Since it is Wednesday, we’re going to celebrate WIAW with Jenn!

Things I learned from my Nutrition class diet assessment: dates are not a food group. Things I learned today: neither is cocoa powder. Ever since I started making homemade chocolate, my cocoa powder seems to be disappearing before my eyes. I’m out of my normal cocoa powder!

I use the term homemade chocolate a bit liberally-it’s more like moist, fudgy, warm, gooey deliciousness. I’ll let you know how much like chocolate it is if I ever actually let it cool…

There are two variations of this-one that actually is smooth and probably like chocolate if I actually let it cool, and one that is almost cakey, like the inside of a lava cake. I think it’s about time I actually gave you guys a recipe for that, so stay tuned. I need to actually measure everything out!

Also-I’m still not 100% sure how the rest of the project is going to go…I haven’t decided, and I kind of went off it again today. I want to try to finish strong, so we’ll see how it goes. But food. I ended up using Monday’s food as the day for my diet assessment because it was much more normal-the day I had originally used was the day I had a lot of the tapioca made with half and half-and I’m pretty sure I never eat that much saturated fat! Honestly I’m not feeling great physically now with my most recent eating choices, which definitely argue that I should try to stick with it! My run Monday morning was awful-I had the worst stomach cramps the whole time, and I decided to not worry about pace and just get it done-it was my long run of the week since I’m officially in half training, and at this point the miles are all that matters!

Breakfast on Monday featured a new Trader Joe’s find-pesto gouda! It was good! A good addition to my eggs. It was a green breakfast!

My packed lunch came together in no time at all! A sweet potato filled with cottage cheese and sunflower seed butter. I may be weird, but don’t knock it until you try it! It was reminiscent of my high school lunches of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but this is an upgrade since it actually has veggies and better quality protein! Plus there’s that whole nut allergy thing…

Yesterday evening, I decided I should actually do the quidditch workout that I’ve been torturing them with for the past few weeks. It was quick but good! I was definitely shaking by the end! I haven’t done this many squats in a long time, and my knee was chirping at me a bit at the end. But I’m sore today! Maybe not “can’t walk” sore, but it’s definitely there!

Roasted carrots are addicting and life changing. I’m realizing more than ever that if I had better foods on hand, my eating habits would be so much better. I could gobble these up like candy, but they’re gone so fast! Today, when they were all gone I resorted to dates as a snack-when I would have preferred carrots! The amount of dates I’ve been eating has gotten out of hand. I think I need a date detox, haha! If only I had more carrots on hand, it would be easy!

Trader Joe’s grain and lentil soup, with pesto gouda on top! This soup was really good-but I liked the cheese on top for interesting texture!

Fire-the highlight of my Monday! We had to film a video for my sorority recruitment. I wanted to take a selfie with my sparkler but as I brought it near my head I thought better of it. Which is probably why I still have my eyebrows…

Speaking of lack of eyebrows-we learned today that in Ochem lab this week, there’s a relatively high chance of messing up the reaction and making TNT. Awesome….

Breakfast Tuesday morning before quidditch-goat milk yogurt, sunflower seed butter, applesauce.

Quidditch training was fun. I need to get better at not laughing so much at their pain though…Today was a new workout, and I think it kicked everyone’s butt! For the conditioning, I introduced them to EMOM (every minute on the minute), with 5 burpees and 5 push ups every minute for 10 minutes. I need to try this for myself sometime!

I decided to get coffee afterwards-which I strangely probably didn’t need because I had so much energy! 5 hours of sleep-go figure!

I mixed it up and got a latte. Partly because I went to a different coffeeshop, and I know their cappuccinos aren’t as good. But this was delicious! My coffee-ing was cut short though when the campus coffeeshop and surrounding area was evacuated due to a bomb threat. It turned out to be nothing, but the area was closed off for a while!

My lunch pictures are kind of embarrassing. Yes, I eat salads out of ziplock bags.

This one was grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, olives, and hummus. The sad part was that I really don’t like cherry/grape tomatoes, which I seemed to have forgotten about…

After Crossfit today, all I wanted was roasted carrots. Guess what I didn’t have? Roasted carrots. I went to the dining hall with high hopes-they sometimes have them although they aren’t very good. They didn’t have roasted ANYTHING. I got beets from the salad bar and microwaved them with olive oil, but that didn’t really change the fact that I’m not a big fan of beets. Sigh-I tried!

In terms of my food goals for the near future, I think I’d feel better if for starters I cut down on the dates. While they’re not horrible for me, it’s becoming clear that they are just a lackluster replacement for the real, nutritious foods that I’m craving! I think I’m going to try to avoid them completely for one day, just to break the habit. It’s amazing how much of eating is about habits!

What is one of your major ‘food groups’?

I’ve talked a lot about how amazing this project is and all the changes. But today, I’m going to get into the hard parts. 

Guys. I am SO sore from doing hill sprints yesterday. Clearly a sign I need more sprinting in my life! My calves are donezo, and my hips are so sore! My achilles was bad this morning but it feels better now at least! I started my morning off with a spin class in my last pair of clean workout pants (hence the laundry).

Then-food!

I’d been dreaming about that fat, juicy orange since I saw it in the CSA box on Wednesday. The oranges we’ve gotten have been unreal, and this was no exception. I was a little too excited about it! Plus microwave scrambled eggs with manchego. Fancy cheese is life changing, and I need to stock up ASAP. 

I was totally at a loss for what to pack for lunch. Then, I opened the freezer and remembered I had this, all packed up and ready to go! I’m a genius. And I forgot how much I love this lunch. It’s just so perfect. I need to make more lunches like these!

After a 4 hour chem lab, I was hungry so I ate food. A lot of food. Which was really, really stupid given I only had an hour before Crossfit…I wavered a lot about whether or not to go, but we can’t un-sign up within 2 hours of the class, and I’m not really sure what happens if you skip…

But as giant snack part 1, I tried making tapioca in the microwave with nonfat milk and dates. It was a totally success-totally delicious (although I put too many dates in so it was a little sweetener than I would have liked!), and it may have overflowed a few times, but I still downed the whole bowl. 

I also had a ton of crackers with sunflower seed butter and fancy cheese (not together!). Which would have been just fine if I wasn’t about to work out and had just eaten my body weight in crackers and fats. And the workout today seemed particularly bad for these types of issues. 

But by some miracle, it was totally fine, and I felt ok, despite burpees on burpees on burpees, wall balls, kettle bell swings, jump ropes, etc. No clue how that’s even possible. But at this point in my life I’ve eaten some really junky things before workouts. (The worst in my memory is cake with a lot of frosting…) Stomach of steel?

Since I had snacked so late, I was on the fence about another meal, but I ended up making up for veggies at the dining hall with a big plate of food.

SO FULL right now…

And then I had to make some homemade chocolate to celebrate. I got my chem test back today and I did much better than expected, which made my life week. Totally necessary. And homemade chocolate game changer? After making it (while melty still), adding a splash of half and half. Amazing.

And I finally captured a picture of the beauty. Also, note the presence of a real, non plastic spoon. This girl did some dishes!

This is a good segway into today’s topic-the struggles I’m facing on the project. I’d be lying if I said I always felt good. Like right now-I feel pretty gross. Even with cutting out processed food, it’s definitely still possible to overeat or eat badly. And sometimes I just want a cookie, darn it! I’ve gone through various mental struggles with this project, but the current thing I’m hung up on is what will happen post-project. I’m well past the halfway point, and definitely thinking about the future. I feel like I’ve treated this as my saving grace-what was going to change my life and get my health back on track. And I had amazing progress so far-but lately I’ve been eating a little too much of the wrong things. I’ve eaten a ton of dates, which kind of puts the foundation of the changes into question-limiting sugar. I think I’m the kind of person who constantly needs new motivation and a new direction to stick with things, and I think it’s time to refocus to really bring this thing home. But seriously-given that I feel kind of gross now, I have to worry how I can manage to feel good post-project. All those cookies I’ve passed up-will I be able to continue to pass them up? Or will I be right back where I started? If nothing else, this project has changed my perspective. I would have to argue that one of the reasons behind obesity in this country is availability. There is delicious, sugary food all around me. It’s taken all this to pass it up. But without the support and backbone of this project, how would I be able to? How would anon be able to? Warm, melty chocolate chip cookie with cool, creamy ice cream. That’s what I’ve been dreaming of! 

And realistically, I’m not going to always remove myself from situations just to avoid foods. That’s crazy and I would have no social life, which definitely isn’t healthy. 

So I guess what I’m struggling with now is that if I’m not currently eating the best or progressing with all these fancy guidelines and motivation, how will I continue to progress post-project? That’s something I’ll be thinking about for the next week or so. While I try to lay off the dates. And saturated fat. Heh. 

What are your tips for avoiding treats at every corner?

But here’s the plan. 

It seems the common denominator with obesity is highly processed food. A majority of the country has a damaged metabolism. So I’m going to go out and test this. 

For 4 weeks, my roommate and I are committing to eat only whole, unprocessed food.

This IS NOT a diet.

This IS NOT about weight loss.

This IS NOT a quick fix.

This IS NOT about calories. 

This IS about real food.

This IS about health. Long term health. 

And you know what? This IS possible. One of the main reasons I want to do this? To show that if two college students can do this, in the middle of midterms, with limited kitchen access can do it, then anyone can. 

But I’m a scientist, and I want cold, hard evidence. This is about transforming overall health. I’m going to take some data before and after the 4 weeks-but not just weight or body fat. I’m still working on what these will be-I would love to do a test of blood insulin levels, because that would be such a great indicator of metabolic health, and whether eating unprocessed WHOLE foods are a possible cure. However, I’m not sure how plausible it would be for us to get lab tests done twice in a month. 

We may try blood glucose tests-it should give a decent indicator of how our insulin is working (and if we are insulin resistant). We will probably do blood pressure tests as well. Another convenient test is that I have a 5k around the beginning of the 4 weeks, and another one around the end of the 4 weeks, so I’ll have somewhat of an athletic comparison as well.

So how are we defining WHOLE, UNPROCESSED food? 

(Some of this is a little arbitrary, but I need somewhere to draw the line.)

(Most of this is straight from “The Fat Chance Cookbook,” By Robert Lustig)

-no refined sugar

-no highly processed oils

-no weird ingredients

-whole foods 

-foods must resemble what they originally came from

-the fiber must not have been destroyed

-whole, non pulverized grains

-no restrictions on fruit, but less than 28 g (the daily recommend amount) of other added sugars, such as juices or dried fruit

-one special whole food dessert experience a week, with natural sweeteners, high quality ingredients, and still fitting into the daily sugar allowance

Why not Whole30? Doesn’t that cut our unprocessed foods as well?

The Whole30 seems like a great way to reset your body from junk, but the reality is, it’s just not doable for many people, especially those who are new to their health journey. If a person is just starting a healthier lifestyle change, cutting out all grains may backfire. By instead focusing on the least processed foods possible, we can get the nutrients and fiber necessary to restore health. 

*Note: I do consider myself an overall healthy person, yet I still eat a fairly processed diet, like almost everyone is our country. If cutting out processed food improves my health, it will almost certainly help the people who struggle even more with their health.

The goal of this 4 weeks is to prove that it is possible to improve health, without sacrificing life. We aren’t exactly cutting out foods or even drastically changing the way we eat-we are simply changing the quality of foods we will be putting in our body.

For example, take this morning’s overnight oats:

Blackberry chobani, chia seeds, almond milk, and instant plain oatmeal. How would I change this?

Quinoa stirred into chia seeds and plain yogurt, topped with some type of fruit mixture (we’re thinking frozen berries in a slow cooker-how amazing does that sound?)

Real food doesn’t have to be bland or taste bad. I intend on enjoying everything I will eat during the 4 weeks. 

This is also about the lost art of cooking-by making our own foods, we maintain a lot more fiber and nutrients (than processed), and can control exactly what we put into things. Plus, it is an experience. 

We are already brainstorming recipes, meal plans, and cooking schedules. I’m excited for this! 

During this time, I will also be discussing the biochemistry of food-what happens in our body as we break down food. If I’ve never heard of it, I probably shouldn’t be eating it. And it doesn’t count if the only place I’ve heard of it is in Chem lab!

I also realize that this won’t be easy. No more of this.

Or this.

(Yes, I did return to an amazing ice cream place.)

But back in the old days, people didn’t eat sweets every day, they were something for a special occasion-an experience. Hence why I’ve built in a weekly treat. We’re planning on making plenty and sharing with our friends. (Some ideas are homemade raw chocolate and a dense, nutrient and fiber packed banana chocolate chip bread.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this-if you guys know of any other tests of general health, I would be interested in those as well (as long as the tests are within reason to do!)

And before I leave you, I want to share a few more snapshots from today.

This morning I ran 4 miles. I haven’t done much running lately that a)wasn’t intervals and b)wasn’t on the treadmill. Plus, I’ve been taking it very easy on the running front thanks to foot/heel pain. The good news is that my feet are starting to feel better, and my foot loosened up and felt ok pretty quickly. Another bonus-I swear I’ve gotten faster! I didn’t run with my watch so I can’t really say though. 

I also had my first Coupa cappuccino of the quarter.

It. Was. Perfect. 

I am still not sick of this lunch. The balsamic brussels are amazing. It’s amazing how much better flavored foods are!

In other news, I’m pretty sure I should not be eating Quest bars because they have nuts and my face is breaking out so much! I don’t know why I keep saying I should not eat them and don’t just stop. But to be fair, I’ve only had 2. 

This was dinner. After Crossfit, I had to run to the store, so I decided to pick up dinner. I briefly considered just having ice cream, but then decided that that was a bad idea, so I grabbed this veggie and hummus wrap, before consuming the above ice cream.

Delicious.