Tripping

Somehow I have managed to gain back a few pounds.. well lets face it, its not "somehow" its because I got lazy. Even though we are not eating meat, it was easy for me to slip back into the lazy cooker mode. Spinach and mushroom pizza, fries, cheese pizza rolls, etc. I knew what was happening when it was going on, but this season is always so busy and throwing a pizza in the oven sounded so much easier then cutting up veggies for a stir fry or something of that sort. I need to get a cookbook that caters to vegetarian/vegan meals in 30 mins or less. Anyone know of any? I have thought about cutting up most of the veggies and just leaving a couple bell peppers whole for stuffed peppers so that way when I am ready to cook or juice everything is already cut up and it lowers my prep time.. but I can also see this interfering with a receipe or what not. Does anyone else pre cut the veggies? You know what other ideas I need from you folks.. a good, easy receipe to make my own pasta sauce. The jarred ones from the store are full of sodium and the like and the few times I tried to make it from an internet receipe they came out watery.. like tomatoe sauce. I want a good, healthy, hearty pasta sauce. Can anyone help me out with this?

Rewind 6 weeks - I would have never actually taken blame for gaining the weight back and I wouldnt have changed the way I ate.

I feel accomplished for at least awknowleding the fact that I did this to myself and it happened because the choices I made. I tripped, but I am back up and willing to fight again!

thanks for reading folks

Dazed & Confused

I suppose my brain was as much of a meat eater as my mouth. I find myself still thinking about eating meat, although the cravings for it have not been extreme. This weekend, there was a BBQ fest and it was something I wanted to go to for the last few weeks. For whatever reason, my brain still planned on going! Up until yesterday afternoon, I still planned on attending today. Thank God I did not go. I don't think I am strong enough to resist an entire festival of BBQ quite yet! BBQ is my absolute favorite food "group". Well, it was anyways. I am going to have to figure out how to incorporate BBQ sauce into one of these new veggie recipes... maybe on a portebello mushroom burger or eggplant steak?

The number on the scale is going down.. a little bit anyways. 3.4 pounds so far. For my husband as well. He was so happy to see that number change.. he thanked me for finally deciding to eat healthier! I believe it is helping with my PCOS as well.. its still early but I haven't had my monthly visitor in 4 months & there appears to be traces of her this morning!

Yesterday I made something new, something I had never even heard of! Spaghetti Squash! I tossed it with a little bit of pasta sauce, feta cheese, oregano and black olives. It was fantastic! I had my neighbor try it & she really enjoyed it! Even asked for the recipe for that and the portebello mushroom burger I made her last week. I am excited that someone besides my husband and I are enjoying these new recipes as well.  She does not plan on eliminating meat entirely, but said if eating healthy tastes this good then she has no excuse not to eat better!

Thanks for reading -
xo Jenn

The Decision

I have been a meat eater my entire life. I love all types of meat and eat it with nearly every meal. I enjoy the taste of a juicy London broil, the zest of lemon pepper chicken and the delicacy of hot lobster dipped in warm butter. Ironically enough, my younger sister has been a vegetarian for most of her life. She made the decision when she was 8 or 9 years old. I am not sure what exactly prompted her to make such a bold decision at such a young age but she stuck with it for the last 10 or 11 years. I never understood it. Why would you not want to eat meat? I supported her decision and respected it, but I never wanted any part of it. A few days ago, Kayla text messages me and asks me to watch a film called Forks Over Knives. I figured it had something to do with vegetarians so I wasn't exactly looking forward to watching it but as her big sister, I figured I would appease her.
Sunday night (11/13/11) my husband and I watched the film. Talk about an eye opener! I have always known that the food you put into your body effects your health and weight but never did I actually take it seriously I guess. As a 27 year old, over weight female diagnosed with PCOS, pre-diabetes and thyroid dysfunction, the last thing I want is to pop pills every day and have no control over my own fertility. I have known managing my weight would help reduce some of these issue's but not matter how much I want to change, I wanted to eat even more. PCOS makes it hard to lose weight and very eary to gain so I have to work extra hard to work the weight off but I just couldn't make the right eating choices. It is something I have struggled with my entire life. Thankfully, this film may have come  into my life at the exact right time. I have gained 30 pounds this year.. I am at the heaviest I have ever been and I am well aware of the body image problems I have along with depression, anxiety and shame. This may be my life saver. Forks Over Knives really lit a fire under my butt and half way thru the film my husband and I decided we are no longer going to be meat eaters. And we will strive to eventually only eat a whole food plant based diet.
We are doing this a little bit at a time. We want to make a lifestyle change and I know I am no good at quitting anything cold turkey. So our first stage is eliminating beef, chicken, milk, soda and eggs. I have noticed in the last two days that since we are focusing on these four things, neither one of use want to ruin what we ate for the day by indulging in fries or sweets. So even though at this point we haven't completely eliminated these foods, the changes are happening.
I stopped at the local produce stand and stocked up on veggies and fruit and threw out the beef and chicken in my freezer. Yesterday for breakfast I ate an apple and pumpkin muffin. For lunch was carrots, an orange and crackers with hummus. Dinner consisted of a delish stir fry over rice. Today I made toast and fruit with almond milk for breakfast and lunch was a raw kale and spinach salad loaded with veggies and fat free Italian dressing. For dinner I am making portobello mushroom burgers and another kale salad for us and a friend.
So far this is exciting. We are both enjoying learning about new foods and making new recipes and really changing our life's. I know this won't be easy tho which is why I decided to start a blog. Maybe having some sort of accountability from the virtual world will help us stay on this path of healthy eating.