Do You Know What's in Your Food? Part One

The infamous quote "You are what you eat" speaks volumes to what we are experiencing now, in our culture.  The weight issue is secondary, in my opinion, to the extremley poor health we are all facing.  Most people are jaded to think that we are healthier and living longer than ever!  But that is simply not true.  100 years ago, people were experiencing extraordinary health well into old age.  With the exception of indoor plumbing and emergency medicine, I venture to say that we are not healthy - we are living lives of desperation and its hard to know what to do about it. I have come to a place of empowerment with food and I hope that by giving you the right information, you will too.


What are we eating?
Do you want to know? Good. Then you have come to the right place! It might get a little ugly, but don't worry - there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

What you need to know is that the most important item to look at when you are shopping is the ingredients list. Why? Because calories are not important, fat is not important, even sugar is not important - what is important is where those things are coming from. What is the source?  You want to put real food into your body and much of what is in our diet is made of chemicals and additives.  For example, I was doing the dishes a few weeks ago, and there was dill pickle relish on a spoon in the sink.  As the water rinsed over the little pickle pieces they turned from green to white.  Being the serial label reader I am, I rushed to get the jar from the fridge and chuckled as I read "Yellow 6."  I often wonder why they, the food producers, think that white pickle relish isnt good enough.  That is a question I still have not found an answer to, though I suspect it was the idea of a very clever marketing rep who knows that the human brain is drawn to colors.  Most of our food system is all about money.  Thats why you need to be one step ahead.

When you go to your pantry and grab an item, it is required by the FDA to have a label that looks like this:

When I shop, I literally look at the ingredients list on EVERYTHING.  I have learned never to be decieved by something that looks ok.  Even canned veggies can potentially have loads of junk in them!  What we are eating is making us sick.  Our bodies were not made to process red dye 40, hydroginated fat, and anti caking materials found in cheeses.  What I am about to tell you is going to change your relationship with food for the better. 

How did we get here?
Food has been preserved since the beginning of man and fire.  Smoked meats have long been a staple of our diets, to help sustain us through the winter.  Housewives started leaning on processed foods in the 30's when they needed to work to help support their families during the depression, and there wasnt time for the traditional cooking methods that had been handed down for generations.  At that time there wasn't as much added to the foods and the processed foods were relativley pure.  Over time however, manufacturers were looking for cheap ways to make foods last longer and they started including things such as hydroginated fats, MSG, and food colorings.  In fact, since 1918 seventeen different food dyes have been approved and then banned.  

The First Step
Before you concern yourself with the HUGE task of educating yourself about the thousands of man made ingredients allowed to be injected into our foods, start your quest to be healthy by staying to the perimeter of the grocery store.  Most good things can be found on the outer walls.  In my store, I first visit the bakery, then the produce department, then dairy, eggs, and finally to the meat department.  You can pretty much sustain your family on those foods.  Try it next time you shop, challenge yourself.  If you don't bring processed foods into your home, chances are, you wont eat them!

WHY are processed foods "bad?" 
#1 – Minerals are stripped out, such as 98% of the magnesium being stripped out of wheat when it’s milled and bleached into white flour.


#2 – Phytonutrients are destroyed. As much as 90% of the phytonutrient content is lost during processing. (And remember, phytonutrients are the disease-fighting medicines found in foods.)

#3 – The physical properties of foods are artificially altered in a way that makes them dangerous. The homogenization of milk, for example, alters the fat molecules in milk, giving them properties that contribute to heart disease and clogged arteries. Partially-hydrogenated oils are also the result of a physical alteration that makes food dangerous for your health.


So if "you are what you eat" I guess the question is, what do you want to be?  A whole organic living creature that functions as nature intended?  Or a walking creation of a scientist that has to take a pill for almost every life system in you that is failing, just to function?


FoodFacts
Food Dye Information
Processed Soy

Delicious!

My menu for the week involves 5 ingredient foods that are prepared in 15 minutes or less.

I can't wait to eat!!!!

• 
  
  Beefy Corn &; Black Bean Chili with Cheesy Cheddar Corn Bread
• 
  
  Pear Walnut Sandwiches on Cinnamon Raisin Bread
• 
  
  Chicken Caesar Salad with Grilled Garlic Baguettes
• 
  
  Almond Crusted Tilapia with Creamy Mashed Red Potatoes
• 
  
  Mustard Molasses Flank Steak with Sweet Potatoes topped with Orange Thyme Butter
• 
  
  Curried Pork Chops with Chai Rice
• 
  
  Skillet Grilled Ham with Glazed Pineapple and a Salad
• 
  
  Panko and Buttermilk “Fried” Chicken with Crispy Baked Home Fries

Cooking Light Recipies

Slug!!!

I am so sluggish these past few days! I think its my hormones. The few times that I have made it to the gym, I just whine and suck through the whole workout. LOL. I know I owe you a blog on label reading, and trust me - its in the works! Perhaps my focus can be on writing about working out this week instead of actually working out. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!

I am happy to say that I am still loosing weight, at a steady and slow pace. That is exactly my goal. 10 lbs in January was above and beyond! Yippieeeee!!!!

:)

<3

A major milestone...

I am so pleased to share yet another important milestone with you. The girl who used to smoke ciggerettes and make fun of jocks, the girl who ONLY wanted to do yoga 3 years ago because she just wasn't the excercise type, the girl who HATED cardio when she became the weight lifting type (and struggled to finish 5 min of cardio)- has just completed 70 min of challenging and constant elliptical and directly afterwards killed her legs to the point of failure on weights with no problems whatsoever. :D. It is truly amazing what one can accomplish when we decide to throw our limitations out the window and just do whatever it takes to be who we want to be.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

Keep a bunch of already grilled chicken breasts in your fridge for quick snacks.  You'll have to grill some every few days because it doesnt keep longer than that but you will be GLAD you had good lean protein instead of grabbing a handful of potato chips!  Throw it on a salad, mix with some mayo and lemon and eat atop a tomato, or just grab a piece of chicken and eat it by itself. 

Why the Scale Lies

by Renee Cloe,

ACE Certified Personal Trainer We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.



Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.



Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.



Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.



Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.



Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.



Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.



This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.



Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.



If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.

http://www.healthdiscovery.net/articles/scale_lies.htm

Confessions of a Sugar Junkie

When I was a little girl, I used to eat brown sugar melted in a pot with butter every.single.day. I'd come home from school and binge out on sweets. When I was a teenager, my boyfriend KNEW that I needed purple skittles on a daily basis. (Sometimes multiple times a day.)
I was a total sugar junkie on a collision course with diabetes. My body looked great! I stayed a size 2 until I got pregnant and then 1 year after my son was born, while still binging on sweets, I was a size zero! Two more children and I still lost weight rather rapidly. People would say "I hate you. You can eat whatever you want and stay skinny." People truly hated me. Sugar was still damaging me though. I think that being "skinnyfat" is one of the most dangerous body types to have! I was severely depressed at times, had crazy mood swings, and at one point in my mid twenties, was diagnosed as severely bipolar and put on medication. When that medication caused me to gain weight for the first time in my life (30 lbs in 3 months) I weaned myself off of it and vowed to get to the bottom of my sugar addiction.

It is said that sugar is more addictive as heroin. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I would quit for 3 weeks and then gorge myself for a week. Then I could feel myself need to detox so I would get really healthy again for 3 weeks and the cycle continued. It was awful! I was not until I watched the video "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan that I started to feel better about my sugar cravings. The film really puts into perspective what the function of sugar is in our biology. Essentially, the theory is that our desire for sugar is innate and it stems from when we were primitive and all we were concerned with was getting enough calories to survive. Since sugary fruits tend to contain more calories than savory flavored veggies, we were supposed to be drawn to them. The advent of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup has obviously corrupted that natural, god given instinct. Just knowing that made me feel like it was ok, sweet was ok. I made my peace with sweets, blessed them, and sent them on their way. Sugar in large refined quantity was no longer serving me.

Quitting sugar was harder than quitting a 10 year cigarette habit. I really needed to understand what sugar was, how and why it affected my body, and what translates to sugar in the body. Since my dad is diabetic, I have a ton of great information about that. White bread, white rice, white potatoes, corn, peas, candy, pie, cake, cookies, WINE, all alcohol = ethanol = sugar.

Another great help to me on my journey was the Suzanne Somers Diet. (I never thought I would say that. LOL. Really, I kind of feel like a dork but hear me out!) She asserts that increased fats and decreased sugar was how you overcome that addiction, and loose weight. I have heard the "increase your fat content" argument before; I decided to entertain it this time, mostly since it was dessert in this case. ;) So I whipped up her chocolate pie which is cocoa, heavy cream, and I used agave nectar which has an extremely low glycemic index, and just ate a slice every night to curb my need for sweets. I didn’t overeat because it was terribly rich. I added a handful of almonds into my diet every day. I don't love almonds but the benefit of eating them is too good to pass up. I cook almost everything with olive oil. Avocados with salt and pepper are wonderful! All of these are examples of healthy fats that you can eat to help you curb that sugar craving. Keep almonds in the car for a quickie "avoid the drive-through" snack.

The last point I want to make is sleep. As the mother of 3 children who LOVE to wake me up in the middle of the night, I know that sleep is no laughing matter. When I don’t get enough or when my sleep is broken many times in one night, I totally want to binge out on carbs and sugar the next day. Either that or I want coffee with caffeine. Then when I crash from that, I want sugar and carbs. I felt the most rested for a few weeks when my husband was away and I just went to bed at 8:00 with my kids and stayed in bed for 11 hours. Then if they broke my sleep I had plenty of time to recover it. I don't do that anymore but I would if I was smart! LOL.

There are many obstacles on the path to quitting sugar, but with a few tools and some good information, you can beat it. It is a natural desire. Sugar in and of itself is very good for you. Processed foods are riddled with sugar in many different forms. If you shop in the middle isles of the grocery store at all, you are consuming a TON of sugar without even knowing it. Heinz Ketchup, for example, has not only high fructose corn syrup but also just regular corn syrup totaling 4g of sugar in 1 Tablespoon! The reason that is significant is because when you consume a little bit of sugar (and look how well it’s disguised!) in the form of HFCS (High fructose corn syrup), it completely shuts the center in your brain that controls hunger down. You now no longer have the ability to say "I'm full" for the rest of the day because of a Tablespoon of ketchup. Your best bet is to cut out as much sugar as you absolutely can. I'll help you learn how. Stay posted to my blog and I will teach you a subject near and dear to my heart - how to read a label.

skinny tastes so good. ;)

Print this on a piece of paper in big bold letters and post it in your car, office, kitchen, etc. SKINNY TASTES BETTER THAN _____________ (insert name of food here) love and blessings! jenny

Let's Start at the Beginning. Goals.

The beginning, to me, is the most important part of any journey. If you take the time to set your GPS, you will arrive at your destination. Sure, Garmin may take you on a few detours off your path, but you will pretty much end up where you set out for.

So lets think about the beginning of a fitness or lifestyle change journey. As you can see by looking back to the beginning of my blog, I have had different ideas of what I wanted but I never really had a clear cut GOAL spelled out. I wanted to get skinny, I wanted to get fit, I wanted to bodybuild. Those are not goals. Now, my goal is to loose 30 lbs by May 25th, 2010. (My anniversary.) THAT is what a goal looks like. There is a measurable outcome and a deadline! The key difference between people who succeed and people who fail is the ability to set a goal, and then break it down into smaller parts and accomplish them. Once I reach that goal, I will set another one for myself.

It is important to set a realistic goal. Loosing 5 lbs a week is not healthy OR realistic. If you are overweight there is a reason for it and I think it is very smart to allow yourself plenty of time and grace to change your bad habits. (We ALL have bad habits!! Mine is sugar. What is yours?) A healthy amount of weight to drop in a week is 1-2 lbs.

It is also important to take the time to do some research about how you plan to get there. You need to find excercise that you enjoy. The excercise needs to include both cardio AND strength training. You need to start a food journal so that you can see what you are eating everyday and what you need to eliminate and add to your diet to balance it. I found that getting some good recipes for desserts was helpful to me because I love sweets and I didn't want to deprive myself. You need to meditate on what it is that you really want out of your first leg of the journey. Maybe your first goal is cutting out soda by 14 days from now. That would be really helpful if you want to get healthy. Switching everything to "diet" is not a good choice for a healthy lifestyle.

Finally, write it down! Do some journaling to write your ideas down and then cut them down into a realistic and definitive goal.

There is a lot of information out there, and you have choose what fits into your life the best.

What is your goal?

Blessings!!!
Jenny

Weight Loss Tip

Eat a palmful of almonds every day. Almonds activate something called Ghrelin Hormone which communicates to your body that you are full. Eat them every day and you will be sure not to over-eat at any meal. :)

I Know How to Do This Now!!!

I am starting to blog again and it's been forever! The last time I blogged I was getting fit, working out, enjoying it...but then (LOL) My husband left for school and I was in charge of 3 kids all by myself. And I was overwhelmed. And I didn't know I needed a plan! And I quit. (Also I got discouraged by some of the trainers at the gym telling me how impossible my goals were...kind of ironic right? Thats not a good trait in a trainer.)

Sooooooo.....I am going to leave my blog up because I know that I am not alone. So many people have gone through what I am going through and so many people need to know that they are not alone!

What I have learned:

1. You need a goal.
2. You need accurate information to get to the goal.
3. You need to know where to go for help because you can't possibly have all the answers. I hope this blog is going to help you accomplish your goals!!!

Love,
Jenny