Day 28

For breakfast, made Creamy Greenie Smoothie from Eat For Health. It was very green. I only had time to take a bite or two before we ran to church. Church starts at 8. whoa.


A few days ago the older kid requested a pink smoothie. I put in as much greens and flaxseed as I could without making it not pink anymore. It has strawberries and banana and sesame seeds and almond milk.


For dinner, made Cabbage Raisin Soup from Disease-Proof Your Child. Recipe said cut cabbage into big chunks, boil for a while till soft then remove with tongs and puree. I couldn't get all the cabbage out of the pot to put in blender, so pieces of cabbage were still in the soup. The walnuts in it seemed weird. Okay, actually this was like, almost, vomit soup. Everybody hated it. Levi took maybe two bites, and he kept taking drinks of water. He was going to vomit, I'm almost sure. This soup was WEIRD. and it's getting BLACKLISTED. i'm really glad I could pull my exhausted self off the couch to slave over this for an hour and a half so that we could dump it all down the disposal. Dang, tonight's dinner sucked. And tonight I am mad at whoever put that recipe in a book.

A Trick Discovered

Maybe it's not a trick, but more like a strategy. But I've been thinking, "Okay, I've been doing this ETL diet for a while now, pretty consistently, and not really lost much weight, I don't think." And it was true. I weighed myself at the YMCA and I really hadn't lost much at all. So what was up? I discovered it is my habit of eating a lot at night. I can eat almost nothing all day, but when night comes around I tend to eat lots and then go to sleep. This makes for an uncomfortable feeling of my stomach having food in it when I go to bed. It also makes for a less restful sleep. It also means I wake up not hungry at all, and not even feeling like my blood sugar is low. But I figured out, in just a single day, that I can drop multiple pounds if I eat according to true hunger cues, and don't eat a bunch at night out of habit! Just eat a little dinner and leave it, because I'll be going to bed soon, what the heck would I need to eat a bunch for? And know that in the morning, when I'm hungry, I can eat breakfast, like normal people do in the mornings. And I'll actually want and be able to enjoy eating breakfast! And I'll find that I've lost multiple pounds! I'm now 3 pounds away from Dr. Fuhrman's recommended weight for people of my height, which is just an estimation because people's bodies are different, but I'm using it as a guideline. I actually felt better about 5 years ago when I weighed 7 pounds less than that (10 pounds less than I do now). I was pretty thin. I was running regularly, and doing some strength training. And I felt great. It would be nice to get back there.

So that's the trick: DON'T EAT AT NIGHT. Pay attention to true hunger, and eat only to fulfill that, then stop, and you'll wake up finding your body feasted on your extra fat stores during the night. I shouldn't phrase this like it generalized to other people, because it may not. And it may well only work best for people who are also running during the day, and eating according to ETL. I really don't know. I'm just psyched to have discovered it. It's going to make things a lot easier, if I can just break the habit!

Day 25

Breakfast was a fatty ol' green smoothie with blueberries, mango, good stuff.

Lunch was sorta...I snacked on some raw snap peas we got at Costco. I ate some baby carrots, later some apple slices. Made myself a salad at one point.

Dinner was leftover cabbage mushroom soup, leftover eggplant stuff with a little whole wheat spaghetti and tomato sauce, and a little of some lentil vegetable soup I made.

Then I just had an orange and I'm going to eat the other half of this smoothie from this morning.

Day 24

Good day today. I'm paying attention to true hunger cues. It's enlightening.

Here's this Mushroom-Barley Soup with Cannellini Beans and Cabbage that I made a few nights ago.


I'm working on trying to get the kids to eat healthier, looking at recipes and seeing what looks good to try. The younger kid ate a good smoothie that was pinkish-green the other day. I hid flaxseed and beans and spring mix greens in it. And the younger kid also ate a good sized salad today. The older one is frustrating me lately, but we will get there.

Tonight, Husband made a sauce with some wine and seitan to serve over whole wheat spaghetti, and sauteed some asparagus in olive oil. I was thrilled that the older child seemed to really enjoy the asparagus and ate a lot of it!

I didn't eat any asparagus, b/c I didn't want the oil. I was bent on my goal of a pound of raw vegetables and a pound of cooked.

I made this stuff I really love, Creamy Peanut Kale, except without the oil. I couldn't tell the diff, flavor-wise, without the oil. Tasted fantastic to me. I cut down on the Bragg's, too. I upped the ratio of spices to peanut butter. This is just so good. I ate 14 ounces of cooked kale this way, and felt, and still feel, fantastic. My stomach is so happy.

I used to eat this over brown rice, with more salt or Bragg's on top. But tonight it was wonderful just as-is. Plenty salty. Didn't wish for rice. Liberation!

Lunch was the same salad I've been eating the past several days. I'm not tired of it. Was wonderful. My bin of Spring Mix is on its way out, so I need to put the rest of it in a smoothie tomorrow. Food today also included grapes, baby carrots, apple slices, an orange, and a couple raw almonds. Life is good.

Day 23

For lunch, had wonderful salad of romaine and spring mix with goddess dressing, and then some eggplant casserole. For dinner had leftovers: veggie burger with lettuce and mustard, grapes, pineapple, baby carrots, some more eggplant casserole. Then we had family night and ate apples.

Day 22

Made Mushroom-Barley Soup with Cannellini Beans and Cabbage for dinner.

I'm so listening to real hunger and gaining insight into the difference between toxic and true hunger. I literally didn't feel any true hunger all day long, until I think close to dinnertime. I know I definitely didn't feel any true hunger before about 5pm. After that I'm not sure. But I had a bowl of the soup and felt satisfied.

I subbed Great Northern beans for the Cannellini beans, because that's what I have and as of yet I can't tell the diff. I don't think Levi was real thrilled with this. But I think when I'm really hungry that anything nourishing tastes good. I liked it. So there. Kids ate their little bit of soup, and then had brown rice with Bragg's.

I also made Creamy Creole Eggplant Casserole. I didn't eat any of this because I had filled up after the soup. Levi had some, but didn't say anything about it, so maybe he hated it. I will probably love it. When I made the breadcrumbs for this by toasting a piece of bread and putting it in the food processor, big chunks of the bread were obviously not toasty enough to turn into crumbs, and would not process, so I picked the chunks out of the food processor and tossed them into the sink, and just put the rest of the crumbs on top. This was kind of time intensive, and I get impatient easily, like waiting for the eggplant to be cool enough to handle to get the guts out after baking it. And I baked it for a long time, and then peeled the skins off like a sunburn, and the insides were soft but still in one piece, not completely mushy. I squoze out some of the water from them and chopped them up. That seemed to work well. It was fun. It's always fun to cook. Even though I feel bad that my kids are watching some stupid show or movie while I do it. They are getting a healthy dinner, so why should I guilt trip myself over it? A person can't do everything.

So yeah, I feel good now. Worked out today at the Y. The younger kid played in the babysitting place, and seemed to have enjoyed himself. I ran three glorious treadmill miles, much of it on a speed 6.5 or 7, which felt incredible. I feel like someone else when I run. I ran in my $8 water socks...my budget minimalist footwear. And then I did a couple weight machines. I feel all calm and nice now.

Day 21

Breakfast: An orange. Then we went to church all early.

Lunch: I made Balsamic Glazed Chickpeas and Mustard Greens and ate the whole thing myself. Yum. I don't care how many calories it is, it makes me feel AWESOME.

Dinner: We totally BS'ed dinner because we'd gone to the zoo this afternoon and were tired and didn't feel like making dinner. We had veggie burgers from the freezer.

Here is some stuff we've been eating lately...pics that were on my camera:

another green smoothie






pretty hot pink chopped swiss chard stems


Savory Swiss Chard Pie that didn't turn out like it was supposed to, was too watery


piece of above pie, see how watery? i think my tofu wasn't firm enough or something. looked like vomit. i totally ate it anyway.


my kid with green smoothiestache


what 5 oz of raw spinach looks like in my 96 ounce blender jar


after I put in the rest of the ingredients for the Chocolate Smoothie from the book Eat For Health


this is how much the chocolate smoothie recipe makes


a cup of chocolate smoothie

i loved it. the kids tried some and liked it okay but were not in love and asking for seconds. of course they were biased by the valentines candy the older kid brought home from school, psh.

older kid with chocolate smoothiestache