So I went to this seminar...

It was by this lady that sells Juice Plus+. I had never heard of it, but before she tried to sell the product, she brought up a lot of interesting things that I was unaware of. She had been diagnosed with diabetes and hyperglycemia when she was in her 20's I believe and after that she decided that she wanted to live a healthy life. She is now a vegetarian and takes Juice Plus+. She gave us a list called "10 Easy Steps-The Path to Health" and here they are:
1. Reverse the path to disease! Rebuild the nerve force by changing stress and strain components.
2. Detoxify the whole system; lymph, skin, lungs, bowel, kidneys, liver.
3. Eat for regeneration, introducing higher quality foods.
4. Eat close to nature, 75% + of unrefined, unfired plant based diet full of enzymes.
5. Alkalinize your system; avoid processed and refined acidic forming foods.
6. Support the body, mind, emotions and spirit with positive energy.
7. Take self-responsibility for noticing the feedback from your body.
8. Eat more fruits and vegetables in rainbow colors; whole grains, beans, raw nuts and seeds, sprouts, fresh juices, raw foods all high in fiber, enzymes, antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals naturally!! Drink plenty of pure water! Choose organically grown and vine-ripened food
9. Exercise, relax, sleep well, meditate, pray....stay in balance!
10. Supplement your diet with Juice Plus+ whole food nutrition.
She talked a lot on stress and how that can mess with your body and cause strain physically and mentally. She said that the more stress in your life can cause a lowered nerve force which can lead to Defective waste elimination (gross I know but important for a healthy body) and when that happens you can have toxemia. Toxemia has many symptoms like headaches, insomnia, irritability, fluid retention, inflammation, constipation, bad breath and allergies. She said when we have these symptoms we go to the doctor or the pharmacy and we take pills or have surgery which doesn't fix the problem. We have to find ways to deal with our stress.
She talked about how an animal based diet closes arteries and a plant based diet opens arteries. Diet is the only cure for heart disease and when we have a better diet our bodies are naturally healthy. A plant based diet can strengthen your immune system.
She talked briefly on the Rainbow diet but there is a book called What color is your diet? I think I might want to check that one out.
(As you'll notice, these are just snippets of what she said, thats because I'm just putting on here what I got notes on.)
She talked about how positive energy changes your life.
You should eat close to nature such as fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes. Fresh produce is the best because cooking vegetables takes the nutrients out them. Those nutrients are what make your body work to the best of its ability. She showed us a lot of books by Humbart Santillo who I think is the creater of Juice Plus+ but I can't remember.
She pointed out that we should be eating 9-13 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, I know I'm not eating that.
Our diet should consist of 20-25% of Acid forming foods and 75-80% of Alkaline forming foods. I have never heard of this before. We need to test our body PH. You can look up a list of those foods online.
The darkest and deepest leafy greens and veggies. The more pixels the better. Eat as many as you can. You can't eat too many.
So these are the notes I took on the seminar. I'm definitely looking into this further because the things she said made sense. I want to do my own research and see what gives me more energy and makes my body work better. I have also heard of eating to your blood type. People with A type blood need more fruits and veggies for energy and O type blood individuals need more protein and need to keep their energy up. That will be tough for our family because my husband is O and I am A. He craves meet and I don't. I might need to start changing our menus around.
Read more on Juice Plus+ online because it seemed to be a good product giving you your serving of fruits and veggies in 4 pills a day 2 veggies and 2 fruits. I know that I do plan on going through my cupboards and cleaning out the processed foods and fatty things we have had stored in there secretly.

And I'm back!!!

I got up this morning determined to run since I did take a break yesterday. However I did not take a break from exercising, I still did the work out group which was just painful because of how sore I am. So this morning I got up and decided to run the same route that I used run last year, and I really wanted to run the whole thing because that meant it would be 3 miles. Well I finished the route and then I went a little further! I ran 3.41 miles!! Thats how far I was running last year. And last year it took me a month to get that far! It only took me five days! I'm so excited. I felt so good when I finished. Last year I wasn't eating well and now I'm doing better, so combine that with running over 3 miles and I'll be losing weight in no time.

Tabs on exercising

Today I ran 2.47 miles and did an hour of Body Pump at the gym. My body hurts all over. I might need a break tomorrow.

Slowly getting there

Last Thursday I walked a few laps then I ran a mile, the stadium is locked for stupid reasons but I'm determined to keep trying to use it. Today it was locked again so I came home and ran around the block and when I mapped it out I ran 1.67 miles. At that point I could have kept going but Jesús needed to leave for work and Elena was already awake. It was a nice cool 70 degrees which made it easier too. Lets see if I can keep it up tomorrow.

The running has begun!

I went to the stadium today and ran 3 laps which is 3/4 of a mile. Kind of sad when I think that last year I was running over 4 miles. However, I need to not think about that and just focus on now. My very good friend Trish was with me to push me that last lap. It was tough because it was already 82 degrees at 6 in the morning. So we ran 3/4 of a mile and walked 1 and 1/4 mile then we did the stadium stairs for about 10 minutes. That was even more tough. My legs now feel like jelly but I came home and had a healthy breakfast which I am going to track on Spark People. Lets hope this is the beginning of something beautiful.

I've decided

Its time to buy a scale. I have only weighed myself on the Wii and I'm not even sure its accurate but that was also quite awhile ago. I think seeing my actual weight will scare me into starting to run. Tomorrow is a holiday but that just means I can get started on Tuesday. Here's hoping I can get back to running 4 miles again. Also I've been thinking about buying a bike, thoughts?

So those recipes...

Ok so I thought I would do these in the order of my favorites but I can't decide which one would be first so I'm just doing them in random order.

This is a Chipotle Turkey Burger. It wasn't a recipe we found anywhere, just something we came up with. We took 1 lb of ground turkey (not fat free, it bbq's too dry) then added an egg, maybe a cup and a half of fresh bread crumbs, maybe a third of a cup of dijon mustard, dried minced onion ( I add alot because it adds so much flavor) and some salt and pepper. We just bbq'd the patties on the grill and then my husband mixed a little adobo sauce with some mayo and we added a slice of provolone cheese and tomatoes. It was pretty dang good. I can't tell you what is on the shrimp because my husband created that rub but it was maybe some citrusy rub and then he bbq'd those too. Very tasty! Dont forget to use whole wheat buns!

If some one pointed a gun to my head and made me pick a favorite out of this list, the stuffed portobello mushrooms would be at the top of my list. So divine.
1 small yellow sweet pepper, cut in bite size strips
1 small red onion, chopped
1 medium zucchini, coarsely shredded
1 carrot, coarsely shredded
1 stalk of celery thinly sliced (I did not use celery because I think its gross)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 to 3 TB of olive oil
1 TB snipped fresh basil
1 TB lemon juice
1 5 ounce package baby spinach
1/2 cup finely shredded bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese
4 4 to 5 inch portobello mushroom caps stems and gills removed
4 slices provolone cheese
pre-heat oven to 425. Line 15x10 pan with foil. In a 12 inch skillet cook and stir sweet pepper, onion, zucchini, carrot, celery(yuck), garlic in olive oil on medium high heat for about 4 minutes. Stir in basil, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Top with spinach and cover. Cook for 2 minutes then remove from heat. Stir in crumbs and half of the parmesan cheese. Set mixture aside. Arrange mushrooms on pan and top with a slice of provolone cheese. Divide the mixture onto each mushroom. Bake for 15 minutes then top with rest of parmesan cheese and cook for 2 more minutes. I'm telling you, divine.
This was probably not a favorite for my husband because he likes flashy meals and this was rather plain but I liked it. It calls for Fontina cheese which I could not find but maybe it adds a little oomph that my husband was looking for. I might try it with sundried tomatoes next time. You can find the recipe HERE.
This has been one of my favorite lunches. Its a BLT salad and its quick to make and even my two year old eats it like crazy. The dressing is my favorite part. You can find this recipe HERE.
This is something that I saw on the Eating Well website then I just let my husband run free with it. We took 1 lb ground turkey, 1 zucchini chopped, 1 can water chestnuts, chopped( I'm not sure if they come chopped, I think we always chop them) 1 can bamboo shoots chopped, 2 teaspoons powdered ginger, a few tablespoons of soy sauce and a few table spoons of Hoisin sauce (its our new favorite thing) salt and pepper to taste and maybe a little hot sauce if you want a kick. Cook the ground turkey then throw in everything else and cook until the zucchini is cooked all the way through. I hope I'm remembering everything on this recipe because I'm not the one who makes it, my talented husband does. You can slice some green onions as a little garnish and then wrap it all up in a lettuce leaf. We ate this for mothers day because my mom really liked it.
This last one was also a little made up magic. We called it southwest pizza. We made some pizza dough ( I suggest whole wheat pizza dough but my husband isn't a fan so we made white flour pizza dough) Then we topped it with a homemade pizza sauce with tomato sauce garlic powder and dried minced onion and some adobo sauce to taste to add that smokey kick. We topped that with black beans and corn and chopped onion and some Monterey jack cheese. Then when it came out of the oven we sliced some avocado and added it to the pizza. It was really good, not much to it though.
I have a few other recipes that I haven't taken pictures of or I can't remember what recipes they are but I have pictures of them. This is a good start though.