Mother's Day!

I got up this morning.  Did dishes. Said good bye to the one child that was awake and went grocery shopping.  Only when I was checking out and the guy behind me said he had to go shopping for Mother's Day did I remember it.  Oops.  Hubby and I have an unwritten rule that when it is a birthday, Father's Day or Mother's Day that the person of honor is supposed to sleep in.

I got home and everyone was in the kitchen making breakfast for me.  Not exactly breakfast in bed like planned.

By the way...grocery shopping is going much better now.  I don't hate it.  I am thankful for knowing how to keep my children healthy.  Now if only I had more will power for the times I am alone.  I went out to Chinese food last week.  It was so good at the time but I paid the price.  I haven't exercised for 5 days because I have been sick.  Today I am finally feeling well.

I bought $224 worth of meat, beans, vegetables, fruits, and nuts today.  Well, there were 5, 2 litters of coke, 7 zero calorie sports drinks, brown sugar, almond milk, and vegan soy free butter.  But I think that is all.  (I buy specialty bread, noodles, chocolate chips, rice, oatmeal, and crisp rice at a Foodies which is an hour away.  When I buy these things I buy enough for a month.)

Happy Mother's Day!

Silence..sometimes it isn't golden

I am forcing myself to write this post.

I have to admitt I am struggling with training for my mud run.

I am not losing weight.  This is really making me question myself.

I am still exercising.  Maybe not as hard or as much as I should but some days I surprise myself by how much I do.

One day reciently...I got up and walked/ran.  I took Scooby (16 weeks old now) for a bike ride because I can't run fast enough for him. I went for a walk with one son.  I played tennis with by other son.

So I am active.

I have been really good with what I eat.  There was one bad, bad week.  But I have turned it around.  I am eating good and tracking my calories.

But it is a very hard journey.  I am constantly questioning if I can do the mud run.  I so want to turn tail and run the other direction.  It would be easy.  I think my sister would rather not do it.  There are so many paths between now and the mud run.  Each path has an escape route.  So far I haven't taken any of them.  That's all I can say.

Day 60 to Day 53 Recap

(Counting down the days to my Mud Run)

I consistently walked/ran.  I got in 6 walk/runs and went 7.4 miles. Not impressive but I did what I could. I ran a full mile, all the way, no walking, and no stopping. (Actually I did this 2xs.)  Yep, I do realize that that is a pathetic accomplishment.  But it is MY pathetic accomplishment and I am choosing to be happy about it. 

I tracked my food with My Fitness Pal.  I stayed close to my target calories.  I went over a couple of days but once again this is a start and I am going to be happy with it.   

I did not intentionally eat anything with gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs. More importantly I have had a major epiphany that resulted in a new attitude about food.  I am thankful now for the food I do eat.  I am thankful that I know what to feed my children to keep them healthy.  I don’t need processed foods.  I don’t need gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs. They are not good for me. I would rather have healthy children and be healthy myself.  

I do need to change my strength workouts.  I couldn’t find my Jillian M. tapes.  I am really bummed about this.  However, I stopped looking and am moving on.  I am doing the “5 Core Workouts for Stronger Running” that is on the Runner’s World website. They are the basic plank, side plank, superman pose, abdominal crunches, and abdominal crunches with a twist.  My goal is to do these exercises 2xs a week

 

Day 60 weight = 283 

Day 53 weight = 279

Days 60 to 53 were a good start and I built a solid foundation to improve on in the next 52 days.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Made with Almond Milk

The best ice cream EVER!  (It is soy free unlike the store bought almond milk ice cream.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Made with Almond Milk

 

3 1/2 cups Almond Milk (unsweetened and no vanilla)

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup Smuckers Peanut Butter

3/4 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips

1 tsp gluten free Vanilla

Place ingredients above in a sauce pan.  Bring to a boil using a medium to high heat.  Stir constantly! 

Boil 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir until boiling stops.

Let the mixture sit for a ½ an hour and then refrigerator for a ½ to 1 hour until chilled.  The ingredients will have separated a little.  Just whisk them back together before transferring to the ice cream maker.

Make according to your ice cream makers instructions.

According to My Fitness Pal with the recipe making 6 servings; it has 345 calories per serving.

We think it is the best ice cream we have ever had…..granted this is from a distorted gluten, soy, dairy, and egg of view.  It is the first ice cream Ben has had since before 3/1/2013.  (Zach doesn’t like ice cream.)  I had some ice cream around Christmas.  Yes, I did get really, really sick; 24-48 hours of uncontrollable sneezing with bladder leaking, snot running down my face, dizziness, and fatigue. What can I say? I thought it would be worth it when I ate it.  My mind is really good at justifying why it is a good idea to eat things that will make me sick.  That is why I am determined to not listen to that side of my brain any more.

I have made peace with grocery shopping.

Since we have gone gluten and dairy free grocery shopping has taken many unexpected turns for me. 

 

It started out as gluten and dairy free on April 1^st 2012 (a day I will never forget).  I took a day off work to “go gluten and dairy free”. I went shopping by myself.  I went to 3 different stores and spent over $300 on gluten and dairy free specialty products.  It was the right thing to do at the time.  It was a very hard change for my children and all the wonderful foods helped the transition. 

 

A few months pass before I realized soy was a problem.  So shopping turned into gluten, dairy, and soy free.  There are very few commercial products available that are all three. The products that are gluten, dairy, and soy free are expensive.  I started baking lots.

 

A few more months pass before the realization that eggs are bad.  Baking took a right turn into no-where-ville.

 

I tried my best to find processed foods that were gluten, dairy, soy, and egg free.  I resisted my very best not to go to whole unprocessed foods.  I really didn’t want too.  My children didn’t want to.  Yet everything I tried made someone sick. 

 

Finally in November of 2013 I drew the line in the sand.  I had made my children sick too many times and watched their misery.  I made a list of all the “safe” foods and everything else had to be a whole food. 

 

A whole food diet has been the hardest for me to accept and enforce. It is so hard not to give into a reasonable child that argues rationally to buy something in the store when you really want it too.

 

Even worse are the solo shopping trips when no one is around to see what you buy.  The cake, chocolate, candy, etc is so easy to slip in the compartment of the van on the way home to be eaten in private later. The little voice inside my head that tells me I deserve it and one won’t hurt.  But it will.  It will make me sick.

 

The internal struggle is time consuming and draining.  It takes every bit of my will power not to give in to.  I hating shopping.  I hated the fact that I couldn’t buy what I wanted.  I hated having to choose not to buy something.  I was going to write a whole post about how much I hated it.

 

But then I realized that I hate having to choose not to buy food.  There are so many people in this world that don’t have enough food.  Here I am with an abundance of food around me and the means to obtain it.  And I have the audacity to hate being in this situation. 

 

I am so very blessed. My children are healthy now.  I prayed and prayed for my children to be healthy and now they are.  Yet here I hate what I must sacrifice for them to be healthy. 

 

No.  That is NOT me. 

 

Thank you God!  Thank you!  I will thank you every time I go grocery shopping.  I will buy healthy foods. I will think you for blessing me with knowing what to buy.  I will thank you for blessing me with the means to buy food.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  I cannot thank you enough.

I am doing a Mud Run.

There I said it.  It is official.  I have 60 days left to train.

It is a Dirty Girl Mud Run.  I am hoping this means it will not be hard core.  They say the obstacles are optional.  My sister is doing it with me.  I am VERY glad for this.

My goal is to start and finish.  Starting will be much harder than finishing because once I start there is only one way out….the finish line.  There are so many different paths that lead from here to the starting line.  Each one has an escape route.

I am scared.  I am trying not to freak out.  New things are so hard to do.  But I want this.  I want to be a person that does mud runs.  I want to be a runner.  I want to be healthy. I don’t want to be obese. .

So today I am just training….It is just training…..That’s all….Just a little stroll around the block.  Throw some running in whenever the watch beeps…..Nothing more…..Just a little training….Just today is all I have to worry about.

I have 60 days until my mud run.  These are my commitments for the next 60 days.

1) I will be logging all my foods into My Fitness Pal.  I will eat sensibly and absolutely no gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs for the next 60 days.

2) Tonight I have a date with Jillian and her 90 day body transformation tapes.  I started these before and they are hard.  So fair warning I do not promise to go according to the prescribed schedule.  I will work and do my best but if they are anything like I remember then they are brutal. 

3)  Finally, I will be walking/running.  Right now it is a little more walking than running but I am working on it.  I am hoping for everyday but realistically that isn’t going to happen.  So my goal will be 5 walk/runs a week.

I just got a brilliantly motivational idea. I have been thinking about adding pictures of me to the blog.  So the first picture of me that I will post on this blog will be of me finishing my mud run, covered head to toe in mud. 

I wonder about processed foods.

At my highest weight was 323 pounds.  I did not get that heavy by eating healthy.  No, I ate lots and lots of highly processed foods.

Even the “healthy” foods I bought were highly processed.  I really miss Ritz crackers and Laughing Cow Cheese – which I use to consider healthy.

Just typing that gave me a physical reaction.  I am not exaggerating at all here.  I typed “Ritz crackers and Laughing Cow Cheese” and a wave of blissfulness passed through my consciousness and my stomach clenched. 

Now before you all get the wrong impression I am still not a healthy eater.  I am still obese, 280.0 pounds this morning.  I still eat too much sugar.  I can make some mean chocolate candies.  My granola bars are to die for and filled with honey and brown sugar. 

However, all of the food I eat now is made from simple ingredients. Peanut butter is peanuts and less than 1% salt.  The honey is honey.  The brown sugar is brown sugar.  The rolled oats is oats.  Etc.  One ingredient foods.  I know what is in my food.

Laughing cow cheese I don’t have a clue.  Ritz crackers not a clue either. 

Plus, how can now a year later these foods have such a powerful hold over me?  I am willing to get sick and be miserable for days after I eat them.  The voice inside my head is so very good at justifying why it will be okay to eat them.  It seems like a perfectly sane thing to do at the time.

One more thing I wonder about is what is in the “Added Vitamins and Minerals” in cereals.  Case in point; I use to buy Gluten Free Rice Krispies.  The ingredients were brown rice and rice bran.  Then they changed their formula.  They started adding vitamins and minerals and BHT for freshness.  The new formula makes my family sick.  Granted when I call the company they guarantee there is no soy, gluten, dairy, or egg in them. This isn’t the first food that I have called a company on.  I get reassurances that there are no allergens that aren’t listed but the food still makes my family sick.

I am thinking about buying a pressure cooker and making my own puffed rice.

But I work here people.  I have a 45+ hour a week job.  I have 2 boys that need attention and help with homework.  I try my best to fit a physical family activity in every day.  Plus, I haven’t even started on housework.

Now I have to make my own puffed rice. 

This falls right up there with the mental struggle I had about cooking beans. No, I am still not over the fact that I have to cook my beans from scratch.  Soak them.  Drain them. Soak them.  Cook them.  Cooking beans is a 4-6 hour process depending on the bean. 

Puffed rice looks to be the same. Cook the rice.  Dry the rice.  Pressure cook the rice.  Yep, 3 hour job at least.

……….Time passes and I come back to this post……….

Why am I clinging to granola bars so hard?  Why do I feel the need to still make granola bars?  It is because this is the one “processed” feeling food we still eat regularly.  It is just so comforting.  Oatmeal with fruit or Polenta (that I grind ) with sausage (homemade) is a perfectly good breakfast. 

I guess I am still clinging hard to the old way I use to eat and feed my family.

But I did just order some Erewhon Crisp Brown Rice Cereal, No Salt Added.  If we can’t eat this then we will say goodbye to granola bars.

Welcome to the Dark Side….We have fruit.

My husband has finally come over to the dark side.  The last 2-3 weeks he has been sick; coughing and nasal congestion.

At first he thought it was a virus, then the theory was a reaction to new medicine, then he got antibiotics, then a different antibiotic….nothing worked.  He started to get better until he bought some baloney and then he got sick again. 

(I should mention that Hubby is very supportive of our new eating habits in front of me and the children.  However, what he chooses to eat when we aren’t around is up to him.)

Hubby does not want to admit he has joined the dark side but I know he has.  He has agreed to be really good with what he eats for the next two weeks to see how he feels. 

By the way being good with what he eats means no gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, flax seeds and hardly any processed foods. 

I am not sure what is up with processed foods and my children but they just don’t get along.  We recently tried Kix and Crispix again.  They are supposed to be gluten and soy free but I am still changing sheets every morning and it has been 4 days since we stopped eating them.  Plus my other son is a Drama King; has headaches and is fatigued. 

There are a handful of processed foods we can eat like, rice noodles, Enjoy Life chocolate chips, Heinz Katsup, Sweet Baby Rays Plain BBQ Sauce, rolled oats, Earth Balance Vegan Soy Free Butter, Lays Plain Potato Chips, Fritos Corn Chips, Tostitos Corn Chips, Smuckers Natural Peanut Butter, Smuckers Jelly and Udi’s bread.

(Caution: Udi’s bread is not egg free but as long as it is the plain sandwich bread my children can tolerate it, but not any of the other Udi’s products.)

Yep that’s it.  Everything else is single ingredient foods.  They may be canned or frozen but there is only one ingredient listed – not even salt.

I love you hubby….Welcome to the Dark Side….We have fruit!

Shopping

I went shopping after work yesterday.  I had eaten up all my salad supplies and needed more.  I had about 15 minutes due to a sick hubby (flu) and children that needed to start on homework.

I ran into the store and bought my salad supplies.  Then I went to get small plastic cups.  I passed by the cereal isle.  I passed by the baking isle.  I passed by the processed meats.  All I was seeing was things I couldn’t eat.  I headed down to the bakery.  Maybe I could splurge on a single serving piece of cake.  The 12 hours of uncontrollably sneezing and bladder leaking sure seemed worth it. 

But then I reminded myself of something that I vowed last week when I was miserably sick from having eaten something that I shouldn’t.  I said I would just tell myself that I don’t do that anymore.  I don’t eat that any more.  It all starts with one decision.  Here I was looking my one decision in the face.  Just say it.  I DON’T DO THIS ANY MORE.  It just takes right now this very minute to make the right decision.  Don’t look or think about anything but this one decision that is staring at you right now. 

I said it.  I turned my cart around.  I told myself….You can buy anything in this store that you want as long as it is something that you can eat.  Anything!  You can buy ANYTHING, it just has to be something you eat now.  I bought green peppers, onions, mushrooms and a really fatty red steak.  I haven’t eaten it yet but it is going to be good.

I went home and made my salad.  I ate a big bowl right away.  I had a big bowl for lunch today.  I am going to have a big bowl when I get home…..Then I will have to go to the store again. 

First Post

Wow, first post on a blog.  How does one get started with these things?  I feel like I need to explain why I want a blog.  Does that make sense?  Why does a person blog?  Are we just narcissistic individuals that want to talk about ourselves? 

For me the need to blog comes from the major life changes that my family is going through.  We…I have changed our eating habits drastically in the last year.  It started out as an experiment to see if a gluten and dairy free diet would stop bed wetting and then progressed into the solution to a wide range of health problems that my sons and I have been having for years.

The last year has been a long and winding journey with many highs and lows.  I have discovered a lot about everyone in my family.  What food makes them sick and what food sends their emotions out of control.

What I didn’t expect is in the process was that I would learn a lot about me as well.  For years the negative voice in my head (that won most of the time) said I was fat, lazy and had no self control.  Now I know better.  Gluten, dairy, and soy makes me extremely fatigued.  I have fought against that fatigue for as long as I can remember…early teens.  I am not lazy.  I was sick. 

I learned that I do have self control.  However, I have extreme food addictions to gluten and dairy.  Once I start eating gluten and dairy it takes a monumental effort to stop.

Now, I can lose weight.  No, it isn’t easy.  I have lots of bad eating habits.  That has gotten progressively worse over time with added weight and negative self image.  But I can finally see the promise of light at the end of the tunnel.

But the thing that gets me is…….How did I get to be an unhealthy 44 year old woman with 2 sons that were unhealthy and no one ever say to me…..Have you considered that you might have food sensitivities?

Nope, not one single person said this to me.  A doctor finally did mention it to me at a son’s doctor’s visit when we were discussing bed wetting.  This was about a year before we went gluten free.  I dismissed him at the time. But it planted a seed that grew and finally bloomed into a realization for me.  Without his mention, just casually, I would have never made the connection.  If fact I completely forgot about his suggestion until late one night when I was trolling the internet for information and a blog about gluten sensitivity and bed wetting came up.

I want my blog to plant seeds.  I want to plant seeds in other people that might not be feeling well.  Or that may have behavioral problems with their children.  Or that may have children that just seem to be sick all the time. 

Here is to the long and winding road that I am on.  May my journey continue to be long and hold new discoveries around every bend.  I will take these new discoveries and make the best of them.