The Gassy Truth - Go Big or Go Home!

I always thought my eating habits were on the healthy-ish side. I'd usually do plain yogurt, granola and fresh berries for breakfast, either a sandwich or a salad for lunch and then usually some kind of one pot chicken dish (mmm... butter chicken...) for dinner. I always chose skim milk in my tea and lattes as I have texture issues with food and felt like I was chewing my milk if it was anything but skim. I have never been much of a red meat fan, much to the dismay of my siblings as my Mom would rarely cook beef for us growing up. So I existed mainly on fish and poultry and would usually choose to buy them skinless and boneless as handling raw meat of any kind still gives me the heebie geebies. I do my best to touch it as little as possible - usually with a rather unpleasant look on my face. My bread would always be some kind of grain bread, never white bread. I rarely bought potato chips or most junk food but I would definitely eat it if it was around. My beverage of choice was always water, we were rarely allowed pop as kids and I still don't like the fizziness in my mouth. Basically, my Mom did a pretty good job of instilling "healthy" eating habits into us as kids - thanks Mom!

When I went to start the Young & Raw 30-day Smoothie Challenge and read about people having detox symptoms, I thought I would be fine as I wasn't really changing up my eating habits too severely. I was starting the challenge 20 days after most of the participants so I had the benefit of reading about their experiences before I dove into the challenge myself. I read that people were having headaches, acne breakouts, issues with gas and bloating but everyone seemed to get through their symptoms within the first 5 days. But again, I really didn't think that this would have the same effect on me as I already ate pretty healthy - or so I thought!

As I do with most things in my life, I decided that if I was going to try to eat better, I was really going to commit to it. I fell back on my old motto of "Go Big or Go Home" and put more leafy greens, fruits and other veggies into my body on day one than I probably ate in a typical week. I had the Pineapple Healing Cleanse Smoothie for breakfast, a giant spinach salad with raspberries, avocado, green peppers, hemp seeds and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar for lunch and then salmon with a giant side of roasted broccoli and a small side salad for dinner. I felt awesome. I had a TON of energy that day and was proud of myself for making a change that not only satisfied my taste buds but had me feeling great! And then it came time for me to go to bed...

Before I get into the next little bit, I need to apologize in advance to my Mom. Growing up, there was a certain 4-letter "F" word that we weren't allowed to say and talking about it was frowned upon too. Sorry Mom, you may want to skip the next couple of paragraphs!

Anyone who has shared a room with me and was unfortunate enough to fall asleep after me knows my dirty little secret, I'm a night farter. Yup, it's true. I have no idea why, perhaps it is the embarrassment of letting a toot loose in public, but I rarely fart during the day. To add to that, on the rare occasion that I do, it is immediately followed by giggles - mature, I know. I also can't burp, and it's not for a lack of trying. Ask my siblings, they both tried to teach me how. Soooo... As you can imagine, all of that built up air (or lower gas as my Dad politely calls it) has to come out at some point. For this girl, that point is at night, mostly in my sleep which works out great for me - not so great if you are sharing a bed with me. I like to believe it's usually not that bad, I like to think of it as air escaping and that it's essentially odorless? Apparently the exact opposite was true after going big or going home on day one of my new eating habits.

As is the norm, I fell asleep first and had a ridiculously good night sleep - I slept eight hours straight for the first time in a long time! Maybe it was my body's way of protecting me from what was really happening in that room. I was G-A-S-S-Y! And it wasn't just "air escaping"... Poor Rob thought I was dying. It was a non-stop barrage of farts, toots, escaping air, call it what you want but it was BAD. So bad that Duramax, one of our dogs who usually sleeps in the corner of our room, got up and left the room for the rest of the night! It apparently smelled (and tasted) like there was something dead inside me. So there I was, sleeping soundly, probably dreaming of green smoothies or my next half marathon PB, and blissfully unaware of the gas chamber I had just created in our bedroom. Then there was poor Rob, hit with the biggest stink bomb you could imagine! I basically hot boxed our bedroom - it wasn't an under the covers dutch oven, it was the entire room! It was apparently so bad that Rob called on every one's good friend Google to see if I was going to make it through the night or if I was going to die a slow gassy death. The good news is, I made it through the night! Rob will be traumatized for years to come, but I'm sure he'll recover... Eventually... We'll just chalk all that up to yet another shining moment in the life of Lisa!

So here it is - the smoothie that started it all!

Young & Raw's Pineapple Healing Cleanse Smoothie:

Ingredients:

* Rib of Celery
* 1/2 Cup of Field Cucumber
* 1 Cup Fresh or Frozen Pineapple
* 1/2 Lemon, peeled
* 1 Small handful of Parsley
* 1/2 inch piece of Ginger
* 1 Cup of Coconut Water

Blend it all up and enjoy!

As you can see, there is no fancy Vitamix blender in this household... yet! As amazing as it would be to have one and as great as they are for making smoothies, making protein bars, grinding nuts and spices etc., they are P-R-I-C-E-Y! So, much to Rob's dismay, I've been using the Margaritaville margarita maker to blend up my smoothies. It does a decent job, but I am saving my pennies (even though they're no longer in use) and I'll be putting them towards my own fancy Vitamix blender when I have enough. Of course that's a ways away as they cost upwards of $600.00!!! For now, I will keep using our trusty Margaritaville margarita maker.

For those of you wondering, yes, the gas issue has calmed down significantly since night one and no, I have not yet been made to sleep outside in the doghouse.

Health and happiness,

Lisa

New Beginnings and Changes

Hi there and welcome to my new blog! Yes, that was me who called one of my friends crazy when she told me that she had more than one blog - sorry Andrea! Well here I am joining her as I start up blog numero dos! My other blog, Run Lisa Run, was focused on my trials and tribulations of fundraising, training for and running a couple of marathons all to support the Arthritis Society, and I decided that I would leave that blog for that purpose and start up a new one instead of jumbling everything into one. I had been tossing around the idea of starting a new blog for a while, mostly for the purpose of keeping my family and friends up to date in my life since I've moved to the Okanagan. However, for the past two months I've also been making some changes in my life that people have been asking me about so I thought now would be as good a time to start blogging again and combine my general musings with my cooking blunders (and successes!) and recent lifestyle choices. Also, my Dad thinks I'm a good writer when I'm feeling inspired - thanks Dad!

In a world of ever changing health and fitness advice, I have decided to embark upon a journey to find what works to keep me fit, healthy and full of energy. I am not a doctor nor am I a nutritionist, I am simply trying to sort through all of the advice and find what works for me. I have never been a fan of fad diets or taking "miracle pills" as I spent many years watching my Mom (and many others in my life) pour money into various different diet companies while not really seeing any long term results. I now find myself at a point in my life where I am working harder and harder to stay "naturally skinny" and am taking a closer look at my own diet. That point in my life is also commonly known as my mid-thirties and I did not see the health changes that happened along with it coming!

How is it that I didn't really have an issue with acne in my teens but now that I've hit my mid-thirties I have giant oil wells popping up all over not just my face but my back and decolletage! The eczema that used to pop up here and there, mostly because I wore something made of cheap metal or during the winter, has decided that my arms need a couple of permanent  itchy, scaly patches to add to the allure of the sexy, acne prone, thirty-something body I have going on. I've struggled with IBS for years and have had to leave dinner parties early because I was so bloated I resembled someone who was five months pregnant - an awkward way to look while drinking wine around people you'd just met! I was taking all of these different issues in stride until I was rear ended almost 2 years ago and forced to sit and lay around for 3 months before being able to do any real form of exercise. All of a sudden the "eating anything I want because I'm a marathon runner" attitude caught up to me and BLAMMO - the weight started piling on.

My final straw to feeling how I was about the way my body was acting happened when I ran the marathon in the Bahamas this past January. I found it tough to train as I was always feeling sluggish and lacking energy. That lead to a serious lack in training, which then lead to running a marathon in the heat that I was ill prepared for. The result was having my legs seize up on me and having to walk the last 8 miles of that marathon just to cross the finish line for a cause I am so passionate about. Disappointing at best. Though I was proud that I had persevered and finished, there was no pride in how ill prepared I was for that day. I decided then that things needed to change and I needed to start that change when I returned home.

This is me 15 or so steps away from the finish line of the Bahamas marathon.

I made the decision to change two things immediately upon my return from the Bahamas that I had been thinking about since the beginning of January. The first was to drop obvious gluten from my diet to see if it would help with my IBS and eczema. This was not an easy decision for a pasta-loving, pizza-loving runner! The second was to get more whole foods into my body and use as little pre-packaged foods as possible. This one ended up being a little easier than I thought. I had a friend sign up for Young & Raw's green smoothie challenge in January and decided that I too would give it a try.

The results; I LOVED IT! I now have a green smoothie every morning for breakfast, usually a giant salad or a plate full of veggies for lunch and then a fairly normal-for-me dinner. I don't crave pizza or pasta, though I have had days where it would be a lot easier just to throw a pizza in the oven than to make a healthy dinner, I know along with that pizza comes the pain and bloating that I hate. My eczema has almost all cleared up, the bloating has been pretty much non-existent, and my thirty-something bout of teenage acne has cleared up amazingly well! Not only do I not crave pizza, pasta or bread, but I find myself craving greens, fruits and medjool dates as sweets. Who am I???

Change, for some, can be very scary and overwhelming, but it can also be exciting and bring you to amazing places in your life. I have been through a lot of changes over the past year. Through those changes I have learned a lot about who I am, the people I need to surround myself with and what I need to do to keep my body and mind healthy.  In this ever changing life, I am hoping to find a healthy, happy, diet-free lifestyle that I can count on for years to come.

Health and happiness,

Lisa