the way, why is that more acceptable than bodybuilding in the mainstream? ) and all of a sudden, started to feel awful. I went from running 11 miles one Saturday, to not being able to run down the block the next week. After all of the tests came back, I was diagnosed with Graves disease. I was floored. I didn't feel I was the type of person who GOT a serious disease, a chronic lifelong disease. I was too strong and healthy right? I guess not. It was really hard not to exercise and garden and stuff through the next few weeks while they checked out damage to my heart, and got my medication all stabilized. I didn't get to do the marathon. When I moved here, I got into the Tae Bo thing, and MAN --that blew away running (at least how I run) as a workout. I got a new passion. Then a weight class started at the same place I was Tae Bo'ing and I did those too. Pretty soon, in my stake a girl taught an exercise class, and said she was doing a fitness competition, and kind of got me interested. I liked the idea of being really strong, and being that disciplined too. Kind of to prove the Graves isn't in control you know? When an attack hits, it starts eating up your muscle. I hate the idea of that. Jeff bought a book, kind of for me too (at least I've read more of it than he has) last year "Get Lean" by Lee Labrada about bodybuilding and competing. I talked to all of my friends in the neighborhood about maybe doing a competition together, and nobody was up for that restrictive a diet, but we all did "Body for Life" together last spring (maybe 10 of us). I didn't really make much progress, I still felt I needed something more --a real goal, something a little out there to shoot for. Just to clarify, this is all just natural bodybuilding --no steroids or bad stuff. So this time around, when I had a little personal money saved up from the last few catering jobs (ironic isn't it? food payed for this--) I booked the personal trainer and told her I wanted to do the NGA Natural in Sept.

Some LDS friends and family might wonder about the modesty issues. These bathing suits aren't modest, (although hardly anyone does a thong anymore Dad), the idea is to let the judges see your body and judge fitness, proportion etc. In my mind though, it wasn't like I was going out in public in this suit. (From some peoples' point of view maybe it is more public though than just going to the beach or pool, I see their point, I just didn't feel that way.) I didn't feel it was a sensual type thing either, I still don't think that. However, I probably won't do the show now. I guess I've decided that if people might question where I stand on modesty because of it, or if I might be seen as something I'm not, I probably shouldn't do it. I guess I can't imagine Sheri Dew ever did a fitness competition. I just wanted to get there, for once, to that lean, strong, physique, and this goal was how I planned on motivating myself. You have to admit, thinking a panel of judges will look at the cellulite on your thighs would make you think twice about cheating.

I'm looking for a new goal. I'm sticking with it still, paying a trainer is a motivator too, but I need something to shoot for. I'm thinking of sending in pictures for a "Labrada fitness challenge" or bodybuilding.com fitness challenge. Any ideas? Jeff says just schedule with my trainer a "private show" and ask for her critique on how well she thinks I would have done. That seems a little cheesy to me. Any ideas?

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Death of a foodie.

Deja wanted to see the new plate. Here it is. It's a tupperware. Tilapia poached in lemon juice, 1/2 cup buckwheat, 1 cup green beans. Doesn't sound too bad does it? Everything is PLAIN though. I originally thought I could add different herbs each time, etc. to mix it up, but frankly, it's salt and fat/oil I miss on everything. I admit I cheat a little with season salt once in a while. I figure when I'm 5-6 weeks out from the contest I can cut it all out.

For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, I'm planning on entering a fitness competition this fall. Do you know what that is? It's like bodybuilding. I decided that at least one time in my life I'd like to look like this:This is Sandy my personal trainer. By the way, do you see the competition suit she's wearing? Those guys cost like 1500 dollars. Maybe I can find one used (eeew)? I don't think I can buy one for my competition that's that much. Anyway, so I've got 7 meals a day, 2 of which are egg whites, 2 of which are protein shakes (with ground oats mixed in), and three are like the ones in the picture up on top. These are the high carb days though. On the other days (3 a week) you cut out the brown rice or yams, and the oats. I can have half a grapefruit on the low carb days, otherwise there is no fruit. It's around 1800 calories, so I'm nowhere near hungry, I haven't had a day yet where I could eat all the food. I'm trying, but usually I miss 1-2 meals. A gallon and a half of water a day. --Interesting side note, I asked my trainer if it gets easier to "hold your water" later, if you get used to it or something. She said you get used to going to the bathroom more often. Sigh.

Training (lifting) is five days a week, broken up into body parts (each workout is about 50-60 minutes), and cardio is 6 days a week for about an hour too. Luckily she said it's OK to use my kickboxing teaching time as cardio. I'm pretty good about doing my whole routine with the class (unless I forget something in the middle --I can tell there's no sugar in my brain beacuse yesterday I had to go back and look at my class plan like 4 times).

No cheat meals, no cheat days. Also no alcohol, which, as I told my friend shouldn't be a problem, but some days....(just kidding). I've kind of avoided social situations so far, and food hasn't been too bad temptation wise. The hard part is all the time I spend cooking and prepping food. Then yesterday we added in all the suplements (fish oil, flax seed oil, glutamine, BCAA-- branch chain amino acids, plus all the calcium, vitamin c, vitamin e, minerals etc. that I'm already taking some form of), and I swear to get them ready added another 20 minutes to my morning.

The best thing though, and I should have mentioned this at the top, is that Jeff is doing it with me. Jeff hasn't gotten hungry. He's done better than me with eating all of it, but still- that shouldn't be enough food for a man 20 pounds heavier than me, and lifting and stuff too. Jeff's super cheerful (as opposed to my Eyeore-ness) about it all, and super supportive. Anyway, we'll see where this goes. She's going to change it after three weeks, and I'm betting it means she's just going to cut the calories. We'll see. I miss fruit.

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Pierogies with turkey, tarragon, and spring vegetables.

One more recipe for you guys as I enter the black hole of good eating. I started with a personal trainer this week, as I want to try to enter a fitness competition in September (think bodybuilding). I've been thinking about it for a long time, and that day when I made the bread pudding? And ate it all day? remember? That's when I decided to go for it. Sometimes you need a big goal to kick you into line. I went through a true mourning period for my lost lover (food --good food) and then carb loaded on sugar and pasta last night. So yeah, my first day on the egg white and chicken breast and brown rice diet started today (with a little Molly McButter if you're a good girl --yeeesh), and I know there is no way I can do this if I have to cook 7 times a day, so I've got to make things all ahead of time, and I'm gearing up to cook up 10 dozen egg whites, 7 pounds of chicken and 6 pounds of tilapia with no salt, and I thought I'd finish this post while I try to make myself do it. I actually cooked this last week. It was really good, and it made the pierogies not such an unhealthy meal with the added protein and veggies.
Have you ever had pierogies? A guy from Canada that went to Monterey with me for a spring semester (we studied marine biology) in college used to eat them all the time, and made some for the rest of us. I wonder what happened to him? He was engaged to what seemed like a really mean girl. Like strange mean. One time we tried to call and pay for her to fly out and surprise him, and she got mad. What the? OK back to the pierogies. They are like pasta, but filled with potatoes, and sometimes onions or cheese. OK here's the recipe :


3 T. olive oil
1 lb. pierogis
10 baby carrots (cut in half lengthwise on a diagonal)
12 oz. mushrooms (quartered)
1 large red onion (cut in thin wedges)
3 cloves garlic (put through a press or minced)
1 lb. asparagus (cut in 1 1/2 inch pieces)
9 oz. Turkey breast thinly sliced, in strips (I confess I used good quality deli meat, but it was really good)
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 T. or more snipped fresh Tarragon

Cook pierogies according to package directions in boiling water. Remove and keep warm. Saute the onion, garlic, and carrots in olive oil until the onion is translucent. Add the other vegetables, and reduce to medium . Keep cooking, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are starting to soften (maybe 6 minutes?) and the liquid released from the mushrooms is gone. Add the chicken broth and salt and pepper and turkey and pierogies, and cook (and gently stir) over medium high until some of the broth is evaporated, and turkey is heated through. Remove from heat and add snipped tarragon (I've got some in my herb garden if you need some).


I like to serve with shaved parmesan to pass at the table. It makes the kids think it's fancier (OK, and me too).I should give some credit here for BH&G's Spring Vegetable Braise, but I've changed so many things in this it's barely recognisable I'm afraid.

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Details details details!

OK here's the scoop, we were able to do the three soups and the three salads, AND do the bread bowls -- which is so cool because there really isn't a disposable bowl out there that looks good. We did get the bread bowls a little late (I contracted them out), so that was a little hectic, and my friends were pulling out the middle of some bowls the last 15 minutes before people got there, and consequently some bowls got a little bit TOO much pulled out of them, and we got coconut soup spilling all over the floor at one point, and I wonder how much longer I can make this sentence? But everything was tabled on time, and looked pretty good, but I forgot my camera. My friend took pictures with her phone for me, but you know how I like to get all "in your face" with my food? Those pictures didn't happen until a lot of it was gone, and it just frankly didn't look so good then. OK, but my platters and bowls needed to come from a friend's house who was in California at the time, but guess who called me back just when I was walking over to her house to see if I could break in? or maybe just look in the windows and sob? Yes. I love her for calling me back while on vacation. Beautiful pewter stuff which I haven't invested in yet. I bought other stuff she uses, so I don't feel too guilty for mooching. So that saved the beautiful table. That's what I mean by going smoothly, things come together for me sometimes like that and I'm so grateful.
The salads were spectacular, so thanks for the recipe Kira, and the soups were great, so thanks Lorraine for the third soup suggestion. The chocolate dipped strawberries were all gone long before I packed up, which is what I expected from a lunch where we were meeting to talk about a new fitness challenge starting Monday.
Fitness challenge: This lunch was for "Sweaty Chix" our new LLC at Omega Martial Arts. Remember how I said we were going to all voting for "best of Utah county magazine" and we won? (second place, but the first was Gold's gym, and it's the first time we've shown up). This was the thank you lunch, and now we're all going to get skinny. Right. No really, we're hoping! If you want to participate, you weigh in once a week, and there's a menu of healthy choice suggestions, and a couple of fitness articles. (I think Wendy wrote one herself, which is cool because she's a real success story herself.) We record everything there at the studio to help motivate each other. I told Wendy and Kristin I've been bulking up so I can really win the grand prize (I don't think there is a prize). All part of the plan. All part of my evil plan. Muahahahahaha!
Seriously, I've been steadily gaining through the holidays, and haven't lost anything this month. Now I've got personal money again (it's February) I can start Myfooddiary again. This is the best thing for me. I learned how to be accountable on here. You ought to check it out if you haven't yet, it's great and so easy to use, and they have the largest database out there of food to enter. I decided I really need a mean person to send my daily report to. Maybe I can post it on here somehow? Is there anyone mean out there that would take my daily reports and rip me up if I screw up? Not my sisters or my mom. Too understanding.
So I also wanted to link you guys to this new blog I found that totally highlighted our "Sweaty Chix". She's called The Lola Letters (this is the link on "sweaty chix" but she mentions my lunch in the current post so go see that too). Really beautiful Girl who is competing in "Mrs. Utah" competition this year, and standing next to her really got me motivated to lose these extra lb's. Really nice writing style too. Lot's of pictures!

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