Losing It.

Some food that's been working

First off, I have to say when I weighed in on Thursday I was happy to see I'd lost three pounds. This is a big deal given the monster plateau I'd been on. This morning, I got on the scale again, just for kicks, though I usually try to only weigh in once a week. Still, I was down another pound which means I have busted through the plateau and am currently at my lowest weight so far since having Sam.

Total pounds lost: 27 and counting.

I have no plans of slowing down.

So, now that I've knocked junky food out of my diet, even food that I'd budgeted for points-wise, I am turning to lots of fresh foods and finding--who knew?--they taste better! I will still do treats every now and then (I'm not so unrealistic to think I'll never want a piece of birthday cake)... but for the most part, I have been content eating this way and hope that continues.

The trick, I think, is keeping the fridge stocked with healthy options. If there's nothing in there, it's easier to slip back to what I had been eating before.

Things I'm cutting out that used to be staples?

• Diet soda.
• 100 Calorie packs
• Spray Butter
• Fat Free anything
• Most pre-packed quick foods
• Coffee creamer (replaced by organic half and half)
• Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine Meals
• Smart Ones desserts
• My WW chocolate muffins that I seriously used to eat every morning
• for the kids, cereals like Apple Jacks, etc.

Some of these things I've found acceptable replacements for. Others, they're just out the window. Some good things I've discovered so far:

• Amy's meals in the health food section of our grocery store
• Wolfgang Puck Organic Soups (Amy's organic soups are good too... I love soup)
• Wal-mart carries Hormone/Antibiotic/cage free chicken
• Trader Joe's everything (Especially loving the Sea Salt pita chips, but be careful, these will rack up major points!)
• Organic half and half! Delicious!!
• FRESH organic fruit. YUM
• Cooking. Eating together. Can't beat it.

I have to say for me anyway, those prepackaged meals and snacks were keeping me from losing weight. They are not good for you. Trying to eat fresh, clean and raw is a much better option and doesn't have to be horribly expensive.

So. I am no cook, as anyone who knows me knows. I am the farthest thing from it, but I have discovered if I want my food healthy... I'm going to have to do it myself. (Isn't that just like so many things in life?... you want it done right...well, guess who's gonna have to do it?)

And I should add that I do still count my points. This helps me with portion control. Just because food is healthy doesn't mean you can't overdo it. I could've easily gone to town with my pita chips, but instead, I would only have like 3-4 at a time.

 Ok. Above you have my replacement for the WW muffins. That's a Trader Joe's cranberry orange muffin. I eat mine with some raw honey (YUM--if you can find this, get it. So much better than what's in the store) and on that day, an orange. Best. Orange. I. Ever. Ate. Those muffins are chock full of fiber. I think that whole thing is like, 4 points. Next time, though, I'm getting blueberry. I only sometimes like cranberry. With this it was just okay.

 

Blueberry Streusel Muffins. These are a Weight Watchers muffin I made with organic blueberries. I also substituted whole wheat flour for half of the flour it calls for. Didn't miss the white stuff. I should've had more blueberries in it, but they were what I had on hand. These were great and my entire family loved them!

Here's the recipe: (From the Weight Watchers Website.)

POINTS® Value: 4 Servings:  12 Preparation Time:  14 min Cooking Time:  35 min Level of Difficulty:  Moderate

These muffins were a hit at our last recipe tasting. We couldn't decide which was better: the moist, blueberry-bursting cake or delicious crumb topping.

Ingredients

	2 1/4 cup(s) all-purpose flour, divided
	1/2 tsp baking soda
	1 tsp baking powder
	1/2 tsp table salt
	1 large egg(s)
	1 cup(s) sugar, divided
	3/4 cup(s) reduced-fat sour cream
	1 tsp vanilla extract
	1/4 cup(s) fat-free skim milk, divided
	2 cup(s) blueberries, washed and picked over
	2 tbsp butter, melted

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375ºF. Place muffin liners in a 12-hole muffin tin.
  
  
• In a large bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
  
  
• Using an electric mixer, beat egg with 3/4 cup of sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add sour cream and beat until thoroughly combined; blend in vanilla extract.
  
  
• Add half of flour mixture and half of milk to sugar mixture; beat until just combined. Add remaining flour mixture and milk; beat until smooth.
  
  
• Fold in blueberries and fill each muffin liner about 3/4 full; set aside.
  
  
• To make streusel topping, in a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup each of sugar and flour. Pour in melted butter and combine with fingertips. Divide crumb mixture over muffins; gently press into top of muffin batter with fingertips.
  
  
• Bake until slightly golden and a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Cool in pans for about 10 to 15 minutes and then transfer muffins onto racks to cool completely. Yields 1 muffin per serving.

Notes

• You can use any combination of fresh berries in this recipe. Frozen berries are fine to use as long as you make sure they’re completely thawed first.

 

There's another picture just because I like it. Makes my mouth water. :)

Ok, one thing I stole from my mom's kitchen is something she makes like, all the time in the summer. At least a lot of the time and I love it. Naturally I don't have a photo of it completely done and by this point my kids are asking me why I keep taking pictures of food... but I do have some along the way...

Start with red potatoes - mine were part of my organic delivery.

 

Wash 'em and all that jazz. I love that you don't have to peel them.

 

Ethan likes them too.

Then you take some fresh (organic) green beans...

 

Ok, once these are all cut up, you can boil them, but I'm told that takes a lot of the nutrients out of the veggies, so I'll tell you what I did. I did this completely because I am a total amateur and couldn't get a hold of my mom who never turns her cell phone on.

I cooked some turkey bacon, like five or six slices. Then, took it out of the pan but didn't wash the pan out. Then I threw all my potatoes in the same pan.

 

While they were cooking I got a hold of my mom who told me that I should've boiled the potatoes (whoops) so I should add some water to my pan and cover so the potatoes could soften. I did that and steamed the beans then threw it all together (bacon included) for a delicious (filling) side dish. Adam made hamburger medallions to go along with it in our grill pan. It was a really good, healthy, filling meal! Should've taken a photo, but alas, I did not.

Lunches are really hard for me. This is where I came to rely on Smart Ones.

Don't. They aren't healthy and really, they don't taste good. (Think about it, do they really taste good?) I have to also tell you that my grandma's husband once found a chicken BEAK in his Lean Cuisine so hopefully that will make it impossible for you to eat the dang things EVER AGAIN.

So this is my new favorite lunch:

 

Basically, I took a whole wheat tortilla and filled it with amazing deliciousness. Organic cheese (just a little bit for taste), a slice of Trader Joe's turkey, two slices of turkey bacon, my organic veggies--lettuce, tomatoes, red pepper... seriously didn't realize how much I liked veggies! Then, I roller 'er up and...

 

Oh, and I put a tiny little bit of mayo on mine too. This was so amazingly yummy I cannot begin to tell you. I can't remember how many points it was... but it wasn't high. And it was GOOOOOD. And healthy!

Ok, last thing I am gonna post right now... and these are super easy to make... quesadillas. Oh, no, wait, I lied. Two other things before the quesadillas... One old standard I have always made that I now make with my organics is:

 

Not good light for that photo, but you get the point. That's a good Monday or Wednesday night meal for me because those are busy nights.

Then, I stole this recipe from my friend Christy's blog. I'll have to find out if I can link you to her because she's amazing and healthy and wonderful... a huge help to me already so far in this journey. Anyway, I made this little guy for breakfast one day:

 

You just scramble some eggs, throw in whatever vegetables you want and then bake it at 400 for like, 25 minutes. I think I baked this for more like 30, but I wasn't hungry then till about 2 p.m. it was so filling and I ate it around 8 in the morning. Very good. Like a quiche without the fattening crust. (I know, the crust is ridiculously good, but we're talking healthy here, remember?)

Ok. Now, the quesadillas. Remember please I am not a good cook. I have no clue what I'm doing, but this was a wonderful hit in our family last Sunday afternoon. Easy easy!

 

The first thing I did was pound the chicken breasts with a big fat chicken-breast pounder. LIke a mallet only for food. I forget what they're called. Then I grilled them on the grill pan (seasoned them first with salt and pepper and I think garlic salt.) They were SO good. I could've eaten them just like that. YUMMERS.

Next, I sauteed my veggies--onions, red & yellow peppers, tomatoes (I didn't sautee these, I don't think, I think I just threw them in there...) Then I lightly buttered one side of a whole wheat tortilla, stuck it in my pan, topped with veggies and a very light amount of organic cheese and the cooked chicken like so:

 

Good grief, that is pretty. It was SO yummy. I have to add that the butter thing... butter is not bad. At least in my world it's not. Massive amounts are bad, but health-wise, I'd rather spend some extra points on butter than put spray butter (read: CHEMICALS) in my body. It used to only be about LOW-POINTS. Now it's about HEALTHY and low in points.

 

Anyway. Top with another buttered tortilla and let it cook over medium until the cheese melts and you can flip it.

These are so yummy and you can personalize them for whoever. My kids just wanted chicken and cheese. They did take awhile... and made me want a quesadilla maker, but still. The end result was a winner!

 

That's one of the kids' slices. Yum.

So. that's what I've been eating. :) Good stuff.

How about you? What's working for you?

I quit.

That's not a typo. I really did quit. Weight Watchers anyway. But it's not the kind of parting where I plan to never see WW again, just never in the form I was used to it in. See, at my last meeting, when my leader starting singing the praises of spray butter, I started thinking, "Hmmm... perhaps having all this conflicting information in my head isn't a good thing for me." See, for me, right now, life is about health. Getting healthy. And never in my life have I understood that like I do now.

See, ever since I had Sam I feel like there's been something wrong with me.

 

Yeah, that's not me, but you get the point. Headache. Neck ache. Shoulder ache. Constant. Constant pain. I don't know if you have ever known someone in constant pain. It's SO hard to stay in a decent mood when you feel like garbage all the time. You don't want to whine and complain, but no one can really understand what it's like.

On top of that Sam was in constant pain. In a constant state of ill.

  

Yeah, that IS really him. And while I occasionally saw glimspes of my formally happy baby:

 

For all intents and purposes, he was gone. Out the door with my sanity.

After about six months of this with Sam, and two more straight weeks of no-relief-in-sight-head/shoulder/neck pain that nothing could touch, not the chiropractor, not Tylenol with Codeine leftover from childbirth... nothing, I decided it was time to make some changes. I will keep this story as brief as possible, but I feel like it has a place here on my weight loss blog for a reason.

See, I have complained on here before that I have been gaining and losing the same four pounds over and over again. It's all connected.

Let me start by saying that WW works. It's worked for me in the past. After I had Ethan I got within five pounds of my goal and only gained when we started talking about having another baby (it was kind of like, 'well, might as well forget all this point-counting stuff if I'm just going to have to do it again...) But it does work. You can lose weight doing this program. Whether or not you will keep it off, I don't know because what I think now is that you have to have a completely REVELATION about your health in order to really key in to what it is that makes you lose weight. It cannot be, like it has always been for me, about vanity.

I went to a natural doctor in Wisconsin that I heard about through a friend of mine. She is a Christian woman who literally cured herself of cancer. She believes as I do that God created our bodies to heal themselves. He created the herbs in the ground to heal us... however, she also said that there are times when antibiotics and man-made medicines are necessary. I appreciated that because I'm not ready to write off doctors and medicine and all that stuff. But the point is, if you life a healthy lifestyle you will be less likely to need those things in the future.

So, her first test is to analyze your blood. This was the big one for me. She put Sam's blood up on the screen and instantly I knew something was wrong with it. I had no idea what I was looking for but it did not look healthy. Mine was the same way. It boiled down to mostly bacteria and toxins for Sam and for me a bacteria/parasite problem and more specifically, Candida. Yum.

So, for Sam, it's pretty clear that his issues have come from the loads of antibiotics he's been on in his 15 months. Basically, the antibiotics killed off the good and the bad and then he couldn't fight off any new illnesses, so he just got everything. Which usually turned into an ear infection. Then more antibiotics.

What is a worn out mom to do?

Sometimes... take matters into your own hands. No one could explain Sam to me. No one knew what was wrong. Just "it's a virus." "It's another virus." "He's getting these viruses because his sister is bringing them home from school." But I knew he wasn't supposed to. He was supposed to catch every illness that passed by. He had no peronality anymore. He wasn't happy. He was always miserable. Something was wrong. I knew it in my gut. And I believe... sometimes... the mom knows. Even before the doctor knows.

My problem, however, was not so simple. My hormones were imbalanced. My adrenals and liver weren't functioning properly. My blood was sick and both mine and Sam's blood had plaque in it. Further testing showed that my thyroid is also acting up (or not acting at all, actually.) Only on the right side though. I have some vitamin deficiencies (E & C)... lots of stuff going on. But the biggest problem, I told her was this never-ending head/neck/shoulder ache.

She said, "Well, that's your blood sugar."

I said, "HUH?" I mean, I eat. I am sure I'm keeping my blood sugar up, right?

She said, "The parasites steal the nutrition in everything you eat so your body can't keep your blood sugar up."

Suddenly, it's making sense. Now, I have to be honest. I was somewhat skeptical of this whole thing, so picture me with a raised eyebrow and a bit of sarcasm lurking underneath my painted on smile. But as she spoke, things started to become a little clearer... and the picture of my crazy-unhealthy blood is forever burned in my mind.

Turns out this Candida LOVES sugar. Makes you crave it. Loves white flour and things like pasta. Things I also happen to eat on a regular basis. Remember the candy jar?

 

See, before I threw that away, I relied on that. I relied on candy. I saved points in my day for sugar and candy. But I had the points, so it was fine, right?

Never mind what it was doing to my body.

I tell you all this to say... I have had one something of a revelation. Because now my body isn't something to loathe. It isn't something I wish I could control and mold into the form I desire. It's this remarkable amazing thing that has given birth three times. It is full of these little cells and organisms that work together to ensure that I am healthy. And what am I doing to it? Ruining it!

I have had a bona-fide Oprah A-ha Moment. I now understand the difference between pursuing HEALTH and pursuing WEIGHT LOSS. This isn't something that can be taught in a program. For years I learned about health and nutrition--I knew I shouldn't eat candy... but if I had points left, I might as well. I knew about 'making food fuel' blah blah blah. But it never got rooted into my brain and my gut the way it is now.

Now I have a clear, visual picture of how unhealthy I was. How unhealthy my baby was. That picture is forever engrained in my mind. And ever since, my outlook about food has completely changed. As a result, some amazing things have happened:

1. I have been cooking on a very regular basis. And not everything I've made has been terrible, either! I've discovered I have a little bit of creativity in the kitchen... just a little... and Adam is a wonderful taste-tester! (Sophia... not so much.)

2. We eat as a family. Almost every night. This fact makes me want to cry. Do you know that teenagers who eat with their families are FAR less likely to have all those crazy teenager problems (depression, pregnancy, eating disorders.) It's a habit that is vitally important to me. Our FAMILY is priority.

3. I no longer view my household chores (especially cooking) as chores. Instead, now, for some crazy reason, I feel like I am bringing health to my kids.

4. My older two now seek out fruit and healthy snacks. Sophia especially wants to know what is healthy and loves to help me find organic stuff at the store.

5. Sam is a completely different baby. I will say he still has a bit of a runny nose as of yesterday, but I'm wondering if I was expecting too much assuming that would stay gone after an entire Sunday in the nursery at church. He laughs all.the.time! He isn't so clingy. He's happy. He is FUNNY. He dances and shakes his tail feather. He plays "peek-a-boo" on his own, without the game being initiated!

6. I AM NOT IN A BAD MOOD ANYMORE. I thought I was just moody. I assumed I was just hormonal and crabby and had this plight in life to carry my cross up the hill and down again. Poor me. What a hard day I had. But now, I find I am more patient. I am happier. More willing to do what needs to be done.

7. I all but stopped eating sugar. Now, I do still have the occasional cookie. But I don't crave them. I don't plan to eat half my points in sweets. I think of them as little treats that are great now and then but mostly, at night, I sit down with a big fat bowl of fresh fruit. And it's amazingly delicious.

8. I have so much more energy. I am not groggy and tired and relying on coffee to get me through the day. Plus, I love learning about this stuff, and I find the grocery store is actually kind of fun now.

I have started things before and not finished. I've been excited at the onset -- probably even as excited as I am right now about this stuff. But this time, I think it's different. THis isn't about JUST me anymore. It's not about losing weight to fit into my skinny jeans. It's about living the kind of life God intended me to live.

And I think my A-ha Moment is going to be like the gift that keeps on giving...

At least... that's what we're hoping...

 

Oh, and I still plan to weigh in on Thursdays... and I do still count my points, but I am not eating chemicals like spray butter. I'm just using good judgment about how much of the real stuff I can actually eat.

More about what I HAVE been eating later this week. I've got some GOOD stuff to share! :)

I went to my meeting!

... and I gained 1.6 pounds! wooohoooo.

How's that for motivation? Truthfully, I don't understand. I don't know what else to do to get over this plateau. I started exercising and I gained weight. How fair is that?

I'm STUCK. 20 lbs. (25 if I'm feeling feisty, and you better believe I AM)... left to go... and I'm stuck.

STUCK STUCK STUCK STUCK STUCK.

And it stinks.

I'm not going to lie to you. I am aggravated and annoyed I can't be one of those weight watchers who loses consistently every single day. I am annoyed with myself that no matter what I do, I still seem to be stuck. So, something isn't clicking here with me. I did realize today that I ate out a little more than I thought I had the past two weeks. I really don't eat out anymore, except on Wednesdays when I go to the coffee shop to write, usually Adam and I have lunch somewhere together. I have no idea what the points are, I just try to be smart about what I'm eating.

But still. I have been careful and cautious and nevermind that I snuck a can of Coke (3 pts.!) the other day. Still, with 35 bonus points, I'm thinking those things shouldn't keep me from losing, should they?

So, here's my plan. One week. I am going to be totally ridiculously diligent. I'm going to drink tons of water. I'm going to track. I'm going back to week one to start over. This is my deal with myself, now. If I lose, then I'm going to do the same dang thing the following week. It's going to be like wearing a corset I'm going to be so tight and crazy on this thing. And to really get crazy, I'm going to diligently look everything up before I go out to restaurants (for instance, tomorrow, I have a real, live date with my husband and I'm going to pick out what I'm eating before I even go.)

I gotta be honest. This is getting old. I'm getting tired of being stuck and gaining and losing the same four pounds. So while I haven't figured out what it is I'm doing wrong, I am going back to the basics to try and determine exactly where I've veered off course.

Oh, and I should add, the WW meeting was PACKED today and the woman behind the counter who weighed me in was SO NOT NICE. I mean, seriously. Not nice at all. I wanted to be like, "have a little sympathy, life time member, you were here once, weren't you?" But she's probably one of those people who lost four pounds and gained lifetime status within the first six weeks. Love that.

Anyway. I'm bitter and ranting and I have errands to run with children in tow so I need to go meditate on something good, pure and holy before I venture out there and lose my mind, only to have to return in time to repent for forgetting the good, pure and holy things I was meditating on.

Sigh.

Anyone have any plateau busting tips for me? Let me hear 'em!