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.