I am moving....

I am moving the blog over to wordpress.  I know, I know.  What can I say, it is way more awesome when it is not being annoying. 

If you want to continue reading the on again/off again trials and tribulations of my health journey please feel free to join me at www.couchpotatorising.com because I will miss you.  The blog over there is linked to twitter and facebook so you can literally enjoy everything Couch Potato all day long.  I even have it linked to instagram if I, for reasons unknown, suddenly decide to start taking random, albeit FABULOUS, pictures of my entirely average life.

Stay lovely.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday

Like my totally awesome play on a U2 song?  Yeah, I know.  I am brilliant.  Well here we are at the end of the week, are you ready for Monday?  I am most definitely, sorta ready.  I am going to make the standard "bignormous" salad, some egg muffins, and possibly some kale chips tonight.  My 3 year old has been pestering me for "green chips" for 4 days now, its sweet and annoying....you know, in the sense that he is three and craves much healthier food than I do.

This is the youngest tator tot "sneaking" green chips at about 730 in the morning....part of me wanted to tell him no, another part of me was thinking "shut up the kid is eating kale, be happy".  

We spent the day cleaning up our house and filling in chips in our walls courtesy of some tator tot hot wheel racing.  Man, who knew such tiny cars could create so much damage?  It was like all of a sudden we realized that our house looked like a war zone.  

We didn't do too much food planning today, although there will be red curry shrimp on the menu this week - which I will post pictures of on Tuesday.  We are making the Citrus Carnitas I mentioned a few weeks ago later in the week and there are plans to roast a turkey...or cut one up and do it on the BBQ, we aren't totally sure what our decision will be.  I am also going to make a "quiche" with zucchini and carrots to keep in the fridge and lastly I will cook up some zucchini noodles to keep on hand for breakfast.

As far as cooking is concerned, we had the last of the bomb ass cauliflower jumble for lunch today.  For dinner we, and by we I mean the Hubs, made a delicious roast beef.....

he seared it in the roasting pan first, coated it in fresh cracked pepper, then threw that bad boy in the oven. We served it with mashed turnip (rutabaga for my southern friends) and some steamed carrots. Cracked pepper seemed to be the seasoning of choice as it was added, rather liberally, to everything.  Normally we have only one starchy vegetable with dinner but, when the man wants turnip and carrots and is willing to cook them both, who am I to complain.

Anyway, it is time for me to run a bath for my tator tots and settle in for an intense evening of Once Upon a Time and Game of Thrones.  Woo hoo, my favourite night of television.

Toodles Poodles!

Sometimes I like to pretend poodles sound like Robert DeNiro
"Are you talking to me?  Are YOU talking to ME!?"
Poodles are bad ass. 

It's Saturday!!!

I know, I did not manage to post everyday like I had mentioned on Monday.  In fact, I actually posted less this week (being not at all) then I have since I started!  Whoops!  Oh well, these things happen.  It was a busy kind of week.  Plus, my laptop battery died and, to be honest, I was too lazy to bring the charger upstairs.  Yup, it's been that kind of week.  

Food wise there was lots of deliciousness had at the Potato household, sadly I was so busy shovelling into my face I forgot to take pictures of 95% of what we ate.  Sorry people.  We did have Roasted Red Pepper Soup by PaleOMG which is amazing, seriously....AHH MAZING.  We basically ate it all in two sittings so we had well over half a pound of italian sausage left.  Which meant time to get creative so, we made this...

which is the sausage chopped up, with cauliflower rice, red pepper, cilantro, onion, garlic, mushrooms and other yummies all chopped up together.  At first I was skeptical, I am totally one of those "my food can't touch the other food" type people, but this was totally worth it.  

On the workout front it was a successful week (I think) my trainer may say otherwise, but I would hope he would tell me to haul ass if needed.  I was at the gym 4 times this week, I had intended 5, but I was helping at my son's school and missed the childcare window. So, I worked out at home, D had printed off sheets of circuit type workouts that I could do for cardio after our sessions and on my own, so I browsed through them and picked something I could do at home.  Burpees are a bitch regardless of where you are doing them.  

We also did a body composition test on Thursday which was fabulous...in a depression inducing kind of way.  It wasn't that what it said was so bad, it was more that it said exactly what I thought it would say even though I had deluded myself into thinking it would say something else.  So, I did what any self-respecting person would do....I finished my workout, came home and ate two homemade peanut butter cookies.  Take that machine! 38% body fat my ass!  Then I promptly felt sorta dumb.  I spent most of Thursday in a funk, but I had turned that around by Friday afternoon because I had made a few decisions....decisions that will shoot my Whole30 all to hell.  Not necessarily food wise, but there are other restrictions to a Whole30 that are not working for me, and this is ultimately about my health and not a specific program.  So I pulled out my food journal from December, ripped out the used pages and started over...

I like this one because it doesn't provide a lot of space, literally just enough to write the type of food you're eating. It is 6 sections (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack) of which I will only use breakfast, snack (which is post-workout) lunch, and dinner.  I am not sure if you can really see but each meal block is broken down into LP (lean protein), SCC (starchy complex carbs), CCFV(complex carbs from Fruits and Veg), and water. At the far end there is a section to add your healthy fats and any supplements/vitamins you take.  Anyway, it is by far the simplest and most effective food journal I have come across for tracking whole food diets.  The key here is that it isn't calorie specific it is food type specific.

I am also going to add oatmeal back for my breakfasts every few days - mostly because I love it, but also because I believe that plain old steel cut oats is not intrinsically bad for you (Quaker flavoured oat food is another story).  I am also putting protein shakes back into the routine after my workouts along with the standard apple or green tipped banana.  See, not horrible changes but enough that it will mean I can no longer lay claim to participating in the Whole30.

I also recruited my son into taking more pictures for me.  God love my 5 year old.  He thought it was funny that I was standing around letting him take pictures of my "squishy" belly considering I do not normally spend much time publicly trouncing around in a sports bra.  Together we took the standard front, side and back shots...I will post them under the "Progress" tab along with all my recent measurements, just not right away.  Doing pictures like these is a true exercise in self-acceptance and, while I am mostly comfortable with how I look, I am not quiet prepared to expose myself that fully to the anonymous world of the inter web today.  When I look at the photos and see what I love about myself rather than what I hate they will be shared with you.  Promise.

So this is where I am today.  We still have a 98% paleo menu planned for the week and I will post pictures and links as we consume them, seriously, not like last week where I went from minor slacker to full blown slacker and posted nothing.

Here, a teaser for what to expect tomorrow....

...menu planning with my favourite friends!!!

I have stopped counting days....

Okay, so this week sorta kicked my butt in the energy department.  I added two days of solo gym time, which brings me up to 5 days a week - the two extra days are specifically cardio and core oriented and they leave me slightly more exhausted than I was expecting.  I also spent all afternoon Thursday in the pool with my kids which was awesome but, tiring.   Long story short Thursday I was asleep by 9:30pm which was why I did not post anything.   Friday was grocery shopping night so, by the time I got home, got everything put away and fed myself it was close to 9pm, I will be honest....I didn't feel like writing Friday and went to bed at 9:30pm because I was still tired from my week of activity.  

I am having Whole30 self-doubt.  I have never had any sort of neurosis when it comes to food. I find that Whole30 makes me kind of nuts.  I start to rebel at it.  I do random things like use store bought salad dressing that has canola oil in it (gasp!), I have a bowl of organic flax cereal, or I eat air-popped popcorn.  Now, admittedly I know that in the grand scheme of things indulging in a bowl of cereal once a week is not going to kill me but, because of the very nature of "Whole30" all of those things are off limits.  I do not like being told what to do, EVER.  Each time I attempt a Whole30 I tend to get frustrated and then not only do I blow it, I go on some chemically enhanced, wheat-based bender that leaves me feeling worse than before I started...not only from the actual physical effect of the foods but the inevitable feelings of failure that come along with not being able to "tough it out".  I am now in the place where I am considering passing on the Whole30 and just continuing with boring old Paleo.  I don't know.  I will think it over. My menu for the next two weeks is Whole30 compliant so...we will see.

Today, Sunday, is food prep day.  The husband is merrily seasoning meat downstairs while I hide up here and write.  My turn will start this afternoon when I start cooking up veggies to get us through the week.  We have a few fun things on tap, there will be roasted red pepper soup, some spiced pork patties,  cayenne and lime pork chops, shrimp scampi, paprika chicken....the list goes on, and I haven't even mentioned the veggies yet!  Don't worry, I will post pictures of these delicious masterpieces of nutrition as I eat them.  I will also link to the recipes or provide them if they are my own.

Now, back to the gym.  I was supposed to go in yesterday and today.  I didn't.  Today is not over so I still may make it in but, I don't know.  I was pretty freakin' tired yesterday, and I believe a well timed day of rest can do just as much good as a sweat session on the treadmill, bike, rowing machine etc.  The more I think of it, I probably will end up at the gym today but, I just don't want to be in a "6 days in a row" coma this time next week - call me crazy but exhaustion and kids does not mix.

Any how, that pretty much sums up my ramblings for the day.  I will get back to daily posts this week, I promise.   Right now I have to figure out just what my kids are tossing around downstairs because there is far too much delighted laughter for my comfort....my "mommy sense" is tingling.

Day 8 & 9.....26 To Go!

So I didn't write a post yesterday.  Sorry.  I didn't fall off the food wagon or anything like that I was just tired.  I opted to spend a few hours fooling around with my kids rather than clicking away at the keyboard of my laptop.  Today they seem content to play toys upstairs so I have an hour to "journal".

Yesterday was a pretty decent day.  I made an effort to make sure I got my full two cups of veggies in during my breakfast, I actually added a little more than that because it was a trainer day.  On trainer days I tend to look and feel like an exhausted zombie by 4pm so I am trying to adjust my diet to see if I can improve that.  

My day yesterday was go to the gym and workout under the supervision of Derick....because I need the kick in the ass and the accountability of someone else to get me there.  It was a fun day.  I think I broke my ass doing squats.  Admittedly, I always think I have broken my behind and, to date, it has remained fully intact and not broken.

After my epic gym session I came home and ate my pre-portioned lunch.  I am learning that I do much, much better if I drop the variety and stick to a few repeater type meals through the day.  Dinners will be different each night but lunch and breakfast are pretty much repeats...day after day after day. I also do better if I portion out my lunch first thing in the morning and treat it like a bagged lunch at work.  It saves me having to rummage through the fridge.  I have been at this a week now and I think I am starting to get my meals portioned out well enough that I do not feel the need to snack in the morning or afternoon so, yeah me!

Anyway, last night was pretty standard we had another serving of that most awesome stir fry from Monday.  It has quite the kick to it.  I put down 32 oz. of water while I ate it, which is weird since "heat" usually doesn't bug me.  I did get a killer attack of the munchies at about 9 pm last night....I mean grumbling tummy, getting bitchy hungry so I warmed up a cup of sweet potato.  It did the trick.

Today has been good.  I got up and finished off the last of my egg muffins.  I also had a ginormous portion of zucchini, which is quickly becoming a breakfast favourite. I have managed to not have coffee for TWO days now.  So far no withdrawal from that, but honestly my body is craving so many other things right now I may not even notice the coffee related stuff.

I went to the gym today....ALONE!!  No trainer appointment.  I just went and did 50 minutes of mixed cardio and then about 15 minutes of core and stretching.  Yeah.  I am a superstar.  This is a major step for me, the last time I hit the gym without an actual appointment was approximately 3 years ago.  I would also like to point out I worked hard...sweated like no ones business....even the tops of my hands were sweating....it was gross and beautiful.

Now I am home, the tator tots are....well, they are kids....so energetic, loud and prone to fighting.  I am starting to figure out what to make for dinner.  I have a brutal craving for chicken wings so, it will be a roast chicken of some sort I will post the pictures if it turns out :)  Thinking of roasting broccoli as well, I have read a few recipes and it looks really good.

Anyway, this has been my day.  Sorry no pictures today, my phone is charging and all my food is repeats so I didn't see the point.  I will make up for it tomorrow.

Later my lovelies. 

Day 7....28 To Go

So I have been sleeping like crap.  Worse then crap.  Not sure what the deal is.  Okay, that is a lie I totally know what the deal is.  Some random background information....my husband snores like a bear with a stuffy nose.   As a result of his exuberant nasal noise and his annoying habit of falling asleep in 2.3 seconds, I have slept with ear plugs for 6 years.  I became a terrible sleeper.  I couldn't fall asleep because I was so stressed out wondering when the noise would start.  It was horrible. 

Then I did the Whole30 in January.  I hadn't worn ear plugs in 4 months.  He still snores like a machine but, I fall asleep so fast and so soundly that I don't even hear it.  It is AMAZING.  One of the things that made me realize I need to do Whole30 again is that my sleep is slipping...I wore ear plugs last week. Bad diet equals bad sleep.  I am a girl who needs her sleep.  I have been slowly getting my Whole30 on track and my sleep has miraculously settled back to what it was like a month ago.

Long story short, I am running a bit of a sleep deficit so I am really craving the starchy carbs and my body just doesn't feel 100% so I did not go to the gym as planned.  I did walk the dogs and do a handful of sit-ups but that is pretty much it.  In a further effort to spruce up my day I decided to dress up my table in the linens I bought while on a trip to Mexico with the hubs.....suddenly I am in the mood for tacos, or shrimp, or enchiladas, I would settle for beer though (that one belongs to the hubs).

As for food this morning I had some pizza egg muffins.  Which were delicious.  I had a handful of kale as well, along with two cups of coffee with coconut milk.  I realized I may be using my coffee as a bit of a crutch when I caught myself heading for my third cup....so starting tomorrow I am down to one cup plus herbal tea.  I do not want to rely on coffee to get me through the morning.

At lunch I went a little food crazy (see, the babble about the sleep issues is suddenly relevant).  I had about 3/4 of a cup of roasted sweet potato, about the same amount of sauteed zucchini, about 5 pieces of the citrus carnitas leftover from yesterday's dinner, and a ginormous bowl of tomato basil soup.  I also knocked down about 30 oz of water because I was crazy thirsty.

Dinner was an amazing stir fry.  I mean amazing.  I wasn't expecting the heat in the sauce but it was so welcome.  I only wish that I could have had a beer to wash it down with....chilli peppers and beer go so well together.   The stir fry consisted of steak, broccoli, bok choy, celery, carrots, red and orange sweet peppers and water chestnuts.  It was all served over "fried" cauli-rice complete with egg and mushrooms.  I would love to say I made this meal all by myself, but I pretty much tapped out after prep and sent in the husband.  I have an amazing husband when he isn't annoying me.

So that was my day.  I am about to head off to the shower and rinse the last of my daily stress away.  Hope you all have a wonderful evening, and I will see you tomorrow.  

Stay lovely

Weekend Wind Up - Days 5 & 6....29 Days to go

Well, this weekend did not go as planned, there was no real menu planning or grocery shopping.  We are trying something new....it is called eating ALL the produce out of our fridge before we buy new stuff.  Weird right?  I know, who actually eats the food they have before they buy more?  Apparently we do now.

We are trying to save up to buy a 1/4 or maybe a 1/2 of beef for the fall, plus all our whole chickens, pork and turkey for the upcoming fall/winter season.  Needless to say that is a substantial amount of money to come up with when you are a single income family of four.  Not that we are complaining, we made this decision together....but it does require a bit of creativity to eat the quality and variety of foods we really want.

So, after surveying the contents of our fridge we made a list and hit the overflowing stack of paleo/primal cookbooks on our counter.

What we have come up with is....

Citrus Carnitas from Well Fed's Melissa Joulwan

Best Stir Fry Sauce Ever again from Well Fed - this recipe is not available on line however she does have a fabulous looking and very similar Stir fry Recipe on her blog "Clothes Make the Girl"

Yummy Yam Spears from Everyday Paleo's Sarah Fragoso - not available on line

Bacon Devilled Eggs from Civilized Caveman Creations

Tomato Basil Soup from Make it Paleo's Bill Staley and Hayley Mason

Baby Pizza Bites by PaleOMG's Julie was a late entry but they look amazing

Lemon Herb Roast Chicken courtesy of my own brilliance

Boring Old Stripped Flank Steak - from me, to go with stir fry.

Standard Bignormous Tossed Salad

Herb and Garlic Salad dressing, again this is my own brain throwing things together

That should get us to Friday evening when we go as a giant dysfunctional family to various grocery stores to stock up for the next two weeks worth of eating!

So tonight is also "Game of Thrones", "Once Upon a Time" and "Spartacus" night....also known as stuff your face with chips while you sit motionless hoping for a completely gratuitous shot of Jon Snow or Jaime Lannister with their clothes off...or at least partially off.  I would list a specific character from Spartacus but honestly that show is so full of delightfully attractive man-candy I can't narrow it down to just one, besides they never wear more than a loin cloth and a sword so I would feel selfish demanding more.  Any way, in a moment of huge awesomeness for me, I have gone ahead and baked two bunches of kale to satisfy my desire for a crunchy treat.  I have a little bit of rosemary, Himalayan salt and balsamic vinegar to sprinkle on them just before I nosh down.  Yeah!  I know.  I love kale chips, I am usually just too lazy to make them.  This is the mark of a new era.

Starting tomorrow I am cutting myself down to 5 hours of television a week.  Which seems harsh but seriously, the only tv I watch is all on one night (tonight, I don't know if you guessed that) so it shouldn't be too hard.  I am also committing to the gym 5 days a week...not just committing, but actually attending which seems to be where I am failing.  So between that and walking the dogs I should be getting enough movement to shed a few pounds over the next little while.

Any way, I have to go and prepare dinner.  I have a lot to do, "winter is coming" at 7pm.