It's Britney, Bitch

Juuuuusssst kidding, it's Tanner. Sooooo little blog and 2, perhaps 3, readers...I've been away for awhile but have been super busy trying to get in shape! Just kidding, I spent 3 weeks basically not exercising at all and eating whatever I wanted - hello cookies and ice cream - because I was lazy as shit (but still somehow managed to lose a pound, yay for breastfeeding!).

ANYWAY, I am back now and am back on the exercise wagon. I'm also taking a break from Paleo because I feel like I was eating WAY too much meat and frankly I wanted to eat some fucking cereal. The good news is that I've lost 5 lbs since I started blogging in early July - the bad news is that I've ONLY lost 5 pounds in these 7 weeks and that sucks a bag of dicks in my opinion. Especially since if I had just exercised and counted some fucking calories over the past 3 weeks I would probably be at my damn original goal weight by now!! Live and learn.

I originally wanted to lose 10 pounds for my goal, but I'm thinking that 15 might be better. I've already lost 5, so 10 more and I'll be good. Woohoo, I'm so excited to get started again! I'm tired of being lazy and I already feel so much better since I started exercising again this week. Even running in 100+ degree heat in the evenings feels better than sitting on the couch.

BEFORE photos...

Soooooooo...I think I'm serious about this now, because I'm about to show you something that I'm not exactly proud of...

THE BEFORE

Feel free to weep. I know I do. This is what 60 pounds of unhappiness looks like.

You know what this means, right? I have to show progress in pictures now, if I don't want to feel like a sloppy fool. You've seen the worst...now, get ready for the best! Or at least the better.

And THIS is how I'm going to get there:

6 peaches

4 stalks celery

4 carrots

2 big leaves kale

2 cups spinach

That's a 52-ounce container, and it was almost full.

Conclusion: heavy on the celery, but good!

(photo's blurry, but it was orange in color)

4 cucumbers

3 apples

2 stalks celery

1 cup spinach

And this is only half - a 24 ounce container, nearly full - Hubsy took the other half to work with him.

Conclusion: heavy on the cucumber (one day I'll get my proportions right), but refreshing! Tastes like cucumber water, but sweet because of the apples.

This is the pulp left over from the last batch (amazingly, it only made a handful of pulp!), plus half of the pulp from a strawberry/peach/apple juice we did this morning. I'm going to make it into a soup!

The other half of the strawberry pulp mixture I stirred into some plain yogurt and ate with a handful of walnuts for breakfast. It was DELICIOUS! The fruit pulp tastes almost like jam.

The craziest part about the veggie pulp is that it is completely dry - almost like a sandy veggie paste. The machine really spins out ALL of the juice and just leaves the dry pulp! Sounds unappetizing, but add some onions, garlic, and broth, and you've got a tasty veggie soup, and you get to use up the roughage of the veggies after you've drunk the juice. That way, you don't waste anything, and you get to eat the insoluble fiber (the soluble fiber all ends up in the juice). It's a pretty efficient way to eat your veggies - you get 90% of the nutrients by drinking the juice, which is way more than you'd get by cooking them, and then you still get all the fiber, both soluble and insoluble.

The most amazing part is, we get such a burst of energy after drinking the juice - Hubsy and I were literally jumping around the kitchen after we drank ours this morning! I don't want to sound like some nutty health freak, but if this is how we're going to get in our daily fresh fruit and veggie quota, I could totally see us doing this for the rest of our lives. Think about it - let's just list all the fruits and veggies we've already consumed in the last 24 hours alone:

7 peaches

6 stalks celery

4 carrots

2 big leaves kale

3 cups spinach

4 cucumbers

4 apples

10 strawberries

Plus, with lunch yesterday we had squash and onion casserole, and stuffed zucchini (both leftover from when my parents were here - they have a hard time consuming veggies without some sort of cream or cheese involved). Amazingly, I think we may have actually gotten in our 4-5 servings veggies (or is the recommendation 6-7 now?) and 2-3 servings fruit! We've each had about 48 ounces of juice, which is 8 servings fruits/veggies. I find that incredible.

Anyway, enough about my new obsession - off to Zumba now! (Which, seeing as today is the first day since my parents left that I've had the energy for it, it's about time!)

Juicing for Joy

Really, Tanner? "Aunt Flo"? Please never use that euphemism again. Ever.

My excuse is that I had REAL company in town - my parents. While we ate most of our meals at home, and used a lot of fresh veggies from our CSA farm share, we also ate a lot of ice cream. What? It was super hot and I don't have air conditioning. I think ice cream was appropriate.

Anyway, I did do Zumba once while they were here, in the hopes that they would see how fun it is and do it with me, but instead they just laughed at me. We did make them walk around a lot downtown, until Mom almost pooped herself once (combo of too much food and wine and unusual physical activity), so that put an end to general movement of any kind. Now that the heat wave has broken, the Hubs and I can get back out on our bikes and for walks (as long as my still-healing ankle can take it). However, we are only going to be doing light exercise for the next couple of weeks, because we are juicing.

Yes, people, juicing. No, not like taking steroids. Like turning all of the fresh veggies and fruits in Vermont into delicious, unfiltered juice! And using the pulp in soups! It's going to be fantastic!

Don't share my enthusiasm? Before you make a decision, watch the Joe Cross documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead", about his struggle to find a cure for a rare immune disease for which conventional medicine was not working. Turns out, the cure was hidden in increasing his fresh veggie and fruit intake, which in turn helped him lose over 100 pounds.

I do not have a rare immune disease. I'm not 100 pounds overweight (although 60 is close enough). I am, however, at high risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, and no matter how many veggies I seem to cook, we're still not eating enough. Therefore, we are going to drink them! And then use the pulp in other recipes. It's an experiment - we're going out on a limb here - but I can't see how it will hurt. We may even try an actual "juice fast" (kind of a misnomer, because you're not really fasting - you still get plenty of calories, protein, fiber, and nutrients) to break our current eating habits, which, while not horrible, are not ideal.

I thought this would be a good time to talk about stats, since I'll want to compare the before and after.

Weight: 235 (I've gained back 2 of the 5 lbs. I lost during our Jillian Michaels challenge)

Waist: 42 inches

Hips: 49 inches

Thigh: 30 inches

Upper Arm: 17 inches

My plan is to incorporate 1-2 juices a day for the first few days, to get our systems used to it, before beginning to replace any meals with juicing. We'll be using kale, cabbage, celery, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, beets, and any other veggies we get from our CSA, along with apples, plums, and citrus fruits. We're still eating dairy, eggs, and meat right now, but the goal is to eventually reduce the dairy and only eat meat once a week (just the organic, free-range pork and chicken we get from the CSA).

Off to make my first juice now!

I'm Baaaaa-aaaaack!

Hello, loyal followers - er, I mean Sissy and sometimes Funny Nurse. :-/

It's been a busy week. I kept forgetting to post and it snowballed to the point that I was gone basically a whole week, yikes! Anyway, I'm still down 2.5 pounds from doing Paleo for the past couple of weeks - BUT, I did majorly cheat a few times and also my "Aunt Flo" was in town SO I didn't lose weight last week. Boooooo.

This week is a BRAND NEW week and I am starting over on Paleo! My goal is to eat ALL of the veggies in our crisper drawer:

-4 summer squash

-1 bag of hearts of Romaine lettuce (enough for 3 decent sized salads)

-3 onions (although I don't think I can eat all of those, maybe 2 of them?)

-2 green bell peppers

-1 bag of carrots - it's freakin huge, I think I can roast half the bag this week

-1 small bag of sugar snap peas ( i don't really want to eat these because they are NOT Paleo approved BUT the Hubbie bought them for me because he thought I would like them, so I should eat them)

I also have a pack of chicken tenders and some 93% ground beef that I will need to eat, along with 5 boiled eggs that I made this morning.

Let the veggie challenge begin!!

Paleo, Day 3 and Supreme 90 Day

Paleo Day 3 was a pretty good one. I felt MUCH better today! More energy, no headaches and my cravings for sugar are slowly going away. Today I was really craving peanut butter and luckily that is "sort of" Paleo (but definitely no carb, which is what will help me lose weight.

Foods:

-Egg and 1/2 ZBar

-HUGE salad with romaine, sauteed chicken, feta, tomatoes and cucumbers with Light Italian dressing

-several spoonfuls of peanut butter

-my homemade pasta sauce with grated cheddar cheese on top

-6 gingersnaps (small)

-Chocolate Brownie LARA bar (ummm AMAZING!!! definitely going to stock up on these next time I'm at the store!!)

Workout:

-walked 3.5 miles

Today was a pretty good day overall. Those gingersnaps probably weren't the best idea but they aren't that high in sugar/carbs. Hopefully it won't affect my weigh in tomorrow.

I was SUPER excited to discover my Supreme 90 Day fitness order had arrived in the mail today, YAAAAYYYY!!!!! I have been waiting a couple of weeks for this. I'm pretty addicted to exercise DVDs - I've done a lot of the Jillian Michaels ones and now I'm ready for something more challenging. Supreme 90 Day is basically the same as P90X but 1/4 of the price; I read several reviews of them (comparisons of the two) and all of the reviews say that they are the same.

I can't wait to start the program on Monday. I'm going to give each of the 11 DVDs a try, but I'm sure there will be certain ones that I DON'T like, especially the Cardio one. I prefer to get my cardio in by running. Their "schedule" for the program has you doing a workout every day for 6 days and then having a day off. I would like to do a workout every day M-F and then spend the weekend running and maybe doing the abs DVD. Plus I will be walking every morning with Mr Cuteness in his stroller - our "usual" now is 3.5 miles.

YAAAAYYYYY fun times ahead!

Paleo, Day 2

I love it when shit works out the way I want it to!!!! HOOORRRAAAAYYYY!! So today is actually Day 3 of Paleo, but I forgot to post yesterday.

There HAS to be something to this Paleo thing - I am down 2 pounds in just 2 days!! I have eaten "Paleo Perfect" with the exception of a couple small servings of dairy. I am hoping to stick to this for at least a couple weeks and see how much I can lose. Last time, I lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks and I wasn't even following the diet perfectly!

Not gonna lie, I felt like SHIZ yesterday - headaches and fatigue. But, today I feel much better!! I am sure that some of the weight loss is water, but I don't give a shit! It is so motivating to be down a couple pounds - it's really going to carry me through the weekend. I even went to the store yesterday and managed to NOT buy any candy! Woot. Major accomplishment.

Foods yesterday:

-Banana

-Hard boiled egg

-Homemade pasta sauce with small serving of reduced fat Cheddar

-Pistachios and Walnuts

-Peanut butter

-1/2 of a Zbar (my only carbs of the day)

-HUGE salad with romaine, sauteed chicken, feta, cucumber and tomatoes with a serving of light italian dressing

Workout:

-walked 3.5 miles

Paleo, Day 1

Today was Day 1 of Paleo, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. However, I know that in a couple days I will start CRAVING sugar and carbs like a mo-fo and will need lots of willpower to resist.

Foods:

-boiled egg

-nectarine

-walnuts

-bunch of asparagus and one summer squash, sauteed, with some of my homemade pasta sauce on the side

-dinner was one cup of pasta sauce with a sprinkle of cheese (not Paleo approved but I am trying to ease into it)

Workout:

-walked 3.5 miles

I just had SUCH a relaxing bubble bath, ahhhhh!! I need to take more of those!