Why I Hate Supplements

In a nutshell; they're gross.

The longer version: Supplements aren't regulated by the FDA, so pretty much anything can be crushed up and encapsulated and passed off as something to make you feel better. I am always quite dumbfounded when I see so many GNC stores still open with people still going in and stocking up on things that are going to make them healthier. I just chuckle to myself and keep on walking. Doesn't it seem counterproductive to put chemicals in your body in an effort to make it healthier and perform better? Get your nutrients from your food. Not food-based pills. You'll get more nutrients and more satisfaction out of chewing and swallowing a delicious meal than you will get out of swallowing a wax coated pill. 

Don't believe me? Look at the bottle in your cupboard. Somewhere on it, it will say, in very small print accompanied by a cute asterisk, that the "statements are not verified by the FDA." Now, I'm not saying FDA approval carries a whole lot of gusto these days with all the other crap they allow us to consume, but I do find some sense of peace knowing that nutrition experts are keeping an eye out. 

Protein supplements? Again, get it from food. If you put too much protein in your body, it isn't going to make you beef up any quicker. Your body will process it, register it as excess, and store it as fat. Plus, those powders are chemically extracted from a whole food source, so, JUST EAT THE FOOD. And sandwich that protein between two delicious pieces of carbs! Your body needs carbohydrates, it just doesn't need an overabundance. More on the bad rap my dear friend the carbohydrate has in another post.

For now, try to pay more attention to what goes in your mouth. Ask yourself if it will benefit your body and your mind. Would you give it to your kid? Your dog? Your great Aunt Edna? Nutrition in pill or shake for seems too easy. Remember, if it's not work, it won't work. Eating a healthy, balanced diet takes work. Work works. Trust me. 

Now, go do 25 jump squats and have a lovely day!

Day 4

Each day this whole unprocessed thing gets easier and easier. I mean, it's still kind of a pain in the ass to make everything from scratch, but it's also kind of fun and gives the toddler something to help with. She is getting to be a master at dumping flour onto the floor and getting a small amount into the mixing bowl.

My number one miss so far were baked potato chips. I suck at those. My poor husband actually ate them and I still feel like I can't get the nasty taste out of my mouth three days later. I bought a 5lb bag of potatoes, so I will be attempting these bad boys again. I don't like to lose. Especially to an inanimate object. I will prevail.

Yesterday I did perhaps the most disturbing thing I've ever done in my life, and I went to Chico State, so this is saying a lot, I made chicken stock. For those of you who don't know, I don't eat meat. Fish is the exception and if I ever stop running and lifting weights, I will go without fish, but meeting my protein requirements by eating nuts and beans just doesn't do it for me. Anyhow, I don't want to push my agenda on anyone, let alone my children. (Side note: I want my kids to grow up experiencing life and making their own decisions on big things like religion and whether or not to eat animals). Back to this "young" chicken (which, I could have done without the label because I don't really need or want to know that I am feeding an adolescent to my family), I bought a two pack of organic, vegetarian, free range little guys from Costco. After consulting my wonderful friends (Lindsay, Rhiannon and Jasmine..holler!!) I went the slow cooker route. Super easy, folks! And Norah actually ate it! She usually prefers her chicken breaded and deep fried. The dogs loved the skin and Matt said it was good, too! Here is the recipe:

Get a slow cooker. Cut a few slices of a white onion, leaving it in rings, and place those babies on the bottom of the cooker. Smash a few garlic cloves and take the peels off, then put those on top of the onions. Put the little bird directly on top of that with a decent sized pat of butter on top. Salt and pepper (or any other spices you like) and cover. Turn that bad boy on low and cook for 6-8 hours.

When you come back from whatever it is you do all day, dinner will be ready and the meat will just fall off the bones. Then, in an effort to use every part of the animal, return the bones (I kept the vertebrae out because it was just too sad) to the chicken juice and add some water. I put 5 cups in, but have yet to have someone taste the juice, but the color looks good. Add some carrots, celery, and any other vegetables you fancy. Let it cook for another several hours, we did 10 and let it warm until I woke up this morning, then strain out the gross part so you just have liquid. Pour it into a jar, or three, and spoon out as much of the fat on top as you can. There you go, broth!

I never in my life thought I would be posting a recipe for meat. Ever. But, it's super easy and the family is eating it, so I want to help some fellow parents and busy people out!

Now for some fitness tips:
Want to get rid of your FUPA? Get a yoga mat or blanket folded a few times long enough to lay on, and sit on it with the bottoms of your feet touching (butterfly legs). Keeping your legs where they are, lay on your back with your hands up over your head. Now, leading with your arms, bring your torso up and reach your hands past your butterfly legs, using your core to bring your upper half up. Return your back and shoulders to the mat and hands over head in a slow and controlled motion. That was one rep. Do 25. Eventually, you'll want to work up to 75. Your butt should remain on the ground the whole time.

Happy Day!

p.s. sorry for the abundance of parentheses. Apparently I like them today.

one down, thirty to go!

Alright, folks, we've made it to child bed time with zero processed foods! Well, we use soy "cheese" because Norah (girl child) can't eat dairy, but every thing else is completely unprocessed. And she is the only one who eats that nasty cheese. Normally we do goat cheese in place of cow cheese, but tonight it was soy cheese. On a pizza. With homemade crust.

Anyhow, the day started with baking, lots of baking. I made two loaves of bread, crackers, hummus, fake Larabars, and pizza dough. By some miracle of some power higher than myself, Frank (boy child) decided to take a two and a half hour nap this morning! This allowed Matt (husband) to entertain Norah so I could get my freak on in the kitchen.

Everything turned out quite well. The crackers were so nice and easy to roll that I just made another batch to be the pizza dough this evening. It was pretty good, minus the disgusting fake cheese. That stuff is soy disgusting..ha..pun.

As the day passed, Matt wanted some clearer guidelines on my one month mission. Things that are boxed and packaged are allowed to be consumed as long as the ingredients listed are exactly what the product claims to be. For example, I bought a bag of organic apple chips from Costco, the ingredients: Organic Apples. It's all the added weird stuff I don't want in the house this month. Words I can't pronounce or don't belong in my body are out.

We are going to be eating out with some friends tomorrow, and that brought about a bunch of new questions from Matt. As long as it isn't a fast food place or chain restaurant, I feel like that's okay. I don't trust McDonald's or Chevy's, but I do trust the small places that actually make the food in house.

Last night was our final processed dinner, so I went all out and junked the hell out of our bodies with this beauty:

Here's to tomorrow going just as well as today! Keep checking in and I'll have recipes and workouts and all sorts of wonderful unprocessed things for you. 

a quickie for your arms

Have ten minutes before the kids wake up? Before you have to start getting ready before work or school? How about a few minutes in your office before your next meeting? You can do this any time!

challenge accepted, nay sayers.

After my last post about not eating all the disgusting crap the food industry has been trying to pass off as nutritious, I received a lot of positive feedback and also some seriously deluded folks telling me it isn't possible to eat that way while busy with work and kids. Well ye of little faith, challenge accepted. For the month of March, my family and I will be going as close to completely unprocessed as possible. There will be no boxes of pasta, store bought bread, crackers, cookies, etc. I will be making all snacks, sweets, and meals. No more convenience food for the toddler. No more passing off half a box of crackers as lunch for myself. It's go time.

Over the course of the next month, I will post recipes, complete with pictures (woot, woot!) as well as tips and tricks I have learned along the way to make this process a bit easier. I will be shattering the theory that it can't be done while busy with a family. I have a two year old and a five month old. Game on. Granted, I am a stay at home mom with a side personal training venture, however, I don't find myself with excess time while sitting on the couch channel surfing and eating chocolate. I'm busy, too. So...I will be making it work. I don't think it will be super easy, but it will be possible.

My goal is to cleanse the family in March and then continue with a less strict, feasible way of living for the years to come. I will write down if I notice behavior improvements in myself, the husband, and toddler. I will write down things that work, things that don't, and things that are just plain ridiculous and should be left to buy at the store or Farmer's Market.

Just for fun...here is the family that will start down the road to unprocessed in mere days.

eat food, not crap.

Some people, I used to be one of them, will look at packaged foods with a "fat free," "low fat," and "sugar free" label as good for them and make the purchase. I would hope that with the vast research and findings on the horrors of artificial sweeteners, anything labeled as "sugar free" or "diet" should be avoided like a diseased wiener (unless you have some medical condition that requires consumption of these types of foods as diagnosed by a licensed physician, not your well to do friend). Fat free and low fat options should, in my opinion, also be avoided whenever possible. The process used to make foods fat free and low fat involves chemically leaching the fat out of a whole food. Any time you need modern science to "fix" a food, there is a problem. Our bodies are pretty amazing and were made (by whomever or whatever you chose to believe created them) to process food. Not diet soda and GMOs, but food. Why not give your body what it was made to have? You aren't going to fill the gas tank in your car with water, right?

I have noticed many articles making appearances on Facebook in the recent months trying to scare people into eating healthy. I like scare tactics, they're fun, but they don't seem to be effective. If they were, nobody would smoke cigarettes. So, I urge you to do your research about what you are putting into your body, before you do. If you wouldn't feed it to your small child, chances are, you shouldn't be eating it.

Below are some articles I find interesting and potentially helpful to read before your next trip to the grocery store. While I'm thinking of grocery stores, a good rule of thumb is to buy most of, if not all, your groceries from the outside aisles of the store. This will include the "fresh" stuff: produce, dairy, eggs, bakery bread, etc. The inner aisles carry the highly processed, overly sugared, boxed 'food' that more often than not contains ingredients only scientists can pronounce. I don't know about you, but I don't want a scientist making my food.

For your reading pleasure:

things Americans can eat, but other countries ban

some scary stuff in common foods

**I was going to post a link for how horrible artificial dyes are, but there are too many! It will require it's own post. Stay tuned.

engage your core

Today I was in a fitness class and we were talking about the midsection and abs and how to keep things nice and tight, especially after babies. Everyone has tried countless sit ups, crunches, etc. to get a flat stomach, but there are only so many back bending, floor laying exercises one can do before deciding it's boring and giving up.

A common phrase shouted out during fitness classes, is "engage your core!" this means to essentially flex your stomach. Suck it in like you're in a bikini (speedo?) and the most attractive person you've ever seen is looking your way. Now, stay like this throughout your workout, but remember to breathe. This is going to help move the toning process along. Another way to think of it is to draw your belly button back towards your spine. Give it a try.

The beautiful thing about engaging your core is that you can do it all the time. Stuck in traffic? Engage your core. Walking the dog? Engage your core. Sitting at your computer at work? Engage your core. You get the point, you can always be doing something to enhance your level of fitness. In fact, if you are stuck sitting at a desk job, or just a desk, or in a chair, give this exercise a try: engage your core and lift your right foot (keep knee bend ninety degrees) off the ground for a count of three, and lower it back down for a count of three. Repeat with your left foot. Do this ten times with each foot. Do this several times a day if you fancy...happy core engaging!