Tag Archives: Healthy Living

Green Smoothies Final Update

The 30 day challenge is over and we feel great. Every day that I drink a smoothie in the morning, I feel better. My husband says they make him more… er… regular I guess is a nice way to put it. Even Peanut is starting to drink them again and says she likes them. We’ve continued to make them nearly every day and I plan on continuing for the indefinite future.

I’ve been experimenting with adding flax seed. Flax seeds have some wonderful benefits, including high fiber content and Omega-3 fatty acids. Once again, I don’t taste anything different at all when I add them. They do make it thicker, so you have to keep that in mind. I’ve started adding them every day (though I decrease the avocado to 1/4 instead of 1/2 to make up for the thickening properties).

I’ve also been experimenting with adding other vegetables. My husband doesn’t like fresh tomatoes much, but they’re great for you. I’ve figured out that I can add 1/2 a tomato to our smoothies without noticing it at all. If you add more than that, you may taste it a bit (though not enough to keep my husband from drinking it). I can also add quite a bit of carrots without noticing it at all. Broccoli is a bit more tricky to add and I haven’t been able to not taste it when I’ve added it, but maybe I need to start off slower.

I feel like this challenge has given me a jump start to eating more healthy. I still don’t eat perfectly (As I type this, I’m sipping a cup of coffee with creamer), but I’m feeling more like I want to take steps in that direction. We’ve started drinking kombucha daily. I’m planning on drinking raw milk. I feel like taking healthy snacks when we’re out. I don’t want to eat out as often. I want to start running. Overall, I just feel great. I’m sure a lot of it is in my head, but that’s okay. If mind games make me healthier, I’m okay with it! Here are a couple more recipes if you want to venture out of the norm. Until then, I hope you’re all drinking (or at least thinking about drinking) green smoothies and feeling great like us!

Flax Seed Experiment

15 strawberries

2 kiwis

1 mango

1/4 avocado

1 orange

1 Tbsp flax seeds

4 big leaves kale

1 handful spinach (there was a lot of kale)

ice

I had a lot of issues with this one. First off, I added the orange and extra strawberries because the flax seeds seemed to make the smoothie thicker. The kale leaves were really big, so I didn’t add as much spinach, but it still ended up a lot more green than normal. Lastly, we drank this one after Peanut went to bed because I forgot to make them in the morning and we were gone all day, so that with the extra additions made way too much smoothie. I kept some of it in the fridge to add to the next day’s smoothie. Probably enough for another adult honestly. Couldn’t taste the flax seeds at all though! 

No Spinach! Ahh!

2 oranges

1 lemon

1 lime

1/6 pineapple

2 kiwis

1/2 avocado

1-2 Tbsp flax seeds

1 handful baby carrots

13 leaves red chard

ice

After slowly increasing the more potent greens in our smoothies, I decided it was time to truly delve into the realm of going no-spinach. I  purposely made the flavor fruit in this one really powerful (oranges, lemon, lime, pineapple). It’s really good! I couldn’t taste the greens at all. 

Where’d My Hair Go?

So I’ve been contemplating chopping all of my hair off for a while. I’ve been growing it since a month or so before I found out I was pregnant. The first book I read when I was pregnant was The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy—which by the way was very funny, but also told me that I shouldn’t try natural childbirth for my first child because I “have no idea what it feels like”—and she said something along the lines of “Don’t drastically change your hair while you’re pregnant because you’ll hate it and cry.” For some reason, I decided not to cut my hair at all. I think I got one haircut the whole time I was pregnant and it was just the ends.

Then new-mommyhood took over my life and I just didn’t care enough to change it much. I tried bangs once, but that’s about it. At some point, I decided that I would try to grow my hair to the same length it was in high school—which wasn’t really length because it was extensions—and do it all pretty again.

This is me in the day portion of my prom date (with my future husband).

Little did I know, the only reason my hair held any style was because it was more processed than Mac and Cheese (it’s the cheesiest!). So I grew my hair out and did absolutely nothing with it. The few times I did try to curl my hair, it was virtually gone within a half hour. So that’s what I get for having healthy hair? WTF Asian genes!?!

Whilst painting the new house, I dipped my ponytail into a paint bucket. No, I didn’t do it on purpose—tis the life of a klutz. I decided that it was a sign to take the plunge and I’m so happy I did!

Before:

After:

Yes, I did donate my hair to Locks of Love. I’ll forgo the picture of my headless ponytail that I sent to my husband because it kind of freaks me out.

This all coincides with the no-poo experiment. Prior to cutting my hair, I was no-poo for about two weeks. My hair was breaking off everywhere, wouldn’t do anything, and I’m tired of feeling like I’m giving myself cancer every time I walk into my bathroom. Everywhere I read recommended baking soda mixed with water as “shampoo” and apple cider vinegar as “conditioner”, but I just used baking soda because my hair doesn’t need any extra conditioning. I figured I might as well do it all and switched over to baking soda mixed with water as soap (as suggested by @victorianaaa) and honey mixed with baking soda as face wash (as suggested by TopHat).

Here are my results.

Hair: Seemed pretty much the same to be honest. I don’t wash my hair every day to begin with, so it wasn’t a huge jump for me. My plan was to shower every other day, but only wash my hair every other shower (just rinsing in water on off showers). This was working pretty well until I got the paint in my hair and stopped washing/rinsing it all together because I couldn’t even brush it and therefore got awful greasy hair. I ended up cheating on the no-poo because I accidentally left the baking soda at the new house (took it there to clean because baking soda is awesome!) and very badly needed to wash my hair before getting it cut. I started back on with the no-poo though and things are going smoothly.

Body: If anything, I would say I had less dry skin. The same day that I used regular shampoo is when I had to use regular body wash and I noticed something very, very weird. I’ve never been the person that needs daily deodorant (I know, I know, this whole post is getting overly personal) and when washing with the baking soda, I suddenly realized one day that I hadn’t put on deodorant for a long time with very little smelliness. Within 24-hours of using regular body wash I needed it again. Can anyone explain this to me?

Face: I did have more break-outs than normal, but I can’t tell you if that’s the new scrub or the fact that I am so stressed I could rip your head off with all of this buying a house, painting a house, and readying to move into a house nonsense. Either way, it feels fantastic on my face, smells great, and I never feel the need to put lotion on my face after getting out of the shower—which is something of a small miracle considering that usually if I open my mouth post-shower, pre-lotion, you can practically hear it cracking.

Any tips with the no-poo would be greatly appreciated.

Healthy Living Saturdays: Update on Sugar

Photo Credit: FreckleFoot on Photobucket.com

Okay, so maybe I’m not made for this sugar-free thing. Desserts are my one vice and I don’t think I can give them up all together, but this week did make me re-evaluate my relationship with them. Desserts should not control me and I can control myself.

So rather than sugarless, I’m going to go with less sugar. Sugar will be something reserved for when Peanut is not around—which severely limits the amount of sugar I will have anyway—so that she can hopefully grow up without the addiction to sweets I obviously have. I will also limit myself to one sweet thing. That means no handful of chocolates and no eating five cookies at once. If the sweet thing I want is a candy bar, I will have one. If the sweet thing I want is cake, I will have one slice. It will also not be an every day thing. I will try to limit sweets to special occasions as much as possible. I will also try to limit myself to sweets I make myself at home so I can control the amount of sugar—and really everything—that goes into them.

I know it may be unfair to say no sweets for Peanut when I still get them, but it’s for her own good. Hopefully she can grow up without my habits and I can slowly grow out of them. There is absolutely no reason that she needs sweets when she’s so young.

So this brings me to a new question: grandparents. I’ve told them no sugar, but it’s not really doing much to deter them. They joke “Don’t tell Mommy” as they give her bites of their cookie. I don’t know if they don’t take me seriously or if they just don’t like denying their grand-daughter cookie when she’s asking for it.

Have you had this problem? How did you handle it? Am I making too big of a deal out of it? Maybe I should just let her grandparents be grandparents?

Healthy Living Saturdays: Sugar-free?

Hello, Healthy Living Saturdays! It’s been a while! How have you been? Oh me, I’ve been awful. I’ve started eating out more again, cooking less, and putting way too much junk into my body because of my stress of buying a house, finishing my Associates degree, and life with a toddler. We need to nip this problem in the bud. Time to get back on track!

Sugar-free?

Those of you who know me in real life realize how much of a feat this is going to be. I know I have a problem and it scares me that I see Peanut developing that same problem. She doesn’t want to eat fruits nearly as much as she used to, she won’t eat a regular pancake without syrup on it (though I think pure maple syrup is alright because it’s a whole food, it should still be a special occasion type of thing), and she is plain out refusing leafy greens. I. Will. Not. Have. That. Child. I did not work my butt off giving her a drug-free birth, breastfeeding her, researching vaccines, and all of these things that limit putting toxins in her body to let her turn into the little kid drowning herself in sugar. This needs to stop here and now.

As before stated, I also have a problem. The other night I literally ate cinnamon rolls until I made myself feel sick because they tasted so good. I feel like I can’t control myself around sugar. I try to make healthy choices throughout my day, but I see a cookie and I fall apart instantly. What’s worse is that I feel so bad about eating those five cookies (yes, I often can not stop at one cookie) that I just give up for the rest of the day. Then Peanut comes in and wants to eat the same things I am. All of this is so wrong.

So here we start. We’re going sugar-free. I know this will be a gradual process, but it needs to be a strict one too. So rather than trying to cut it all out from the get go (which never works and is too stressful), I’m going to do it in stages. We’re cutting out a new area of sweets every week with my ultimate goal being no refined sugar, occasional natural sugars (i.e. honey, maple syrup), and much more fruits to make up the in between.

This Week’s Goal: No More “Sweets”

Anything I’d consider a dessert is gone. No cookies, cake, ice cream, chocolates, candy, brownies, cinnamon rolls, etc. The sweets are the main culprit and need to be taken care of right away. It’s going to be hard, but I think it’ll help to start off big and go smaller with time.

How I’m going to accomplish this goal:

1. Remove them from my house. I’m going to go through all of our food and get rid of the sweets. Luckily, I’ve been trying to cut down on sweets for a while so there really won’t be that much to get rid of. I’ll take the food I can to a local shelter rather than throwing it away. If I don’t have the option in my own home of the late night sweets, it won’t happen.

2. Tell family about the no desserts rule. This will be for Peanut and myself. If they’re all having cake, we’ll bring fruit to share. We’ll also have to eat it in another room so she doesn’t beg for everyone else’s cake (which she does all the time). That part kind of sucks because we won’t be in on the fun, but I’m hoping with time neither of us will crave the sugar and we’ll be able to join them again.

3. Buy a bunch of fruit. I’ll be less likely to try to go out for sweets if I have something that will satisfy my sweet tooth at home. I already love fruits and Peanut loves them too when there’s no sweeter option. I’m happy we’re starting this when Peanut is young enough that she can’t actually request sweets.

4. Say no to sweets when we’re out. I’m just going to avoid looking at the dessert menu at all. Also, places that I crave going to specifically for the dessert (like Cutlers and their cookies) will have to be avoided until I stop craving sugar so much.

Does anyone who reads this blog live sugar-free? If so, any helpful hints?

Healthy Living Saturdays: Whole Foods

No, I’m not talking about the store. Whole foods meaning foods that are whole. My goal this week has been to each almost everything made from whole foods. I realize there will be the occasional processed food that makes it into my diet, but I’ve been avoiding it as much as possible.

So what is considered a whole food? Obviously, I’ve been making dinners that don’t use condensed soup as an ingredient (which is surprisingly difficult by the way), but it goes beyond that. It’s not just processed and unprocessed—there’s a lot of gray area.

I obviously use fresh organic produce and fresh hormone-free meat. Technically the organic dried herbs I use are processed, but I would consider drying and grinding minimal processing.

We’ve been trying not to use refined sugar, but it’s in everything and I can’t substitute with honey yet because Peanut isn’t old enough. I’m still figuring out substituting other things for sugar like pure maple syrup. What about corn starch? I’ve been listening to The Omnivore’s Dilemma audio book lately and I am beginning to question that corn starch I use to make gravy. What do you even use instead of corn starch?

I feel like I’m cooking “from scratch” when I use things like canned beans and chicken bullion cubes. How “from scratch” is that really? I checked out the ingredient list of my chicken bullion cubes today and was appalled at how much stuff there is in one of those cubes. So do I need to make all of my chicken broth from boiling bones? I don’t even know how to do that.

So when I say I’ve been trying to eat whole foods, what I really mean is I’ve started the process of getting rid of processed foods. One day I would love to be one of those people who buy their meat from the farm and make mayonnaise rather than just buying a bottle, but it’s all in steps. So for now, I won’t use things like condensed soup in my dinner. I won’t buy frozen pizza and packaged cookies. I will take small steps to start eating whole foods and maybe one day I’ll be one of those people who don’t crave pop-tarts.

Starting Weight: 163 lbs

Current Weight: 158 lbs (still)

Photo Credit: Hart Healing Arts

Healthy Living Saturdays: Home Cooking

My biggest goal this week has been eating at home. I love eating out and think it’s great to do on occasion, but it can’t be part of my regular routine. Eating out is reserved for special times. I’m not saying only birthdays and holidays, but not more than a couple times a week.

So as part of this eating at home thing, I’ve been meal planning. This week we have eaten at home every night—except Friday because that was a planned meal out for a concert we were going to—and it feels great! There were days when I had trouble getting the meal on the table at a decent hour. I’ve had struggles with Peanut letting me actually cook. There was one night that my husband decided that rather than the Italian meal I had planned for us, we should make his dad’s famous spaghetti. Honestly, I don’t see a problem with any of these things. It’s going to be a learning experience in the beginning and since I’m trying so many new meals there will be failures, but we’ll just keep going. I’ve even been planning things like casseroles and crock pot meals for the nights that I’m in class during dinner time (Monday and Thursday).

The biggest thing that has surprised me about meal planning is how fun it is! I feel accomplished every time I find a food that will work for a specific day. I’ve been using The Food Nanny cookbook for ideas with planning and recipes that are easy and healthy. While we don’t stick with having a specific type of food on specific days (like Mexican food every Thursdays), the book is still really useful. I’ve also been checking out cookbooks from the library and I have a subscription to Taste of Home: Healthy Cooking.

It’s less stressful to already know what we’re eating that day and know we have the ingredients. I always hated when I would finally decide on something for dinner and we have all of the ingredients except one. So if you haven’t tried meal planning, give it a shot. It seems like a big hassle, but I bet you’ll be surprised too.

I haven’t done so well with exercising this week. I’m still getting into the swing of things with handling a 10 month old and school. Luckily, one of my classes is a (required) work out class, so today I woke up at 6:30 and drove to class. We did kick boxing and weight training. The kick boxing kicked my ass (I had to use my inhaler twice), but felt good. The weight training was more mellow, but still worked me to the point where my arms hurt typing this.

Starting Weight: 163 lbs

Current Weight: 158 lbs (Hrm… whoever said that it’s difficult to lose those last 10 lbs while breastfeeding was right.)

Healthy Living Saturdays: Boring Week

This is going to be short and sweet because honestly, I didn’t do much. I don’t think I ran a single time this last week. I’ve been taking the dog for a (mostly) daily walk, but 20 minutes walking once a day isn’t going to do much.

Where I am improving is with portions. Before I started actively trying to lose weight I didn’t care if I ate one cookie or twenty. Now I’m not going to do anything drastic like no cookies at all, but I am paying attention to how many I eat. Sharing meals with my husband when we go out has helped a lot too.

Starting Weight: 163

Current Weight: 158

I’m not too surprised that I didn’t lose weight since last week, but I’m happy that I didn’t gain more. I’m going to start off this week right by jogging on the treadmill tonight.

Healthy Living Not-Saturday

I realize I have disappeared from the blogosphere for the past five days… the dog ate my homework? No really, everyone was sick. I mean Everyone. Was. Sick. We took Peanut to urgent care on Wednesday night because she had obvious stomach pain and vomited so the nurse told us to bring her in. Pediatrician said it was just a stomach virus going around. Oh, was it going around. Friday day my husband started vomiting (the first time in 15 years) and by Saturday I was sick too. We spend Saturday and Sunday being taken care of by my wonderful mother. I was luckily feeling better Sunday, but spent all day trying to re-establish my milk supply that had dissipated from the dehydration. Now that things are (kind of) back to normal, I figured I’d post my Healthy Living Saturdays update… two days late.

Without further ado: Healthy Living Not-Saturdays!

My school (final) semester started this week and oh boy is weight loss more difficult when busy! When trying to organize everything before leaving to class it’s hard to make eating healthy and exercising a priority. I need to make it a priority. So I’m taking this week and using it as the example of what not to do. Even when I’m only gone for three hours, there’s a lot of temptation when out and about by myself. So here’s my new plan.

Take healthy snacks every day—no matter how long I’m going to be gone. Considering that I’m already preparing snacks for my husband to give Peanut before I go, this one should be easy. Cutting cheese sticks? Pack a few for myself. Cutting apple slices? Cut an apple for myself! I also should always bring my water bottle with me. Water fountains don’t agree with my sensitive teeth and I almost gave in and bought a water bottle from the machine—bad for my wallet and the environment!

Exercise. Is. A. Priority. You see the four periods in that sentence? That means I’m serious! Really, I need to think of exercise as something that must be done rather than a little bonus. Something that will help this is the fact that I’ve been “assigned” by the dog trainer to take Kerri for a 20 minute walk every day. To be honest, we didn’t go over Saturday or Sunday because we were all so sick, but we went today and it felt fantastic! I also need to do some sort of heart pumping thing at least 3 times a week.

Starting weight: 163 lbs

Current weight: 158 lbs (to be honest, most of this was probably the illness)

Does anyone have good tips for keeping motivated while busy? I’m sure it’s just going to get more difficult as the semester goes on.

Healthy Living Saturdays: My Not-New Year’s Resolution

I suck at New Year’s Resolutions. Every year I’ll make a resolution to be something like more patient, less emotional, more outgoing, but every year I also say I’m going to lose weight. I said it when I was a skinny vegan, I said it when I got chubby. I think the first year I didn’t say it since before my tweens was last year when I was pregnant. Every year I make the resolution and start some diet and exercise plan or take some pill and I mess up less than a month later and give up. This year I’m not making any resolutions, but I’m still going to lose weight.

Healthy living isn’t something I need to do once a year for a few weeks. Healthy living isn’t something that should only be important when trying to look better. I want to lose weight—my BMI is 27.1—because it is healthy for me. Heck, not looking 4 months pregnant would be nice too. I want to eat healthy because it should be my lifestyle.

My pre-pregnancy weight was 150-ish. Though I was never entirely happy with my body (who is?), I felt alright. My BMI was 25, which is technically the very bottom of overweight. I didn’t feel overweight, but I didn’t really try to exercise or eat particularly healthy. I would like to get back down to 150 (eventually lower), but I want it to be an active, healthy 150.

First things first—fast food. I took a personal finance class last semester and I had to add up everything I spent. In the month of November, we spent over 350 dollars eating out. This includes fast food and restaurant eating. Though it’s partially because we were in the city so much (about 11 hours 3 days a week), it’s still an outrageous number. The first step we’ve taken is to limit our eating out expenses to 175 dollars a month. In December we spent 159 dollars.

MamaFit. I, along with about 15 other moms, are using the #mamafit hashtag on Twitter to help each other lose weight. Just last night I was having problems eating all of the cookies I baked for my Christmas party and Blacktating just told me to stop. That was all it took. Almost like someone smacking my hand and telling me no.

Weight Watchers. I’ve started my 1 week online trial. Keeping track of what I eat makes me realize what and how much I actually eat. Also, I feel like I don’t have a full grasp of what food is healthy. I’m hoping that the points system will help me make better choices with what types of food I eat.

Lastly, exercise. I finally set up the treadmill in the back room and have gone running on it 4-5 times. I would like to do it at least 3 times a week. I would prefer to do it first thing in the morning, but I’m still figuring out how to exercise for 20 minutes and have Peanut be entertained so I’ve only done it at night after she’s in bed. I also signed up for a 1 credit hour stepping class on Saturday mornings.

I’m going to try to post my progress every Saturday on here. Hopefully I’ll also come across some tips for other mamas trying to lose weight. I realize that weekends are when most people slack off with their healthy living, but I want to be held fully accountable*. So here starts Healthy Living Saturdays.

*Speaking of accountability, please comment. I think knowing people are reading this will help me.