Green stuff

Green stuff
Originally uploaded by biowhalen

The Sweet Potato Recipe!!!

My apologies to my dear friend Dave - Here is the recipe for the "Chipotle smashed sweet potatoes"!! Also if you want to see Alton Brown, the ever-so-knowledgeable chef walk through the recipe there is a video clip of him here. I should add that I've made this twice and the pepper is seriously Caliente!! I like medium salsa - definately not the type to down a single habanero, but a little heat to my food is nice. I just don't like when the heat is so bad I can feel liquid pouring out of my eyes and nose because of it! Anyway, point is, I would try just half a pepper the first time and dice it up really well. Also, the sauce is pretty hot too so be gentle with that. You can always add more later if you like. Sweet potatoes are a great super food, and this is a pretty easy recipe. Oh, and it was somewhat dificult finding canned chipotles the first time - I picked them up at Whole Foods finally, but I think I have seen them at Wegmans since then.

As far as the picture of my green juice, well...I was running short on green leafy stuff as I was juicing this morning, so I put in a head of Radicchio (Dont ask why I had a head of radicchio) - 1. it turned the juice beet red 2. It turned the juice into the most bitter sludge I ever tasted. I choked down half a glass and ran out the door to get to work! Next time I think Ill just dump in some grass clippings from outside, it will probably tast better!

A New Approach - Raw Food

The "wrestlers" diet (basically not eating anything but a few rice cakes and water), The bodybuilders diet (LOTS of protein and LOTS of supplements), "Body for Life", "The South Beach Diet", "The Atkins Diet" and "You: on a diet" - I've tried all of these programs for varying amounts of time. I was very healthy growing up. I was active all the time and I ate a lot of healthy home-cooked meals. However my metabolism was that of a hummingbird on ritalin and I could afford to burn all the junk with the incendiary power of the sun. Now, however, I feel a little bit more like the comedian Kevin James, who states , "Its bad when you feel like you need to take a nap in the middle of eating your Big Mac".

So on to week, uhh , week 5? week 5! Holy crap, I better start actually losing some weight!!! I am attempting a type of diet I never thought I would even consider. Basically it is based on eating all raw foods (No not like Kevin Costner chomping on that Buffalo heart in "Dances with Wolves"). I started reading about the trend in Leo Babauta's excellent blog ZenHabits. That led to me reading The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. Its a radical change but one that I am committing to try for the remainder of this contest, at a minimum. To simplify the approach:

1. LOTS of fruits and vegetables

2. Cooked foods are allowed (meat is refferred to as FLESH in the book - YUM!!!) but are recommended to be limited to dinner time if possible.

3. Start the day with "Green Lemonade" - juice 1 head romaine, 5-6 stalks Kale, 1 Lemon and 1-2 apples. (Ill post a picture tomorrow)

4. Eat in groups that digest well together - Starches, Fresh Fruits, Nuts/Seeds/Dried Fruits and Fleshes.

5. Wine and Dark Chocolate are allowed!!!! (Yipee!!!)

The main idea in discerning what foods are allowed is how Natural they are - meaning, its better to eat an entire Avocado than eat a power bar - it is more recognizable to your body and thus is digested in a more efficient manner. When things are not digested well, they literally leave waste behind, polluting every cell in your body. This idea, enough to probably make many of my loyal readers turn tail and run screaming, as I know it sounds a bit like an invitation to come drink the blue Kool-Aid (Scratch that, organic blueberry juice!), is actually what peaked my interest. How much processed junk have I eaten that was literally engineered to taste good? What is that doing to my body? Doesn't it make sense to eat the most wholesome foods possible to become healthier? Now while I'm on this point I should add that the Ms. Rose actually states that the following foods are "Guaranteed to squash weight loss attempts and cause premature aging/cellular degeneration":

Fat free yogurt

Weight loss bars

Packaged Cold Cuts

All manufactured low-carb weight loss items

Crystal light

All diet sodas

ALL Milk

Sugar fee Jell-O and frozen desserts

"Light" white bread

Now Im sure many of you have experienced success with yogurt, crystal light or something else on the list - I know I have in the past. Regardless, it still kept me thinking about what these things might be doing on a cellular level (remember, I'm a biology teacher!). So I decided to dive in head-first and give it a shot. No meat except for fish a few times a week, lots of fruits and veggies and salads.

Now in addition to taking this on I also made to ludicrous decision to give up coffee!! When I think about my cup of coffee in the morning it makes waking up just worth it - especially on a laid back weekend morning. My standard cup of coffee however resembles an order placed by the beastie boys - "I like my sugar with coffee and cream!" I generally buy 1-2 large containers of Coffee Mate flavored creamers and fill up a 24 oz cup about 1/5 of the way with it for each cup I drink. And I generally have at least 2 24 ouncers a morning. I figured it out one summer to be about 350 calories a day just from the creamer. Thats in addition to the rampant addiction to caffeine that I have. So last Tuesday I said "Goodbye cup of joe, hello cup of green goop!" The first couple days were difficult but the psychologists assured me that my students should make a full recovery within 6 months. At this point, no more headaches and I actually look forward to my green juice right now!

Of course I had my cousin's daughters christening this past weekend and there was a LARGE very tasty sheet cake there. Thus my 3 pound gain this week. Oh well, salmon for dinner tonight and green juice in the morning.

For those of you in the contest, have you quit mentally? Are you getting lethargic about having to be so vigilent about what you eat? Change it up - look online for a new recipe or get outside and enjoy some fresh air. Its not easy but it is worth it. Remember - "YOU CAN DO IT!"

Week 3 - Fading...Rationalizing...Getting back on the horse!

Cake
Originally uploaded by biowhalen

Ok so I took a bit of a hiatus from the writing.....and the dieting to a certain degree. But I am back (writing at least!). I am a teacher, as most of you are well aware, and I despise excuses. Some of my favorites:

"My printer ran out of ink!" Apparently there is a magical ink goblin that steals all students ink the night before a paper is due.

"You didn't tell us we had homework!!" Maybe it would help if I stamped it on your forehead every day?? (Actually, probably wouldn't do any good...)

"I can't find it right now I know I did it!" (as the student thinks they are fooling me and then tries to scribble on a piece of paper the previous nights homework, in an attempt to give it in on time - which of course brings up one of my favorite dilemmas of each day - Do I embarass the student in front of the class or in private?

And people wonder why teachers seem grouchy all the time....Well anyway, excuses are no good. They don't work. They are ridiculous. They are a shameful attempt at squirming out of self responsibility.

WHATEVER- I didnt lose weight, and its not my fault!!!!!!!!!!! Anybody else think weighing in on monday is a bad idea? How about that 2 weeks out of these past three we have had a binge-inducing football game the day before???? And the middle weekend was my birthday! You can't have a birthday without birthday cake (or 3 in my case - thanks to my students for the cake pictured above!) That is some serious temptation!!! Thats not just facing the fires of hell thats having satan clubbing you over the head and dragging you there!

If you want to picture your beloved author spewing this, just picture a 5 year old little boy who hasn't taken a nap and is kicking and screaming in the toy aisle after finding out it's time to go home and he can only pick 1 small toy. Then multiply that by 10 and make the boy 6 times older.

I am officially admitting I am addicted to food. I love food. And not healthy food either. The other day I went home and actually told myself I needed anything with melted cheese on it. I proceeded to make Ritz cracker "nachos" with some leftover shredded chedder. Really its pretty crazy. I wish they could insert a camera into my brain and do a reality TV show called "The psycho-food man: you never know when or where he will end up eating!!!" The other day I was at a wrestling match and I was repeating to myself in my head, like a meditative mantra, "I will just get a piece of fruit to tide me over. I will only get fruit. Food is a temporary source of pleasure." I think I stopped saying it after my second trip to the snack bar for a slice of pizza and a twix bar. Sure it was temporary but damn it tasted good!

Ahh, such is life. The most beautiful part about it is that the sun rises the next day with a world waiting with new opportunities. I'm back today and I'm working on staying healthy.

Theres no more football. No more birthdays. Phil saw his shadow the other day so we have more winter to look forward to - that means that soon after this contest is over Spring will be here - lets all make some progress by then. NO EXCUSES!!

Day 9 - Weigh in 2!

Somewhere in between ordering the pizza and then tacking on cheesy breadsticks AND buffalo wings I thought, "I'm gonna be the only person to GAIN weight this week!!". I gave in to a wave of enthusiasm for what was to be a glorious day of professional football (lets not go there I already have to go to confession for the words that came out of my mouth). As Dana Carvey said in a recent stand-up routiune, I got a case of the "screw-its" (fill in your own choice word as you please...) - "Hey you have to weigh in on tuesday - oh screw it I want melted cheese!!!" or "You're trying to LOSE weight, remember? oh screw it beer is tasty especially washing down buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing!!" "Hey you, yeah the one balancing your beer bottle on your GUT - what the hell are you doing?! oh screw it this team stinks and I need to console myself with food....." Most of us have been there - drowning our sorrows in a wasteland of high fat, high sugar quick and easy deliciousness...and it makes you feel like you "fell of the wagon"

BUT

I still managed to lose 4 pounds this week!!! So there Pizza Hut (and you too you lousy Eagles for MAKING me eat!!!). Maybe this week if I stick to my diet plan I can lose 8 pounds!!!

This is one of the major obstacles to any "diet" - I put it in quotes because a diet by definition is generally a quick fix - a temporary solution to a problem with your eating patterns. If your evening is generally spent in front of the TV scarfing down ice cream and on your diet you try to change to eating small amounts of fat free yogurt, you will probably break and eat a gallon of Breyers (did I mention I did that already too?). The problem isn't so much the ice cream as it is the "trigger" of watching TV. Change your behavior and you are less likely to enage in the eating!!

Obviously this is very difficult. It involves a changing of lifestyle - going against many very well established social norms (American social norms that is). We are basically expected to gorge, to indulge - its not just that it's available, it's practically pushed down our throats! (no pun intended...). Look around on your drive home today and see how many unhealthy options there are around - and I don't mean just fast food joints - I mean chain restaurants, conveniance stores, STARBUCKS (I love it but its basically ice cream in a coffee cup). We live in a culture of consumption and that makes it extremely difficult to stay thin. Its no coincidence that most of us in this competition had problems over the weekend during the Futbol Americano game!! (or other social activities - poker games for example...)

So a challenge to all you in cyber space who so graciously read this - What is your "culture"? (No not like in that elementary school project where you brought in "irish" potatoes...) What activities do you do that revolve around food? Do you have any activities that revolve around being active? Can you start to? How does your culture or your attachment to certain types of food dictate your lifestyle? How attached are you to the American culture of Consumerism (think not only about food but your attachment to "stuff"). One of my favorite quotes from the movie Fight Club is when Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) says, "The things you own end up owning you."

A last minute tip - try not to "outlaw" any foods - its unrealistic. Instead, use a small amount of certain foods as a reward for eating healthier or being active. Unless of course it is the deadly oreo or an entenmanns pop-em....in that case run screaming in the other direction!

Day 3 - Update

Hey all -

I hope everybody is experiencing some small successes in their lifestyle change. Remember that if this is to change for good and for real that it will take a long time, that you WILL have setbacks and that is OK!!!! Just look at every new action you are taking, every urge you are resisting as POSITIVE PROGRESS - you will get there!

For anybody out there who is reading this and actually following me - thanks - a lot. I'm glad if I can provide any type of support or humor to you. I got a message from an old high school friend this morning who I wrestled with - Last person I expected to thank me for writing this to be honest - but it was AWESOME to hear from him and to get positive feedback on my efforts here - So if you enjoy reading, leave a comment or email me directly - I'd love to hear what you think!

First, an update on me personally:

Last night I hung out with my son and my brother - as I cooked a scrumptious little meal of chicken fingers and tater tots for my little man (is there any kid out there who does NOT like this combo?), I began cooking my "healthy" meal. I found a really cool, easy, and different recipe for sweet potatoes. They are better for you than white potatoes and I love them (so I naturally bought a CRATE of them at Costco!). Instead of the regular brown sugar, marshmellow and butter topping - this one involved mashing the sweet potatoes with a small amount of unsalted butter and a chopped Chipotle Pepper (basically a medium sized jalapeno that is smoked and soaked in Adobo sauce - very tasty but hot!) - I put some low fat sour cream on top to cool it off a bit but the flavor was INCREDIBLE and a nice change of pace - I'll post the recipe later. I also made chicken marsala - not the most healthy of dishes but not horrible - I cut out some of the butter to make it a little lighter. I've always wanted to try making marsala as I've only recently developed a taste for mushrooms - Another good flavorful dish that might need some tweaking in the future but I was pretty happy for a first try. (I know some of you might also think its a strange combo - it is - I would do the sweet potatoes in the future with a more mexican type chicken, or a pork dish and I would do the marsala with some whole wheat pasta or long grain rice)

Now - Dessert - I had gone to Whole Foods to pick up a few things and wanted to get Connor, my son a little treat. They have an awesome bakery there and I saw these chocolate chip sandich cookies that looked amazing. They really didn't look very big in the case so I got him two. Well - I took it out of the fridge for him and one felt like a 5 pound weight in my hand!! He only ate half of 1!!!!! So I naturally did what all people on a diet staring at a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with buttercream frosting inside would do - I saved them for Connor for another day........

Well I did that for the first 2 minutes, then I ate both of them!!! Sorry Con - next time Ill only buy 1 and you can have it all!!!!!

Well - if I have time tonight Ill be posting something about Sub-goal number 2 - EXERCISE - remember - balance and baby steps - try to make a small goal for this week to get even 15 minutes of exercise in each day that you didn't do before. For me, I'm heading to wrestling practice where I am trying to work out just a little bit more than I have been. Good luck to all and stay strong!!!

Day 2 - Goals and Sub goals

Well, I never got around to the "routine" portion of my post yesterday. Routines and habits are a huge part of a lifestyle change - and the biggest obstacle to acheiving success. Do too much at first and you are doomed to fail. Do too little and you may not see enough results to want to continue. Its all about BALANCE and Baby Steps!!!



We all have one overarching goal in this little contest - LOSE WEIGHT - however - the hope is of course that it is more than a temporary loss, that there is a change to our lifestyle.



I'm currently reading an excellent book by popular blogger Leo Babatua entitled, "The Power of Less - the fine art of limiting yourself to the essential...in business and in life". It has a very good method for goal setting and acheiving those goals. It involves narrowing your focus to what is essential and, basically, attainable. For me personally if I said, "I'm going to lose 35 pounds, run every day and eat three healthy meals every day for the next 10 weeks" I would be doomed. I'd crack somewhere around the Eagles game on Sunday, if not beforehand, and justify eating an entire bag of potato chips with an entire container of onion dip, as an APPETIZER to my 5 or so slices of pizza .....downed by numerous beverages of high caloric content!!!!


So - What are my goals? Lose Weight. What are my sub-goals? 1. Eat healthier 2. Exercise more 3. Get more sleep/wake earlier 4. Organize my home kitchen/bedroom closet better 5. Organize my work/school papers etc better. 6. Limit my media consumption (i.e. Television, internet, etc)


Now - thats a lot of sub-goals - and I can probably list NUMEROUS sub-sub goals for each sub-goal (maybe even sub-sub-sub goals?) - anyhow - The first 2 are obvious - eat healthy, exercise, you lose weight (In general...). The rest may seem vague but are things I think play a very important role in adapting a healthier lifestyle. For now I will just deal with sub-goal one, since that is what I'm putting my efforts into this week - tune in to later posts for the other sub-goal analysis (riveting stuff isn't it?!)




As we have well established - I've got a problem with portion control (its actually not my fault its just the American way!!). So through my ups and downs I have managed to stretch my stomach now and then (anybody remember the first victim in the movie Se7en?) To cut to the chase - I find it damn near impossible to go from eating pork roll egg and cheese sandwiches, pizza, cookies and candy galore to ....Carrot sticks and lettuce. It just doesn't fill me up at the beginning - so my only goal for the first week of a diet is to make sure whatever I choose to eat, that it is healthy. Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains. If I am hungry I eat because that whole mind over matter thing does not work when your blood sugar is plummetting. I don't overdo it to the point of Thanksgiving evening where the button on my pants is liable to pop off and kill somebody, but I don't force myself to avoid food - it gets too mental and too hard. So if you are out there starving yourself on day 3 only - eat something - just make it a banana instead of a twinkie!





Quick story about "portion control" from dinner last night. I got a quick easy recipe for broiled salmon from one of my cookbooks (will post later) - got home from practice, marinated the fish, hopped in the shower and was really looking forward to a nice relaxing dinner. Broiled the fish and was just getting ready to put it on the plate - slip!!..........HALF of the fish fell in slow motion off the spatula - it never even got to hit the ground - this scolding hot delectable piece of salmon was caught mid-air by my garbage disposal of a canine - my dog, Midge. I wasn't about to make any more - so thanks Midge for "helping" with the portion control!

Stay strong everybody!!!

Day 1 - Triggers and routines

Last night I began the "lifestyle change" in which I am hoping to lose significant amounts of weight. My wrestling team had a match at Haddon Heights High School, so I went home after school to make sure I ate something and to take my dog out. I had a quick salad cleaned myself up and headed out to the match.

Now the first topic for today is triggers - things that lead you to "fall off the wagon" in your goals to quit something - in my case, junk food. During the JV match last night, the wind from outside was blowing into the gym - and carrying with it the wonderous smell of HOT DOGS - I'm not kidding - this is an awesome marketing technique - Every kid on the bench, every coach was walking around saying, "you eating something, where's that smell coming from?" If I owned a hot dog cart I would make sure I was very far downwind - I might even recruit a kid to walk around with a plate of dogs and a fan just to attract customers. ANYWAY - I cracked - I ate one. No biggie, right? One hot dog for "dinner" on my first day of a diet is not that bad. Unfortunately my brain spoke to me in its Homer Simpson voice, "MMMMMM - HOTTT DOOGGGGGSSS.......". I had another - not in a slow enjoyable way either - I crammed the thing down as it burned my tongue and top of my mouth before I ran into the gym for the Varsity match - this is not the picture of healthy eating that I'm shooting for. So - a blanket trigger situation for me is wrestling matches - I need to be prepared to have healthy food on hand while I am at matches, especially all day long tournaments. Other triggers for me include:

1. Oreos - No joke - these are not meant to be eaten one at a time - a "sleeve" is a serving size for me - sometimes an entire package is a serving size. Make them mint oreos with a half gallon of milk and I do a great impression of the Tazmanian Devil.

2. Beer - I like tasty, complex beers. Preferably from Belgium - not the type of liquid that helps you cut calories. To be completely honest - light beer sucks - it has "drinkability" because it's basically WATER. I'd rather just drink water on this diet (Nestle Pure Life Fruit water to be exact - more on this later)- Not to mention the trigger domino effect - with beer comes many other foods - chips, dip, pizza, cheesesteaks....oh boy - Sunday is going to be a difficult day.....

3. Caffeine - this is a tough one - Doctors have actually told me that if I stop having coffee in the morning I will literally drop dead. And considering I tolerate the number of grams of caffeine that would actually restart a dead person's heart you would think that I rarely get the jitters, but occasionally I do - and watch out when that happens - I look like Pac-man eating everything in sight!! This is when candy is a very dangerous thing to have around.

I think the bottom line with "triggers" is just to be prepared. Don't have oreos, candy and other junk around the house; Eat a decent healthy breakfast with the gallon or so of coffee each morning (and maybe try to cut back a little!); Decide on Sunday if I can afford a little beer, a little light beer or just to avoid it all together. A couple other tricks I try to use are to keep a handy supply of chewing gum and water bottles around. If its not time to eat yet but I get that urge or Im just bored and feel like eating something, chewing gum is great for the whole oral fixation thing. Water can really fill you up when you're hungry and it can help reduce the portions of what you consume during meal time. I really can't stand drinking plain water - I love the fruit flavored water made by Nestle - its sweetened with splenda and has no calories. Costco sells it by the case for only about 8 bucks too.

So - what are your triggers? Can you identify them? How are you avoiding them? Try to get rid of anything around the house that you might regret eating - Personally - I'm bringing all of my leftover candy and treats from the holidays into school for the kiddies. Have a good one - and stay strong!

Weigh-In day!!

Hello all -

Welcome to my biggest loser blog! My school nurses office at Collingswood High School decided to hold a contest for the new year to help people stick to their annual weight loss goals in a community setting with some good-spirited competition. I enjoy writing and think doing so in a public forum may aid me in keeping to my goals. My hopes are to share tips, progress and stories that may help others in the competition to stick to their goals, get some advice and provide some feedback. I'll post my % weight lost through each week but I'll avoid posting my actual weight since this is public!!

A little about me and my weight first. I have see-sawed more than Oprah in the past decade! In high school I was very active, playing football, wrestling and lifting weights and running through the spring and summer. I weighed about 175 through football season. During wrestling I was anywhere between 150 and 171. I stayed active in the beginning of college until I had a lot of lower back pain and discovered that I had actually fractured 2 vertebrae, most likely during my senior year of football. I hit a huge lull then and started to put on weight. Since that time about 7 years ago, I have gone through many ups and downs, the most successful of which was 3 years ago when I lost about 40 pounds and trained for a 5k with my father and 2 brothers (I took 1st place!). A year later I still beat my dad and brothers, but barely. Last year my brothers beat me and I only edged out my dad by 30 seconds!! I didnt even run this year.....:( I am active in coaching - I coach wrestling at Audubon High School after 3 years of coaching at Old Bridge High School. Wrestling is a HUGE passion of mine and I luckily edge out the kids in the room because of my experience and knowledge (and the fact that I can sit on the side and call time out when my lungs feel like someone just lit them on fire!!) - but I hate being out of shape with them - its hard to preach to serious athletes when you are not in decent shape yourself!

I know I am so much more productive and happy when I weigh less - I have so much more energy and can enjoy life a lot more. Looking forward to the next 10 weeks!!