Sugar....and being 29.

So today is my birthday. I'm 29. My body is in better shape now than it was ten years ago. But WHY. CAN'T. I. LOSE. WEIGHT?! Ahhhhhh!

Okay. I'm done yelling. But seriously. I have lost two pounds in the last 4 months, and I have fought hard for those two pounds. I'm thinking it may be my addiction to refined sugars. I stay within a certain calorie goal that will (supposedly) enable me to lose two pounds a week. The scale stays the same. Even with working out HARD three times a week. 

At first I chalked it up to losing fat but building muscle at the same time. Now I'm not so sure. I've read recently that simple carbs (read: sugar!) can trigger an insulin spike in our bodies which, in turn, causes a starvation response. The body is like "Omg! When is she gonna eat again? I'd better save all this fat just in case! Hmm. Where to put it? Oh look her butt could use more padding!" 

Now I'm not going crazy and saying all carbs are bad. There are carbs everywhere (including fruits and veggies) and our bodies need those complex carbs to be balanced. But doughnut carbs are not the same as strawberries and Greek yogurt carbs. Doughnuts, while they may have the same calories do not have the same nutritional value. And that's a shame. Because man they're good! But one thing I'm learning is that eating is not just about feeling good or tasting good. It's about fueling the body. Now to convince my sugar addicted self of this concept. 

So the "no refined sugar" experiment will begin....right after I have birthday cake......

The Day The Freezer Died

My resolve to eat at least one veggie meal a week wavered. We had fallen back into the super carnivore lifestyle. It's just easier to make a meal revolve around meat!

Then something happened. My small chest freezer.... My less than TWO YEARS OLD chest freezer.....died. And I did not realize it died until it was far FAR too late. I had at least two months worth of meat in that thing. I'm a bargain shopper so I stock up when it's on sale. So I said "today's a good day for stir fry..." We've had three meatless meals this week. Well yesterday's was almost meatless. I had a few pork pieces I put in a pot of black eyed peas for flavor. Today we eat the last roast we had in the inside freezer.

I don't think the untimely death of the chest freezer was entirely bad (I mean besides the hundreds of dollars of food we lost). It forced me to get creative and pull out some of our old favorites. Like Pad Thai and Penne Rosa. We've had both this week. And tomorrow I'm thinking a good old stir fry is in order...that would mean 4 meatless suppers this week! Plus a bonus on leftover night Sunday...the kitchen closes on Sundays.

I still have not lost any weight but I HAVE lost inches. I'd rather see pounds but inches will have to do for now. I really need more cardio. And I really hate cardio! Especially running! And what am I doing Saturday? Running/jogging/limping in a 5K. Because I want to say yep i did that. I have lost. My. Mind.......

Life....Enhanced

I've turned another corner in my journey. I went from a fairly unkempt "scenic byway" to a "state highway". I ramped the speed up a little.....okay a lot.....but it's not exactly smooth sailing like an interstate. Potholes abound.

I've gone several months without any weight loss. I've been carefully tracking calories eaten and burned but still no success. At first it was cute. Now? I'm just annoyed. So I took a look at what I could possibly be doing wrong. When I examined my habits I was a little surprised by some of them.

First, I was most likely dehydrated and what I was thinking was hunger might actually be thirst. I was in the habit of only drinking water when eating or working out. I got, on average, 24 ounces of water per day. You're supposed to drink at least 64 ounces per day!
Second, I was addicted to sugar. Everywhere! From sweets to bread to pasta. Simple carbs and refined sugars were a HUGE part of my diet.

I decided to start with those two birds and try to kill them with one stone. I determined that every time I wanted to munch (my munchie of choice is always sugary) I would drink instead. The first day I nearly floated away (90 oz!) and actually stayed kinda hungry all day so a new approach was in order. On day two I found the plan that could work for me. Drink every time I wanted to munch, but instead of 3 larger meals throughout the day I chose to do five smaller  . The challenge with this approach (for me) was keeping the number of calories per meal on a fairly even keel. I've pretty much gotten it down though. I'm already up to 40 ounces of water today and I'm just now starting to get the rumbly in my tumbly that tells me second breakfast is near.

Another change I made was changing the intensity of my workouts and adding in some strength training. I kid you not when I say that right now it hurts to sneeze. Every last muscle group I have is sore! I've only made these changes for about a week now so there are two things yet to be seen....whether I'll stick with it and whether it can get me results. I hope so...I'd hate to think my eyeballs are floating right now for no good reason!

My Veggie Valentine

Ahhh Valentine's Day. Yesterday we celebrated it the way that we usually do...at home. I sequestered the children in another room with a stack of DVDs and all the popcorn they could eat. This way we only have to hear "Mooooom?!" Every five minutes while we have a nice romantic dinner together.

Valentine's Day being the wondrous day that it is, I spent the entire day coaching a second grader through school work. "Stop playing with that. Pay attention. You're doing school work remember?!" Then, once that was over I got up and remembered that, the day before, I started adding strength training to my workouts. I tried all the things. Now my arms are so sore I don't want to move. Joy.

I prepare a feast fit for a vegetarian king. I was so proud. We have recently discovered that portobello mushrooms are good. We like those in stuff better than the white button mushrooms. So I said to myself, "self, you should get those big portobello caps and pretend they're chicken or something and make portobello Parmesan. That would be awesome!" So that is what myself did.

I made a marinara with freshly chopped onions and bell peppers and celery. The chopping went something like this "ow, thunk, ow, thunk...." I coated the portobello caps in a mixture of panko and regular bread crumbs, salt and pepper, basil and oregano and Parmesan cheese. Then I lightly pan fried them in a little olive oil until the coating was crisp and golden brown. I put whole wheat pasta coated with marinara on the plate with my mushroom caps and topped it all with a sprinkling of mozzarella. It was so good! I was proud of myself!

Then dessert. Because you cannot have Valentine's Day without dessert! But even dessert was good for you! I made vanilla soufflé, which is much easier than one would imagine. But all I have to say is thank God in Heaven I have a Kitchenaid stand mixer because I had to beat egg whites until they had stiff peaks and I'm positive I'd have never survived the pain! Just folding the egg whites into the rest of the mixture went something like, "ow...oh ow...ooooow....." The soufflé came out light and airy which was good because portobello can sneak up on you! I'm all "I'm eating a vegetable...it's such a light meal! I'm starving I'll eat the whole thing!" Then afterwards I'm saying, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing...ooooh that mushroom was more filling than I thought!"

So our wonderful delicious Valentine dinner ensued. Peppered with a little "no you can't have that. Where's your water bottle? Go back and watch the movie now." And you know? It was perfect. Now. Excuse me while I go amputate my arm and get the pain over with already!...

Manic Mondays

Oh man the busyness! The weekend before last my husband ran his second ever marathon, AND did it 15 minutes faster than last year! That was the Sunday. The day before, our almost seven year old ran a 1.2 mile race. I was so proud of them both that I stood at the finish line crying the whole time. I was emotional...


Have you ever had one of those days where nothing....and I mean NOTHING goes right? Yeah. I had one of those on Friday. I just wanted to give the whole thing back and start over! But, after Friday, things started to look up...I mean at that point where else could things look? After the massive fail that was Friday, I threw my sister-in-law a baby shower and it turned out rather well (if I do say so myself). Then Sunday came and I enjoyed it because Sunday probably is my favorite day of the week. We get to go to church and worship and sit and listen to what the man of God has been given to say....This week he stepped on my toes just a little. I am a champion procrastinator. Guess what the message was about? So yeah, I've determined I'm going to stop wasting so much time. I started UN-procrastinating by getting up and going to the gym this morning (like I always do) but instead of showering and crawling back in bed like usual I ate breakfast and started straightening up the mess that is my living room. By the time the first kid woke up I was standing in the middle of the room feeling pretty accomplished!

Last week we had a delicious pasta dish on Meatless Monday (I love pasta). I adapted a recipe to be meatless AND to not use oil to sauté the veggies because...uh...calories! It's called penne rosa. It's a tomato cream sauce but instead of using cream and butter it's got fat free yogurt. Everyone enjoyed it even more than the spinach walnut penne I've made and everyone (even the picky three year old) said they'd eat it again. Score one for Momma! Look for the recipe on my recipe tab.

Speaking of going to the gym this morning (which I did somewhere up there) I set the stationary bike on a harder program that I normally do. Halfway through this program I did the math and was like "alright! If I keep going like this I'll go farther than I've ever gone!" But shortly after that I was pretty sure I was going to die. I slowed way down and it looked like I wasn't going to make it as far as I thought after all. I heard the little voice in my mind say "nope. You're not going to do it." Then, I felt determined. I said to myself, "It's possible...pig...that I don't have the strength to finish strong" But I kicked in the afterburner and said "drop your sword..." Then I grinned like a crazy lady...because I'm hilarious....and because I was going to finish strong because I wanted it...I wonder if anyone around me noticed the crazy person grinning at her internal conversation with herself. I hope not. I'd hate to get kicked out of the gym for creeping the other people out.....

Realizations and Resolve

Things have happened. Some good. Some meh. First for the good. I came to the instant realization this morning of just how much smaller I am. I mean I knew I had lost 25 pounds. I saw that on the scale. I knew I wear a smaller size clothes now. I saw that in how my clothes hang where they used to hug. I knew I could maneuver more easily in tight spaces. I saw that in the fact that the shower curtain no longer touches me....I HATE for the shower curtain to touch me...don't ask why...I haven't a clue.. But today, standing in the shower dreading having to shave my legs, that's when I realized...I'm really a lot smaller than I used to be. Strange as it sounds I despised shaving my legs because of the acrobatics involved. It required contortions just to reach the vast expanse that was my hamstring...or so it seemed to me...but today it was like "there you are.....that was easy". When did that happen? And why did I not notice until now?

Now for the "meh". We had strayed away from Meatless Monday... Or meatless ANY day. We went from veggie meals two to three times a week to having them only occasionally. It's more expensive to buy fresh fruits and veggies. I really need to learn to garden. But not only that, it was so simple to slip back into my routine of buying only what's on sale and preparing from what I have in the freezer. But guess what happened. My weight loss slowed down. My energy flagged....but I'm blaming at least part of that on this gloomy winter weather! Something else happened too....my kids complained of.....slower digestion! Their little bodies were getting so much good nutrition and fiber from those meals! I didn't understand how much they mattered. So, I've started them on a fiber supplement but I've got to get our menus back under control! Veggies are good for you! Now I need to make my grocery list....and there needs to be more veggies on it!

New Year, New Food

Our family had no New Year's plans this year. Our six year old could not wrap his head around this concept. He said, "How will we celebrate the New Year!?" I was not about to stay up all night so, being half Cajun and half Creole, I decided the best way to celebrate at a decent hour must involve food. So I offered this idea to my poor confused son. New Year, New Food. He said,"huh?" So I explained: this is a new year we've never had before so let's look through my recipes and find some food we've never had before. He was cool with this. Especially since he got to help me choose the food.

So on a search we went. My son, being the fruit of my labor, got excited about a soup recipe in my "Eating for IBS" cookbook that has crab in it. He loves crab. I would have never chosen this soup myself because, reading the recipe, it sounds a lot like Chinese egg drop soup with crab in it. I've never had egg drop soup but I've seen it on a buffet. It just looks unappetizing. But I DID tell the child we'd try something new....so here we go! Off to the store on New Year's Eve to find the few ingredients we didn't have. The store we went to was close to home and, in case you've forgotten, we live out in the boonies. So, unsurprisingly they were out of crab.  My son was HIGHLY disappointed. I told him we'd just substitute some small shrimp, which the store did have. He tried his hardest to convince us that this was a culinary emergency that warranted a trip to "town". I, however, assured him that it would be just fine with shrimp. He was not happy with this decision but knows that what Mom says goes.

Back at home now we made the soup. It took, quite literally, less than 30 minutes to throw together. Then the hubby and I spent a few minutes fine tuning seasoning because it was rather bland. Once we got it to our liking we served it with some rice (of course). Both my husband and myself thought it was pretty good. My daughter doesn't like anything these days (so she says) but she ate two bowls. And the tiny gourmet? He said, "it would be better with crab.......can I have some more?"