Well, this week there has been no gym due to the wonders of illness. Strep throat? Really? Where the hell did that come from? But really, besides the derail caused by illness, I’ve been able to remain vigilant in my excercise mission. It’s been really paying off, but it’s easy to forget how far you’ve come.

As a result of being sick, I was at the doctors and weighed yesterday. I don’t know if I’m the only one with Doctors Office Scale Syndrome (DOSS) but usually I think I’m one weight, then get weighed in a doctors office and the results are usually different, generally being higher. I think it’s the distant cousin of Dressing Room Syndrome.

Anyway, this time the results were in my favor and it made me realize I’ve lost 21 lbs. by eating reasonably (not obsessively strict, which can’t be maintained, but in a healthy flexible way) and sticking with my fitness routine. This all means I’m 2 lbs. from what I’d set as my healthy goal weight, which is pretty cool!

For the win!

This summer we’ve been cooking like mad people, but I’ve been totally negligent in posting the menus or mentioning the results! This week takes a few recipes from articles pulled out of old copies of the Vegetarian Times, although the potato spinach cakes are from the “new” Vegan Brunch book and they sound delicious. Imagine a knish without the wrapping! Mmm. As a bonus, I made some tabbouleh last night while waiting for the pea soup to chill out and the ham steak to grill up. Since I don’t like fresh tomato, I decided to be a rebel and swapped tomato for diced red pepper, and it was a win!

• Chilled Pea Soup w/Rustic Ham Sandwiches
• Lean Pork Chops w/Peanut Sauce, Snap Peas and Roasted Cauliflower
• Hijiki Chickpea Salad Sandwiches with Sweet Potato Hash
• Grilled Fish (haven’t decided which kind, yet!) with Potato Spinach Cakes and Brocolli
• Homemade Jalepeno Hamburgers with Fresh Guacamole Topping and Salads

I’m finding myself wishing more than ever that I was rocking an iPhone, because I’d really like to photo-log my food, and when it comes to pulling out and carting around the regular camera… it just isn’t going to happen. I won’t want to carry it, and it’ll be tedious to have to get the photos off of there everyday. How lazy is that?! lol. It’s the truth, though. I’m still logging my food with Lose It, which is great because it really lets me see how on track I’ve been and allows me to chart progress over time, but it’d be a lot of fun to take and log photos of everything I’m eating, if only because I’ll find myself inspired when it comes time to make the weekly shopping list and menu.

We’ve reached the peak (I hope) of summer heat and humidity so we came up with a menu this week that keeps us from having to turn on the oven more than once. Grill, here we come!

• Tomato-pepper soup with ham & argula wraps
• BBQ chicken with baked beans and corn
• Guacamole cheesburgers with spinach salad
• Tuna melts and fruit salad
• Beef kebabs over jasmine rice

The Book in Question

So it’s somehow been a month since I posted. Since then, I’ve enjoyed a really interesting book by David Kessler, the former head of the FDA, called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Before you roll your eyes, it isn’t one of those annoying self-help books that spends its pages telling you how you’re a unique snowflake and that if you just eat 10,000 grapefruit slices a day, you’ll be a better, skinnier, you, but rather an interesting look at what the fuck is going on with the food industry in America and why a vast majority of the population are apparently “helpless” against the onslaught of overly processed, absurdly sweet and criminally fatty foods. It doesn’t promise to solve all your problems, but will have you thinking about food in the ways that the people who make their money on the back of us eating think of it. Even if you skip the last part of the book, which is bascially “Eat healthy, stupid!” (which isn’t easy for a lot of people, lol) it is worth it just for a better understanding of what is going on chemically in the brain when we’re devouring a plate of brownies, lol.

As with all things, keep your skeptical hat on. I’m not saying everything is sunshine and roses with the book, as it somewhat makes these franchises out to be the big, scary, want to keep the public fat and stupid enemies. The truth is, America is its own enemy. We want everything bigger, faster and if it’s cheap that’s even better. Who wants to be a millionaire? Everyone, and for some stupid reason a lot of people have become convinced that this is what America is all about, as if by being born in America they’re automatically entitled to some ridiculous Hollywood concept of life, which results in bitter resentment for so many when the reality is so very different.  In the land of consumer driven convenience, why should anyone be surprised that the food industry is right up there with everyone else, making itself richer and richer on the back of our own laziness and lack of interest in understanding what it is we’re actually consuming.

Why do we have shitty television? Because even if it is bad, people will still sit there and watch it. Why are movies increasingly abysmal? Because we’ll keep marching our asses to the movie theaters and giving them $10 to watch shit while sucking down a gallon of soda and eating 1,000 calories worth of popcorn. Look all around you, the majority of Americans are doing the dumbest shit, as if we’re all brainwashed and sleepwalking through our lives. You have people riding around in these huge gas guzzling cars they can’t afford to own, hardly able to stay in their lane for lack of even grasping the spacial relations of the scary piece of metal they’re speeding down the highway in, whilst sending text messages on their cell phones and sucking down a double mocha latte with whipped cream on top. Then they get mad when you’re not getting out of their way fast enough, because they really need to get to WalMart and you’re delaying them by 2 whole minutes.

Why the hell shouldn’t the people making the food for a society like this be throwing all logic, caution and compassion to the wind and simply giving people more of what they want. Fat sells, so make it twice as fatty, then dump a bunch of sugar in it, and fry it again, then salt it and present it with a fatty sugary sauce on top and watch the suckers line up at the door. Give them twice as much food for the same amount of money and do they fill up and eat less? Hells no, thanks to the ridiculously overstimulating nature of the food they just consumed, they’ll eat MORE. Basically, they tapped into what works, and as long as people are happier to just consume and not think about what it is they are consuming, things will keep on keeping on. I’m not saying the food industry isn’t misleading in the ways they present things, or stingy with nutritional information, which makes it all the easier for people to fool themselves, but we can’t lay all the blame in anyone’s court, here.

This is a two way street – we need to demand better information be readily available about what we’re eating, then actually pay attention to it, take some responsibility for our own actions, work for our health rather than expecting it to manifest itself magically after we buy enough quick fixes, and vote with our money. If the demand shifts, the supply will shift accordingly. Keep in mind, this is me drastically oversimplifying everything.

Check out this video!

My husband and I have returned to the gym and are clocking in 2 or 3 days a week. I’ve lost 6 lbs. in the last month and am starting to notice new muscle tone again. Yay! We’ve also been trying to get extra, “fun” exercise in on the weekends – whether swimming, playing volleyball with the family, or whatever else comes along. Yesterday we took a 3.5 hour walk/hike at Tyler Arboretum. We estimate we walked about 6 miles, plus the more leisurely loping around the treehouse exhibit. Lots of fun!

Here’s this week’s menu:

• London broil, crispy garlic potatoes, and watercress salad
• Gnocchi with summer veggies
• Grilled pork chops with cucumber dill salad
• Smoked salmon salad from this great NY Times article (#55, but with baby greens instead of watercress)

So I’m now really happy I took those measurements on the 5th. A relatively short time later and I’m down inches all over! Two and a half inches here, an inch and a half there… Yes! The scale shows a creep in the right direction, but the measurements tell the tale. Point in fact, I now fit comfortably in yet another pair of pants that were un-buttonable last month! This is really exciting.

I have finally gotten back to the enjoyment level with the exercise, enough so that last Sunday I woke up and instead of wanting to make a big breakfast I wanted to use the cool, quiet morning to do some pilates. This was after a Saturday that featured a return to DDR and the previously hated Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD.

I can’t wait to know what I am feeling like and fitting into a month from now. Currently I’m feeling great – it’s nice to actually enjoy getting dressed in the morning, and to want to make an effort to look nice. I also feel stronger and like I’m sleeping sounder. My appetite is better and I get full from sane portions. In fact, I’m doubly glad I’m logging food because I’ve caught myself a couple times coming in with too few calories and made sure to add in another healthy snack. Don’t want to tank my metabolism by under eating!

Also, I am in love with my new food scale! No more guesstimating for some things. I actually wound up eating more pork tenderloin as a result of finding the piece I liked was only 4 ounces, and not the 6 I was thinking it might be. Whee!

Yesterday was a weigh in day at the gym and I was happy to find myself down a bit more! Before you shake your head, I’m not putting too much emphasis on the scale, especially since my goal isn’t just to reach some arbitrary number an then coast. I’m going for a practical and “happy” weight range, an improved endurance level, a pleasantly toned body and an overall healthier lifestyle. As we all know, fat weighs less than muscle, so those scales can be misleading. To make it easier to keep track of my progress, I did the dreaded body measurements about a week ago, so that in a month I can re-measure and see where I lost inches.

In the land of the gym, we discovered that the sound system has an aux hook up and that the manager has cables he is happy to share, which means there has been a big improvement, music-wise as we can just hook up our iPods. There is a stack of overplayed and sometimes downright awful CDs that hang out in the gym, which usually results in the management having audio from one of the many sports shows that are on the TVs playing over the system. Have you ever tried to have a really intense, awesome, sweaty workout to the low drone of sports TV? It sucks! Give me some music with a good beat and I’m going to work twice as hard on the elliptical, I’ll tell ‘ya. Anyone have good workout music suggestions?

Menu

• Tandoori Chicken w/Dehli Saag and Brown Jasmine Rice
• Tuna Fish Sammichs w/Salads
• Grilled Swordfish w/Roasted Asparagus & Basmati Wild Rice Medley
• Buffalo Chili w/homemade Cornbread
• Breakfast for Dinner

Today I got a different sort of comment when stopping by to grab an unsweetened iced tea after my workout — instead of being asked if I were “expecting” I was told, “no offense, but you’re looking in shape!” Erm, I’m not really sure how that was supposed to offend me… unless he was implying (and obviously was based on the previous question about a baby bump) that I had let things go in the way of fitness *cough* Whatever! I am getting back in shape, so I’ll take it!

The gym has been an absolute delight. We’ve been doing our usual mix of free weights routines, with abs during our “rest” between sets, but we’ve now vowed to end each session with a big cardio finish in the form of the elliptical machine. I find myself surprised at my improving endurance and the sheer amount of sweat I’m producing. Back when I was playing DDR on the regular it took awhile, even in the summer, before there was any sweat. The elliptical and arc machines are devistating in the best possible way, though! I used to cringe at the thought of more than ten minutes on one of those things, but we’re now ending each session with 20 minutes of awesome sweat producing action and my body is already thanking me for it. There is no such thing as taking it easy on there, either – we alternate our resistance and make sure to keep the pace up, up, up!

Meanwhile, I’m still dedicated to logging my food intake and it is a life saver. My appetite / stomach capacity are back to where they were before I began being a bit gluttonous and lazy, lol. It’s crazy how quickly your stomach reverts when you’re only allowing yourself proper portions and spacing your food out correctly. It’s nice being hungry (rather than “starving”) before a meal and then feeling comfortably full (rather than stuffed) after one. I dig it!

Menu

• Super lean homemade hamburgers w/Salads
• Grilled chicken w/homemade BBQ sauce, roasted asparagus and homemade whole wheat poppy seed rolls
• Vegetarian Paneer & Spicy Mixed Greens w/Samosa mashed potato pancakes
• Cajun Catfish w/homemade cornbread and green beans

The entire household has been logging daily food intake, lately, which makes it even easier to behave at dinner time! Lose It should really have a non-app version, because it works much nicer than some of the sites I’ve used in the past. Once you’ve entered most of your “custom” foods, or put some recipes in there, logging is as easy as a few swipes of the finger. Even better, I have regular exercise to log into the contraption as well! Return to the Gym, summer style. I still lack the motivation to make myself work out on the weekend, but maybe this coming weekend I can get a pilates session in. I find myself missing our weekly pilates class. I at least have managed multiple walks on the weekends. *cough* That sort of counts.

Meanwhile, A Menu:

• Punjabi Chhole w/Steamed Cauliflower
• Breakfast for Dinner (the properly portioned version)
• Grilled Salmon w/ Wild Rice and Roasted Asparagus
• Peanuty Tofu w/Israeli Cous Cous and Zucchini

• Kielbasa, kraut, and fingerling potatoes
• Savoy cabbage soup and steak
• Chicken with artichoke hearts, capers, and angel hair, rocket salad
• Mushroom pork chop rice bake with salad
• Roasted chicken with fennel, curried spinach salad, couscous