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! 

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Though our fast was going better than expected, we decided that day 4 would be the final day this time around. We both wanted to end on a weekend so that we could enjoy preparing and eating our first meal together and we didn't really want to wait 5 more days for that. But we don't consider this a failure at all. Most first timers only fast for 1-2 days, and we made it 4. I am super proud of that. Plus, I lost 7 lbs, Husband lost 9 lbs, and we both feel great.

I think one of the hardest parts about any of it was that we (especially me) had to continue to prepare 3 meals a day for the kids. Cooking for other people when you can't eat is really quite difficult. Despite that, we will definitely be juice fasting again. We want to do a longer 4-7 day fast about once every six months, but might also do shorter 1-2 day fasts even more frequently. 

Rip's Big Bowl

The important thing is that this is a kick start to a lifestyle of healthy eating and good nutrition. The last night of our fast, we cleaned out all the "junk" in our pantry and went to the grocery store to stock up on more veggies and healthy staples with little-to-no junk in them. Then we spent the remainder of our evening planning all three meals for Sunday. :D We were pretty excited about eating. 

We decided on "Rip's Big Bowl" for breakfast from Rip Esselstyn's documentary (and book) Engine 2 Diet. It was delicious!!! Probably my favorite thing of the whole day and it really sticks with you and keeps you feeling satisfied. You can find the recipe here. We improvised a bit on the types of cereals we used in it, but we did use 4 and they were all Kashi brand. We made a BIG batch of this so that we could have it each morning and all we need to add is the fruit. 

For lunch, we wanted something fairly light, so we made a giant salad with tons of fresh veggies (with enough leftovers for both of our lunches today). Instead of salad dressing, we mixed in fresh avocado, which I actually prefer and is much healthier. We also had some carrot/celery/apple juice. Both were excellent, but I think in the future, I won't make juice to go with our meal. The juice can pretty much stand on it's own and the salad was huge (that is a mixing bowl, not a regular bowl), so it was a little too much for me in one sitting. I think in the future I'll do one for lunch and the other for a snack.

We were most excited about preparing our dinner because we'd been dreaming about it for days. It's another recipe from the Engine 2 Diet documentary we watched. On the menu: Kale Salad with Veggie Panini's. First we made some healthy roasted red pepper hummus that is used as the spread on the panini's. The hummus was excellent and very easy to make. All you do is roast a red pepper and garlic in the oven, and then mix them with chickpea's in the blender. We used a can of organic chickpeas to save on prep time. The recipe is here, and we have plenty left over to use on more sandwiches or as a dip for fresh veggies.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Once our hummus was ready, we started in on the rest of dinner. The kale salad was super easy and simply chopped up kale, one avocado, and the juice from one lemon all mixed/mashed together. We thought the lemon was a little overpowering, so this was our least favorite item of the day, but it was still ok. The panini recipe is here and I would highly recommend them. We used a very dark whole wheat bread, which probably wasn't the best, but they were still excellent.

Today I'm very excited to try out some of our alfalfa sprouts (they are growing crazy fast) and also to get back to working out. Happy Monday!

Days 3 & 4

Day 3:

The third day was definitely the hardest for me. It probably had a whole lot to do with a not-so-restful night of sleep; misbehaving, whiny children; muddy dogs on the carpet; a child's bathroom incident that I never want to speak of, and a really messy house. And with all that stress, I just wanted to EAT something. I was feeling a little tired (but not enough so that I could fall asleep), and incredibly grumpy.

The day did take a turn for the better at the end when my mother-in-law called and offered to watch the kids so we could go out for a movie or something. We rarely get a date night, so we jumped at the chance. We didn't make it to the movies in time to see anything good, and it was a major bummer to go on a date where you can't eat anything, so we ran some errands and did some kid-free shopping instead. After the day I'd had, it was totally what I needed. We weren't even gone for 2 hours, but just getting away for a bit and having a break made me feel a ton better.

Aside from our date night, the other bright spot in my day was the at I lost another 2 lbs, bringing my total up to 5 lbs since I started the fast. Yay!

I continued to juice 5 times a day yesterday, and I also started growing my alfalfa sprouts. I soaked the seeds in a mason jar overnight the night before, and put cheesecloth over the top to drain the water out yesterday morning (see photo to the left). Then I rinsed the seeds with fresh water and spread them in a thin layer in my seed sprouter. The instructions say to rinse the seeds twice a day with fresh water and they should be ready in 5-6 days.


Day 4:

Throughout this whole experience, I've been holding on to day 4 as a magical milestone because I've read that this is when you actually start to feel good, and thank goodness, it is certainly the case for me. I actually got out of bed before the kids this morning because I was wide awake (if you know me, you know this is very out of the ordinary, especially on a Saturday). I feel really pretty great today. I have more energy than previously and am less hungry. From what I've read, it only gets better from here, so thank goodness for that! Oh, day 4, I love you!

I also lost an additional 1.5 lbs today, which brings my weight back down to my lowest weight since having children. I hit this number in the fall after I'd been really focused on exercising and eating healthy for quite some time, but then I had to take 6 weeks off of working out for medical reasons. After I couldn't work out for a while and the holidays hit, I quickly gained 6.5 lbs and on my frame, it was really quite noticeable. I'm ecstatic that I'm back down to my weight before my medical/holiday hiatus.

Husband is also feeling pretty great and basking in the glory that is day 4. He's lost 7 lbs so far. He also has more energy and feels more awake in the morning. One of the most noticeable things for him is that he has a much more sensitive sense of smell. I've noticed this too, but I think his is a little more pronounced than mine. We refer to it as his "new super-human senses". Not only can we smell ALL kinds of food, including the magical bread aisle at Kroger that we never noticed before, and the rain outside, but we can suddenly smell the ashes in the fireplace, even from other rooms in the house. We've never noticed this smell before unless we were sitting right next to the fireplace and we'd very recently burned in it, but we haven't used it in weeks and can smell it all the time. It's very strange.


Lastly, I was excited to look at my alfalfa sprouts this morning and see that they'd started to sprout already. :D I'm so proud, and the kids are completely fascinated as well. I'm looking forward to being able to enjoy them, but the growing process is really quite fun too.

Day 2

Well, it's day 2 of our fast and I do feel a little worse than yesterday, but not nearly as bad as I expected. I had a slight headache during the night, but as soon as I drank my 20 oz. of water and then my morning juice, the headache was gone. I've been slightly grumpy this afternoon, but it hardly compares to the grumpiness on Monday and Tuesday during the height of my caffeine withdrawal.

The whole experience is really quite strange, because I do feel hungry quite often during the day, but it's not the kind of hungry that makes you feel weak and gives you the shakes. My body has plenty of nutrients, so I don't feel bad at all. It's mostly my mind thinking that I really want to eat something. I've read that this subsides within the first couple of days once your body and your mind get on the same page. And as soon as I drink my next juice, I no longer feel hungry anymore, which still amazes me.

The major upside so far is that I have SO much more energy than normal. Again today, I didn't feel the afternoon lull where I need to choose between coffee or a nap. I can't explain it, but I feel a lot more alert too. It's really great because the fatigue I normally experience is one of my biggest personal challenges, especially chasing two kids around.

Both yesterday and today, I ended up drinking another 16 oz. glass of juice for an after dinner snack. This brings my total to 5 - 16 oz. glasses each day: breakfast, first lunch, second lunch, dinner, and evening snack.  :)

The other exciting thing about my fast is that I've already lost 3 lbs. Weight loss wasn't my reason for fasting, but a little bit of it is a welcome side effect. Prior to starting this fast, I had about 10 lbs I would like to lose. Because I am already fairly small, it normally takes me about 2 weeks to lose 1 lb with exercise and calorie counting. 3 lbs already is amazing!

One last thing and then I must go check on my super quiet, probably-up-to-no-good children. We wanted to pick up more produce last night and had a few miscellaneous errands to run, so in the effort of saving time and gas, we decided to forgo stopping at our usual grocery store, Kroger, and decided to get what we needed at Wal-Mart instead (we'd already gotten many of the veggies in bulk at Sam's Club anyway). I must say, I'm hardly a produce snob or anything, and am still just learning, but I was literally horrified at the state of the produce section at Wal-Mart. Many things, particularly the vegetables, were already soggy, wilted, and going bad. They didn't have a great selection and of what they did have, a good portion of it wasn't marked with a price. I couldn't tell you if anything they had was organic because nothing was labeled. Our Kroger isn't very big, in fact, it might be the smallest Kroger I've ever been in (they are in the process of building a new one - yay), but the produce section is always clean and the produce is always fresh looking. I will never ever shop for produce at Wal-Mart again. O_o  (end rant.)

Change in Plans... Day 1

The coffee blues and headache are finally starting to pass, and we had a slight change of plans on the start of our juice fast. Instead of starting Friday (and worrying about it until then), we decided to start today. Starting today and ending a little sooner worked better with our schedule and we both just felt ready to get on with things.

So today, officially day 1, I'm actually feeling much better than I have the past few days now that the caffeine withdrawal is getting out of my system and I'm experiencing a strange mixture of energy and hunger.
I definitely feel more energized this afternoon than I normally do, especially since the last few days. I'm not drowsy at all and I tried to lie down with my youngest for a nap this afternoon (mostly because I was feeling hungry and wanted to wait a bit for my snack juice), and I actually couldn't fall asleep. This almost never happens to me. Talk about super juice! :)

Here's what I've had so far:

• A 16 oz. glass of fruit juice for breakfast (orange, apple, grapefruit, and strawberries) 
• A 16 oz. glass around 11 am (carrot, spinach, celery and apple)
• A 16 oz. glass around 2:30 pm (spinach, cucumber, parsley, and apple)
• A LOT of water. I lost count but probably 64-80 oz. already and it's only 4 pm. 

And I'm planning for a mix of carrot, apple, spinach, and parsley for dinner this evening, and then we'll be off to buy more produce because we're nearly out. :) I might have an additional glass of juice this evening after dinner if I'm feeling hungry. 

All of my juices have tasted great so far! I am fairly hungry at times but overall I don't feel too bad today. I have read that the second day is worse than the first, so I'm a little anxious about that. We'll find out tomorrow I guess. 

Husband (that's his official title - "Husband") is doing a modified version of the fast since he is working during all of this. He is only consuming juice and also fresh, raw, fruits and veggies. He previously weaned himself down to 1 cup of coffee per day (he usually drinks LOTS of coffee) and then went cold turkey on the caffeine this morning. He said he has a headache this afternoon and is pretty hungry, but otherwise, doing ok. Poor guy. I'm glad I did the caffeine withdrawal before this. Yuck.

Cheers! This was my spinach, cucumber, parsley and apple concoction. 

Ok, so I also promised some juicing tips today. Here are some of the tips I have come across in my juicing research:

• Always wash all produce thoroughly before juicing. 
• Buy organic produce whenever you can.
• Feed produce slowly in the juicer without using force.
• Put carrots in large end first.
• Bunch greens up in clumps and tap them through with a pusher or carrot.
• Juice made fresh is best and contains the most nutrients and enzymes. However if it will make or break your fast and you need to make some ahead of time for work, you can put it in an air tight container (like a mason jar), filled to the brim. The sooner you drink it the better, but it will last 1-3 days in the fridge. (On that note, we've been making our breakfast juice the night before because I am not so much a morning person and Husband gets up SUPER early for work). 
• Aim for 80% vegetables and 20% fruits. 
• Drink as much juice as you want. You shouldn't feel starving.
• Drink lots of water. One guide I read was to drink at least half of your body weight. I weight 120 lbs, so I should be drinking at least 60 oz of water a day. 
• Prepare you produce ahead of time. This makes it so much easier. It literally took me 10 minutes to make my juice for lunch and clean up. We do this together whenever we get home from the grocery store.
• Avoid juicing fruits with low water content. Bananas and avocados are the two main fruits that are pretty dense and very low in water content. Such fruits do a lot better in the blender. 

Ok, those are my favorite tips for today. Say a prayer I'm not having second thoughts about this whole thing tomorrow. ;) 

Dear Coffee... I miss you.

I am seriously missing my coffee today. I woke up feeling pretty good and felt hopeful, but by about lunch time again, I was seriously dragging and fighting another killer headache. I had a meeting for my mom's group at my church this morning and it was quite hard not to give in and join the coffee craze. I resisted, but came home just as grumpy and tired as yesterday. 

According to a quick Google search on the side effects of caffeine withdrawal, the worst of it (the headache) is typically experienced during the first three days. The rest of the symptoms (fatigue, weakness, drowsiness, impaired concentration and work difficulty, depression and/or anxiety, irritability, and increased muscle tension) should resolve within a week. Hopefully my addiction wasn't as bad as some and I'll feel  better tomorrow?! A girl can hope...

However, one highlight in an otherwise dreary day, was that I came home from church to find this:

My juicer and a few other goodies arrived while I was gone! Yay! The first thing I took out of the shipping box was my juicer. Look, even the box is pretty! :D

On second thought, I decided not to get it out and play with it until my husband got home from work. This is a joint effort and as silly as it might be, I wanted him to be here the first time we got it out of the box and fired it up. So instead I just took pictures of the pretty box. haha

The other exciting thing that came was my seed sprouter for growing alfalfa sprouts (but the seeds don't come until tomorrow). 

Look how excited I am ^

And lastly, some seed starter pots we ordered for growing our herbs. And like the alfalfa seeds, the herbs don't come until tomorrow. 

So after I grumpily made it through the remainder of the day with the kids (sans coffee), dropped a b-day gift off to our nephew,  and picked our kitty up at the vet after getting spayed, dear husband was home and it was finally time to MAKE JUICE! :) 

We decided to start with something easy and something I know I like: Apple, Carrot, and Celery juice. This recipe made about 20-25 ounces of juice.

•  4 small apples
• 3 medium sized carrots (peeled)
• 4 celery sticks.  

I was so excited about the whole thing that I forgot to take pictures until the juice was done, but here's a shot of our finished product:

Bottoms up!

I honestly didn't expect our kids to like it at all since it's so far from the sugar-ridden, store-bought juice that they're used to, however I was pleasantly surprised. My oldest drank all of his and said he liked it (though he declined seconds) And my youngest drank his, and then asked for seconds AND thirds! Holy cow! This little guy is my junk food junkie, so I was ecstatic that he would drink it and liked it so much. Praise God! 

My baby enjoying his first taste of homemade, organic super juice!

So despite a crummy day with another headache, the juice fun ended the night on a bit of a high. And I'm not sure the reason, but my headache is actually gone at the moment. Maybe it's the super juice already working it's magic!?! ;D Maybe after a few more glasses I won't feel like I haven't slept in weeks. That would really be fantastic. 

Next up: Some interesting tips I've read on juicing, including some helpful "do's and don'ts." Stay tuned, folks!

Preparations

Hello from the land of being caffeine free for nearly 36 hours and suffering from a terrible headache! Today has been... rough to say the least without my morning cup of coffee. The headache didn't start as soon as I expected it to, not until around noon, but since then, it's been going strong and I've been grumpy and tired. I'm going to keep trucking along though. I gave up caffeine with both pregnancies, so I know it does get better.

In spite of my grumpiness today, we're still busy changing habits, learning, and preparing for our fast. Here's some of the things we've done, bought or are working on:

• We quickly realized that we needed to add to our kitchen supplies to accommodate a largely fresh and raw lifestyle. With all the washing, scrubbing, chopping, cutting and so on, we needed a few things to make things easier. We purchased some new veggie/fruit brushes and natural spray for cleaning produce, a salad spinner, a couple of extra cutting boards (a big one for when we do a lot at once and another small one for quick snacks), and a couple of new knives. All of which has made our life a lot easier already. Definitely worth the investment. 
• I decided I want to grow my own alfalfa sprouts too. I LOVE alfalfa sprouts but the ones in the grocery store are pesticide ridden and my mom told me that it's super easy to grow my own. So we ordered some seeds off of amazon and a seed sprouter. Both items will be delivered in the next two days (gotta love Amazon Prime) and I'll be sure to post about my progress.
• Another thing I'm working on, and something I've always wanted to try, is growing my own herb garden. When we ordered the sprout supplies, we also ordered some seeds to give herb growing a try. This particular set includes 8 different types of seeds: Broadleaf Sage, Genovese Basil, Cilantro, Single-leaf Parsley, Common Thyme, Dill Dukat, Oregano, and Onion Chives. Yum!
• We both started drinking 20 oz. of water first thing in the morning before we do anything else. I don't know that 20 oz. is a magic number, but it was mentioned in one of the documentaries we watched, so we've used it as a guide. I really like the feeling of drinking a lot of water first thing in the morning.
• We're still watching more documentaries and reading as much as we can. We watched Food Matters last night and  The Beautiful Truth tonight. I've found a lot of great resources online as well, many of which are linked on my Pinterest account.

We still have a lot of learning to do, but those are the highlights for today. Our juicer arrives tomorrow and I'm ridiculously excited for it to get here!

For tonight, I made a 16 bean and veggie soup that was quite delicious if I do say so myself. :)

Inspiration and Overview

The blog:

My obvious purpose for starting this blog is to keep track of and talk about.... drum roll please... HEALTH, FITNESS & NUTRITION! I know, I know... I can see all 3 of you, my readers, sighing and rolling your eyes. But seriously, THIS is important. With the super high cost of health care these days and our TERRIBLE insurance coverage, we literally can't afford to get sick. So please bear with me. 

I'm trying to keep the majority of my extreme crazy off of Facebook and Pinterest for everyone I know to see (I even created a secret Pinterest health board for fear of the mocking from my friends and family... haha). They will think I'm C-R-A-Z-Y! However, I want to document my progress, what I'm eating, how I'm feeling, and any health changes for my own future knowledge, and also maybe help or inspire others with my "experiments" and findings. And ta-da: this blog was born! ;)

Inspiration and Education:

So I'll start with what prompted this most recent episode of insanity. I started taking a fitness class with my very sweet friend/cousin, Rachel. I went to my first "boot camp" class with her on Thursday night (I am still walking like a 95 year old woman by the way.. ouch!) and it was awesome. I can't wait to go back! When I got home that night, my husband had started watching this documentary on Netflix called Hungry for Change. He actually started it over when I got there because it was so interesting and what they had to say made SO much sense! 

That program peaked our interest and we watched two more excellent documentaries about nutrition the next night called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead and Forks Over Knives. I would highly recommend all three of them as they really inspired both of us to make some big changes.


Since then I've been all over the Internet reading whatever I can and since my mom has done a lot of juicing over the years, I asked for her advice and she loaned me a TON of books on juicing and nutrition. Jackpot! Thanks, Mom!

Goals:

Now... let me be clear, I'm not saying that I'm going to become a lifelong vegan or anything. What I am saying that after watching these programs, I'm interested in experimenting for a period of time to see how different approaches make me feel. From what I read and have seen, it sounds like these types of lifestyles would go a long way (if not completely cure) my digestion problems and chronic fatigue, among a multitude of other problems and risks that would be greatly reduced or eliminated. 

Presently, I'm not sure that I could stick with a super strict diet (errr... lifestyle) long term, but I've decided to start with a juice fast and see what happens. I plan to fast for at least 5 days, but ideally I'd like to make it last 7-10 days (the guy from Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead fasted for SIXTY days... wow). After the fast I would like to aim for my diet to be made up of 80-90% vegetables and fruits. Everything else would thereby be limited to a much smaller percentage. I think I could do without meat completely, but the dairy would be quite a challenge in the long term. I think I could fairly easily limit it to a small percentage though. As advised in Hunger for Change, I hope to start by focusing on adding really healthy things in and not think about it as taking away or being deprived of everything delicious.

Status quo and next steps:

Prior to watching these documentaries, I had already been trying to eat really healthy and "detox" from all the holiday junk, but now I'm starting to prepare myself for a juice fast as well. I didn't own a juicer of my own, so we went straight to good ol' Amazon.com and ordered a Breville juicer. It will be here on Tuesday (yay!) and I'm hoping to start my fast on Friday, January 11th.

Until my juicer arrives, I'm trying to eat 70-80% raw vegetables and fruit and wean myself off of coffee. I'm down to drinking only water and about 3/4 a cup of coffee at the moment. We've also been making fresh orange juice in the morning with our blender and my husband has made some amazing salads for lunch (see photo above). Once we get our juicer, I plan to start replacing a meal with vegetable juice each day until the fast begins.

Tomorrow, I'll write more about what we've been doing to change our habits and prep for the fast. Please don't hesitate to share any helpful tips, insight, or recipes you might have. I'll need all the support and encouragement I can get, especially when I'm really craving a piece of pie! ;)

Welcome! I'm Lindsey and this blog is documenting my adventure in all things healthy. I hope you enjoy following along with my adventure!