So far on the challenge

Not doing too bad so far.  Yesterday instead of the deer stroganoff we had baked pork chops (just seasoned with salt and pepper, no breading), Fried potatoes(fried in 2 tbsp coconut oil, seasoned with salt, pepper and chili powder) and steamed broccoli(with lemon juice, salt, pepper and a bit of butter).  Tonight is going to be German Pancake Soup from The Gracious Pantry.  Modifications I'll be making will be to substitute cauliflower for the broccoli and to add some leftover pork chops from last night.  Oh and I don't have marjoram so I'll substitute some other seasoning for that, probably thyme.  It sounds good and it's a bit chilly tonight so I think it will go over well with the kiddies.  Hubby is working out-of-town this week so I don't have to worry about pleasing his palate. The kiddies are used to being my guinea pigs and so will try anything once.

So today's plan was:
Breakfast: 2 eggs fried in olive oil
Lunch: some teriyaki chicken and steamed rice from restaurant on campus (not exactly clean but I wanted something warm for lunch)
Dinner will be as described above, the pancake soup
Snack, nothing planned but have some starfruit that needs to be eaten so will have that for dessert.

Tomorrow(Tuesday)
Breakfast: Oatmeal with flaxseed, almond butter, honey
Lunch: probably tuna salad
Dinner: Deer Stroganoff on whole wheat egg noodles and un-fried green tomatoes
snack: fruit(probably cantaloupe)

Wednesday
Breakfast: Oatmeal/honey muffins, hard-boiled egg
Lunch: homemade granola bars (it's my long day and I've not time between classes for a big lunch)
Dinner: Chicken (to be determined on how I'm going to fix it) and sides(again t.b.d)
Snack: carrots and hummus(homemade)

Thursday....

Thursday and Friday I'll have to figure out.  I'm thinking some hamburger pizza on homemade crust on one day, we'll see.  I'm not the best at sticking to menu plans.  I'm trying and I'll get there because I have to.

1st day of challenge

Today starts the first day for the next 3 months of this challenge.  So far so good I guess. For breakfast I had a version of clean-er pancakes.  They would of been better if I had used whole-wheat flour, but all I have right now is unbleached white flour.  I also could of substituted some oats for some of the flour.  I didn't really think of that till after I had it mixed up.  So will keep changes in mind for next time (probably tomorrow). Anyway my plan for eating today and tomorrow are:

Saturday 2/26/2011
Breakfast: Clean-er pancakes and Kroger brand Just Fruit blueberry spread
Lunch: Homemade leftover chili
Dinner: Grilled chicken and Garlic pepper beets
Snack: Homemade granola bars

Sunday 2/27/2011
Breakfast: pancakes (going to change up the recipe a bit)
Lunch: Chicken salad, whole wheat tortillas
Dinner: deer meat stroganoff, unfried green tomatoes
snack: clean-er chocolate chip cookies

I'll post next weeks menu plan on Sunday after I finish getting it worked out.  Also recipes to come.

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.

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.

Snow came and new fav magazine

Well the snow showed up about the same time the kids were getting off the bus yesterday. We ended up with about 3 inches or so that all already beginning to melt off and it's only 10:40am. I'll probably still have Hubby take me to work tonight just in case there are slick spots, I don't do well on ice and try to avoid it as much as possible. The snow is pretty as long as I'm in my nice warm house looking out the window.
I've been following the Eat Clean book as close as I can and I'm proud to say I've lost 4lbs so far. It's only been 2 or 3 weeks so I'm proud of it. At first I thought it was water weight...then I went up a little over a pound the other day only to go right back to the lower weight a day later and stay :) So I can say it's working(I also thought I looked a little slimmer in the mirror last night, Hubby agreed but being the smart man he is he usually does agree, lol). I need to find or buy a measuring tape and take my measurements 'cause I know I'll plateau off on the weight but continue to lose inches...it's what I usually do. I'm trying to get Hubby into the clean eating but he's iffy. His excuse is "I want to eat food that tastes good" I came back with what's so bad about fresh veggies and fruits. He doesn't like the whole wheat pasta, so I'm either going to have to find a brand that doesn't taste like cardboard or find some other compromise. He does like brown rice and wild rice and says whole wheat bread is okay so that's a plus.
Oh in the title I said I found a new fav magazine...it's called Clean Eating (their website is www.cleaneatingmag.com) it's got beautiful pictures of the recipes and I like the articles. If your on a special diet(gluten free, wheat free etc) the magazine has recipes that go with those as well. So it's going to be one of my regular reads like Self and Fitness magazine.

Catching up...

I've not been on since Saturday, so I'll catch up real quick. My nephew is back in the hospital with vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration. He has trouble keeping even water down. Hopefully today they will get a hold of his GI doc so they can begin to figure out what is going on. My weekend, other then waiting by the phone for news on my nephew, has been rather uneventful. It was a beautiful weekend, temps in the low 70s, sun shining. I planted some bulbs, bought a rose bush and some raspberry bushes, some glads, hollyhocks and another plant but I don't feel like going to look for it this very minute. I'm going to have such a pretty yard this year. Well it'll probably look even better next year as sometimes it takes more then one season for flowers to get started well.
I'm really trying to eat clean, hubby isn't much help. Well he wants to help, but he doesn't want to change the way he eats. So he's still bringing soda, lil Debbie snacks, chips, candy and other junk into the house. I'm being good so far, and even though I'm tempted I've not gave into it. I told him I don't want to look the same in my 30s that I have in my 20s (I will turn 30 in November and I swear I will look good by my birthday). One of his comments was "Well you did have the kids while in your twenties". To be exact I was 18, 19, 20 and 22 when I had the kids, but I'm 29 now my youngest is 6 and half years old it's been too long to use baby fat as an excuse. Bless his heart though, he does want to be supportive...but shoot all he has to do to lose weight is think about it and bam he loses 8lbs just like that. I'm trying though. I'm trying to exercise on regular basis (well I want to try for everyday but sometimes it's not feasible, but I still should be able to squeeze in 10-15 minutes here and there even if I don't have time for a full 30-60 minute workout). Today is my payday so I'm going to go buy some cucumbers, bell peppers and fruit to cut up for snacks. The eat clean book says to eat 5-6 times a day. My only problem is it also says to eat 5oz of protein each time. I can eat meat maybe once but I'm going to have to find another source for the other times. I like meat but I just can't eat it every meal. I may try tofu "meat". I like veggieburgers so that can be something.

The Eat-Clean Diet

Yea I'm a sucker for flashy book covers and diet books that promise success and stories of 200lb or + women who have lost all the weight and kept it off for years. Everyone swears that theirs is the only way to lose weight, the best way to do it and so on. But this book/diet I think I could actually do...in the past year I've tried a couple different diets, the Blood Type diet (which I really liked but unless everyone in your household is the same blood type it's really hard to do and I'm the only O in my house, but I felt good, lost weight and slept better on this diet) and the really old Beverly Hills diet (some may remember it as the pineapple diet, I only tried this one for a week if that, too many no's). This author of this book doesn't tell you not too eat anything really, well except junk (potato chips, donuts, soda pop stuff you know is bad for you but eat anyway). She encourages fresh veggies and fruits, ground turkey instead of beef, hot cereal instead of box cereal and flax seed, bee pollen and wheat germ. I really think I could get my whole bunch on this eating plan. There are no big calorie restrictions (I believe I read 1880-2200 or something like that and that seems like a lot to me since most diet plans are 1200-1500 cal's a day). Your suppose to eat 6 times a day or every 3 hours but not after 6 pm(she includes a bedtime snack in the two-week meal plan but says only if your actually hungry, I think after eating every 3 hours you should not be hungry).
I like the way the books wrote, lots of charts and lists, not too technical. It’s written so if you've only had high school science you’re good. Compared to the Blood Type diet where a college level knowledge of chemistry is helpful, lol.
I think I'll start this on Friday. My only thought is what about the weekends...I work 7p-7a on Saturday and Sundays. I think I should turn the eating plans around on these days and do it overnight when I'm up compared to during the day when I sleep(well I only sleep for maybe 4hours). I'm noticing on these days I'm not losing the water weight I usually do when I sleep ( I'll weigh anywhere from 3-8lbs less in the morning then what I do at night, lately I'm weighing about the same, I don't like that obviously). I think though if I nibble on baby carrots or turkey slices or something healthier then I have maybe I can combat that. I don't drink soda at work; I've mostly been drinking coffee, water and hot chocolate or green tea. I don't know I'll get it figured out; I just need to get started. I'm tempted to buy diet pills but I don't really want to. Last time I did, I didn't like the way they made me feel so it's scared me off of them for a while.
Well, if anyone wants to check this book out its The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno her websites are www.toscareno.com, and www.eatcleandiet.com . In a few months I'll have a garden full of veggies so this will be pretty easy for me to follow, plus the farmers around here will begin selling their produce on the roadside. Lots of yummy Ripley tomatoes, can't wait.