How to Handle Sweet Treats

My two Whole30 goals were to stop snacking, especially on sweet things and get back into my weight window. I accomplished both of those in 25 days.

If my goal was to make eating simply something you do to fuel your body I would have succeeded there too.  The Whole30 really sucked the joy out of meals.  For me food is a big part of holidays and special occasions.  What I hadn’t realized was how important meals were to day to day family life.  That doesn’t mean the meals need to be unhealthy but it does mean we all need to sit down to the same meal.  I don’t know why this is and it doesn’t seem logical but it is the way I feel.

Would I do a Whole30 again?  Yes, if that is what it took to get me off the sugar train or regain control of snacking.  But I am hoping another Whole30 won’t be necessary. (I am pretty sure I say that every time!)

I thought a lot about how to keep to my goals post Whole30 in regards to baked treats and candy.   It is not enough to say I am going to eat less candy or have fewer desserts.  I needed to be concrete with my limits or “Smart”.

S – specific

M– measurable

A -achievable

R– results focused (or in this case realistic)

T– time-bound

I don’t want junk food to be an all or nothing proposition.  I don’t want to mindlessly inhale crap without even tasting it.   I want cake and cookies to truly feel like a treat.  I want to enjoy baked goods or candy like it is something special. Like when I was a kid.

Growing up we only had cake at birthdays, pie on holidays and candy at Halloween and Christmas.  The rest of the year we sometimes got homemade cookies and occasionally pudding or jello or ice cream.  That was it. Oh, and when my Dad worked Saturday nights (he was a firefighter) sometimes he would bring doughnuts home on Sunday morning.  That was always a big deal!

My dessert tracking page

Keeping all that in mind I decided to limit myself to one sweet dessert or treat item a week.  That seemed realistic.  And it had to be homemade (except for ice cream).  I set up a page in my Bullet Journal to keep track.  I picked Sunday as the day the week would start.  I marked the weeks off and made notes about holidays or occasions that fell during that week. I had a plan…

A plan that I am not following at all.  I am still not snacking and I am still eating way less sweets but I am not limiting myself to just one a week.  Turns out it was not a realistic goal.  But I didn’t  throw in the towel completely.

I am being very mindful about what I eat. Crazy hormones are still a problem but I try to remain cognizant of what is going on physically and emotionally at any given moment. A few times I have taken a nap instead of mindlessly shoving junk food in my face. I am doing quite well with only eating when I am hungry.

I started tracking desserts yesterday in order to maintain my mindfulness and to keep from returning to my old habits. I’ll make a little slash mark on my tracker for each sweet treat consumed and for now I am writing down each treat I eat. Still sticking with the must be homemade rule.

My plan and intentions are a little different that what I had hoped for. But it is still a goal and one I will hopefully achieve without making myself miserable or gaining too much weight. Here goes nothing!

Coloring meditation, how to have my treats without the calories!

 

 

 

Whole30: Week 4

Day 22

B: chicken hash, last of the roasted cauliflower, 1/2 pear

L: egg salad, 4 olives, 1 carrot, snow peas, a banana

S: coconut chocolate Rx bar

D: grilled chicken cashew salad (no dressing) from Culver’s*

Seems I feel a bit hungry all the time now, despite eating hearty meals.

*I am guessing my salad at Culver’s was not Whole30 compliant in some way. ( Cornstarch in the chicken and the cashews may have had peanut oil was all I could find that wasn’t compliant.)  For some this would mean the Whole30 was over or needed to be restarted.  Being an adult and having my own goals of not snacking and reducing junk food I am merely going to press on.  I actually consider this meal a win as I normally order a pork tenderloin sandwich or fried fish plate.  And I did not take even one teensy taste of my son’s ice cream.

Day 23

B: two fried eggs, 1/2 grapefruit, a banana

L: egg salad, rest of grilled asparagus, 1/2 pear  And I watched “Chesapeake Shores” while I ate. Ooh I am such a rebel eating and watching tv at the same time!  🙂

D: an apple and some cashews eaten before I went to my son’s school for Curriculum Night. (I had planned on eating leftover chicken hash after I got home but I just wasn’t hungry.  It is awfully hot and humid here these days.)

Finished the 1000 piece puzzle!

Day 24

B: last of the chicken hash, 1/2 grapefruit

L: chicken tenders, carrots, small baked potato w/ghee and a banana

D: roasted pork loin, pan roasted brussel sprouts and butternut squash, applesauce

The house smelled wonderful with the roasting meat and dinner was tasty and had an autumnal feel, but frankly it was a bit much for the triple digit heat.

Day 25

B: quiche and a banana

L: chicken tenders, leftover brussel sprouts and squash, applesauce

Finally the local PBS has the latest season of the “Great British Baking Show” on.  I watched the first episode this afternoon.  Yum!

D: apple and cashews

Day 26

Well, there is no day 26.  I officially ended my Whole30, er Whole25 this morning with a piece of toast (homemade bread from the freezer) and peanut butter (TJ’s no sugar added).  I accomplished my goals of no mindless snacking and reduced my sugar intake. I lost 4 1/2 lbs which was rather disappointing.  I felt like I ate so much less and certainly no junk food.  But I am back in my weight window so I did succeed with my goal.

Now the hard part begins…..

to be continued.

Everything Else

While it feels like all Whole30 all the time I do still have a life outside of eating healthy. (Not much of one, but still.)

Swimming is on hiatus due to a slightly green murky pool now full of chemicals.  High heat combined with just enough rain make it hard to keep the pool clear. The spouse is trying but the pool just isn’t appealing these days.

New carpet!  Yeah!  It was an item on the to do list that I have longed for yet been avoiding because of having to move so much stuff!  So for about 10 days I will be spending time each day moving stacks of book, knickknacks and eventually smaller items of furniture either downstairs or into my office, making my office unusable for a while.  😦  I don’t even want to think about it.

Photography class.  Remember when I signed up for that class in June that was unexpectedly cancelled?  I am signed up for it again this Saturday.  Let’s hope it happens this time.  In pretend preparation I am reading an Ansel Adam’s biography and enjoying it immensely.

I came up with a great solution to stop myself from mindlessly checking my phone for e-mail when it is lying on the kitchen counter.  I hung it up on the wall!  I put a little hook on the back (an IGripz) and then a hook on the wall.  Voila…

Conveniently located right next to an outlet for easy charging.

This would also work well for people always losing their phones in the house.

And finally my ob/gyn appointment.  I really liked the Doctor.  We had a good discussion about all my peri-menopausal symptoms and options. My uterine fibroids are cherry and blueberry sized (fruit makes such a good visual for size) and apparently 70% of all women have some.  The location is not problematic so for now they stay.

I did have my IUD removed. It wasn’t actually necessary but may help ease the heaviness of my periods. If my periods remain crazy long, frequent and/or heavy then I am thinking about taking some progesterone.  But for now I am going to give it two or three months and see what happens with my body.  I am not surprised that so far I am sticking with my original thought that menopause is a natural phase of life and it is best to let it run it’s course on it’s own.  Either way I feel better having a doctor that listens and provides multiple options.

My latest finished coloring project. Makes me happy 🙂 I would love to have that blue door on my house but it would kill the HOA board members.

I think that about wraps things up.  The next two weeks will remain devoted to the Whole30 and prepping for carpet installation.  But that’s okay because after that football season starts and camping and hiking return.  And Halloween…whoooo!  Let’s hear it for autumn…rah rah rah!

Whole30 Week 2

(I thought the spider web picture was cool!)

My Whole30 adventure successfully continues….

Day 8

I have a desire to weigh myself but move the scale into my husband’s closet.

B: Banana, three scrambled eggs, 2 slices of bacon and one small potato.  It doesn’t seem very healthy and I vow to eat more veggies the rest of the day.

Today is food prep day.  I clean a bunch of carrots, bake two yams for tomorrow and make the quiche of the week. Quiche of the week includes leftover taco meat, sautéed spinach and cherry tomatoes.

Quiche of the week.

I also decide to clean up one of the shelves in the kitchen pantry that has become a bit of a mess. It is full of “contraband items” but sorting the food doesn’t bother me.  Oddly the only thing I have really had a hankering for is cheese and crackers (Wheat Thin type).  Whatever.

Day 9:

Experiencing a bit of um, gastric distress.  Hoping this means my stomach will be flatter in a day or two.

Also spouse’s birthday.  I send him and my son off for pizza and I stay home and watch “Rear Window” while eating my tasty yam, chicken, apple mixture.  I had my son do most of the work on the cake so I wouldn’t be tempted to lick my fingers. I just put the cake pans in and out of the oven and got the cakes out of the pan. We froze one layer and E frosted the other for tonight. He did a great job!

It’s a baseball cake!

Day 10:

I have my doctors appointment today to get my IUD removed and chat about my uterine fibroids.  Since my appointment is at 11:10a  I prepare egg salad so my lunch is ready before I go.

I am really not hungry enough for dinner but I want to eat a little something when I take my calcium and magnesium pills.  Plus I don’t want to wake up hungry in the middle of the night.  I settle on an apple and a handful of cashews.  I sleep through the night without any problems.  But I am having weird food dreams. I wake up sure I had eaten some of my son’s pretzels. But I know  I didn’t.  Is there such a thing as sleep eating?

Day 11:

My stomach is flatter!  Not completely flat (yet) but decidedly flatter for sure.

Yesterday and today are the days most likely for people to quit according to the Whole30 timeline.  I can see that. It would have been very nice to eat lunch out either yesterday or today while running errands. That’s okay though my egg salad was pretty tasty.  Why don’t I make it more often?

B: leftover yam, chicken, apple mixture and 1/2 grapefruit

L:  leftover egg salad, 6 olives, 2 carrots, a small handful of macadamia nuts and blackberries

D:  pot roast (cooked in the crockpot, the smell permeating the house all day), mashed sweet potatoes (ghee, not butter) and steamed broccoli

I am pretty proud of how few snacks I have eaten so far. I am doing a much better job of incorporating fruit and nuts into my regular meals.

Day 12:

I wake up and I am feeling out of sorts.  What?  I had been feeling so happy.  I look at the calendar. Hormones dammit. I am not sure what to do.  Are my typical PMS cravings going to run me over?  Or will my decreased sugar intake lessen the impact?  I have a Mango-Pineapple Rx bar at the ready.  I spend the morning keeping busy cleaning the house a bit. Then decide getting out of the house for awhile would be good.  I have to drop off cupcakes at church for the men’s shelter dinner anyway.

I know, crazy.  I realize I probably haven’t been doing myself any favors these first two weeks with the temptations:  making peanut butter cookies for small child’s after school snack the first week of school(the first week of myWhole30), birthday cake, and now cupcakes.  My son mixed up the batter and I spooned into the tins and baked them. But yes, I had to icing them, without licking my fingers once!  No wonder why I feel a bit crabby.

Day 13:

My son and I had a wonderfully lovely day together.  We went to the mall, not a favorite or typical trip for us but he wanted a few more polo shirts for school so we went to JC Penney’s and found enough choices on the clearance racks  plus we had a $10 off coupon.  And then we browsed (for a full hour!) around The Container Store, a place we both love.  We found a few items and then he was hungry so we headed to the food court. I had an Rx Bar with me because I didn’t think there would be any thing I could have there but to my surprise there was a Chipotle’s.  And we both happily ordered salad bowls from there.

For dinner at home I made oven fries and we grilled burgers that were so tasty.  Hit the spot and for one meal at least I didn’t feel like I was on the Whole30.

Day 14:

I have to confess this healthy eating is starting to feel a bit boring.  Need to put some thought into the meal plan for next week.  I am still feeling a bit grumpy too which isn’t helping matters.

Onto week three….

Whole30: Week One

I decided to do another Whole30 as a kick-off to implementing “My Healthy Life Manifesto“.  The main goal of this Whole30 is to stop snacking and eating when not hungry.  I know I have a tendency to eat when bored or tired and the habit has gotten completely out of control. I will also admit I am hoping to lose a few pounds as well. I looked at the calendar and decided to start the same week school started. I am hoping this will give me some extra time for all that food prep plus no big holidays or major travel plans to make things more difficult.

 

Here is a summary of the first week:

Day 1:  Totally not prepared this Monday morning.  The thing is, school doesn’t start until Thursday. My bad.  So I eat a banana with some cashew butter and a carrot for breakfast and then get to work on some food prep.  I make hard-boiled eggs and clean a bag of carrots. And then I make my favorite quiche:

5 eggs

5 ounces of canned coconut milk

1/2 lb cooked seasoned ground pork (garlic powder, sage, fennel, s&p)

sautéed kale

Mix it all together.

I grease a 9″ pie pan with coconut oil and bake at 425° for ~ 20 minutes

The best thing about this recipe is you can mix up what you add and eat it everyday on the Whole30 if you wish. Some suggestions:  mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, cooked grated yam or sweet potato, ground beef, spinach, thinly sliced Trader Joe’s sausages.  Really anything compliant that you like.  This is so much easier than breakfast “muffins” and I think a bit tastier than a straight egg bake.

I eat a piece for lunch (along with a sliced tomato) and now I have breakfast ready for the rest of the week.  I also cook enough pork and kale for a second quiche and stash it in the freezer.

Day 2:  I have a solid meal plan for the day so it seems easy.

B: quiche, 1/2 grapefruit, one small potato.  I microwave the potato, let it cool a bit, dice it, then crisp it up in a little olive oil.

L: salad with 1/2 can of tuna in olive oil, 1 HB egg, cherry tomatoes and avocado

Snack: cut up peaches we picked ourselves and that need to be eaten

D: grilled steak, homemade oven fries and green beans

I am the only person in the house doing the Whole30 so many nights there will be separate dinners but tonight’s worked for everyone. Yeah!

Day 3:

I am not going to write every single meal down because that would be boring.  I am feeling rather tired today. I expected it but it was still a bummer.  See the Whole30 timeline.

Day 4:

 Note to self: be careful what you read and watch during these crucial first days of eliminating cravings.  “Howard’s End”, not a good movie to watch, in terms of food anyway.  Seems they were always having tea and cake.  Reading “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing was a good choice.  This book is about Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica.  While there is a fair amount of talk about food it is items like seal steaks and penguin hearts that are mentioned.  And for a treat?  Fish paste.  No triggering of cravings here!

Day 5:

I seem to have skipped right over the “kill all things” phase and now “I need a nap” and “Why are my pants tighter” phase seem to be overlapping. Geez.

Day 6:

Grocery shopping day.  Halloween candy already?  (No more grocery shopping until after this is over!)  I eat a good breakfast but we have a bunch of errands to run.  By the time we get to the base I am getting rather hungry.  I get my son a sandwich at Subway in the food court and then scan my options.  Nothing.  So I eat my apple cinnamon Rx bar.  By the time we get home I am pretty hungry.  I nosh on sugar snap peas with a single serving size of guacamole while getting the groceries put away.

Now it is 3:00p and I am not sure what to do.  Do I eat lunch or try and tough it out until dinner?  I decide to eat a hard-boiled egg and make dinner an hour early.  It is taco salads so husband and son can re-heat the meat and make their own salads when they are ready.

Taco Salad: ground beef with homemade taco seasoning, a mix of lettuces, cherry tomatoes, 1/2 an avocado and salsa.  So yummy!

Day 7:

Today is one of those days that really are tough on the Whole30.  We are going up to Phoenix to watch the Cubs play the D’Backs.  We are supposed to leave at 9:00a for a 1:00p game because of the crowd expected.  Spouse gets out of work late (he is working extra hours for an exercise) so we don’t leave until 10:30a but it all works out surprisingly well.

B: banana, quiche, potato

L:  Eaten in the truck on the trip up is chicken salad (diced grilled chicken breast, dried cherries, walnuts and mayo), snap peas and a few cherries. As we walk from the truck to the stadium (about 12:30p) I drink a bottle of Zupa Noma soup. I bought a six pack to try out because they are Whole30 approved. I have the Beet-Orange-Basil flavor.  I finish it but I don’t think I would buy this flavor again, too basily for me.

Snack:  For inside the park I have dry roasted pistachios (in the shell) from Trader Joe’s and an Rx bar.  The game is exciting and I am not hungry until the seventh inning. I eat a few pistachios, but probably half or maybe even a third of what I would have normally eaten. That’s it.

D: We stop at a Five Guys on the way home.  I was prepared bringing a little container of my own mayo.  I get the lettuce wrap with two burgers, tomato and raw onion. No pickles because they are out of pickles.  What??  (They got a bad batch from their supplier and were waiting on a replacement shipment. Just my luck.)  But with the addition of the mayo I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything.

In Conclusion:

So the Cubs and I both win!  The week wasn’t bad at all and I am very happy that I have not been snacking on dried fruit or raisins like in Whole30s in the past.  I survived a busy day running around and a road trip.  A successful week one is in the books.

Whole 30 – Day 15

I was making zero progress on losing five pounds or eliminating grains and dairy to see if that helped with the joint pain. My snacking was completely out of control. As in I would eat breakfast and then grab a cookie for dessert. I was eating junk food all day long. Pathetic.

I had to make a decision: give up or do the Whole30 again, sigh.  Bowling is starting and that really hurts my hands.  And I decided I was too young to just go ahead and let the weight creep up.  So Whole30 it was.

Then I dithered about the start date.  And then my husband announced they were doing the Whole30 again at work starting right after Labor Day.  Wait, that would overlap my 50th birthday and there was no way I wasn’t eating cake on the big day!  Looking at the calendar I realized I needed to start right away to be done before starting my next year of life.

With no real planning or grocery shopping I jumped in.  Having done the Whole30 before I knew what to expect. I needed to survive the first seven to ten days. I didn’t worry about how many yams or sweet potatoes I ate. And I didn’t sweat the snacking.  As long as I only ate compliant foods I was going to consider the first week a success. I would deal with snacking the second week.

I  also made a vow to be very kind to myself.  My biggest side effect the first week was fatigue.  I slept more and several afternoons found me on the couch watching a movie.  I kept my to do lists short.  I didn’t even attempt to tackle anything I knew would be frustrating.

Here are my non-food rewards for that difficult first week:

Flowers from Trader Joe’s.  (Instead of the dark chocolate covered almonds I really wanted.)

A new bottle of nailpolish. Revlon’s ‘Dreamer’, a pretty sky blue,  completely new shade for me.

Rereading the book “Rebecca”.  Scariest non-scary book ever!  Mrs. Danvers gives me the heebie jeebies.  I feel bad for my fellow introvert, the second Mrs. De Winter who I have decided is named Jane.  What do you think her first name is?

Watching my favorite summer movie: “Rear Window”.  Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and Alfred Hitchcock, the best combo ever!  Plus I like to be reminded that other places get hot in the summer too, and poor Jimmy not only doesn’t have a pool or a/c but a cast on his leg. Talk about summer misery!

Non-food Whole30 rewards!

So I survived the first fifteen days.  Of course it is easy to be cavalier about it with it now in the rear view mirror. I am keeping my eye on the goal now, not so much the weight but eliminating snacking and seeing how my hands feel after bowling this week. I am pretty sure the joint pain is caused by a lack of estrogen from going into menopause so I don’t know if diet can help in anyway but either way it will be good to know.

Snacking hasn’t been too bad.  The first week I twice ate a mid-morning banana before running errands that I knew would end close to lunchtime.  Most days I ate an after school snack with my son:  celery w/cashew butter, an Rx Bar, a few olives.  I munched a few celery sticks while preparing dinner if I am starving.  Nothing too horrendous.  But the last few days I haven’t snacked at all. Yeah!

And now I am halfway done. I am already thinking about the reintroduction phase which I have failed so miserably in the past.  I am hoping the fact that my birthday is Day 31 won’t completely derail my reintroduction. After my birthday eating Whole30 between reintroduction days won’t be that big a deal as my husband wants to stay Whole30 until his doctor’s appointment the first week of October anyway.

Hopefully what will be a big deal is how good I feel!

W is for Whole30

From Mother’s Day 2014

 

As I write this I am on day 21 and doing incredibly well. (I’ll be on day 24 when you read this!) This is my fifth or sixth try at the Whole30 and while I have never really completed one I don’t think of them as failures. Each time I have learned something and incorporated a few new foods and better eating habits for the long term into my life.

This time around I really tried to set myself up to succeed. I picked a 30 day span when we had no holidays or camping trips to make it as easy as possible for me. Bought some marinades and sauces from Tessemae’s and placed an order with Wellness Meats.  In addition to planning dinners a week at a time I planned breakfast and lunch too.  All this has really helped.

The most important thing though has been having the right attitude and specific goals.  I am not cheating at all.  I don’t even think about cheating but vowed to simply follow the rules. No “I am going to eat butter instead of ghee after the 30 days so what difference does it make now” sort of thinking.    My main goals are to see how sugar and grains affect my joint pain and moods.  So once I am done I will resume eating cheese and real butter.  But grains and sugar will be done in small amounts with close attention paid as to how I feel. At least that is the plan.

As for how it is going right now,  all my cravings are gone.  My mood does seem more stable and some days I do think the joint pain is less. Sleeping is still an issue but I believe that is due to bad seasonal allergies and perimenopause.  I guess hoping eating a clean diet would make everything better was an unrealistic expectation.  🙂

Another surprise was how well my last two dental checkups went.  I had my semi-annual cleaning two weeks ago and the hygienist again commented on how clean my teeth were.  I have always been good about brushing and flossing but she pointed out my gums aren’t inflamed anymore either.  She only found a little soft plaque along the gum line.  The only thing that has changed is my eating habits. Looks like avoiding grains and sugars is really good for your teeth!

The biggest change is now I only eat because I am hungry.  The pleasure of food has disappeared which is kinda sad.  I make nice meals and keep up the variety of foods but something has changed.  I am not looking forward to eating, it has become a chore. Hopefully this feeling is only temporary.  I am glad that I no longer snack and I really hope that habit sticks.  And while I  am okay with eating only when hungry I really want to look forward to meals again.

I am also feeling a bit disappointed that I am not feeling any “Tiger Blood”.  Could be due to the bad allergies or it could be that my eating habits really aren’t that bad or that what foods I eat don’t negatively affect me.  If that is true then I am happy I can eat everything but sad that I can’t improve any of my ailments via diet.

But I can’t lie, I am looking forward to Mother’s Day and making pancakes with my son for breakfast and having dessert with dinner.  I have one last homemade peach crisp in the freezer that sounds perfect for a warm, sunny Sunday in May!

“Henry and Mudge and the Funny Lunch”  By Cynthia Rylant  was our inspiration.

Our fruit family is Whole30 Compliant!

 

 

 

A Whole 30 Superbowl

 

I am very happy that my team has once again made it to the Superbowl and we have a merry menu planned.
While not officially doing the Whole30 anymore we are still eating a lot of Whole30 compliant meals. Much of our menu for the Superbowl is Whole30 compliant the exceptions being the dessert items added at the end.

Crockpot Buffalo chicken
coleslaw
deviled eggs
salsa and guacamole with plantain chips
pineapple chunks

The best part of this meal is it all can be done well before kickoff.

For the chicken I put boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the crockpot with some chicken broth and cook on low all day. About an hour before we want to eat I take the chicken out and shred it (with two forks, like for pulled pork) and put it back in the crockpot.  Depending on how much broth is in the pot I may take some of it out and then I mix in Frank’s hot sauce (NOT wing sauce! The wing sauce is much spicier and not Whole30.)  I just eyeball  the amount.  Then everything warms up in the crockpot and you can eat it when you want.  I put my coleslaw right on the chicken and eat them together.  I also leave some of the chicken plain for my son.
And since we aren’t on the Whole30 I decided to add a few dessert items.

 

Cutout chocolate chip cookies

The Denver defense is called “the orange crush” hence the orange soda. My son and I decorated the cookies, I think we need to take a class or buy better icing.

 

Go Broncos!!!!!