The Treat Streak

So I am doing this to remind myself I am actually healthy person even though I sometimes eat a disgusting amount of chocolate and ice cream and other treat like food. Minus my addiction to sweets, Sel and I are a kind of health nuts.  I feel like I need to write down the things we do right so I can feel better about all the things I have been doing wrong lately.

1.       We love exercise and make sure we put in 1 to 2 hours of it at least 4 days a week. 6 days a week if we are lucky. Cardio is our favorite, but we do fit in lifting every day too. Sel runs a mile before every workout (and is now hitting a PR of about 8:05) then alternates his next hour and half between the stationary bike and the elliptical. I am still trying to like being inside for exercise and have come a long way in the past few months. I usually go to a 45 minute long class (Zumba, Kickboxing, or RIPPED) and then run on the treadmill for 30 minutes or more. I live for my runs on P-towns beautiful trails, but the treadmill is growing on me.

2.       We also love fruits and vegetables. We are pretty darn good at incorporating them into each and every one of our meals thus far.

3.       We are not picky. This means we eat a variety of food willingly which translates to increased chances of meeting all our nutritional needs in terms of minerals and vitamins. We try to buy new ingredients every time we go grocery shopping and then whip up recipes of grandeur throughout the week. We have tried a long list of semi-interesting things (new to us): rutabaga, bok choy and baby bok choy, swiss chard, dragon fruit, clementines (this one is a big fat deal for me), acorn nut squash, zucchini squash, eggplant, brussel sprouts, millet, celeriac, figs, kale, turnips, quinoa, barley, flax, leeks and beets. We also really like getting fresh spices and herbs to base meals around. We have really liked sage, ginger, rosemary, Italian parsley, marjoram, oregano, tarragon, lemon grass, mint and our all-time favorite, basil. We actually bought a basil plant last year and use Basiey (creative name huh?) all the time for recipes. We like dried spices too, but there is something about the fresh ones that make our meals especially flavorful. 

4.       That being said, we do have our staples and lucky for us, they are mostly healthy. Favorite staples: apples, oranges, almonds, air popped popcorn, homemade bread, almond milk, almonds, unsalted peanuts, beans, lentils, hummus, bananas, kiwis, tomatoes, onions, onions, onions(we seriously use these in almost every meal), bell peppers, avocados, kale, spinach, romaine lettuce (we alternate each week with buying either a tub of pre-washed spinach, spring mix, or romaine lettuce), mushrooms, frozen fruit, plain greek yogurt, and our not so healthy love, cheese. We usually try to buy smaller portions of cheese cause we will invariably eat way too much of it if we have a giant bag of saturated goodness calling our names.

5.       We love to cook at home. This makes it easy to incorporate above healthy foods into our meals and helps control portions, salt, and fat content.

6.       We stopped buying store bought bread about 8 months ago. We make a loaf of homemade bread every week or every two weeks if we are lucky and our loaf doesn’t get moldy/go stale. That is pretty much the only partial downside to not eating store bought. You don’t have the preservatives to make your bread last longer. We don’t mind though. The difference in taste and overall satisfaction pretty much ensures we will never be able to go back to the wimpy, air-filled branded stuff. Here is our favorite recipe should you have a bread maker and a crazy desire to eat the best bread on Earth: 4 cups whole wheat flour, ½ cup ground flax, ½ cup sunflower seeds, 1 tsp salt, 5/8 cup water, 3 tsp yeast. Yup, that’s all you need for the most satisfying bread you’ll ever taste. We also stopped buying tortillas and now stick to making homemade corn or whole wheat whenever we need them.

7.       We don’t really eat red meat. I don’t eat it at all and Sel eats it maybe once a month or once every two months. This means the protein we do eat is usually chicken, some turkey, and all sorts of things in the bean family. We both hate seafood, but we are trying really, really hard to not hate it…

8.       We never drink full power soda which is great. We do, however, drink diet from time to time and are working on eliminating this completely too.

9.       We do a weigh in once a week to make sure we are keeping on track which helps keep us mindful of what we are doing to keep/get to a healthy weight.  

Here are the things making me feel like I am actually sucking at making healthy choices

1.       We ourselves don’t go out to eat more than once a month, but we eat out a ton when we get together with family. Since we have been seeing our family a fun bunch recently, we have been eating way more than we normally would.

2.       Sel is awesome at this. He keeps a running tally of how long he has been “treat free”. He doesn’t eat anything that could potentially be considered a treat and has only broken his streak twice for big celebrations, our anniversary and Kit & Kat’s wedding. I, however, make the biggest mistakes in this area. I love, love, love chocolate and then there is ice-cream and cookies and everything I know is awful for me. I know all about eating in moderation, but when it comes to these food items, moderation doesn’t really exist with me. I ALWAYS feel worse after eating even a small amount of a sweet than I do before.

Now on to the main point of this post, essentially, I am committing myself via my blog to finally man up and join Sel in the no sweet streak. From now until Thanksgiving (where I will gloriously eat one slice of pumpkin pie or pecan pie), I will not be eating any treats. No pumpkin pie shakes, no chocolate, no cookies, no crazy cake, no candy cups, no ice-cream, no frozen yogurt. It’s only about 3 months. After my 3 months are up I will either decide to be a morbidly obese person for the rest of my life OR I will actually be at a level of health I want to be at.

This may have been my most boring post yet, but if it gets me to stop eating chocolate, it might just be the best post I have written ever. Just gotta keep Lil Miss Wanda from pressuring me to eat all the delicious chocolate she hoards all over the house. Wish me luck!