From Skinny Fat to Skinny Fit! I hope...

Husband and I are starting a new workout regime tomorrow morning BRIGHT and EARLY. I'm not so worried about staying committed to the 12 week program, as much as I am about getting up at the crack of dawn. We are talking 4 in the MORNING, people. I convinced husband to do it with me, but since we both don't enjoy working out at night and don't want to cut into our family time, I volunteered to get up early and do it together before he goes to work. Have I lost my mind?

I've been wanting to start strength training for a while now, and since I'm a big fan of fitness model Jamie Eason's, I decided I want to try her LiveFit Trainer program. The plan involves 3 phases of workouts, nutrition (meal/food suggestions), and supplements. Since I'm still eating plant based and want to keep things as natural as possible, I'll have to modify the nutrition part some and plan to skip the supplements all together. The thing I love about the workout part of the plan is that it tells me exactly what to do each day. If you ever wanted to start lifting weights and felt completely intimidated, you understand where I'm coming from. I also love that it's different almost every day. I don't have to follow along to a video (although there are videos to demonstrate moves you aren't familiar with) and I can work out while I listen to my own (husband approved) music. :)

Tomorrow is day 1. We're taking "before" photos and measurements tonight so we can track our progress. Say a little prayer that I make it out of bed. :/

In preparation of our new program, I cleaned up and organized our "home gym" today. It's in the basement, so don't judge our lack of feng shui or style. ;) It's functional, free, and we don't have to share sweaty machines with anyone else. 

These helpers demanded a photo. :) 

Motivation Monday!

What motivates you? Cheesy as they may be, quotes and motivational images really keep me focused on my goals and the dedication that's needed to get there. Motivation Monday is all about things that helped me keep chugging along this week. 

"Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding." - Jim Valvano

Recipe Rave

Homemade Salsa & Tortilla Chips

A friend of mine recently turned me on to this homemade salsa recipe that she found on Pinterest. I don't love that it uses canned Rotel and tomatoes because they are more processed than I would like (I'm going to attempt it in the future with fresh tomatoes, but alas, I have yet to test that out). Regardless, it is very easy to make, and also quite delicious.  I put loads of cilantro in mine and we've been eating it on everything. It's excellent on baked potatoes! 

The other night we were craving chips to eat with it so I decided to try my hand at making my own tortilla chips. I didn't want to use any oil or salt to keep them as healthy and simple as possible, so I didn't really follow a recipe except to get an idea about how long to cook them. I used a pizza cutter to cut up a few whole wheat tortillas, put them on a greased cookie sheet, and baked them at 350 for 7 minutes on each side. In my opinion, they taste similar to Wheat Thins (without the salt) and are the perfect healthy companion for my delicious salsa. 

Ever since I made this combo, I've been a little obsessed with it. Today for lunch, I made these chips and mixed some salsa with black beans, corn, and avocado. Then I proceeded to dip and eat the entire batch myself. It was quite delicious, and husband informed me that I'm not allowed to make it in the future when he's at work. We'll see about that... ;)

Tips to Get Your Kids to Drink More Water

Like most kids, mine will always choose juice or milk given the chance. I've discovered a few tricks to cut back on the junk and get them to drink more water.

• Stop buying juice: This might seem harsh, but we don't keep juice or other sugary drinks in our house. If we have it, they want it (NONSTOP). Store bought juice is mostly sugar and unhealthy additives, so we make sure that it isn't an option at home. We do treat them with juice on occasion when we're out somewhere or at someone else's house, but not at home. That's half the battle.
• Hide the sweet stuff: We don't buy regular milk anymore, but we do buy unsweetened almond milk and vanilla almond milk on a regular  basis. Given the opportunity, my kids would choose vanilla almond milk first, then the unsweetened, and then water. Because of this I sometimes keep the vanilla almond milk in the fridge in our garage so they don't know we have any. We use that milk as a treat for them, and for when we make "banana ice cream" or other dessert type smoothies. 
• Fill their bellies with water first: To limit the amount a regular almond milk they drink, and to push water, I often restrict milk to mealtimes and don't offer it until they've finished the water I gave them. 
• Educate them: When they fuss about it, I explain to them how important it is for our bodies to drink enough water and how healthy it is for us. My five year old is very interested in science and how our bodies work. I talk to him about how our muscles and bones work together and how water is essential to keep him growing big and strong. 
• On the rocks: For some reason, ice makes water much more appealing to my kids. If I give them the choice between "water" or "ice water", they will always enthusiastically pick ice water. It's like I offered them mud or chocolate. ;) 
• Make it hip: All three of us drink from water bottles during the day that we refill. I have much greater success getting them to drink water if I put it in a fun cup or bottle - or if I add a straw. I also let them help me refill it when the time comes. My two year old loves the refilling part. Occasionally I will let them get a new bottle or cup if we find a good deal and they need a little motivation boost. They were super excited about these new bottles the other day and have been drinking water like champs all week. :)

It's so important to teach our kids good, healthy habits at a young age. Get them started early while they are still little sponges who soak everything up! :)


In other news:

The New York Times published a story yesterday about two recent studies where researchers reported a link between the food people eat, specifically red meat and eggs, and an increase in the risk of heart attacks. Check it out! I was excited to see this kind of news being discussed in mainstream media.

I'm still ALIVE and going (plant) strong!

Sorry for my dreadful inability to stick to blogging... I. will. be. better.

I'm feeling just as passionate and renewed about our plant strong diet as ever and I'm actually even exercising now too. I've been doing Lindsay Brin's CFS method for retraining my abs for about six weeks now. I can't say enough great things about this program. It's super easy - takes less than 10 minutes - and I'm already seeing a difference. It's especially great if you've had a baby within the last few years, have diastasis recti (which I do - here's what it is and how to test), or haven't exercised in a long time. I've also added in a slew of other exercises most days of the week: jumping jacks, squats, lunges, lung holds, push ups, and misc cardio. See my fancy color coded workout calendars:

For cardio, I usually walk about 3.5 miles pushing a stroller, or lately I've started playing tennis with my husband a couple days a week. Did you know I loved tennis? Me either! It's a great workout and super fun - even though we're not very good. :) The kids generally come with us and run around the court and chase the extra tennis balls - so it's great exercise for the entire family!

As far as nutrition goes, we've been sticking to my plant based diet and we're juicing about every other day lately. We found a fantastic source for juicing recipes where you put in all the fruits and vegetables in your fridge and it lists the different recipes you have the ingredients to make. It also lists the top health benefits for each recipe, so if you're looking to boost your immune system, you can search by that benefit. Or if you need to lower your cholesterol, or are looking to lose weight, etc... It's been a fantastic resource and we've found several new recipes we really liked. We took advantage of making recipes that helped boost the immune system when one of our kids got the stomach bug. I was pushing juice like crazy, but (knock on wood), it seems like we were able to avoid passing it around.

Cooking plant based seems to get better and better. We've learned to "wing it" and also some fast, easy meals that work for us so that we're not spending our every waking minute in the kitchen. This improvement has made the whole thing seem much more sustainable. I've also found that you have to keep the motivation going on a daily basis. Motivation is not just a one time thing - I have to continually find things that motivate me to keep going. I read about health and nutrition constantly, watch documentaries about food fairly often and I also search the Pinterest "health and fitness" category on pretty much a daily basis. For some reason, that keeps me fired up. You just have to find what works for you so that your fire doesn't fizzle. :)

In weight loss news, husband is still losing weight right and left (he's down to 197 lbs - the lowest he's been since we've been together - and he's just started working out a little in the last couple weeks) and I've lost another pound or two. Weight loss is very slow for me since I'm already pretty small, but 2 lbs is a noticeable difference on my frame. 

Lastly, I decided this week that if I could afford to go back to school and change careers, I would totally become a nutritionist, specializing in plant based nutrition, and a certified personal trainer. Maybe someday. :) 

Hey kids! I'm still alive over here, and haven't fallen off the healthy wagon in the least (just the blogging wagon). So here's what I've been doing when I wasn't here:

We've continued to transform our pantry, habits, and lifestyle and are feeling really great! We've completely adopted the "plant strong" diet at home: no meat, dairy or oil and very little processed food. We're also juicing once a day.

Chop, chop.

Banana "Ice Cream"

Our mindset has slowly changed through this whole process and it's amazing to me that the more I know and eat this way, the easier it's been. We initially started out thinking we would try to incorporate healthy foods into our current diet and bargaining with ourselves like "ok well maybe we'll just limit meat to 1 or 2 meals a week and try to cut back on dairy". But as we started making changes, we just haven't missed those other things yet.  And the more we learn, the more those things don't even appeal to us. Granted, we'd probably feel differently if I went out to eat or something, but we don't do that very often. Family parties will be hard though. We're having a birthday party for our son this weekend and planning on ordering pizzas and having cake. It's going to be a little weird to serve "regular food" and not eat any of it. :/ But most of our family won't understand how we could choose to eat this way, so we're really not ready to go there yet. 

I've told several people that I think this whole thing is certainly one of those "ignorance is bliss" sort of things. The more I know, the harder I think it would be to go back to my old lifestyle. Husband mentioned cooking some of the meat in the freezer to get rid of it and I was completely unenthusiastic about the idea. (Actually I said he could cook it if it wanted, but I wasn't eating it). And I was all set to treat myself with a cookie the other day because the ingredients weren't half bad and then I read the tiny print that it contained eggs. I was no longer tempted at all. It's not a matter of "I can't eat that", but instead "I don't eat that." 

Southwestern Twice Baked Potatoes

We've gotten 2 new cookbooks in the last couple weeks. One is from the Forks Over Knives documentary and the other is from a blogger that writes The Happy Herbivore. They are both fantastic! We've been making all kinds of delicious food that is both filling and nutritious! There is more prep time cooking this way, but most of the meals provide us with lots of leftovers. We made Southwestern Twice Baked Potatoes on Saturday and then I didn't have to cook on Sunday or Monday because we ate leftovers both days. We actually had leftover filling for the potatoes, so one of those days we put the filling inside corn tortillas and had burritos. It was delicious! Even the kids loved it! 

Forks Over Knives Cookbook

One especially great thing is that of all the times we've tried to "diet" and even lost weight (usually counting calories and just trying to eat what we thought was healthy), we've always felt deprived and hungry. We've gotten to the end of the day and been at our "calorie limit" for the day and just wanted to EAT something and went to bed feeling unsatisfied. However, with a plant strong diet, we are never hungry and we don't really worry about portions. I don't have to measure out a half a cup of pasta noodles or weigh my portions (I've done this a lot in the past). We eat super delicious meals that fill us up for hours and if we do feel the need for a snack, we eat one, and yet we are still losing weight. How amazing is that?!  The other night I made whole wheat pasta with stir-fried mushrooms, green peppers, onions, banana peppers, and garlic. I didn't use oil, and instead used Bragg's Liquid Aminos and a little seasoning, and it was delicious! I think we all had at least 2 helpings, even the kids. 

My Delicious Pasta Creation!

Overall, I'm really happy with the way things are going and thus far, I think this is something I could continue to do for the long haul. Husband agrees. This week we finally started sprouting our seeds to grow our wheat grass and also plan to try our hand at bread making. I'll post more about those activities when the excitement happens. We are currently on our THIRD batch of home-grown alfalfa sprouts and loving them! They are so, so easy to grow! 

 G'night folks.

Education is Key

This video is 18 minutes long, but totally worth it. It explains perfectly why we're eating the way we are and is very empowering. Please watch it!!

And this is just a summary of the details, for more information about the health benefits of eating plant strong and risks of eating the typical American diet, watch Forks Over Knives. It's free on Netflix! Also, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is also very compelling!