SturgeonQueen's Journal, 09 January 2012

So, now that I've started trying to journal again and use this site and be on top of what I'm eating... I'm slowly seeing changes. Not down much, but honestly, I was up to 141, not just 140, though I couldn't bring myself to put that up there, so at least now I'm at 139.1.

My boyfriend and I have been trying to make a new diet change - we're going for more "one ingredient" foods - natural foods. So, it's going to be slow trying to get all the processed foods out of our diet, because, I love Pretzel M&Ms and Splenda...

But I'm trying to eat more good "fats" too - like Olive Oil and Real Butter. Yes, I said REAL BUTTER. The body can't process that fake margarine stuff, everything in it is basically a foreign "toxin" to your body that your liver has to stop burning fat in order to kick into it's other function, which is removing toxins from the body - so, while it's worrying about removing all the weird stuff they put into fake butter, it can't be burning fat. So, when you eat real butter, your body can burn that fat, instead of "cleanse" it from your body.

We're also trying to eat more grains and get away from whole wheat. I know right? Another "healthy" food, but not really. When you eat whole wheat, your body turns that into sugar, the kind of sugar that it really likes to hold on to, instead of the kind of sugar that it likes to burn for energy. What we are trying to find, and haven't yet - is bread made of rice or spelt. NOT flax bread. I HATE that stuff, it tastes like cardboard. So until I can find that kind of bread, I'm trying to substitute other grains, some very low ingredient tortillas and crackers like Wasa are working so far.

Also trying to stay away from Vegetable Oil, Corn Syrup and Processed Soy Products. My boyfriend was so upset when I started bringing home Almond Milk to drink - he wanted nothing to do with it, so when I told him that Almond Milk was out and Real Skim Milk was back in, he was happy.

I learned that with these natural foods, I can actually eat a lot more calories than I was consuming when I was eating "junky" foods. So, I had my diet set at 1600, and I may try to get closer to that with eating these natural foods. My only issue is protein again, we bought a large tub of plain greek yogurt, and have a mango and some frozen raspberries, bananas, chopped almonds, etc - so I think I can mix those into it and get a higher protein meal (not all at once, or maybe all at once!)

So that's my new plan. I've been really surprised at how quickly my boyfriend has been like, on the band-wagon for this change. The natural foods ARE costing us more money, but we're going to try to combat that by buying grains such as millet, rice and quinoa in bulk and using them for multiple meals and multiple preparations.

My one major issue is where to find MEAT without anything preserving it. We are in farm country, so of course, we could slaughter our own chickens, but until the spring season comes, there aren't a lot of chickens for sale down here... and I'd much rather slaughter someone else's birds than the birds we've raised by hand - so, that can be an option for chicken. We are also trying to hunt down a beef cow, and potentially buy it and split the cost with someone for it to be taken to the slaughterhouse and processed - we don't have the kind of tools to slaughter a cow here. We've slaughtered a goat, and half feel like we want to get another male goat just for the purpose of breeding our females and then eating him... I just get such a quick attachment to any animal that is not a total douchebag (as in, our last male goat, was a COMPLETE piece of work... dangerous, mean, smelly, nasty... he HAD to go.) So, I'm trying to find stuff at Kroger that is "more natural" but again, cost is something we're battling with this change.

If anyone has any good insights on this stuff, please - post. I'd love to hear them, this is kind of a new endeavor of really being conscious about some ingredients within food, and trying to move away from packaged food. But, I'm not sure I can give up my M&Ms and Fresca quite yet... I suppose, everything in moderation, right?

139.1 lb Lost so far: 40.9 lb.    Still to go: 4.1 lb.    Diet followed reasonably well.

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1564 kcal

Fat: 59.71g | Prot: 81.69g | Carb: 177.39g.   Breakfast: Banana. Lunch: Red Onion, Kroger Canned Corn, Kroger Black Beans, Quinoa, Jalapeno, Tomato, Lime Juice. Dinner: Goat Cheese, Sweet Olive Oil Tortas, Yellow Whole Grain Corn Meal, Bacon, Baked or Broiled Trout, Egg. Snacks/Other: Sourdough Rye Crispbread, All Natural Crispy Thin Whole Grain Crispbread, Clementines, Pretzel M&M's, Chobani Nonfat Lemon Greek Yogurt, Raw Almonds. more...

2648 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Sitting - 5 hours, Pedometer - 13440 steps - 3 hours, Driving - 1 hour, Wii Active - 27 minutes, BMR - 14 hours and 33 minutes. more...