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Sunday, March 17, 2013

some eats and a look back...

I have been terrible about taking pictures of our prep days!  Basically I take care of the cooked items and my husband washes, chops and packages our meals for the week!  It works well and although it's a lot of work that ONE day, it makes staying on track throughout the week SO much easier!  Like, the prepping is the reason we've been able to stay so focused! We make lots of salads with plenty of raw veggies, slice up our grilled chicken and brown some lean ground turkey and add some of the protein to our salad right before we eat them.  It totally helps me stay focused and what works for us, may not work for everyone.  You have to find what works for YOU.  

I decided to take a look back in honor of a lot of the Biggest Loser contestants coming back for the finale this week ( I can't wait!!), they have been posting their before/after pics so I decided I'd take a look at mine.  
When I lost so much weight back in 2001, I had allowed a little of it to creep back on through the years, two pregnancies...ya get the drift.  

So when I made that commitment on January 1st to REALLY eat clean & healthy and step up my workouts, adding strength training and more intense, interval running...I had no idea I'd make this much progress so quickly!  
The problem is I know the process, I know what works...the only thing that works.  I have a degree in it for goodness sake, I love helping people get their foods and workouts in order, but I secretly struggled with portion control on those "healthy" carbs!  I love to workout but my foods are always haunting me, it's a constant battle for me.  Those yummy carbohydrates that I crave so often. But I am training myself to love them in much more moderation and to know that because 15 baked wheat crackers are okay, 55 of them are not!!!  Even the good "healthy" stuff can be bad if we do not practice good moderation and portion control.  My rule is, if I can't control myself with a specific snack-GET THEM FAR, FAR AWAY!  For instance, I love pretzels which is okay but I'd eat way too many if I had a large bag so every now and then I'll stop, grab a 99 cent bag of them, eat half one day, half the next and then I'm done for a while!!!  It's what works for me and keeps me sane!
The picture on the left: January 1st 2013, middle: February 15, 2013 and right: TODAY!


First up is my Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo experience...
we had a great time and the boys enjoyed it 
BUT when it was time for lunch, nothing could have prepared me for it...
As you walked through the tents of endless restaurant stands (the restaurants set up a smaller menu list and you're able to order their foods), we saw piles of french fries, chili dogs, plates of nachos that were pouring over the sides, funnel cakes, cinnamon rolls the size of a small child, chocolate chip cookies that were the size of a dinner plate, and the fried desserts...uh yea, my jaw dropped.  Let's see there were fried pies, oreos, red velvet cake FRIED, snickers, and I'm sure much more...and although all shapes, sizes and ages were consuming these items...NONE of them should've been!  Even on a cheat meal, some of that just wasn't right.  FRIED RED VELVET CAKE?  BUT WHY???  Why would you fry cake?  Ugh...

    Basically I became very upset not only because I have a degree in health and nutrition, but also from working in cardiac rehab and know first hand what can happen to people who consume these items on a day to day basis, AND because it's no wonder Houston has such a high obese/overweight statistic...what are we teaching people?  
That because it's the Rodeo, we should consume endless calories and fat and clog every artery possible?  Ohhhh and yes I told my kids they could choose what they'd like for lunch and they did pick a corn dog, fries and an apple BUT STILL, we saw MUCH, MUCH worse!  
     I found it a little disgusting if you ask me.  It's like it's acceptable for people to eat like that...it was the norm and I think something is wrong with that, don't you? As I looked around, I was the one looking silly with my salad and am I the only one who feel it should be the opposite?  
For those who struggle with being overweight, having heart problems, diabetes...what message are we sending these people?  Or the children?  The rodeo prides itself on the youth organizations but majority of the children were overweight...SCARY. And were eating JUNK.  TONS OF JUNK.   And the "thin" people, they shouldn't be eating that stuff either.  Most of the heart attack victims I used to help weren't overweight, they had a poor diet and never felt like sweating on purpose.  Ughhhhh!
When will enough be ENOUGH?  Not sure if you can feel my anger but hopefully you understand my frustration...
     Out of all of those restaurants, not one had a salad option so I decided to go with a burrito from Freebirds.  I filled mine with grilled chicken, lettuce and black beans, poured it out of the whole wheat tortilla and ate it like a salad with a little salsa on top!  Ridiculous that it was the "healthiest" option there.  I could have gone with bbq, which I love but didn't want the potato salad and huge chunk of garlic bread that came with it...
COME ON HLSR, let's see some healthier choices next year!  
here's my Freebird minus the tortilla...it was actually really tasty!

and some random eats from this week.  For our camping trip, it was lots of prepared salads topped with chicken, dinner was bunless burgers and green beans and breakfast was my pre-baked breakfast casserole with breakfast turkey sausage and eggs!  
Today was this grilled chicken salad and I added a few kidney beans for added flavor!  Then I sliced some strawberries for dessert!  There is nothing like a super sweet, tasty strawberry and our local farm has the BEST!  I could eat them all day, every day!
What's your favorite fruit?

 And yesterday we spent the day at the beach :) so relaxing and FUN!  Our son told us he wanted to be a surfer and he's on the right track, he was on his boogie board catching waves and looking pretty impressive out there!  Guess there will be plenty of beach trips this summer.  It was nice to take the top off of my Jeep and enjoy a gorgeous Spring day!

What are your feelings about my Rodeo experience? 


1 comment:

Hollie said...

I've seen the fried cheesecakes and all the other fried stuff. I've not always made the best choices at places like that but I don't think I've ever tried something that shouldn't be fried like cake. That just does not sound good to me. What's so sad about it is they wouldn't be offering that stuff if it wasn't selling.