Clean Eating

We are not die-hard about it, in fact, we pretty much forget about any said guidelines every Friday night (movie & treats…c'mon!) but this is the basic diet that we follow in our day to day:

• No refined sweeteners (like refined sugar (marked on ingredients lists just as “sugar”), any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or Splenda)
• No refined grains (unless it says “100% whole” in front of it, chances are it’s a marketing ploy to make you think your eating something healthy when really its just the same ol refined)
• Nothing from a package or box or can that has more than 8ish ingredients (I get veerrrrry wary at 10). And the ingredients must be real things, not unpronounceable chemicals.
• A fruit or vegetable with every meal.
• Fish two or more times a week
• Red meat no more than once a week

And recently I have added to my personal plan, not the kids or Mike’s

• 5 smaller meals instead of 3 regular.

Finding a way to follow this diet has been a difficult and frustrating journey. Its been a matter of finding recipes that work for us (meaning meals that take less than 20 minutes to prepare) to get us all eating our healthy, complete, clean dinner together at the table BEFORE 9pm.
I’m VERY happy with where we are now. Dinner is served at 5:30. Our plates are always full of vegetables, no processed foods, and are usually pretty tasty [just don’t ask Mike…;)]
I’m working on a very long post about our journey to clean eating, I’d love for others who are stuck in the processed food rut to see that it really isn’t that hard to feed your family food that will provide energy, liveliness, and pull you out your rut! And that really, it IS possible to get your toddler to eat that. Been there. I’d love to have a place on this blog that can be a resource for practical family snacks and meals that can classify as “clean” eating or “real foods”. Recipes and ideas that I use everyday (as a person that doesn’t manage time very well) and can’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen!
Well, there are a lot of things I’d love to do, so we’ll see if any of that ever happens! For now, I just want to share my current favorite snack for that 4oclock slump I get in before dinnertime. Its so addicting and yummy! Its not like a healthy super food or anything, but it’s a healthy crunchy alternative to some of the food crutches of this country….like potato chips! 

Just remember….it is not prudent to eat the whole bag at once and then lick the rest of the hummus out with your fingers…just sayin…

             

*tip: measure out the suggested serving size before starting to eat, and then PUT THE REST AWAY. And eat slowly.

1 serving of these chips and hummus is about 200 calories. So make sure to account for that in your other meals. It works though, because these are filling calories :-)

p.s.---I’m not claiming to be a true thru and thru clean eater….We don’t eat all organic. We indulge in treats more often then we should. I will buy products with chemicals in them here and there for whatever random reason (though I really do try not to!)…If you are looking for a better and more hardcore example of clean eating, I would recommend http://www.100daysofrealfood.com …it’s a fantastic blog that has really inspired me and kick started me into the clean eating world. There are wonderful meal plans and a wealth of knowledge when learning all of the secrets to eating clean!

Magic

Right at dusk, in that in-between time as the sun surrenders the sky to the moon, leaving a soft, greyish blue light over the grass and the creek trickling through the backyard, something magical happens here in Austin.

Fireflies!!

Or lightening bugs…name?? When we realized that it wasn’t just some weird play of reflections on our glass door, we stopped the rush of getting kids to bed, cleaning up dinner dishes, and fell in love with our amazing, weedy, no grass, backyard 50 times more than we already were. We sat watching for at least an hour.

Now every evening I leave the blinds open past the time that passers-by can see in our window, to witness God’s magic and beauty yet again.

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lissyl/4609696283/

For Me

I really do want to blog regularly.
But I get so caught up in getting caught up with pictures and cuteness of the kids that just MUST be documented and how-dare-I blog about “whatever” when I HAVEN’T . EVEN . POSTED . THOSE . HALLOWEEN . PICTURES . YET . !?!?!
BUT I have two quotes that keep ringing in my ears:

“DOUBT KILLS MORE DREAMS THAN FAILURE EVER WILL.”

and

“WHERE PERFORMANCE IS MEASURED, PERFORMANCE IMPROVES.”

I need to remember that a blog post doesn’t have to be perfectly worded, formatted, pictures processed to the perfect black and whiteness, DOUBT or fear that I don’t have time to make it PERFECT stop me ALL the time.
AND I think this blog would be a great place for me to talk about how I’m trying to be a better person and all that...
So I’m going to give this a shot, just blogging, for me.
Not blogging to show the world that I have the CUTEST kids ever made (which, ahem, I do…and umm I still will blog that…), and not blogging to declutter my hard drive by deleting pictures that aren’t good enough to make the blog cut, and not blogging to try and help others (I don’t even know how I’d do that anyways…), but just writing because I love to write and because I need to spend some time on me right now.
In general, I’m trying really hard to take more me time. As per my husband’s insistence.
I feel that I have made great progress in life lately. And its an amazing feeling. A big part of this was getting into running.
In the last three months I’ve gone from two extremes-

Who I was:

I hate running so much, but I know its good for me so I’m going to do it, I’m going to get all dressed in fun running clothes with my cool headphones, I’m pumped I’m so ready for this run!! And after running for 5 minutes I lay flat on the ground gasping for my life and I just let all the passersby assume that I just finished running a secret marathon. (I could really only run for about .20 miles)

Who I am now:

On days I don’t run, I’m an irritable Debbie downer. I crave a good run. I run 5k (3.10 miles) every day, no stopping to walk, a steady half hour every single time. Once a week I do an hour run, this usually gets me about 5.5miles. I’ve even gotten to the point that I can have a good chat with a friend while running!

What I’ve Learned

I’ve learned that when things get hard, like, really hard, you just gotta push through and it will get better. Have I been told that my whole life, uh, YEAH, but I thought that everybody was just saying that so that I’d keep trying! But guess what…its true!

At first it was literal – the route I run is slightly uphill for a small part. For a while I would run hard and stop right as I got to the top of the hill, thinking I deserved to rest now since I made it to the top! Makes sense right? Well one day I decided to keep running after I got to the top…wow! It was amazing! I pushed and pushed and made it to the top and then kept going!  And guess what…it got easier!! This simple, silly little hill on the path that runs past my house has taught me so much about life.

“The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.”

The first time I ran the 5k loop without stopping, the accomplishment that I felt and the utter joy and self satisfaction ranks right up there with some of the happiest moments of my life.

And since I can’t bring myself to do a post without pictures, here are some strait from my phone- untouched! Most from Memorial Day weekend, some just from life lately.