Tag Archives: food

What the F is THAT?

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Although I feel like I’ve completely lost my blogging mojo, I figured the only way to get it back is to get on here and start typing away, right? I haven’t written a “typical” blog post since the Boston Marathon Bombings, and although Boston will never quite be the same, I figure it’s about time to pick myself up by the proverbial boot straps and carry on. Blog world, I’m back.

I was in the grocery store recently, and looked down at a shelf in front of me when something caught my eye. “Calorie Free Marshmallow Dip” it said. Wait, what? I thought I misread it. So I picked it up (almost embarrassed to be seen looking at such a monstrosity), and re-read the label. Yep, I was right the first time. Calorie Free Marshmallow Dip.

Walden-Farms-Calorie-Free-Marshmallow-Dip-072457323339First of all, who the hell eats marshmallow dip?

It was from a company called Walden Farms, which sounds innocent enough, no? It’s a farm! Farms produce delicious healthy real foods! Except for when the “farm” is really just a chemical plant churning out jars of calorie free crap. I went home and looked up this company online, which is where I found out the awful truth.

Walden Farms makes a whole slew of calorie free “foods”, including calorie free Peanut Butter, and calorie free “mayo”. WHAT THE F IS THAT?!?

peanut spread WF

Let’s explore this idea a little bit. Peanut butter is made from peanuts, which contain… ahem.. calories and fat. How on earth could a “peanut spread” be calorie free? Heck even PB2 (which I also hate) has calories for Christ sake, Which leads me to believe one thing: this is a lab creation, and is not even really food at all. Looking the nutritional information for this particular product confirmed my suspicions:

Screen shot 2013-04-30 at 9.04.15 PM

The first ingredient is water. WATER. YOU’RE BUYING WATER. Next comes some thickeners, and after that, “fresh roasted peanut flavor”. Read that again. Peanut flavor. Isn’t this a peanut spread? WHERE ARE THE PEANUTS???  The ingredient list is finished out with some sucralose (splenda) which many people’s guts are sensitive to.

Yum. Lab-created peanut flavor thrown into some water, thickeners, and artificial sweetener. Call me crazy, but I don’t call that food, in any sense of the word.

Their other products are just as bad, so don’t think it’s just the Peanut Spread.  The Mayo, for example, is made of water, some thickeners, and “egg flavor”. Barf.

The kicker comes from the description of their products though. As quoted directly from their website:

CLASSIC PEANUT SPREAD that’s smooth and creamy with Natural Fresh Roasted Peanut flavor…When making a PB&J switch from other brands of Peanut Butter loaded with sugar and almost 200 calories in just two level tablespoons to new Walden Farms Whipped Peanut Spreads and save over 600 calories when made with Walden Farms Calorie Free Fruit Spreads, “The Walden Way.”

Ok, so other peanut butters are loaded with sugar? False, if you’re buying good quality peanut butter.  And most importantly, other peanut butters are made with REAL PEANUTS, not chemically formed flavors! The sad thing is though, that some people see these products and think that because it says “calorie free” that means it’s healthy. Or that the company’s claims that you can “save 10,000 calories per month” by substituting your regular foods with their chemical-concoctions, never mind the fact that if you actually do that, you’ll end up malnourished. (And who knows if all of these chemicals cause cancer. I’m not saying they do, I’m just saying…).

The company’s tagline makes me sick too. “Eat Healthy, The Walden Way”. Please excuse me while I go dry heave in the corner. Healthy? HEALTHY? How dare they prey on uneducated consumers to believe that these products are truly healthy.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into an angry rant, but since it looks like it’s heading that way, I might as well stick with the theme. How’s this for an idea? How about we eat real foods, grown from the earth, not from a chemical company. How about we eat foods that contain nutrients that our bodies desperately need in order to remain healthy, fight off disease, and heal injuries? How about we stop supporting companies that process crap like this and get back to foods that contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals? (Novel idea, I know).  I honestly feel that companies like this should not be legally allowed to call this stuff “food”. It’s water and chemicals, and that’s it. Shame on Walden Farms for promoting this as health food, and shame on consumers who are educated yet still buy this stuff just because it’s calorie free.

Have you ever tried any Walden Farms products? Would you buy “food” with this type of nutritional label just to save a few calories? Do you think there’s any chance that PB spread actually tastes like peanuts?

 

My Name Is Stephanie, and I’m A Quitter

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Confession time!!!

Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I’m a quitter.

You see, I started a nutrition experiment, dabbling in intermittent fasting, carb back loading, and (eventually) paleo.  I made it through IF just fine, in fact, I enjoyed it.

Then CBL started. And I fell. Flat on my face.

I failed, and I quit, and here is my story:

I started CBL on a Monday. By Tuesday I was cranky, Wednesday I was miserable, and I literally spent all day Thursday at work daydreaming about animal crackers.

Snackimals

MOTHER EFFING ANIMAL CRACKERS

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got far too many important things going on at work (like, say, the health and wellbeing of 250 student athletes) to be wasting my time thinking about little sugary cookies shaped like zoo animals. But there I was, fixated on animal crackers, and how I couldn’t wait to get home and shove them down my face.

I had worked out on Wednesday morning, and then wasn’t training again until Friday morning, so in the CBL world that meant virtually no carbs between my post work-out meal on Wednesday until Thursday night when I could “carb up” (this is where those adorable animal crackers come into play). I know that doesn’t seem that bad, and when I write it out, it seems ridiculous to me that I failed so miserably. But I know exactly why it happened.

The whole thing was a mind game, a very restrictive, annoying mind game. You see, on CBL, the times when you can have carbs, you can essentially have whatever high-glycemic, junky carbs you want to (but for someone my size, I can’t even really have that much of it). But the rest of the time, it’s a no-carb world. This  meant none of my green smoothies (because those have bananas). This meant that I was technically off-plan when I had roasted chicken with spaghetti squash and marinera sauce (because of the sugar in the sauce). This meant that I couldn’t have raisins in my yogurt (because raisins are like nature’s jelly beans). And so on, and so on.

I found myself hating foods that I normally loved (like chicken), because I felt so extremely restricted from everything else. And it’s strange, because I eat a moderately low carb diet anyway, and I really don’t eat very many things with added sugars or processed carbs. I do like bananas, sweet potatoes and brown rice though, and those are huge CBL no-nos. Sometimes I like to put my eggs on an Ezekial sprouted grain english muffin. Again, basically a CBL crime against humanity.

Sometimes I like crappy carbs. And sometimes I want to eat them in the middle of the day without feeling like the sugar police are going to come after me. 

I know, I know, if I want a crazy lean, ripped body, I’m going to have to make some sacrifices and be uncomfortable every once in a while. But realistically, that’s not my goal. I just want to get stronger, and eventually lose 3-4% body fat. And to me, those goals are completely, 100% doable without making myself (and everyone around me) completely miserable.

So last Friday, I sat at my desk, about to cry (literally, how sad is that? That’s how much this messed with my brain), looking at my bowl of spaghetti squash, marinara sauce (BAD!), and roasted chicken. I ate about 3 bites, and then I wanted to vomit. Right then and there, I fell off the wagon, and landed flat on my face. I ate some carbs (gasp! In the middle of the day!), and you know what? I loved every sugar laden second of it.

eat_all_the_foods

Mental Breakdown Mode at work is not pretty. 

And that night, I had a very healthy and delicious meal from my favorite place, Life Alive Cafe, a meal that happened to be served over a bed of brown rice.  Carbs AGAIN?!? Yup.

And the funny thing is, since I decided that I didn’t care if I quit CBL, I haven’t hardly craved sugar at all. I have eaten some delicious meals filled with meats, fresh veggies, and wonderful flavors since then, and very few of them after Friday have included a large portion of carbs.  It was the mental aspect of the rules and the tight restrictions that was killing me, that I know. While I do plan on following a very loose version of this (cycling my carbs around training times, not eating carb heavy meals early in the day, etc), I’m going to forget the crazy restrictions. If I want a green smoothie in the middle of the day, I’m going to have it, damn it.  I had a smoothie yesterday afternoon, for example, and it was good. Real good.

Food restriction is unfortunately a part of my past, and it’s just not a road that I’m willing to wander down again. Never mind the fact that after I did eventually eat those animal crackers (did I mention they were doused in Nutella?), I felt like absolute crap. There’s nothing like pure sugar swimming around in your veins to make you shaky, jittery, and even more irritable.

So, for those of you who were counting on me to do a serious month of CBL, I apologize, and I hope you understand my reasoning. If you don’t, feel free to get in contact with any of my coworkers who witnessed my near mental breakdown at work last week. They’ll tell you this is all for the best.

Roasted chick peas

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Anyone who has spent an appreciable amount of time with me knows that I love to eat.

More specifically, I love to eat salty, crunchy things.

This can be a problem when one is also trying to be a healthy member of society. Potato chips and health don’t really fit too well together, do they? While I do enjoy chips and chip-type things occasionally, I try to stay away from them for the most part simply because I am very well aware of my inability to say “no” when they’re in my face.  I’ve loved chips since I was a kid — Friday nights growing up were always Pizza night, and you know what often accompanied said pizza? Potato chips with french onion dip. Yup. When I got into college, in an attempt to be more healthy, I stuffed my face with Baked Lays and Baked Cheetos.

Healthy? What in the heck was I thinking?

Anyway, habits are hard to break, and I still love salty, crunchy snacks. Popcorn? YUM. Especially homemade. Sweet potato chips? Love. SnapPea Crisps? Uhh Yes please.  I’ve also gotten pretty good at homemade pita chips, if I do say so myself.

But this past weekend I found a new salty, crunchy snack. Roasted Chick Peas. I may be way behind the times on this one, because a search on the internet pulled up about ten thousand recipes, but it’s my first time making them, so I figured maybe some of you out there hadn’t discovered these yet yourselves.

chickpeas1

I didn’t really follow a recipe for mine, but they did come out pretty good for my first try. Here’s what I did:

Mixed the following in medium sized bowl: 2 tbs EVOO, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, and a few shakes of Herbamare (herbed seasoned salt).

I then tossed the chick peas (which I had previously drained, rinsed, and let dry) in the EVOO mixture until coated evenly. Spread the coated chick peas in a single layer on a foil lined baking sheet, and then sprinkle with a little bit more of each of the seasonings mentioned above. I then baked this at 350 for 45 minutes, but they were still a little bit mushy at that time. To crisp them up, I turned the oven up and baked them for an additional 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

chickpeas2

Ta Da! Crispy, salty, slightly spicy perfection.

*Please note: My oven is ancient. Baking times will probably vary, so if you follow the same method I used, keep an eye on them during the last 10 minutes or so at 400. I imagine that you could also cook them for the entire time at 400, and adjust the time accordingly. Maybe 25-30 minutes?

I think next time I’ll use a little bit more cayenne pepper, because I wish these had a little bit more kick to them. But overall they are delicious! I also want to try a batch with garlic and rosemary seasoning, because I think that would be excellent. Maybe even some parmesan in there? The seasoning options are basically endless.

chickpeas4

Now I’m off to eat these bad boys like it’s my job.  Go ahead, try it yourself, and enjoy!

Have you tried roasted chick peas? What seasonings do you enjoy with these? Are you more of a salty or sweet person? 

Thoughts on Sugar

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Ya know.. I’ve gotten lazy and many of my Friday posts have turned into these “Random Friday Thoughts” posts. Mostly because by the end of the week my brain is fried, and also because I can’t plan far enough ahead to write a Friday post ahead of time.

Such is life.

I’m not going to lie, most of my thoughts today revolve around carbs. carbs CARBS CARBS!!!

You see, I’m in the middle of a little experiment with carb back loading, and the only thing it’s done for me so far is make me crave obsessed with carbs. It doesn’t help that there were literally 5 pounds of jelly beans in my office this week. I’m not exaggerating. 5 pounds of assorted jelly beans. Starburst (my fave), Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish, Tropical Punch.. etc. Who knew there were so many varieties of jelly beans? But while athletes were standing right in front of me, all week, chowing down handfulls of these little sugar capsules, I avoided them successfully!

Ok, ok, I had two. But two jellybeans out of 5 pounds really isn’t that bad. Besides, I had to try the Sour Patch Kid JBs right? I just had to.

Added to the onslaught of sugar-in-my-face all week is the fact that Easter was last weekend, which in my world, is really just an excuse for people to eat boat loads of sugar, as long as it’s in the shape of chicks, eggs, or bunnies. (Cadbury eggs are the bomb in my opinion, and have been my favorite Easter candy since I was a kid. I’ll love those things until the day I die, no matter how toxic they may be).   I didn’t eat a ton of sugar over easter weekend, but I did have my fair share, for sure.  And I may or may not have had a good amount of sugar in the 2 weeks leading up to Easter too.

And as we all know, the more sugar you eat, the more sugar you crave. So you can imagine how the beginning of this week has gone, eating extremely low-carb for the vast majority of the time. All my brain sees is sugar. I’m not kidding.

Yesterday for breakfast, I made the most delicious omelette for breakfast, with 3 eggs, Comte cheese, and arugula. It was scrumptious. But despite how good it was, and how much I savored every bite, after I was done all I wanted was bread. Like white bread. When was the last time I had a craving for white bread? Probably when I was 7.

MY BRAIN IS GOING CRAZY.

Clearly, I was in need of a little bit of a sugar detox, and I’m hoping these cravings will decrease over the next few days. Especially because I’m not planning on a heavy weight training session this weekend, and on CBL that means I’m extremely low carb until Sunday night.

God help us all.

Nutrition Experiment Phase 2: Carb Back Loading

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Here we go again! It’s nutrition experiment time. I’ve talked about this mini experiment I’m doing in several posts, but if you’re new and just need a general overview, check it out here.

If you’ll recall, I already did a month of Intermittent Fasting (IF), which I actually loved. The past few weeks since then have been a very loose interpretation of IF, in which I haven’t been too strict on my hours of fasting/eating, but I have been consistently continuing my fast through the mornings until after I work out.  And you know what? Surprise, surprise, I haven’t been feeling nearly as good as I did when I was strict about the 16/8 fasting/eating times.

I think it was actually working for me. Who knew.

But now it’s time for the next phase of my experiment, and that is 4 weeks of Carb Back Loading (CBL).  I purposely stacked IF and CBL one after the other because they are very similar, especially when following the LeanGains style of IF, which I was doing. I want to take today to just give you all a quick overview of the weeks to come and what I expect out of it. Hopefully I enjoy this as much as IF, and can find some way to combine the two when this is all said and done!

CBL coverClick on the picture to link back to the CBL Site. 

What Is Carb Back Loading?

CBL is a style of eating developed by John Kiefer, based on his extensive research about the way our bodies utilize carbohydrates, and how we can optimize this through nutrient timing. I’m not going to give you all the details, because if you want to learn all about this style of eating, you really should check out Kiefer’s downloadable PDF. I invested in it, and I’m glad I did, because I want to be able to do this the right way, and not just half-ass it. The basic premise of CBL is that carbs should be almost exclusively eaten at night, directly following a night time training (heavy lifting) session. And when I say carbs, I don’t mean whole grains. The rules actually tell you to eat the junkiest carbs possible — those with high glycemic index scores. One of Kiefer’s favorite suggestions? Cherry turnovers. I know, I know, I didn’t believe it or understand at first either, but after reading the e-book, it is actually starting to make sense.

The science behind this is related to insulin sensitivity and your body’s natural clock when it comes to fat burning.  It is designed for people who lift heavy and train at night, but there are ways to modify this for those who train first thing in the morning (such as myself).

Essentially, I will be training fasted (as I have been doing for the last month and a half), and will eat a meal with fat, protein, and a small amount of carbs directly post lift. I will then eat only trace carbs throughout the day until dinner time, which is where it get’s a little more fun. On nights when I will be lifting the following morning, I will be actively CBL-ing, eating things like white rice, bread every once in a while, and carb-y desserts, even ice cream! (Well, let’s be real, it’s not like I avoid ice cream now). On days when I’m not lifting the next morning however, carbs have to remain trace at dinner as well. This also means that on days when I’m not training for 2 days in a row, both of those days will be very low carb all day.

What Am I Looking Forward To About CBL?

Well duh — the food obviously. But more importantly I’m looking forward to some structure in my diet. As I said before about IF, I don’t forsee this as being something that I would be 100% strict with until the end of time, but for a month? Sure, I’ll give it a go. I think my CBL nights are going to be glorious, and I’m probably going to end up eating a good amount of FroYo and animal crackers. (I don’t know why I love animal crackers so much, but I do, and I never eat them). Take Monday night for example. We had some leftover mini whoopie pies that I had made for easter… you better bet that I had one (or 2) of those, and loved every second of it! Carb me up!

whoopie piesYummmmmmm! 

What are the challenges going to be? 

There will certainly be challenges to this. The times when I am supposed to be extremely low carb are going to be difficult. I don’t eat a high-carb diet, but being asked to slash it even lower than I am used to (I usually eat around a 40-30-30 carb-protein-fat spread) will be tough. I’m going to have to be super vigilant about planning ahead, especially when I need quick meals for work, because most of my usual grab-and-go meal options have a good amount of carbs in them. One other thing that may turn out to be a huge challenge will be figuring out my limits. I am not going to be able to eat as much on a CBL day as a 250 lb guy who deadlifts 500 pounds, that’s for sure. I will need to find a balance between getting in enough useful carbs to take advantage of this program, and stuffing my face just because I like cake. (I mean, I really like cake.)

My long term goal is still to lose about 3-4% bodyfat, so I will be bummed if I start gaining body fat while on this plan. Of course it won’t be the end of the world, but it sure as heck could be the end of my experimenting with CBL. Again, finding that balance will be key, as will really trying to stick with optimum nutrient timing.

Whew. This could get exhausting!

As with IF, I’ll keep you updated periodically throughout the month. I’ll also keep a log of what I’m eating, how I’m feeling, etc. and will give you all an overview of my experience once my four weeks is up. I’ll also let you in on any body composition changes that may or may not happen over this time.

Wish me luck!

Have you heard of Carb Back Loading? Does it sound like something you’d want to try?