Let's talk about food!

Before I got involved in HitchFit I would eat whatever sounded good. I had very limited knowledge of what made food good or clean. If it tasted good, I ate it. Once I learned about the content of food and how it worked in my body I could never really eat the same again. Of course I would still eat certain foods, but the voice in my head would say "this is full of natural fats" or whatever.

This is how I now eat my foods. I actually read the labels and I weigh out portion sizes. Not that difficult. I don't even count calories! Plus, once you start weighing your food, you will be shocked at how big or little a portion size is! 6oz of chicken might be 2 large breasts!

The content of food I look at is Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fat. When I look at a food label I see which category has the highest number. Instead of trying to calculate all three categories for one food I just focus on the highest number.

Luckily for me, my trainer has my diet all calculated for me. At each meal I know how much protein or carbs I need. Then, I can just look at my approved foods list and mix and match what I want to eat. It's simple! He also gave me a sample menu for each meal, so I can just eat that if I don't want to do any measuring.

Let me give you an example of how important reading labels is.

Take Aldi's Fit & Active Low Fat Granola with Raisins. Now, I love granola. I would eat it every day. Let's take a look at the Nutrition Facts.

Serving size is only 2/3 of a cup, so it's not very big.
Fat - 3g
Carbs - 44g
Protein - 5g

So, I consider this a carb. There are good carbs and bad carbs, incomplete and complete, but we won't get into that now. Other than to say granola can be considered good carbs but we need to look further.

44g of carbs in 2/3 of a cup is pretty high.  My diet only allows for 20 grams of carbs per meal. Let's look further. Sugars are 16 grams!!!! That is very very high. Dr. Oz says that when you read labels the sugars should be 9 grams per serving or less. This is almost twice that.

The other tip Dr. Oz gives is read the first five ingredients. I wish I had saved the box of this cereal to get a pic of the ingredients, but the second ingredient was sugar and the fourth was corn syrup. Dr. Oz recommends to throw it in the garbage.

Sorry Fit & Active Low Fat Granola with Raisins, but you FAIL! This is not a healthy cereal and I wouldn't recommend eating it at all. That is the trouble with Low Fat, fat is reduced but sugar is increased. Read your labels!!

**My back is better today. Going to see the chiro in an hour and plan to hit the gym slowly tomorrow.**

Week One

So I started on Sunday. My first day was great. I wasn't craving that bad and was enjoying the diet. I got to the gym and got in my assigned calories.

Monday was great too. Diet going great and I started strength training. Let me tell you, strength training is where your whole diet/exercise comes together. I will blog on that more later though.

Tuesday was when the cravings started. I got a headache and felt shaky from the withdrawals. But, I kept on course and got to the gym again. I didn't get all my assigned calories (burned) in but planned to make them up on Wednesday.

Wednesday was the worst day. The cravings were horrible and I felt the worst. The first two weeks are the hardest but if you can get through them those icky feelings go away. I kept on doing good in the diet switching up foods for a little variety.

Then the worst possible thing happened! I was so looking forward to another night of strength training (my favorite) at the gym. When I went to get Reagan from school in the afternoon I leaned in the car to put Kobe in his carseat and I felt something slip in my back.

I kept telling myself, it's ok, it's ok! I can just rest it tonight and it will be fine by morning. I can squeeze in my weight lifting later in the week. So, I rested my back and didn't go to the gym at all.

In the morning I felt better. Then I lifted Kobe up. My back went completely out. I was in so much pain!! This wasn't pulled muscle pain, but nerve pain. Horrible horrible nerve pain. Again, I tried to convince myself that if I just rested I'd be ok in the morning.

After getting Reagan and Zion to school that day, I had to go to Roanoke to take some tests for a job. I had my dad help me get Kobe in and out of the car. I picked Zion up and rested the rest of the day. Jerime had to pick Reagan up from school.

Friday morning I couldn't even get up out of bed. It took me 10 minutes just to get on the edge of the bed. I could stand up but couldn't straighten up. My mom was already coming over to watch the kids for me, so I quick made an appointment with the chiropractor.

I was able to get in right away and she adjusted me and gave me electric shock muscle therapy (if you've never had it, it feels amazing!). I am still in a lot of pain. Today I'm able to get up a little, but by now I'm pretty much back in bed until morning.

I am so disappointed! This really puts me way back on my goal of finishing on my birthday. But, I am trying to keep going eating clean and will get back in the gym when I'm healed enough.

Poo. :(

Aren't changes hard?

Tomorrow I am beginning my "project" - or self-help project I should call it. Last summer I started and then stopped my fitness bootcamp. Tomorrow I am starting it again with determination to finish it. It lasts for 16 weeks. The very last day will be my 31st birthday. What better gift can I give myself than the gift of health!

I am excited and very scared. Last time getting my exercises in was hard. Since then I've tried to start again only to fail horribly on the diet. Horribly!

I have always been a big eater. I'd eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and generally had no problems. I never exercised. Ever. Then I had kids. I gained 60+ pounds with each of my pregnancies except Kobe. I only gained right around 35 pounds, but that's only because I started 20 pounds heavier. When I went in to deliver Kobe the nurse registering me asked my weight. I had to look down when I said "199!" She looked at me and said "we better get this baby out then!"

I plan to be open about my weights and measurements. I know a lot of people have said before that "oh you're so skinny already why do you want to do this?" To say I'm skinny isn't a stretch. I'd pretty much agree with that for the most part. I am out of shape though. I do have some love handles and big hips, but I'd also say I'm far from overweight. In fact, I have a healthy BMI right now.

So why do I want to do this? Well, the program I am working on is more about life transformation. It's about getting in control of your life and learning self control and self discipline. Bonus - you look and feel great when you are done!

One of my biggest problems is eating. I still eat whatever whenever and this time it shows. I feel completely out of control in this area of my life. I even think I have a problem. I think about food all the time. I'm a grazer and eat all day. Even when I'm eating, I'm already thinking about my next snack or meal. At night I think about food when I go to bed. I even consider getting up one more time for something to nibble on. The first thing I think about when I wake up is getting something to eat. Sick right?

When I eat I'm usually just eating to taste the flavor. Sometimes I find myself eating faster and faster because for some reason I feel like I need to finish it all. Do any of you struggle with this? I'm a freak right?

The good thing about this diet I will be on is that I will be forced to eat a lot and often. The bad news, it's mostly "bland" food. The hardest part for me will probably be no fruit for 4 months. I always feel a little better if my food shoveling is fruit. Like it justifies it. :) (I feel a lot better when it's cookies!)

So, tomorrow it starts. I will be updating throughout the weeks how it's going, what I'm doing, pics, measurements, etc. Legally I'm not allowed to share the secrets of the program, but if you would like to research it or join along with me the website is HitchFit. They specialize in transformations. Check out the before and afters they are amazing!

So tell me, what are your food weaknesses? Do you find yourself sneaking food or other bad eating habits like me? I'm here with you!

Blogging

Hi blog friends! Tell me, how do you read blogs? Do you go to each blog site and click through to others? Do you read all of your favorites through a reader like Google Reader?

I used to click through all of my favorites. I'd go to sidebars and find other blogs that looked interesting and then click through those. I call it blog stalking. Then I subscribed to my favorites in Google Reader and have been using FeedSquares on my phone to read the blogs. There are advantages and disadvantages to this method. Advantages I get them all at once, can choose which to read first and save for later, etc. Disadvantages When you don't go to their actual blog site sometimes you can miss out on links to a lot of cool things, sometimes pictures or videos don't show up, you can't click through to other good blogs, etc.

One of the worst things though is saving posts to read later. Some of my blog subscriptions will have numerous unread posts. This should tell me something - unsubscribe! But for some reason I just can't! I end up quickly skimming through posts. Sometimes these are left unread because I get bored with the blog.

Do you ever get bored with the blogs? You just can't sit through the "vacation number 17" post. That is one of my pet peeves. I'm fine with splitting into 2 and maybe 3 posts, but if it's the same event... boring!

I also get weary reading sappy posts.  Some of my favorite bloggers have gone from fun-filled blog content to some new word of the year and then all posts are filled with flowery visual language based on the new word. It's absolutely fine, just not my thing.

Saying all of that, I am about to start posting quite a bit about the same topic. Feel free to read along, comment, get engaged, or skip if you get sick of me talking about the same old boring thing! I hope you will stay, but I completely understand if you "mark as read."

I'll also add this disclaimer, even though I will be posting about one topic quite a bit, the blog is not going to turn into a specific blog. I will still use this blog to post about anything and everything. Just be prepared for a lot of the same. I will try to keep it interesting!

So tell me, what are your blogging habits and irritations?