Beans and curves

In the process of reading the Eat to Live book, I am learning about the benefits of eating more beans in my diet... I bought several types at Winco to try out cooking on my own (with Mikey's help)... Got pinto, navy and kidney beans...

Today I soaked the pinto beans all day while I was at work and then Mike cooked them for me...  I tried them after they were cooked and they were pretty bland, but I decided to make them into refried beans...  By simply adding taco seasoning, mashing them up a bit and then using the mixer to smooth them out some more - they came out really good... And instead of eating canned refried beans, I know EXACTLY what is in these beans...

Why, you ask, do you have curves in the title too?  Well the last 10 lbs I have lost has made some curves show up on my sides... And that is exciting to me!  To SEE the difference emerging and changes in my body... Sooo exciting!

1000 miles!

Today I passed the the 1000 mile mark of walking at my trekdesk!  That is such an accomplishment in my book considering I walked a total of 620 miles in all of 2011...  Not sure I will make it to my goal of 1250 for the year with the change in workload I have at work - but I can sure try!

A new way of thinking

My coworker that I talk with a lot about nutrition and ways to find new, better ways to live healthier found this food pyramid to go along with the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead video...

It is really a good guideline for me to strive towards.  Not sure about the once weekly on poultry and eggs though... As I really like chicken for lean protein to eat.

Thought I would share it on here...

I am really, really interested in trying this way of living...

It will be an adjustment, but I am game if it leads to a healthier me...

Which lead me to looking up how to cook beans...

I will let you know how my first try goes at doing this...

Still thinking and researching...

Found the above diagrams today on the web & found them to be very interesting... A good way to look at things and think about it...

If I can continue to juice a few times a day, and eat a sensible snack and dinner (salad with protein), perhaps I can continue on the cleansing and have an easier time when it is time for maintenance and avoid the rebound...

Right now I find it much easier to just juice than make ANY decisions about what to eat...  And I don't find myself craving anything - which is really strange to me... Sometimes I will go to reach for something out of habit, but I have been stopping myself and asking if I really want that, or if I am just absentmindedly grabbing for it...  Most of the time it is the latter of the two.

I hope to put that into practice at my office this week as well, as I know there will still be a large candy dish in there that I have resisted so far, and I want to keep that resolve up especially when I am stressed.

One day at a time, still thinking about how to go forward and what path will work best for me over my lifetime.

Random thoughts

Found this today on Facebook - it is a good reminder...

The above picture helps me remember that it isn't about the number on the scale, it's about FEELING and BEING healthier...  I am trying to get there...  One step at a time...

When I posted the quote that Not eating was easy and it's the eating that is hard, I didn't realize that coming off the juice fast would totally prove that statement to me...

I continue to be at a loss of what I should eat... I have gone from a diet that I was eating balanced carbs/proteins/fats at each meal, to having 100% fruits and veggies (mostly in juice form) to trying to go back to eating more solids things...

Before heading off to Chuck E Cheese's for one of the kid's birthday parties last night I decided to try to get some protein in - toasted a can of tuna with a few olives and grated cheese melted over it - a tuna melt minus a shell of any sort... About an hour later my stomach decided that was NOT what it wanted to eat at all...  Man was it mad (it didn't even get that mad the whole time I was on juice fast!)

So now I am back in my brain thinking that just juicing for two meals a day would be the easiest and have a little bit of this and that throughout the day as well so I am not totally excluding myself from everything else in the world...  Then have a salad with a chicken breast on it (if my stomach can tolerate a chicken breast - I have yet to try) for dinner with the family and an apple and almond butter with it for an evening snack... I think it sounds like a plan - assuming my stomach will tolerate the chicken...

That keeps me in the realm of continuing going to the grocery store every few days to get the veggies I need for my juicing - but hey - if I can do a mixture of juicing and sensible eating and get continued health results, it sounds great to me!

Juice fast update

So I am 5.5 days into my juice fast and I am down 9.5 lbs and feeling pretty good... The most exciting thing was this morning SEEING a change in my torso - my stomach/rib area is more defined... That makes me feel so good!

I honestly cringe at the smell of my juice now, but with the exception of the bottom of the glass, it tastes way better than it smells - which is a good thing...

I am planning ahead to starting to eat again tonight... Planning a salad and maybe a bit of chicken breast. From what I have read online they say to ease back into solids to give your digestive system a chance to adjust.  So waiting to have fleshy meats, and too much dairy is what is recommended...  I will try different things a bit at a time and see how I feel... Hoping to not make any mistakes along the way...  And if I do, I will be sure to learn from them - because what good are mistakes if we don't learn from them?

I plan to try to continue to have at least one juice a day to get in the vegetables that I really don't care for eating... Yes I will eat actual salads daily, but I can't eat 4 large carrots, an apple, a cup of spinach, a beet, and 1/2 a cucumber in one sitting, like I can in one juice...  So there is a point there to be taken for myself...

I will sign off for now with a saying that I found on the net last night - Not eating is EASY, it's the eating that is difficult!

Thoughts on healthy choices at 96 hours of juice fasting

Friday 2pm to Sat 2pm = 24 hours

Sat 2pm to Sun 2pm = 24 hours

Sun 2pm to Mon 2pm = 24 hours

Mon 2pm to Tues 2pm = 24 hours

Quick addition - that equals 96 hours

96 hours without sugar (other than those found in apples and veggies)
96 hours without dairy products
96 hours without gum
96 hours without artificial sweeteners
96 hours without meat
96 hours without candy, cookies, sweets
96 hours without eating what the rest of my family is having for dinner
96 hours without eating a traditional salad...
96 hours... Wow that is crazy...

Today is the first day of the 96 hours that I am starting to think about when I get to eat more than my juice that I am having on my juice fast...

Not really cravings, but just thinking about it more... Not sure why that is...  I am trying to be methodical about it and plan out the choices that I want to make...  Will I go back into the routine of foods that I was eating on a normal basis for my meals (the healthy choice ones)...

Do I really need to have as much protein as I was having in my morning meal of 1 whole egg along with 4 egg whites scrambled?

What would happen if I stayed dairy free?

What if, what if...  I wish there were an arrow pointing what direction I should go for myself and by health...  How much longer to do the juice fast? (am I compromising anything by trying to do it up to one week?) And what direction from there?

Stay tuned while I figure it out for myself...

Happy Milestone 50lbs lost

22 months in the making, and I have hit 50lbs lost since December 2010...

Happy Day... My juice fasting helped me get past my plateau and into a new realm of numbers on the scale! :)

Dinner Table

So I am typing here while my family is at the dinner table...  Why am I not there with them? Because I am choosing to try this juice fasting thing & don't think that I can keep myself from eating any of the homemade potato chip fries that they are having with their hamburgers right now...

It is not that I crave them, and I am not hungry, it is just that I don't think I could keep from eating them if I went and sat at the table...  Soon enough I will be done with this reboot and will resume being at the dinner table with the family... I miss the talking and such, but don't think I should go there now...

On another note I did get my rotation done with my summer clothes to the fall/winter ones... This will be fun to have a new selection of stuff to pick from to wear, and I may find that I need to buy a few new things that are a bit smaller... :)  As I really don't like wearing baggy baggy things anymore...

Day 2 of all Juice

So Friday night I had a juice for dinner, and ever since then I have had vegetable/fruit juice to drink...  Along with water in between...

Last night, concerned about the amount of calories I had taken in, I ate an apple at bedtime to end up my day with approx 850 calories...

I haven't had cravings for anything. And the juices have been leaving me feeling full.

My biggest challenge has been making the juices every 3 hours to have the freshest juice I can have... I did that all day yesterday & the cleanup is a pain - only a few minutes in reality - but annoying non-the-less because it meant cleaning out the drying rack each time I wanted to clean off the juicer... I know little things, but still...

Today I chose to make a double batch in the morning so I would cut down on at least one juicing session... And tomorrow I will need to make a triple batch in the morning to get myself through the day (to have one in the morning and take 2 with me to work...)  Figured out just multiplying the amount of stuff in the batch and stopping to pour the juice into a pouring bowl at intervals before it overflowed the juice catcher on the machine.  And luckily the pulp catcher is plenty big to be able to accommodate the pulp from a larger batch. So happy I learned early on to line the pulp catch basis with a produce bag so there is little cleanup in that department!

I chose to eat an apple last night (after discovering the apple sauce in the fridge had been open too long and turned into a science experiment) because I didn't want to have to clean the juicer again... The apple, oh the apple... It tasted heavenly...  I can totally see how this will work as a RESET for my taste buds .. Especially when I have only found once that I have a concoction that tasted really good... Otherwise it has been a bit "blech" by the time I get to the bottom of the cup... But it is all in the interest of getting healthier and that is what matters...

And during this juice fast I am trying to think and research what my reset should be like - what will I eat when I am done?

• What will be different?  
• Will it be less sugar? 
• Will it be less dairy and eggs? 
• Will it be more raw foods?  
• Will it simply being accustomed to taking in a juice a day on an ongoing basis to be sure that I am getting in some veggies everyday?  (As I wasn't before other than a bit of lettuce, carrots, and peas and a 16 oz juice has to have about 20x more veggies in it)  

At this point I don't know what the change will be, but I don't want to have done this for nothing... We will see...

Time to work on swapping out the season of clothes in my closet - capris and really short sleeve shirts are going to storage and some sweaters, coats, and long sleeve stuff gets to come into the house!

Another Juicy Dinner

Tonight's ingredients:  1/2 head of romaine lettuce, 1 beet, 1/2 cucumber, 3 carrots, 1 Green Apple = Nummy!!!

I was amazed at the colors that came out of it - almost like rainbow sherbet.

My cup of juice...

Down the hatch, and this one tasted the best out of all I have had so far!

Another juicy creation

Here's tonight's creation - 4 carrots, 1/2 cucumber, 1/2 beet, 1 green apple, 1/4 head of romaine lettuce

Always funny to see what color it turns out - this was vibrant with the orange from the carrots and the red from the beet being primary

Got smart and lined the pulp catcher - that's what it looks like after it juices what I put into it...

This is the basket and blades that spin really fast to extract the juice from the fruit and veggies

Here's what it looked like in the glass... Was pretty good...

Found this article interesting today about not really needing proteins for our bodies - but more the amino acids we get from the proteins - and the fruits and veggies have amino acids in them and when we juice them the amino acids are instantly ready for our bodies to use!
Information on Protein Myths

Another interesting article...
Successful Juice Fasting

Until tomorrow with another update from my juicer!  :)

This was what I needed

So I have been talking a lot lately with others about the power of photoshop and how people can look so different with photo shop and even with just a bit of pampering...

I just found this website that shows how true this can be...

While I don't think these are photo shopped - it truly shows how pampering and such can make someone look and feel so much different...

I WILL PAMPER myself with a makeover like one of these for my upcoming 40th birthday!  :)

Before and afters by Sue Bryce

My first time juicing... and more...

Mike suggested I start simple with things I know I like...  So we have apples and carrots here.

I couldn't put the apples in whole - something about knowing part of the stem and seeds would /could be in what I was eating/drinking just wasn't right

Here's what I ended up with in the Juice side

Part of what ended up in the pulp side - pretty amazing how DRY the stuff was - the juicer did it's job!

And my "orange" juice...  Wasn't too bad...

Obviously when you are on to a new idea that might help you become healthier you/I go to the internet to learn more about it and understand the questions that are rattling around in my brain...

I found this article very informative of what happens when you juice fast and how it does good things for your body & how you can survive without eating the proteins we are accustomed to (tuna, chicken, protein powder, eggs and the like)
Juice Fasting

I also got out of it:

• It is about breaking food addictions and reestablishing healthy eating
• Clearing toxins from our systems
• Resetting our minds about sugars and other things
• This is about permanently changing your eating-paradigm and never going back. Never! There is a place for enjoying a treat here and there but you know as well as I do that was never the problem!

Here's another article on the same website that was very informative:

Fasting for weight loss

Stay tuned for more adventures from the juicer... Tomorrow I may go wild and add something GREEN to the juice...

Juicing?

I watched this movie on netflix last night & it was great!  Which lead me to seeking out a juicer to try...  Was looking for a Breville one like they use in the movie and my coworker uses (they make entry level ones for $100), but not knowing how much I really will get into doing this, I decided to try a used one to begin with...

This Oster 3167 is what I ended up with at my 2nd thrift store stop today...

Then I went to the grocery store to get some more fresh stuff... I got to try a juice that my coworker had made from carrots, apple, cucumber and beets this morning and it was pretty good (aside from an aftertaste)... So I knew I was ready to at least try...

Shoulda saw me in the store trying to figure out what a beet looked like - as I have NEVER been one to like veggies... Right now (a starting point) I will eat dark leaf lettuce, apples, peas, and carrots... That's it so this will be an adventure in getting myself to try other things and see how it all goes...

I was worried about trying different recipes out, but Mike came up with a great idea of just juicing things that I know I like already and then adding other things to it and see how that goes...

So I am off to make some carrot and apple juice to try out the Oster and I will report back on how that goes... :)