Well over this weekend, I finished off the pizza (ugh!) ate some boneless buffalo chicken wings on a special date with my husband (I had french fries too), the last bowl of ice cream and surely NOTHING healthy.
I am a little frustrated because I know that my eating has been just plain awful so far, and yet we just do not have the money for me to do this diet! Meat is expensive, organic is expensive, fruit is expensive...and if you don't use it fast enough, it goes bad!!! My husband and I have lately been debating the "good vs cheap" debate and for my husband, cheap is the primary factor. I know that I can't live that way for long but I don't really feel like I have a choice in the matter. I still want to try to start Perfect Weight America but before I do, I am going to make out a complete two week menu (from the samples in the book) and then I can budget out exactly what it will cost me. Plain and simple is that I am on the verge of all sorts of dietary problems: I am on the verge of having high blood pressure (I am thinking of going to Wal-Mart to use their machine!), I am confident, though not tested, for high-cholesterol and I will probably have Type 2 diabetes within a year or two if something doesn't change. The bottom line is that it is too expensive to eat junk!
The first two weeks of Perfect Weight America are pretty restrictive, especially on carbs, so perhaps I can wing it with our regular food minus the carbs. I might have to add a few ingredients to our shopping list, but they are probably few. The first month of PWA is a "detox" stage anyway, though not a cleanse, it is a method for resetting your system to begin to accept new things. I'll post my weekly menus once I have them established. I like to go grocery shopping with my husband (preferably without the kids) because it helps me hold to my budget better therefore, I plan grocery shopping for the end of the week. That is also the end of the week-long food diary, which is really making me feel piggish, I must say! The other problem that I am going to have is finding a good source for organic produce. I think that I will grab that list (from this site) of the 12 best foods to buy organic, but the list recommends practically every kind of food, so I might just use the list about the foods that don't need to be organic, here. These lists conflict a little, so we just might need to start to consider other ways to save money. Regardless, I know that organic is better, but just the foods are good for now. I will work on a cleanse once I get the hang of the actual diet that will hopefully get rid of the pesticides. I have also read that foods treated with chemicals are less healthy for you in nutritional value, but anything beats pizza!
In other news, I found out that I still have a gym membership, so I can start going there. I know full well that losing weight long-term is a two-fold change: diet and exercise. 30 minutes of medium to intense aerobics plus some weight training should work well. Everyone has a different theory on exercise, whether its lots of aerobics, lots of anaerobic exercise or a combination, they always agree that you should JUST DO IT!!! I am hoping to make it to the gym 5 days a week, another thing that I am going to write out in my plan. I think I will make a little booklet for my first two weeks, just looking at what I need for each day.
By the way, you can get more information on Perfect Weight America, here, but I also recommend reading one of Jordan Rubin's other books, The Maker's Diet because it goes into more depth on his health journey as well as some of the Biblical reasons behind his diet. The diets are pretty close, but I think that PWA is a little easier, more modern, so it is the one that I will be following. I also have a book on children's health by him because that is especially important to me right now. I will also be using Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon for recipes. You can find that book in the cookbook section of your local bookseller and it has a lot of really good information in it about traditional diets and the myth of "bad fats" along with a ton of recipes to cook everything imaginable!
Well, I'm off to do my planning!
Male Bonding
-
After dropping Jordyn off at school, I came home to find this cuteness in
my bed.
So sweet.
12 years ago
Posts
4 comments:
I agree with you that the price of grocerise is at an all time high! It is expensive to eat. Period. However, I think the key to buying healthier food is to eliminate the cost of the unhealthy food.
We may be a bit radical at my house, as we no longer eat most processed food, and haven't for about two years now. No store bought bread, no graham crackers, no chips, no instant foods, no snacky type foods at all. With those costs eliminated, buying the healthier stuff is more affordable. We do not have small children, (my youngest is 13) and my husband buys his own junk food when he wants some, which I guess to be about 1-2 times a month. Also, I don't buy organic, except for dried fruit, and bagged salads. Everything else I wash in a bakings soda mixture.
We have also had the good vs cheap debate. My husband is also for the cheap side. Which is why the no organic.
Be careful with the NT way of eating! There was a big Nourishing Traditions movement with our homeschool group two years ago and so many families noticed weight gain. I don't know why, but they sure did, mostly in the women and kids.
I'm reading the Perfect Weight book. I am at the frame size part. According to the book I need to lose some weight. I got on the scale this morning and I am at 170.
I gotta stop my weight from going up! I am a living exampe that even though we are what many would consider "healthy eaters" I still gained weight because of portions, and lack of exercise! Ugh.
Allof that to say... even though money is tight right now, I say make what changes you can afford. And make sure those changes are reasonable for you at the time. Like, don't become a vegetarian if you absolutey love a steak. For whatever diet you follow, feel free to modify it to suit yourself and your family.
Sorry for the longwindedness!!!
Mary in TN
OK, I just wanted to clarify about the Nourishing Traditions thing with my homeschool group. Not ALL of the families gained weight, that was only maybe a dozen families out of about 25. I don't know what they ate, maybe they cheated! I've never read the whole book, all I know about the diet is that it calls for organic foods, and the fat content is on the high side, about 50% of calories eaten I think? Just wanted to throw that in there!
mary in TN
Hey Mary,
Sorry I didn't respond until now (I actually thought I had!). You are right about the fat content of NT, but fat isn't the problem, studies have shown that if you eat a lot of fat, but your insulin is under good regulation, your body will do fine. It is when the insulin levels in your body are imbalanced, as in consistently eating high-carb/high-sugar items that your body responds with a myriad of health problems. I imagine that someone attempting to eat the NT style, by increasing fat content without lowering (massively) their sugar/starch content would very easily gain weight. Sally Fallon recommends carefully treating grains, to even soak them before use because the body just struggles to use them properly and when the body is unable to digest starch, it stores it. It also always stores fat, but it uses fat for digestion. Protein just passes through the body, use it or lose it style. Therefore the relatively high fat amounts compensates for the starches in the "energy" category as well as the "fat" category. Since grains are the hardest things on the planet to "give up" I imagine that it is pretty easy to cheat on that diet.
I still prefer PWA, because he just has a very logical way of making a menu. I don't have to go crazy with breakfast choices, I essentially have an unlimited number of three basic categories; fruit smoothie, egg breakfast, dairy and fruit breakfast. I will probably alternate between the first two primarily. Lunch is usually a large, vegetable-laden salad with a portion (2-3 oz) of protein, be it HB egg, tuna, or salmon. Dinner is built around a protein and a main vegetable with a salad taking the place of the standard starch. Simple. Not overly expensive, except rice lasts long in my pantry than does lettuce in my fridge, which is the ultimate challenge; keeping the right foods in the right amounts in the house while minimizing food waste.
All in all, NT has a good selection of lacto-fermented beverage recipes that I would like to try (for variation instead of soda!) and home made dairy products like yogurt and creme fraiche. I like it for it's random bits of knowledge and variety in recipes, but I don't think I would use it for a basis for a new "diet" so to speak.
I've enjoyed having contact with someone on my blog!!! Hope you are enjoying PWA. I am rereading it too. According to the weight charts I should be able to lose about 75 pounds!!! I don't know if I am a large or medium frame, but right now, I am just marshmallow frame, so I am setting my goals with the large frame in mind.
BTW, I NEVER mind longwindedness!!! I like what your family has been doing by substituting the money that would be spent on "bad" food to go toward good food. This is where we will struggle. We have lately been working on cutting out all fast food/convenience food, but with my husband working out in the field every day and not having access to a microwave to heat up leftovers, finding a convenient, filling lunch for my husband has proven to be a challenge. His standard, two peanut butter and honey sandwiches just doesn't cut it on the health scale!
I was all excited about Perfect Weight America too, but again, the cost factor and extreme limitation on carbs was the kicker for me at the time. I forgot all about it till I read your post.
If health issues are your main concern, then I would look into cleansing the bowels and doing some detoxes. I have a link to Dr. Schulze on my blog and that is his mantra- and he has gotten thousands of people with so called incurable diseases healed with his cleanses.
The last few weeks I've been feeling the pull of the Lord to do some juicing, so I better suck it up and listen. The mental part is hard- getting yourself geared up to do it!
Post a Comment