Week One, Day Three

Another five steps along the preparation path for week one! Today's steps are all about shopping and cooking.

Step One: Prepare your inner shopper.

Once again this isn't actually a step but a heading they seem to have mistakenly put a check box next to. When I counted the check boxes for this week to determine how many steps I needed to tackle each day, I didn't catch that they put check boxes next to some (but not ALL) of the headings. Oh well. There are two videos to watch to tick this off. Here we go.

Step Two: Watch the How to Read Labels video.

You can find How to Read Labels here. 
It is four minutes long and talks about (obviously) reading labels, marketing, ingredients, additives and problem ingredients, food sensitivities, unfamiliar ingredients, and serving real food.

Step Three: Watch the How to Understand Basic Nutrition Facts video.

You can find How to Understand Basic Nutrition Facts here.
It is four minutes long and talks about glycemic load and phytonutrient index, serving sizes, whole plant foods, unprocessed foods, fiber, carbohydrates, fats, and oils.   

Step Four: Learn a few basic cooking skills.

As far as home cooks go, I consider myself fairly seasoned. No problems here.

Step Five: If you don't like to cook, complete the journaling exercise.

I *do* like to cook. I don't cook as often as I'd like to, usually because I don't have a plan or I don't feel like I have the time to throw something together. Often I fall trap to the 'we have lots of food but nothing SOUNDS good' issue - maybe that's a food addiction problem? I need to prioritize home cooking more than I do.
I also have been making cooking more enjoyable for myself with music.   I made a playlist on my phone - I just call it my 'energy' playlist - and I pump the tunes when I'm in the kitchen. It gets me moving and makes me feel good. I also think that feeling good when you cook makes the food taste better. I mean, really; who wants to eat food basted in hate and anger?

Week One, Day Two

It's week one of the preparatory phase for The Blood Sugar Solution and I'm tackling another five items today. Most of them involve getting your kitchen ready for this big lifestyle change. 

Step one: Set a date to officially start the six-week program.

OK. There are two prep weeks to this before we jump into the six week program. I started week one of prep yesterday, so my six week program will officially start on Friday, August 10th.

I will be on North Carolina at that time, at the tail end of a 10 day vacation. I thought long and hard about starting before or after vacation. It's going to be ridiculously difficult to start something like this while on vacation, out of my own kitchen and home element. On the other hand, I'm sick all the time and it won't be much of a vacation if I'm not feeling good. So either stay sick in the cabin all the time, eating 'vacation food', or put in a bunch of extra work and planning to be able to start this new health plan and hopefully feel well enough to get out and enjoy things with my family. We're planning lots of fun activities like hiking and swimming in natural water spots and bonfires and gem mining; it should be a fairly active vacation. I'd like to be WITH my family for those things.

As part of my prep next week I will spend a good deal of time planning out meals as best as possible in advance of the vacation. I'm also bringing my exercise program with me.

Step two: Prepare Your Healthy Kitchen

Well, they have a check box by this but really it's a headliner for steps 3, 4, and 5. So... done! (as soon as I tackle those anyway!)

Step three: Rid your kitchen of disease- and obesity-producing Frankenfoods.

Here he gives you rules on what NOT to eat, to ideally be followed for life. He says "if you read these rules and think there will be nothing left to eat, then you have been eating in exactly the way that will make you sick and will keep you that way." That is certainly a fear of mine! I guess that's saying something. Here's the rules in brief:

• Get rid of most foods with labels - labelled foods you keep should have fewer than five ingredients
• Get rid of all sugar (any form) and any foods with a form of sugar on the label; same goes for white rice and white flour. For me all flour has to go, even whole grain stuff, because I'm in the advanced stage.
• Get rid of anything with high fructose corn syrup.
• Get rid of anything with the word 'hydrogenated' on the label.
• Throw out any highly refined cooking oils such as corn, soy, etc. Also avoid toxic fats and fried foods.
• Throw out any food with ingredients you can't recognize or pronounce, or are in Latin.
• Throw out any foods with preservatives, additives, coloring, or dyes, "natural flavorings", or MSG.
• Toss all artificial sweeteners - ANY of them, or any foods with them. Include sugar alcohols - basically any word that ends in 'ol'. 
• If it was grown on a plant, not made in a plant, then you can keep it in your kitchen.

I'm a little confused because I've looked ahead at some of his recipes and sometimes he uses raw honey. I know I won't be using it because I'm on the advanced plan, so it'll be out for at least six weeks, but it would seem that honey is a sugar? Yet we keep it? Maybe it's not a sugar. Whatever, I'm keeping mine, I just won't eat it for six weeks. 

This is going to be a little rough because my son turns eight tomorrow and we're having his birthday party so I won't be getting rid of everything until after Monday (it's a sleepover of course!). I'm going to go clear out everything I don't need for the party right now though!

...

SEVERAL HOURS LATER...

My husband was a great help with this task. It was pretty overwhelming. I guess I hadn't cleaned up my diet as much as I'd THOUGHT. I know I fall into traps of 'I'll just buy this for the kids' and 'but we need this for a paaaaarty'. We did keep some things for Drake's birthday party tomorrow, and we will do a final kitchen clean out on Monday evening. 

All the opened items that needed to be trashed.

The hardest thing here was tossing the cooking / baking staples I have used my whole life. Flour. Sugar. Panko. Worcestershire sauce. Soy sauce (it has wheat). Powdered sugar. Brown sugar. My entire 'cooking staples' cabinet is almost empty. My anxiety is pretty high over this one. I feel a little nauseous, a little like crying.

All the unopened items that will be donated to the food pantry.

Biggest points of panic: soups. I keep chicken noodle soup on hand for when I'm sick. With all my stomach problems it's become quite a staple. I guess I'll have to plan ahead and make / freeze my own? Also broths. All my chicken broth had undesirable additives. So did my canned tomatoes. Will I have to make *everything* on my own from now on??

And pastas. I've been eating Dreamfields pastas because they have a low amount of digestible carbs. Giving them away makes me really sad. I won't be eating any pastas for at least six weeks though. And they aren't whole wheat anyway.

A bag of stuff my husband couldn't stand to let go. He's taking it to work with him.

A bag of stuff for my mom that I know she'll use.

Overall this was REALLY emotionally draining. I wanted to cry more than a few times. I did a little dance of joy when I found some bags of nuts I didn't know I had because that means there's actually still something in the house I can snack on. We decided to keep a few things for the kids - mac and cheese, yogurt, ice cream, popsicles. I won't be buying more when it's gone, and if it becomes a problem for me I'll toss it, but they should be eased into it a little bit. Largely because there's practically nothing left to eat in the house except nuts and frozen fish, which they really don't like. My son helped me clean out one of the freezers though and was excited that we are getting rid of all the unhealthy stuff. Kids are amazing.

This was confusing at times too. There's a lot of stuff in food! Calcium chloride! Ferrous something or other! Artificial colors! Natural flavors! Sodium benzoate! Carrageenan! Lecithin! And many, many more. Very overwhelming. What's ok, what's not ok? We had to keep asking ourselves 'was it grown on a plant?' 

Finally, this is frightening. We are, like many in these economic times, struggling financially. The cost to replace these foods with healthy items is going to be painful for us. Honestly, I'm not sure how we're going to do it. I've kind of been pantry-eating the past week as it was... now my pantry is almost bare and I feel more than a little panicked at the thought of finding the money to fill it with foods to nourish my family this week. Health is costly. I just keep reminding myself that in the long run, sickness costs more.

I did it. I know I should congratulate myself for it but right now I just feel kind of sick over it.

Step four: Watch the Supermarket Savvy video at his website.

You can find Supermarket Savvy here. It's 11 minutes long. 

Discusses - soda pop, liquid calories, breakfast, oils, proteins, plate proportions.

Step five: Get your essential kitchen tools.

In the book he has included a list of tools he considers necessary to prepare and cook food. He says to make sure you have most of them. I'm not listing them all here. Luckily I enjoy cooking and I already have a well stocked kitchen. The only things I am missing from the list are:

• dutch oven
• an immersion blender
• a coffee grinder for flaxseed or other spices
• a fish spatula

Of those, the only thing I really want is a dutch oven (not the farting kind!). It's actually been on my list for a while. I've been making stocks and things this past year and it would really come in handy. I think, at least for now, I can live without the other three. I've never needed them or noticed their absence in my kitchen before. I'll have to investigate the cost of dutch ovens though and bump that up the list because I have wanted one for a while.

Any recommendations for a good dutch oven?

Anyone else inspired to clean out their pantries after this?

Trying Something New

I've been on this journey for about four months, and I've lost seven pounds. Seven. Pounds. Less than half a pound a week.

I'm not perfect. I don't count my calories every day. I don't exercise every day... occasionally by choice, but mostly the days I don't exercise are because I'm still having health problems. Not every single thing I put in my mouth is of the highest quality. These things are probably true for all of us.

That said, I really truly have been working hard these past four months. I count my calories and stay within range more days than not (or if I go over, it's only 100-200 calories. At this stage in the game I should still be losing). I exercise at least half the time. My diet is vastly improved and I eat much healthier, and therefore much less junk, than I used to. If you look at the math behind weight loss, there's really no reason I shouldn't have lost between 16-32 pounds by now.

Some people believe weight loss is all about math. I'm a living example that this is not true. There are other factors at play here. Trying to figure them out is more frustrating than I can describe.

I haven't really been tempted to give up in the long run yet. I've had moments where I've been in a complete fuck-it-all mood, but they're few and far between. Mostly I'm just in a long-running overall funk about how slow it's going. I feel helpless. Frustrated. Angry. Confused. Irritated. Jealous of people who ARE losing weight. Ashamed. Judged. Defensive. I'm not in a great emotional place; it's supremely difficult to work this hard for so few results.

I have seen results in some areas. For one thing, I may have only lost seven pounds, but it's a loss. It's moving in the right direction. It's just not moving as fast as the MATH says it should, or as fast as my doctors would like it to move.

For another, my health is vastly improved. It's not perfect; I'd say about half of my days are difficult health-wise now. This is MUCH better than the state I was in a few short months ago where EVERY day was difficult. It wasn't so long ago that every day I felt lethargic, dizzy, extremely fatigued (as in literally-unable-to-stay-awake), achy, sore, lightheaded, foggy minded, bloated, and more. I couldn't drive. I couldn't cook or shop for my family. I couldn't clean or manage most of the simplest household tasks. I could barely care for my children all day. It was hell.  Feeling so much better is amazing to me, and when I get really frustrated about my health and diet situation, I need only remind myself to look at the recent past to feel better about it. This is the single largest motivator I need to continue working on health, fitness and weight loss.

That being said, I believe something is wrong. Weight loss isn't ALL about math but I still believe it should largely be about math. There's some magic formula where the pounds should start melting away, if only I can find it. I don't mean 'magic formula' like diet pills... the 'magic formula' is really just 'eat better, exercise more'. But sometimes there are roadblocks that need to be removed, and I think I have one, but I can't quite figure out what to do to get around it.

I suspect the culprit is insulin. My blood sugar is under control again, but I take a LOT of insulin to keep it where it needs to be. My insulin resistance is very high. I take a lot more insulin than a 33 year old Type II Diabetic should be taking. Insulin takes excess sugar and places it in fat cells. With all this extra insulin swimming around in my body, some of it doing nothing (because insulin resistance means that my body is blocking some of this insulin from being used at all, meaning I keep having to flood it with more insulin, some of which has nothing to do but MAKE FAT), its no wonder I'm struggling.
It's sort of a catch-22 though, because I can't take less insulin until I lose more weight. The theory goes that losing weight will improve my insulin resistance (IE make me LESS resistant), which will lead to me needing less insulin via injections, and things should spiral into the direction of health and fitness. Since I'm barely losing weight though, I'm not getting to the point where I can take less insulin, and as a result it often feels like I'm trudging through mud every. day.

My mom gave me one of those women's magazines over the weekend. Woman's Day or First or something like that. There was a health article she wanted me to read. Often I'm skeptical when I read these "I lost 200 pounds with THIS great new diet!" articles because, while the information isn't bad, a lot of it is recycled. This one, however, laid out every single symptom I've had this year. It also discussed fatty liver disease (which I have) and the strains it puts on your system,the difficulties it can cause for weight loss, and so on. They discussed a book called The Blood Sugar Solution that seems like it was written for people like me. So... I'm ordering it.


 It's a tragedy that bookstores are disappearing... there are NO bookstores within a half hour of me and I just haven't had time to get out to one. I'm grateful for amazon.com but at the same time I wish I could just run out and have it in my hands!! It should be here Tuesday and I might as well block off a good amount of time so I can read it as soon as it arrives.

Here's hoping it has some answers for me... not just answers, but also strategies for dealing with this weight loss struggle. It would really bolster my spirits.

Team Beachbody Intro Party

Next Thursday I will be having a Team Beachbody Intro Party at my home in Lansing, IL. I will be sharing some informational videos about the company and our fitness programs. I will also have samples of all three flavors of Shakeology on hand. I was leery about buying before trying (let's face it, anyone who has ever tried a 'weight loss shake' knows that some of them taste truly AWFUL) and I wouldn't want anyone else to purchase it without having the opportunity to try it first! The event is open to anyone in the area who is thinking about improving their health and / or fitness. Please email me if you'd like to attend and I will get back to you with more information!

I will also be starting a Turbo Jam Challenge Group in August. If you might be interested in joining, this event would be the perfect time to gather more information and sign up for the group!


IF NOT NOW, WHEN??

What Is The Single Best Thing We Can Do For Our Health?

One of my friends posted this video on Facebook earlier today, and I found it entertaining, informative, AND motivating. Great combination! I encourage everyone to take a few minutes and watch it, and then comment and answer the doc's question at the end of the video...



CAN you limit your sitting and sleeping to 23 1/2 hours a day? Commit to yourself!