To meat or not to meat?

I am in no way going to ever become a vegetarian, however, I have never really been a big meat person (especially red meat). Typically though we do eat a lot of hamburger. Since I've been on my food kick I've been watching lots of documentaries, reading articles, etc. Just trying to get myself informed. There are two documentaries I'd like to share with you.





I do recommend both of these to watch, as they are about very different things. My favorite documentary is still Hungry For Change though.  Hungry For Change and FoodMatters are both very informative and not so biased. They are more about giving you the information you need so you can start to eat better, feel better, and become educated. Food Inc, while still informative, was (in my opinion) highly biased and didn't always give you a true interpretation. But, I still learned things and more importantly it started to make me think and ask questions. Where does our food come from? What is in my food? How many nutrients am I really getting?  It opened my eyes and made me think about things that I've never really thought about before.


After watching Food Inc., it is pretty safe to say that I will never think about hamburger the same way again. Not that I will never eat it again, but now I feel at least a little more informed. We were going to make the switch from ground meat to ground turkey anyway, but now I feel solidified in my decision. After watching the film I also did some research to see if I could back up the information they provided. One thing was that they said if we fed cattle grass instead of corn then they would produce less E. Coli. I found a few articles/studies that contradicted this and said cattle will have E.Coli in their tract no matter what they eat. They also hit on a company called Monsanto and upon further research I also found out that they left out a lot of information in their stories. Anyway, my point is to not believe everything you see and to do your homework first.

I also found this interesting news story about "meat glue"

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=8638238


My food changes are still going well, I had a healthy choice fudge bar thing last night and I didn't feel guilty about it. It's ok to eat some non-healthy things every once in a while and even still I have lost 4.4 lbs in the past week so go me!! So exciting that you start to see results in the beginning. Makes me feel good in knowing that I am making a change and my body is noticing the changes too. I am pretty good about juicing every day and eating lots of raw veggies. We have a salad as our main dish every night for dinner and then have a small portion of meat as our side. As a society we have it backwards on our portions and what we eat. Salads are a good, easy way to get so many raw veggies in since you can put whatever you want in them and you are still getting leafy greens, which is very important. The salad dressing is good to help mask the taste of some you maybe don't like as much too!  But don't drown your salad....lots of dressings out there have a ton of sugar in them.

I know quite a few of you out there are reading my posts, so I was thinking of doing a post that had lots of tips/tricks/ideas?  What do you think? Am I actually informing anyone or am I just ranting for myself, haha? Let me know! :-)

No juicing today...just an update.

So I was going to do a juicing blog today, but for some reason I am very tired with a pretty bad headache so I'm going to do my blog in a couple of days. It's gonna take some effort and I'm just not in the mood today, so sorry. :(  But I did want to do an update at least. Today is technically day 3 of my two week super health splurge. Basically the plan is to have a smoothie every day for breakfast, juice sometime during the day (or maybe even multiple glasses) snacks (nuts, yogurt, veggies, fruits, etc.) and dinner either has chicken or turkey paired with lots of veggies. Salads are good and a good way to get lots of different types of veggies in, or just whatever. But only veggies as a side. Very little sugar and carbs these next two weeks. The biggest difference after these two weeks is that I'll allow some rice maybe two nights a week and every so often I will allow myself to eat something fatty or a really yummy dessert.

But so far, so good. I can tell my stomach is shrinking and I'm not craving things too badly. I am still having sugar during the day in my coconut milk, yogurt, salad dressing, and a few other minor things and I thinking knowing that is helping me not want to eat ice cream or chocolate or something. I feel like I have a much more mental grip now and it's really helping me. My sodium intake has been very minimal too, although I've never had a big problem with that in the past.

Overall though, I'm very happy that I'm finally doing this. And I'm REALLY happy that I WANT to do this now and that it's easier to do. It does help that I'm home a lot right now, so I'm using that to my advantage! Ugh, well I'm not feeling so hot so I'm gonna go lay down. But yay, healthy food!!

Katie

Diet? Reboot? What?

So to start off our changes we are going to do a reboot. I don't want to call it a diet because those are temporary and I don't want a temporary change. I want a change that will stick with me forever. Our reboot was inspired by two different documentaries. Both of them are very different and give lots of info.

Hungry For Change http://www.hungryforchange.tv/  This one is much more informative and gives lots of simple advice that is easy to start.  Available on Netflix or $3.99 on Amazon.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/  A much more inspiration film, this follows the story of a man fasting for 60 days. Available on Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

There are lots of other documentaries out there, but so far these are the only two I have watched. They have really helped Ty and myself get some motivation and figure out what is going to work best for us. We have already been juicing for about a week (will have another post all about juicing in a few days) and it's turning out to be a pretty good experience. Our reboot is going to consist of lots of juice, smoothies, and veggie rich dinners. The goal is to cut pretty much all carbs and sugar. We want to try this reboot for two weeks and see how it goes. I know I'll never cut fats, sugars and junk food out completely, and that's not my goal. I want to change my diet to be filled with large amounts of raw foods and smaller amounts of crap.

Right now my house is FILLED with tons of fresh veggies and fruits and the good news is I've actually been eating them consistently and Brendan seems to be a fan of most of it too (that in itself is an awesome thing!!).  When I'm hungry and want to snack I've been more likely to grab something healthy, and although some of it is by force, part of me is actually wanting to eat it instead of chips or cookies. I'm hoping that this reboot will start to change my taste buds and my cravings and eating greens and veggies will be something that I WANT to do instead of something I HAVE to do.

Tonight I'll be eating one more piece of my anniversary cake and then it's going in the garbage. Over time I plan on throwing things away and replacing them with better, healthier options (like margarine...I am NEVER buying that stuff again. Butter tastes better anyway. :) ).

See ya later, cake! I don't feel quite so guilty throwing this away since it was free, haha.

  Katie

How many times have I tried this now?

Over the past 2 years I have tried over and over to make changes, go on diets, lose weight, whatever. All of which, have obviously failed. I'd lose a few pounds, feel a little better and then something would happen in life (as usual) and I would lose my motivation and happiness and sink back to where I was before. Well, I'm here to say I'm tired of it. Up until January I had kept my weight at least steady averaging around 168-170 lbs. A far cry from where I want to be, but at least I wasn't gaining. Well in January 2013 I became very depressed, lazy and anti-social. I started gaining weight and wasn't even realizing it till one day I stepped on the scale and saw that now I weighed 185. I stood there, quite literally, for about 2 minutes staring at that number in awe. How did this happen? What had I done? I had at least stayed at my weight for over a year and now I just gain 15 pounds? It crushed me, and it's hard to admit this all out loud, but that was my final wake up call. I had to make lifestyle changes. I need to educate myself and become active and not go on a dreaded diet, but make healthier choices overall. Change my lifestyle. My weight isn't the only thing pushing me towards this either. I am tired, All. The. Time. My back is in pain at least once sometime during the day, and although I do have scoliosis, my lack of movement doesn't help my lower back muscles any. I know I need more nutrients, less sugar, more activity, and make better eating decisions.

I've done a lot of homework and I've found ways that will actually help me transform myself. Things that are easy and I can start right away. I've watched documentaries and YouTube videos, as well as read countless things online. I want to share all my information with you and share this journey with you. I feel I am becoming more and more aware of what's going on and informed which is quite literally changing the way I think about food. I finally feel like I am going to be making permanent changes and that is finally giving me to guts to sit here and blog about it. I think blogging is a good way to sit back and reflect on how the journey is going, what works and what needs to change. Maybe all of you can give me motivation. Maybe I can even give some of your motivation. Luckily, Ty is on board with everything I'm wanting to do and we are doing this together. Changing our lives together.

Honestly, this is going to be a challenge for me. I'm going to try very hard to take many pictures, share lots of info and blog as regularly as possible. I'm kinda nervous if I'm going to succeed or not....I'm really hoping that I do. Good news is, right now I'm not working and I'm home a lot so this should be easier to do. I still have some job type things I'll be doing, but nothing that will keep me really busy. I'm trying to use this time off as an advantage so that I can't use the "I'm too busy" excuse anymore. If I can make changes now over the summer, then in August when I start working again it will be a lot easier to transition these changes when I'm a lot busier. Well, wish me good luck!!!!






Katie