The Forever Looming Food Guilt: Clean Eating Challenge Day 11

I almost didn't write a blog post today but then I had dinner and went for a walk and I got to thinking.  Mind you, the walk wasn't because it was nice out (it's not super hot but boy it's super humid) or because I enjoy judging snooping on my neighbors, but because I felt guilty about something I ate with dinner and figured this could at least help process it along faster.

I keep preaching how eating clean is the way to go and I stand by that firmly because the minute that something sweet or sugary hits my lips, it's all downhill from there.  Case in point - tonight's dinner.  I had one of my stuffed peppers (recipe HERE), some roasted eggplant, and then I made a little pumpkin/oatmeal cake thing so I could have some healthy carbs.

Pumpkin/Oatmeal Cake Thing
1 teaspoon pumpkin
1/4 cup oats
1/8 cup water
salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste

Mix together and cook on medium heat on a non-stick pan until cooked through.

I decided I wanted something to dip in the pumpkin/oatmeal cake thing so I found some almond butter and then thought that a little raw honey would be good too.  BIG MISTAKE.  Argh - sometimes I wish my better judgement would kick in and tell me to stay away from these things.  I used conservative portions but then after, I wanted more - more almond butter mixed with honey.  So I sat there, for another 15 minutes or so taking small scoops of both, mixing together, and then eating.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

Instantly, I felt guilty.  I'm sure you all (Tiff and my 3 lurkers - hi!) can agree with me here because who hasn't been in this position before.  And why do we beat ourselves up for it so much?  My first instinct was to go for a walk so I threw the leash on the dog and off we went for 25 minutes.  Y'all, it is GROSS outside.  But I came back feeling a little better but still not resolved.  I often wonder at what point I will stop tormenting myself over every single little pound here and there.  This morning is another example - I went up a pound from Monday.  I weighed myself Monday to see how I was doing (121.7 pounds wohoo) and then noticed i went up exactly one pound between yesterday and this morning.  I start running all the things I ate through my head wondering how that could be.  I started to beat myself up and nit pick.  But the thing is, I ate really good yesterday and had a TOUGH boot camp work out (seriously toughest ever).  But then hours later I remembered it was probably from the dentist - I went yesterday and whenever I go, I gain a pound or so, normally from the crap in the toothpaste and flourided water/filtered water they use.  For serious, I'm allergic to that shit.

Do you beat yourself up like this?  When do we draw the line and just enjoy ourselves?

Today's work out was good - 12 minutes of HIIT and then the 25 minute walk.  Here is what I did:

30 bicep curls
10 cross touch push ups (push up and then touch your left hand with your right toe, crossing to work the obliques)
20 squat overhead press
10 weighted get ups (I used a 8lb ball - hold while laying down to getting up and lift over head, then lay back down, repeat)
5 V arm squats (hold arms overhead in V position while squatting)
10 side V crunches
5 front V abs
10 tricep kick backs

Repeat 3 times.

The squat overhead press really did me in - mostly because my lower back is KILLING me after yesterday's ridiculous work out.  I couldn't even describe it if I wanted to but it was something along the lines of - 50 push ups, 30 burpees, 100 mountain climbers, 20 1-legged oblique twists, 20 cross touch push ups (full twist with butt hitting the floor), 20 1-legged donkey kicks on each leg, 50 squat overhead press with 25 pound plate, 30 tuck jumps, 20 on the toes hip thrusts, and 40 1-leg raised hip thrusts (20 each leg).  And then repeat.

Seriously.  I died.

So yeah my back hates me today.  I'm hoping it'll stretch out some for tomorrow's boot camp work out. Otherwise, I'm going to be in a lot of pain.

If You're Strong Female You Don't Need Permission - Clean Eating Challenge Day 10

- Lady Gaga

And now I'm bopping my head to the song as it plays on my iPhone. 

Did you all have a good weekend?  I did - we didn't do jack.  Friday, we stopped by my in-laws house for a little while to say hello.  Saturday, we checked out a model home in a new neighborhood.  Saturday night we met my dad out for some sushi as a belated birthday celebrating for my husband.  Sunday, I literally laid around in my pajamas and read the third Hunger Games book.  This is the second time reading the second and third book.  I think the second book is my favorite but I enjoy the end of the third book because Katniss ends up with the person I think she should end up with.  The only reason I don't like the third is because there is just SO much going on, the first time I read it I found I had a hard time keeping track and trying to visualize as I read. 

I got my hair cut Friday and I lurve it - I need to snap a picture and post it.  My hair dresser took 6 inches off!  My hair was long and now it feels SO much better. 

I have been dealing with my insurance company again since Saturday - I swear they think it's some sort of sick joke to mess with me and my health benefits.  I went to pay for a prescription (that I have paid for many times with this insurance without any issues) and suddenly the medication is $23.52 more than it was last month.  Uh, excuse me? So I do what any sane person would do, I fire off about 20 twitter rants to my insurance company.  They finally respond and send me an email.  I think they like to draw straws and unfortunately for this one girl, she's the same one I dealt with last month when I had issues.  I mean really - it's a BIRTH CONTROL PILL, how hard is this?  It's been on the market for like 12 years too so it's not like it's brand new and people are trying to figure out how much to price it out or what tier it needs to be in (and it's name brand, which my insurance accepts, and should be in the top tier k thanks).  So the rep at my insurance company said that she's following up with the pharmacy management team to see what the deal is.  I pointed out to her about 10 times how this is illegal and the insurance company can't just go in and change the cost of the medication halfway through the contracted year and that I will be following up with my health benefits group. 

Something else to mention - so Friday I made some clean pumpkin pancakes and they were delish.  Recipe is HERE and if you read my post (I know I have lurkers, please say hello) I mentioned I had a little agave nectar.  Well apparently that agave nectar threw my whole life into a tailspin and all I did Friday was eat.  I think I had about 8-9 servings of whole grains (oatmeal and/or quinoa) and possibly more because I freaked and was like, okay it's a lot I'm just going to admit defeat and call it a day.  I was casually chatting with one of my boot camp frands on Saturday and he was telling me that when a recipe he was using called for agave nectar he did some research and found that basically the body turns the agave nectar into fructose once it's in your body.  So nutritionists chalk this stuff up to be better than granulated sugar, which to an extent I'm sure it is but I started thinking that this was probably why I was hungry all day and just couldn't get content.  Because every other day I was fine.  He said I should use the raw honey instead since there's nothing in it to turn it into fructose and believe it or not, I used a very small amount of raw honey and have had no problems.  Very interesting, thought I would share.

Also, wanting to share a new recipe for when I want something sweet. 

Basically it's just 1/4 cup white quinoa, 1/4 cup red quinoa, 1 small handful of raw plain unsalted cashews, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and salt to taste.  I don't know what it is but it makes me feel like I am indulging on a small piece of pound cake.  It has to be the vanilla but I have been thoroughly enjoying this treat when I want something sweet but I don't want any sugar. 

Another thing I do that has been buzzing around the internet is banana ice cream.  I went to the dentist today and my teeth are now sore from them scraping.  I can't really take any over the counter pain stuff anymore because they're cornstarch in it (and I can't have cornstarch) so I have been sitting here suffering but I threw some chopped bananas in the freezer and I will be eating those soon.  I figure the cold bananas will help some with the pain. 

I think that is it for me - I have boot camp tonight yay!  It's only 79 out today so I'm hoping the rain will hold off and we'll be outside. 

Clean Eating Challenge: Day 2

You like how creative I am with titling the posts?  I'll work on that.

Day 1 went better than expected.  After the initial omg I am kind of hungry all the time feeling subsided (or I learned to block it out) it wasn't so bad.  It's been a while since I stepped away from refined and processed carbs and I forgot how quickly the body recognizes that and wants to change your mind.  I know after a few days it'll be fine.

Dinner went exactly as I had planned it to go.  I asked for my fish grilled plain and then subbed out the sides for a double order of grilled (plain) veggies and everything came out really tasty.  The only veggie I couldn't eat was cauliflower (damn you sulfites) but the restaurant did a good job giving me a giant piece of sea bass and a nice helping of veggies.  But then again for $30, I wouldn't expect any less.  I also drank water all night and avoided alcohol, which worked out well because we ended up staying out until after 1:00am and I was so tired this morning when I woke up.  I was a bit dehydrated (which is odd considering I drank water everywhere we went) and I had a bit of a headache reminding me that I could be hungover.  Then there were the cookies.  A couple of friends that we were with are friends with the sous chef at the last bar we went to and she made cookies for our friend to have as a birthday gift.  TEMPTING.  But you know, the whole clean eating thing plus the fact I can't have any of the ingredients in the recipe gave me enough reason to stay away.

Another thing I have been thinking about and am going to do is stop weighing myself.  I hear conflicting data saying that you shouldn't weight yourself because numbers could be deceiving but then on the flip side I read that you should weigh yourself regularly so you can easily identify when you are slipping up so you don't step on the scale one day and realize you've gained 20 pounds.  I weigh myself daily which is a bit compulsive (but then again that's just who I am if you haven't noticed) but I use that as a guide to determine if anything I ate caused a reaction.  Sometimes my reactions don't show up in hand swelling but they show up in weight gain.  I identify any sort of gain beyond half a pound to be flagged as a reaction, unless of course I was eating salt out of the canister or drink soy sauce (to which I really can do neither).  This is a behavior that really helped me to navigate through the early stages of my intolerance but at this point I need to stop being so dependent on it or I'll continue to drive myself crazy and overanalyze every little thing I eat.  Plus, I'm doing a clean eating challenge so I shouldn't have to worry that anything I ate would cause me to swell because I'm avoiding all the really bad-for-me foods by doing this.

So I weighed myself this morning and I'm going to try really hard to not weigh myself again until next Sunday.  I don't really know if this will happen but we will see.  I might crack halfway through the week.  But starting weight officially is 125.0 pounds.  And at this point, I am not really looking to lose anymore weight. I usually float between 123 and 126 pounds it seems like.  I am focusing more on overall health and muscle building so it's possible that at the end of this month, I might have not lost any weight at all but I will be able to see the difference.

I also am working on tweaking a new recipe.  I love pancakes and when I say love, I mean I could eat them everyday.  They are a part of the reason why I am obsessed with raw honey and agave nectar and the recipe that I found (which I scoured the internet for for years) is so adaptable that I feel like I have 1 recipe that could easily turn into 10 or so variations.

Original Healthy Pancake Recipe:

In a bowl mix, 1 1/4 cup old fashioned oats, 1/2 cup flour, 2 teaspoons of baking power (or 1 teaspoon of baking soda), 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 1/2 cup of milk, and 2 ripe bananas.  Cook pancakes over medium heat on a skillet or griddle.

The best thing about this recipe is how versatile it is.  If you don't have bananas, no worries, just cut the milk down to about 1 cup.  When I do that, I will add cinnamon for some added flavor.  I have also substituted the bananas for about 1 cup of pureed pumpkin and then added some cinnamon as well.  AMAZING.

But as you can see above there are some things that I have cut out for my challenge so I started playing around with modifying the recipe again so I can continue to enjoy my pancakes.  I cut the initial recipe in half (which I do a lot) and went from there.

Clean Eating Healthy Pancake Recipe:

In a bowl mix, 1/2 plus 1/8 cup of old fashioned oats, 3 teaspoons of chia seeds, 1/2 cup of water, 1 banana, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  Cook pancakes over medium heat on a skillet or griddle.

I used pureed strawberries as my "syrup" and the pancakes tasted great but had a hard time sticking together while cooking.  Next time, I might eliminate out some of the water and add in a teaspoon of almond oil and see if that helps.  I could also grind up some oats into a "flour" to help with keeping the mixture together.

Happy Sunday!

Recipe Thursday: Sulfite Free & Guilt Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello there.  In keeping up with my blogging outline, I have dedicated today as Recipe Thursday.  Wohoo!  I reason I picked Thursday is because I figure by the time Thursday rolls around, I have come across and tried at least one new recipe.  Sometimes I will post old favorites but today I have a new recipe that I have made a few times and let me tell you, it's SOOO hard not to just have one.

Because of my sulfite allergy, I cannot tolerate chocolate.  Saddest.sentence.ever.  I have searched high and low for a "sulfite free" chocolate or chocolate chip and am happy to report that there is a brand found at Kroger that is completely sulfite free!  I picked a bag up last weekend when I went grocery shopping.  I had been eying the bag for some time but I was patient and eventually it went on sale (it was like it knew I wanted to try it and this just gave me all the more reason).  I went through my Pinterest to find a good chocolate chip cookie recipe to tweak.  My favorite thing to do is to take recipes and see how healthy I can make them.  I understand that some recipes are not meant to be healthy but it's kind of a weird passion of mine and it keeps me entertained.  I have posted the link to the regular recipe below and obviously given credit where credit is due (I don't steal!).

Also noted is that this recipe is egg free for all your egg haters out there. Just kidding.  I actually used to be able to tolerate eggs but found that with my allergy, it's becoming more difficult.  Major sad face.  I love eggs - I seriously could eat them all day everyday and not get tired of them.  So I have pretty much cut eggs out of my diet except for special treats like if I am dying for some sunny side up eggs.

But back to the cookies....

These cookies have come out so good.  You're in for a real treat if you like soft, chewy cookies, even days after they've been baked.  My batch yields about a dozen and a half but really it depends on how big you like your cookies to be.  I don't like to make too many or I feel like I have to eat them all before they go bad.  First world problems.  Enjoy!

Sulfite Free & Guilt Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 1-2 dozen

Ingredients:
3/4 cup 0% Greek yogurt
3/4 cup all natural organic applesauce
1/4 cup organic blue agave nectar
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups plus 3 tablespoons organic oat flour (the kind I used so happened to be gluten free but any kind will due)
1 cup of Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate Chips (sulfite free chocolate chips - I just pour in and mix until I think there's enough)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper or spray with non-stick spray.  In a large bowl, mix Greek yogurt, apple sauce, agave nectar, and sugar until smooth.  Mix in vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Add in chocolate chips and stir until well-mixed.

Use a tablespoon to scoop and place dough on cookie sheets.  Bake cookies for about 15 minutes or until cooked through completely.  Let cool and keep refrigerated afterwards.

Original Recipe From: http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2012/01/cream-cheese-chocolate-chip-cookies-egg-free.html