Eat to Live not Live to Eat Day 3

I must say I'm a little disappointed. Weighing myself this morning wasn't what I expected. I thought I would be down another pound. I wasn't. I stayed the same. Still, I'm down 2.5 pounds for the week. In Dr. Fuhrman's book, some people have lost up to 10 pounds in one week. I also read a blog about a woman who lost 7 pounds in her first week. This was what I expected when I began my journey two days ago. Now I know I shouldn't be tied to the scale, but I'm afraid if I don't weigh myself every day I might slide in the wrong direction. I need to be more patient. It is only my third day.

I wonder though if the Kind Nuts & Spice bar, the salad dressing, and the black bean soup had anything to do with it. I still remained within my daily points for Weight Watchers. Hmmm. Could my body be reacting to the new healthy food? Could my body be holding on to the fat because it thinks I'm starving? Some things to think about.

This morning I ate my overnight oats. They were delicious. I think I'm going to stick with these for the summer and when I go back to school. I can take them with me and eat them before class since I'm not hungry before I head out the door. I shared the idea with my Weight Watchers group tonight. Many of the members said they would give it a try. I also spoke to my WW leader and told her I was concerned about not using all of my daily points. She said as long as I was eating clean she wasn't worried about it. Whew!

For lunch, I made my salad, mixed greens, carrots, and cucumbers. I used Olive Garden Lite Italien dressing (1 WW point). I didn't make it as huge as the ones I had eaten on day one and two. Those salads were a little much for me to get through if you can believe it. It was still a large salad, but one I could handle eating. I figure if I'm still hungry after eating my salad I'll just make another one. One was enough. I also had some cantaloupe. However, by late afternoon I was hungry. My stomach growled for the first time since I began this journey.  Maybe my salad wasn't big enough. I didn't want to eat a whole lot since I was going back to Weight Watchers for the first time in months. I knew I would show weight gain, but I didn't want it to be too horrible. I decided to have a 1/4 cup of sunflower seeds since Dr. Fuhrman says that's what I can have a day. That did the trick.

For dinner, I ate my salad, mixed greens, carrots, and cucumbers. I also heated up some green beans. I just love green beans. Seriously. Hubby thinks I'm nuts. For dessert, I ate a banana.

I ate two salads. Check. I ate four fruits. Check, check. I drank a ton of water today. Check, check, check. I'm feeling pretty good about my day. All though I may have to learn to cook. I'm not too creative when it comes to fixing cooked veggies. I boil them in water.

Eat to Live not Live to Eat Day 2

Day number two of my eating to live lifestyle. I lost 2.5 pounds! Overnight! YEAH! I had to get that off my chest. So today I decided to try something new for breakfast that I found on Pinterest. It's called overnight oats. Here's what they look like. (I borrowed this photo from Pinterest and I added the link just under the picture. The blog is called Organize Yourself Skinny.)

Blueberry Banana Overnight Oats

According to Dr. Fuhrman, I can have 1/2 a cup of rolled oats a day so this follows the plan. I changed mine up a bit though. All I did was add 1/2 a cup of rolled oats, 1/2 a cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 a cup of blueberries, and 1/2 a sliced banana. That's it! I sealed it up and placed it in the fridge. I actually didn't wait overnight. I only waited about two hours. They were really good. If you count smart points on Weight Watchers it added up to 5 points for the oats. The rest were zero. I don't think that's too bad for a breakfast. And it stuck with me. I actually had to remind myself to eat later. Tonight I'm going to make one for my breakfast tomorrow and see if there's a difference.

Tuesdays are my hubby's day off and it was extremely HOT both outside and inside the house. We really need to think about air conditioning. Anyway, we decided to head to the beach. Just the two of us, our chairs, towels, sunscreen, and suits. Notice I didn't say food. I was still feeling satisfied from my overnight oats and didn't think to take anything with me. Later that afternoon I realized I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. We stopped to get bottled water for the drive home and hubby grabbed me a Kind Nuts & Spices bar.  If you haven't tried these they are amazing. However, they are 7 Weight Watchers points. I decided that would be my lunch. No salad. 

For dinner that night hubby wanted to go to Panera. I ordered a Pick Two: a cup of black bean soup (there's my beans for the day) and a southwest salad without the tortilla chips or cheese. I did have the salad dressing though. Ooops! I haven't been getting in my cup of beans a day.

At home, we watched some TV and I was still hot so I made a blueberry and banana smoothie. YUM! It's 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1 cup of blueberries, and 1 banana. Weight Watchers points 1. I need to get more variety in my fruit. 

I didn't really stick to the plan today. I only had the one salad and no cooked vegies. I wonder how that's going to affect me tomorrow. I guess I'll find out. Oddly enough what I did eat was enough to keep me satisfied for the day. 

Eating to Live not Living to Eat

I finished reading Dr. Fuhrman's book called Eat to Live on Friday. There was a ton of information. It took me about three days to finish reading it, in between everything else going on in my life. This book made sense to me. It was like someone turned on the light switch. I told my hubby that back when I was eating less meat and more veggies (5 years ago) I felt better. Then I took a nose dive and began eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. So I joined Weight Watchers. It has really helped me stay on track. I love our leader, Lynn. However, the stress from this past year at school made me lose track of myself again. So I wanted to do something to recommit myself to getting healthier. That's why I picked up the book Eat to Live. After reading this book I'm ready to eat healthy once again. Not to say I won't have a cheat day NOW and THEN. And it's okay to have a cheat day as long as I get back to eating healthy the next day or sooner.

In a nutshell, the Eat to Live plan says I can have all of the raw and cooked vegetables that I want. Dr. Fuhrman wants me to shoot for a goal of one pound of each a day. As far as fruit goes . . . wait for it . . . I can have as much fruit as I want each day, a minimum of four servings. I've never been told I can have as much fruit as I want. Usually, diets say to limit the fruit intake. Following the Eat to Live plan is what's known as being a nutritarian, getting all the nutrients my body needs from nutrient rich foods. 

Here are the Daily Guidelines:

Eat these as much as I want:

• all raw vegetables (goal 1 lb.)
• cooked green and non-green nutrient-rich vegetables (goal: 1 lb.)
• beans, legumes, bean sprouts, and tofu (goal: 1 cup)
• fresh fruit (min. 4 daily)

Limit:

• cooked starchy vegetables and whole grains (max. 1 cup)
• raw nuts and seeds (max 1 oz.)
• avocado (max 2 oz.)
• dried fruit (max 2 tbsp.)
• ground flaxseeds (max 1 tbsp.)

Do Not Eat:

• dairy
• meat / Animal products
• between-meal snacks
• fruit juice
• oils
• added salt

Yesterday was the beginning of eating to live for me. I have to admit I was a little nervous. Could I stick with it? Would I want to snack in the afternoon? If so how would I handle it? 

I began my day as I normally would with my cup of coffee and sitting on my back porch. I'm not usually a breakfast eater. By the way, Dr. Fuhrman says if I'm not hungry I don't have to eat. All though I do want to try making overnight oats in a jar. I'll talk about that later. 

For lunch, I fixed an enormous salad: a mix of greens, carrots, cucumbers, celery, sunflower seeds, and poppy seed dressing from Panera Bread. I'm not supposed to have the dressing, but according to Weight Watchers, it is only 1 point for 2 tablespoons. The sunflower seeds were 6 points. It was difficult to get through the entire salad. However, I did feel full afterward. Not stuffed - satisfied. 

For a snack, I made a smoothie in my blender. I had been outside weeding in my flower garden and thought an icy drink would hit the spot. In my mind, this replaced my breakfast since I'm not supposed to be snacking. I blended one cup of frozen blueberries, one medium banana, and one cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I sipped my smoothie while I sat in my chair enjoying the sunshine. I wonder if I got ANY vitamin D since I was covered in SPF 30. My smoothie was delicious! As far as Weight Watchers points go I only counted the almond milk. One cup is 1 point. So far so good. The hardest part of my day was yet to come.

Sitting in front of the television is a trigger for me. In other words sitting on my couch mindlessly watching my show is when I want to snack on a whole bag of chips carrot sticks. Seriously, I watch an afternoon soap, General Hospital. I usually watch my show right when I come home from school where I teach ninth graders. Today, I watched my show and nibbled on some delicious cherries. It wasn't easy. I so wanted some a whole bag of tortilla chips with hummus. I had one cup of cherries. So far I've had a banana, blueberries, and cherries. One more fruit to go for the day and I hit my minimum. Notice I haven't had any cooked veggies yet.

For dinner, I cooked some green beans and fixed another huge salad. Pretty much the same salad as lunch minus the sunflower seeds and celery. My hubby had pizza. The turd! I ate all of my green beans and most of my salad. I was feeling kind of stuffed. So I stopped eating. What a concept. 

While watching the Cavs game I wanted something to munch on so I had my fourth and final fruit of the day, cantaloupe. Yum! 

I made it! I actually did it! I know. I know. It's only the FIRST day. But I feel good. Not as nervous as I did when I first began this morning. I only used 9 WW points for the day. 

P.S. When I weighed myself this morning I lost 2.1 pounds!!! WOOT!

Books & Wine a Book Club

amazon.com

I love my book club. We are seven women strong and started our first book discussion on July 7, 2007. For our first book we read Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. Seventy books later we finished The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison this past Friday night.

We meet once a month and generally follow the same hostess order: Aimee, Kristen, Kate, Amy, Me, Amy, and Heather. Yes. We have lots of Amy(ee)s in our club. Aimee is the one who started things off. If I remember correctly, some of her colleagues from work wanted to begin a book club. From those first inklings of a book club Aimee is the only one who went through with the idea. Thus we became Books & Wine/Wine & Books.

As I was saying, we meet once a month. In our first year we came up with some rules thanks to Amy. She's not just another pretty face.

Rule #1: The person who hosts the next month's book club must email the other members of book club about possible dates. Right. This rule hasn't really been followed. All though we do send reminders about book club on Facebook.

Instead we follow Rule #2: The future hostess should select two dates for members to choose. The future hostess brings the dates with her to the current book club meeting. This works well for us. Believe it or not we've been pretty good about meeting once a month. Even with all of our busy schedules plus our kids' and husbands' schedules. We make it happen!

Rule #3: The future hostess brings the book of choice to the current book club meeting to share. In the beginning we all purchased books. You know a cover and a back with pages in the middle and words on the pages. It began with one member buying a Kindle then slowly but surely every member purchased a Kindle. It was tough going with two English teachers who wanted the comfort of holding that book in their hands. ( I was one of the hold outs, but I love, love, love my Kindle.) Now we can read the description using technology. Wow. We're cutting edge.

Rule #4: There is no guilt involved when choosing a book and no one ends up liking it. Well, I can't seem to help feeling bad when one of my selections is a stinker. Like this last selection The Silent Wife. More on that in a minute.

Rule #5: Base your ratings on personal experience with the book. In the beginning we thought of the ratings as grades (teachers will do that) and kept comparing books to each other rather than holding the book up as an individual. We've since changed to judge the book based on our reading experience with the book. Here's our rating scale: 5 stars = one of the best; 4 stars = very good; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = made it through; and 1 star = couldn't make it through.

Rule #6: Book club begins at 7 p.m.

Whoever hosts the book club provides tasty treats and refreshments. It's extremely important to have delicious food and wine to stimulate conversation about the book.

So this last book club I served Asian BBQ meatballs, lemongrass chicken spring rolls, naan, ginger chips, and wheat thins with spinach and artichoke dip, sesame seed cashews, and lemon cake with lemon icing. For the wine selection I selected a Tuscan red called 1967 and from Pancake Cellars Big Day White as well as Project Happiness Chardonnay.

The book The Silent Wife (not a manual for husbands) was touted as being similar to Gone Girl. The only thing similar was the way in which the chapters were divided, Her and Him. It was supposed to be a psychological thriller and in one way I think that description fits. Kate said it was interesting to be inside Todd's head to listen to what he was thinking about Jodi. Many of us disagreed but Kate said, "I'm okay with the book being labeled as a psycho thriller. I'm standing by it!"

There was supposed to be a murder, but that didn't happen until just about the very end. I kept waiting for something to happen. There was no real cliff hanger to speak of and it just wasn't what I expected. The average rating of the book for the girls was 3.2.

Our next selection is called A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy.

Have a wonderful week.

Hugs, 

HopeAnn