Food Rules

Good chilly evening to you!  Over the weekend, I picked up the newest copy of Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.  Now, I love Michael Pollan.  If you've seen Food, Inc., you probably know who this guy is.  He also wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defence of Food, both of which I highly recommend reading if you are interested in where your food comes from.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through Food Rules and it has really gotten me thinking about how I have been slipping on eating healthfully.  Food Rules gives you easy rules of thumb for healthy eating under three categories:  "What should I eat?," "What kind of foods should I eat?," and "How much should I eat?"  Most of this stuff we probably already know, but having it in short, memorable phrases makes it easier to remember in my daily life.

I have been focusing way too much on how many calories I am eating and not enough on the quality of foods I am consuming.  While I am still eating plenty of fruits and veggies and have been cutting back on chicken and turkey, I am (was?) still eating more than my fair share of candy (Reeses are my weakness), chips, etc. 

So, I am working on cutting back on the unnatural "foodlike substances," as Pollan calls these types of foods, and replacing the "foodlike substances" with whole and natural foods.  This is really not that hard, I just need to be more diligent.  In fact, instead of being hard, it is very tasty.  My new favorite snack is olives with tomatoes and cheese (see below)!  Tonight, I also made a "taco" and rice plate (I really need to come up with better names here....).

My "Mediterranean Fix" Snack

Perfect bite!

I'm slightly obsessed with my local pizza place's Mediterranean Gluten Free pizza.  It is so good but I really can't eat like that very often.  I had their Greek salad last night, which is what inspired this snack today.  This is just mini-heirloom tomatoes cut in half, kalamata olives, and fresh mozzarella.  So good and satisfied my salty tooth today.  Plus, a handful of tomatoes + 1 oz mozzarella + 7ish Kalamata olives = 95 calories.  Score!

"Taco" and Rice Plate

As a way to eat less meat on the times when I actually want to eat something meat-like, I add in tons of veggies to fill out a dish.  So, in the pot, I had a small zucchini, 1/2 an onion, a small carrot, 1 can of drained and rinsed black beans, and 3 servings of extra-lean ground turkey.  Once all of this cooked and was softened, I seasoned the mixture with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, chipotle chili powder, chili powder, cumin, and cilantro.  Such a good mixture - better than packaged taco seasoning!  I split this into 4 portions.  I also made 2 servings of brown rice to go with the turkey and veggie mixture.  I tend to only eat a 1/2 serving of rice with dishes like these.  Topping this with salsa and sour cream really jazzed it up.  The best part?  Lunch leftovers for three days!

Stay warm (and healthy!) tonight!

Fall is for Squash!

If I haven't said it yet, I LOVE fall!

I love the weather, the sweaters, the colors...but especially the warm and cozy food!  Mostly, pumpkin and squash.  I am super lucky because my dad grows a ton of squash and is always willing to share.  My new find this year is buttercup squash!  How have I never had this before?  So good.

Tonight though, I had a butternut squash staring me in the face.  So, that had to be part of supper.  I also got a tip from a coworker on a good way to use up some leftover light coconut milk that I had sitting in my fridge from when I made coconut curry stir fry veggies on Monday night. 

I have been eating less meat for the past four or so months.  This is partly because I hate dealing with raw meat and the clean up.  The other part of this is that I do not eat beef or pork and prefer to only buy vegetarian fed, free range, organic, fancy-schmasy chicken.  I have issues with animal cruelty and have probably seen too many documentaries.  This chicken can be a little pricey (deals are out there though!), so I've been cutting back and eating more beans for protein.

Tonight's super delicious supper included:
Toasted Seasoned Black Beans
Garlic Kale
Roasted Butternut Squash
Coconut Milk Rice

The breakdown: 

This is a really simple meal, just a lot of dishes (yuck).  However, I made enough for lunch tomorrow so it works out.

Toasted Seasoned Black Beans

Rinse and drain a can of black beans.  Place as many as you want (1 serving = ~ 1/2 cup; 105 calories) into a small baking dish.  Sprinkle the beans with garlic powder, chili powder, and pepper.  Bake at 350 for 10-15, or until the beans are toasty.

Roasted Butternut Squash

Using a vegetable peeler, peel a butternut squash, cut off the ends of the squash.  Cut in half and scoop out the seeds.  Chop the squash into bite-sized pieces.  Place onto a baking sheet and spray lightly with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.  Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes, or until the squash is golden brown.

Coconut Milk Rice (2 servings)

Combine a 1/2 cup brown rice, 2/3 cup light coconut milk, 1/3 cup water, salt, and pepper in a pot on the stove top.  Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer until all the liquid is absorbed (keep an eye on this as the coconut milk bubbles up).  So good.  Everyone must make this!

Garlic Kale

My garlic kale recipe is here.  Tonight I didn't feel like cutting up any more veggies so I left out the onions and mushrooms.  Still great!

This was a great end to a semi-rough day.  Many people know that I am currently dealing with some medical issues which involves widespread muscle and joint pain.  It will be about a month before I can get in to see a rheumatologist so I'm not exactly sure what I'm dealing with at this point.  This craziness came on suddenly on October 1st and has not gone away.  So ready to feel better!  I'll keep everyone updated.  In the meantime, I am working out as much as possible and getting as much sleep as I can, both of which seem to be providing a little short-term pain reduction.

Checking In

Hey folks!  Sorry it has been so long since my last post.  Things have been good yet crazy busy.  The good news is that I have lots to report so if you've been wondering how my healthy crusade is going, this post is for you!

For the most part, everything has been going well.  I have, however, been slipping on eating from time to time.  Too many sweet and crunchy things.  In times like this, I feel like it's important to check in with myself and see what up.  When I look at all that's going on, eating wise, I think I have just been too busy to make good choices.  I don't think of this as a cop out as I have been trying so very hard.  Stress, however, tends to result in bad choices for myself.  Also, I have been too busy over the past 2 months to spend weekend time cooking.  I am still working on strategies to combat these issues.  However:

Stress + no time = bad news!

Exercise, however, has been going well.  I have been skipping the gym in favor of walking outside for the past month and a half.  I am planning to walk the 5-mile Turkey Trot run on Thanksgiving.  I wanted to run this but every time I run regularly, I end up with sore knees and left hip for weeks and it just isn't worth it.  You can walk the 5-mile Turkey Trot but you have to finish it in 90 minutes.  So, I've been working to figure out if I can do it.  I have spent the last 1.5 months working myself up to 5-mile walks that I can do on a work day (as in, I don't exercise and spend the rest of the day sleeping and tired). 

Now that I've worked my way up to 5 miles, I am also working on speed.  The Turkey Trot requires a pace of 18 minutes per mile.  I didn't want to sign up without being sure I could do this and started timing 1 or 2 5-mile walks per week for a few weeks now.  Here are the times/speeds of my timed 5-mile walks (note that the majority of my walks are untimed as I tend to get a little obsessive about it):

Oct 1st (based on 6 miles):  90 minutes, 4 mph

Oct 4th:  74 minutes, 20 seconds; 4.04 mph

Oct 8th:  72 minutes, 30 seconds; 4.14 mph

Oct 10th:  75 minutes, 40 seconds; 3.97 mph

Oct 16th:  68 minutes, 30 seconds; 4.38 mph

Oct 17th:  70 minutes; 0 seconds; 4.29 mph

I'm pretty happy with this, especially since I am seeing improvement.  I had some sort of flu or other issue that has been causing me to be up all night with widespread muscle aches.  I don't know what's going on with that, but I'm happy that I am still progressing.  I took a number of days off last week when the achiness was particularly bad, thinking that I was perhaps stressing my body too much, but it did not help.  The mystery of this continues...

So, since I am checking in with myself and not entirely happy with what I see, I think it's important to look at how far I've come (plus I've had 7 people ask me to do this in the last week).  ;)  I seriously committed and started working towards my goal of being healthy around April-May 2010 but I'm going to list my stats from my most unhealthy point, which I think was around Dec-Jan 2009-2010.  First, a couple of photos.

October, 2009.  My mom and I at the Memory Walk.
2XL shirt here!  :(



October, 2011.  My mom and I at the Memory Walk.
L shirt here (and in desperate need of a haircut)!  :) 
Take a look at my mom - she is doing amazing
on her own journey!



















Okay, so a couple stats for those who have been asking:

Total pounds lost:  66 lbs (as of yesterday)
Inches lost around waist (the only one I can remember):  8.5"
Dress size:  down ~4 sizes
Clothing size:  down ~ 3-4 sizes (depending on brand)
BMI change:  down 11 points*
Walking mph change:  went from 3.3 mph to 4.4 mph when working out

I think those are all of my major changes and, wow, seeing those things written down and the photos side by side gives me quite a bit of motivation to get back on track with my nutrition.  I should have done this sooner!  The craziness in my life is starting to calm down (hopefully) and I plan to get back into meal planning and cooking every night or at least making sure I have enough healthy leftovers for the entire week if the week is going to be busy.

*For those of you who really hate the BMI scale, I understand the reasons.  However, this is what all doctors I have been to use.  Also, it gives you a good understanding of how far away from a normal weight you are.  Seeing such a huge change is so motivating, even if you don't like the scale.