My New Guru

Ok that's a little extreme but I just finished reading Kris Carr's book Crazy Sexy Diet and am reinvigorated with new tools and suggestion on how to deal with my digestion problems.

A lot of the stuff she wrote about I already knew. I already don't eat meat and have cut gluten and dairy out but some definetely solidified my decision. I found the stuff about upping veggie intake significantly while lowering fruit intake was interesting and something I am going to try. I am also trying food combining to see if that works. Eating veggies with either a grain or a protein and not both. That will be somewhat difficult but I am going to try and much as I can.

I also really liked the stuff about chewing your food fully, helping your bodily functions and meditation. I am going to start doing meditation before bed every night and see if it helps.

So far I have added veggies to my morning smoothie and lowered my fruit intake. I have been having 1 fruit and 2 veggies in my smoothies and have been trying to make that the only fruit I have.

I am really impressed by her story and I hope that the stuff she write is actually true cause it is really mind blowing but I don't want to be taken for a ride.

So far today

carrot, mango, spinach smoothie (one of my best)
lettuce, tomato, carrot, cuke, lentil salad with nutritional yeast
carrot with cashew butter
rice cereal with rice milk and a few almonds

Also my gym class was super hard today. It still surprises me when this happens especially when I don't add new weight. Is this what happens after a week of not going to the gym? Am I not a strong as I think I am? I guess I'll just have to keep it up more regularly and be more motivated to do bodyrock.

Rice and Lentils...I'm in love

So I decided it was time to be more conscious of what I am eating...again.

Food journaling doesn't work because at this point my only regular symptom is bloating and mild constipation. So I don't really experience pain or gas or discomfort when I eat certain foods. Most times that I eat I feel bloated and I feel the worst when I overeat.

I have been doing a better job at not binging and overeating.

So this week I tried something new. Pretty much all of my meals had rice and lentils in them. I wish I had remembered to take pictures.

For breakfast I have been having rice, fruit, nuts and flax. And for lunch/dinner I have been eating a variety of cold and cooked veggies with rice and lentils. I think my rice to veggie ratio is tipped a bit too much to the rice but there has definitely been a difference. First my digestive system freaked out a bit but today wasn't so bad. I have also really only been eating 2 real meals and then small snacks. Usually I have breakfast and sometimes a snack between 9-11 am and then don;t get hungry until 3 when I usually end up eating a big lunch and then I'm not hungry again.

For example today I had a breakfast rice bowl and 8:30 with green tea. Then a carrot juice at around 11:30. And then lunch at 3 with a snack at around 4. Now it's around 8 and I'm not hungry.

It's interesting figuring out how to listen to my body when it is so unpredictable and I don't know what I am listening for. But I think I am doing a better job I just wish I could feel real big change.

Continuing the search for the upset stomach culprit

I am still not feeling great most of the time, always bloated, feel very heavy after meals. going through a phase now where i don't feel hungry and I can only tell after I have eaten that it was the right decision, which sometimes leads me to eat too much.

I have been doing well at eating smaller meals though which has been positive.

Some thoughts
Tonight I had popcorn, which I usually don't eat but it is a nightly staple in our house and have had a few times in the last month. tonight I have an awful stomach ache after eating the popcorn.
lessons
1. you can't trust what other people make- must be vigilant about asking what is in it
2. avoid late night snacky junk food
3. avoid popcorn

I am going to try and avoid chickpeas. I have had them a lot in the last week and think they might be causing discomfort. If I have a sensitivity I will cry a lot cause I love chickpeas and they are super easy and all over the place in this country.

I want to cut out processed sugar for a bit and see what happens. Stick to fruit and applesauce as sweetener.

Here is a new list of my diet starting Sunday

No-Nos
gluten
dairy
sesame
coffee (this is also sad because I like drinking coffee and I prob won't stick to this very well)
chickpeas
almonds and pecans
processed sugar

I also want to avoid as much as possible night shades- tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers. This is going to be hard but if I focus on making my own food I'll be fine.

Contrary to Popular Belief

Lots of weight loss strategists will tell you that eating while doing something like watching tv or blog stalking on the computer leads to mindless eating and inhibits weight loss. This may be true but I realized something tonight. I already knew that I eat fast. All of a sudden out of nowhere this happened. I used to be the last one done. Maybe my bro and I had some Freaky Friday thing happen cause now he eats super slow. Anyway so I eat fast and then I feel awkward or haven't even started digesting so I take seconds. Both of these things are bad for my stomach. But tonight as I was catching up on blogs and news in front of the comp and eating dinner I realized I was eating slowly because I was also concentrating on something else. Now I assume that the "mindless eating" thing refers mostly to snacking when you have a bad of chips in front of you and are just putting them in your mouth without any thought. Anyway that's a realization I had, now I just need to eat slower when I am not distracted and have super strength willpower in general.

Re-Realizations

So since I have been trying to be more conscious of my nutrition an food intake there have been some changes. Not the really important ones but definitely little ones. A really specific one actually that I took note of a few months ago and re-realized today.

A few months ago a friend asked if i wanted dressing with my salad and I said no. I prefer my salad undressed. She was surprised and asked "don't you think its too dry"? I hadn't thought about it. What I did think about was that I like the taste of vegetables so why try to mask it. I kind of feel that way about cheese and other sauces and dressings as well. I like to spice my food not drench it. I like to taste what it originally should taste like (usually, sometime I get a little heavy with the salt, pepper and cinnamon).

Today I am going to the boyf's house for dinner and am bringing some food just in case. I decided to try out black rice noodles that I picked up on my trip to the natural food store.

I made cinnamon roasted sweet potato and salted broccoli along to go with the noodles and added leftover lentils.

But the meal plan really started with this sauce.
I read about it yesterday and wanted to try it. I am looking for sauces and spreads that don't have tahini in them because I felt really sick after having it a few weeks ago so I am abstaining to see if I have a sensitivity to it. Really I think the problem is that it is so damn tasty that I eat too much of it in one sitting.

So while I was making the food I realized that the sauce will probably mask the flavor of the cinnamon sweet potatoes and that it might just flat out taste bad on the veggies. So I left it on the side and will probably add a little bit or add it bite by bite like I usually do with spreads.

But in general I like that I don't require extras. It makes it a lot easier to get food and stay away from the dairy because if I am having Mexican I want to taste the beans and veggies not the sour cream.

To Eliminate?

Or not.

Now that I know I am not across the board sensitive to fruit and dairy I am back at square one.

It seems I will need to do some eliminating and testing. As of now I am on a no dairy, no gluten diet. I also haven't have sesame seeds/tachina since July 14. I also haven't had peanut butter in I don't know how long. I have decided to stay away form dried fruit aside from raisins and cranberries.

I guess the next step is to try something more serious like certain fruit or night shades. The only fruit right now that is available that is on the list of "inflammatories" is pineapple which I could live without. I could also cut out is processed sugar. yikes. I basically do this already. Up until last week when I started baking I hadn't really made anything that had sugar. I haven't had white or brown sugar in months. I have had honey, maple and agave. I am sure I can find substitutes using fruit and unsweetened fruit products. We'll see if our budget can handle it. Some days I feel like such a burden because I can live without dessert but should I have to. I am striving to live a healthier lifestyle than those I live with and than what my budget can handle. I guess that means I am going to live without.

Away today was another day of not really being hungry but eating a bunch.
after drinking 25 grams of fruit sugar (woah, it was super sweet, I think I got a cavity and I think it made me a bit hyper) and finding out I am not allergic to fruit sugar I had more fruit. Probably not the smartest move. I had an energy bar and quinoa, pecan butter, pineapple and mango. Then when I got home I sort of snacked for the rest of the day. Had one rice cake with pecan butter before working out.

Then at around 4 I felt weak/hungry sort of so I had leftover green quinoa salad. I also had a few grapes. We had people over for dinner and I didn't think I was going to be hungry but I had some room for salad so that is what I ate for dinner. Then as a little prize/treat I had a chickpea blondie. I felt bloated like normal today.

White Night (and Day)

My second food sensitivity test was moved up to tomorrow. YAY, now I don't have to miss Hebrew.

That means today is white rice and white potatoes.

Instead I'll post about my success in Pecan Butter making.

I have been struggling with my nut making projects. None of them (sunflower, almond and cashew) came out the way I wanted. Gooey. They all ended up thick and crumbly. Don't get me wrong, they were tasty and I ate them but when I was in America I learned that store bought nut butter can stay thin and spreadable and dippable.

Finally with pecans, it worked. My food processor works much better with nuts that are roasted so I roasted the new batch of pecans I bought. After they cooled I put 2 cups in the food processor and let'er go. Within 2 minutes it was butter. I was over the moon. It needed to be flavored and this is where I messed it up a bit because I am into adding flax to everything these days. I added a tablespoon of cinnamon, flax and agave. It got thicker obvs because I added stuff to it but I didn't want to add oil to make thin again so I whirred it a few more times and then decided to let it be. Next time I'll just add some sweetener and no powdered stuff. But it is really tasty and still more spreadable then my sunflower butter.

I also did this workout this morning which was a bit on the easy side. Next time maybe 3 rounds would be more challenging. But I was exhausted this morning so an easier workout was probably better. Especially since I found out about a half an hour later that I can't have coffee or tea today.

More successful experiments

I made another batch of energy bars. LOVE THEM!

I also made these with a little variation. I didn't have nut butter so I used applesauce. They didn't fully cook in the middle (which is fine since they can be eaten raw and the recipe says to put them in the fridge) but maybe its because of the applesace. Next time I want to try with a nut butter and with less sugar and more fruit jam. They taste sweet but not much else. They are tasty though.

And I made a tasty salad since it waaaay to hot to cook for reals, especially right  before I want to eat. Everything in the salad is cooked but tasty cold. Maybe it's just me but I like food cold even if it was originally hot.

Green Quinoa Salad

1/2 cup quinoa
1/4 cup green lentils
2 cups brussel sprouts
2 cups green beans
ground garlic
salt
olive oil

1. cook lentils and quinoa. Mix and then spread onto a baking sheet to cool. (I also added flax meal and nutritional yeast)

2. coat brussel sprouts and green beans in olive oil, salt and garlic. Roast at 180 C for about a half an hour or until browned.

3. Set aside to cool.
4. when everything has cooled, mix and put in fridge until ready to serve.

The rest of today was an energy bar before the gym, an amazing strength class, a nectarine green smoothie, a few pieces of cucumber from the salad I made yesterday, A taste on a rice cake of the cinnamon pecan butter I made (also a new success!), and some roasted nuts. Mostly today was picking and tasting but I did't do much so it got me through the day. And I didn't overeat which is a success in itself