Matthew 26:41 ...but the flesh is weak

Arrgh, I'm the worlds cutest pirate!  

We had a baby!  (I helped!)
She is great, wonderful and cuter than your kid. 
 (No, really, she is)  
Denise and I now have a complete set, a boy and a girl.  (We can stop now.)  
 So all diet experimenting has stopped, due to lack of motivation and sleep.  (More on that in a minute)
To wrap things up from the previous entry: The Warrior Diet did teach us at least one solid really important lesson: We don't need to eat every 2 hours.  (Unless you are in fact The Baby, then it's ok.)  
Otherwise, there is a growing consensus that eating less often may be the way to go.  Which is interesting, because that's how Jack Lalanne ate: two light meals and then a big dinner.
Here's a good article from a better blog than mine with another link to a free e-book that will tell you more than ever wanted to know about Intermittent Fasting.  I had planned on writing more about this, as I find it interesting.  But a funny thing happened...

Check, Check, Check, no hallucinations yet...

 

We quit sleeping.  

Babies are famous for that.  

And it's really hard to try and stay motivated to eat clean and exercise.  

So we have given ourselves 6 weeks off.  No guilt, no shame.  

Survival mode only for 6 weeks.  

The baby was 3 weeks old this week, so only a few more weeks to go till everything gets back to "normal."  

Yes, feel free to laugh at us for dreaming.  We have high hopes.  

But we do plan on getting back on track.  No, really, we do!  Quit Laughing!!  We will do it!!  You'll See!!

 

Me in 6 weeks.  

 

Excelsior!!

Cliff

This is acceptable, but eating veggies is not????

Whilst visiting my Aunt Sharon with my parents, we happened upon some pre-packaged meals from a national weight loss company, who shall remained un-named so they can't sue me. Aunt Sharon had inherited them from a friend whose family had refused to eat the pre-packaged ready to eat meals.

I became fascinated with the hamburger.  The shelf stable, sitting room temperature in the back of the pantry hamburger patty.  The shelf stable room temperature just add boiling water hamburger patty. 

So, in the interest of science, we decided to test it out:

I know, you're all salivating like the Pavlovian dogs that you are right now.

We let it sit and baste in the hot water for a little while longer, just to make sure it was as yummy as it was ever going to get. 

 

How does it taste? 

Denise asked the big question.  "How is this better than eating vegan, or vegetarian?"  Good question.
Why is eating hyper processed mostly meat more acceptable?  Besides the celebrity endorsements and ex-NFL players crowing about their weight loss.  Which is all you could get from eating this stuff, weight loss.  But weight loss is not all there is to gaining radiant health. 
We have to go, but think on these things, and please leave you comments down below. 

Excelsior!
Cliff. 

Matthew 6:16

As I talked about at the end of our vegan experiment, we were a little confused about where to go next.  And frankly, I needed to lose the extra weight I had put on eating that way.
OK, it was only a few pounds.  But I had wanted to get back to my Weight Watchers lifetime goal weight. And I was less than 10 pounds away from it, but no matter how much animal tissue I didn't eat, my scale wouldn't budge.  And we weren't having fun anymore.
So what was next?
I wanted to try another experiment.  So, sitting in a frozen yogurt bar celebrating our ability to eat whatever we wanted to devour again, I picked up a copy of The Warrior Diet.
In between chasing Noah, and stuffing my face with yogurt with far too many toppings, I read parts of the book.  And I kind of liked the author's idea.  Straight from the horses mouth:

The Warrrior Diet was created with the mission to help people better survive in today's world.
The Warrior Diet is a call for action. Based on survival science and historical evidence, the Warrior Diet proposes a radical yet proven effective solution to modern man's ailments and deteriorated physical condition.
Its premise: eat one main meal at night, avoid chemicals, combine foods adequately and challenge your body physically. The Warrior Diet shows how to nourish the body in sync with its innate circadian clock – separating between a.m. foods and p.m. foods for effective removal of toxins, increased conversion of fat for energy, increased utilization of nutrients and improved resilience to stress. The result: a leaner, stronger and healthier body. 

Well, gosh.  Who doesn't want that?  A leaner, stronger, healthier body?  That's something no one else has EVER promised before!!  But wait, there's more: 

The Evidence is Undeniable
Recent studies on intermittent fasting have shown the benefits of following eating programs similar to The Warrior Diet. Mice and rats maintained on an intermittent fasting regimen lived up to 30% longer than those fed ad libitum. Especially striking are the improved insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular risk profiles in animals maintained on diets with long inter-meal intervals.  

"Our ancestors consumed food much less frequently and often had to subsist on one large meal per day, and thus from an evolutionary perspective, human beings were adapted to intermittent feeding rather than to grazing."
(Mattson, M.P., PhD, Lancet 2005; 365:1978-80)

I've checked into the studies a bit.  And there are studies on mice that show some benefit to various types of intermittent fasting.  In mice and rats.  Not people.  Though the internet is full of folks telling you to stop eating for your health.  I think it's becoming The Next Big Thing.  

So I decided I'd try it.  

Without buying the book.  We were short on cash, and I figured I had the gist of it.  I had already read some great articles and blogs previously on the idea of fasting, and I had been intrigued then.  (Now, two weeks later, I wish I had read a bit more.)  

But The Perfect is the enemy of The Good, so I jumped in.

The Plan: "Nourish" my body throughout the day with "living foods."  Now, that doesn't mean chow down on the squirrel while he's still kicking.  That's more like The Caveman Diet.   No, I was going to eat fruits and veggies during the day, then have a big dinner.  Luckily I did manage to read the part where you can have a protein smoothie right after your workout, and if still hungry have some light protein around lunch.   Then have a big dinner.  And maybe a midnight snack?  

(I glanced through the book today again, turns out I could'a /should'a been eating more than that during the day. And no midnight snack)  

It's been two weeks, and how am I doing?  Well, even after going off plan last weekend (out of town wedding) I'm still down three pounds in two weeks.  Not stellar weight loss.  But more than I had with Vegan eating.  

And now I know why fasting is a spiritual discipline.  You get grouchy.  Even with the wimpy version of fasting I am doing, smoothie for breakfast and snacking on fruit during the day, I still find I can happily murder people for the smallest of reasons.  It requires an almost constant mindfulness of your mood, of how you react to people.  Both Monday's I have been warrior dieting have been difficult.  You have to choke down the urge to snap at people, remind yourself to smile, play nice.  

The moodiness gets easier as the week goes on.  By Wednesday I'm fine. 

Another problem is the social awkwardness of avoiding everyone at lunch so that you a) aren't tempted to eat more than you're little cup of Greek yogurt or a boiled egg and b) enjoy a fresh round of ridicule over trying yet a new diet.  It's one thing not to be eating carbs at lunch, another thing not to be eating lunch.  

The Verdict:  Too soon to tell.  What I read today says I should have been having a small salad or something similar at lunch, maybe with a bit of "light" protein.  And make sure I have morning fruit, but maybe some nuts or something substantial for an afternoon snack.  

In other words, I officially have to start eating more while I'm fasting.  And yes, I realize how stupid that sounds.  Two more weeks, then I think I'll be able to make a final verdict.  

Excelsior!
Cliff

Reboot!!!!!!

Here we go again.
So the Vegan experiment was a bust.  Or was it?
We call our little escapades into the dietary realm experiments because we want to learn something.  Either about the diet or about ourselves, often both.
And I suggest that we learned a good deal last time.  We learned why vegans are mean and we learned that you can go for days and weeks without any animal proteins with no ill effects.  That's good to know.
Why?
Well, lets see what the typical responses were when people were told we were eating vegan/vegetarian:

1. "Why?"   
2. "You guys are stupid."  
3. "I don't think I could do that."

Ignoring the two most popular responses, let's analyze #3.  Why can't people do that?  Are you going to shrivel up and die?  Obviously that didn't happen.  I think it's fear.  Fear of the new, the unknown.  You have to change just about everything when you drop animal products from the diet.  And that means leaving some really yummy food behind, mostly your favorite comfort foods.  And comfort foods are comforting.  Without them what would happen?  (You get skinnier and healthier mostly)  

Thus we are restarting our Jack and Jill blog.  

Well, despite such encouragement as: "Why?" and "You guys are stupid."  I found parts of it fun.  

And I want to keep the food experiments and fact finding up.  

So why not start a whole new blog?  A third one?  Nope, redundantly redundant.  

We are rebooting this blog with a continuing mission to be like our physical culture heroes.  

Part of that will be open scientific experimentation on ourselves with different dietary protocols, where we suffer and report back to you.  

Jack Lalanne did alot of that as a young man, most famously the cow's blood diet.  He'd drink a quart of pure cows blood every day trying to be bigger and stronger.  He did this for weeks' going down to the butcher's shop everyday to drink it fresh.  Until the morning he choked on a giant clot.  That pretty much ended that lil experiment.  

Please trust that there is no way Denise is going to let me drink cow's blood.  

And if she did, we would definitely video it.  

But this is about getting healthy, not trying to get some horrible disease in an equally horrible fashion.  

So stay tuned, we do have some bloodless videos we will be posting shortly.  

As always, your comments are welcome.  

Excelsior!

Cliff

And God writes an ending

How about this for synergy:
Jillian Michaels writing the obituary in Time magazine for Jack Lalanne.

A Quote:

I use anecdotes from his life to inspire people. One thing I use all the time is the story of LaLanne, in his 60s, swimming from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, towing a boat behind him. He was incredible. I remember standing in San Francisco, staring out at that rock and hearing about the freezing temperatures, the current, the sharks, and just being absolutely floored and thinking, If he can do that, there's nothing that we can't accomplish when we put our mind to it.

I have an autographed poster of Jack swimming while shackled and chained, towing boats behind him. I find it, and the story and the man behind it, inspiring. It good to know that other folks do too.

Denise and I would really like to thank all of our readers here on the Jack and Jill blog. We gave it a good try, learned alot, and had some fun. But we aren't done yet.
We would like to invite all of you over to join in on our new crazy adventure.

Thanks,
Cliff and Denise

Lifting 1000 pounds

Orthorexia, pt 2

Did you know that the reason Kellogg cereals are little more than puffs of sugar and wheat is that their creators, brothers W.K. Kellogg and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, thought that protein was evil? The only hope for mankind to escape the evils of toxic gut bacteria, constipation, masturbation and a host of other evil things (all caused by protein in the diet) was clean, refined carbohydrates. And yogurt enemas every hour. The enemas were harder to market than one might think. But sugary cereals were a hit, replacing the old, un-scientific breakfast of eggs, meat and cheese.
Now carbs are the enemy, Protein is king, and Fat is becoming cool again.

Which is why Denise and I made Brownies from black beans. It requires using a blender on the highest setting, so they are manly too!
With just a smidge more chocolate, they will be excellent. By feastmeeting no one will know if the brownies they are enjoying are from a box or from beans.

Recipe: I guess we could call them Exlax brownies
1 can of black beans (we used left over dry beans from another recipe....cooked of course)
3 eggs
3 tbsp oil
4 tbsp Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Vanilla
3/4 cup sugar (we wanted to use honey, but didn't have enough)
pinch of salt (more than a pinch if using non-canned beans) ( No I don't remember how much I used)
Drain can of beans, rinse, then dump all ingredients into blender and go for it. Remember to put the lid on. It will look like vomit, then suddenly look like wonderful brownie mix.
Pour into greased 8x8 pan.
Bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

We are thinking of adding a few chocolate chips next time.
Enjoy!

Right eating

We're back!!
I don't have a whole lot of time to go over every single meal since May. Most have been "good." Some have not been. Some Waffle House eating has occurred, but they send me coupons for my birthday and it would be rude not to use them. ;b
Right now we are making good choices ~80-85% of the time.
Many of you know we were at Campmeeting last month, and the cafeteria food is not exactly up to Lalanne standards. But we did the best we could, and we may have had 2 desserts the whole week. We exercised too! The campground is a great place to run. I love it early in the morning.

But, speaking of making "good" and "bad" food choices, check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia

Orthorexia nervosa (also known as orthorexia) is a term used by Dr. Steven Bratman to describe people who have developed a fixation with healthy or righteous eating and has been referred to as a mental disorder. It is not a medically recognized term. Bratman claims that in rare cases, this focus may turn into a fixation so extreme that it can lead to severe malnutrition or even death. Even in less severe cases, the attempt to follow a diet that cannot provide adequate nourishment is said to lower self-esteem as the orthorexics blame themselves rather than their diets for their constant hunger and the resulting cravings for forbidden foods.

I've seen this term in a book (non-medical) I'm reading right now, and Denise saw it today in her Shape Magazine. Interesting. Can't help but think of Jack...

The Streak Is Over!

After total dessert abstinence all year, I caved in. I indulged in Mama Dathie's Apple Dumplins. And they were good. We were invited to a Mother's Day cookout and there were a multitude of Non-Lalanne approved foods stuffs. And I ate them, and I didn't really feel bad about it. Didn't even feel bad about not feeling bad about it. I also had a cupcake. and a literal bite of cake. And then Denise had a leftover cake sitting in the fridge from a Fancy Tea Party she went to Saturday, and I was all alone with it and The Boy was asleep and I had a piece of it. And Today at work they had a retirement party and they shoved brownies in my face and I ate three of them. Once I'm off the wagon I have a hard time jumping back on. Sunday was a balanced decision to enjoy some food prepared by the folks who had invited us, a time to relax and break bread and ribs with friends. That's cool. That's one of my goals, indulgence without guilt and hop right back into the swing of things. Today was not that good happy place, it was just a complete lack of self control. OK, I ate 5 brownies, but not all at once. And then I came home and had the stupid strawberry cake again. But it's gone now, I'm not digging in the trash for it.
Did I mention I have trouble controlling myself when it comes to baked goods?

I've been contemplating what Phase II of this experiment will be lately anyways. I have let a few things creep in- Organic Milk and Kashi or Fiber One Cereal, Cheese maybe once or twice a month, and I've been eating grains more often. All that cheating and I still have kept my weight around 178 pounds, up a mere three pounds from being really strict. Even after Sunday's indulgence, I was back down to 179.8#'s this morning. Tomorrow morning will be worse, of course.
So this next phase will be concentrated on exercising and eating as close as possible to how Jack Lalanne instructed his students to eat. I tried to eat just like Jack, and honestly couldn't do it. And that's OK, he didn't recommend folks to eat exactly like him. He admitted that part of the extreme discipline of his lifestyle was "an ego thing" for him. I'll report back with what the new food rules will be.
But I've got to decide what to do about dessert. Clearly we can't keep cake in the house anymore, that's for sure.

More about Jillian!

Anyone see the cover of May's Shape magazine???  Jillian Michaels!  Woohoo!  As soon as I walked in the door I tore it open to find out what else I could eat.

So imagine my glee when I read the part where "Not everything she eats is "good" for her"....  What does that mean????  Her explanation:  "I give food a number on a scale from one to 10.  Ones are superfoods that will practically cure cancer, like organice spinach.  Tens are crap that could kill you tomorrow, like a prepackaged cupcake.  The highest I'll go is 5 or 6.  For example, I adore Popchips.  They're 100 calories a bag - no preservatives, no trans fat and no artificial sweetners.  Is it a superfood?  No.  But will it kill me?  No!"

Hmmm so as long as it doesn't kill me I can eat it??

More about Jill:
4 - She eats 2,000 calories a day!  "Right now, I'm loving Nature's Path Hemp Waffles for breakfast.  My cleanest meal is lunch because it's usually a salad with seafood.  And dinner is often something from my book "The Master your Metabolism Cookbook", like the black bean chili"  (I HAVE THIS COOKBOOK!  Yea, more options!)
5 - She's a conflicted vegetarian "I don't eat chicken or red meat, but not because I think they're unhealthy.  I do believe we're omnivores and should have healthy meat once a week or so.  But personally, I can't eat it because I'm such an animal lover.  I've been rescuing dogs since I was 17."

Let's see..  she never weighs herself, she thinks she has a big butt (whatever), she sees a shrink and she wants to be a mom.  Important to note that she doesn't like to exercise.  She does it for the way it will make her feel.  Yep, I agree!

She also will eat Larabars.  Rock on - me too!

So I think I'm doing pretty close to what she would do..  Some things I have added in that she might not:

• Some dairy (still not clear on her stand on organic dairy) - I eat greek organic yogurt with organic granola, organic milk with Kashi go lean and I have splurged on a little bit of cheese on eggs when I eat them with Noah.
• Organic pizza - no more than once a week and I'm now thinking she might would consider this a 5 or 6 and eat it too!
• Semisweet chocolate morsels - may not be dark enough but I like to snack on 2 tablespoons in the afternoon while I work.  I let each one melt in my mouth.  It takes like 30 minutes to finish and it's only 4 WW points plus values!  Nice long chocolate fix!

So I guess, overall, I'm still sticking pretty close to her eating habits.

The exercise is another thing.  I need to think more "what would Jillian do" when it comes to exercise.  Like the week the inlaws were here.  I did NOTHING.  I didn't really have any time but could I have carved some time to do push ups, situps, etc?  Sure!  Would Jillian have done NOTHING?  Likely not.  The week following I was so tired that I only worked out an hour and a half the whole week!  Needless to say when I got back on the exercise wagon this week I was sore all week.  I did get 4 hours in this week and the week isn't over... 

So the new challenge is to try to think more like her when it comes to exercise.  I think my eating is under control in terms of her rules of food.  Having additional information is helpful.  Not knowing her scale is challenging but I think I get the gist.  Now off to more challenging workouts!!!

Statue to Statue 15K

The South's Toughest 15K
That's what my T-shirt says, and it's probably telling the truth. Nine miles in the mountains of Birmingham. Or at least the Really Steep Hills of Birmingham.
It is odd to have been in that much pain and enjoying it.
First, we slept terrible last night. The Boy kept us up for hours, crying,whining, feeling and acting a little feverish. At 4:30am when we got up Noah was still feeling bad, and felt warm. So Denise backed out of the race to take care of him. I got to the race site at 6:30am, and stood around and shivered with other strangers for an hour and a half till the race started. (When we signed up, they told us to be early since it was not a circular course, you would ride a charter bus to the starting line. If you missed a bus, you missed the race)
Did I mention it was cold? It was cold. One of the drawbacks to losing weight is when you do shed the fat parka, you get cold like an old woman. So I did not look as robust and healthy as some of the other guys and gals running about mostly naked in spandex or less, but I didn't care. I proudly wore my sweatshirt and huddled around my free cup of coffee trying to stay warm. Thus, I gravitated to the 50 year old guys, who were also wearing sweats and huddling around coffee. Does that make me secure in my manhood, that I don't need to prance around half naked? Or old? I suspect you can't have one without the other. Or shouldn't anyway.
I digress. But it was cold.
The old dudes I was with did confirm this was one of the toughest races out there. Nice. Encouraging.
We started (I shed my sweatshirt seconds before)and the first 3-4 miles were great. Nice rolling hills, and the course ran through one of the Old Money Neighborhoods of Birmingham. I have only been in a few "real" races like this (2 or 3 5Ks, and the half marathon) and I find I really enjoy the energy of a race. Everyone is upbeat and positive, the shared goal, encouragement from strangers, and free water & Powerade every 3-4 miles. I like it.
The bad hills were in miles 5-7. And they were bad. But I only had to walk up two of the worst, the others I gutted it out and ran up. More Powerade at the Top!
Miles 7-9 were mostly downhill, which sounds good but is actually tricky to do.
You are trying not to fall forward, trying to slow yourself down all the time. Maybe there is a trick to it, but I was not a fan.
Overall I felt ridiculously good til the middle of mile 8, when everything got hard. The hills were over, and the ground was a bit more level, but I was starting to hurt. Me and the little pack of folks I was in were starting to worry about how much more there was, when we saw the 9 mile mark, and happily only had 0.3 miles left. Again downhill, but we just ran fast and I finished strong. And then drank lots of water. And consumed bananas and apples till they looked at me funny. And limped around the parking lot trying not to cramp up. My left knee has some torn cartilage, so it decided to be unhappy once I finished. (still aches a little right now, a little stiff, Ice is a good thing)
Mostly at the end I felt very proud of myself, had this wonderful sense of accomplishment and really missed my wife for I was mostly alone in a group of fit, half-naked strangers.

My official stats can be found here, but my time was 1:36:04.3
I was not near the front, but not completely in the back. I ran my 10 minute mile pace that I had trained for, and felt good about running my race and not trying to beat the other gazelles around me.

Unfortunately, The Boy still isn't feeling well, so any celebrating will be done later, if at all. But it was a good time, a new happy memory, a good accomplishment and a cool T-shirt. Not bad for a Saturday morning.

Sugarholics

I can't think of a witty comment that doesn't overstate the obvious. The old man was right. He was ahead of the conventional wisdom on alot of things. Downright nutty on alot of things too, but as we are finding out, nutty doesn't always equal wrong.

Friday Confessional

I've been a single parent for a few days while Denise is off performing her Maiden/Matron Of Honor duties for her BFF's wedding this weekend.
And I guess I'm cracking under the pressure.
I had...A piece of cheese!!! It was in my Lentil and Organic beef spaghetti sauce that I had to warm up and eat inbetween whining fits. The Boy was whining, not me. Not much anyway.
I've also had...Cereal the past two mornings with milk! Kashi Go Lean Cereal with organic 1% milk, only one measured cup per morning.
And Yesterday I had Subway for lunch, split a footlong Sweet Onion Teriaki without cheese but with every veggie except Cucumbers and Green Peppers. Had the first half for lunch, the second half ~3 hours later at my desk.
Also...I know, the mind boggles that there could be something else, but I have barely exercised the last few days. Monday was good, ran 6 miles in 60 minutes. Bootcamp Tuesday morning. Wednesday 100 pushups/100Squats/3 min back bridge in 15 minutes. Yesterday and probably today, nothing. In the grand scheme of things, a few days off is no big deal. But I did pledge everyday. And I have a 15K run next weekend through the mountains in Birmingham, which boasts itself as The South's Toughest 15K. Joy. Hopefully I'll get to walk around the columbia zoo tomorrow with The Boy. Somthing is always better than nothing.

So there you go True Believers, a friday confessional to hopefully prompt all of us to stay on the straight and narrow this weekend.

Excelsior!!

What you and Bear Grylls already have in common

Quick, what is an all natural ingredient used to color yogurt, juice and other "health food"? Here's a hint: It's used to turn things red, or reddish purple. And it used to crawl around on cacti in the desert.
Carmine! A red dye made from dried and ground up beetles. Specifically, their abdomens that house the fertilized eggs of the cochineal beetle. Yummy! More Strawberry yogurt please!
How did we find out about this?
One of our new toys is an app Denise downloaded onto her iphone called Fooducate. You can use it to scan the bar code of items at the grocery and get food grades, reviews and hints about what the good folks at fooducate think would be a healthier product. Denise scanned one of her previously favorite yogurts and was informed that it contained bug abdomens. Needless to say, we tried a different brand.
At first, I was grossed out and not just a little bit upset. Food manufacturers go out of their way to make sure you have no clue as to what you are eating or where it comes from. The only reason the practically toothless FDA made manufacturers start listing carmine as an ingredient was the risk of allergen exposure and the rare anaphylactic reactions. The food manufacturers knew that "ground up beetle coloring" would hurt sales, so they settled on the term Carmine.
But here's the tricky part.
Which is grosser: An all natural food coloring that is made from dried, ground up insects, or the "normal" food coloring, Red#whatever, which is derived from coal tar?
Limiting your processed food intake makes more and more sense the more you know about the food like substance creation system.
Suddenly, the beetles are not nearly as icky as before, just an extra protein boost. Maybe a little bit of extra fiber.

The joys of live television

So Jack and I are quite alike in one respect, we both love dogs.
Real blog entry coming soon, promise. Denise has been having some more epiphanies. I'm going to twist her arm to write them down.

Another goal for this year

Last time I tried these I think I cracked a thoracic vertebra. The key is holding your core tight so you don't fold very painfully in half, which I did. I'll try them again sometime when my wife is not around to tell me it's a bad idea.

So what DO you eat?

I get asked this alot.  I was explaining (vaguely) what we were doing to Noah's pediatrician and I think I scared her.  I'm sure in the file somewhere she has written down "Make sure he's getting real milk", "make sure she's not feeding him nuts".  Yes, Noah is drinking cow's milk (organic of course) and he's not eating nuts or peanut butter :)  It is, however, a challenge to feed him when we are eating fish and spicy bean hummus.  But he does ok.  What are we eating?  Here's a list of some of the things:

• Breakfast - always a protein fruit smoothie (unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a little greek yogurt, frozen fruit, protein powder)
• Weekend breakfast - brown rice and eggs scrambled together with a slice of Ezekial bread that is topped with natural peanut butter and a drizzle of honey.  This lasted all through sunday school and church without getting hungry!  And we eat breakfast early!
• Snack options:  greek yogurt mixed with blueberries and 1/4 c Kashi go lean, Ezekial cinnamon raisin english muffin topped with 1 TB natural peanut butter and a drizzle of honey, banana with 23 almonds, apple with 1 TB natural peanut butter, any other fruit with nuts, Larabars (apple pie is my fav), carrots with hummus
• Lunch - typically we make a big pot of something so we can zap it in the microwave.  Some recipes we have tried are Black Bean and Beef Soup, White Chicken Chili, some other bean and rice combination.  When we use meat it's grass fed beef or free range chicken and we add more beans.  We throw in rice too so the beans and rice make a complete protein.  We also do salads with black bean salsa and lots of veggies.
• Dinner - pan seared tuna with grilled veggies (still my fav!), last night it was grilled veggies topped with Dill and lemon pepper tilapia.  Sometimes it's salad, one of the bean dishes, or shrimp and grits!  I thought I was going to get tired of fish.  Hasn't happened yet!  We are trying new veggies too:  maple glazed parsnips and carrots (WW recipe using maple syrup - it's a natural sweetner!), roasted brussel sprouts and cauliflower, carrots, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, sweet potatoes.  I'm not feeling deprived at all!  I feel like I'm eating gourmet every night :)

There are a few "processed" foods I have allowed back in but they have to be organic.  For the nights we don't have time to cook or I'm too hungry to think I have some of Amy's Organic burritos on hand.  And we did have organic pizza twice BUT it didn't have meat on it, just veggies.  I'm thinking if Jillian was starving and didn't have time to cook (well she would probably run up to the local tree hugging restaurant and grab something) but this is Jemison and there's no such place so I'm thinking she would go for this.  One day I might ask her :)

So there you have it.  This is what we DO eat.  I have tried so many new things and I'm loving it!  The weekends are still sometimes tough but we just treat them as a week day and eat the same things.  When we are out and there are tough choices to make we both agree that it's nice that we don't really have to debate about whether we are going to allow ourselves this or that.  Instead we can blame it on Jack and Jill!  They are the crazies not us ;o)

Unhappy People

`Nuff said,
Cliff

When do you want to stop this thing? (or How unhealthy do you want to get?)

Since finding out that I can't live off of mush for brunch and a salad for dinner, Denise and I have been kicking around the idea of stopping our experiment. We had even thought about calling it quits after the two month mark.
But then we started talking about what we would let back into our diet. Cheese? Milk? Reasonable choices. Chocolate cake? Mama Dathie's Apple Dumplins? Tasty choices, but not really healthy choices. Pigs feet? That was a straight no. I've had barbecued pigs feet, and I can honestly say that is one portion of pig anatomy that holds no attraction for me.
When is it a treat, and when is it a sugary fat filled bomb that will give me a migraine and make me feel like crap? How unhealthy are we OK with being? Is being healthy 80% of the time acceptable? 90%? 99.5%? And how would you even gauge the acceptable level of crap to eat?
Hard questions, especially since I am finally starting to feel good. My energy level is great most of the time. I'm drinking coffee now more to avoid the withdrawal headache than to pep me up. I'm not nearly as constipated as I was before either. (We're all friends here, and when we're in our 80's that will be a normal topic of conversation.)
So I am less inclined to stop now that I am finally seeing some payback for all of my hard work. Also, I'm not so sure that we wouldn't revert back to old "sin and repent" eating habits. I think I need the extra discipline right now.
Thus I will continue with Jack Lalanne's words of wisdom:
"If man makes it, don't eat it."

Exercise challenge for 2011

Since Jack always had a crazy exercise challenge every year we are going to as well. On Nov 12 we are going to run our first marathon. I had said I wanted to run a marathon before 40 so I guess here goes... The marathon is on a Saturday in columbus ga for anyone wants to join us.

In preparation we are training for a 15k in April. Go team...!