So in my attempts to beat corn, I would have to say corn 397879873 Camille 1. I'd say this is pretty good considering corn has more of a leg up than me. It was only so long I could go without eating rice or bread or basically any snacks. However, like most weird diet/nutrition things I have tried, those three or four days of doing something tend to stick with me for longer, just in moderation. A few days of detoxing from HFCS and carbs and snacks and chocolate (I swear I was having withdrawal headaches), has made me less likely to reach for them in the days following corn free living. This is good considering fritos are not going to get me to the finish line of my triathlon.
Speaking of the triathlon, a word I have been somewhat avoiding as I swim off into denial about the whole thing, I have fallen off the deep end a bit. I haven't biked outside in two weeks and I haven't swam in almost ten days, I feel like "eh, I'll be ok on race day." I have decided in weeks 5, 6 and 7 of training, I will devote my time to the outside. I need to be out in the water or the road sweating and acting like its a real triathlon that's about to hit me in 28 days. On the plus side, I did run 5 miles the other day and managed to accomplish this in about 52 minutes. I have to remind myself that this is no road race and girlfriend has got to find a bike. Needless to say, if any of my 1 1/2 readers knows anyone with a bike, I'd be happy to take it off their hands.
Here's to the end of half-assing.
XO
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
HFCS... scary little acronym
For the past few weeks or so, I have been reading the Omnivore's Dilemna. Michael Pollen, the author of the NYT best seller, gives you the history of four different meals throughout the book.
Industrial
Big Organic (think Whole Foods)
Pastoral/Local
Hunting and Gathering and Foraging
The beginning will shock you, the middle makes you want to change to your local farm and the end makes you feel for the caveman. I highly recommend this book, with a warning. You will want to change the way you eat and you will seriously question the way our country has taken to eating and more importantly mass producing and creating (yes, literally creating) food. Anyways, one of the more interesting and shocking parts of the book discusses how corn has so highly infiltrated our food. Now, there are no studies stating that corn and its broken down chemical make up are bad for us, with the exception of HFCS.
HFCS, more commonly known as high fructose corn syrup, is used to sweeten your coca cola, chips, ketchup, butter among thousands of other items. This much sugar and sweetener, though it makes things taste delicious, is not necessarily the best thing for you. While reading Omnivore's Dilemna, I decided to research a bit about corn. I stumbled upon a blog where a woman described the week she ate nothing with corn additives. The next week she cut out anything that had been fed corn (bye bye to most chicken and meat). So this week I have decided to pursue the same thing.
I spent about 20 minutes riffling through my cabinets before heading to the supermarket. Cereals are out for the most part, so are snacks and most breads. Ouch. That left me with an egg on syrian bread for breakfast. Oh and forget about yogurt unless its organic. I headed out to Shaw's, hoping to score some corn free products. I ended up with parsley (a necessary ingredient for Tabouleh), pears, blackberries, eggs, all natural granola, stonyfeild yogurt, organic peanut butter and Smuckers simply fruit jam. Lunch naturally became peanut butter and jelly on syrian (pita) bread with fruit. The thing about eating this way, you can't snack. I felt myself eyeing the fritos and the lemonade. Just water and milk this week, or any 365 juice at Whole Foods.
For no corn, you have to watch out for:
Citric Acid
Mono glycerides
Poly glycerides
-dextrin
HFCS
among other items.
I'll let you know how it goes.
XO
Industrial
Big Organic (think Whole Foods)
Pastoral/Local
Hunting and Gathering and Foraging
The beginning will shock you, the middle makes you want to change to your local farm and the end makes you feel for the caveman. I highly recommend this book, with a warning. You will want to change the way you eat and you will seriously question the way our country has taken to eating and more importantly mass producing and creating (yes, literally creating) food. Anyways, one of the more interesting and shocking parts of the book discusses how corn has so highly infiltrated our food. Now, there are no studies stating that corn and its broken down chemical make up are bad for us, with the exception of HFCS.
HFCS, more commonly known as high fructose corn syrup, is used to sweeten your coca cola, chips, ketchup, butter among thousands of other items. This much sugar and sweetener, though it makes things taste delicious, is not necessarily the best thing for you. While reading Omnivore's Dilemna, I decided to research a bit about corn. I stumbled upon a blog where a woman described the week she ate nothing with corn additives. The next week she cut out anything that had been fed corn (bye bye to most chicken and meat). So this week I have decided to pursue the same thing.
I spent about 20 minutes riffling through my cabinets before heading to the supermarket. Cereals are out for the most part, so are snacks and most breads. Ouch. That left me with an egg on syrian bread for breakfast. Oh and forget about yogurt unless its organic. I headed out to Shaw's, hoping to score some corn free products. I ended up with parsley (a necessary ingredient for Tabouleh), pears, blackberries, eggs, all natural granola, stonyfeild yogurt, organic peanut butter and Smuckers simply fruit jam. Lunch naturally became peanut butter and jelly on syrian (pita) bread with fruit. The thing about eating this way, you can't snack. I felt myself eyeing the fritos and the lemonade. Just water and milk this week, or any 365 juice at Whole Foods.
For no corn, you have to watch out for:
Citric Acid
Mono glycerides
Poly glycerides
-dextrin
HFCS
among other items.
I'll let you know how it goes.
XO
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Pilates for free, well sort of
So the training has been going quite nicely. I recently took a third trip to Marshall's to try and find a sporty bathing suit in a size smaller than a 12. The only brand they currently had: Ironman. Of course I had to give a call into my mom to make sure I wouldn't look pretentiousness while wearing the suit struggling to swim more than 5 laps at the pool. She ok-ed the fashion decision and I purchased my black and hot pink Ironman bathing suit for only 19.99!
Recently, I have developed something that feels like a shin splint on drugs in my left leg. So I am taking the next two days off from running, which may turn into three. So this morning before working at Six in the Shipyard, I decided to try out a free class at my gym Bodyscapes Fitness in Hingham. I needed something that wouldn't require too much pounding on my battered left calf, so I decided on Pilates over spinning (I am also somewhat afraid of spinning!). I was the only one to show up to the class, even though she claims she usually yields 5 or 6 shiny women. This ended up being very beneficial as she gave me one-on-one instruction and a short history of Pilates. It will definitely make me feel more comfortable in my next class and less like an ape.
Meanwhile, throughout this psycho process (which involves four days of working out and then 1 day off) I have also lost four pounds. Duh, any women likes that. I am trying to eat better as well due to the fact that I am now halfway through Omnivore's Dilemna and can't bring myself to eat any meat or pork or poorly grown chickens, but that's another blog entry in itself. Already, I recommend everybody reads at least the first part of this book. But yeah, 4 pounds is pretty cool. As most of you know I am only 5' 1" so 4-5 pounds can be a big difference on us short people.
Anywho, I recommend you all tap into the free stuff that comes with the stuff you pay for. Free classes are like CVS extra bucks. You buy the gym pass you get little treats. You spend 20 bucks at CVS, here's 3 bucks off the next purchase. Can you tell I have been reading up on couponing?
XO
Recently, I have developed something that feels like a shin splint on drugs in my left leg. So I am taking the next two days off from running, which may turn into three. So this morning before working at Six in the Shipyard, I decided to try out a free class at my gym Bodyscapes Fitness in Hingham. I needed something that wouldn't require too much pounding on my battered left calf, so I decided on Pilates over spinning (I am also somewhat afraid of spinning!). I was the only one to show up to the class, even though she claims she usually yields 5 or 6 shiny women. This ended up being very beneficial as she gave me one-on-one instruction and a short history of Pilates. It will definitely make me feel more comfortable in my next class and less like an ape.
Meanwhile, throughout this psycho process (which involves four days of working out and then 1 day off) I have also lost four pounds. Duh, any women likes that. I am trying to eat better as well due to the fact that I am now halfway through Omnivore's Dilemna and can't bring myself to eat any meat or pork or poorly grown chickens, but that's another blog entry in itself. Already, I recommend everybody reads at least the first part of this book. But yeah, 4 pounds is pretty cool. As most of you know I am only 5' 1" so 4-5 pounds can be a big difference on us short people.
Anywho, I recommend you all tap into the free stuff that comes with the stuff you pay for. Free classes are like CVS extra bucks. You buy the gym pass you get little treats. You spend 20 bucks at CVS, here's 3 bucks off the next purchase. Can you tell I have been reading up on couponing?
XO
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Carpe the Gym.
So apparently there is a word in French that cannot be expressed in English meaning something along the lines of Carpe Diem or make the most out of it while enjoying it. Leigh, who along with Liz is attempting to teach me French although they started with towel which apparently has twelve meanings, was explaining this to me on the way to the gym last week. You see with the triathlon creeping closer and my legs not getting any longer, I was forced to start hitting the bike, the treadmill and the weights pretty hard. I now have a discounted membership to Bodyscapes Fitness in Hingham. They were giving a crazy no commitment, no sign up fees, 25/month deal to all Shipyard employees. Hello, all over it. 50 bucks for the whole summer! I also get a free week pass so I gave it to Leigh and proceeded to drag her long legs with me for motivation.
So we are discussing this word when Leigh and I come up with Carpe the gym. This is not a simple concept. Sure, we motivate each other to go to the gym but how many excuses do we give along the way? Personally, life is too short to do something you hate, so why go in the first place? Well, this is the way I look at it: if you really want to make it fun and you really want to like it, you will. This theory probably doesn't hold true with brussel sprouts, but it works with the gym. I go with friends or a good playlist or I put Sponge Bob on while I'm on the bike. And trust me, as time passes I realize I don't hate it anymore, I crave it. That's why even though I have been up since 5:30am, watched kids for ten hours and basically want to go to bed now, I'm going to head over to the shipyard and run a couple miles while listening to Destiny's child.
There's a great commercial out there. It's a guy shooting hoops listing off reasons why people don't want to work out, the excuses they make for not going outside or to the gym. At the end you see he is in a wheelchair, and his final excuse: "My legs hurt". It just makes you think: go out and just do it, because you can.
(Maybe this post will motivate me to swim.)
galsforcal.com
XO
So we are discussing this word when Leigh and I come up with Carpe the gym. This is not a simple concept. Sure, we motivate each other to go to the gym but how many excuses do we give along the way? Personally, life is too short to do something you hate, so why go in the first place? Well, this is the way I look at it: if you really want to make it fun and you really want to like it, you will. This theory probably doesn't hold true with brussel sprouts, but it works with the gym. I go with friends or a good playlist or I put Sponge Bob on while I'm on the bike. And trust me, as time passes I realize I don't hate it anymore, I crave it. That's why even though I have been up since 5:30am, watched kids for ten hours and basically want to go to bed now, I'm going to head over to the shipyard and run a couple miles while listening to Destiny's child.
There's a great commercial out there. It's a guy shooting hoops listing off reasons why people don't want to work out, the excuses they make for not going outside or to the gym. At the end you see he is in a wheelchair, and his final excuse: "My legs hurt". It just makes you think: go out and just do it, because you can.
(Maybe this post will motivate me to swim.)
galsforcal.com
XO
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