What Have You Learned?

Rachel and I went to do the monthly grocery shopping at Costco today and on the way there, we had the following conversation:

Rachel:  You know, you should blog about stuff you’ve learned through this whole thing.
Me:  Learned?
Rachel:  Yeah, you know, like a post about why use coconut oil instead of other oils, that kind of stuff.

Awkward pause.

Me:  Um…If someone were to ask me why I use coconut oil instead of other oils, I’d just say, “Because Rachel said it’s better.”
Rachel:  (sigh)  Mom, don’t you want to know why you’re eating the way you do?

A good question.  In the beginning, the answer was “no”.  I honestly didn’t care why I was eating what I was eating.  Rachel was doing all the cooking and I was losing weight.  Everything was perfect.  In fact it wasn’t until I started this blog and asked her for a one sentence summary statement of what I eat that I discovered I don’t eat dairy!  How did that get past me?!  But now that I’m doing my own cooking and am realizing I’m in this for life, I really do need to spend time learning why I eat the way I eat and why it results in weight loss.  Yet another journey.  And I’m looking forward to it.

But for now….use coconut oil.  (Happy, Rachel?)

Oh, and for all you busy moms out there that are asking for quick and easy lunch ideas, here was today's lunch.  10 minutes to make, but it'd be faster if the turkey sausage was made ahead of time.

1 cup black beans
1 oz avocado (which is about 1/4 of a regular sized avocado)
1/8 cup almonds, chopped (makes it seem like there's more)
2 turkey sausage links, chopped
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Mix together.  Chill if desired.  

One is the New Two

Another week, another pound gone.  I think the days of losing two pounds a week have come to a close and the era of a pound a week has begun.  But I’m still losing and still committed to seeing the next 46 pounds gone.  Even if it’s one pound at a time!

I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for awhile and her first comment was that my face looked thinner.  That kinda surprised me, because of everywhere I’ve lost, that isn’t the place I would have pointed to first.  So I went back through some pictures just before I started all this and sure enough, my face does look thinner! So here’s a before/in progress shot of my face (notice it’s not a “before/after” shot, because I still have a long ways to go).

Speaking of food (yeah, there was no transition there whatsoever), below is my absolute most favorite lunch.  BBQ Chicken Tacos.  I’m only “allowed” to have this once a week, because of the tortillas, but I seriously look forward to this lunch each week!

Stir fry the chicken in Mrs. Dash Chicken and Pam Olive Oil cooking spray.  Add some sea salt to taste.  Heat the corn tortillas in the same skillet as the chicken (but re-spray the pan first) over low heat.  Mash up 2 oz. avocado (which is half of an average sized avocado), add a squirt of lemon juice and diced tomatoes, and a dash of Mrs. Dash Original.  Divide between the two tortillas.  Add 1 tble BBQ sauce to each tortilla.  The barbeque sauce I use is from Organic Ville, Original BBQ sauce (no sugar added).  The only place I’ve seen it is Sprouts, but I would guess you could also get it at Trader Joes or similar store.  Incredibly delicious!

Another staple dinner for me is tilapia.  There are so many good recipes for tilapia and I’m anxious to try them all.  This one is a quick, easy to prepare recipe when I don’t have a lot of time.  Use the Pam Olive Oil spray, season with garlic powder, sea salt, a squirt of lemon juice, and parsley.  Flip and do the same thing on the other side.  The brown rice is made with Organic Chicken Stock instead of water.  It’s a filling meal and, if the rice is made ahead of time and bagged, only takes about 15 minutes to make.

We finally changed my percentages to where they should be, and not so high in carbs.  I’m on the “traditional” 40/30/30 (protein, carbs, fat) percentages.  It’s not as hard as I thought it would be to cut the carbs back a bit.  What’s been hard is eating all the protein I’m supposed to eat.  I’m not crazy about protein shakes, but these Quest Protein Bars are pretty much my daily afternoon snack.  They are so good and have very few active carbs, but a lot of protein.  Highly recommend them!

5K...DONE!

     I feel like a poster child for a “Couch to 5K” commercial!  In January I ran my first quarter mile and today I finished a 5K.  Wow…just wow.  Such a great feeling.  I have to admit, I’m already excited for the next race! 

      After I ran my first 3-mile run at the lake a couple weeks ago, Rachel started pushing to run the Race for Autism 5K.  I was hesitant at first, but after I ran the second 3-mile run, I decided to go for it.  I never looked at it as a “race”.  I just wanted to run the whole thing.  Mentally, I kept telling myself this was no different than going to the lake, as I usually do.   It was different though.  You could feel the energy from the crowds.  It kept me going and made it, dare I say it, fun.  It was a bit of a stressful run however, as shortly after I started, I looked down at my iphone arm band, which also holds my car key, and the car key was gone!  I was too far to go back and with the crowds behind me, there would have been no way to retrace my exact steps.  I just prayed that the key would be in the grass area where we started, or that someone turned it in to a lost and found.  With that on my mind, I was a bit distracted, and kept running through different scenarios if I couldn’t find the key.  In hindsight, it might have been a good thing, in a really weird way.  I was doubly motivated to cross that finish line, as I really wanted to start looking for the stupid key! 

            Crossing the 3-mile checkpoint was a definite highlight.  The Finish Line was in sight and I wasn’t as exhausted as I thought I’d be.  I picked up speed, as everyone does once the Finish Line is in sight, and as I glanced ahead, I saw Rachel waiting for me on the sidelines.  That was pretty cool.  =)  The second I crossed the Finish Line, I went back to where we started, and in God’s good providence, found the key in the grass.  It was a bit matted down, clearly being stepped on a few times, but it was there!  I don’t think it was until after I picked up the key, that I truly was able to take in the thrill of the moment.  I went from “couch to 5K” in two months time.  While I really don’t have a desire to increase my distance, I am now setting goals related to time.  It would be nice to get to a respectable enough time to be able to run with people.  I came in at exactly 12 minute miles.  I’m anxious to see how the next race goes!

(Mommy of 9 t-shirt, compliments of my father-in-law.  Side note:  he bought it for me about three years ago, but I was never able to wear it because "it was too small".  Not "I was too big", but the shirt "was too small".  Now that I can finally wear the shirt, I can say, "I couldn't wear it before, because I WAS TOO BIG!")

Slow and Steady

     This week brought both exciting and not-so-exciting steps in my weight loss journey.  On the upside, I hit my 3-mile running goal!  I’m very happy about that.  I’m incredibly slow, but run the whole thing.  I was at the lake with Rachel when I ran it.  She was already done with her run and was waiting for me.  When I finished, she asked how far I went.  I was barely able to get out the word “three”, because I was breathing so hard.  She was very congratulatory and happy for me, but once I regained my breath, the first thing I said to her was, “So does this get easier and more enjoyable at some point?”  In other words, I still am not an exercise-fan, and I honestly don’t care that much for running.  But of all my cardio choices, this is the lesser of all the possible evils, in my opinion.  And I have to admit, the “post-run” feeling is pretty incredible.  And the fact that my husband and Rachel are also runners makes it fun as we all go to the lake together.

            On the not-so-exciting part, I only lost a pound last week.  I realize that isn’t supposed to be “not exciting”, but the reality is, after a week of planning, cooking, measuring, and exercising, I really would prefer to see my normal two-pound weight loss.  Now I know all the sayings I’m supposed to say to myself (and I have many of them pinned on Pinterest), but the brute reality is that sometimes the slow, healthy, safe weight loss route can be a bit…well, long.  But at least the scale is going in the right direction and in total that puts me at minus 38 pounds, which still amazes me.  Onward and upward, er, downward…you know what I mean.

            Here are a couple samples lunches from last week, since I keep getting requests for what I eat.  Why these two?  Because they are the only two I remembered to take a picture of!  But I have both incorporated in every week, so it’s a good sampling.

1.  Turkey breast and broccoli/cauliflower stir fry
I get the turkey breast at Costco and then cut it into 3 ounce slabs and bag individually.  Then I just heat it up on the day I want to use it, by heating up both sides in a skillet over medium heat.  I then take either 1/8 or ¼ cup of raw almonds (depending on how many calories and fat I can spare that day) and chop them up.  I heat 1 tablespoon of Kirkland Signature Organic Strawberry Spread with the chopped almonds and serve on top of the turkey breast. 

I do most of my veggie stir fries in Pam Olive Oil spray, seasoned with Mrs. Dash.  Sometimes it gets too dry and starts to burn, in which case I'll add a tablespoon or so of Organic Chicken Stock to give it some moisture. I always keep a carton of it in the refrigerator to use as needed. 

2.  Stir fried chicken, yam cubes, stir fried brussel sprouts and mushrooms
Since I already stir fried a bunch of chicken for the week (again in Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and Mrs. Dash Chicken flavor), all I had to do was re-heat the chicken (in some of the chicken stock for moisture) and sauté the already sliced brussel sprouts and mushrooms.  

The yam cubes are a favorite and I have them several times during the week.  Peel and cut the dark orange yams into cubes and put in a bowl.  Add 1 tablespoon olive oil, sea salt and pepper.  Optional:  sprinkle a pinch of coconut sugar on top. Place on an aluminum baking sheet and bake at 450 for about ten minutes.  Turn.  Bake another 10 or so minutes. 

I'll post a couple of dinner recipes next week.  I'm anxious to see what this week brings!

A Day in the Life

This week marks the first week I am cooking for myself.  I started cooking my own breakfast and lunch last week.  This is day three of cooking everything.  I log several days worth of meals into Myfitnesspal and then Rachel goes on to make suggestions, changes, additions, deletions (grrrr), or, approves it as is.  So far it’s going okay, but the hard part is the part I never was good at….planning ahead so I “have time” to make a healthy meal.

I tend to get so busy with whatever it is I’m doing (mostly upstairs in the schoolroom) that by the time I’m hungry, I’m famished, and just want something quick and easy to make.  Unfortunately, most healthy options do not fall into the quick and easy category.  So planning ahead has become a necessity.  Since I already have several days worth of my meals logged, I know exactly what I'll need to have on hand, and what can be prepared, cut, shred, cooked, or prepped ahead of time.  For example, I have several lunches this week that include ½ cup serving of brown rice.  So this morning, I made 5 cups of brown rice in the rice cooker (made with Organic Chicken Broth instead of water) and bagged it in ½ cup servings.  I also have a few meals with brussel sprouts (my new favorite green vegetable), so I have a bag already washed and cut into halves.  Since I knew I’d be having stir-fried chicken a couple times this week, I went ahead a stir-fried 4 servings worth Sunday night. 

Just doing those few things above, makes putting together a healthy lunch very doable.  Today I had what is pictured below:  tilapia, brown rice, and broiled balsamic brussel sprouts.  Since the rice was already done, and the sprouts already cut, the whole thing took about 20 minutes start to finish and most of that was just the cooking time (during which I unloaded the dishwasher, did some dishes, and put in a load of laundry).  By the way, the balsamic brussel sprouts were from a recipe off Pinterest and were very yummy!  Plus I reheated the rice in the same pan I used for the tilapia and so it added just a hint of a lemony-garlic taste to it.  Lunch was 370 calories, breakfast was 375 (two scrambled eggs, plus one egg white, 1 piece of Cinnamon Raisin Ezekiel 4:9 toast with organic whipped butter and honey, and an apple). 

Today started with another 2.5 mile run at the lake.  I’d really like to get that to 3 miles by the end of the week, but my body isn’t cooperating.  I’m just dead at 2.5.  We’ll see how that goes.  I was asked why I don’t log my exercise into Myfitnesspal.  The reason is that if I enter it, it automatically increases the calories I get for the day.  While that’s great when I get to the maintenance phase of my weight loss, it makes the weight come off faster if I don’t eat my exercise calories. And since I am mentally unable to see those extra calories sitting there and not use them, I just don’t log it.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Exercise

Actually the title of this post is a lie.  I don’t have a love/hate relationship with exercise.  It’s just pure hatred.  I simply do not enjoy any form of exercise.  Never have.  So I knew this part of the program would be very difficult for me.  I didn't do anything for about the first six weeks Rachel started cooking for me.  But I knew that to lose weight, diet and exercise go hand-in-hand, so I started walking.

Walking

I spent about a month just walking.  I started at 30 minutes, then slowly increased it to an hour. We have a lot of annoying hills around our house, so the walks included a lot of hills, which made it feel like much more of a workout.  After about a month of that, though, I knew it just wasn’t enough and I was getting bored.  I thought maybe a change of scenery would help, so I started going to a local lake that has the quarter miles all marked out and makes it easy to track how far you are walking.  After doing that for a few weeks, I decided to add an ever-so-slight jog into the mix.  I’d walk a quarter mile, then jog a quarter mile, then walk a quarter, then jog a quarter.  At first, I couldn’t do more than the two quarters total of jogging (and even then, they were split up with a quarter mile of walking), but I kept at it.  I can’t say I really had a goal in mind at the time.  It just seemed like a good way to ramp up the workout a bit.

Running

Then one day, out of nowhere, I ran a half mile straight.  I have to admit, I was shocked.  I didn’t tell anyone at first because I didn’t want to ever have to repeat it.  But it made me curious.  I wondered if I could really work up to running, say, a mile.  A week later, I did.  I stayed at a mile for a couple weeks, then slowly started adding quarters to it.  Then I was at two miles straight.  As of this week, I’m at 2.5 miles.  With this last run, I experienced what I’ve often heard my husband, who is a runner, talk about: the runner’s high.  After the first 1.25 miles, I suddenly got this burst of energy.  I wasn’t breathing heavy anymore and it felt like I was on a fresh pair of legs.  I just kept going.  And now I do have a goal:  I want to run a 5K. 

Strength Training

Living in a house with a bunch of workout nuts (my husband has been faithfully working out for as long as I’ve known him, and I’ve known him for 32 years), I knew that running alone wasn’t enough.  I was going to have to add strength conditioning to it.  I knew I would have to join the gym…yet again.  I think this is my fourth or fifth time of joining the gym.  Like I said, I just don’t enjoy working out and always end up cancelling my membership.  Part of the problem was not really knowing what to do there.  I know how all the machines work (after all, I am an experienced gym-quitter), but after awhile it just gets so repetitive and boring. 

Enter Daughter #2.

It just so happens that my second child, Erika, was recently hired at the gym our family attends (and the one I’ve quit on several occasions) as a Personal Trainer.  Working out is a bit of an obsession with her.  Well, she wouldn’t say it’s an obsession, but in my mind, anyone who willingly goes to the gym two times a day is clearly obsessed.  So not only did I re-join (or is that re-re-re-re-join) the gym, but I hired Erika as my Personal Trainer.  We do a lot of weird exercises that I would have never thought to do and my legs pretty much hate her when we’re done, but it has given me a new take on the gym and I am excited to see how long I stick around this time!

So now you have the backstory, the What I Eat story, and the Exercise story.   As I am fond of saying lately:  “How does Mom lose weight?  It takes a Village!”

"So What Do You Eat?"

I sure hear that question a lot lately! The obvious question whenever someone loses weight is, "How did you do it?  What diet are you on?"  The short answer is that I'm not on a particular "diet" program.  I have, however, completely changed the way I eat.

Here is a one sentence summary of my "diet plan":  I am on a calorie controlled, non dairy, moderate complex carb eating plan.  Probably the biggest help in staying on this program (well, in addition to Rachel) has been MyFitnessPal (www.myfitnesspal.com).   MyFitnessPal is a free online calorie tracker.  It contains thousands of foods, including a lot from many popular restaurants.  In addition to tracking calories, it also calculates and keeps track of your protein, carbs, and fats.  This is another important aspect of my eating plan.  Rachel has preset my allotted calories at 45% carbs, 30% fats, 25% protein.  Those percentages will change periodically, but I am a die-hard carb lover and needed those percentages to get going.  Once I hit a plateau, we'll adjust them.

Once you enter all your stats on Myfitnesspal, you are given your daily calorie allotment.  For me, that's about 1400 calories a day.  It changes as the weight comes off.  I started higher than that.  For now though, that's what I have to work with.  I eat something roughly every three hours.  I have breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, and then dinner.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner are somewhere between 350-400 calories and no snack exceeds 200 calories.  I have been entering my entire food plan a few days in advance, as it takes a bit to plan it out and make sure I am not going over both my calories and my percentages on any particular day.  This is a bit time consuming at first, until you get the hang of it.  Now I can bang out several days at a time in minutes.  I have made my food diaries public to those I am "friends" with on Myfitnesspal.  If you want to see exactly what I eat, join the site and look me up.  My username is vicki81868.  Once we are "friends", you will have access to what I eat on any particular day.

There are other little "rules" involved in the "diet".  These include:
1.  No carbs after 4:00.
2.  Eight glasses of water
3.  No food that contains any ingredients I can't pronounce.
4.  No refined sugars or white flour.
5.  Oh!  And one "cheat day" each week (I kinda like that one).  The "cheat" though still has to work with your calories, but may put you over on your percentages.

Of course there is an exercise portion to all this, though I didn't start an exercise program for the first 6 weeks I was on the program.  I'll save that for another blog post though.

It's snack time and a Peanut Butter Quest Bar is calling my name!

My Weight Loss Journey

I have been told repeatedly that I should be blogging my weight loss journey (among other topics) and so I finally decided to give it a try.  I still don't completely understand how all this blogging stuff works, but I suppose I'll figure it out as I go along.  Bear with me!

As of today, I have lost 35 lbs in 17 weeks.  I'm down 6 jean sizes and feel better than I have felt in years!  So how did I get here?  Well, it's an interesting story.

My 13 year old daughter, Rachel, and I were driving in the car one day talking about the TV show The Biggest Loser.  Rachel's passion is cooking, fitness, diet and nutrition, so she loves watching that show and getting inspiration and ideas.  As she was telling me about how much weight a particular contestant had lost, I made the defensive remark that those people are losing weight the easy way because they have someone telling them what to eat, cooking for them, etc.  She shot back, "So are you saying you could lose weight if you had someone cooking for you?"  Figuring there was absolutely no risk in answering yes, since a personal chef wasn't exactly in our budget, I emphatically stated I could.  Then it happened.  She said it.

"Fine, I'll cook for you."

Now that, I was not expecting.  So I did what anyone would have done; I called her bluff, er, what I thought was her bluff.  We made a deal in the car that day.  She would cook for me and I could only eat what she either put in front of me, or what she approved of ahead of time if I were going out.  Since I didn't really think this would last more than a week or two, if that long, I readily agreed.  Once the rest of the family heard about the deal, they started watching me like a hawk and found great pleasure in reporting any deviations on my part to Rachel.  With the threat of "I'm going to stop cooking for you if you don't stick with the deal" hanging over my head, I quickly took the whole thing as seriously as she was, and we were on our way.

While people are quick to congratulate me on my weight loss, it's hard to take the credit.  Rachel has been faithfully cooking for me, three meals a day, for the past 17 weeks.  I have learned more about nutrition and healthy eating from my 13 year old during this time, than in any other time in my life.  So now, while the weight loss journey is continuing, the cooking torch is being passed, and I am slowly taking over my own cooking.

There is much more to story, including the details of the diet I am on, and the exercise portion of the journey.  But, for now, that's the backstory to the unfolding story.  I still have a long ways to go, but am so encouraged by how far I've come.  And I can honestly say, I couldn't have done this without my 13 year old daughter.  So, way to go, Rachel!  XXOO