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!!