Scale Sunday: Week 10

A quick explanation about the absence of Saturday posts: My heart hasn't been in writing lately, and when that's the case there's really no point. My creative drive has been more geared toward crafting.

This was a tough week with very sick kids. It started Monday with Gavin. Wednesday when he was mostly healed Ian got sick. Things with him seemed better Thursday so I ran to the store quick to stock up on chicken noodle soup, Sprite, and saltines. As soon as I put the vehicle in park Liam started getting sick in the parking lot. I spent nearly all day Friday sitting with Addie so I could catch when she got sick. Ian's bug seemed to have a brief revival as well. But God is so good and gave me a break through the night Friday so I could be waken at 1 am to sit up with another sick child. I feel so drained on top of getting sick myself today. I feel as though I could sleep for a week.

These weeks happen when you have little people. It's easier to get through the older I get; my patience seems to have grown through the years. You can't help but feel terrible for them, but you know it's coming...and when it starts it's almost a relief so you can stop jumping expectantly at every cough and start clicking off the hours till their hopeful recovery.

My weight/health has understandably been on the back burner through all this. I almost always get sick last: another one of God's designs, no doubt, so I can nurse everyone else back to health before paying my dues. This time it didn't quite work that way, so you do what you can.

5 lbs. till I hit my goal weight with a little over 3 weeks left. When I get there I'll share before and after photos.

63 lbs. lost since January 1, 2018.

I'm the weight I was when I was married 12 years ago (24 years old).

Scale Sunday: Week 9

Here we are again. I'm still plodding along in my trench, wishing for something to blow it up. What is this? Why the violence, you ask? Probably because I'm still not at peace with this healthy diet business. I'm just going to come out with some brutal honesty here: I've detoured again from the healthy side of the battle and have been blazing a new trail along the boundary waters of Pseudo-Healthy Diet Land, where numbers and measurements reign as dictators. Why is this foreign country so enticing? Because...vanity. It's a hard one to shake.

The Five Stages of Dieting:

1. Awareness. This stage can last a very long time, but is recognizable by a person's vocal lamentations of their health/size/appearance. All you chicas don't know it but ya'lls brains are already in diet camp. 
2. Action. The second stage is marked by zealous purging of all that is unhealthy in addition to manic exercise. Little Debbie meets the dumpster, and the fridge drawer with the veggie icons on it is appropriately filled with kale and broccoli instead of Reddi Wip, Cheez Whiz, and the Betty Crocker frosting with a spoon left in it. A heating pad, Icy Hot, and ginger tea are your best friends during this stage as every inch of your body protests your newfound obsession. Dabbling in popular diets is also characteristic of this stage.
3. Anger. Ah, Stage 3. You cause the death of millions of diets worldwide. This is the fight or flight stage. You've made visible progress but it's soooo slooooww and it's been sooo looong since you've dipped fries in a milkshake (or if you're like me, sweet and sour sauce). It doesn't matter that you can see the finish line. It's all an illusion anyway, right? Your angry, calorie-deprived brain cells start clamoring out reasons why it's okay to indulge. There's nothing like others enjoying comfort food around you to fan the fires of angry rebellion scorching your soul. You can recognize Stage 3-ers by the murderous glint in their eyes as they sit in their corners maliciously crunching on kale chips or stabbing each bite of spinach salad as if it might get up and walk away unless they kill it first. 
4. Acceptance. If you were strong enough to make it through Stage 3, you are rewarded with the comparable peace of Stage 4. Your beaten down lower appetites meekly accept the new regime with little grumbling during this stage. You find new ways to make food healthy and delicious that don't involve bacon and whipped cream. You feel good. Habits are steering this train.
5. Maintenance. This is oddly enough the hardest stage to be in. It's also known as Life. You've made it to the finish line--only, you've been lied to. It's not really a finish line, but a line in the sand that marks the scary beige land of keeping on. If you allow yourself to become buddies with Complacency in Stage 5 you will wake from a fog some months later to find yourself smack dab back in Stage 1.  

I'm currently at Stage 3. Thus the TNT.

The wall I hit a week or two ago remains, I'm just creeping along beside it. I spent some time studying this wall, trying to figure out what led to the wall, and why it appeared so suddenly. One explanation kept surfacing: fatigue.

I've discovered I'm really good at following the rules I've laid down for myself in my mind. Blame it on OCD or the quirks of my mind, but it takes a defining point and a clear shift of goals for these rules to change. It explains why I needed to initiate another "leg of this health journey" to motivate myself and justify a change of rules. I can easily admit that cutting back on my Sunday splurges would probably save me a lot of work playing catch up the next week. Oh, but the rules say Sunday I can splurge! All day long! By Sunday all the treats and cravings I've postponed all week have accumulated quite a list. So that's what I'm struggling with currently. I need to set a Sunday calorie limit for myself that will account for a couple treats but not exceed 2000 calories. My daily caloric limit is 1200 calories, but most often I end the day around 1000-1100.

This week marks a few goals attained. I've officially lost 61 pounds since January 1, 2018. I am now just 2 pounds heavier than when I was married, and a mere 7 pounds from the goal I set for myself August 30th. It would seem so much more attainable if it didn't feel as though I had concrete blocks attached to my feet.

Scale Sunday: Week 8

I feel very blah lately. It's the season where there's so much to do every day that my food choices have been pushed to the back burner. My energy has been pretty much sapped by everything else. So, while I have not been binging or cheating, I have not made a spectacular effort at making healthy choices and getting my leafy greens in. I've gone to ground, so to speak.

We buy groceries every two weeks unless there's some staple that we run out of. So by the second week most of the fresh produce has been eaten and we switch gears to more of the frozen veggies. This week, well...blah. I have no right to be picky, but frozen vegetables are not my thing. (I have a pang of conscience when I think of what poor kids in third world countries would think of that. How very spoiled we are!) The only thing that has kept me on track is my ability to tell myself no, even when I'm really hungry. So if I couldn't find something to eat that was on my "safe food list" and didn't turn my stomach, I ate nothing. All week when I peeked in the fridge all I could see were hashbrowns and minute steak with gravy and pizza and taco meat and bags and bags of French toast and sausage links and sausage patties...and one lone head of lettuce and some limp broccoli. Blah. I pretty much lived off of eggs, almonds, and carrots.

Me as a child, shoveling cake in my mouth. Not much has changed in the last 33 years!

Even my brother was dismayed at my lack of self control. 😂

I laid in bed last night and my muscles hurt like they haven't hurt in years. Granted, I spent an hour and a half walking the grocery store aisles and then went up and down stairs multiple times putting clothes away. But I'm convinced it was mostly because I haven't been meeting my nutritional needs. It pains me to admit I need need to start taking supplements. I have an avid aversion to pills. 

I'm not sure what good my blabbering will do any of you, other than commiseration if you're in the same place, and don't do what Julie's doing.

Scale Sunday: Week 7

Monday morning: Hey you. There are two more brownie cookies stashed in the cupboard that no once knows about. AND NO-ONE EVER HAS TO KNOW....

Me: Shut up self.

A little later: So...I don't mean to nag, but those candies that boy managed to sneak in the cart and through checkout without you seeing? Yeah...they're still hiding in that desk drawer. They're tiny...minuscule, really. They're like...NOTHING compared to a brownie cookie. Go ahead and have one. You deserve it.

Me: Leave me alone! *30 minutes later, cramming a brownie cookie in my mouth.

After that I started handing out candies to my little people so they couldn't whisper at me from the desk drawer. "That's a lovely A you wrote right there, have a Kit Kat. Oh, 12+5=18? No, not quite, but close enough. Have a Kit Kat. Having a bad day? Here, have some Kit Kats."

This week's craziness multiplied itself from there so that I didn't have much time to worry about missed treats. I honestly was lucky to get a meal in twice a day. I'd like to say the habits I've rebuilt over the last seven weeks have played a big role in my ability to *mostly* stick to good food, as hungry as I was. I did stay strong the last time I got groceries and denied myself Greek yogurt...my one last treat. It's easy to pretend it's healthy, but in reality it's loaded with sugar. And then I broke down mid-week when I ran to get milk after a pharmacy stop, and bought some pumpkin spice and coffee & cream Chobani. The argument for mental health finally won over. Everything tastes a million times better when you're hungry, but I'm convinced that coffee & cream yogurt is the next best thing to a slice of tiramisu.

That's about it this week, guys. My exercise was hauling around a hurting baby, pacing back and forth across the house a million times, squatting to pick someone up, being mom.

Weight lost since January 1:
57 pounds

Scale Sunday: Week 6

I'm really starting to feel the changes my reformed diet is working in my body. I no longer feel like I'm "lumbering" around. I can haul piles of laundry up and down stairs without running out of breath. Stooping to pick something (or someone) up no longer sends pains shooting through my knees. My clothes are more comfortable, and I'm moving into sizes in my closet that have hung there unworn for three years. I went through clothes I kept from last winter "just in case" and gave away a large bag of them that no longer fit. I'm done holding onto things that give me an excuse to be in a place I desperately don't want to be.

This cold, damp weather was working it's way into my joints. I'll give you guys a break from droning on about the lectin-free diet, but this week I really tried to stick to low-lectin foods (inasmuch as I could) to see if I noticed a difference. My knees did not ache all week. Not only that, I have not plateaued for the past two weeks. I'm hoping it's because I replaced some of the carbs I would have eaten with healthy fats instead.

These were my Friday, meatless, low-lectin (and gluten-free) meals. They're not normal Friday fare for me (I usually have a fried egg and a salad or bunch of raw carrots) but I had just made a grocery run and was trying out some ideas I'd had.

Above was lunch: a large portobello mushroom cap stuffed with cream cheese, onion, garlic, and spinach and topped with mozzarella, and sauteed brussels sprouts and green onions with walnuts and cilantro. Despite looking like a labor-intensive meal, it took about 20 minutes to prepare. It was definitely comfort food and I didn't feel deprived at all afterward!

Below was supper: baked wild-caught cod with lemon, garlic, and dill, and broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and carrot salad with Parmesan pesto dressing. I have never been a fan of fish, or raw broccoli or cauliflower, but sometimes becoming a better person means swallowing a bitter pill and I know there are many people who would have been so thankful to have a meal like this. Bonus: I squeezed the leftover lemon into my water, which was a treat I don't often get!

Today after Mass I picked up a pumpkin spice latte as a treat for myself, and our "splurge" meal was Pizza Hut (they had a great online deal!) After drinking the latte I decided I actually prefer my plain coffee with cream. I can't believe I just typed those words. I'm also probably going to have a nasty headache tomorrow to pay for these indulgences. I seem to have found a trigger for my migraines as they only come on the day after eating bad.

I taught her everything she knows about eating pizza!

55 pounds lost since January 1st.

Scale Sunday: Week 5

Peanut butter cookies. Jalapeno poppers. Cheese bread. The supper of champions, right? Sunday night after Mass seemed a good time to sit down and indulge in a few treats before I refocused on health again the next day. Except I didn't. The peanut butter cookies were so small my indulgence of them spilled over to breakfast on Monday. They were so good with my coffee (which I'm still not putting sugar in! The little things I tell myself to appease my conscience....) Tuesday morning's walk of shame to the scale was painful. How little time it takes to erase seven days of hard work! I had gained four pounds back. More than I lost the week before.

All week was spent losing those four pounds. It was agonizing every day seeing the same numbers I had already defeated and put behind me. Except I hadn't really, if I was standing here seeing them again. It was with trepidation that I stepped on the scale this morning: I didn't know what to expect. It's the ups and downs of life, and as much as I know this, it doesn't seem to grow any easier to deal with!

I talked some last Sunday about the lectin-free diet I stumbled across. The Plant Paradox Cookbook came on Tuesday. I started studying it, trying to decide if it was doable, and most importantly, if it was believable. With the myriad of diets out there promising success I'm generally a skeptic; I do not believe there's one way to health, one "bad guy" food to avoid, save for the way the Good Lord intended us to use the nourishment He gave us on this earth. Like Paraclesus, who stated: "The dose makes the poison", I'm more a subscriber to moderation than hacking off entire food groups (pasta is a food group, right?)

If you all are tired of hearing about one more diet, I don't blame you. If so, feel free to skip to the end. If you're curious about what I've read, I'll try to talk just a little (ha!) about why this diet seems to make sense to me and to answer a few questions that I myself had about it.

Hippocrates stated that "all disease begins in the gut". We've also all heard the adage "you are what you eat", which is not far from the mark. Maintaining the delicate balance of our microbiome is necessary for good gut health, and what we introduce to it determines how our bodies digest food, how they extract nutrients from food, and how it communicates with our immune systems. Certain things, when ingested, have been proven to cause various diseases and health issues. While it calls out "lectins" as the main bad guys, we know there are a lot of other things in our diets that are not great for us as well, which it also takes into consideration. If you missed what I wrote about lectins last week, you can head on over to my last Scale Sunday post to catch up. In a nutshell, lectins are proteins that attach themselves to the lining of your GI tract and create holes in it, causing bacteria to leak out ("leaky gut") and spread throughout your body, which in turn can cause multiple health issues. (More technical description for my fellow geeks: Lectins bind to the sugar molecules in your intestine's microsal lining, triggering the production of zonulin. When your cells produce zonulin they stop "linking arms", and junctions between cells open up, creating a hole in your gut. Lectins that have not attached to your intestinal lining leak out, along with waste bacteria.) Gluten is a lectin, and has become the "media darling" of lectins. But there are so many more lurking in the foods we eat every day. Changing your diet (reducing or eliminating lectins) can heal your gut and reverse other health issues. The plethora of autoimmune disorders people are plagued with anymore is a testament to the war our bodies are waging against something.

Why am I even looking into this? Because I thought it was odd that I was still feeling sick even when I changed my diet to "mostly healthy". I discovered that most of the "healthy food" I ate when on a diet were veggies from the nightshade family that contain a lot of lectins. These include tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, eggplants. I know, I thought the same thing: what in the world am I going to eat?

Dr. Gundry throws a lot of so-called "facts" out there that I don't necessarily subscribe to, ones that we have no way of proving. For example, he begins with "450 million years ago the world was ruled by plants". I'm really tired of the scientists throwing out dates like we've proven it's accurate (which research has actually shown is not) and stating theories as scientific fact when they can't be proven. It's extremely unscientific of them. What I do believe are facts proven by actual research, trial and error, and results-based studies. Dr. Gundry dedicated his life's work to refining this diet, and seems to have discovered the key to a healing diet by not only trusting the visible results, but also by doing regular blood tests on strict followers of the lectin-free diet to see what it was actually doing to their bodies. 

What can I/can't I eat?

The book shares a list of cans and can'ts and goes into detail why. Thankfully the list of cans is three times as long as the can'ts. Here's a little sneak peek of the can't list:

My yogurt is on there...😭

People have been eating these foods for hundreds of years, why are they suddenly bad?

The history of food and how we eat it is fascinating to me (forgive me!)

Throughout the years there have been shifts in culture, in discoveries men have made, and advances in food production/preparation that all have contributed to changes in what we eat and how we prepare our food. Humans started out with a mainly plant diet, with occasional meat when hunting was good. We weren't intended to eat a lot of the plants out there; our bodies weren't designed to digest many of them. After consuming certain plants the side effects were obvious, and those foods were not eaten anymore, or rarely. We used to eat plants that were in season...our bodies were in tune with the seasonal banquet available to us. Fruits were in season in the late summer, and these high-sugar foods were consumed to help fatten us up for the winter. Now, fruit is available to us all year round, constantly sending our body signals to "fatten up". As different plants and animals died off that we relied on for food, our diets had to change. Humans began intentionally cultivating crops and storing them to eat later, which introduced more lectins into our diets. The discovery of fire opened up new food options. Cooking foods breaks down lectins, making certain foods edible in small amounts. When the New World was discovered, many lectin-rich foods (tomatoes, squash, corn, quinoa, etc.) were introduced into European diets. Native Americans were apparently equipped with special gut bugs to digest these foods, and/or had special ways to prepare them.

Traditional ways of preparing foods make food easier to digest and "friendly" to your gut, such as fermentation (think kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc.) Old World food preparation also involved removing hulls, seeds, and peels from plants that also reduced the lectins in these foods. Many of these old preparatory measures have fallen away from the norm in the last 100 years, making us more susceptible to damage from lectins. In our ultra-busy culture, we also now rely heavily on highly processed food...some of which barely resembles food anymore. Thanks to our agricultural bounty, the amount of wheat, soy, and corn we consume has also skyrocketed in the last century. One of the many lectins out there, wheat germ agglutinin, is particularly nasty: it has the ability to mimic insulin in the body, keeping insulin from doing the job it's supposed to. What's more, many crops are genetically modified to withstand regular dousing of chemicals to kill weeds--and we in turn ingest these chemicals. Even some non-GMO crops are treated with Roundup as a desiccant because dried up, dead plant is easier to harvest. We've become the products of years and years (specifically the last half a century) and millions of dollars worth of marketing about the healthfulness of many of these foods: of whole grains, high fruit/veggie-fruit diets. And obesity has skyrocketed in the meanwhile.

In addition to these issues, our lifestyle is killing us. Advances in technology make it the norm to stay up long past sunset, plugged into blue-light emitting devices (TV's, cell phones, SCREENS). People used to follow the earth's cues for rest...when it was dark, they slept. I've done some research into how blue light affects our circadian rhythms, affecting stress levels, sleep, weight gain, etc. Some new model TV's even come equipped with an "amber light filter" to reduce rhythm interference. Our bodies were designed to take it's cues for fat storage from the environment around us. In summer when light is plentiful, our bodies are being signaled to store fat for the coming winter (I know it sounds contrary to the "slim up for summer" trends...but that just shows how far from nature we've grown!). In winter when light is low and temps are cooler our bodies kick into "burn fat stores for survival" mode. We've created a false "eternal summer" for ourselves with all these light-emitting devices and staying up too late, thereby sending our bodies cues to STORE ALL THE FAT and hoard calories all year round.

We are poisoning ourselves not only with our lifestyles, but with the medicine we hope will make us feel better. Antibiotics are often over-prescribed and taken for things that they cannot possibly help with. They are huge disruptors of healthy gut flora...and are used to help fatten up livestock. They should only be used in serious situations that our bodies cannot handle on their own. NSAIDS (pain relievers) are frequently used for anything and everything, but how many people read the warnings on the labels? They damage the walls of our intestines. Antacids are another harmful "helper". We eat food (usually high in lectins) that causes indigestion, and spend the rest of the day fighting it with Tums, or Ranitidine, or Prilosec, or Zantec. These medicines reduce stomach acid...the one thing that is trying to save your gut. Stomach acid is a tool our bodies use to neutralize bad bacteria in our gut. When the bad bacteria gets the upperhand, we run into even more gut issues and illness. People who use acid blockers have three times the likelihood of getting pneumonia.

Is it doable? The Plant Paradox Program is broken up into three phases, claiming that within six weeks' time you can be reaping the rewards of a healthy gut. It sounds like the perfect Lenten regime, though I probably shouldn't wait that long to actually do it. After that you can add some lectins back into your diet (TOMATOES!) in small amounts, with the skins and seeds removed.

Is it affordable? I have to say, with the amount of food you are asked to cut completely out of your diet, yes. Many of those foods I've already eliminated from my weekly diet (save for Sundays) because of their high calories/high carb count. 

If you've stuck with me till now during this information overload, I'm guessing you've had stomach or other health issues and would like to find a real solution. If you're like me, you've already heard a little about many of these things and had suspicions that something was just not right in what we've been told about health food. It is still overwhelming, nonetheless. I'm at the point of reinventing how I think about food, and easing into this slowly. My will is balking at giving up my favorite foods...even if they are killing me.

My stats for the past month (It's been a month already!):

What I've lost:

71 LBS total since April 26, 2017 (one day before giving birth to Adeline)
52 LBS of that total since January 1, 2018
11 LBS since August 30, 2018

Scale Sunday: Week 4

You may have noticed something a little different around here. I decided to modify the name of my blog a little. Hopefully this won't cause any issues in finding it.

Today is super busy, so I must type fast. It's my Grandpa's 95th birthday and we need to leave by 11:00 this morning for his birthday party. Immediately after we have to run home and change, and head back out for Mass. So I spent yesterday afternoon baking multiple batches of cookies for it, and I didn't have a crumb! Woohoo! I usually can't make it through the first batch hot out of the oven without taste testing a couple. It did help that it was an Ember day (day of fasting and partial abstinence in the Catholic Church).

My Grandpa and Grandma Langreck with their brood, plus first grandchild (Grandpa is holding him). My Mom is the pretty young lady with the glasses to the left of my Grandma.

I pushed myself harder this week. This is when the real frustration kicks in: when I push, and fight, and tell myself no repeatedly, and run daily, and I don't drop a pound. It's also when I learn the most about myself, and all the illusions fall away. I saw clearly why I'm doing all this, and I realized in a way I've been expecting instant gratification. I understand there are good things happening to my body as I discipline it. But I can't see them. I tell myself it's for my health, to feel better, to be able to do all that I need to do as mama, teacher, nurse. And it is--but mostly for the way it makes me feel. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. To not feel embarrassed by the way I look when I run into someone I know in the store. While I know most people probably feel that way just a little, I can't help feeling like it's vanity. So I go back to work on the mental aspect of this change, throwing out thoughts of what society sees and thinks, and work on loving the body God gave me, and being thankful for all that. After all, this body is a vehicle to get through this life and nothing here will stay the same.

There is something I stumbled across that I started researching this past week. It's something I feel will make a world of difference, and I want to share with you all.

I mentioned at the beginning of this leg of my journey that I had experienced a lot of gut issues, and some people had suggested I may have a leaky gut. The Gaps diet was also suggested as a way to heal my gut. That thought has been in the back of my mind this whole time, but when you research the Gaps diet, it's pretty rigorous. I'm not sure how sustainable that would be for me at this time in my life. In most diets one thing usually rises to the top as "the bad guy", such as carbs, or calories, or fat--despite most of us knowing it's a combination of things. Last week an ad popped up on my Instagram feed with a video of a doctor talking about his research into the correlation between health issues, weight-loss, and your diet. A lot of it clicked for me. I'll try to summarize what I got out of all this in the short time I've had to look into it.

The doctor is Steven Gundry, formerly a top cardiothoracic surgeon in the Unites States. Once 70 pounds overweight despite being on a vegan diet and working out regularly, he set out to find out why what should have been working wasn't. Dr. Gundry does some major name dropping in his pitch, including the singer, Usher, and life coach Tony Robbins--which automatically made me skeptical. I'm not the type of person who buys beef from the trunk of a travelling salesman just because he has a list of all our neighbors who have. As I listened to him go on detailing his research, I started to do some of my own: fact checking, reviews, testimonials, and actual medical studies. It appeared his theories on diet carried some weight. I was still skeptical, thinking that he would eventually ask me to buy his "life changing book" or "join my diet club today for the low price of $____" just to learn what the simple thing is that he found he needed to eliminate from his diet. I was wrong again! He explained his findings in this video. Of course, he also markets his own supplements and books...it would probably be even fishier if he wasn't making money off of this somehow.

Basically, certain foods we eat contain little proteins called lectins. Studies have linked lectins to inflammation which causes heart disease, cancer, depression, and autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease (which my Grandpa Mahoney had), diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. They have been found to cause red blood cells to clump together, and are considered antinutrients because they can block your body's absorption of other nutrients. As with most things in this world, lectins are also beneficial in certain ways. But it's how we use these things that determines good or bad results.

Dr. Gundry explains that lectins have the ability to destroy the lining of your GI tract, creating tiny holes that allow endotoxins, or bacteria (waste) to leak out (leaky gut). This bacteria is then free to spread through your body. If it enters your joints you get joint pain and inflammation. If it enters your upper GI tract it causes heart burn and indigestion. If it enters your blood stream you get sepsis. This bacteria is fought by your body in the same way that viruses are, which leaves your brain on "threat level red" the whole time. Your body can fight bacteria successfully for a while, but eventually it wears out. You are left with headaches, brain fog, fatigue, and illness. Most medications simply mask symptoms without ever healing the problem. Changing your diet can heal a leaky gut and reverse many health issues.

If you're like me, you've wondered why are so many people getting sick from gluten? Is it a scam? A health fad? I never thought it was a fad, but maybe some people were getting paranoid for no reason? Are we just learning it's bad and causing these health issues, or is there something different in the kind of food we're eating now? Why is there so much conflicting news about what we should and shouldn't eat? Dr. Gundry does a little explaining about the history of food. How tomatoes and eggplants weren't part of human diets until Columbus brought them back from the New World. How brown bread and whole wheat foods gained popularity in the 1950's, while until then the brown husks had been removed before using, and how gluten-related illnesses increased from there. So what ingestibles contain lectins? He mentioned a few:

• Gluten (obviously)
• tomatoes (*gasp*)
• beans
• whole grain wheat
• eggplants
• antacids
• OTC pain killers

I started asking myself some serious questions: can I live without tomatoes? Once you heal your gut, can you occasionally eat things that contain lectins? How sustainable is this diet? How expensive is this going to get? And mostly, can I keep on living like I have been, constantly fighting feeling sick because of something I ate? I had to do more research. And so, calling myself a sucker, I headed on over to Amazon, and ordered Dr. Gundry's book, "The Plant Paradox Cookbook". The majority of the reviews were favorable, and mentioned that the beginning of the cookbook contained a good description/explanation of the diet instead of buying his other book ("The Plant Paradox") as well.

This is currently the stage I'm at with all this. Looking at the recipes will shed a lot of light on how sustainable and affordable all this will be. But, for someone who has a lot of autoimmune and other health issues (like my husband, who I hope to drag on board with some of this) I can't imagine it could be worse than the pharmacopoeia of drugs it takes to keep on kicking every day.

Scale Sunday: Week 3

This week has been the best yet in terms of will power. Like I said before, if I can just keep in mind that it gets so much better, all the cravings are manageable. It helps to tell myself that I can have whatever it is that sounds so good to me, but I have to wait until _______ time (insert a splurge day, or earlier the next day, or another appropriate time). I find when I do that, often the craving has disappeared or my will power has returned in full force and I can hold off having a treat even longer. I've succeeded in completely eliminating the middle-of-the-night binges by telling myself I can have whatever treat it is I want for breakfast. By breakfast, I could care less.

I've also reworked my strategy about splurge days. If you followed along during the first leg of this year's healthful living journey, during which I lost 48 pounds, you were witness to what my weekends became. Toward the end they were nothing but a binge on everything that I had craved during the week, which left me scrambling all week long to recover from and make up for it. It does no good for your will power to completely disregard it for any length of time. This time the things I'm allowing myself on Sundays have been thoughtful indulgences, still reigned in by moderation. Monday morning and the scale has been thanking me.

This sandwich was last Sunday's indulgence, along with a couple handfuls of my favorite "chips": Fritos Honey BBQ twists. (There has been a bag and a half of them in the pantry for the last two weeks, you guys! They rarely last a couple days, normally!) The sandwich was built of honey walnut bread, oven-roasted turkey sprinkled with garlic pepper, cheese, and lettuce, with (unmeasured!) mayo and southwest mustard. It was the best thing I had tasted in a long time, and didn't trigger an ounce of guilt.

I had a test this week when friends and fellow homeschoolers came to visit mid-week. My dear friend works in a cupcake shop (how did I get so lucky?!) and brought two boxes of cupcakes to share. I also made tacos for lunch...another favorite of mine. In times past this would have been a major stumbling block for me, after which I would have had to give myself a "brush-yourself-off-and-get-back-on-the-wagon" speech. I allowed myself two tacos and one cupcake, something I had firmly decided beforehand. Setting my allowances mentally took away the tendency I have to overthink my food choices, and reason a way into having "just one more". If I am this ruthless with my children when I say no, for their own good, I should definitely be with myself as well. The old adage "practice what you preach" comes to mind here. The other box of cupcakes that we didn't touch has remained unscathed in the freezer until today. I will share, and I'll limit myself again, even though it is "splurge day".

I did a little quick math, and I determined that if I keep up with the trend of losing two pounds a week, I'll be in line to lose 24 pounds by Thanksgiving. Not quite at the goal I had set, but close. I have one pound to lose to get back to my lowest weight this year.

Scale Sunday: Week 2

Sometimes I sit and imagine what my system would be saying if it had a voice. I suppose my own is as close as it gets, and it'd probably sound something like this:

"Nooooo! We're staaaaaarrrrrrrrvvvving! There's a gram of fat, grab that. A carb! Stash it some place special! Huuuunnnnngggrrrrryyyy."

"Oooo nevermind. Mmmm chocolate. Mmmm more chocolate. Uuuuuhhh so much chocolate. This isn't right. Bad bad bad! What do we do with it all?! Aaaaah!"

I could've saved all that and just written how confused it must be, but you would've missed all the fun of dramatization. You're welcome!

I'm still stuck in the stage of impulsive cramming, but it's getting better. Aidan made brownies last week...thick, chewy-around-the-edge and gooey in the middle brownies. One of the worst things to have around when I'm trying to build better habits. When he asked to make them I said yes because he loves to bake, and all of them love to eat. I think next time I'll try to compromise with carrot and apple muffins.

I have found that sipping on a hot drink in the evenings helps curb my end-of-the-day desire to graze. Vanilla chai tea with a little creamer is my go-to drink, but it has just enough caffeine in it to keep me from sleeping well. I'll have to try to find a suitable caffeine-free alternative.

I found a new tool that I'm excited to share with you! I've said before that I don't like using apps to track my health because it takes longer to log something on my phone than to just jot it down in my food journal. This app has changed that! MyFitnessPal had way too many ads and articles attached to it, and wasn't very easy for me to navigate. Maybe it was me subconsciously rebelling against what everyone else was doing? I don't know. At any rate, I still had to look up calories of foods for my journal whenever I didn't have them memorized. It's also quicker because I don't have to do math before I eat again. My time: 1; mental math skills: 0. One of the things I looked up the other day had an add for Nutritionix Track, which was advertised as a "free calorie calculator" so I decided to try it. It is so much more!

It's a lot like MyFitnessPal wherein you add the exact foods you ate that are already in their database, or you can create a custom food to add. Similarly, it tracks saturated and total fat consumed, cholesterol, sodium, carbs, sugars, fiber, protein, and vitamins and minerals in the daily summary. I love charts and graphs, and the pie chart at the bottom paints a pretty clear picture where most my calories are going. Carbs. Darn you, Betty Crocker. This is going to be a game changer for me in balancing my nutritional needs, and it appeals to my competitive nature. I'm going to beat the me from yesterday!

On the dashboard page I can see, much like in my food journal, the rundown of what I've eaten. Not only that, I can track how much water I drank. I often forget where I'm at on ounces, and this helps remind me to grab another drink. At the top of the dashboard page is a colored bar measuring where you're at in your daily caloric intake, telling how many calories you've consumed and how many you have left. The number in the middle tracks calories burned (and adds that amount to the calories you have left for the day). Exercise is also tracked on the dashboard page. If you go over your goal (which you determine) the line turns red. Your weigh-in is also on the dashboard.

In your preferences tab you set your age, height, weight, and sex, and whether you want to lose or maintain your weight. From there it suggests a daily caloric goal for you to accomplish that. There you can also connect a Fitbit to the app. (All you MyFitnessPal groupies are probably rolling yours eyes at me about now. I see you, it's ok. I've never claimed to be tech savvy...or even in tune with any of it!)

The stats tab tracks how many days a month you've kept on top of your diet, % of days greens were eaten, and a weight graph so you can see your progress.

One of the most refreshing things about Track: there's none of the "Stage 2 Obese" or "Morbidly Obese" categorizing. I'm a pretty solid person and I have never fit into the suggested weight ranges for my 5'1" frame, even at my fittest. I appreciate not being shamed for the way God made me!

Scale Sunday: Week 1

Our desktop computer is out for repair again, so I'm limiting myself to short posts to save time. We had 11 kids running around here one night who managed to switch everything on our monitor to black and white, and nothing Eli and I have tried has worked to switch it back. It makes blogging on it a challenge, and typing on a phone is really not ideal when you have carpal tunnel. My longer post I was preparing for Saturday will have to wait.

This week was a lot like most beginning weeks of a diet change for me. I procrastinated the first couple days, sorta kinda watching how much I ate but still taking a piece of lasagna, a couple breadsticks...no salad. I made the best baked mac and cheese I've ever had on Friday. I gained a pound. And that was the final motivator. 

At nights my will power went into a coma. 2 am found me once hovered over the freezer inhaling spoonfuls of butter pecan ice cream. A 12:45 am trip to the bathroom wreaked havoc on a bag of Doritos. Why is this junk in my house? Ah yes, because no one else here gives a hoot about eating healthy!

Hunger. When my will power prevailed I struggled with hunger. There are some diets that promise you can lose weight without feeling hungry. I'm pretty sure I'd have to exercise 15 of my 17 waking hours daily to lose weight and not feel hungry. Filling up on protein and fiber helps. I drink tons and tons of water, which does not help. I have been completely full of water and my stomach was still growling. I cannot reduce my carbs and limit calories without feeling hungry, at least during the beginning. So right now I'm in the "brainwashing" stage, telling myself that hunger feels good, it's a sign that good things are happening. I know it gets better, it gets easier, and that keeps me going. 

 

Habits. Scientific studies have determined that almost half of our everyday actions are unconscious habits. It has also determined that it takes an average of 66 days to form new habits, though different studies say the range can be as wide as 18-254 days, depending on the person and the circumstances. I've determined that: 1.) I must take longer than average to break old habits, or 2.) food, eating, and the comfort it gives (addiction) don't fall into a tidy little fact box. Really, what in life is ever neat and tidy? 

Exercise this week was yard work and a crazed sprint across the yard when the boy who was swinging Addie pushed too hard and flipped her upside down (thank goodness for safety belts in swings!!!) She was fine, just dizzy. Week two of school had me feeling cabin fever prematurely, and I needed to run outside for fear of going completely batty. I decided to push mow parts of the yard that have gone neglected the past month, and crawl around on my hands and knees pulling weeds (usually the weed wacker's job). The garden is nice and clean now and I regained the retrievable parts of my sanity. There's a beautiful enchantment about being outdoors that keeps all thoughts of food at bay. 

New challenge, same old battered scale. 

Scale Sunday: Renewed Weight Loss Challenge

I let a month of Saturdays pass without posting a thing recently. I occasionally spent a bit of time in the mornings writing, but mostly Saturdays have become such marathon days of unfinished projects, making food, refilling the cupboards, and cleaning that I usually don't realize it's Saturday until I stop to take a breather.

We now have one week of school under our belt. The cooler months are creeping around the corner, heralded by the honking geese flocking over our roof in the early mornings and the prematurely golden willow leaves floating to the ground. The boys are eating us out of house and home--why does brain work make us so hungry?--and much of my free time is spent meal planning (in my small way) and making food (in a big way).

Food. Cold months. Sedentary activities (an oxymoron?) A dangerous combination. If I hadn't been so busy this summer I probably would have gained more than seven pounds back. That's the number: seven. I've been mulling over my lazy diet recently--more like being slapped in the face with it when I try on clothes--and trying to muster the energy to do something about it. I could not bring myself to write one more stale Scale Saturday post.

I've been sick a lot this last month, which is a huge reason why I want to get back to healthy eating. I've had a record number of migraines and gastrointestinal issues lately. My few feeble attempts to climb "back on the wagon" have resulted in exaggerated symptoms: nausea, light-headedness, severe mood swings. I have no doubt it's partly due to my confused and offended blood sugar and imbalances in nutrition. Also lurking in the back of my mind is the thought that perhaps the food choices I make during my "diets" have wreaked havoc on my system. During my last major weight-loss three years ago I developed an intolerance to avocados. And I love avocados! But no taste is worth that pain. Maybe I've developed other sensitivities this time around. In the past I was advised to try the GAPS diet to heal a leaky gut. I don't know, but I think it's worth looking into. Let this be a warning against yo-yo dieting! I will always struggle with moderation, but hope I can eventually get on a more even keel with less dramatic highs and lows.

For this third leg of my journey I decided to give Scale Saturday a makeover. Scale Saturday will be rechristened Scale Sunday, because the finality of weighing in Saturday mornings ultimately morphs into two splurge days, engulfing my entire weekend. And nobody needs that. I also have no desire for this part of my life to monopolize my blog, so I'll reserve Saturday mornings for non-weight related posts. My health-themed posts also take much less time to write, which fits perfectly into my Sunday morning routine (before I begin preparation for Mass, which is on Sunday afternoons).

It's so easy to be hard on ourselves, and I want you all to know that right now I'm not angry with myself, not frustrated, and especially not beating myself up over my mediocre summer. My husband put things in perspective for me recently (and frankly, unexpectedly) when he said, "You're only 22 pounds heavier than when we got married. And you've had five kids. 22 pounds is all!" 22 pounds seems like quite a manageable number to lose. So I'll push myself  just a bit farther.

My goal this time is to lose 27 pounds...by Thanksgiving. I've had a long enough break that it should be manageable in three months time. Here we go.

Scale Saturday 2018: Week 28

This aging thing is a bit terrifying at times. It seems I blink and whole chunks of time have disappeared. This summer in particular has been speeding by, and I often feel as though I do nothing but rush from one project to the next.

I weighed myself very little this month. I suppose I'll have to step up the accountability as the colder months settle in, but for now this is working. This slower approach to my fitness goals has been therapeutic for my spirit--much less anxiety inducing, but I've had moments of frustration that I'm still not where I'd like to be. It's been a lesson in patience, which is something I need. You may wonder what the point is in posting an update at all because of this plateau I'm on. It's because...well, I'm not done yet! I'm comfortable for now where I'm at, but this journey isn't over.

One major victory I've won this month (and this may have some of you scratching your heads): I've eliminated all sugar in my coffee! It seems like such a little thing, but it was one of the hardest for me to let go of. A year ago I was dumping two heaping tablespoons of the nasty stuff in my cup. I managed to cut that amount in half back in January, but I couldn't give it up entirely. The Monday after my last Scale Saturday post I decided to cut it out cold turkey. It's amazing how much better I feel not having a shot of sugar right away in the morning, and it helps keep the sugar cravings at bay.

One thing I've become addicted to in it's place: cream. Not creamer, or half and half, but real honest to goodness cream. I bought some to make a rhubarb custard pie a couple weeks ago and used the rest in my coffee. I tried going back to the ole powdered creamer--I mean, I'm going to have to eventually, because wow cream is expensive--but it's just not the same.

I've just been enjoying as much as I can of this season of plenty which never seems to last long enough. Long days are spent picking goodies among itchy foliage surrounded by ravenous insects, and then enjoying the bounty. We've been eating fried zucchini like it's going out of style. I suppose I'll have to find another way to prepare large quantities of zucchini soon. Eli has started getting that mule-at-the-turnpike look when he comes home from work to find me over a pan of sizzling breaded cucurbits. "Do you know how fattening they are?" he worries as he polishes off his third helping. "Meh. They're vegetables." I answer. But really, I don't care. Zucchini season will soon be over and for the next 10 months we'll have to resort to the stash I've frozen.

So for this month's update, I again have succeeded in maintaining my weight, keeping it within two pounds of my lowest. This speaks volumes to the importance of moderation, because while I'm allowing foods I would not normally eat during my strict "dieting", I have continued to watch portion sizes and refrain from taking seconds. Cheers!

Crockpot Tomato Turkey Vegetable Soup

This is another one of my "freezer meals". It smelled heavenly while mixing it up, but I have no idea what it tastes like! If any of you try this before we break a batch out of the freezer, feel free to share your verdict with me!

Here's the finished soup! I browned the turkey and then mixed everything in a large bowl.

With everything but the turkey added.

Freezer ready!

Crockpot Tomato Turkey Vegetable Soup
Yields: About 6 servings?

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 3 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1 lb. zucchini, diced (3-4 small zucchini or one large)
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 can (15 oz.) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (can substitute Great Northern or white Navy beans)
• 1 28 oz. can tomato soup (can substitute 2 15 oz. cans)
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tsp. minced garlic (2 cloves or sub 1 tsp. garlic powder)
• 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 32 oz. carton chicken or beef broth (I used beef, it's what I had on hand)

Combine all ingredients in a Crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours, until carrots are soft.

If freezing or you're short on time, brown turkey before adding to the rest of the ingredients, and put Crockpot on high for 3-4 hours until carrots are cooked.