One of the things I dearly love to do is cook (and of course eat...), so some of the changes I have been making in my life have been a little difficult.
For one, I had to learn how to cook things without frying them, or at least without frying them in like 3 or more inches of oil...
In the process of learning healthier cooking methods I have realized that I really enjoy coming up with recipes myself. OK, maybe I always knew that, but some part of me wanted to start with an existing recipe and then just tweak it, but lately I have been just grabbing things out of the pantry and refridgerator and hoping that by god they would taste good when i am done. For the most part they have, the only thing I had to throw away was a chicken and rice dish that had WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much rice in it and was irreparably dry and underseasoned.
What has impressed me the most about this process is that I have been able to put together meals and spice profiles that perfectly complement foods I have never eaten. This is exciting for someone who loves to cook and hates to throw food away.
The other thing I have noticed is that I have started CRAVING foods I have never tasted. That I am literally tasting them before I decide to buy them and they have never passed by my lips before. That is only part of whats going on with these food cravings though.
the other thing that is happening with my food cravings.... being a good little seeker, I have been researching the foods that I am craving, and finding that EVERYTHING I have been craving lately deals with an area of my health currently being managed by medication, and I have discussed with my doctor starting to wean me off the meds.
It's just a little strange to me, that our body can tell you exactly what you need even if you have never had that item.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Spoonfulls of Change
Fast forward through twenty years of being overweight, out of breath, out of energy and unable to do half of the things I wanted to do, unable to find clothes that fit with no sense of security or confidence in myself.... I had finally had enough.
I had grumbled about being fat and out of shape for the last time(at least without doing something about it).
I started slowly, of course, because I wanted lasting change in my life...I wanted to lose 100 lbs and NOT gain it an another 20 back in six months. I wanted to HAVE the body I saw in my minds mirror.... to be able to see it in the real mirror looking back at me. Hell, I wanted to be able to walk around the block and not have to stop and rest, and I wanted to be able to bend over and tie my shoes. So, I quietly started removing things from my personal diet....slowly adding new and exciting healthful options.
Well, I didn't actually do it quietly, my best friend got a thousand earfulls during this time. The cool thing about that is he encouraged me to continue this journey of walking away from unconscious eating and lethargy. He quite literally basked in my excitement for change, and life and the possibilities of recreating myself. I think he caught the fever, even if just to push me further.
So I stopped eating fried foods, and increased my veggie intake, started experimenting with a dietary lifestyle that edged around vegetarian (edgetarian? lol). Tried to make the perfect black bean burger....still working on that one.... and discovered the joy of egg white omelettes with spinach and mushrooms and that I like them better than traditional omelettes.
And after all this miniscule change that I was soooooo very proud of (and still am) I STILL had a heart attack.
But although it might have knocked me out of the game for a minute....and I gained a shit ton of weight... the heaviest I have ever been at 315, fortunately most of that was water and a properly applied diuretic brought me back to where I was pre-attack... I came back smarter and more determined than ever.
(So in the smarter more determined process, I have been in the gym nearly every day since February and have lost 6% of my body fat and gained somewhere around 15 lbs of muscle.... so I would say it's working)
I had grumbled about being fat and out of shape for the last time(at least without doing something about it).
I started slowly, of course, because I wanted lasting change in my life...I wanted to lose 100 lbs and NOT gain it an another 20 back in six months. I wanted to HAVE the body I saw in my minds mirror.... to be able to see it in the real mirror looking back at me. Hell, I wanted to be able to walk around the block and not have to stop and rest, and I wanted to be able to bend over and tie my shoes. So, I quietly started removing things from my personal diet....slowly adding new and exciting healthful options.
Well, I didn't actually do it quietly, my best friend got a thousand earfulls during this time. The cool thing about that is he encouraged me to continue this journey of walking away from unconscious eating and lethargy. He quite literally basked in my excitement for change, and life and the possibilities of recreating myself. I think he caught the fever, even if just to push me further.
So I stopped eating fried foods, and increased my veggie intake, started experimenting with a dietary lifestyle that edged around vegetarian (edgetarian? lol). Tried to make the perfect black bean burger....still working on that one.... and discovered the joy of egg white omelettes with spinach and mushrooms and that I like them better than traditional omelettes.
And after all this miniscule change that I was soooooo very proud of (and still am) I STILL had a heart attack.
But although it might have knocked me out of the game for a minute....and I gained a shit ton of weight... the heaviest I have ever been at 315, fortunately most of that was water and a properly applied diuretic brought me back to where I was pre-attack... I came back smarter and more determined than ever.
(So in the smarter more determined process, I have been in the gym nearly every day since February and have lost 6% of my body fat and gained somewhere around 15 lbs of muscle.... so I would say it's working)
Sunday, May 5, 2013
D@#$..............The Dirty Word!
DIET................
The word strikes fear and revulsion in the hearts, minds and guts of millions of people daily. I was no different.
In my early teens my mother tried incessantly to help me lose the weight I was gaining.
Of course, I rebelled.
It wasn't that I didn't want to be healthy, or fit.... It wasn't even that I didn't like the food she was serving to that purpose (OK, boiled cabbage topped with BBQ sauce IS nasty....lol). I think, honestly, it was the hypocrisy (as I saw it), both of my parents were obese at that time, and I felt like the only reason we were "dieting" is because I was 10-20 lbs overweight. I think we also had the notion that healthy food is supposed to taste like cardboard, and for a foodie that is unthinkable.
Looking back we tried many things, some worked sporadically, some, well I don't remember if they worked because some of that time I have intentionally blocked from my memory. I know we did WeightWatchers for a good bit of time, and I believe it worked for the most part, however, weight watchers doesn't teach one how to "think healthy" but only how to "do healthy". I don't know if that makes much sense, but we weren't taught to view food as food in weight watchers, everything was about the "exchange". It's not a bad system, it just wasn't right for me. I didn't learn to look at real food for it's nutritional value....i.e. what that food does for and to my body, instead I was instructed to look at food for arbitrary number values that didn't have any meaning for me. So, while we lost weight while doing weight watchers, we quickly regained when we couldn't afford to use the program anymore because it didn't actually prepare us for going it alone.
We tried the "Daniel Diet" about the same time that we joined a local food co-op....it wasn't bad but unfortunately it quickly devolved into a cabbage diet because the co-op got a really good deal on cabbages and we wound up with like ten heads...for a family of 3.
Sporadically we did exercise, which isn't really high on the priority list of homeschool families. We would do early morning aerobics along with the broadcast on TBN... looking back, quite honestly it is hard to get your heart rate up to melodious instrumentals with little to no identifiable drumbeat. And then for a time we walked 3-5 miles a day around a local park...of course we would stop on the way home and pick up fattening food from a fast food place cause we were too tired to prepare a meal after that. I will say that although I didn't lose much weight (I think I have always gained muscle faster than I lose weight) my legs looked amazing that summer and I felt better overall.
What fascinates me while looking back, is the realization that although I pushed back against the dieting craze my mother seemed to go through, I have always been interested in nutrition and healthy lifestyles. This was confirmed for me recently while talking to my mother...I had had a memory flash of me bringing home nutrition, fitness, martial arts and bodybuilding books one summer and devouring them...she remembered that time and said that was about the time that I started enjoying cooking. (this may have even been when I became a foodie).
The problem with my newfound love for cooking was twofold...1. I didn't have an instinctive knowledge of portion control due to environmental factors and 2. I didn't have enough understanding of nutrition and the physiological effects of food to modify the recipes that we had in the house. My palate had been trained to cheeseburgers, fried chicken and hamburger helper because they were inexpensive and easy to prepare. I didn't know how to use spices and seasonings and at that time was afraid to try. So, I enjoyed cooking alot... but what I was cooking was slowly killing me.
The word strikes fear and revulsion in the hearts, minds and guts of millions of people daily. I was no different.
In my early teens my mother tried incessantly to help me lose the weight I was gaining.
Of course, I rebelled.
It wasn't that I didn't want to be healthy, or fit.... It wasn't even that I didn't like the food she was serving to that purpose (OK, boiled cabbage topped with BBQ sauce IS nasty....lol). I think, honestly, it was the hypocrisy (as I saw it), both of my parents were obese at that time, and I felt like the only reason we were "dieting" is because I was 10-20 lbs overweight. I think we also had the notion that healthy food is supposed to taste like cardboard, and for a foodie that is unthinkable.
Looking back we tried many things, some worked sporadically, some, well I don't remember if they worked because some of that time I have intentionally blocked from my memory. I know we did WeightWatchers for a good bit of time, and I believe it worked for the most part, however, weight watchers doesn't teach one how to "think healthy" but only how to "do healthy". I don't know if that makes much sense, but we weren't taught to view food as food in weight watchers, everything was about the "exchange". It's not a bad system, it just wasn't right for me. I didn't learn to look at real food for it's nutritional value....i.e. what that food does for and to my body, instead I was instructed to look at food for arbitrary number values that didn't have any meaning for me. So, while we lost weight while doing weight watchers, we quickly regained when we couldn't afford to use the program anymore because it didn't actually prepare us for going it alone.
We tried the "Daniel Diet" about the same time that we joined a local food co-op....it wasn't bad but unfortunately it quickly devolved into a cabbage diet because the co-op got a really good deal on cabbages and we wound up with like ten heads...for a family of 3.
Sporadically we did exercise, which isn't really high on the priority list of homeschool families. We would do early morning aerobics along with the broadcast on TBN... looking back, quite honestly it is hard to get your heart rate up to melodious instrumentals with little to no identifiable drumbeat. And then for a time we walked 3-5 miles a day around a local park...of course we would stop on the way home and pick up fattening food from a fast food place cause we were too tired to prepare a meal after that. I will say that although I didn't lose much weight (I think I have always gained muscle faster than I lose weight) my legs looked amazing that summer and I felt better overall.
What fascinates me while looking back, is the realization that although I pushed back against the dieting craze my mother seemed to go through, I have always been interested in nutrition and healthy lifestyles. This was confirmed for me recently while talking to my mother...I had had a memory flash of me bringing home nutrition, fitness, martial arts and bodybuilding books one summer and devouring them...she remembered that time and said that was about the time that I started enjoying cooking. (this may have even been when I became a foodie).
The problem with my newfound love for cooking was twofold...1. I didn't have an instinctive knowledge of portion control due to environmental factors and 2. I didn't have enough understanding of nutrition and the physiological effects of food to modify the recipes that we had in the house. My palate had been trained to cheeseburgers, fried chicken and hamburger helper because they were inexpensive and easy to prepare. I didn't know how to use spices and seasonings and at that time was afraid to try. So, I enjoyed cooking alot... but what I was cooking was slowly killing me.
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