A Day of Food: No Workout Day

This is probably going to be the only time that I post a day of what I eat, because I don't believe that what works for one person will work for the next person.  And I don't think that its healthy to try to eat like someone else because what I've found throughout the years is that you need to eat what makes you happy and leaves you feeling fulfilled.  And again, what works for me probably won't work for you. 

As I made my dinner last night, I piled all my food up on my plate and realized something.  When you are filling your plate with natural, plant based foods for the majority of your plate, 500 calories is A LOT of food!  I made a piece of toast and a scrambled egg, both topped with a slice of Swiss cheese, and a sweet potato hash made with sweet potato, carrot, 1 slice of beef bacon, mushrooms, spinach, onion and a handful of cherries on the side.  Now, when I was done eating I WAS STUFFED!  My plate was heaping full.  Now visualize 2 little slices of pepperoni pizza.  Would you be full after that?  Probably not for long if you were. 

That is probably the best lesson I've learned throughout my years of losing and maintaining weight.  Food that is good for us usually is also naturally lower in calories, nutritionally dense and keeps you full and sustained to get through the day.  

So, without further blabbing from me, here is a typical day of food on a day I don't workout.  I want to stress that fact of a non-workout day food intake is different from a workout day.  On days I workout, I eat extra calories to replace the calories I burn, so that I always end up with the same amount of calories consumed.  I've learned if I don't eat enough calories a few things happen:

1.  I turn into a ravenous cranky food monster the next day

2.  I burn out fast the next day and have no energy to get through the day

3.  My metabolism slows down and I am hungrier for days after and gain weight as my body tries to recover from survival mode. 

Breakfast - At my desk at 8:30am: 
Vanilla Greek yogurt with 1/3 cup granola
Strawberries, Blackberries and Cherries (Totaling about 2 cups of fruit)
Small Latte made with skim milk and 1 pump of vanilla flavoring
Calories:  450ish

Lunch - Again at my desk at 11:30am:

4 ounces shredded chicken breast with bbq (Made in the slow cooker) wrapped in lettuce

Carrot sticks and grape tomatoes dipped in yogurt ranch dressing

Cheese stick

Calories: 350ish

Afternoon Snack - The desk once again at 2:00pm:

2 stalks celery

2 tablespoon chocolate peanut butter

Calories: 180ish

Dinner - At Archiver's scrapbooking with my mom and sister

You Pick 2 from Panera Bread with:

Garden Vegetable with Pesto Soup

Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich

Apple

Calories: 470ish

And that's about it!  I don't typically eat out for dinner, but today was a special occasion.  But I would have had something like this at home anyway after a long week at work.  I wrapped up the day at about 1,470 calories.  I don't calorie count every single day, but I will about once per week to make sure I'm keeping myself on track with where I want to be calorie wise, and to make sure I'm eating enough (especially on workout days).   

Vegetable Lasagna

2011 has been a major year for us. I turned 30, Walnut started Kindergarten, Peanut started Preschool, we celebrated 10 years of marriage, I've had the same best friend for 20 years, I ran 3 half-marathons and a handful of other smaller races, and we were surrounded by family and friends whom we laughed, cried and enjoyed time with.

                                               *yes, I often run with my eyes closed apparently...

What I learned the most from the last year is the importance of fueling your body with what it needs and not what tastes good or is convenient. I've learned you only have one body and you need to take care of it from a young age. I've learned also, that sometimes your body just needs a break. You can only push so hard, ask it to do so many things and ignore small aches and pains for so long. Then you take a break. You heal, you pray, and you start again but this time wiser about what your body needs.

I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I will go a few days without eating meat.  Some meals I've learned can be enhanced by leaving out the traditional meat I usually add to the recipe and instead replacing it with a rainbow of vegetables.  My husband may not agree with this enlightenment I've come to find, however.  But I've decided an occasional meat free meal isn't going to kill anyone! 

The base for my lasagna is hearty vegetables: egg plant, zucchini, and mushrooms.

Topped off with homemade sauce using fire roasted tomatoes and lots of herbs!

The filling is ricotta and spinach  <---- More veggies!

And for some reason I can make homemade spaghetti sauce every day of the week, but I've become to lazy to boil noodles!

yuuuuummmmmmm........and topped with CHEESE!

             Baked up to Golden Perfection and I'm ready to dig in!

Vegetable Lasagna

For Sauce:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, diced

1 medium zucchini, chopped to 1/2" cubes

1 small eggplant, chopped to 1/2" cubes

8 ounces mushroom, sliced

28 ounce can fire roasted diced tomatoes

6 ounce can tomato paste

1 1/2 tablespoon dried oregano

1 1/2 tablespoon dried basil

1 1/2 tablespoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon salt (or adjust to your taste)

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

For Filling:

15 ounces ricotta cheese

2-3 cups fresh spinach

1 egg

8 oven-ready lasagna noodles

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large pan, heat olive oil and add onion and garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes until they start to brown. Add zucchini, eggplant and mushrooms and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until vegetable start to soften. Add tomatoes, paste, dried herbs, salt and sugar. Reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, put ricotta, fresh spinach and egg into a food processor and pulse several times until spinach has been incorporated into ricotta.

To assemble:

Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Lay 4 noodles in bottom of the pan (or enough noodles to cover bottom of pan). Scoop 1/2 of sauce over the top of noodles. Then spread all of ricotta mixture over top of sauce. Add another layer noodles, top with remaining sauce and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese.

Bake uncovered for 45 minutes. The top layer of cheese should be melted and beautifully browned.

Enjoy!!

*I split the ricotta over two layers, but the top layer kind of dried out while baking, so going forward I will put all the ricotta between the two layers of noodles as the directions indicate!

Whole Wheat Greek Yogurt Pancakes

 Looking for some wholesome Saturday morning pancakes that will leave you fueled for a day of fun but won't weigh you down?  This recipe is low in sugar, high in protein and absolutely delicious.  I top mine with blueberries, pecans and pumpkin butter and lick the plate clean every time! 

Whole Wheat Greek Yogurt Pancakes

adapted from The Pioneer Woman's Sour Cream Pancake recipe

Makes 4-5 pancakes

1 cup nonfat Greek Plain Yogurt (I use Chobani)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Optional:  1 cup of your favorite fruit (bananas, blueberries, strawberries)

Combine yogurt, flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and whisk until combined. In a smaller bowl, whisk together eggs and extracts and add to the large bowl. Stir until just combined.

Heat a skillet to medium high heat and spray with cooking oil.  Add 1/2 cup of batter. Spread it out a little bit with the back of a spoon (the batter is a little thick). Cook about 2 to 3 minutes per side until nice and golden brown.

Top with fresh fruit, nuts, and syrup and ENJOY!!

Nutritional Data (about 1/2 cup of batter made with no fruit):

Calories: 140

Fat: 3

Protein: 11

Carbs: 17

Fiber: 2

2012: The Year of Maintenance and Acceptance

With the new years just a handful of days away and New Year’s Resolutions being chiseled out…I thought now would be as good time as any to share my story of finding health and losing weight with anyone who is planning on making the same resolution this year.

My story has multiple parts, with losing the same weight multiple times. Each time I learned something, and hopefully I’ve finally got it right.

Part 1: Growing up, Graduation, Marriage and Conception

Changes in lifestyle make a big impact on your health. At least it did for me! All throughout my childhood years I was always over weight. I don’t think I ever had a horribly negative body image. I knew I was bigger then other girls, but I always thought I was healthy. I dabbled in sports, and was somewhat “athletic” throughout junior high and high school. All throughout high school I weighed 180 pounds and wore a size 16. I worked at Maurices, and got a dang good discount on clothes, but couldn’t wear any of them because I didn’t fit into them.

Enter the college years. Moving out on my own, buffet style dining plan with fast food restaurants built right into it (Pizza Hut, Burger King, etc.) Insert 15 more pounds here.

Then when I was 20 I got married and my first apartment with my husband and started “cooking” on my own. Frozen pizza, tv dinners, lots and lots of cereal. Insert another 15 pounds.

After graduating college in 2003, I had a summer of extreme…laziness. I was exhausted from moving to a new apartment, taking finals, graduating, etc and spent way too much time on the couch, enjoying my free cable television. Enter yet another 10 pounds for grand total of 220 pounds! I was officially a size 20.

I didn’t even recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. I thought about making changes, I wanted to make changes, but I just didn’t know how to do it! Once I was settled down in my first “real” job, my husband and I started talking about making babies. So, always needing to be fully informed, I bought a book about conception. In the book, it talked about lower fertility rates for obese women, as well as potential risks to both the baby and mother during pregnancy and after birth. Wait…what??? Obese…is 220 pounds on my 5’ 6” frame obese? Why, yes it is.

So, my first push to lose the weight was spurred by my not yet conceived child. I joined the Monticello Community Center and ellipticalled EVERY.SINGE.DAY. 30 to 60 minutes, 7 days a week, sometimes at 5am. My husband joined me some days and simply watched tv on the bikes in the front row. Somedays, I went on my own, feeling surrounded my healthy people wishing it was me that was slim and toned and healthy.
I remember one day Donna came upstairs with 2 bags of novels. She stepped on the scale next to me found out those to bulging bags of heavy novels weighed 40 pounds…and then Donna looked at me and said “Wow…I used to carry this much extra weight around on me everyday.” I looked at those bags and thought “Holy crap I have to lose more than that!” Those were big bags!!

It all happened quite quickly actually. Within 8 months of chaining myself to that elliptical I was down to 170 pounds and a size 14!!!! Wow! I hadn’t been a 14 size junior high, and I loved it. I loved my new body. I felt confidence I’d never felt before.

At this time, I still didn’t understand the importance food plays in overall health. I didn’t watch what I ate, I simply exercised to burn calories. And for the time being, it worked! I was ready to conceive my first little baby!

Part 2: Pregnancy #1

Pregnancy was sort of a free pass for me. I quit working out, beyond occasional walks with a co-worker. I ate Dairy Queen way too much because “I had a craving.” On the day I delivered Aden, I weighed 221 pounds. A tad over the recommended 30 pounds…

When I got home from the hospital, I stepped on the scale and realized I still weighed 200 pounds even with the big baby out of me. I blamed it on the huge boobs I gained from breast feeding.

When Aden was 6 months old, and I still weighed 190 pounds, I realized I needed to DO SOMETHING. I had a good friend that had a baby shortly after I did and I always saw her as athletic and healthy, so I asked her if she would like trying to run with me to get into shape. To my luck, she agreed and started meeting me at the Community Center track one time per week. We would run/walk for 30 minutes each time. It started with walking 2 laps and running one lap. The first day I think my friend was wondering what she was getting herself into when I was heaving for air, bright red in the face and sweating from everywhere. But she was committed to helping me, bless her heart, and I was committed to trying to do my best. After a few weeks, I ran my first mile straight through EVER! At 24, I had never ever been able to run for an entire mile. That day right there was the day I fell in love with running instead of hating it. We gradually built up our running, adding a few minutes each week. Then, one funny day when I had an incredible runners high I said “WE SHOULD RUN A 5K!” Her response was an immediate “OK!” and we were signed up for the Monticello Riverfest 5k. Oh boy!

I ran it that race at an 11:31 pace. My friend flew past me at the ½ mile mark. I felt desperate to get myself out of this race. I couldn’t do it. Then…all of the sudden, I thought…Why the hell can’t you do it? When I finished the race, I thought I was going to break out in tears! I was so happy!

I continued to run throughout the next 2 years and made some minor diet changes. I quit eating fast food as much, I switched to whole grains, and tried to eat more vegetables. I got down to about 160 pounds and was a size 12 and was ecstatic! I ran about 4 5k races each summer. Always looking forward to another race to beat my personal record.

Part 3: Pregnancy #2 and #3

The husband and I decided it was time to have another baby. I was pregnant again and was told by my doctor that since was as active pre-pregnancy I could continue to safely exercise. At about 6 weeks, I speed walked a 5k race that had signed up for before getting pregnant. At 7 weeks, I miscarried. I quickly recovered and we were pregnant again 2 months later, but I was horrified of working out, so I didn’t. I tried to focus on diet and eating healthier instead. I started reading a lot about healthy diets. I made most meals homemade and avoided processed foods. I made little changes like switching from 2% milk to skim, replacing the rest of the processed grains to whole grains, and started eating more fresh vegetables.

I still gained another 40 pounds during pregnancy and weighed 200 pounds on the day I gave birth, coming home from the hospital at 180 pounds.

Slowly, I worked to gain back my running endurance. When Amena was 6 weeks old, I ran my first 5k distance. And I ran the whole thing. And my full breast feeding boobs were sore. But I did it!

This time while trying to lose weight again, I had knowledge of how exercise impacted my body and ability to lose weight combined with my new found knowledge of healthy, pure, whole grain, homemade food. With the combination of the two I was able to get down to 145 pounds and a size 10! Holy smokes!

The only problem was that I was still exercising to burn calories, and I was not in a balanced place. Maintaining the weight loss for me turned out to be harder then actually losing the weight. Throughout a 3 year period, I had bounced between 145 and 160 several times. Summers seemed to be the hardest to maintain the weight loss with all the bbqs and picnics and graduations going on. Last year, I had decided since I still loved running so much, I was going to go big. I signed up for the Earth Day Half Marathon in St. Cloud. I downloaded a training plan and stuck to it religiously, checking off every single run. For 12 weeks, my Saturdays were committed to long runs.

I started training at 160 pounds, got down to 145 pounds again around week 7 of training, and went right back up to 160 pounds by race day! The thing about running is it makes you hungry! Runner’s hunger is no joke. I ate anything and everything it seems during training. I figured that, hey, I ran 10 miles this morning so I deserved those 25 snacks I had during the day!

I ran Earth Day and finished in 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds. A full 10 minutes below my goal! And I was hooked. I ended up running 2 more half marathons this year and a 10 mile race.

Then, my knee started hurting, my hips hurt, my back hurt, my whole body hurt. I realized it was time to take a step back, and give my body a break. I took October and November of this year off completely from exercising so I could think. I realized that there is a point where over-exercising is almost like an eating disorder. Running 30 miles a week is not necessarily healthy unless you are doing it for the right reason. I was doing it to burn calories. I signed up for the races as motivation to run even more. I ignored signals from my body to stop.

So during the 2 months I took off, I cleaned up my diet even more. I started eating about 85% of my meals vegetarian. I eat fresh, delicious vegetables every day. I eat nuts and nut butters everyday. I realized the connection of what goes into your body directly links to how good you are going to feel that day. In December I slowly have started adding exercise back into my life. I don’t exercise more then 4 days a week. I don’t exercise for more than 30 minutes at a time unless I’m doing a wonderful class (such as Body Blast)! I never run on back to back days. I’ve realized the importance of lifting weights to keep my body strong for years to come. And I’ve realized I don’t need to be dripping sweat at the end of every workout to prove I’ve worked hard.

In hindsight, each experience I’ve had at losing weight has made me stronger, and more knowledgeable about what it means to be healthy. Health is a lifestyle. It is a frame of mind that you have to adopt every single day. Every single choice you make impacts your health.

I’ve learned that a chocolate chip cookie on occasion is not going to mess me up. If I want a cookie, then I eat a cookie. If I deprive myself of a cookie, I’ll end up eating 5 of them a few days from now.

I’ve learned that I need to exercise because it makes me feel good. Not as a “tool” to burn calories. 2 years ago I could run a 5k in 26:30. Yesterday, it took me 35 minutes to complete a 5k. But, I’m okay with that. I don’t have to run fast to be healthy, I just have to move my body. Because even if I run slow, I’m still lapping every one on the couch!

My current weight is 142 and a size 8. I hope throughout my journey I’ve gathered enough tools to maintain my health and be a good role model for my children. My weight and size don’t mean as much to me these days as it used to. What’s more important is that I feel great. I’m happy with my body. I’ve accepted myself just the way I am.