Day 20  SUGAR FREE ME.  Eat Green Food.
Our garden is booming with zucchini.  So proud of my babies I grew from seed.    Now, if the tomato plants can survive the heat, I may all the ingredients for zucchini boats straight from my organic garden.

Zucchini Boats

In the meantime, I have lot of other uses for those babies.  Of course zucchini cookies & bread for the kiddos.  But for me, a healthier choices.

Baked Zucchini Chips

No Noodle Zucchini Lasagna

Baked Zucchini Srips

Baked Zucchini Strips

Zucchini Bites

Zucchini Tots

Paleo Zucchini Brownies

Day 11 SUGAR-FREE ME!

Family camping trip last weekend.  We were a bit limited with the "no open fires" rule due to recent wild fires and camping w/o running water making clean up difficult. But quite frankly, I think I was just lazy about cooking & cleaning on a simple overnight trip. So while everyone else ate Nathan's hotdogs, chips & fruitables juice boxes and of course smores, what did I eat?   A piece of pork loin cut in the shape of a hotdog, an apple (which my son tried to steal from me several times), and raw brocolli.  For breakfast the kids splurged on pop tarts which I don't hardly ever buy.  But they were on sale & I had a coupon, my moral dilema cost/benefit.  I had a boiled egg & strawberries (which the kids wanted too).  Trail mix & beef jerkey are also always a hiking/camping standard. 

The next trip I'm going to try some healthy camping food ideas/recipes:
http://blog.gaiam.com/blog/rethinking-campfire-food-15-healthy-easy-ideas-2-recipes/
http://www.complete-family-camping-guide.com/camping-food-ideas.html
http://www.tasteofhome.com/camping-recipes
Pancakes-you can use bananas instead of eggs if you don't want to hunt down dried eggs.
Oatmeal-If you bring a glass mason jar or a large thermos, you can just use boiled water even on old fashioned oats.  Just let it sit for 15-20 minutes. 
Breakfast burritos can be made ahead, wrapped in tin foil & reheated like a "hobo meal". My son's #1 choice.

Lunch:  I always pre-make homemade pb&j sandwiches, but I let them eat chips & have fruitables juice boxes.  Pretty easy to switch the chips for carrots etc.

Dinner:  Oh, the possibilies are endless if we are allowed to have fire. I love the idea of hobo meal.  But if limited with a propane camp stove & no running water, I would choose something with a short cook time & easy cleanup.

Now if I could just manage to get some sleep on the next trip. 

Day 4 MSG FREE SOUP DAY

Chili=smushed fresh tomatoes with spices (cumin is good), chunked steak, & water.  Forgot to buy cabbage head or I would have added some shredded as well. 

Chicken w/ mushrooms=homemade chicken broth, garlic, onion, celery, sage, chunked chicken from self-canned, & mushrooms.

Why I like soup? It's a  light meal but yet it fills you up.

Chicken broth is so easy to make why would you ever buy something processed & chemicalized.
The crockpot makes it even easier.  Just throw the chicken bones in a crockpot overnight with onion, celery, carrot & bay leaves covered with water on low overnight.  In the AM strain the broth (I use a flour sack cloth in a strainer), cool down in non-reactive pot immersed in ice water in the sink.  Do NOT put a hot pot in the fridge!  You will overwork it and heat up the food surrounding it. Once cooled, pop the pot in the fridge to harden up the floating fat, scrap it off and you are for soup or homemade condensed cream of chicken. 

Wow! I have so much leftover broth. What ever am I to do?  Freeze it or Pressure Can it. 
Freeze it?  I pour it into a 9x9 glass pan that way it's nice and flat in the freezer. Once frozen, I pop it out of the pan and vacuum pack it. Thank you foodsaver.  Another option I utilize is pouring into a muffin tin.  If I need broth for a recipe, I can just grab a few "muffins" and defrost them on the stove.   Downside:  plastic wrap.
Can it?  I usually make some kind of soup & then can that instead.  It's a lot of work & time but worth it compared to eating what manufacturers try to pass off as food.

Day 1 Restart A Healthier Me Sugar-Free
Life without sugar, sugar-free, flour, starch, high glycemic foods, dairy or processed foods.  A clean real food diet comprised of daily allowance of protein but all carbohydrates are made up of green vegetables and low glycemic fruits. 
The first few detox days are the WORST.  Drink plenty of water and try not to rip anyone's head off.
This is an addiction worse than nicotine.  I cracked that one over 10 years ago and I can crack this one again!   

Day 8 NO to cupcakes

Challenges of a Mom on a sugar-free diet:
My daughter made cupcakes on Sunday with honeyman.  This is after he decided to bake choc-chips cookies just out of the blue. I couldn't stand to even smell it.  It was a hard day; but I overcame.  Life without cupcakes...it's not so bad.  "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", I keep reminding myself.   I think the hypnosis must be working because it wasn't so hard to just say no. 

Today I actually ate in the Cafe.  They had a beef machaca sandwhich that I had them turn into a "taco" salad... lettuce, salsa & meat.  "thinking outside the bun"...  Of course, I had to drill the "chef" for the ingredients...just in case.  You never know when they will sneak in sugar.  (Like in the chicken brine!)  And of course, an apple for "dessert".  I'm a big apple kick again. 

I'm already out of time.  It's a crazy month end week. So I have to keep this short today.

Someone sent me this link quite a while ago and although it's quite a long video, I think it's worth sharing.

Sugar the Bitter Truth



Day 6 Pizza is not appropriate

Day 6.
Six days without sugar, sugar-free, flour, starch, high glycemic foods, dairy or processed foods!  That is some kind of restricted diet!  But it also makes me feel safe.  I have a list that I am allowed to eat and I know that I will be successful with it. 

Currently, my will power is being tested.My husband is cooking a papa murphy's pizza.  It's my trigger food.  "I can't eat it.  It is not healthy for me." I keep telling myself. "I AM STRONGER THAN YOU, YOU STUPID PIZZA! I HATE YOU!  YOU MAKE ME FAT!"  But have you tried the zucchini pizza crust! Yum! I've also cut out dairy for at least 6 weeks, so these will have to wait. But I wanted to be sure to share it before I forget.
http://blog.yourlighterside.com/2009/05/zucchini-pizza-crust-recipe.html


Another crazy thing I am doing: hypnosis and daily affirmations.  You have to believe that it works for it to work, I think.  http://www.stevegjones.com/  sign up for the newsletter and you'll get discount codes.  I'm going to have to start listening to the one that will convince me that I like to exercise because I have yet to do that this week.  So far so good.  It's not completely hookey.

Day 4

WOW!  I am feeling great!  Four days of healthy food makes for a happy mama. 

Link of the day:
Peak 8  ... This is tabata training except the breaks are extended to 90 seconds instead of just 10 seconds..
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2010/12/24/a-fountain-of-youth-in-your-muscles.aspx

I'm find lots of great information on Dr Mercola's site.  I'm not doing everything he suggests but I really want to try the "tabata" workout. We have an eliptical that I can definatley use for it.  I can't just run down the street because a drunk driver got me (jan08) & my leg still hurts. I'm not whinning.  I just can't do it.  But there are a lot of other alternatives.  I like this one because I could do this with my boys. And they love to use weights.   I definately need to get moving & make with the healthy life style again.

Tabata Dumbbell Thrusters

 

I say again because.... here comes my whinning.... before I had to go back to work I would go to the gym everyday and I was on this healthy clean diet.  After 7 months I was the healthiest I had been probably in my life.  And I thought I needed to lose more weight.  I wondered if I could really fit in a 6 since my 8s were getting a lil loose. 



Six months after going back to work, between the stress and illness, I gained it all back.  I have been struggling since the first five lbs came back on.  And have lost the battle over and over again.  But this time, I am going to do it.  I just have to get back to me. Healthy me.  Happy me.  

One of the reasons, I have to make this work is because of my back.  My poor aching back.  So in addition to the healthier me campaign, I caved in and am seeing a chiropractor.  I am happy to report I slept the entire night last night for the first time in a long time.  YAHOO! I know, a lot of you probably think I'm crazy.  But at first I thought I had gotten cushings disease (you can google this) because of the deformaty!  Nope, it's not fat, it's bone.  From sitting in front of the computer all day and being lazy.

Food Updates:  I'm keeping it simple and real!
Day 4: 
Chicken & Steamed Broccoli
Cabbage Chili & Apple

Day 3: 
Chicken & Green beans & Apple
Hamburger & Salsa & Blueberries