The Full Plate Diet - and my own changes

I fear my "observations" about myself yesterday came across a bit...desperate.  Rereading them, I notice that I clearly didn't indicate that I wasn't feeling "lost" with myself or life, just on the brink of change.  I've let some things slide since I've been here in TX and I'm feeling the impact of them.  I don't like it, so I'm going to try to change it.  Simple as that - no extra emotion to it.  Very practically speaking.  I've noted what my body is telling me and I know what I need to do about it.  I don't dread these changes, but I do hope that I don't grow tired of them again because they are, in the short and long term, much healthier ways of living.  I spoke with The Man about this last night and, unbeknownst to me, he's feeling the same way.  He's a bit more proactive than I am, so with his help, these changes aren't going to be difficult.  He's great for motivation, too.

Some key points for me and a bit of a plan:

I need to eat my veggies.  I love them, and am going to plan the menu around them from now on, aiming for 60% produce on my plate.  Why I haven't stuck to this...I have no idea.  I love steamed and raw veggies.  Not a huge fan of salads, but am trying to find ways to truly enjoy them instead of trying to convince myself they're tasty (I think it's the word "salad" LOL).  I have a caesar dressing that I make which I love, and a little bit goes a long way, but I don't want to wear that one out...  Definitely looking for options here.

I need to be running again.  I loved running outside, in the cold and rain of Alaska.  Even when the ice was covered in rain and too slick for my Yaktrax, I could still get on my treadmill, located conveniently in front of my huge window overlooking the river in my backyard, open said window, turn on my treadmill fan, and get a similar outdoor running experience.  Here, I'm stuck staring at a wall, listening to music or trying to surf the internet at the same time (which is actually possible, thanks to my Surf Shelf.  I think what I need to do in order to stick with running on my treadmill is just (just?!) to find a way to make it enjoyable like it was, outdoors in Alaska.  I could definitely use some ideas as I'm at a loss with that one.

I need fiber.  I know this from past experience.  I look at my skin and can tell that I'm holding toxins like a drug addict (no joke - pasty, bumpy, and bland looking).  40 grams a day is my goal, which after reading The Full Plate Diet (it's not really a diet, just increasing your fiber intake).  This goes hand in hand with the veggies.

I need water.  Again, from past experience, I know this.  I know what my body is like when it's adequately hydrated.  And my endurance with running is soooo much better.  My lungs feel like they can function when I've had my 96 oz of water a day (FYI - 96 oz is 3 of my Nalgene bottles).  This was one of my big issues I wrote about yesterday.

I need my vitamins.  When I take them, I don't feel I have to rely on caffeine to wake me up.  I enjoy my homemade latte's, but do not enjoy the feeling of relying on them so I can function in the morning.  I do believe that coffee (not cows milk) is good for you in moderation, but I don't want to have to rely on it.  Anyway, I take a whole foods vitamin at night and find that it helps me wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.  Virgin Coconut Oil was another key component to my health and overall feeling of well-being (and weight loss!) and I'm looking forward to incorporating that back into my diet.  In fact, yesterday, I made a big peach, yogurt, and stevia smoothie with an ounce of coconut oil mixed in...it was awesome.  Just enough of that fresh coconut flavor.  Anyway...vitamins and coconut oil.  Good stuff.

So, about The Full Plate Diet.  I got word that a limited number of this pre-release book was available for free for a very short amount of time.  I didn't expect to gain any new information as I've been researching and preaching the benefits of a fiber rich diet for years (take your own advice, Steph...seriously!), but I applied to receive the book, was chosen, and actually have been impressed with this book!  It's held my attention, at least!  It's a quick read with lots of glossy, pretty pictures, and entirely about increasing your fiber to lose weight and live healthier.  They cover quite a bit of information in a short amount of page real estate (again, most of it's taken up by photos).  They don't stress cutting things out of your diet, but rather making sure that you're getting all of the fiber and water that you're supposed to in a day.  Essentially, the rest will sort itself out.

So anyway, just to clarify, there is no sense of desperation here, just of change coming happily (I'm okay, Mom!).  I'm enjoying a lot of new things in my life right now and this is just another to add to the list.  This morning, I started out eating a boiled egg (obviously no fiber there, but am working out the rest of my day still) and drinking a latte.  Water's coming next and I'm about to get on the treadmill.  Avoiding the leftover birthday cupcakes was surprisingly easy this morning and I'm planning a produce shopping trip for this afternoon.

Food Preservation, Nutrition, and a Birthday

I haven't been hiding - just been busy.  We had a good friend staying with us for a couple of weeks, I've canned my first foods, and today, we have a birthday.  :)

I'm super excited about the canning.  Everything I've made so far has turned out wonderfully.  I always thought that those big jars of store bought strawberry preserves were as good as it got, and I've even been known to sit up in the corner of the counter in my parents kitchen with a jar, a spoon, and a glass of milk.  After making strawberry jam for the first time, I will never be able to bring myself to buy another jar of ANY jam or preserves.  It's amazing that strawberries, sugar, and some pectin - nothing more - turn out to be better than commercially manufactured jam.  I mean, I'm all about home cooking and creating amazing depths of flavors (like in my slow simmered spaghetti sauce I made last night!), but these companies with their taste trials and market research and all that - they should be able to produce superior results, no?  Anyway, I'm stoked.  So far, I've canned Old-fashioned raspberry jam, blueberry jam, apple butter (I've never had it, but found a recipe for it and am loving it on my banana bread!), pepper jelly (jalapenos and bell peppers - to die for!!!), and...uh, I think that's it.  I'm also working on some raspberry liqueur, blueberry liqueur, and a limoncello.   I have plans to make some vanilla extract since we have so many vanilla beans running amok around here (seriously), and possibly some coffee liqueur.  I also want to can my own chicken base (reduced stock) and tomatoes, but that will require me to "grow a pair" *ahem* to use the pressure cooker.  Why is that so scary?  It shouldn't be...the pressure cookers of today are nothing like they used to be.

Having started food preservation has also kicked me into a new mode of exploration.  I finally made some almond butter.  I've wanted to for quite a long time, but it wasn't until the boys weren't allowed to bring peanut products (or pumpkin, unfortunately) into the school this year that I finally decided I needed to do it.  I ordered some raw almonds, roasted them, and ground them up (almost killing my smaller food processor!).  It's really tasty, but I'll post more about that later.  I also finally picked up the raw cacao nibs that I've been dying to play with.  I'm a big fan of hot chocolate in the fall and winter and think it would be a lot of fun to make my own cocoa powder with my own percentage of sugar.  Nevermind all of the other chocolaty goodness to be created.  FYI, cacao nibs are 100% chocolate, so if you want a nice, dark 70% chocolate for baking or consumption, you weigh out 70% cacao to 30% sugar.  You're in complete control of the sugar and I really like that.

On a different and completely bass akwards note, my main topic of research right now is raw food diets.  Not for the purpose of dieting, but more because I want to feel better.  I have no energy.  I'm not sleeping well, I haven't weighed myself, but I think I'm gaining weight.  I feel like sleeping all day.  I'm not depressed and that's adding to my frustration because if I were depressed, that would be the root of all of this and I would know how to manage it.  I'm trying to listen to what my body is telling me and these are the things I'm noticing:

• 100% of my diet right now consists of "comfort food."  Heavy pastas of either the red or white sauce variety are my "go to" meals of choice.  Chocolate.  I don't even like chocolate that much, but one would never imagine that by the way I'm going after it right now.  Coke, which I'd cut out of my diet for years, has now made a strong comeback.  I'm frustrated by my desire to eat these things in excess because I know that they're only contributing to the problem.  Because I realize this, it's easy for me to put off eating (out of frustration) until I'm really hungry  (stupidly) and then, I seem to be unable to think about eating anything else.  Clearly not a healthy cycle I'm in.  It feels pretty gross.
• Though I'm eating comfort foods, I'm craving fresh fruit.  I'm craving fruit and veggies with lots of water such as watermelon and iceberg lettuce.  Obviously, I'm dehydrated.  Yes, I am.  My water intake has dropped from about 96 oz a day to, oh...16.  If I'm lucky.  I also miss drinking Alaskan tap water.  So cold and fresh.  Here...in West Texas...we chew our tap water, which is why most of us have RO systems or at least a decent filter.  And it's not cold by any stretch of the imagination.  Oh, no...it's room temperature at best.  Very odd having grown up in a far cooler location.
• I'm craving the cold Pacific Northwest ocean air.  I want to run in it.  I want to feel saturated with it.  My lungs and throat hate the desert.  It doesn't make sense to me that people would live in such a physically inhospitable place.  With heat soaring above 100 degrees and humidity down below 20%, I don't know how people survive here.  I don't want to move my body because moving means breathing and breathing means discomfort.  Running inside on my treadmill is getting old and the breathing issue remains the same.  Dehydration comes into play here, also, and that's 100% my fault for not keeping up with my water intake.
• The Man has some sort of allergy or something that's causing him to have IBS type symptoms.  He's been like this, I think, the entire time I've known him.  It worries me.  I'm concerned about long-term inflammation.  It's typically worse when we eat out and sometimes, after a long stretch of only eating our own, freshly prepared foods (we don't use packaged pantry food if we can help it), it completely disappears.  I just wonder what the "key ingredient" to this is...

So, given the above observations, I'm being slowly drawn to "green smoothies" and a raw diet.  Not 100%, mind you - I have no desire to cut out our love for kitchen chemistry, but I do feel that we're grossly out of balance here.  We need to stop the eating out, save for once a blue moon, and it will be much easier after tonight (birthday boy wants to go out).  We have a killer juicer (Breville BJE200XL 700-Watt Compact Juice Fountain) that can handle just about everything you throw at it, so all I need now is the produce to go in it.  Not sure this fits in well with my budget grocery shopping, but we'll see...  If anyone has any tips, tricks, or other suggestions, please throw them my way!

The birthday boy has decided he wants to give Texas Roadhouse another try for his birthday.  Last year, he proudly said that was where he wanted to go, being fully aware of their birthday antics.  For anyone who hasn't witnessed this, the staff gather around and sing a loud chanting song while you're on a sawhorse saddle, waving a napkin over your head like a lasso (totally mortifying, I'm sure - I refuse to step foot in the place on my birthday).  Anyway, he went there and was so absolutely and completely embarrassed that I had to hold him with one hand out of the booth to at least stand up while they sang to him.  The saddle was a definite no-go.  His brother, on the other hand...well, let's just say that he went at it with gusto on his birthday.  GoodNESS, couldn't even get him off the damn saddle.  Anyway!  So, that's where he's decided to go tonight for dinner.  I'm still trying to decide whether we should make him a cake, buy him a cake, or let him pick a dessert from the menu.  I guess I should ask him!  LOL

Well, this is me, signing off.  That was a whole lot of randomness crammed into one entry.