not exactly meeting this challenge

on friday, the newest 60-day challenge at xtend barre officially kicked off.

much like last year, this involves committing to not just a level of fitness (3, 4, or 5 barre classes per week) and diet (ranging from cutting out processed foods to dropping sugar + coffee + dairy - way hard core), but also a point system that tracks things like sleep, journaling, uplifting reading (smut doesn't count, d-oh), meditating, drinking water, calories, and a few others.  you subtract points if you break any of the rules, and then you're supposed to report your progress once a week.

i haven't even started keeping track of these things.  not only that, but i haven't made any changes in my eating whatsoever.  i had a half marathon to get ready for and i just didn't get 'er done.  i better get to it while those days are still fresh in my mind.  the whole thing relies on the honor system, but i'll be as truthful as i can with what i can remember.

this means that i probably shouldn't have made that trip to my local japanese supermarket in an effort to find more of those delicious j-snacks i got in my skoshbox.  except that i did.  and i've been doing my best to mow through most of it so that it's all gone and out of the house, joey tribbiani-style.

the old lady came with me, which probably made it even worse because we were both hungry at the time and scampered through the aisles, happily tossing things into the cart with reckless abandon.  the soft drink aisle was probably the worst one for us to visit, because we picked out items all helter-skelter as they caught our attention.  it was kind of crazy...like the description on this sign:

sooooo, i had to try it.  right?

i surmised from this picture that i was supposed to shake it before drinking.  heh.

verdict:  it was like drinking diluted grape-flavored jello.  not great, not terrible, just...eh.  on to the next!

this one was pretty self-explanatory.

it was extra fizzy and not super sweet like most american sodas.  although i found this warning most amusing:

i mean...what the hell were people doing that resulted in them printing that on the bottle?  sheesh.

when i was younger, i was addicted to these canned iced coffee drinks that i'd pick up at any asian market.  i figured this one had to be just as good, right?

it was, by the way.  and next to it was this orange cream flavored soda:

but i took one sip of it and handed it right over to the old lady.  it tasted exactly like cactus cooler (or st. joseph's orange-flavored baby aspirin, which is not a good thing), and since she likes that stuff i figured it'd be better off in her hands than in the trash.  ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

i was really excited to find a shelf full of those corn puff sticks that i'd liked so much, except that i found that the yakitori flavor was nowhere to be found.  i settled for a package of teriyaki and another flavor called "ebimayo," which google tells me is an appetizer made of shrimp and some sort of  mayonnaise-based concoction.

and while i wasn't 100% successful in finding more of those cute little panda face cookies, i did find similar ones made by the same company.  these are just as tasty, and even more adorable.

this box of caramel latte-flavored pocky didn't last long.  in fact, i gobbled them up so quickly and got rid of the evidence that i didn't take my own picture of it.  this is straight from google images.  needless to say, if you come across it, pick some up pronto.  and maybe send me some.  haha!

i don't know what possessed me to try these.  the little sign in front of them on the shelf said they were chewy soda- and grape-flavored candy.  i shared these with the bean, who thought they were fun to play with but not necessarily to eat.

while i hadn't necessarily been successful with all of the snacks and drinks we picked up, it was tons of fun trying it all.  and it sure is a good thing that market isn't really easily accessible for me, because  there are so many other snacks to try that we didn't even get to examine very closely.

i guess we'll just have to wait for our next skoshbox instead.  i'm totally not being good about this diet challenge this year, am i?  and i'm not even sorry.  pwah!!

hips don't lie

okay, so i had my post-challenge stats done last week.  i guess i hadn't even really looked very closely at the numbers last time, and i'm thinking that at the very least, the waist and hip measurements were taken from different spots.  because, i mean...yeah, i feel a difference in how my clothes fit and stuff, but there's just no way this is totally accurate:

see what i mean?  i just can't believe that i lost SEVEN inches from my waist.  and another five from my hips?  oh, and of course the chest area went down too.  of course.  however, i'm happy to see my BMI go down a bit, as well as my body fat percentage.  and look!  my body age actually matches my real age now!

while i went a little nuts with the easter candy on sunday, and might have indulged in some movie treats with the bean yesterday, i'm going to get myself back on track with the food.  i don't want to fall back into the old junk food trap, but i'm also not going to deny myself a treat now and then.  keeping processed foods out of the house was a good thing, and one that i hope i can continue to do from here on out.

i'm gonna call this a successful 60 days.

i survived!

first off - a very, very happy birthday to my wonderful husband.  he's an old man now, and i love him so.

anyway, today marks the end of the 60-day challenge.  to be honest, it went by a lot faster than i expected, and i'm pretty happy with how things turned out.  i haven't been weighed or measured yet, and according to my scale at home, i didn't lose a whole lot of weight.  actually, i lost very little in the way of poundage.  but from the way my clothes are fitting, it seems like i may have lost some inches here and there.

not to mention, i got to learn a lot about ways to make food that's tasty and still healthier than how we were eating before.  i've been subbing in whole wheat and brown rice and ground turkey, and trying to avoid things cooked in oil and that kind of thing.  we've been eating a lot more fish and chicken and not nearly as much red meat as we used to.  although i'm going to guess that my lack of weight loss is probably due to the amount of sugar i was still taking in via the fruit & veggie smoothies.  while it's slightly better in that it's natural sugar, it's still sugar nonetheless.  but you know me - there was no way i was going to be able to drop sugar completely.  you wouldn't recognize me, and i would be super miserable.  nobody wants that.

and, confession:  towards the end, i was allowing myself at least one cheat meal a week.  like this:

now, i still tried to make better choices - i was ordering my burger protein-style (wrapped in lettuce, no bun) and without the delicious thousand island-ish spread that makes an in-n-out burger an in-n-out burger.  i'd allow myself just a few fries, and i'd wash it all down with plain old water.

but also, there was this:

i'm slowly reintroducing caffeine back into my diet, but i'm really trying to keep it to an occasional treat vs. the daily starbucks run i was doing before.  and i'm hoping that limiting it like that will keep my body from going back to relying on it to function.

there was even that one time when i went all out, like this:

and after that 5K i ran, my recover drink was one of these:

and when it was super duper extra stupid sticky hot, i made this for the bean and had a bit of it myself.

all in all, though, i think i did a fairly good job of sticking to the challenge guidelines for the level i'd chosen to commit to.  yeah, i definitely cheated here and there, but i got through most of the challenge period without cracking.  and i always said i didn't want to give myself food guilt - so i refused to let myself feel bad for bending the rules.  i'm still going to avoid processed foods as often as i can, which is good for me and the rest of the house.  and those fruit & veggie smoothies will stay in the rotation, along with a lot of the scratch cooking i went back to doing over the last two months.

yay for getting through it without turning into a gigantic cranky bitch!

giving dinner a helping hand

i'm in the 6th week of the 60-day challenge, and while i still get crazy cravings for starbucks and french fries like mad, eating clean-ish is starting to feel fairly easy and very do-able for me.  pinterest is still my main source of finding recipes to try, and i'm finding that there are lots of things that i can recreate using healthier ingredients.

back when i was young and broke as hell, i lived on all sorts of processed foods that are super tasty but seriously bad for you.  you know, like blue box mac & cheese, ramen that you could buy 6 for a buck, hamburger helper.  so when i found a recipe for "unprocessed hamburger helper," you know i had to give it a shot.

trader joe's carries brown rice pasta, which i've discovered is pretty damn good and not much different from pasta made with regular flour.

once i got my ground beef cooked and drained, i mixed it up with all of the other spices and ingredients.  the uncooked pasta was stirred in and then set to simmer for about 15 minutes.  looks kinda like dog food, right?  that means it really IS like hamburger helper!

even plated, it didn't look any prettier.  but the bean took one look and said "YUM!  did you make beefaroni, mom??"  heh.

i'm happy to report that it was just as tasty as the stuff you can get in the box, and the bean loved it so much she ate two bowls and took the leftovers in a thermos for lunch the next day.  awesome.

oh!  also, i finally got to sign the "100 barre" at xtend.  although to be honest, i'm actually closer to 200 classes at this point.

and i got the 100 classes shirt, too - i'm finally part of the cool kids club!

there's about two and a half weeks left in the challenge, and then it'll be weighing and measuring time again.  i've snuck a peek on the scale now and then, and while i'm not really seeing the number go down a whole lot, i'm feeling pretty good about how my clothes are fitting these days.  or not fitting, as the case may be.  there's a yay!/boo. for ya, huh?

we don't want your stinking lowfat crap

so remember last week, when i tried that recipe for homemade gnocchi for the first time?  i did say that i wanted to try a different version of it, and being low on ideas for dinner this week, i decided to go for it.  besides, it sounded really good and i was feeling pretty confident about this one.  instead of potatoes, this gnocchi had a base of ricotta cheese.  and none of that lowfat/nonfat nonsense - we're talking whole milk ricotta here.  the lineup:

i love trader joe's so much.  they're so reliable for carrying ingredients perfect for a clean eating plan. so many of their products are all natural with no preservatives or bad stuff.  like that ricotta - when i took the outer lid off of the container, i found this:

the dough came together really easily, although i did have to add extra flour before i could start working with it as it was super sticky.  but i kept at it, rolling and cutting, and before long i had a whole army of gnocchi.

into the pot they went, and after a few minutes in their boiling, salted bath they came floating up to the surface to tell me they were all done.

i'd decided to serve it up a little differently from that particular recipe, choosing instead to go for the gold with a rich, delicious cheese sauce to make gnocchi mac & cheese.  it was a pretty basic recipe, and in no time it came together in the pan and went into the oven.  i served it with our favorite warm brussels sprout salad and some grilled pork chops.

it is SO good.  it was even a bigger hit than that lovely tomato broth we ate last week, and i highly encourage you to give it a shot if you get the chance.

one more thing - i also tried out a super easy recipe for clean eating chocolate chip cookies.  no flour, mixed up in just one bowl, and only five ingredients - almond butter, an egg, a little baking soda, some brown sugar, and these:

while it seems crazy for ME to be buying and using stuff like this for my own family, it actually isn't so much.  when i read the list of ingredients of a regular bag of dark chocolate chips, it read like this - dark chocolate, nonfat milk, soy lecithin, natural flavors.  but these contain just unsweetened chocolate and cane sugar.  and since i'm all about "less is more" when it comes to ingredients these days, these were perfect.  not to mention, they cost the same as the bag of nestlé chips anyway.  no brainer.

without any flour to kind of "dry" out the dough, it looked a little greasy when it was all mixed up.

the recipe warns of this, though, and promises that it comes out perfectly when all is said and done.  and it didn't lie, because look:

the bean was the first to try them out, and she gave me a giant smile and a big thumbs-up with her first bite.  they're really good, and this recipe is definitely another keeper.

the way things are going, it's going to be really easy to keep up this whole clean eating lifestyle even after the challenge is over.  the wan family is going to be healthy!  hell yeah!

one trick pony

that would be me.  food posts all the time, it seems.  although i suppose it's kind of a throwback to a few years ago, during operation downsize.  and as i typed that, i cracked up because that's totally applicable now too...only in a whole different way.  seriously, i'm just so funny sometimes.  but look - last week, i managed to get my ass to barre class FIVE times!

not to mention, the jeans i bought just a couple of months ago are getting pretty loose.  that's quite a yay!/boo., wouldn't you say?

when this recipe for clean muesli bars popped up on my facebook feed, i knew i had to try it.  i mean, part of the post title said "fruit-free."  hell-O.  right up my alley.  and because my kitchen is just full of healthy stuff these days, i had just about all of the ingredients on hand - except for the coconut, because ew, and cardamom, because why?  heh.

the mixture came together easily and baked in my oven in just under half an hour.  the bars sliced nicely and had a great texture, too.  looked just like the recipe photos:

except that when i sampled one, i was...underwhelmed.  it was nice and chewy, kind of like those boxed granola bars that are actually really not very good for you but are super tasty.  but in this case, these are really nutritious and healthy but lack flavor.  it was just like eating a handful of plain nuts and seeds.  i think i'm going to have to experiment with drizzling honey or something on top of them. bummer.

luckily, the other recipes i've tried this week have been winners.  i hopped back onto the quinoa train with a yummy-sounding casserole recipe that involved making another cream of something soup substitute, plus some lovely broccoli and baked chicken.  this was a hit all around:

every other week, my girl scout co-leaders and i meet up to discuss what we're going to do at our next meeting with the girls.  last time, due to sitter issues we thought we'd just include the kids and take them to corner bakery for a kid-friendly dinner.  while it was fun, it was a little more challenging to focus on business and still keep an eye on the kids at the same time.  so this time, with sitter issues again, we decided to do it at the church where we have our usual meetings.  the room we use has plenty of toys and has a connecting door to the nursery, and we knew the girls would be safe and occupied and happy while we had a little quiet-ish time to talk shop.  since the timing was such that it wouldn't get us home before dinner, i decided to make a little happy meal for the bean to munch on.

at school, one of her favorite hot lunch offerings is the chicken burger.  so i'd picked up some ground chicken and put together some little mini sliders to serve in hawaiian rolls.  and because she loves ranch so much, i used this recipe to create my own mix that can be used as seasoning or mixed with some greek yogurt for dressing or dip.

i'm sad to report, however, that my old baby food maker (aka mini food processor) may be out of commission as a result.  after i'd given the spices a whirl in it and poured them into my mason jar, i noticed a pretty sizable crack in the bowl:

i was so bummed.  i pulled up the company's website to see if i could order a replacement, but really only had time to glance quickly to make sure the baby food maker was even still available (it is).  i'll have to investigate it further later.

after the gnocchi experiment last week, i had one lone russet potato sitting on the counter waiting for its turn in the spotlight.  and since a happy meal isn't complete without fries, that time was now.  i peeled and chopped that bad boy up into fry-like shapes, sprayed a little coconut oil on them and popped the pan into the oven.  40 minutes later, we had fries:

lastly, the slider patties went onto my trusty foreman grill, and about six minutes later i had these:

i found a container that was just the right size, and so here's what i served to the bean when we got to the meeting:

she loved it and ate every bite.  as someone said on my facebook page, all i was missing was a toy (she didn't notice this, lucky for me).  although her sister provided that when we got home, with some surprises from the disney store.  haha, yay!

cleaning it up

the more recipes i come across that are super delicious, the easier i'm finding it to eat "clean."  or, at least, "clean-ish."  and if a meal can be done in the crock pot, even better.  like this lemon garlic chicken we tried last week which i served with some sautéed asparagus and mushroom quinoa:

i know, i know - i said i didn't like quinoa before.  and i really didn't, that time.  but it actually turned out pretty delicious, and i was able to work through the texture issues i had the first time i tried the stuff.  i'm gonna say that adding two of my favorite veggies to it helped a lot.  in any case, it was a hit and it'll go into the rotation for future meals.

my next experiment found me breaking out the yeast again, for the first time in a long time.

i followed this recipe for whole wheat pizza dough, and although i had my doubts as i mixed it up, it turned out pretty well.  i threw together the ingredients for a quick pizza sauce, and with the bean supervising, i got to work.

MIL and i shared this one, topped with uncured canadian bacon, mushrooms and asparagus.  the bean enjoyed her own pizza with slices of prosciutto on top.  i served it up with a warm brussels sprouts salad with uncured bacon, and everyone was happy.

with a package of ground turkey just chilling in the fridge, i decided to tackle a recipe for mozzarella-stuffed meatballs.  these came together pretty easily, which was good considering i didn't even start cooking till our usual dinnertime.

i made one change while following the recipe - instead of frying them in a pan, i baked them at 350 for about 25 minutes.  while they were baking, i boiled some water and cooked up a bag of brown rice fusilli and warmed up a jar of organic marinara sauce from trader joe's.  after assembling a bowl of warm, tomatoey goodness, i cut into the first meatball and it was absolutely perfect.

so you're well aware of how much we all love tater tot casserole around here.  except that the main ingredient - cream of mushroom soup - is definitely a big fat NO for this challenge.  i knew that others had done it with a homemade substitution, though, and so after finding an easy recipe, i decided to give it a shot.  as i made the cream, the teen worked on browning another package of ground turkey.  we mixed it all together, topped with some cheddar, peeled and shredded a russet potato for the top, and voila:

still looks like dog food no matter what you do with it, huh?  i don't care.  it was really good!  the bean loved it, and didn't even notice a difference.  while it's still not the healthiest thing in the world, it's not loaded with processed crap and frozen potatoes.  i'm gonna call this one a win.

now, i wouldn't be me if i didn't try a new recipe for a treat.  and when someone posted this recipe for homemade nut butter cups (heh heh, nut butter.  never stops being amusing), i knew i had to try it.  reese's are the teen's most favorite thing in the world, and i wanted to surprise her with something i made with her in mind.

it was pretty easy to make, and i used a mix of cashews and peanuts for the butter.  i'm really starting to like making this stuff, and that cashew butter i made last week is all but gone.  mixed with some raw honey, coconut oil and vanilla extract, it went into a mini muffin tin and then to the freezer to solidify. i wanted the cups to have chocolate on both the bottom and tops, so after about an hour or so, i popped them out to do just that.

this was kind of a bitch.  next time, i'm going to use mini paper liners and save the pan from getting even more scratched up.  but i didn't have any, and so i just worked on pouring some of the chocolate mixture into the bottoms of the cups, replacing the nutty layers, and topping them with more chocolate.  

since i had to use a butter knife to pry them all out when they were done, they all have little dents on one edge.  so while they aren't exactly pretty, i can tell you that they sure are tasty.

despite her disdain for the taste of coconut, the teen gave these two thumbs up.  i'm calling that a big win.