Late night coffee...with half & half

I am going to enjoy a half cup of coffee so I can enjoy my half & half in it before I go 30 days without.  That is truly one thing I know I will miss in this 30-day Paleo challenge.  BUT I know I can do it.  Maybe.

Tomorrow officially begins the challenge.  You know what the worst part is?  I have to get my fat pinched.  Measured.  Yeah...not good.  I will be going to the gym in the a.m. to get the fatness pinched and then do our first challenge which is something called Crossfit Total.  It is the total (weight I'm guessing) of your one-rep max of each of the following: back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift.  Considering I haven't worked out since the baby was born over 7 months ago, this should be interesting.  It's great to have a starting point (and photos...don't forget the horrific "before" photos that must be taken) but honestly this won't really let me know how the Paleo diet affects my workouts since I'm starting it all at once! Haha!  So I only have room to improve, right?

I went grocery shopping today.  I got all of the food for our first week.  Except almond milk.  Not at Publix.  Yes...I do realize they actually do sell almond milk there, however, read the ingredients.  So much crap in those that there is no way it is Paleo.  So I'll try the natural food store tomorrow while we're downtown.  We are still allowing our son to eat cheese but we're not buying anymore milk for the 30 days.  We'll slowly wean him off dairy since he ate so much of it.

Here's what he thought of the new and improved fridge contents:

Haha, just kidding.  He wanted to take a silly photo and this is what I got.  Just happened to be as I was putting the groceries away!  :)  Seriously, after our last challenge, he started eating more of the vegetables he'd gotten away from.  Now he sword fights me with asparagus spears before we eat them. That was one food he used to love and then after we let too many crackers, bread, etc. come into play, he has started losing his taste for veggies.  Slowly but surely we are bringing it back!

Well...off to have my last cup of coffee full of yummy cream and milk.  For 30 days at least!

Enough already

I've had it with these intense sugar cravings.  I'm over it.  I don't think I necessarily want to be over sugar forever, but I'd love not to consume it every day.

I overheard last night at the Paleo Potluck we had at the Crossfit gym where my husband coaches that  craving sugar could be an indicator you aren't getting enough sleep.  Well, that explains it.  Considering both of my children think it's hysterical to start out as newborns sleeping wonderfully and then after 4 months of age decide to mix it up a bit and start waking every 3 hours after going to sleep.  So yeah...sleep deprivation is definitely at play here.  I've never heard of a sugar craving having anything to do with it, so I'm definitely going to ask more.  It makes sense because it's been very strong after the births of each my children.  But...I also love sugar.  So it could just be that!

Anyways, we'll be starting our 30-day Paleo Challenge soon.  Yes...again.  However, this time we are giving up dairy.  One - I want to eliminate it to see if it helps with the congestion/allergies I've suffered from since being a kid.  Two - I've mentioned our daughter's skin issues.  So hopefully this challenge will help see if the dairy is the culprit.  We're getting a little help from the folks over at Paleo Plan.  They seriously make it too easy to NOT at least try Paleo for 30 days.  Such a great site. So very easy to navigate (and it has pretty photos, so that's always a plus in my opinion!).

I am also truly starting to workout again.  A friend of mine is currently doing the intro classes at the gym and she'll be finished next week.  We've already got our twice a week workouts on the calendar.  I really have no excuses.

So here we go.  Again.  I did it for 6 weeks last time...surely I can do another 30 days...with no dairy...which means no cheese.  Ugh.

50 day Burpee Challenge

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

And what better present than another challenge? CrossFit has a burpee challenge that circulates around and it's a 100 Day Burpee Challenge. Well, I'm not that optimistic. I would like to be, but I'm just going to be honest and say not quite yet! Once I hit day 50, I'll then reassess and hopefully continue.

I know, I know, I haven't posted a video yet on what burpees are like I said I would a month ago! So here is my wonderful husband demonstrating them. Burpee Example

Now that you know what a burpee is, I'll explain the challenge.

Day One - one burpee

Day Two - two burpees

Day Three - three burpees

and so on.

Don't miss a day. If you miss a day, you have to make it up. For example, if you miss day 20, then on day 21 you must do 20 burpees to catch up the day you missed and then you have to do your current day - 21 burpees. So don't miss one!

The good news - you don't have to do them all in a row. So for example - on day 20 - if you want, do 5 at a time throughout the day. You just have to complete them all in that day.

So, who's with me?

I'm still in the challenge!

The food challenge is going well. Of course I could be doing better....by giving up my agave. I've been told there is a natural sweetener at a natural food store in Savannah, so I'm going to check it out. Other than that, I've done pretty well. I've surprised myself actually because I thought for sure I'd be grabbing the boxes of cereal in the mornings, but I've not even been tempted! I did have a hot chocolate the other night and honestly had already drank half of it before I realized what I was doing! To my defense, it was dark, cold and misting rain and we were on a haunted hearse tour in downtown Savannah! All I heard the driver say was "hot" when he pulled up to a restaurant and asked if we needed anything to drink. :)

Oh, and I did forget about my vanilla latte *hanging head in shame* two days ago. I guess I'll have to either give up my coffee all together or start carrying my sweetener around with me. Or, I guess there is the option of drinking it without sweetener!

I'm not really sure though about going out to eat and choices to make. We went to lunch the other day and I got an awesome salad but was stumped about the dressing. I ended up with oil and vinegar, but I'm not sure if that passes my real food challenge or not!

So far in the challenge we've been asked to clear our pantry of processed stuff, go buy wholesome, one-ingredient choices to restock our pantry (we got extra credit because we already drink raw milk!), improve our grains choices (which I've yet to really read on) and today's was begin your starter for sourdough. I'm very excited about today's challenge, yet when I went to Wal-Mart (ugh) to buy my mason jars, cheesecloth, twine, and whole grain flour, I walked out with not one item on my list. They didn't even have mason jars! Seriously? We're in the south...don't people still can things?

We're headed out of town for my husband's CrossFit competition this weekend. It's in a smaller town north of Atlanta. Check out this site for more information. http://garagegames2010.crossfitgarage.com/

It seems like it's going to be a great time! And hopefully I'll be able to sneak in a trip to Ikea, some children's consignment sales and maybe even Whole Foods! We're staying in a lake house so it'll be much easier to eat clean since we can prepare our own meals!

Hopefully this weekend will be a nice little test for me and I am really crossing my fingers I can make it through without a fast food meal!

Natural Dishwasher Detergent

I am on the quest for a more natural alternative for my dishwasher detergent. We use half the recommended amount of the commercial stuff and it leaves a powdery film on our dishes. Surely that can't be good, right? Especially when the bottle/box has a label warning about not ingesting. So after some research this is what I've come up with to try:

I'm going to mix equal parts of borax and baking soda and use it as my soap. I'm going to start with using 2 tablespoons and see how it works. I've also read that using vinegar in the rinse will help to avoid any residue. So first things first...go buy borax!

I know that the phosphates used by the majority of commercial dishwasher soap manufacturers use will be phased out by June 2010 (some already are - WalMart's brand has no phosphates), but what else will they use in place of it? I don't really want to wait to find out and be the guinea pigs for their "improved" product.

We also want to start making our own laundry detergent, but I feel that it's more important to get this taken care of because the dishwasher soap washes the dishes that our food is on that we put into our body.

I will make it, test it out and report back to you!

Now, a little blog business. I've decided to add my workouts of the day (WOD's - I personally do not like this acronym, but have started saying it just because my husband does so often!) Anyway, I plan to write my workouts down here as often as I can because although CrossFit is for everyone, it's quite intimidating to the average person to read the WOD's and get the feeling that you are just not CrossFit material! All workouts with CrossFit can be scaled for anyone, so I'll be giving you my very beginner WOD's for you to try if you so choose! And, the best part is, you can do the majority of them in your own home!

So, my workout yesterday was

- Squat 50 times (make sure you do a proper squat, heels must stay down and keep the majority of your weight on your heels. Do not round your back.) I did this one for time so I can use it to compare later. My time was 4:00 minutes.

- Front plank (get on the floor, only elbows/forearms and toes touching) Keep your body as parallel to the floor as possible. I did this 5 times for 10 seconds each time.

- Single leg lifts - lie on the floor. Lift one leg at a time. Keep your arms by your side and on the ground. If you are in better shape than me, lift both legs at once. Do 5 rounds of 5 lifts on each leg.

The best part about most of these workouts (other than being able to do them at home) is how quickly I can do them. I can put my son down for his nap and do my workout and still have plenty of time leftover to do wonderful things like put dishes away or wash clothes *said in a sarcastic tone* :)

No recipe today, sorry! Although I have several in my possession to try and report back!

25 Burpees

Try them...I dare you.

I bet you've never heard of a burpee, unless you are familiar with CrossFit! 25 burpees for time was my workout for today. It took me 5 minutes, 33 seconds to complete them. Those that know what a burpee is must not laugh at my time! My husband does 100 burpees in 6 minutes, 30 seconds. It took me almost the same amount of time to do a quarter of what he can complete!

As much as they sucked, my total workout time today was 5 minutes, 33 seconds. That's it. Nothing else. That in itself is motivating enough to stick with CrossFit. Now, some of the other workouts take longer, but still, it's worth it. If we lived closer to the CrossFit gym, I'd definitely go to the classes. My husband has built a CrossFit gym in the garage here, so we have pretty much everything that we need. There are a few key things missing like kettle-bells, but he uses dumbbells in place of them.

For those who don't know what a burpee is you can search "burpee" and "crossfit" on youtube. There are several different versions. I'll video my husband demonstrating them and post it in a few days. It'll be the proper one according to the CrossFit competitions.

So, try it out. 100 burpees for time is a workout, but if you can't do 100, just shoot for 25. I bet you'll beat my pitiful time! I plan on doing the workout again in one month and seeing if I improved. I'll post an update when I do.


Recipe share:

Paleo/Zone chili
again, borrowed from http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:

2 lbs. lean ground meat - we used venison

2 T Italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ground pepper

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 green, red, orange, or yellow bell pepper

1/2 C red wine

15 oz. can dice tomatoes, no salt (we added another can)

8 oz. can tomato sauce, no salt

4 oz. can diced green chillies (we did not add this)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

Water

Green onions

Italian parsley

Brown ground meat (we added a little salt and pepper to the cooking meat), drain, set aside. When finished, deglaze pan with some of the red wine. Saute the diced onion and garlic. Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, diced chilies and chopped peppers. Add back the meat, and all other ingredients, and spices. Bring to a boil and then simmer until ready to serve. We simmered for about 3 hours. Add a little extra water if needed to get to desired consistency. Spoon into a bowl and top with some diced green onions and chopped flat-leaf italian parsley.

*** NOTE - we added 3 cans of beans (you can use any - black, white beans, kidney beans, chili beans (rinsed). We also added some leftover shredded carrots, black beans, chopped red onion...didn't want any of it to go to waste!

I don't have the proper zone blocks listed because frankly it overwhelms me, so if you go to the website we borrowed it from, it's broken down there.
We also improvised. Chili and soup in general is a great way to rid your fridge of any leftover vegetable that you may have stored. We always seem to have half of an onion or shredded carrots or some leftover celery that's just not being eaten. We've decided that we'll probably make soup every 7-10 days and even if we don't eat it that night, we'll freeze it to have on hand.

"Before" pictures...a scary beginning

Happy New Year!

I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be a great year for my family! We have so many possibilities in front of us and that's exciting! We haven't officially set goals. I'm not sure if we really will. We have a lot of fun things planned - a 7-day cruise this month (first time we'll be away from our son - yikes!), several CrossFit competitions for Wes, a CrossFit certification class for Wes so he can become a coach, a move back to our home in Savannah, a possible vacation to Michigan in the late summer with my in-laws (when it's 100+ degrees here), continuing to watch Smith learn and grow and become even more wonderful, watch our friend's children do the same and just continuing to find good, wholesome, natural ways to improve our quality of life.

So, how should I start the new year off so I can gauge my progress with my health and fitness level? "Before" pictures, of course. Doesn't that sound awful? I'm putting it off, but will definitely be doing it today and NO, I will NOT be posting these. :) Perhaps in 6 months when I'm lean and confident I'll then share them, but I'm thinking probably no! Pictures tell no lies and are often motivation for many to want to lose a couple or 20 pounds. I plan to take my photos weekly and in the same clothes so I can really tell the difference. It's funny...I took weekly photos of myself when I was pregnant so I could see my belly grow. That was so much more fun that this!

I also have my "skinny" jeans. I'm still deciding if I should use these as my goal. I could care less about size, I just want to feel good in my clothes and those jeans represent a time in my life where I was very active and felt great with a lot of energy. I did put them on the other day and the button and button hold did not even come close to meeting! I think I'll also take a picture of me in those weekly.

As far as my actual weight - I'm not sure if I should go by my scale weight. I'll keep up with it because it'll be nice to see the number go down, but as far as the goal goes - I think it's just to get back into my 3 HUGE rubbermaid containers full of a past wardrobe of mine!

I'm going to weigh myself weekly only....or I'll try....perhaps I'll have Wes hide the scale and only bring it out on Sunday's. Ugh, I'm getting a sick feeling to my stomach. Why in the world did I choose to share this on this public blog? Now I really have to uphold my goals. Blah.

Off to weigh and take a picture and do my 3rd CrossFit workout - my legs are still rubber from my first workout a week ago - squats. Only squats. Without weights. Perhaps I'll get to the point I can actually use weights by summer...or at least the end of the year.

Introduction to why

This is not your "must read" blog. It's simply a place for me to hold myself accountable and share different recipes, articles, etc. to friends and family who may be interested....or anyone else who may be addicted to blogs like I am!

Why I'm doing this blog:

- I need to get healthy.

I say this only because I don't want to say "I want to lose weight." Which is a goal of mine, but not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to be healthy, which in return, will allow me to lose this extra weight.

- I'm tired of eating junk.

My husband and I have begun reading labels....really reading labels. It's not easy when we've never done it before. But it's getting easier as each time we realize that we've been putting straight JUNK into our bodies with certain foods and realizing we're doing more harm than anything to ourselves.

- I'm tired of wasting money

Our society has this view that eating healthy is expensive. Well...we've been on a strict budget since April 2009 and actually love it (in our own nerd way). We've started comparison shopping and realizing what we pay per ounce, etc. Once we started realizing that the fresh, whole foods eaten in the correct servings and paired with other foods that help give you the energy, fiber, fat, etc., that you need, we see that we were paying waaay too much for food before because we'd need to eat more of the junk to keep our energy up.

- I want to set a good example to our son

Yes, I'm that mom. Our 18 month old son never had refined sugar until he was 1 year old. He has never had juice of any kind (other than that which comes from his fruit that he eats). He drinks water, raw whole milk and breast milk only. Yes, still breastfeeding him! We made his baby food...all of it. I think he may have had 2 jars of commercial baby food total. And that was because we were in a pinch. I want to instill in him good eating habits and allow him to get a taste for fresh, raw veggies and different textures, tastes, etc., before he becomes too opinionated! I'd rather him do this now rather than wait until he's in his 30's and realizing that maybe his diet isn't the best!

Now...we're not perfect. We give him the occasional "bad" or processed food. However, if we do that, I try very hard to be the one to make the cookies, bread, pie, etc. That way, I know everything that's going in. He does eat processed food - some cereals, graham crackers, fruit leather, etc. And occasionally he gets commercial milk (when our r aw milk runs out for the month)

- I want to be in better physical shape

You would think after running around after a child for almost a year that I would be in great shape. Especially since my son does not sit down...ever. Okay, maybe he sits for his meals, but that's only because he's strapped in his chair! Seriously, I have kept this weight on since having him. I actually lost down to my pre-pregnancy size almost immediately...within 2 weeks I'd say. BUT no one told me that things would be this different! I look back at pictures of myself when I was 3 months pregnant and look thinner than I do now!

Sure, it's vanity, but I also feel better and have more energy when I'm in shape. I was in better shape when I was pregnant and miserable.

My husband is a freak. He is lean, muscled, and does ridiculous workouts everyday - some of which include 150 pull-ups...really? He's into Crossfit, which I must say is definitely a great way to workout. It includes competition, which is a motivator for me and definitely for him. In fact, he's already competed in one competition and has signed up for two more. Such fun to watch. So now I'm embarrassed because he is in such great shape and I am most definitely not. I just did my first Crossfit workout yesterday in hopes of starting this healthier lifestyle...more on that later.

- Back to basics

We're learning more and more in our reading and just opening our eyes that much of our society does things the hard way, which wastes time and money and resources and our environment. We are slowly realizing that some of the ways we looked at things in the past don't really make sense. Most of it comes from our society in the past 30-40 years and how fast-paced we've let life become and expect it to be now. Much more on these many topics later.

Well....this is much longer than I intended this intro to be. So I'll stop for now....besides it's almost lunch time for my little guy and two nieces. Not sure what we're having yet. Perhaps some leftover Mustard-Agave chicken with broccoli and onions....

Oh, I'm Dusti. 30+ years old. Husband, Wes, of 3 years. Son is 18 months old and the cutest thing ever. My paying job is a realtor - although I typically just wait for referrals now. My primary focus is on our son. My husband is a firefighter and has the best shifts possible! He works 24 hours on and 48 off. He gets so much time at home and we love it!

Okay, now I'm really done.