Week Two: There is no such thing as comfort food.

I'm going to start this off with a confession. I cheated. 

It was Friday, and I was picking the kids up from my sister in law's, and we started chatting, and she offered me a beer, which I accepted without even thinking. All I was thinking was "it's hot and it's been a long week and a beer would be great". I was about three quarters of the way through when clued in to what I was doing. I finished the beer and confessed to my partner-in-diet and my husband.

I forgot about it shortly after.

It took two days for my gut to forgive me for it. Whoops.

No Such Thing as Comfort Food

Besides the one slip up with the beer, I spent a lot of this second week examining my relationship with food. It made me realize that junk food has always been a source of comfort for me. Had a bad day? You need some chocolate. Something spicy for supper? You need something sweet. Movie night on the couch? You need chips.  Heading back to work in the rain? You should get a hot chocolate. Kids driving you nuts? You better shovel food into that mouth.  Bored? Eat. Tired? Eat. Stressed? Eat.

The absence of comfort food has made me realize how much I depended on it. Every time I turned around this week, when I would normally turn to something yummy to snack on, my choice was a piece of fruit and some nuts, or a yogurt. It was like expecting a hug and being faced with a brick wall. An apple does not make me happy the way chocolate does. Yogurt is not nearly the late night treat that chips are. I was never hungry in these situations, just needed that dose of food, that comfort, those happy feelings.

So this week I'm learning how not to use food as comfort. Don't get me wrong, I love food. I love a great meal. I love caramelized onions on my pizza... peanut butter smeared on a banana... espresso balsamic vinaigrette drizzled over feta in my salad. Love love love food. Just gotta not be so darned emotionally dependent on it.

Had a bad day? Yes. Hungry? Yes. Hungry enough for another apple? No. Get out of the kitchen then.

Wheat Belly Diet: Week One

Ahh, nice to be back after four months of silence. It's been busy, I guess. Started a new job, trained for another round of Tough Mudder, did some reading, tried to garden and enjoy the bounty (win: rhubarb jam, fail: strawberry jam) and just generally kept up after two whirlwind children. One started a fire in my microwave this week. Just your normal household chaos.

The Battle with Sugar

I had completely meant to do a blog post about sugar in the previous months, but got discouraged when another blog I read did a great post on it, so I didn't think I could do it justice anymore. Here is the article if you are interested: Why Sugar is Worse Than Darth Vader

It was around the time this article come out I think that I stopped drinking sugar in my coffee, and went from a double double to a double cream. Man the first few sips were gross. I made several faces. But a month later, I'm still going. Coffee has become less of a sugary treat, and more of a means to an end, but that's ok.

Ready for the Next Step

We were on the drive home from Tough Mudder Montreal when my brother started talking about the book Wheat Belly, and the claims it made. Like if you cut out wheat, it can cure diabetes, heart disease, schizophrenia, joint pain, etc, and when you reintroduce wheat, your symptoms and pain that you had previously instantly come back.

He explained that the author said that wheat is not bad, just that the wheat we are being fed today is bad. Today's wheat no longer resembles the wheat from our forefathers, or even from our grandparents. There has been so many "advances" in how to change the wheat's genetic code without doing any long term testing to see if these genetic modifications are even good for us. The book says: it's not. And, in addition to all the genetic modification going on, that we, as a society, have become too dependent on wheat...that grocery store aisles are full of processed foods that are filled with wheat or sugar or corn that is just waiting to wreak havoc on our blood sugar. Junk food and comfort food make us feel good, and so we eat more of it, and it keeps on making us sicker.

So even though I'm not overweight, or struggling with an illness, I do want to be healthy, I just finished my latest goal, and hey, I'm a sucker for punishment, so why not? The author, Dr. William Davis, also claims the Wheat Belly Diet will give you more energy, higher mental clarity, better sleep and better skin. Sold!

Sign Me Up!

I didn't think I would have much trouble with it. I rarely eat pasta, I can switch out beer for wine, and I'll just make sandwiches with spinach instead of bread. I should note here that Dr. Davis says that if you cut out wheat, then you are likely to start eating other food in its place, and you should make sure that other food is the healthy stuff, not snack food, or processed food, or anything that's going to make your blood sugar spike. He goes a little crazy with this list, including things like: ketchup, canned meat and curry powder. Incidentally, a few things I'm not willing to give up: ketchup, canned tuna, and adding a bit of curry to whatever healthy dish I'm cooking that needs some kick.

Therefore, I'm more doing an interpretation of the wheat belly diet...eliminating wheat completely, but only limiting the other foods. I feel like since I'm not struggling with any serious health issues, and I eat pretty healthy most of the time anyway, that I'm ok with having ketchup on my hamburger wrapped in spinach. I'm still avoiding things that will spike blood sugar, like oatmeal, rice and ice cream. Close enough.

Wheat Belly: Week One

Much harder than I thought it would be. My starting day coincided with another brutal day of the month (you hear me, girls?), which is usually a carb free-for-all time for me, so it was extra challenging. I had a friend decide to try it with me for 30 days as well, so it was nice to have someone to compare meals with. My husband also agreed to try the challenge, but lasted approximately 1.6 days.

Day One and Two were fine. Day Three was long and I just wanted to nap. Day Four was HARD. This was the day of the microwave fire. I didn't sleep the night before for whatever reason, so between that and the hormones, it was just a perfect storm for a bad mood and an itchy, nerved-up craving for something sweet and carby. Managed to survive Day Four unscathed and woke up to Day Five with a better mood, less carb-hunger and a flatter stomach. I ate like crap the week before and the week after Tough Mudder, and was seeing the effects of this, so even though I'm not doing Wheat Belly to lose weight, I was still very HELL YEAH when I woke up on Day Five.

I'm on Day Six now, and feeling much better. I made cauliflower crust pizza for supper for myself last night and it was positively decadent compared to the rest of the week. This morning I had ground flax seed and almond milk as a hot cereal, sprinkled with cinnamon, raspberries and sunflower seeds, and I actually enjoyed it.

The friend who jumped on board with me sent me this, and it is so fitting to my Day Four mood.

So that was my week one of the Wheat Belly Diet, or my interpretation of it, anyway. I have a whole weekend to get through now, including a few beach trips, hopefully. New day, new challenge. Wish me luck!

Five Things That Shock Me.

For the past year or so, I've been painfully aware of the amount of processing that food goes through, and been making attempts to eat unprocessed and local food. I've come across tons of stories and statistics and watched documentaries and read some books...and there are a few things that I've read or watched that really stuck with me. There are a few more, but I stuck to the top five.

This is the stuff that shocks me.

5. Coke's effect on the body is similar to heroin.
I don't drink pop regularly, but when I read this one I was glad I don't.

Have you ever wondered why Coke comes with a smile? Because it gets you high. They removed the cocaine almost 100 years ago. Why? It was redundant.

In the first 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor, allowing you to keep it down.

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (And there’s plenty of that at this particular moment.)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate; your blood pressure rises; as a response, your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked, preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production, stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

> 60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium, and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

> 60 minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium, and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolytes, and water.

> 60 minutes: As the rave inside you dies down, you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like hydrating your system, or building strong bones and teeth.

This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.)

Read more: http://www.blisstree.com/2010/06/23/mental-health-well-being/what-happens-to-your-body-if-you-drink-a-coke-right-now/#ixzz2Ob8qeTPz

4. At a meal at McDonald's, you are eating more corn than the hamburger or potatoes.
In The Omnivore's Dilemna, author Michael Pollan spends time tracing the roots to his meals. One of his chosen meals was a fast food meal, and he wondered how much corn went into the making of his meal, from the corn that the steer ate, to the high fructose corn syrup in his pop. An excerpt:

“Some time later I found another way to calculate just how much corn we had eaten that day. I asked Todd Dawson, a biologist at Berkeley, to run a McDonald's meal through his mass spectrometer and calculate how much of the carbon in it came originally from a corn plant. It is hard to believe that the identity of the atoms in a cheeseburger or a Coke is preserved from farm field to fast-food counter, but the atomic signature of those carbon isotopes is indestructible, and still legible to the mass spectrometer. Dawson and his colleague Stefania Mambelli prepared an analysis showing roughly how much of the carbon in the various McDonald's menu items came from corn, and plotted them on a graph. The sodas came out at the top, not surprising since they consist of little else than corn sweetener, but virtually everything else we ate revealed a high proportion of corn, too. In order of diminishing corniness, this is how the laboratory measured our meal: soda (100 percent corn), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and French fries (23 percent)."

So, yes. The calories at McDonald's are coming from corn, not the beef, not the fries, but the corn syrup in the pop, and the corn oil the fries were cooked in.

3. The China Study 
The China Study was a 20 year study that started in 1983 that looked at the correlation between illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and diet that was either plant based or animal based. The China Study concluded that a plant based diet will prevent or reverse disease.

Read that again. A plant based diet will prevent (...ok) or reverse (WHAT? really?) disease.

Think about this statement. Now think about the implications.

Are we living in this meat-eating, the-world-is-flat culture that is completely unaware that we are poisoning ourselves? I don't know. It seems pretty "out there".  I'm still eating meat and meat products. Bacon rocks. Milk is my son's favorite thing. I don't plan on changing that soon. But why aren't I? Why isn't everyone? Culture is a hard thing to turn around.

2. In the United States, the USDA held a mother and her children at gunpoint for selling local food to locals. 
Thank the lord I live in Canada. Watch the documentary Farmageddon.

1. Food dyes contain petroleum. 
They make asphalt and kerosene from petroleum as well.

My daughter ended up in emergency a few weeks ago, all of a sudden started vomiting, and had a fever with an itchy rash. She took an allergic reaction to something and when we said she had a candy, and the nurses immediately said artificial dyes. The doctor also said it was likely.

Kraft is being petitioned in the States to take the artificial colors Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 out of their Mac and Cheese. The UK has a ban on those ingredients, and the Mac and Cheese they sell in the UK tastes and looks exactly the same - they actually use real spices, like paprika. (Here in Canada, they aren't even required to list which artificial colors they use, just the generic term "artificial colors".)

I remember when Smarties changed their recipe and got rid of the artificial colors...I did not like it all. I didn't really get why they would change such a good thing. Now I get it. I totally get it. I'm pretty thankful that there is a company out there that is willing to stand up and say "Hey. Hi there. We aren't going to feed petroleum to you anymore. Don't bother thanking us. It's ok. We're just doing our job."

Sunday Prep Day

If I don't prep food over the weekend, I'm screwed.

Since I'm trying to eliminate pre-packaged and processed food, this means crackers, bear paws, etc won't be on the menu for school lunches. Also I was getting lazy with the snacks at home, the fam was getting sick of yogurt and apples. My husband's schedule has changed the past couple of months, so he was preparing suppers way more than usual. I can throw a healthy supper together fairly quickly, but god bless him, he struggles. He tries. But he struggles.

I found that the weekends that I prepare snacks and plan a few meals my week went a lot easier, and the kids had more snack variety. And I had fewer frantic texts at 4:45pm saying "I don't know what to make for supper."

On a good prep day, I make some healthy snacks. On an awesome prep day, I make some healthy snacks and prep a meal or two.

My food prep is usually a combination of a few of these tasty tidbits.

Carrot Sticks - I cut them using my Pampered Chef Crinkle Cutter, so they look like crinkle-cut fries. Kids love them. I store them in water in the fridge.

Whole Wheat Muffins - My veggie box people grind their own wheat, so we always have whole wheat on hand. The made some buckwheat once too, so I'll throw a cup in buckwheat sometimes. I keep half out and freeze the other half for the rest of the week.
Last Sundays recipe: www.kitchentreaty.com/hearty-spiced-carrot-muffins/

Roast Chicken - We got a few frozen chickens in our meat box, and I love just roasting a chicken and cutting it up without getting into the hassle of the entire meal deal with gravy and stuffing. (Not that I don't love a roast chicken dinner. I do.) After the chicken has cooled, I cut it and portion it into freezer bags. I usually keep a portion or two in the fridge, for a quick protein snack or to chop up for sandwiches.

Protein Bars - After a few unsuccessful recipes I found, I finally modified one to my liking - one that doesn't fall apart in my hands, and isn't sticky. I cut them into individual servings, put them all in a freezer bag and freeze. These are for hubby and I.

Protein bars before being cut. 

Spicy Roasted Chickpeas -  I saw these on Pinterest, and I loved them! They are probably an acquired taste, but I enjoy them. Crunchy and spicy...an "acceptable" substitute for my chip obsession (which I have not, and likely will not, kick.)

Spicy Roasted Chickpeas.

Hamburger - We get frozen packages of hamburger in our meat box, and meal prep goes a lot faster if my hamburger is already cooked. I throw the frozen hamburger into a frying pan, and cook a couple batches up at a time. I usually throw some onions and sage into it to give the flavor a boost. When it has cooled, just divide into freezer bags and toss in the freezer. Great for a quick spaghetti or casserole.

Freezer Slow Cooker meals - I tried a few of these for the days that my husband was home, he can take them out of the freezer and throw them into the slowcooker and not have to think about cooking at all. And that is better for everyone. I checked out these sites, and I think soon I will start trying to modify my regular slow cooker faves into their freezer-friendly versions:
mamaandbabylove.com
kojo-designs.com

Prepping some slow cooker meals for the freezer. 

Hard Boiled Eggs -  Eggs are another staple of our veggie box. I recently started hard boiling them, and keeping them (shell on) in the fridge. They are super handy for a grab-and-go breakfast or a sandwich filler.

Cinnamon Chia Seed Granola- I've only made this once, but will definitely try this one again. It made me buy chia seeds, which are a fun and random little seed. Why random, you ask? This little seed turns into a gel when it gets wet. It's an odd little thing.
Chia Seed Granola

And those are the usual suspects for Sunday Prep Day. I have a few more recipes I'd like to try, have to test out some more freezer slow cooker meals, and I'd love to make a couple huge batches of spaghetti sauce to have in the freezer. Pinterest and websites like 100daysofrealfood.com are always a great source of ideas and information.

I'm just getting into this habit, so I'm interested in what everyone else does for Sunday prep?

Candle Jars....or Pantry Storage?

My mother is a recycling queen.

Yesterday she handed me a plastic bag full of candle jars. Instead of throwing the empty, dirty, waxy jars out, she washes and keeps them. She enjoys recycling...but they were taking up too much space and she wanted them gone. I knew immediately what I would do with them.

I have been on an organization kick lately, and getting my pantry in order. I had just purchased some cupcake decorating supplies, and didn't want the plastic bags cluttering up my shelves. So in went some mini chocolate chips, coconut and gummy worms!

I've got five more empty jars to fill, I'm sure I will find something for them soon. They are on the larger side, so too big for spices. I had put my spices in smaller mason jars anyway.

My pantry is looking more organized already. Building up and organizing my freezer is next!

The Contract. (Or, How I Got My Husband to Lose 20 Pounds)

It was the middle of November. We were curled up watching a movie. Out of the blue, I asked him, "Will you let me control what you eat and how you exercise for two weeks?"

"Sure," he said.

He agreed too easily.

"Three weeks," I amended.

"Sure," he said.

I immediately dug out a pen and paper, quickly wrote out a list of rules, which would function as a contract, reviewed them with him, and made him sign the bottom. I worked quickly, knowing I had managed to catch him in a very agreeable state, and that I should take advantage of the opportunity. Never before, in the twelve years we've been together, have I had complete control over something like this. I couldn't wait to be in charge. I was almost giddy.

Before I share the rules listed in the contract, some background on my husbands health. He's a tall lad, six foot three, and has hovered between 220 and 235 for the past decade and a half. He hits the gym regularly, and can put on bulk by just looking at a set of weights the right way. However, he also consumed 5-6 liters of ice cream a week, and on the nights he wasn't eating ice cream, he was eating mounds of peanut butter slathered on a couple pieces of bread, and a beer stein full of milk. He was strong and fit, but had excess weight to lose.

So this is what I made him sign:

The "At the Mercy of My Wife" Plan

November 17 - December 8

1. Lift weights 3x week (He can choose the days)
2. Run 5x week (I choose the days)
3. Only one coffee per day, the rest is green tea
4. Eat every 3 hours. No exceptions. This will require bringing snacks on work days.  **I approve the snacks**
5. Three water bottles per day 
6. Push ups on command 
7. No supplements, shakes, etc.

Absolutely no exceptions:
 - No snacks after 8pm
 - Mealtimes are single serving only
 - No arguing or whining like a baby

**We will be discussing this on a regular basis, so be ready to report on plans for the day, and how the day went. Provide details.**

So he signed.

His runs were between 3 and 6k, nothing substantial, the point was just to get him outside doing cardio. The push ups on command were by far the most entertaining of all the rules. I typically made him do 15 or 20, sometimes I went up to 50...sometimes only 10. Several times a day. And sometimes one set right after another. After another. One day he did over 200 push ups. A couple times I had him clapping in between counts. Like I said....very entertaining.  His snacks were some combination of: yogurt, apples, cheese, raisins, pumpkin seeds, almonds and clementines. If he had milk, it was only 1 single cup, 250 ml.

He rarely complained, though he did try to swindle an extra gym day from time to time. My surprise push ups only made him grin. I only ever heard him utter once that he was hungry, but I think that was a day he lifted weights and ran. But it was at 9:30 at night, and past snack time, so he waited it out. He followed the rules exceptionally well, although there were a few skipped snack times. He paid for that in push ups.

Within two days of signing the contract his pants were loose. Within a week, his chest and shoulders were getting more defined. By the end of two weeks, he had lost 7 pounds and was noticeably slimmer in his midsection. By the end of three weeks, he had lost 20 pounds. We were both shocked.

I was expecting him to lose maybe 12 pounds over the three weeks. But I assume that not devoting as much time to lifting weights and more time spent on cardio, that he had some muscle loss as well. Which is fine, he was pretty bulky to begin with...he could afford to trim down.

So that is the contract. I know some were asking about it, and its nothing crazy or special. Exercise regularly, and eat healthy in proportioned sizes at regular intervals. I think it worked well for him, because he followed the rules, and knew he had someone else, besides himself, to answer to. Plus, push ups.

What goes around, comes around.

We went out with friends to dinner a few weeks ago, and I don't know why this happens, but the subject of our veggie box came up. Must have been talking about kids, trying to get them to eat, or something along that lines. Whatever. Anyway. I go through my whole veggie box spiel, and she says she was interested in the idea and planned to get signed up. Over the next couple of days, I sent her the contact information of our farmers and didn't think much about it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and we are at their place for dinner. We sit down at the table to eat, and they have served Shephard's Pie and some squash on the side. Smelled heavenly.

Then they say that everything we are eating that night is local, from the veggie box they signed up for! Woo! The Shephard's Pie hamburger was even mixed with a bit of the lamb from the box.

And then I asked what kind of squash it was, and she said it was the squash from the box as well. Wait. What? You mean those squashes that we've been getting are edible? I've been using them as ornamental fall decorations around the house!! They are so little and pretty!

 

See? Looks different than other buttercup squashes...more ornamental...

So I passed the word of the veggie box to someone, and in turn they taught me something new! And now I have five little squashes to roast...mmm... And now I'm glad that I talk about my veggie box in random conversations. It all works out in the end.