Let me just revisit what this whole “tool” thing is about and also get you up to date on what’s going on with Operation Creampuff. A few blogs ago I wrote about Food Demons and promised to share some tools that people (myself included) can use to keep them on the path to a healthy lifestyle and avoid overeating or eating the wrong foods. The first tool I wrote about was Mindful Eating. Mindful eating is about allowing yourself to fully experience both the foods you eat and your body’s reaction to them. Not only taking the time to taste and savor the flavors, textures, colors, etc. but also thinking about your hunger and fullness cues and how your body feels when you eat certain foods. Eating mindfully helps with portion control as well as making you think differently about food. Food is not just sustenance and food is not a refuge. Food is awesome, but not if we are using to deal with some other more pressing issue in our lives. Mindful eating makes you a more creative, more thoughtful and more discerning eater, if you do it right.
Read
more about Mindful Eating on Blog #11 and the associated article.
Bringing you up to speed
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| Joe Cross & Phil Burrows |
Now we are focusing on
shedding body fat, shaping, toning, building muscle, and eating foods that
support what we are trying to do with our bodies as well as with our lives. We
are settling in well to our much more restrictive diet where we have severely
lessened our meat, dairy, grains, starches and alcohol intake and we have cut
out our processed food intake altogether. We have learned that there is a
plentitude of things we can still eat and interesting things you can do with
just fruits and vegetables. As an added benefit we are also spending A LOT less
money on food. Packaged and processed foods are a lot more expensive than
buying things in their natural state, as you pay for the added convenience of
someone else doing the work for you. You pay with your wallet and your health.
In terms of exercise, we have taken on a very intense
workout regimen and have really gotten into the whole fitness and weightlifting
world. We work out 6 days a week for at least an hour each time. We do a lot of
crossfit-type workouts, we do sprint interval training, and we have also
significantly increased the amount of weight we lift, especially me. I’m loving
seeing how I strong I can be and loving seeing the definition forming in my
arms, back and abs. Getting into the idea of getting ripped and not just
getting skinny, healthy, and in shape (yes, I used the term “ripped”, I’m one
of THOSE people now). Really getting excited about taking this whole thing to
the next level and starting to help more people get into this lifestyle.
Use the tools!
OK on to the next tool! I call this one, "Cooking Your Own
Crap" (LOL, what can I say, I like a good catchphrase just as much as the next
person). This tool is exactly what it says. Let’s be real, there are gonna be
some days when you want cookies, cake, pizza, ice cream (AKA crap). My advice?
Have some! But make it yourself. Here
are the reasons I think this is a better option.
- One, making it yourself requires you to go through the sometimes painstaking baking/cooking/preparing process. It gives you an opportunity to think about how much you really want whatever treat you’re craving. If you want it all that badly, you’ll do the work to make it happen. If not, then problem solved (because of course don’t keep any of that bad stuff in your house , right?)!
- Two, if you cook it yourself you have some control over the ingredients and can ensure that there aren’t strange additives, preservatives, coloring, etc. that are not good for you in the mix. You can take this opportunity to use whole wheat flour or a wheat alternative like amaranth instead of white, bleached, processed flour. You can use raw sugar or agave instead of white, bleached, processed sugar. You can use coconut oil or ghee instead of vegetable oil, shortening , or butter. Good stuff, right?!
- Perhaps the best reason to cook your crap yourself is that you can control the portions. If you bake something from scratch you are generally working with a recipe that yields something like 4 servings rather than a bag that likely yields 20 servings. When you cook your own food hopefully the likelihood of you sitting down and eating all 12 cookies you just baked is less than the likelihood of sitting down and eating that entire bag of Chips Ahoy. Especially after you’ve done all that work to create them.
- Also, food cooked this way I find to be more filling as it is not the same empty calories as what you buy off the shelf, there are some actual real ingredients in there. And you’ll be so proud of yourself you’ll want to share them anyway and make sure everyone knows you are WAY healthier eater then that are!
Thanks!!! (and stay tuned…)
Along this path we have encountered so many people with so
many different outlooks. Some have been downright negative and ugly while
others have been overly anxious to do whatever we did to lose all this weight
without fully understanding the sacrifice and commitment involved. But we’ve
mainly met a ton of people that just really need some help in getting healthy
and getting active, just like we did. This blog and this journey has turned
into a platform for us to be able to help other people like ourselves, who are
ready to make real change in their lives. We are very excited about everything
we have in the pipeline. New ideas, projects, STUFF! We can’t wait to share it
all with our awesome readers! Till then, keep that positive energy and great
contributions coming! By the way our new new facebook page is up please click on this Go H.E.a.T.!!! and click "like".
Go Team Mendoza!!!
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