After the feast part deaux

So a week after I have stopped juice feasting where am I?

Well I am down another 2 lbs and just shy of 4 inches.  Although that seems like a stall when I was loosing 7 lbs or more a week, I don't feel like it is.  The key for me is to not transition back into the other direction again.  I have to be sure that I have made a change in my life, a true "repentance" in the Greek sense of the word, a change of heart, and mind. There are lots of people who can stay on a diet for a month but then they start adding the lbs back on and end up bigger than they were to begin with, so I am just trying to keep things moving in the right direction.

What have I learned?
Well I thought I would learn that as soon as I added milk or vegetable protein back into my diet that I would be lethargic and sick. I thought that maybe when I added gluten back into my diet I would get sick.  Fortunately that is not what I learned.  On the contrary, I think those things actually were great. My big takeaway is that diets that thrive on large exclusions are inherently flawed. God has put everything on this earth for our good. There are people who have created healthy diets in every corner of the globe based on everything from  grains, to greens, to grubs, and everything in between, even animal blubber. Even refinement is not an evil thing, for example, yogurt, cheese, soy sauce, tempe, are all refinements that took some whole food and modified it in a reasonable way to make it more healthy, or tolerable for human consumption.

In the end I think it is more about the inclusion of foods that we know are beneficial than it is about excluding certain foods.

If I distilled it down to a mission statement, I would say:

Eat foods as close to their whole state as possible. Favor less refined alternatives over highly refined foods when they are reasonable. If you struggle to pronounce the ingredients, then be cautious.   If you can make it at home then you should. Eat as many whole foods, mostly plants, as you can on a daily basis.

Here are some specific choices I am making in my life:

• Home made yogurt is much better than store bought, so take an hour and make a weeks supply, gogurt is not yogurt!
• A vinaigrette can be thrown together in a few min, and is far better than store bought ranch, so is home made ranch!
• Favor unsalted butter over hydrolyzed oil margarine.
• Fresh squeezed juice is better than pasteurized juice that has been trucked across the country.
• Home grown bread is better than hostess, make friends with local producers if you are going to buy instead of bake.
• Grow veggies in your garden. Even if you start small, you've never had better tomatoes!
• If great grandma would have recognized it as food, I can too.

These things all contribute to how we see and consume food.  I am so grateful for the help and inspiration that I have gotten on this recently. It is great to know that so many people, some of whom I have never met, are so supportive of me and my well being.


Great books that I need to write reviews for related to the topic:
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Eat and Run - Scott Jurek
The healthy Green Drink Diet - Jason Manheim

Weigh in # 4

Weight: 261 from 262: 1 lbs lost this week, 17 lbs since groundhog day (45 lbs since Thanksgiving '12)

Chest: 44 from 44.5: .5 inches lost this week, 4 inches since groundhog day.

Navel: 48 from 49  1 inches lost this week, 6 inches since groundhog day.

Hips:  39 from 40: 1 inches lost this week, 3 inches since groundhog day.

I started increasing the solid food this week, I ate dinner with the family almost every day. it feels kind of weird to eat food, and I find myself chewing an obscene amount. The big down side is that I am retaining a little water from the increased salt, and I have a lot more in my bowels (the niceset way I can think to say that).  The bad news is that I am not sleeping as well and my energy levels have reduced, having added back in some animal proteins in the form of poultry and dairy. I had hopes that by adding a little more protien I would recover a little faster from my long runs and feel a little better but I am not sure that is the case.

I will continue to start the day with a smoothie and juice if I have time (it is much more inconvenient to have to drink raw juice, and I after having the real thing, I can't go back to pasturized 10% juice beverages loaded with HFCS (I had one this week and it was foul).

Onward and upward! I need to increase my milage, I am going to isolate a few more things to see which ones really help, probably eliminating dairy again to see how that effects things.  I was really looking forward to yogurt and cheese but they may just not be in my best interest.

Weigh in #3

Weight: 262 from 265: 3 lbs lost this week, 15 lbs since groundhog day.

Chest: 44.5 from 45: .5 inches lost this week, 3.5 inches since groundhog day.

Navel: 49 from 50.25  1.25 inches lost this week, 5 inches since groundhog day.

Hips:  40 from 41: 1 inches lost this week, 2 inches since groundhog day.

Another 2.75 inches and 3 lbs lost.  That brings my total loss since thanksgiving to 44 lbs. it also makes my total inches since Jan 21st when I took my first measurements 15 inches.  

I am a little more comfortable with this rate of loss than the huge losses that started things off, because this feels sustainable.

This week has been good, no really bad cravings. I did eat a little more this week. It was Heidi and I's anniversary on Saturday so we went to Logan and I ate salami.  I felt so sick on Sunday and Monday. I also gained 3 lbs that weekend, mostly water weight from the salt intake, although I am sure that I was a little "full of it" since it took me until Wed to have a good BM.  I won't be doing that again any time soon.  I did have a soft taco last night (beans, onions, cabbage, green peppers, Guacamole, and a little chicken I couldn't pull out wrapped in a tortilla) because Emily made us a yummy dinner.  I am sure I would have been lower if it weren't for that also.

I have gotten very liberal with my eating over the last few weeks. I need to tighten things down again for my last week of the month.  Just juice and smoothies this week.  Then I will be back on food normally the next week.

on the workout front things are going very well. I have started doing pushups with Matt 4 times a week. He still schools me but fortunately for me he quits before he gets to failure point, so I can usually do the same number...it is just way harder for me to get there.  I did not realize how much core work goes into a good pushup, and hopefully I can tighten up my moobs a little! I have increased the intensity of my running in order to not spend too much time out training and it has been a good thing. Yesterday I ran on the treadmill and did a 5k hill interval at 6mph (10 minute miles) which was the pace I was targeting for RAGNAR in June.  If it had not been a hill interval I know I could have done 8-10K which is right where I wanted to be then.  I now have hopes of surpassing my previous goals. I will reset my goals after my 10k the end of March.

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement.

Izkiate revisited

I finally got my Bob's Red Mill Chia seeds and there is a reason that they are cheaper than the rest :-(

I mixed up some more traditional izkiate today and it was pretty good, but not as good as last week.

Recipe:

1 T Chia seeds

1 T agave nectar

1 T Lemon or preferably Lime

12 - 18 oz water.

Mix it up. wait 15 min or so for the chia to gel. Enjoy!

Bob's Chia seeds did not gel like the Good Earth ones. I was able to make them gel up some, but even in just 1 T of water, they never got to the point of Frogs eggs like the other did.  Just not quite as much soluble fiber in the shell, I presume that is because either they are grown in less nutrient rich soil or conditions, or more likely they have been "washed."

I must say, although I was a bit disapointed with the seeds, the izkiate was awesome. I had one of my best training runs to date as far as pace and energy tonight.  I definitely can see that there may be something to the energy of these little babies.  More than that I find it super refreshing!  The acidity makes it hugely thirst quenching, yet it is sweet. The chewable texture also makes it very satisfying. I know that does not sound too appealing but that is the best way I can describe it. It is kind of like when you get poppy seeds in your teeth after eating a poppy seed muffin and then you can chew them for a few min, only you get that with a drink.

Izkiate has found a regular place in my diet and training.

Weigh in Day # 2

Weight: 265 from 269.2: 4.2 lbs lost
Chest: 45 from 46: 1 inches lost
Navel: 50.25 from 53: 2.75 inches lost
Hips:  41 from 42: 1 inches lost 

4.75 inches, and another 4.2 lbs lost: Not too shabby.
I started this journey at 306 lbs on thanksgiving day 2012 - so 41 lbs lost since I started being conscious of my diet and exercise!

This week was a rough week, lots of candy temptation around for Valentines day, activities like Kira's tea, etc. There was a lot of temptation, in fact I ate dinner last night...Heidi and I are going out of town for our anniversary today (that's right 20 years ago today we went on our first date) so we wanted to go spend an evening out with the kids. We decided to go to Heidi's favorite Mexican restaurant Maria Bonitas.  I ordered the vegetarian enchiladas, and except for the meat (yes I really had a big piece of carne asada in on, hahahahaha) they were amazing!!! Big pieces of multi colored peppers, onions, tomatoes all grilled together fajita style, all I can say is they were delicious. I was only able to eat about 1/3 of the portion though, I guess that is a good thing, last time we were there I would have polished them off and Kira's burrito that she wouldn't eat because of the red sauce.

So the weight loss has been slower this last week, but I am kind of happy about that. It feels like this is more realistic weight loss.  I have also been doing smoothies every day and a hand full of nuts, so perhaps I am no longer on a "juice feast" but I am just eating a more healthy, nearly raw plant based diet...since I have been a little more liberal with my food choices I also feel like this is pretty sustainable.  I ate dinner with family on Saturday and Sunday when we were together all day, and made a good vegetable based meals.

I do feel really good, and again Matt and I are the only ones who did not get the vomits this week, so that says something about how my body is liking my new diet. I have upped my pace significantly on my runs, and am now running easily for 5 min in the my old yellow zone. All in all I feel like things are going very well.  Time to keep on going.

Valentines day, unlucky 13

Today was rough!
Work was really tough today. We had a customer system go down, at the same time that I took over for another engineer who did not include me on most of the communication so I am having to re-do some of his work. The result, I did not get my smoothie made until about 11:00 and my follow up juice was thrown together rather quickly so it was not really good. :-(

Then we had Kira's tea,  I had a sugar cookie, and soda for the first time in weeks. Those pretty eyes asking "daddy aren't you going to eat your cookie?" Who could resist? Was it worth it? Yeah, she was worth it, but the sugar crash was miserable.  I was physically ill for the next 2 hrs. I actually thought I was coming down with the flu that everyone else has had. Everyone but Matt and I were vomiting from Monday until yesterday.  We will see if I puke tonight or if it was just the sugar, but I feel better now than I did a few hrs ago.

Notes to self:

• Eat early!
• SUGAR BAD!!!

Izkiate how do I love thee.

Juice Feast Day 12
I picked up some chia seeds today (they were really expensive) because I wanted to try out izkiate. It was totally worth it.  I made some watermelon pineapple juice, added a teaspoon of chia seeds and it was fantastic.

The shell of the chia seeds kind of expand into a gell, like half set jello. It thickens the drink to a kind of frog spawn looking potion...not very appetizing.  That being said; It tasted great, and I really liked the consistency. I did experience the unusual energy and clarity about an hour after I drank the izkiate.  It wasn't the hyper feeling of an energy drink but it was definitely a pick me up.  I had another hit in my veggie juice tonight on my run and I clocked 5 k at 10:04 pace rather easily (today's run was a race pace run).  I am thoroughly impressed. I have ordered 1 more lb of chia seeds, and some more elete electrolyte water supplement  to drink it in.

Here's the rub though.  Bobs red mill chia seeds on amazon <$9.00 for 1 lb, chia seeds at good earth, $3.89 per oz.  Would I do it again? Yeah I probably would. If I could not stomach the chia slime, what would I do with the other 15.8 oz of chia seeds? So it was a good investment to try it out.  That being said, I am not buying any more chia seeds at Good Earth!

On a different note, I had someone comment on how much weight I seem to be losing (it was a guy too).  I also had to hitch my belt one loop further today (since last week). So things seem to be going well.  I feel really good. My runs have been pretty easy, no bad bonking.  I feel like if I get a twinge somewhere doing a sprint, I recover super quickly, usually the next morning I am fine.  And I am not experiencing hunger pains.  It seems that things are really good. I am really liking the plant based diet.  I  am sure I will eat meat in the future, but I will be more sparing with it than I was in the past.