F You Sugar Challenge

So on the Eat Clean boards there's this challenge where you go "white death" free for 3 months. Be done and looking and feeling fine in time for bikini's.   I'm going to try this, it's going to be hard.  There will be tears.  I've cut so much sugar out that it shouldn't be totally awful.  I've done a bad job of it this week though and am feeling sluggish and blah for it.
I may have to buy Tosca Reno's book Eat Clean recharged or maybe the cookbook to help with menu planning.  I'm going to have to menu plan.  I'm horrible about reaching for crap of the processed sugar variety when I don't plan snacks and meals ahead.  I'm going to have to plan out meals and snacks for my family that fit in with this challenge, that are affordable (read: really cheap) and my bunch won't feel like I'm feeding them cardboard.  I need to find natural sweeteners that are frugal.  I love stevia but it's not exactly cheap.  I've not tried agave syrup, again it's not cheap. Honey is great, but not cheap.  So maybe I'll buy these and just use them frugally.  I know if I add spices/seasonings, such as cinnamon, that we associate with sweet eats I can trick myself and my bunch into thinking we are eating something sweeter then what it really is.
So starting tomorrow stay tuned for recipes and meal plans that incorporate these ideas.  Also, if you have any links to any good recipes that use clean, whole, affordable ingredients then please share in comments.  I guess a trip to Whole Foods or Fresh Market is in store for the upcoming week.  This is starting to sound like work. Oh well, if it was easy then the reward at the end wouldn't be so great.

Trying to Stay Motivated and Homemade granola bars

I almost talked myself out of going to the gym yesterday.  I had just bombed a test (which the professor is going to let me retake Thursday, woohoo) and really had the just-want-to-go-home-and-sulk thing going on.  I was talking to Hubby as I walked from class to the parking lot and he talked me into going.  His words were "Why not just go to the gym, it'll put you in a better mood and you won't be all cranky later" actually I think he said I wouldn't be a cranky butt later but still he was right.  Of course he doesn't need to know he was right, his head is big enough as it is. So I went and spent 30 minutes on the weight machines.  Working my frustrations out with pec flys, leg press, leg extension, standing quad machine( I forget the name of the exercise) and leg curls.  Then went to the cardio side to do 30 minutes on the elliptical.  Saw the trainer I was with when I took advantage of the 20 dollars for 4 training sessions.  It was great. Afterwards, I was wore out but feeling better.  This morning I'm a little sore but still glad I went.  Wednesdays are my day when I can't make it to the gym, so this afternoon I'll make my oldest son work out so he can maybe pass his PT test so he can rank up in the Civil Air Patrol.  It's all he has left to pass and the poor kid is so lanky and skinny it's probably going to be the hardest part.

Now on to Homemade granola bars.  I found a couple recipes last night and combined pieces of them so that I could make the granola bars for today.  Wednesdays are also my day where I don't have the time to grab something to eat at one of the restaurants on campus so I have to have something I can snack on during lecture.  Being a tight week money-wise I decided to make some and they turned out yummy.  Sorry I don't have a picture, my camera battery died.  I do have the recipe here:
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg
3-4 tbsp ground flaxseed
4 tbsp honey
1 tbsp coconut oil
4 cups old fashioned oats
2 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup coconut

In a large bowl put:  1 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 3 tbsp ground flaxseed and 4 tbsp honey and coconut oil.  Mix well.
In another bowl combine oats, flour, cinnamon and baking soda
Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well, fold in coconut.

Press into a large greased baking dish (i'm not sure the size of the one I used it's a large brownie pan).
Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.  Cool and cut into bars.

These were yummy, not too sweet and had more of a cookie/brownie like texture then a granola bar feel to them.

Nutritional Data from SparkRecipes.com (approx.)

12 Servings

Amount Per Serving

Calories  237.9   Total Fat 5.3 g    Saturated Fat 2.5 g    Polyunsaturated Fat 1.2 g   Monounsaturated Fat 1.0 g

 Cholesterol 35.4 mg  Sodium 118.3 mg Potassium 85.6 mg  Total Carbohydrate 43.2 g  Dietary Fiber 3.5 g    Sugars 16.8g  Protein 5.6 g

Snow day and Apple-Cornmeal Muffins

We got about 3 inches of snow yesterday afternoon and today it's a balmy 25 degrees outside.  So it's a perfect day to bake something in order to help keep the house warm.  So here's what I've came up with so far:

I took this recipefrom Fitness Magazine:

"Blueberry-Cornmeal Muffins

In a large bowl, mix together 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup cornmeal, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda. In another large bowl, mix together 3/4 cup fat-free buttermilk, 1/4 cup canola oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 slightly beaten egg, 1/2 cup pecans, and 1/2 cup blueberries. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and combine. Mist muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray. Pour batter into pans and bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins. (Leftovers can be frozen.) Serve with 1/2 cup skim milk and 1 hard-boiled egg."

and adapted it to this:

Apple-Cornmeal Muffins

1. In a large bowl mix together 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups cornmeal, 6 tablespoons sugar, 1 tsp sal, 1 tablespoons baking soda.
2. In another large bowl, mix together 3/4 cup coconut milk, 3/4 cup 2% milk, 1/2 coconut oil, 1/4 cup molasses, 1/4 cup honey, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 slightly beaten eggs
3. Slowly mix wet ingredients with dry then fold in 1 cup chopped apples
4. grease muffin pans pour batter into pans and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes
5. Makes 24 muffins.

The kiddies loved it and ate 3 muffins and wanted more.  I wanted to save some for tomorrow so it was a no go.  They were different but not in a bad way.  They weren't real sweet as you may be used to muffins being.  After the second bite you get used to the flavor and I liked as well.  I liked that the recipe uses little white sugar and mostly sweetened with the molasses and honey.  I'm trying to switch over to natural, less processed sweeteners and this recipe helps.  It also uses coconut milk and oil, both I'm trying to use more in order to enjoy the health benefits of them.

Lifetime Changes and Homemade Yogurt

After a week of staying fairly close to sugar-less (well as close as I had the will power to do), I'm surprised about how greatly the little I did do affected me.  I noticed this yesterday when I gave in and ate two snack cakes.  A couple hours later I was feeling bloated and gassy, my lower back hurt, my stomach hurt. I was miserable for most of the night.  I'm better this morning, still a bit bloated feeling.  So I'm deciding that this needs to be a lifestyle change.  In a short week I've figured out there is a limit to how much sugar intake I can handle and it's less then I realized.  One small sweet a day or so doesn't seem to affect me too bad.  Any more then that and it seems I'll have the symptoms I had last night.  I'd rather not do that anymore so I'm going to continue to: not add sugar to my coffee(I've gotten accustom to the taste now and Dunkin Donuts coffee tastes better without cream/sugar), no added sugar to my oatmeal (it's just as good with a little coconut oil, honey, fresh fruit).  I'm going to make some chocolate chip cookies for the family today and I'm going to try and halve the sugar in it and see how it turns out.
Okay in another post I mentioned I was going to attempt homemade yogurt.  Yesterday I did this and I am so glad I did.  It is so much better then store bought.  The yogurt has this rich,creamy, melt-on-your-tongue texture and flavor.  I drizzled a little honey on some this morning and it was perfection.  Here is the recipe I used:

Homemade Yogurt

I haven’t experimented with soy milk, but regular milk -whole, 2% or 1%) and goat’s milk work very well.

1 heaping tablespoon of the best plain yogurt you can find, making sure it contains active cultures (no additives, stabilizers etc).

2 1/2 cups good quality milk (I like to use organic)

Bring the milk to a full boil in a saucepan, then turn down the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour the scalded milk into a bowl, through a strainer or cheesecloth if you have acquired any brown bits around the edge, and cool until you can hold your finger in the milk and count to 10.

Place the yogurt in a small dish and add some of the milk to it to warm it up, then whisk it back into the milk. Pour into a glass jar (glass holds heat well), wrap in a towel or sweater and put in a warm place for about 6 hours or overnight. In the morning put the jar in the fridge to chill and you should end up with a lovely jar of fresh yogurt.

 I got this recipe from The Family Kitchen

Here is what I did with mine:

I used a quart of whole milk (Kroger's 1.70, I forgot the exact price but this is close)

I added one heaping tablespoon of Dannon's Greek yogurt (1.00 Walmart)

I didn't bring the milk to a boil, instead I brought it up to 180 for 10 minutes (I read on another forum that this was best).

Then I put the pan in a sink filled with a small amount of cold water to bring the temp down to 100 degrees

I mixed the yogurt (mine may of actually been more like 2 tablespoons, it was heaped up real good, lol) with about half a cup of the milk to warm it up like the recipe said.  Then I mixed it in with the rest of the milk until the yogurt was well incorporated. I then put the milk/yogurt mixture into a clean/sterilized quart canning jar.  I took a small cooler and put a bath towel in it and set the jar of soon to be yogurt in the towel and wrapped the towel around it.  I took two more quart jars and filled them with warm/hot water (110-120 degrees) and put one on each side of the yogurt (outside of the towel).  I then took the cooler and set it in a warm place (in my case that was in the laundry closet on the top shelf while I was  doing laundry, the dryer kept the area nice and warm).  Then let it set for 6 hours. After it's set up you can put it in the fridge to chill or drain it for greek-type yogurt or yogurt cheese.  Use it as you would any plain yogurt.

The yogurt after 5 hours incubating, just one more hour to go and it was already looking and smelling like yummy yogurt.

Yummy homemade yogurt with honey for breakfast this morning.  Now I'm wondering why I didn't try this sooner.

Day 4 and 5

Day 4, yesterday, was a horrible.  It was raining pretty hard so I skipped classes.  The windshield wipers on the van don't work most of the time and I lose power if I go through a puddle(it stays running I just lose power to everything else like steering, brakes, lights, etc...no power steering and super hard brakes in Memphis traffic is a bad thing).  So for safety's sake I stayed home.  Being home all day with it raining and the wind trying to blow everything down was rather boring.  So I gave in and ate two donuts (we have no more thank goddess) and ate some spice drops and a snack size mounds bar.  Not a good day, I gave in to my sugar addiction.  Today was better but still not great. I ate a snack cake before leaving for class and I got a blueberry muffin from Dunkin Donuts on campus.  I didn't eat all the muffin though, they are just too big for that.  I'll get pass this and do better the rest of the week.  I probably just need to eat more protein.  I've read that for sugar/carbohydrate cravings you should take in some protein.  I don't understand that reasoning as if I'm wanting some thing sweet then a steak or bowl of beans won't due.  I need to get some more almonds or any kind of nut.  They can usually satisfy a sweet tooth gone awry.
I think this afternoon I'm going to try and make some yogurt.  I've been reading on it, it seems super easy.  It may take some doing since the house is kinda cool and I've got to keep it at a certain temp for 4-8 hours.  I really want to try it though and start implementing fresh yogurt in some of my recipe to boost up the calcium and protein content.  I'll let my invisible readers here know how it turns out, with pictures if I remember to snap them.

Day 1

Day one of my sugar-less week has gone by. Yes I did give in a little and ate a snack cake.  I had no sugar in my coffee and no added sugar in anything else.  I bought some greek yogurt so I could eat one and one for trying to make some yogurt(it sounds incredibly easy and so much cheaper then store bought).  I also got some coconut oil because I read it helps with sugar cravings ( I really should of had a bite of it this morning instead of half a chocolate glazed donut).   It's a lot of trial and error and I'm looking up some recipes that use honey and stevia and dried fruit instead of sugar as sweeteners.
Anyway, here's to day two. Even though I slipped a little, I think I can still save the day.  I'm doing this to be healthier and set an example for my family.  I have to keep all that in mind when I want to give in to a craving.  Last night at the store my middle son made the comment to Hubby "Mom will eat any kind of candy."  Hubby had stopped at the candy bin Wal-mart has and looked but in respect to me trying to avoid sugar this week didn't pick up anything.  My son was trying to get him to buy some.  I guess I should sit him down today and explain to him what I'm trying to do and that Dad is trying to help me.  My kids understand that mom wants to be healthier, but I don't think they quite comprehend what it takes to be healthy.  I'll get there though and I'll take them along with me (probably kicking and screaming).

Getting Started

Five days into 2009 and I'm finally getting started on my goals.  So far today I've worked out for 30 minutes using The Biggest Loser Boot Camp DVD.  It has 3 levels that you do for 6 weeks.  To tell you the truth I almost didn't make it through the 30 minutes.  I started to think wow I'm not going to make it and then it the display button on the remote and saw that I was 22 minutes into it and started telling my self only 8 minutes to go, only 5 minutes, only 2 minutes...I DID IT.  I sweated my legs were all shaky 'cause this workout is lunge and squat heavy.  I feel great now though and like I've accomplished something.  I feel strong.  I love how working out and sweating makes you feel that way.

I started another sparkpeople.com account.  I closed out my old one and started fresh.  I posted some before pictures on there and oh do I hate those pics.  I see way more rolls of fat then I wish to.  Next time someone asks me why I'm trying to lose weight and get in shape and where do I have 30-40lbs to lose.  I will direct them to my sparkpeople page and say, "See there it is, there's those 30-40lbs, there's where I need to tone up right there."  I look much better in my scrubs then I do in a sports bra and yoga/sweat pants.  I'll add the link to it on my sidebar...my before pics are there they don't need to be here, lol.