Slow and Steady vs. Glitz and Glam

I am trying to remind myself that the road to health has to be slow and steady.  I think TV will have us believe that in the course of 1 season or even 1 episode, health can be found and claimed.  While I do appreciate that, to some degree, shows such as the Biggest Loser, have encouraged an actual discussion of obesity and food issues, they also make weight loss seem magical. But it isn't magical. It is slow, steady and really about staying the course.  This week I am trying to stay the course. Show up every morning, make decisions to eat healthy food and try to find a way to move. I think I need a little challenge though.  I need a little Biggest Loser in my life.  I like the idea of someone following me around cheering me on and giving me prizes for showing up to life and giving it my best sounds pretty good to me.

Back on the wagon (again, again)

It has been a rough few months, and my quest for health has been waylaid. While, I think the stress, family crises and distractions have been real, I am also cognizant of the fact that this has been another time when taking care of my health has come last. More than that, when I am honest, stress and crises usually drives me to sabotage my health. When things feel overwhelming in the rest of my life, I gravitate towards foods that are as icky as I feel. And for this most part this episode of crisis was no different... I did find myself eating fast food, wanting sweets and craving food constantly.  But for the first time in my adult life, I managed to stay somewhat physically active and still consider what I was eating--if only a little bit.  Now for some people this may not appear as a minor miracle, but let me assure you that for me it is. More than staying active, mainly through walks and bike rides with my kiddos, I craved the time to get back to the Y and workout. I am simply amazed by this still.

I do think that my desire to work out has more to do with the community created by the Y where I work out.  I have always felt so self-concious working out or trying to being "sporty".  I always felt like it was sort of a joke and that everyone in the room knew it.  But that is what is special about a place like the Y. It emphasizes community above all else. I look forward to being there and when I walked into the Y after 2 months of absence, I was still greeted by smiles and hugs. If only I could pocket that and take it with me as I go through the rest of the day.

So I am back on the wagon or at least trying to be. Watching what I eat, planning another few days of juicing, working out, blogging and I am doing this as I embark on yet another high stress time period. But my hope is that by putting health front and center might help me get through it more effectively. So my goal over the next few weeks is to work out minimally 3 times a week and cutting out sugar.  More mini-challenges to come.  Up this week: I will make it Reformer, Bodypump and Deep Water Aerobics (this one will be a knew one for me). I have also added an update to the "Just the facts" file... on my progress.

So stay tuned and I will try to too.

One step forward, 1/2 step back and repeat

Devil's dust

God, this is hard. It is really sparkling hard. (Sparkling is the word I try to use when I really want to say something much crasser, but there is a two-year old around).  It is really hard to change something so fundamental as the way you eat. I start each day wanting to eat perfectly.  For me perfect, right now, means no grains, no sugar, lots of veggies, meat and "good" fat.  I've not done so well on either count for the last couple of days.  I have felt overwhelmed by life; too many responsibilities and too many emotions. I have made an allusion to food addiction in previous posts. But I mean it quite literally.  I feel driven by food. I think about it, feel twitchy when I don't know when I am going to get food again, contemplate, in particular, sweets at key intervals during the day... it is an addiction.  As with any addiction, the biggest problem is not being able to stop. In theory, it would be great if I could have 1 bite of brownie or a few spoonfuls of ice cream, but as soon as I have sugar I want more.

The juicing detox really helped with this, and I am still feeling the affects.  But I got cocky this weekend.  and tried a few bites of the new Starbuck's cake pops, part of their new "under 200 calorie" pastries.  Totally another example of the food marketing in the U.S. which confounds good eating...And despite knowing better, I was more than happy to buy their line. (For anyone who cares, I found it to be overly sweet and a bit fake tasting) So food marketing and the evils of rampant capitalism aside, having a little sugar made me start thinking about more sugar, thinking, wanting, dreaming... I have got to be frank, I really have better things to do besides crave and fight the crave.  It is clear that I cannot handle a little bit of sugar, at least not now.  So this comes to a new challenge.  From now until the end of the semester, no sugar--not in any form.  No honey, no maple syrup, no agave, no turbinado, no sugar.

This may, in fact, be more challenging then the juicing detox, but I think I have to do this in order to fight the demons. Here's to a sugar-free tomorrow.

Commencement means beginning..

My reassuring 8 bottles of health...

I completed my initial 10-day juice fast.  It took me about 11 days, because I ended up being behind on juices here and there.  I chalk that up to mamascholarhood.  But I did not break the regime, drinking my wide-variety of homemade juices and eating raw foods for dinner during the entire process.  I did end up adding in additional fat each day, in the form of avocados, coconut milk and cashews because my milk supply decreased slightly during the 10 days.  Adding this in at a higher rate (so about 1.5 avocados per day/or the equivalent) boosted my supply right back up.  In quantitative terms, I can report that I lost at least 5 lbs.  I will be doing another weigh-in when I return to the Y later this week.  But I am a qualitative researcher, so more important to me is that I genuinely feel better than I did 13 days ago.

I wrote in my initial posting that I felt the need to conquer something related to my diet.  I do feel more in control than I have in a long time. For one thing I realized I can eat a lot less and feel okay, in fact not just okay but better.  There were moments when I felt genuinely hungry, but they were actually few and far between. For the most part I was astonished at how seldom I felt hungry. I also felt less bloated and, although purely a psychological symptom, less manic about food. It was remarkably calming to know exactly what my next meal would be and that it was waiting for me in the fridge.  That said, finding the time to juice for 1.5 hours every two days was stressful.  Shopping and generally preparing to juice was likewise time consuming and, in some cases, expensive.  I am working on another post on the cost of the juicing program and will post it soon.

The 10 days also gave me an opportunity to reflect on a few things including, what I am terming, my food rhythms. Like most working families, mornings are hectic around our house. My husband often makes lovely items for breakfast, but on a day when I am trying to get to work, the Y and the kids to two different pre-schools/babysitters, breakfast sometimes gets lost in the mix.  During this last 10 days, it became clear that I do better with breakfast. More specifically, I did best on the mornings when my juice was a juice with protein and fat, in this case in the form of avocado or coconut milk and usually leafy greens like spinach.  A low-fat diet is not for me, and I think probably not very good for anyone. I felt able to concentrate more fully as my morning progressed.  I also felt much better at night, eating my high fiber salads. The lighter meal was satisfying and diverse in terms of tastes and senses.  I did miss meat and I think adding some grilled something to the salad on occasion is a good way to augment the meal without returning to a heavy dinner.  Clearly there are some lessons there for how I should be eating in post-juice world.

But I have to admit even with all this success behind me, I still feel anxious about the next steps.  I don't have every meal planned--although I have a plan to make time for meal planning--which is a step in the right direction.  Over the next four weeks, I will continue to abstain from eating grains and sugars, other than fruit.  During this time, I will be concentrating on finding and making meals that work with my new found food rhythm.  I will also be working on readjusting our food budget, trying to make the same amount of money stretch further to include more organics. This last portion is just as befuddling as the new diet, so I expect a few frustrations in the weeks to come.

I reflecting on the last few days, I am conscious of the fact that this was easier than I expected it to be.  There is one reason for this--community. In keeping with my cliche filled post, I am reminded of the saying "it takes a village to raise a child." I think this can be applied to just about any situation in which we humans find ourselves. Very little is created alone and nearly nothing can be dismantled alone. Our society is in a food and nutrition crises, but being fat, overweight, obese, unhealthy--whatever word you want to choose--feels like a singular failure.  I feel like I should have enough control to fix the situation or not have created it to begin with. But in coming out of the fat closet and reaching out for help, from my husband, my sister, my parents, my friends, my neighbors and anyone else who will listen, it feels more surmountable. This was the first step, there are many more... stay tuned.

Staying strong, sort of

Tomorrow, I will prepare juice for the last two days of the 10 day detox.  What that really means is that I will begin to shift to eating foods other than salad and juice; so the most intense part of the detoxing process will be completed.  I certainly have been thinking about non-juice food, especially in the last couple of days. And while I have coveted the thought of a few bites of steak or a the warmth of a latte, mainly I have been thinking about what will happen when this is all over. I realize it has only been a few days, but I already feel like being in the juicing detox is safe. Leaving it means facing my food addictions all over again, but without the safety net of reminding myself that I am trying to achieve the goal of 10 days on the juicing program. In preparation for this I am doing all the things I am supposed to, planning meals, getting advice, reaching out for support.  But I have to admit, I am scared.  I feel almost silly writing that sentence-- scared, we are talking about food. Intellectually, it seems to me that there are a lot of things which warrant fear, but food is likely not one of them. Emotionally, I know that my addiction to food and the consequence of being overweight has significantly impacted my life in ways that I am not even ready to process much less blog about. For now though, I am going to look forward to my next couple of days of juicing--focusing on finishing this first phase, realizing there is still work to be done.

Getting back on track

Weekends are hard.  I am often so exhausted on Sundays, I cannot believe I am going into the work week.  But weekends are also tons of fun. This last part, for me at least, comes from having kids.  It is pretty easy as a scholar to work all weekend.  That is the downside of being in academia, you can always work.  There is literally always something to do and that needs doing. All through graduate school, my weekend was devoted to "catching up on work."  But having kids changed that.  I love that our weekend, in addition to pesky household errands, revolves around doing fun things with our little ones.  This weekend's highlight was a bike ride. We take bike rides almost every weekend, with Jeremy pulling a trailer with the two babes. But this weekend was my debut as trailer puller.  Our 40 minute ride through the neighborhoods around our house was fun, and I am pretty sure pulling an additional 50 pounds in children ups the workout value.

Not surprisingly though, I got a little off track with the juicing adventure this weekend.  I managed not to actually break the fast.  I just ended up not keeping up with drinking all the juice on time.  Now I am starting Monday without my 6 bottles waiting for me.  So some regrouping is required.  I am restarting Day 7 today.  I have rearranged my schedule so I can take 1.5 hours this morning to juice for the next two days.  In the meantime, I will enjoy some herbal tea and perhaps a piece of fruit.

I think this set back is pretty typical of how I often get caught up in other things and nourishment gets rushed. Something I need to keep working on, if I am going to live healthily.  More thoughts on that... later today.

Half-way there!

Willpower is helped by this yummy creation! 

This is just a brief post to celebrate the completion of the half-way mark in my initial 10-day juicing adventure.  I am actually about 40 minutes and 5 sips early, but I think I will call it good.  You all will have to trust me that I finish the last five sips before midnight CST.

I feel good. I can celebrate a few pretty big accomplishments, or at least as far as accomplishments go when we are talking about juicing and not world peace. One, I managed to stick with this even through a few pretty crazy days here.  Johannes had to have minor surgery, which I knew about before planning to undertake juicing.  But as usual, I underestimated how intense it would be to manage anything out of the ordinary in our routine. This was a classic stress situation for me.  We had to be there early, there was a lot of coordination of people, cars and care... all recipes for me to suggest take-out.  But I managed... I did end up about 1/3 of a juice behind, but that has not seemed to be too big a deal.  I think it some ways just having a virtual community made it easier for me to power through this experience.  Also, the fact that the juicing makes me plan ahead meant I had my juice with me and I had it when I came home.  Now if I can just translate this to making sure I have a lunch with me---in the post-juice world--then I will really have accomplished something.

My other big achievement of the week...I discovered I have willpower.  I seriously did not know I had this ability and I will frankly tell you it has never reared its head before.  I don't think I have ever turned down good food in my life.  But today, I accompanied my two year old to a Texas bbque because it is even-more-than-usual Texas pride week or month or something like that.  In any case, his preschool hosted a bbque and yours truly actually went, mingled, helped my little one eat and did not endulge.  There was yummy brisket that smelled divine and several kinds of chocolate goodness and I politely declined.  It was amazing. It was of course also a little sad, because although their love of their state is sometimes a bit over the top, Texans know how to bbque.

In closing though, I must also admit a couple of cheats.  Tonight, I quite enjoyed an extra handful (or two) of cashews on my salad...they were yummy! And my husband has rightfully pointed out that my nightly salad seems to be getting a bit bigger every evening.

Still I am going into the second-half feeling fine and excited to find out what turnip juice tastes like.

An ode to the avacado or thank goodness for fat

On day three of the juice fast, fats are added back in.  In this case, in the form of avocado and cashews.  I enjoyed a handful of cashews on my salad last night and in the afternoon had an avocado smoothie.  It was divine.  I blended avocado into a juice prepared with garlic, broccoli, kale and some other yummy things.  The garlic gives it a serious bite, but I love spicy food.  Putting it in the blender creates this wonderful texture, smooth, creamy and decedent.  It felt rich and fatty and it felt deserved after two days of no fat.

I know it may seem counterintuitive to consume fat when trying to lose weight, but the body needs fat. Now I am not trying to sound all healthy experty here, because I am not.  But there are plenty of people out there, much wiser than myself, who have studied how the low-fat craze can be harmful to your overall nutrition.

 Obviously, there is a big difference between the fat in a Big Mac and eating healthy, naturally occurring fats in nuts, seeds, meat, eggs and yes… avocados. I found, after two days of the juicing fun, that I really am craving fat. But, and I take this as a very good sign, I am not craving a doughnut or ice cream. The avocado really made my day.  I knew avocados were good for you, but this experience made me a bit more curious.  I did a little research...Avocados are high in a zillion vitamins, full of antioxidants and help with weight control.  And I get to drink that yummy juice/soup/smoothie again tomorrow-- fantastic motivation to keep going.

Fun with flavors...the juices of my 10 day adventure

Banana Powerhouse...Powerful lot of greens!

One of the biggest challenges to juicing is figuring out the recipes.  This is true even when you are not detoxing, but it is especially true when you are.  As I mentioned in my first post, I am doing this program with a nutritional counselor, Lisa Piper. So I am lucky in that she is providing me with recipes based on my needs.  So far all the juices have been pretty yummy, even if I was skeptical going in.  Let's be honest the idea of broccoli kale juice, even for someone hardcore in love with broccoli and kale, is a little daunting.

Since the recipes are not mine, I am going to just provide the general ingredients.  Anyone interested in the recipes can contact Lisa Piper.

Day One 

Celery Orange: celery, green apple, orange, ginger, flax oil and chlorella
Carrot-Kale:  carrots, burdock root, kale, spinach, apples, spirulina, flax oil
Broccoli- Kale: broccoli, kales, oranges, lemon, lucuma and diatomaceous earth
Apple Flush:  apple, watercress (I had to sub spinach), orange, lemon and flax oil

Thoughts on day one flavors:  

celery orange: was a good way to start.  It was mild and with a bit of a bite  owing to the ginger.  It gave me a lot of energy. carrot-kale: also quite yummy, but not was sweet as celery orange. The carrots give it a nice scent. broccoli-kale: much better than I expected.  Not nearly as green tasting as it sounds. But the lucuma and diatomaceous earth do not blend as well as chlorella and I did not care for the gritty-ness. More on these items in my next post, in case you are wondering. Apple flush: a lovely way to end the day, I love lemon and this is quite refreshing. 

Day Two  (new juices)
 
Swiss Chard- Maca: Swiss chard, cucumber, celery, endive (sub bok choy) apples, maca and spirulina
Grapefruit Blend: Grapefruit, carrots, spinach, oranges, chlorella

Thoughts on day two flavors: 

The Swiss Chard-Maca was such a lovely pick me up.  It really boosted my energy.  I ended up drinking half in mid morning and half in late afternoon because it really helped with my usual dragging during those times. The Grapefruit blend was, much like the Apple flush from Day one, very refreshing. 

Day Three  (new juices)

Avocado bacon:  spinach,  carrot, avocado, celery stalks, apples, garlic, chlorella

Thoughts on day three flavors: 

I cannot say enough yummy things about this amazing delight of a juice/smoothie/soup.  It is so lovely that I am dreaming about the next time I get to eat it.  It is so lovely it has influenced my next post...an ode to the avacado.

Day 4 (new juices)
Cinnamon coconut: carrots,celery stalk, apples, kale, ginger, coconut milk, cinnamon
Apple-Turnip: swiss chard, turnip, apple, lucuma, spirulina

 Thoughts on day four flavors: 

I enjoyed the smoothie like coconut milk.  It was not sweet, but the cinnamon gave it a lot of flavor.  I think I would have prefered it with a bit more ginger for bite. The Apple-turnip was fine, not as earthy as some of the other ones, which is nice because one can only have so much earthiness in a 10 days.

Day 5 (new juices)
Spinach carrot juice- spinach, ginger, celery, carrots,  apple, hemp oil, spirulina
Orange bok choy:  bok choy,  oranges, carrots, bunch kale, ginger, flax oil,  chlorella

 Thoughts on day five flavors:

I enjoyed both of these new juices.  They were similar in some ways, with the ginger added to both.  I was curious about the bok choy and it seems to impart less flavor than say the kale or spinach.  It contains a bit more water.  This made for an overall lighter juice.

Day 6 (new juices)
Kale spinach-  kale, spinach, green apples, sugar snap peas, maca
Red iron: beet root, beet tops and stalk, red grapes, spinach, molasses, spirulina
Broccoli orange juice: Bok choy, head broccoli, orange, green apple, lucuma, diatomaceous earth

 Thoughts on day six flavors: 

The Kale spinach is a great combination, with the sugar snap peas really adding lovely sweetness.  The maca also gives it a bit of a ginger undertone.  I have decided broccoli is just not my favorite to juice, it is palatable but has a very strong smell that sort of turns me off before I drink it.  The orange helps. I loved the red iron.  In fact is saved me during a willpower battle!  Owing to the beet, molasses and spinach this packs a punch of iron and my body was craving iron via meat in that moment.  Yummy! 

Day 7 (new juices)
Banana Powerhouse - kale, swiss chard,  spinach, celery, endive (I used dandelion greens instead),  banana, diatomaceous earth

 Thoughts on day seven flavors: 

This was  a powerhouse.  The picture above is of this pre-juicing.  It has a lot of green in it.  But with the banana has a bit of sweetness too.  A great start to a morning.

   
Day 8 (new juices)
Maca Beet-beet root plus tops, swiss chard, apples, celery, cholorella, maca
Carrot cucumber-carrots, spinach, apples,  cucumber,  endive (I used dandelion greens),  pomegranate, 1  flax oil,
Green berry juice- blueberries, sugar snap peas,  fennel tops, spinach, apple, pomegranate

 Thoughts on day eight flavors: 

That Maca is just such an energy boost.  I am working on a post about superfoods, but let me just say it is perfect in the morning.  Carrot cucumber was tasty, but the cucumber has a surprisingly strong flavor for such a watery vegetable. Green berry juice had a lovely green color, but you could not really taste the blueberries.  

Day 9 (new juices)
Lemon greens- swiss chard, ginger, green apple, lemon,  spinach, pomegranate,  hemp oil
Green pear juice: Green apple, cucumber, fennel tops and root, bok choy, pear, chlorella

 Thoughts on day nine flavors: 

I basically love things with lemon so the lemon green was a big hit with me.  The green pear was also refreshing and not too "green" tasting,

Day 10 (new juices)
Carrot-pear juice: carrots, kale, apples, ginger, pears, celery, cholorella
Adrenal juice: celery,  kale, beetroot, spinach, parsley, oranges, lucuma

Thoughts on day ten flavors: 

Carrot-pear mmm mm... sweet and spicy. The adrenal juice was a pretty color owing to the beets and had a nice orange undertone.  Celery was the strongest flavor which sometimes through me off.  

The best salad ever

"An explosion of yumminess"

As I mentioned in my first posting, the name juice fast is sort of misleading.  I drink 3-4 juices a day; each one a little different and I eat a salad for dinner.  The salad has pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds the first couple of days and then on subsequent days also some sort of protein.  Well yesterday, after about 8 hours of just drinking my juice, I prepared and relished my first salad.  I had been looking forward to the salad, but not in any sort of desperation.  It was after all only the first day of the juicing extravaganza; even I can handle a few hours of something.  Nonetheless, I was looking forward to, if nothing else, the ritual of eating.  Since you sip on the juices all day, you don’t really sit down for a meal.

I enjoyed cutting up the vegetables and making the salad pretty.  Jeremy made food for himself and Johannes and this gave me time to really savor putting my little reward salad together. I think even just the few hours of not eating solid food made me remember how much fun it is supposed to be to put a meal together.  Meals stress me out.  Trying to feed myself and feed my family in between the craziness that is mamascholarhood has made food preparation feel overwhelming.  I know this has also contributed to making my already bad relationship with food worse.  It may be an added benefit of this whole adventure that I am able to find a little more balance in how I view food preparation.

In keeping with the green theme, my salad was essentially green.  But it was so far from bland.  Parsley, romaine lettuce, green apple, cucumber, zucchini and just a hint of color with a few slices of red pepper that had to be eaten.  Pumpkin seeds, lemon juice, flax oil and Himalayan sea salt finished it off.  It was a tiny explosion of yumminess in my mouth. I can literally still feel the food’s taste in my mouth. I cannot remember the last time I could really recollect the food I consumed 12 hours previously. It may be a bit hyperbolic,  but I swear my taste buds were appreciating flavor and texture in a new way.  I could single out particular flavors, the sour of the lemon, the nuttiness of the pumpkin seeds, the sharp bite of the garlic, followed by fresh parsley and a sweet tart bite of green apple.  Even the flax seed oil, a little earthy and buttery, had its place.

So here I am writing about my juicing fast and I have just spent 3 paragraphs carefully describing the only non-juice I am eating.  But I am pretty sure that this salad made such an impression because of the juicing. I am looking forward to my salad tonight even more than yesterday. Until then another sip of juice…. a new one to try, Swiss Chard-Maca.  Now that promises a flavor explosion too!

Juicing adventure-Day 1

Eight little bottles of health: the adventure begins!

Today's menu: Celery Orange, Carrot Kale, Broccoli Kale and Apple Flush.  Four quite different juices, although both the celery and carrot have chrorella, a very green dried algae,  in them and the broccoli kale is not surprisingly already green--so the color green is a common denominator.

It took me and Jeremy about 1.5 hours to get my 8 bottles of juice ready.  I am juicing for two days at a time.  A lot of juicing experts hold that you can only store the juice for 24 hours at a time, others actually say you must consume the juice right after you make it.  I am quite sure all of these people are independently wealthy, perhaps due to their bestselling juicing books.  But it is beyond my ability to fathom how anyone would have time to juice fresh for every meal and still manage to do anything else like have a job or raise children.  I am sure some of the nutrients are lost from my 48 hour juicing, but I am pretty confident that they will still do my body good.

 My eight bottles of health are in the fridge waiting for me. I feel a little like I did when I was a little girl on the night before school would start.  My sister and I would usually sleep in her room and we would talk and giggle.  There was always great anticipation mixed with a healthy bit of nervousness.  I feel like I am on the cusp of something remarkable.

A new adventure...my ten day juicing fast

The very first juice: celery orange

First of all let me say that the word fast is a bit deceiving.  I know there has  been a lot of hype around the idea of juicing, fasting and detoxing owing, as of late, to Gweneth Paltrow's promotion of a certain detox regiment. I actually think hers sounds yummy, but it is more of a detox diet than a juicing fast.

There is a lot of evidence that juicing (meaning using a juicer to make fresh juices from a wide-variety of fruits and vegetables) can be a very excellent way to increase your vitamin intake and detoxify your body.  The idea behind juicing is to allow your body to absorb nutrients in their most simple and potent form, while not adding processed food to your body. It helps get all the ick out of your body that processed and refined food puts in.

My juicing fast will be 10 days and I am doing this under the direction of a nutritional counselor and Renaissance woman extraordinarie, Lisa Piper at Natural Living. There are a few others joining us in this experience because as with so many things community can make all the difference to success.  I will be posting a separate entry detailing the overall plan, but this is a juice fast that includes fat and protein in addition to a lot of superfoods--foods that are very high in phytonutrients.

But really for me all of these benefits are just gravy, pun sort of intended…  I am doing this because I need to take a stand.  Food controls me.  It is my Achilles heal and the one area in my life that beats me down. I am severely overweight and intelligent enough to know that if I don't do something to change my eating and exercise patterns I will not be here to be either a mama or a scholar. I am doing this juicing fast because I need to conquer something having to do with my diet.  I need a clean break and a way to walk away on the other side feeling victory and power instead of the desperation and depression I usually feel when I have had another bad food day.

I will be posting about the experience each day... and I appreciate the support of my virtual community as I undertake this step towards health.