Week two

The first week of our health makeover went really well. I was able to resist the urge and have now been soda free for one week! Woo hoo! Other than that, the HFCS was easy to give up, although hard to avoid, it is in EVERYTHING! As far as I know, I did not consume any last week, but that stuff is sneaky and may have slipped into something I ate. As far as the trans-fats, those are pretty easy to avoid because they are being taken out of most foods but you have to be careful because the package can say no trans-fats (and then in little letters say "per serving"). You have to read the ingredients and look for anything that says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated (this means it has trans-fats in it). The manufacturers have just decreased the serving sizes so that they appear to have no trans-fats. Anyway, the burst training is going well too! I love being able to exercise for only 9 minutes three times a week. My chiropractor swears it works, I'm still a little skeptical but I'll try it. It sure beats hours of cardio. I'll keep you posted.

So, for this week, Jason and I decided that our goal would be to try to decrease significantly the amount of processed foods we eat. This is a little easier said than done but we began our week yesterday with a trip to Trader Joe's. We started to look for our usual foods, but healthier options. We were looking for things that had a minimal amount of ingredients and also less processed ingredients such as flours and sugars. We got some great sprouted Ezekiel bread, brown rice pasta, ingredients for a coconut milk oatmeal recipe a friend sent, and some other great things to try this week. I think it is almost impossible, and very time consuming, to completely take processed foods out of our diet but being conscious of it will help. Also, we have agreed to no longer eat fast food. This should be fairly easy as we don't really eat much fast food anyway. If we must get something quickly, we will opt for a healthier choice such as subs or something like that. I must say, I think I will miss burgers from Cook Out... but Jason makes burgers that are so much better. This part of our challenge really boils down to not being lazy, it sometimes is really much easier to drive through, but we can have much more control over what we eat if we cook it ourselves.

With one week down, I'm feeling pretty good and not really missing my soda all that much. A perk that I wasn't expecting is that by reducing the amount of junk I was drinking, I have increased my water intake! This makes me feel so much better, and has increased my milk supply (which makes Jude happy)! I'm looking forward to this week and my new sun butter, yum!

The First Step

So now that we've decided to really commit to a new healthier lifestyle we are going to start one step at a time. So for the next week Jason and I are going to eliminate all high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats from out diet. This should not be too difficult seeing as how we really stay away from this most of the time anyway, but one of my biggest vices in life contains large amounts of HFCS. My name is Kristy and I'm addicted to Mountain Dew! I had my farewell Mtn. Dew this afternoon and I have to say, it was delicious. I have known for a long time that this is a horrible thing I can put in my body but I have rationalized it by saying, "I don't really do anything else that's bad for me, I don't smoke, I don't drink excessively, I can allow myself this one thing...". Of course it's never really one thing, but this made me feel a little bit better about the dew. I must add that I have "given up" soda many times before but I always find my way back. Jason refers to my mountain dew as "crack" and "the gateway drug". This time, it's for real. I don't want Jude to drink soda and I must lead by example. The hard thing about the HFCS is going to be making sure I don't consume it hidden in products. Who knew that it was contained in almost all bread found in the grocery store. This is a great excuse to splurge for the fresh baked bread from our local bakery. Yum!

The other new goal for the upcoming week is to start our burst training. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is a form of exercise that focuses on short spurts of exercise combined with short periods of rest. This is a philosophy introduced by our maximized living chiropractor (a subject for a future post). This will be done three times a week and only takes about 12 minutes. I think I can handle that. So, that's the plan. I'll keep you posted. Off to bed!

The idea

I haven't done the blog thing yet so I thought I'd give it a try. It is an attempt to keep myself honest. The more people who know what I'm trying to do, the harder it will be to cheat. I know that I shouldn't need this, but it helps. One of my faults is trying to please other people and if I can make myself accountable to them, I have a better chance of doing right by myself. I have been inspired by a number of things lately and I have decided to culminate all of this inspiration into a new project. While I was trying to come up with the motivation, my chiropractor reminded me that motivation is fleeting and inspiration is forever, so I will attempt to remain inspired as a form of motivation. A friend of mine (Cream of Mommy Soup) started a blog a while ago about her attempts to create a healthier life and I've decided to follow suit. I have plenty of knowledge about leading a healthy life and I have dabbled in new things that will lead me in this direction but I have noticed that I have been choosing which things to follow and which to leave out. This is not the correct philosophy, it needs to be more of a commitment. Life is not always about what is easy and what tastes good but making good choices and sticking with them! I have been thinking a lot lately about my son and all of the things I plan for his life and how to make him as healthy as possible when it occurred to me that I cannot ask him to do something that I am unwilling to do myself. So, before he becomes old enough to see me as a hypocrite, I have decided to do something about my way of life. I also realized that I need to start viewing my life as just as important as his and do the right thing for myself as well. I'M WORTH IT!! I discussed this plan with Jason and he decided to join me in my journey. But every journey starts with one step right? So we will also begin with one step and hope to continue with many more steps to follow.