Weight Watchers: Take 2

Wednesday I weigh in and that will be the end of the first week of my second try with Weight Watchers. I followed WW last year at the same time, February through May and lost 23 pounds. Yeah! I made the top of my weight range and decided to take a break, maintain for the summer and lose the rest of the weight I wanted to lose in the fall.

My good habits fell to the wayside after my dad died unexpectedly in July and I gained almost all of the weight I had lost. I still grieve but I'm ready to get fit and healthy and be the woman I am on the inside on the outside. I'm embracing life now which I think is what Dad would want more than anything for me.

Yesterday I came up with 20 reasons to reach my ideal weight. Here they are, not in any particular order of importance:

1. Be healthy.
2. Be a good role model.
3. Feel good about myself and gain a better self-image.
4. Be able to not despise shopping.
5. Be athletic again.
6. Have less back pain.
7. Make my family proud to be with me and proud of me.
8. Be able to do more with my kids such as learn to ski and go swimming without feeling ashamed.
9. Accomplish something measurable through hard work.
10. Feel more attractive.
11. Get back into shape before menopause.
12. Acknowledge aging and face it by getting stronger physically and emotionally.
13. Control what I can control.
14. Take steps to heal--recover/grow through grief.
15. Practice self care and thereby become a better caregiver.
16. Show the world the "real" me.
17. Make the last half of my 40s and the whole of my 50s healthier than my 30s.
18. Make my 45th birthday symbolize a rebirth.
19. Be an inspiration to others.
20. Remember that the body is the temple for the soul and treat it as such.

Thank you. Be well.

Angel at the Airport?

On the way home from Indiana, where we said goodbye to my dad who had died tragically in a freak accident, we were hanging out in an airport waiting to board our second plane. A young woman handed me this note.

Thank you, young lady. You made my day/week/month/year!

What I Said at Dad's Celebration of Life

My dad died on July 18, 2012, unexpectedly. His Celebration of Life was on Saturday, July 28. Here's what I said (or close to, I ad-libbed a little):

Hi I'm Danielle, aka dani, the youngest of Mike's kids. To dad, life was sweet. He enjoyed the honey in life and tried to leave anything that was not honey alone.  He and we had a lot of fun.

When I was little my dessert had the tendency to disappear. I, being  miss gullible would somehow be convinced to leave the table. When I got back dad would be waiting for that look of alarm on my face and crack up. It didn't get old. To this day I try not to leave the table once dessert is served.

When Eric and I were teenagers, we were craving ice cream, moaning and wailing about not having any. Dad told us to go look in our Granddad's freezer (he had a summer cabin on our homestead). Well, because we knew Dad, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there wasn't any ice cream over there, having been sent over there before to get only imaginary sweets. No way were we going to go check this time and give dad the satisfaction. Well this lament for ice cream went on for I don't know how long, I think weeks. Each time dad would tell us to just go get the ice cream from Granddad's, insisting that there was some there. I'm sure you can guess the rest! We eventually gave up, risked being laughed at, just knowing that we'd come back empty-handed. This was Dad, come on, no way was there going to be ice cream there! Of course we were fooled and came walking back to our house carrying ice cream with dad beaming and laughing at his success at bamboozling us. I'm sure he would have loved to have seen our faces when we opened the freezer.

My kids call him a silly jokester. He delighted in everyone but kids especially because they are so much fun --not spoiled by age and seriousness. We were fortunate to spend a week with him in January. We live near Seattle where it rarely snows. Turns out that we got a lot of snow the day before and of his trip and it meant that many flights were canceled including Dad's. He was able to book a flight to New York but then got stranded there when his connecting flight was canceled. He called me, exasperated, which was unusual and surprised me. He must have just been tired. When we hung up, he was okay again. It turned out to be an awesome adventure and serendipitous because he got to spend a whole day in Manhattan having a great old time taking pictures and experiencing NYC.

His visit with us was wonderful. He fell in love with his granddaughters all over again and they with him. He was planning to come back next January. I was on cloud 9.

Sort of like he was when I got married. I'm not sure who was happier, him or me. I'd never seen him that happy and it made a great day even better. Knowing he was happy because I was --that was cool.
The same thing happened with the arrival of each of my children. Dad knew my joy and shared it.

Speaking of birthdays, I like to think of the day dad died as another birthday. Dad's view on death is quoted on the cards for this party-- death is just another door to walk through. John Lennon described it as getting out of one car and into another.

Birthdays at our house always included homemade layer cake or whatever dessert we wanted. Dad made a lot of cakes--he had found a fantastic chocolate cake recipe that everyone loved-- on his blog he called it a super duper delicious chocolate cake. We ate huge pieces of layer cake-- Bird pieces we called them. Dad and I usually had a piece for breakfast the next day. I still do that. It's a tradition.

Dad surrounded himself with meaningful treasures -- little things that brought him pleasure or reminded him of someone or something. One of the things that was on his desk is a bracelet with an inscription in Sanskrit. It is worn down on the inscription side indicating maybe that Dad kept it in his pocket and rubbed it with his thumb. He wrote about this bracelet on his blog.
The inscription is a Buddhist mantra: Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum
(Ohm mah nee pahd may hoong)
This mantra is often carved into stones and placed where people can see them. It's said to contain all the teachings of the Buddha and that saying it brings a person closer to enlightenment, improving their lives in every way. Dad cared deeply about improving himself and tried to influence others positively through  the changes he made in himself. I think he experienced a lot of success with that. I'm proud and grateful that Michael was my father.

I wasted far too much energy and emotion in my life wanting his light to shine on me. I've learned that it was shining on me the whole time.

I'll close with some of the things I remember dad saying:

Tomorrow is another day.
It's an adventure!
Feeling great pain means you can feel great joy.
Carpe diem
You're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

And finally:

Go get'em!

Nourished Kitchen Challenge Week 4

I have found the month-long challenge motivating and very worthwhile. I need to review the week's challenges and see what we did and report on specifics, but we have continued along the path toward more traditional foods very well.

I discovered that the beet kvass I made a few days ago is quite good now with a tiny bit of apple juice added. I read online somewhere also that next time if I add less salt and ferment it for longer, the taste will be more pleasant. I think that the second round of fermentation on this batch will be better because it won't be so salty anyway.

Tonight, I'll make tilapia fish sticks breaded with sprouted grain wheat bread crumbs and sauteed in a little coconut oil, some brown rice + barley + daikon radish seed medley, and some roasted carrot puree.

Yesterday I made some oatmeal cookies with maple syrup that were pretty good; the kids really like them. Getting used to the non-refined sugar taste may take some getting used to by us grown ups though.

Nourished Kitchen Challenge Report on Week 3

We had a good week in general with trying out recipes and food prep the "real food" way. We used techniques covered in Nourishing Traditions and covered on the blog Nourished Kitchen.

Day 15: Track down a SCOBY--such as a kefir starter. I didn't have luck with this; the food co-op didn't have any and I decided not to order any from an internet source. We eat a lot of yogurt and may eventually add kefir to our repertoire.

Day 16: Make cultured veggies: I made beet kvass. Everyone in the family agrees that it certainly looks delicious but it tastes horrible. I might brave it and just gulp it down as "medicine." Is there a way to make it more palatable? Perhaps add a little to a glass of ice water and add honey? I might try that later.

Day 17: Make yogurt. We make yogurt at least once a week and sometimes twice. I made it twice last week so that I would have extra to make yogurt cheese.

Day 18: Make cheese. I made yogurt cheese and happily harvested the whey for future fermentations. The cats discovered the cheese though, left on the counter for more draining time, while we were all at an ice skating lesson. Grrr. One quart of yogurt wasted and cat throw up on the entry mat. Gross.

Day 19: Prepare nuts and seeds correctly. I tried doing this last week but discovered that my oven cannot go lower than 180 degrees F. I would like to try again after I have a food dehydrator.

Day 20: Soak some beans. I'm doing that today. I'm curious about the advice Sally Fallon gives, that you only need whey or lemon juice (or I assume any acid) with black beans. The advice from Nourished Kitchen is to soak all beans in water and cider vinegar.Why the difference? I have a bean mix that includes some black beans soaking right now in warm water with cider vinegar.

Day 21: Eat veggies with fat. We had carrots last night made with plenty of butter. The recipe was Carrots Vichy (pretty much glazed carrots) from Nourishing Traditions. The kids have never been so enthusiastic about eating any vegetable. I think the 2 tablespoons of honey helped. Phil and I thought they were way too sweet and will use much less honey next time.

Other fun food prep along the same lines this past week:

• We gave the kids exclusively raw milk for drinking and used pasteurized, vat-processed nonhomogenized milk for cooking and pasteurized cream for butter making and for adding to our breakfast porridge (soaked oats in buttermilk) which we enjoy almost daily now.
• I soaked brown rice for eating at a few meals throughout the week.
• We enjoyed carrot soup made with chicken stock we had made ourselves.
• I nursed sourdough starter throughout the week but the bread dough didn't rise yesterday! Grrr. I have the loaves in the oven now but I'm guessing that the yield will be more like rocks than bread.
• Phil found a great butcher who sells pastured everything and picked up some beef bones for stock-making (simmering right now in the slow cooker) and a veal roast that I'll make tomorrow or Wednesday.
• Phil made waffles for a special addition to Saturday's breakfast using buttermilk-soaked oats.
• We're continuing to buy only cage-free/organic eggs.
• Phil also stopped using the microwave to defrost frozen sausage.
• We've been enjoying sprouted bread and sourdough bread (all store-bought right now) slathered with lots of butter. It feels sinful to us both after eating no grains at all for so long.
• We're buying more organic food in general and finding good deals.
• I've got the paperwork for signing up for a veggie-share from a local farm this summer. I'd really like to plant a big garden but I think it's safer with a new baby coming this spring to assume I won't have the time I need to tend to one. Hopefully we'll be able to plant some things that will supplement the weekly box from the farm.
• I picked up paperwork from the food co-op so we can sign up as members and get member benefits, such as a discount two days a month.
• One of the things I bought while at the co-op was some coconut oil. I made breaded tilapia on Friday and sauteed it in coconut oil. Wow! It was super delicious.

We used to eat out about once a week. I can't even remember the last time we ate out. The girls have noticed and are begging to go out. We're enjoying our homemade food, though, even when I've not planned anything, I can scramble and get something nutritious on the table. The cost of food at restaurants (even fast food) is ridiculous and the food is inferior. I hope we can sustain these new habits.

Feeling Virtuous

Here's what's happening in my kitchen:

Beet kvass is fermenting. Beet kvass is really healthy! It's a digestive aid, cleanses the liver and is good for kidney stone producers (me). All it is is a couple of large, organic chopped up beets soaked in 1/4 cup whey, 1 T sea salt and 2 quarts filtered water at room temperature for 2-3 days. It's popular in the Ukraine. I've never had it. I hope it tastes good. It is very pretty but I can see that if the kids like it, they'll have to use covered cups. I think it will stain like nothing else.

Yogurt is draining for production of yogurt cheese and whey. I need the whey for other fun fermented things such as gingered carrots.

Milk is heating in the slow cooker for more yogurt because we're yogurt monsters rather than cookie monsters.

Sourdough starter has been fed today; only one more day and I can make bread.

I put leftover pork shoulder in the freezer and posted a freezer inventory so we don't forget what's in there to eat.

Successful Yogurt and a Horrible Way to Wake Up

The yogurt-in-a-crock-pot method works great! I left the crock pot wrapped up in towels out overnight, leaving it out unintentionally 8 hours longer than suggested in the directions. It didn't matter at all (I didn't think it would but I thought we'd end up with tarter yogurt). The yogurt is still pleasantly mild and it set up beautifully.

Pregnancy leg cramps have begun. I woke up in agony from the worst calf cramp ever. It's amazing that a muscle cramp can be so painful. Week 25 is a little later than cramping started with the other two I think, so I guess that's positive. Most of the cramping I had with my other two pregnancies were hip cramps. I don't think I have a preference on the location--none would be nice.

Yogurt in the Crock Pot

We've been making yogurt for many months by sterilizing milk in mason jars in a water bath on the stove, cooling it and then adding starter and incubating in a yogurt maker for several hours. Today I thought I'd do something different since I'm using the yogurt maker to keep the brown rice that I'm soaking warm. I learned that you can make yogurt in a slow cooker! Here:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html

This method doesn't include any thermometer-watching, just clock-watching. The only down-side I see is that I'll have to transfer the yogurt from the cooker to smaller containers when it's done.

Nourished Kitchen Real Food Challenge Week 2

Challenge 8: Fats for High Heat--I haven't done this yet but I'll make some clarified butter and order some coconut oil. We don't do very much high heat cooking and use olive oil and butter for moderate heat. We'll have to eliminate these when we have clarified butter and coconut oil.
Challenge 9: Fight Against GMOs--got the shopping list and read the blog
Challenge 10: Fats to Eat Raw--I make salad dressing regularly either with walnut oil or olive oil. I can switch to coconut oil and ghee for sauteing.
Challenge 11: Sourdough Bread--I didn't make any bread as I have just started making the starter. I'll try in a week.
Challenge 12: Finding Real Milk--We found some at two groceries but hope to find a farm-direct source.
Challenge 13: Get Good Bacteria--We eat yogurt everyday as well as cultured butter.
Challenge 14: Evaluate

What we've found most difficult so far is the thought of the amount of money we will need to spend to eat pastured poultry, beef and to buy raw dairy. One of the articles at the Weston A. Price Foundation web site addresses budget concerns and we found that helpful.

I've researched and found several farms where we can buy pastured poultry, fresh eggs, pastured lamb, beef and pork. I know of two groceries where we can get raw milk but will contact the closest Weston A. Price Foundation group leader to see if there's a farm-direct source we can use. I think that we'll probably not buy all raw milk as it may be cost-prohibitive but as a compromise we can buy raw milk for our drinking needs and buy single-pasteurized milk for yogurt. So far we've bought two half-gallons of raw milk as two different stores, pasteurized cream (no raw to be found), pasteurized non-homogenized milk and vat-pasteurized homogenized milk. We buy UHT cream at Costco and make butter with it. There isn't any non-UHT cream around that isn't really pricey. Phil wonders if culturing the butter helps offset the fact that the cream used is UHT. Anyone know?

What has been fairly easy is incorporating fermented food into our diets. We were already eating yogurt and fermenting oats for breakfast proved successful. We soaked some ww pastry flour in buttermilk for pancakes this morning and the kids loved them. I plan to try to make gingered carrots this week.

We're both really enjoying reading and learning what's shared in Fallon and Enig's Nourishing Traditions book and I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on the computer reading articles on the Weston A. Price Foundation web site and finding real food bloggers.

We're enjoying all the foods we've added since starting the challenge--raw milk and fermented grains as well as sprouted grain bread. I've started some sourdough starter and have a batch of almonds soaking for crispy almonds for snacking this week. We are eating organic eggs now and I'm incorporating a lot more raw vegetables and fruit into our meals--offering them with cheese in addition to our normal lunch and dinner rather than just as snacking food. The kids haven't noticed anything different about raw milk, maybe because we've always given them full fat dairy. We feel better about giving them raw rather than pasteurized milk though. We're having our first try at pasture-fed beef for our main dish tonight--a sirloin tip roast.

The challenge has been fun and it's inspiring to find all the folks out there already successfully eating this way or working to get there.

Nourished Kitchen Real Food Challenge Week 1

I joined the challenge a week late but I wanted to share my progress on the challenge now anyway.

Challenge 1: Clean out the cupboards
This is a challenge that we failed. I am so thrifty that I just can't throw out everything that is processed. We are not a family that eats a lot of processed food anyway, so what we are going to do instead of throwing away or setting aside all the processed food is to use them up and not replace them--this includes breakfast cereal, crackers, white sugar and sugar-free syrup. We are going to make quite an effort to eat almost exclusively the Real Food way for this month.
Challenge 2: Choose wholesome food
This challenge was super easy as we already had all the suggested items: extra virgin olive oil, butter and full fat dairy. We also checked out the local food coop and whole foods market for other food recommended in Nourishing Traditions. Giant gleep felt when we saw the prices.
Challenge 3: Improve your grains
I made oatmeal porridge to supplement our normal breakfast of eggs and sausage. The sour smell of the fermented oats was a little off-putting but the final result was fantastic. Everyone loved it especially with a little butter, cream and maple syrup.
Challenge 4: Start sourdough
I got to this late--I just started it today. Hopefully it will turn out okay although I am using rye flour from the food coop--not milled by me.
Challenge 5 and 6: Sprout grain and mill it
A couple of things kept me from doing these--I don't have the equipment for drying and milling the sprouted grain so I didn't see the point of creating sprouts and all I have to sprout is old brown rice and old pearl barley. Not sure those will work. Nourishing Traditions talks a lot about sprouting grain but the recipes are all soaked grain recipes--I think this is what we will probably do more often than not. We did find an internet source for milled sprouted grain and we bought some sprouted grain bread. My better half thinks he'll order some milled sprouted grain and work with it.
Challenge 7: Relax and evaluate

Nourishing Traditions

Phil and I are both enjoying perusing the cookbook Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. We've been eating a more "traditional" diet for some time now (getting away from refined carbohydrates and eating more animal protein) but we have some ways to go to achieve the way of eating promoted in this book. It's by no means new fangled. It's a return to old, traditional ways of eating that primitive cultures thrived on (i.e., fermented foods, animal fats, raw dairy) and away from modern, processed food. Whole food prepared in the ways that this books suggests should promote optimal health. We've already been practicing some of its advice for many months--making homemade yogurt and taking cod liver oil, for instance. I don't know how much we'll adopt of the principles and practices in this book but I hope we can do quite a bit as we both agree with its basic tenets and we need to provide our family with the best quality food we can. We won't go so far as to move and make a small homestead complete with chickens, a couple of cows and a giant garden but it's tempting given how expensive pastured animal protein, raw milk and organic vegetables are.

Here are some foods that we have now in our larder that we're just not going to buy when they run out. Thrifty me is not willing to just throw out everything processed. So, here are some things we are not replacing:
Crackers
Vitamin water (I know, I know...I only bought it in the first place because I am pregnant and a medical professional suggested I drink it.)
Non-sprouted grain bread
Breakfast cereal
Soda pop (I virtually never drink it but Phil does.)
White flour
Sugar

Our first steps toward Real Food/Traditional Diet way of life:
We're soaking grains/flours before using them (in buttermilk usually that is a by-product of Phil's butter making).
We make our own yogurt.
We're looking for local farms where we can buy eggs and pastured beef and chicken.
We've started buying organic eggs and have sampled raw milk (but at $6-7 per half gallon, we wonder how we can make that work--we drink a lot of milk and eat a lot of homemade yogurt).
We've checked out what products are available at PCC and Whole Food Market and started looking online for sources.
We made homemade chicken stock from several chicken carcasses we've been collecting.
I'm making a batch of nuts prepared in a way that makes them more digestible--soaking them in salt water and then dehydrating them.

My biggest concern right now is how we can possibly afford organic eggs, raw milk and pastured beef and chicken. I think that may work itself out. Maybe when we stop buying convenience and processed food completely, the better quality food won't seem so expensive.

Catholic kid

Right now Leah is using pretend oil to bring her stuffed animal children back to life so they can come to her birthday party.

Sillies

Leah, Happy I'm Home

Leah and Naomi were happy to find me home this morning; I spent the last couple of days traveling to attend my grandfather's funeral. Here Leah was being silly.

Preschool graduate

Naomi (Mimi) "graduated" from her three years of preschool on Saturday, June 6. Nana and Grandpa (Al and Lois Voeller), Phil and I and Leah attended. Her class put on a play, "The Little Gingerbread Girl," and Naomi played a cat. Her teacher told the audience what each child wants to be when he grows up and Mimi wants to be a veterinarian. Some other kids' choices were dad, fireman, mom, rainforest guy, and builder. Naomi's declaration is no surprise to us since she adores our cats, carries stuffed cats everywhere, draws nothing but cats and her favorite game is cat and kitty pretend with Leah. She also recently saw "Born Free," and sings or hums the theme song constantly (she morphed accidentally to the Star Wars theme (ever noticed how close those theme songs are?). She was upset to learn that there was no way she could raise a wild lion cub herself here. Maybe when she's grown up!

Mmmm, fish!

This recipe is from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook but I modified it (I used chopped shallots instead of grated onion and red bell pepper instead of grated carrots). We both love fish and really enjoyed this recipe.

Fish Fillets Baked in Packets

4 pieces parchment paper or aluminum foil about 12 x 18 inches each
Olive oil or butter
1/2 c finely chopped red bell pepper (most of one bell pepper)
1/2 c finely chopped celery (about 2 stalks)
1/4 c finely chopped shallot
Salt and pepper to taste
4 Four to five ounce fish fillets such as cod, bass, red snapper, sole or tilapia
Lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Fold each piece of parchment paper in half and then open and lay flat. Oil or butter both sides of the inside surface of the paper. Combine veggies. Put some veggies on each piece of paper, to the side of the crease, then lay a salted and peppered fillet on top and add more veggies on top of each fillet. Roll edges of paper to form packets. Put on cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the fillets. Serve with lemon.

Yummy Veggie Chili

When our dining out plans were scratched last night, rather than scrounge up cereal or sandwiches, I decided to create something using what I had in the fridge and pantry. I started with a simple chili recipe that I found on the web but I modified it quite a bit. Fair warning: it's sweet for a chili and if you like chili spicier, you probably need to add jalapeno pepper or green chilies. The kids didn't eat it (oh well, no surprise), opting instead for the popovers I made to accompany it.

Sweet Vegetable Bean Chili

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
  
• 1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid
  
• 1 cup corn kernels
  
• 2 small sweet potatoes, or one large, about 1 1/2 cup, cooked (about 5 minutes in the microwave), peeled and diced
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
  
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth (or water)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion, garlic, and bell peppers until the onions are translucent.
2. Lower heat and add tomatoes, corn and seasonings.
3. Stir in the beans, cooked and diced sweet potatoes and chicken broth. (If you want the chili to be thicker, you can mash some sweet potatoes before adding them or mash some with a fork after you add them or you can puree some of the beans before adding them.)
4. Simmer until hot and eat.
   

Leah's class, 2008-09

Here's Leah's preschool class. From left to right in the front row: Piper, Olivia, Vash, Jaguar (who has an older brother named "Ocean"), and Jenae. From left to right in the back row: Leah, Liam, Gabe, Jaxson, Spencer, and Ava.
This particular day was special because they made clown hats from paper bags as you can see. That was the day Leah decided to wear her pajamas to school under her regular clothes.
Leah had a huge "crush" on Liam at the beginning of the year. They were holding hands at circle time a lot. She can't say his name yet, calls him "Lamb," which makes me grin. She also calls Gabe, "Gave."
She is one of the younger kids in the class because of her summer birthday.

Kitchen pictures

I finally got around to taking pictures of our 90% complete kitchen. There are a lot more viewable from the My Pictures link on the left below Kidisms. The album is called January 18.

naomi's number 5

Naomi turned 5 yesterday. We went to the Imaginarium, which is a children's museum in Everett. Both kids had a blast.

We picked up Happy Meals for the kids on the way home and then both girls got a nap, although Leah only slept for about 15 minutes. That evening we had a family celebration with Ruth and Grey, Karen and Nathan, Dave and Rebekah, and Lael! Phil made a yummy roast beef. Everyone had fun. We had a chocolate cake (made by me using the classic chocolate mayo cake recipe) with vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting cat decoration (designed by Naomi) and star sprinkles.
Here Naomi is, dirty face and all. She blew out her candles one by one.