Today is Day Seven of a new way of eating for me. Last Wednesday I went grocery shopping after making a meal plan for the remainder of the week and stocked up on all the things I’d need for those meals - fresh fruits and vegetables to go along with the lean ground turkey, chicken breasts, and grains I already had. I did the same thing on Sunday night, sitting down and planning out my meals for the week. I’ve been doing this for awhile now and posting to the blog for Menu Plan Mondays, however I never planned for breakfast or lunch, only supper. Since beginning to eat clean I have been planning all three meals, leaving the two or three "snacks" or smaller meals to be fruit and nuts, or cottage cheese and fruit, or a hearty smoothie, or any number of other similar things. Other than flipping through more cookbooks and magazines to find recipes to use I have not found this to be any more difficult than before. At some point I will have made enough recipes and learned enough about eating clean that I will be able to make meals without a recipe but for now, as most of the recipes I used previously do not read clean, I find that "cooking from a book" works and works well.

What exactly is eating clean? Google will turn up numerous links on the subject but directly from the Eat Clean Diet site is this:

What is eating clean? It is treating your body right. It is eating the way nature intended. You eat the foods our bodies evolved to function best on, and that makes you feel – and look – fantastic. When you Eat Clean you eat more often. You will eat lean protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. These practices keep your blood-sugar levels stable and keep you satisfied. The best part is that if you need to lose weight it will happen almost without you having to try. And yes, you can have a treat now and again.

Best of all, Eating Clean keeps you feeling great and full of energy. In fact, you can forget all about the days when “dieting” meant feelings of hunger, lethargy or deprivation.

Eating Clean is not a fad; it’s a way of life. When you Eat Clean your body will react by losing weight if you need to lose, maintaining a healthy weight if that’s where you are, and even gaining weight if you are too skinny. But regardless of whether you want to lose, maintain or gain, you will feel better than you ever have before.

Never worry about counting calories again. You will never have to diet. Eating Clean will keep you lean and healthy for the rest of your long life. Eating Clean guarantees results!

I am not in this for the purpose of losing weight although that would be a very welcome bonus. I have 10 or 15 pounds that I wouldn’t mind letting go but I am in this for a better me, a healthier me. Already, one week in, I feel better in the sense that I am rarely hungry. I don’t have those cycles of being stuffed and then empty and ravenous and then stuffed again. Everything remains on the same level for the most part if I eat every three or so hours depending on what the previous meal was. I like this feeling. I like feeling in control of my hunger instead of letting it rule me. And I love that I’m eating a much, much wider variety of fruits and vegetables than I had before starting and eating those at every meal. I had a portobello mushroom last night, which I’ve never had, with a couple tablespoons of salsa on it topped with a little bit of green onion, a scattering of shredded cheese, and sprinkled with sesame seeds and then baked for about 10 minutes. It was very good and I was very surprised. I’m not a mushroom-hater but nor do I like to bite right into one. I’d rather they just "be there" when they’re in my food (as in pasta sauce or lasagna).

This doesn’t taste anything like what it looks like.
Unless you think it looks delicious. Because it is.
Two peaches (skin on), a kiwi, strawberries, a juiced orange, and spinach.

I’m very excited to see where this takes me. I’m a little nervous, however, about how well things will go once B returns home on Sunday. I don’t expect him to eat all the things I’m eating but I don’t want to be making two separate meals. It’s hard enough making the same meal for just two people at the best of times. I hope that he will continue to be more open to trying new things - all I ask of him is that he taste something and eat that bite before deciding if he likes it or not and he’s gotten pretty good at doing that - and that’s all I can ask at this point. We don’t have junk food in the house but he does have a few snacks. His snacks aren’t "bad" per se due to his inability to handle artificial colours, flavours, and preservatives but they are still snack-type foods. Onwards and upwards and working towards forming good habits…

What works for you? Head over to We Are That Family and share your entry.

I just have a single quote for today but as before, check out Toni’s blog for more Quotable Sunday contributions.

"Bad habits are easy to start, but they make your life miserable. Good habits are hard to start, but they make your life wonderful."
     — Joel Osteen

I’ve joined the Shredheads and have been paired with the wonderful (but blogless) Laura. Our jobs are to workout and to encourage each other. I’m rooting for Laura (and she for me) but I’m having a hard time rooting for myself. I think that’s partly (mostly?) because I know my history with exercise. I also think that other areas of my life are very much playing into my attitude about my health and exercise. For example, my sewing room is unusable. It is packed full of things - items moved there from the living room while the laminate was being put down and the numerous large clear plastic tubs full of fabric and yarn which have already been purged once yet need it again to further reduce the volume. This room needs to be restored to a usable state for a few reasons (maybe for sewing?), including the fact that I will be having a closet added to the back entrance, which will require a wall being built straight across the end of the sewing room about two or three feet deep. This is stressing me a little. Or a lot. It seems overwhelming to get it from the state it’s currently in to the state it needs to be in. And then there’s the kitchen, which is currently still in a state of disarray (though I did get the bottom cabinet doors on tonight). There’s so much to do in there and it won’t get better for a few weeks yet (new paint on the walls, building a wall, and the building of the closet adjacent to the kitchen).

There is also another area where there is much need for organization and prioritizing: meals, specifically the way that I eat. I don’t eat badly but nor do I eat great. My cupboards are essentially free of junky and unhealthy foods, however that doesn’t mean that I make smart choices. I still find myself ordering in Chinese and pizza when I wait to eat supper with my boyfriend when he gets off work. I still grab subs and Chinese at work on my night shifts. And I still give in to the chocolate bar basket at work (proceeds of the sales go to local charities) when I find myself bored with what I’m doing. I need to change my eating. I have all the makings of clean eating in my cupboards, what I need is the drive and stick-to-it to carry it out. Tomorrow, I plan to pick up one of the clean eating books sitting with my cookbooks and begin reading from the beginning.

That is the plan for tomorrow. To begin, with one step, the journey of decluttering my life and finding a balance instead.

Once again, I have plans (delusions?) of making exercise a part of my life. This time, I’m thinking that because B is going to my aunt’s cottage this Saturday for a little over a week and then, on returning back home, three days later heading to my brother’s out east for just over two weeks, that I’ll have the time to start establishing a routine of sorts. I am feeling more and more unhappy with my body as each day goes on, as I feel and see the weight around my middle, butt, and thighs and know that my clothes from even a year ago (but more so two years ago) won’t even make it past those thighs. I am tired of looking the way I did at 3 months pregnant. There is not a baby in this belly, just a lot of squishy flesh and fat. I’m figuring that the difficulty in finding time to dedicate to exercise due to B being here all the time and not being able to leave him after he’s in bed will be gone at least temporarily for nearly a month and I will have no good excuse.

So tonight I sit here surfing inspiration, dreaming dreams, and downloading podcasts for the Couch to 5k program (which I tried a few years ago and quit). There is the original podcast that I discovered the last time but I’ve also found some new ones here and here, which look to be upbeat and fun. Nicole’s podcasts end at Week 8 (C25K is a nine-week program) but I’ve taken Week 9 from Suz’s blog. Just from a quick glance, it appears that Nicole has more pop music and Suz is rocking the hip hop and R&B tunes. If you’re a Britney fan, Suz has one of her Week 9 playlists devoted to Ms. Spears. I’ve also found a nice-looking set of podcasts over at Chubby Jones so you can check those out too.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Couch to 5k program, it is a plan that covers nine weeks and is meant to be done three times a week. It involves intervals of walking and running sandwiched between a warm up and cool down period. Each week the walking decreases as the running time increases until, in week nine, you are running. Do I want to become a runner? Not necessarily, but I figure it can’t hurt to have these accessible on my iPod. I’m on the hunt for great workout music too as all my music has been lost and I’m starting over from scratch. It can’t hurt to have these podcasts available to mix up the cardio and strength training videos and DVD’s (yes, videos!) that I have filling one drawer of my entertainment centre.

Really, what’s the harm in planning to start something? Again. Only the future will tell if these plans come to pass.

Over the past two years, I have accumulated and maintained an extra 15 pounds on my frame. My normal and healthy weight for my small frame is around 110 pounds. These 15 extra pounds feel absolutely awful on me and the look of my stomach, butt, and thighs (which is where the majority of my weight goes) makes me feel even more awful. I cannot squeeze into my "old" clothes at all and feel awful in the clothes I do have. I do not like my body as it is and I do not want to learn to like it. There is no good reason for it to be the way that it is. About a year before the first pounds started creeping up, I spontaneously quit a 3-day-a-week gym habit. I did not enjoy the gym but it had become routine - on my days off I would drop B at daycare for the morning, go to the gym at work, do my workout, and be back home within an hour or an hour and a half. And I felt great once I was done - energized and healthy. And the things it did for my body - I loved that about it.

I have tried to maintain a workout routine at home a couple of times since then but have always let it slide until I had given it up entirely. I posted a few weeks ago on my Facebook that I would love to find a trainer. Not at the gym since I don’t want to get another membership; I wouldn’t be able to go often enough or regularly enough to make it worth the cost, especially considering that I’m trying to cut expenses and save money. I know a trainer would be expensive. I haven’t looked into it yet though to see just how much it will cost. I’m thinking of someone that I could meet with once or twice a week for help and accountability, someone who will meet me at the park or waterfront or in my own backyard to do walking lunges, dips on a bench, sprints up the hill, and that sort of thing.

In the meantime, I’m planning to embark on a journey of better eating. I don’t eat junk food for the most part and don’t stock any in the house as B can’t handle artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives but there are still less-than-healthy choices in my cupboards. I do try to cook from scratch using whole foods and on any given day it is difficult to open a cupboard and grab a ready-to-go snack. Which is good. I like that if I want to eat from boredom I usually have to prepare something. What I’m planning (that word sounds a little more decisive than "hoping") to do is eat more salads and measure (whether physically or by eyeballing) portions since I know that I, and we as a society, eat portions that are grossly beyond what they should be. In the past I have brought lettuce and salad fixings home from the grocery store and had them sit until they rotted. I’m planning to have carrots julienned or chopped, cucumbers on hand, grape tomatoes at the ready (and once my garden yields fruit, cherry tomatoes too), so all I have to do is grab a romaine heart and chop it into a bowl. More salad, less main course. I also plan to use more recipes from my Clean Eating magazines and cookbooks.

I will say honestly that I’m not sure how this will go. Will I do well for a week or two or even three and then peter out? It’s possible. Do I plan to try anyway? Absolutely. One day at a time towards a better body image and a healthier me.

To want to be, that is not enough. To know how to be, that is too little. To want, to know how, to determined to be, that is the way of all successful men. Primary to all of these is self-honesty You can cheat others, now and then. You can rarely cheat yourself. You can never cheat nature.
     — John B. Lust

When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I’ll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
     — V. L. Allineare

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
     — John F. Kennedy

If you’re interested in some other great quotes, head over to Toni’s blog and check out Mr. Linky.

I think I may choose to do just that - grow old gracefully. I’m talking about my hair, which skipped gray and started sprouting whites when I was around 17. The grays are starting to arrive so there is a mix of both to take over my colour. I’ve coloured my hair for years. When it was long (at its longest it was down to my waist) it took me two boxes and when it’s short (it’s currently at its shortest), it takes me anywhere from less than half a box to a whole one. I had a trim today and, as I haven’t coloured my hair in a couple of months and my hair is super-short, the gray/white is very evident, especially at the sides. The top is still hiding it relatively well (except for where the odd white peeks through in all its wire-y glory) as it’s a little longer on top and the boxed colour hasn’t grown out yet.

Complete with eye baggage and perturbed expression. I was not perturbed.
I was, however, cold. Note the two sweaters over the t-shirt, which was over the tank.

Do I really want to go grey at 30, nearly 31? Not really but I’m kind of intrigued by the idea. I think it will be far easier to go grey with my hair this short than if it were longer. We’ll see. For now I’ll leave my hair as is and see how it goes. It’s definitely a lot less hassle.

This week is going to be a leftover week as five out of seven days will see me working night shifts. B will be with mom for those nights and only Tuesday and Wednesday will have us both at home for supper. Last week we fired up the barbeque and had hotdogs (I know, evil stuff) and burgers. It was so nice to have my own barbeque going on instead of just smelling other barbeques in the neighbourhood. I had a burger and a hotdog; BBQ’d is the only way I’ll eat a hotdog. Growing up, all the hotdogs were boiled and I have very un-fond memories of Kraft Dinner with two boiled weiners for lunch. You had to have at least one and you had to eat it all. I will never eat another boiled or nuked hotdog as long as I live.

Monday: leftover pasta with from-scratch sauce
Tuesday: Mexican Lasagna
Wednesday: BBQ hotdogs
Thursday: leftover chicken pot pie from the freezer
Friday: leftover lasagna
Saturday:  leftover soup from the freezer
Sunday: leftover lasagna

I’m off for a quick nap now before night shift. When I wake up I have to wash my hair (since bedhead will result) and take the laundry off the line. My boyfriend and I went for a good-paced walk this morning with no particular destination in mind. Gmaps Pedometer tells me that we walked 8.33 kilometres (5.2 miles) so I think that is pretty good. I need to get out walking more. These 15 pounds are not going to go away by themselves. We left at 9:40 and, after stopping off at the clinic for him to get an immunization shot at 11:15 (we were there for about 25 to 30 minutes) and going into the garden centre to pick up some more peat pellets, arrived back home around noon. Now I’m all full of fresh air and sunshine and hopefully I’ll sleep like a log on my nap.

I am currently 15 pounds over my "usual" (aka ideal) weight. The scale tells me that I’m pretty darn close to 125 pounds. And it’s been telling me that for awhile so I’d say it’s probably right. Damn! I’m hoping I keep the motivation to do the Sisterhood Challenge (see previous post).

I ended up at a blog tonight that looks promising for a couple of reasons. The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans is committed to losing a bit of weight and will be using the 30 Day Shred workout DVD by Jillian Michaels for the exercise portion of the weight loss. Their challenge has been entitled, appropriately enough, the 30 Day Shred Challenge. I so need to do this. I have 10 to 15 extra pounds sitting on my small frame that have been accumulating and hanging around for about a year now. The challenge begins on Monday, April 6. I’m trying very hard not to spend money beyond basics and essentials so if I don’t win one of the seven copies (!!) being given away over on the Shrinking Jeans site, I will probably just use a new-and-unopened set of 10 Minute Trainer with Tony Horton. The Jillian Michaels’ workouts are 20 minutes and Tony’s are 10 so I would do two back-to-back workouts instead to equal the 20 minutes. Ambitious plans for me (I tend to start strong and peter out) but I’m willing to give it a go. Summer is just around the corner!

My mom has had machines/guys at her house for a few days now digging up her driveway to extend it and put down paving stones. B has been enthralled.

On Sunday afternoon I have to leave to drive 500-ish kilometers to go on a work-mandated course. The course is two weeks; since next weekend is Thanksgiving up here I will come home (3-day weekend). A 2000km trip by the time I’m back home to stay. I’m not necessarily looking forward to any of it - the course, the drives, driving in Southern Ontario… I’ll take the 407 once I get to it but even still. I’m fine with the traffic itself (though I could never live in Toronto and have to deal with it every day) but I don’t enjoy trying to navigate unfamiliar streets/highways in the dark. I’ll leave here around 2 o’clock and hopefully get in around 7′ish, when it should still be a bit light out. Everyone is telling me to "just think of it as a break, time away," etc but I don’t see it that way. I’ll be leaving B with my mom for two whole weeks and I’m not looking forward to hearing the exhaustion in her voice every night that I call. I’m not wanting to think of what B will be thinking and feeling either. A few days is fine but two weeks is a long time. He did longer than that at the cottage this summer twice but he was there with other kids. And I won’t see S for three weeks more or less. He works nights next weekend and I’ll see him briefly before he goes in but other than that it won’t be until the 27th or so; I’m on holidays for a week starting when I get back and it turns out that’s his annual hunting trip. At this point, I just want the two weeks to be over, even if it does mean that it’d now be the middle of October and that much closer to "Oh my God! I’m SO not ready for Christmas!!"

In other news in the long-neglected Body Beautiful category, my goal for October is to lose 10lbs. Yesterday I drank a bunch of water (still not quite 8 glasses but definitely up from the next-to-nothing that I usually drink), ate a decent small breakfast, and completed a 45-minute cardio DVD. I can feel the muscles in my back today from all the cross punching. There is going to be a gym and pool right on campus where I’m going but I’m expecting it to be filled with gung-ho recruits. I’m going to take my shoes and comfy pants and aim to go for a walk every evening. The school is in the country so barring profound boredom from walking the same straight-to-the-horizon dirt concession road, I’ll be plugging in my iPod and hitting the road. Which somehow reminds me that I want to measure myself before I go (because I won’t do it there) so at the end of October I can hopefully see a difference. Starting weight 125lbs (OMG!) up from my usual 105 to 110 (normally 107) of about a year and a bit ago. One hundred and twenty-five pounds do not sit nicely on my 5′3" small frame.