That Redheaded Sister

Archive for the ‘Healthy eating’Category

Changing

Only two more workdays until my long week off (working a bridal show on Sunday…perfect). Lately I have been feeling majorly burnt out. Im not focused and extremely irritated. I think its because I havent truly had a break from everyday.

Because of this annoying behavior, I have slacked off in EVERYTHING. I havent worked on a project, Im not keeping my house clean, my eating has been extremely lazy, and running…hahahah. All signs leading to burn out.

This week I have been doing some thinking about how to make life better. What little changes can I make to improve my everyday? How can I stop feeling so blah?

Matt and I have a wedding to save up for. And a house. And this. And that.

we are going to switch cell phone carriers and with this switch we will end up saving $1200 a year together. Can you believe that? Are we really wasting that much money on a cell phone that sucks?
we are starting a weekly cash system. Every week we plan to pull money out of our accounts to pay for things that are not autopay. Once the cash is gone, its gone. This includes things like eating out, projects, fun things, groceries. This does not include car payment, rent, insurance, cell phone.

Matt and I have a wedding coming up in nine months and have you seen my sad state of affairs? I have had severe body issues lately to the point of obsession. I weighed myself the other day and I was extremely disappointed in myself. It took four years, but I gained all of my weight back that I lost.

while I really want a local training buddy to train with me, my long distance bff and I are going to push each other to work out. Normally I love working out and running, but with how things are right now, I need a boot off the couch.
I wrote out a training plan to possibly run the Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving. I want to sign up, but lately I have been such a commitment-phobe with big races. I have had two races that I could not start because of injury or stress and I dont want to sign up for something and have to bail. I just dont know what I want to do.

Lets talk about those body issues. Its so consuming. I am uncomfortable all of the time and I know exactly what the culprit is….portion control. We have worked on cleaning up our eating and have made a lot of great changes, but when I am home I struggle.

I think tomorrow I am going to work on a meal plan for two weeks. We grocery shop twice a month, so instead of spending all the time planning a month ahead, I am going to take it two weeks at a time.

What have you done to make your situation better?

Any budgeting tips? Running tips?

Any plans for the weekend?

16

08 2012

by Heather
posted in budget, exercise, Half Marathon, Healthy eating, laziness, Meal planning, running, wedding
4 Comments

Gluten Free and a GIVEAWAY!

The hardest part about a diet is the lifestyle changes you have to make. Maybe you ate ice cream every night (guilty) or you ate fast food more than 4 times a week (I know people that do this). When you diet, usually you have to cut those habits out. While I have done your typical diets: Weight Watchers, No Carb, count calories, etc, I have found them to make my life more stressful. I dont have time to track calories in and calories out. I want to sit at a meal and not feel like I need to deprive myself because I dont have any room on my spreadsheet for it.

This year my resolution was to not track my weight and eat smarter. I was sick of being driven by a number. While we have made a lot of great changes to our diets at home, we were missing something. Something seemed off.

Matt has been reading Wheat Belly by Willam Davis and has passed some interesting information to me that has made me realize I can solve some of the issues I have been having. Since reading this book, we have decided to convert our household into a gluten free home. Some people may say we are just jumping on a bandwagon of some sort, but for the two weeks I have been comparing gluten vs gluten free, I have noticed a difference.

*DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor (I only play one on tv) and I am very new to the gluten free world. What I have to say is just my observation.

How this started: Matt is lactose intolerant. His sister is extremely allergic to gluten. I have the energy of a slug. Matt came to me after hearing about this book saying he could possibly not have lactose intolerant, but could be bothered by gluten (not allergic to the ice cream, but to the cone). He told me that he read two slices of WHEAT bread has more sugar than a Snickers bar. This amount of sugar causes your insulin to spike and crash rather hard. This explains my energy. I have not checked to see if this is an accurate claim, but I can tell you when I eat pasta/bread, I feel awful after.

You can form you own opinions on this, I am just here to share my experience.

When Matt came to me and told me this is what we should try, I sighed and told him I didnt want to change my entire lifestyle for something that is going to cost more. At least not during my busy time. I had the same misconceptions that most people have about gluten free. Gluten free does not mean carb free. You can still have potatoes, fruits, ice cream, etc, it is the WHEAT you have to drop. I have to admit, it has been pretty easy. Our base has already been pretty healthy, but you do start to notice what has to go and somethings have an easy replacement (rice cakes/potato chips instead of pretzels) and some have been harder (pasta for gluten free pasta or rice pasta).

Last week I made a 100% gluten free pasta and meatball dinner and surprisingly it was good. Granted the pasta and breadcrumbs were higher in price, which made me cringe.

Ingredients:

Brown Rice Noodles

Ground beef

Onions, chopped

Gluten Free bread crumbs

1-2 eggs (depending on quantity of meatballs)

Salt and Pepper

Fresh basil

minced garlic

For the meatballs, I combined all of the ingredients in a bowl and browned them on the stove. This took about 15 minutes. I cooked the pasta according to the package and brown rice pasta takes a little longer than the regular stuff.

After the pasta was done, I tossed in some EVOO, sprinkled some salt and pepper over, and dug in. (In case you didnt know, I dont really eat red sauce. Im weird, I know).

It was mighty delicious!! Honestly, I dont think I could tell a difference in the taste. What i did notice is when I was done eating, I didnt feel heavy and disgusting as I do whenever I eat pasta. Even the smallest amount bothers my stomach, but this didnt. Relief!

Ok enough about this change in lifestyle. You are here for the giveaway, right? Well in keeping with the gluten free theme, I asked Larabar if I could try a few of their bars and host a giveaway. They were gracious enough to send me 3 flavors I chose and 1 that I asked them to pick at random.

I got a Pecan Pie, Coconut Cream Pie, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Cappuccino. My favorite was definitely the coconut cream pie. I expected peanut butter and jelly to be because I have a weird obsession with PB, but CCP was so tasty!! AND gluten free. Winner for me!

Larabar is giving away a caddy of 16 flavors to one lucky reader. Pretty awesome! Its great to eat before a run (which is what I do) and perfect for an afternoon snack (hello time between lunch and late night dinners).