A Little Kick In The Pants.

"Everything you want in the world is just right outside your comfort zone...every single thing you could possibly want."  

Jamie Lee Curtis

I guess this means I need to get out of my comfort zone (couch) and start exercising again! 

What is it that you want that is right outside your comfort zone?

Pineapple

We are eating this tomorrow.

Did you know that if you turn a pineapple upside down (set it on it's leaves) that it will ripen more evenly and quickly? I've done it 3 times now and it works! Fresh pineapple is wonderful! So far the best pineapple has been at Costco.

Summer Dinner

Oh, what do you eat in the summer time when all the world is green?

How about this for dinner:

Green salad
Steamed Green Beans with pepper
Cantalope
"Oven Fried" potatoes

Oh so yummy and easy and clean up was a breeze! The potatoes were sweet and made it feel like a real meal.

"Oven Fried" Potatoes

• New potatoes - cut to bite size - freshly harvested ones are sweet and tender
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• chives
• minced garlic
• pepper

Mix in bowl, spread on cookie sheet, bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until tender - turning once during baking time.
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This was such a light and satisfying meal. For dessert have Watermelon Icy's!

3 Months

I was doing some housekeeping and found a post that I wrote 3 months into the diet but for some reason I didn't ever post it. So, for your reading pleasure: A never published post from 3 months ago!

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5/17/2010

Roland and I have been nutritarian for 12 weeks now. It seems like we were just high fiving our 6 week goal and suddenly here we are at 12 weeks.

I've read back through my initial entries and have a different perspective now that I have some distance from the first few weeks. The first week was more difficult than I realized. I emotionally prepared myself and was ready for a tough time, so when you read the original posts, it sounds easy breezy when in fact in was hard. Not hard because I was hungry. I wasn't hungry at all. And I didn't really miss junk food or meat. There were so many new foods to try. And I love to cook and there were lots of new recipes.

What was hard was changing a life long habit. Change can cause struggle but struggle brings strength. And boy, am I much stronger now than I was in February!

When I look back on the first 2 weeks I remember that we were tired, the withdrawal from our previous diet made us feel weak and a little flu-ish. We watched a lot of TV during those weeks. And I was consumed with what I was eating. I thought about it all day long. I was obsessed.

.....................

Folks - that's all I wrote. But I think it is interesting to read because each month the diet just gets easier and easier. Sure, I crave junk sometimes and please don't leave an open bag of Doritos near me. But I've been at this long enough that it feels natural and normal. I can eat without thinking and planning as much. 

So
Glad
We 
Did
This!

After?

Quite a few people have told me that I need to post an after picture. I haven't because I'm not at the "After" point. But - I will post where I am right now.

I have been a nutritarian for 6 months and I've lowered my cholesterol by more than 60 points and lost 52 lbs. I feel so much better, younger, happier and productive!

Our before picture. A friend took this and thought it was such a flattering photo. And here are our afters (sorry - no body shots - yet!):

Roland - 53 lbs lighter

Me - 52 lbs and counting!

Pretty soon we will get a picture in the same pose as the "before".

I keep saying that even if I hadn't lost a pound I would still eat this way. My food tastes better and I feel better!

CSA Share

Every Saturday I go to the farmer's market and pick up my CSA share for the week. Each week I get more and more! This is what we got this week:

• celery
• kale
• basil
• beets
• green peppers
• lemon cucumbers
• baby potatoes
• garlic
• zucchini
• onions
• slicing cucumbers
• turnips (need ideas for what to do with these!)
• carrots
• cabbage
• tomatoes
• 2 kinds of beans

I still have quite a bit of produce left over from last week! I love that it is all organically grown, picked fresh and local. It tastes much better than store bought (and in the case of brocolli - much stronger!).

Can't wait to see what we get next week!

Veggie Sandies By The Dozen

Most of my family has started eating a nutritarian diet. My mom and sisters are especially devoted to this healthy lifestyle. This pleases me very much because it validates my position as the oldest and thus, the bossiest. But really, I love them and want them to feel as great as I do. I want to travel with them when we are old and when I say travel I mean adventure! Most of the places on my "To Explore" list involve, at the very least, vigorous walking. Some require an little bit of dare devil attitude and I want my mom and four sisters there because they really are the neatest people I know.

So this summer when we spent a few weeks together we ate lots of delicious food and had many exciting conversations about how wonderful it all tastes and how awesome we all are for treating ourselves so well. There was lots of bragging and back patting.

One night we made 12 veggie sandies:

12 wasn't enough. Everyone wanted two -they were so good. We served them with grilled corn on the cob (grill before shucking), melon salad, hummus and green salad. It was a feast!

Grilled Veggie Sandies

Sandwich thins - we used Pepperidge farms but any brand will do if it is whole wheat
Spread bottom thin with hummus
Stack:

• shredded carrots (on the hummus so they stick)
• grilled eggplant
• grilled zucchini
• grilled sweet peppers
• sliced onion (we used Vadalia)
• sliced cucumber

Spread top with guacamole.

Tuck bib into collar and open wide (real wide!).

My Bad - Not

Isn't it a relief to hear the words "it's not your fault"?

For 20 years I always thought it was my fault that I wasn't healthy and slim. I assigned all sorts of negative descriptors to myself:

• lazy
• lack of self control
• gluttonous
• undisciplined 
• careless
• ugly
• gross

I remember wondering how I could raise 4 babies while going to graduate school and working but not have enough strength to loose weight. Duh - it was easy! Eat less=weigh less, right?

I thought that if I ate the Standard American Diet (SAD) - but less of SAD-  I would lose weight. Then when I couldn't stick to that diet I would berate myself. My SIL, Christine, once told me that I was entirely too hard on myself. She was right.

In the past 6 months (yes! 6 months of nutritarian eating!) and 50 lbs of weight loss I have learned that it wasn't my fault. I had no idea how to feed myself. I was eating foods that created addictions and more hunger. My body wasn't getting the nutrition it needed so I had overwhelming cravings that I couldn't ignore. My diet of meat, cheese, and simple carbs was starving me nutritionally. Your body will not let you starve. It will create an urge to eat that cannot be denied. So I ate more of the diet that was starving me. It was a vicious, destructive, frustrating cycle that went on for 20 years.

Now I am eating such nutritionally dense food that my appetite has all but disappeared. My body only craves food when it is really hungry for more nutrition. I don't even feel the urge to eat when bored, sad, or lonely - those were my big food triggers.

If you struggle with your weight let me pat you on the shoulder and say, "There, there. It's not your fault." Eat a ton of veggies, pig out on the beans and lentils, gorge on the fruit and start saving your money for some new clothes honey, cause those pants are gonna fall right off you pretty soon.

What I Ate Today:

30 oz of green smoothie
small slice of whole wheat banana bread

Soy Nut Mix
banana
Almonds

cantaloupe
watermelon
apple
Zucchini spaghetti ( blend fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and garlic and serve over cold shredded zucchini - so good!)
Lemon squash (very thin slices of yellow squash topped with a spritz of fresh lemon juice, a small drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper, light sprinkle of shredded Parmesan, and chopped fresh mint. If I make this I will drop the oil and cheese and I think it will still taste fabulous!)

Now, quit beating yourself up and have some watermelon!

Back To What?

Back to school lunch? Back to junky cold lunch? Nope.

Ike and I did his back to school shopping today and that included lunch stuff. We walked up and down all the isles at Costco looking for healthy lunch options. Let me tell you, it was slim pickin's!

Ike's health has improved so much this summer. His skin has always been covered with large rough patches of eczema and scabs and now it is smooth and soft with only a few small patches on his ankles - this is almost miraculous to me. The dark circles under his eyes are gone. He can breathe through his nose. He just feels so much better. I believe it is because we removed nearly all animal products and processed foods from his diet (I say nearly because he will nab fried mozzarella sticks and Doritos when given the opportunity) and because he drinks a green smoothie everyday.

It has been pleasantly surprising to see that he wants healthy food. He now prefers almond milk to cow's milk and finds processed food to be too salty/sweet or just yucky. But what 13 year old is going to choose cucumbers over tater tots? It will be interesting to see if his health declines when he goes back to school and is surrounded by unhealthy food. And it will be interesting to see if he is ready to take his health into his own hands and choose healthy food at school.

In addition to fresh fruit and veggies and organic p-nut butter honey sandwiches on whole wheat bread, here are the healthy lunch options we found at Costco:

Mrs. Mays dried fruit
Mrs. Mays Trio bars (not his favorite but I think these are so amazingly yummy)
Lara bars ( again - not his favorite but I love them)
Grapefruit cups (he likes grapefruit!)
Stretch Island dried fruit bars

Last year we did yogurt, chips, carrot sticks and a lunch meat sandwich. So I need more options for this year.

Any ideas?
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ps - Haiku Tofu - will you send me a link to your private blog? I miss you!

Forks Over Knives

If you've read The China Study then you know exactly what this all about:



Can't wait to see this movie!