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Hey there! I'm Holly. A 40+ year old insurance-nerd wife, mom, beauty lover, and about a million other things in between.
This is the place where I share about our lives, what I'm currently loving, books I'm reading, plus-size style, beauty recommendations, health + fitness endeavors and anything else I'm finding interesting at the moment.
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Monthly Archives: April 2011
Part Six: Transitioning to a Paleo Diet
If you missed Part Five check that out first.
When we last left off, fresh of the great results of my allergy diet I had begun to research Paleo eating, and a lot of information was clicking for me. I had seen great results, felt better than I had in ages, and had a ton of energy. But friends and family were definitely giving my dietary changes a raised eyebrow.
Transitioning to a Paleo diet requires an open mind at first, I’m not going to lie. Especially when people start calling it a Caveman Diet, because honestly — HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE IT SOUND APPEALING? Have you seen the Geico commercials — using cavemen for comparisons don’t always make something look more appealing. But I can honestly tell you that for me, it totally changed my life and simplified the way I cook and eat. For those who are interested, here is the scoop.
The main reason Paleo eating requires an open mind is that it goes against A LOT of conventional wisdom that you learn growing up. I’m not talking about eating worms or anything crazy, but if you were raised anything like me you grew up thinking low fat and low calorie diets were the secret to good maintaining your weight, and as long as you just ate “everything in moderation” you would be the picture of health. Paleo is not about any of these things, so for me overcoming a lifetime worth of what I knew was a challenge. Also, there is the small fact that the science of nutrition is relatively young. We are all kind of guessing at it — scientists and consumers alike. There is always research on both sides — I thought Linda’s post on this topic was accurate and succinct. It’s a lot of noise, so you have to find what works for you, not what works for everyone.
What ended up working for me was eliminating grains and sugar completely and increasing my fat/vegetable/protein intake. I don’t have any conspiracy theories, and I won’t tell you that the grain industry is playing puppet master in our lives or anything that dramatic. But after doing a significant amount of reading I do believe that the food pyramid is bullshit, and so for me I decided to do some experimentation and Paleo has felt phenomenal. I think anyone exploring a new way of eating needs to do that.; Immerse yourself in whatever you choose for at least 30 days. See how you feel, go from there. My diet currently emphasizes consumption of vegetables, fruit, animal protein, nuts and seeds while eliminating all refined grains, sugar, and dairy (though I still eat a bit of dairy here and there). If you are considering going the Paleo route, here are some places to start.
I feel like I need to give a quick disclaimer that Paleo is NOT just a typical Low Carb Diet, which I think it sometimes gets incorrectly billed as. It also doesn’t involve any weighing, measuring or counting. You don’t track carbs or calories. It is a dietary framework that can work for any type of goal. I’ve lost over 70 lbs not regularly tracking anything that has gone into my mouth. Sure there have been times where I have used a tool like Fit Day or Fat Secret to check in that I am meeting my nutritional goals, but those times are few and far between because frankly — that’s a pain in the ass. And to me, having to write down everything you put in your mouth is the first sign that something is a temporary fix and not a change in your lifestyle.
The elimination of sugar and high glycemic foods allowed my body to reset itself so that my hunger signals were working correctly again. I no longer have major cravings, and when I’m not hungry, I don’t eat. It was something I could never get the hang of while eating sugar and refined carbohydrates and there is a great chapter in Robb Wolf’s book The Paleo Solution that really breaks down exactly why that happens in the body. I can’t recommend that book highly enough if you’ve ever had trouble losing weight or had any type of illness at all. Incredibly illuminating!
So, Paleo is not about eliminating carbohydrates but more focusing on the nutritional density of the food you are eating along with eating foods that doesn’t cause inflammation in your gut. I think this explanation clearly explains how excess carbohydrate consumption affects your health better than I ever could, plus it has a very cute video at the end of it which is worth watching. And if you are interested in understanding how grains affect your gut health, definitely check that article out. When you eliminate refined sugars and grains, your diet by default does become lower in carbohydrates than the Standard American Diet — but “Low Carb” is not the point. The point is — get in tons of nutrition efficiently from foods that don’t cause inflammatory problems in your body.
So how does one do this in real life? For me, Step One was eliminating the grain element of my dinner and replacing it with another vegetable. We always had some type of protein in our dinner, plus a veggie, plus some rice or bread or pasta.This is pretty common, no? So to begin with I just started making our proteins with two vegetables — which actually was kind of fun. I roasted, steamed, braised, bought new spices, tried new veggies and tried to keep my plate to mostly vegetables with a nice serving of protein. At first this was terrifying, I used to be a total bread addict! As a kid I used to hide left over dinner rolls under my bed at night — I was that dedicated. How gross is that?
Step Two was examining what we were eating for breakfast and lunch — and wouldn’t you know it was pretty heavy grainy fare — cereal, sandwiches, pasta, etc. I used to think I was doing myself a favor by eating lots of grains because I was getting so much fiber and that would fill me up. But the truth is, vegetables are largely more fiber dense and don’t cause an insulin response that interferes with your body’s own hunger response.Instead of grains in the morning I started trying to include a protein source in each of those meals. For breakfast I began making smoothies like this, or grabbing a hard boiled egg or two. For lunch I started packing enormous salads with chopped chicken or steak, or I’d bring leftovers from dinner the night before. These were pretty easy changes and I started to think the transition was going pretty smooth.
The Third Step was paying attention to the details. What was I snacking on? What types of fat was I using when I cooked? I learned exactly how saturated and unsaturated fats are broken down in your body. I bought a few new cooking staples. As far as what to stock in your kitchen, I think AndreAnna’s post on what is in her pantry is one of the best I’ve ever seen. She has been an incredibly inspiring mentor to me throughout this process, so I highly encourage you to look around over there if you are considering making a similar switch. Paleo cooking is actually super simple because you are basically picking and choosing various protein sources, fats and vegetables and the combos are endless. Robb Wolf has a great food matrix that makes it pretty easy to get up and running with tons of ingredients to make healthy meals.
Every once in a while I would think about how I missed sandwiches, or get sad over the fact that we never hit up our favorite local pizzeria anymore. But the truth is, I wasn’t actually craving these foods, which I think is important to note. It was nostalgia, not an actual food craving. After about a week of not eating grains at every meal I didn’t really miss it. And I still don’t!
In Part Seven I’ll share with you some meal plans and tips on how to transition. I definitely started my Paleo transition by making “Paleo” version of my favorite grain based treats. But eventually I have left those behind too in favor of simpler food. I’ll give you a run down of what the two of us eat in an average week and share some of my favorite recipes!
Style Question: Why do Old Navy Pants Suck So Hard?
Oh, so when I said I might start posting pictures of What I Wore did you think it would be fabulous and stylish fashion-y pictures? BAHAHAHAHA…yeah, I am a woman of substance, not so much with the style.
Today’s Style Question – Part One: Why do Old Navy’s pants stretch out so that you can fit an adult diaper in there only 4 hours after wearing them? And Part Two: Why do I continue to buy them?
The quick answer to Part Two — these pants were $11.99 on clearance and they were vanity sized to high heaven!
The top photos? From 7am this morning.
The bottom photos? Taken at noon.
That is some Dramatic Ass Pooching, if I do say so myself. What gives, Old Navy?
I mean really? What could these pants possibly be made out of that they stretch so amazingly without even being considered “stretch” pants.
My final questions of the stylish nature then, is: If you can only get 2 acceptable hours of wear out of a pair of pants is the bargain and vanity sizing worth it?
I’m thinking not.
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Do you love Old Navy Pants? Am I crazy?
March Books
March was another good month of books. I’m sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop and to show up here one month and say “Well sorry guys, I didn’t read ANYTHING.” But this month I picked up 9 books and managed to actually read 8 of them. The book I put down?
How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich. OHMAHGAWD, I listened to this on audio book and it was awful. It was read by the author and whoever let her read out loud should lose their job. It was worse that Sheree’s acting on Real Housewives of Atlanta. It felt like someone a Saturday Night Live skit with Mike Myers doing “Linda Richman reads a book.” Let’s just say it did not make me all verklempt. Plus the writing advice was akin to “Ok first get a piece of paper. Don’t forget a writing utensil!” UGH. When she got a few chapters in and stated that she was going to let one of her “characters introduce themselves” I had to give this the axe. I got two discs in and really couldn’t take it anymore.
Luckily I followed it up with something a bit more page turning or this month could have gone off the rails real quick!
What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman — Lippman is a pretty famous mystery writer and I was constantly coming across interviews and book reviews about her writing. I’d never read her but was in the mood for a good mystery and this definitely fit the bill. The plot in brief: 30 years after 2 sisters go missing at a Baltimore shopping mall, a woman turns up claiming to be one of the sisters. The unravelling of this woman’s identity as well as what really happened all those years ago are woven together in a very non-linear story that was quite a page turner. On the cover of the book was one of those fluffy quotes by another author about how Lippman doesn’t write mysteries, she writes about the hearts of people and blah blah blah, and I rolled my eyes as I usually do because those cover quotes always seem like literary circle jerks , but I will say — this story was a very eloquent portrayal of human emotion (oh god, slap that sentence on the cover of a Jodi Piccoult novel, GAG!) but it also had an intriguing mystery in it. And I really enjoyed that. She is a great writer, and although the resolution of this particular story was a bit quick, at the end the pacing and depth of the novel kept me highly engaged the entire time. I will definitely read her books again.
Stay by Allie Larkin — This book was utterly charming. I have to say I was leery of it since it was Everyone’s Favorite Book for a minute on the internet, and we all know that I don’t have the best track record with these types of books. The other thing making me feel uncertain was that the premise of this book was not super engaging: Girl loves boy. Boy marries Girl’s Best Friend. Girl gets dog and mends the pieces of her broken heart. Maybe I’m heartless, but this does not make we want to tear through the pages. But I have completely changed my opinion. Internet, YOU HAVE TOTALLY REDEEMED YOURSELF! The sweetness of this book and the complexity of the story — it just grabbed me right from the start. I actually took a chance and listened to it on audio book and was so enthralled I took it to work and after a day and I half I was done — sad to be saying goodbye to all of the characters. It was a very heartwarming book and I recommend it highly if you need a little dose of feel-goodery. I need another girl finds dog and mends heart book, STAT! Recommendations?
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian — This was a random library grab off one of the end caps I passed by in a hurry. I remember very vividly reading Bohjalian’s debut novel Midwives back in 1997 when I was in love with Oprah’s Book Club and everything it stood for and that book actually remains one of my favorites. Well, I should probably reread it again before I go saying that, but I have fond memories of reading it and I find it hard to believe that in the last 15 years I haven’t picked up another one of his novels. I’m glad I did with this one. It was a love story, a mystery, an anxiety inducing lawyer-ish novel, and a story of loss all at the same time. It tugged on the heartstrings and made me want to keep turning the pages. I wanted a sequel.
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg –Filled with many meditative writing exercises on “How To Remember” I found some of the things I wrote while working my way through this book to be really emotional and things that I didn’t even know I had inside. God that sounds cheesy, but it was so true. I sort of have a new writer crush on her and want to pour through everything she has ever written. Just walking around the house thinking about some of her prompts had my fingers just pulsing with ideas. I immediately had to pick up another one of her books.
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg–Goldberg says the rules for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, Lose Control, and Don’t Think. I loved this advice. I definitely thought to myself at first “Ok this is going to be some New Mexico Hippie Business,” and you know what, it kind of was. But it was also some really sound advice on writing and I found it totally engaging and inspiring. This book is 20 years old and was apparently a bit ground breaking in its approach to creativity and I just loved it! Definitely Recommend. Highly, actually.
Mommywood by Tori Spelling
So now that I have gone and confessed that I have a thing for celebrity memoirs I feel like we can talk openly. I loooooved sTori Telling despite the dumb word play in the title, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a kind of trashy Hollywood tell all, so needless to say I was really looking forward to finishing this book (I had started it ages ago and put it down for some reason, which should have been the first read flag.) But this was kind of a disappointment. Lots of justification about why being a mom in Hollywood is so hard because everyone is so aware of your body and the paparazzi follow you around but HONESTLY? It was a bit much. I mean she tries to be tongue in cheek about it all and she is good at poking fun at herself, but she was playing the world’s smallest violin in my opinion. Then there was more discussion about her mother in this book but for some reason it felt really contrived this time. Like I was acutely aware that I was only getting one side of the story. I don’t think sympathy for Candy Spelling was what she was reaching for with this novel but that is kind of what I was left with. Let me be totally clear, I will ABSOLUTELY be reading her next book. I just can’t stop, people.
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown–I loved this book in the way I love a good cheeseburger. A cheeseburger isn’t particular revolutionary, yet when you have a good one you can absolutely savor every bite. This was kind of a chick book — I wouldn’t call it chick-lit because I tend to think of that as a little bit fluffier and more on the romance side — but it was a story of a mother and her daughters going through some drama. When I read the back of the book to Garrett he was like, “CHICK BOOK!” and I have to say the plot synopsis really supported that. But since this book has been on my To-Read list since 2008 and I saw it at the library, I finally picked it up when I had nothing else to read. Surprisingly, it was absolutely DELICIOUS. Just a really good story and fun characters and I really loved the way it was written. Brown has been compared to Jonathan Franzen a lot in the media and I can kind of see why, she definitely has an eye for being able to draw the marrow out of the mundane. And I love when I read a book and catch myself trying to memorize a turn of phrase or description just because it captures something so perfectly. This book was full of that. I definitely will read more of Janelle Brown. Well, spoiler alert: I did read more, but I didn’t finish it until April, so technically I can’t tell you about it until next month!
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
This book was…complex. I listened to this at work, which in hindsight was not the best place for such emotional fiction. I hadn’t seen the movie so all I really knew was that it was a story about a woman who falls in love with a younger boy. This didn’t really strike me as a piece of work that I’d be dying to pick up, but I do love some Kate Winslet (if she wrote a memoir, you know I’d read it) and since she was lauded for her performance I figured it must be pretty good. The book is billed as a story of sex, love, shame, reading, and postwar Germany and boy does that not make for the most lighthearted reading. But it was very powerful and heart wrenching in parts. I listened to it quickly and had to take a few days off to recover when I was done.
So what say you, friends. What did you read this month that you enjoyed?
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Random Updates + Bloggy Stuff
I’ll Have the Pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment
In various forms this week I have seen/heard/read the Voltaire quote that deals with the idea of all of us only being able to tend our own gardens. I don’t really believe in coincidences so I kind of feel like maybe The Universe (dun dun duuuun!) is slamming me over the head with the idea that I need to quit worrying about everyone else and just do my own thing. Or, in the wise words of Ronnie and Sammy from the Jersey Shore — “You do you and I’ll do me.” I feel like I should win some sort of prize for discussing Voltaire and The Jersey Shore in the same paragraph, no? The Universe could also just be telling me to finish fertilizing my garden beds too, which I have added to my To-Do List this weekend.
What the World Needs Now is Another Celeb Memoir
Speaking of things I am planning on doing, since I love talking books with you all so much that I’ve decided to start something new around here. It’s going to be called I Read Celebrity Memoirs So You Don’t Have To — I will let you connect the dots on what that is going to be about. I figure it will make me feel slightly less guilty about all the trashy celebrity books that I read if I can tell you about them. I will consider it a noble deed, eradicating the need for others to read bad celebrity memoirs. This is the cross I will bear for you, dear reader. And since we are on the topics of books and reading, I’ll be posting my monthly book list on Monday, and there were some interesting ones this month — even a celebrity memoir (or two…Jeez, I’ve got a problem.)
Coming Soon to an Unambitious Blog Near You
I’ve been thinking a lot about this blog lately and some of the things I feel like doing with it. Don’t worry, this it isn’t anything conceptual. I’m not “changing my niche”. I don’t plan to “build a brand”. I don’t need this blog to “take me places.” This will not be a platform for my future “world domination”. I also do not plan to overuse quotation marks (though I can make no promises about Caps Lock.) None of that is what this marination is about. I’m talking more on the superficial front. I have a bazillion ideas that run through my head each day about things I should post. But then my brain starts to short circuit or I think — dude, you don’t even have a category for that, you can’t post that — and then I don’t. Which is dumb, so I plan to stop that.
I read a lovely quote this morning via a link on Making it Lovely and it the following line struck me:
If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strick you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.
This was meant for “artists” but I consider writing to be under that umbrella and I just loved hearing this idea again. It’s not about waiting for inspiration, it’s about churning out garbage and finding the gem. In my mind I consider this website a journal of my life, but there is just so much that I forget about, miss the opportunity to post about, or just plain get lazy about documenting for fear that it will look out of place or people won’t get it or won’t care. But you know what? The truth is that I look out of place sometimes and in that way it would be the most accurate portrayal.
Don’t worry I’m just talking about doing some fun voyeuristic things like A Day in the Life — don’t you love those sort of fascinating looks into other people’s lives? Or I might jump on Sarah’s bandwagon and do 30 LittleThings. Maybe I’ll start photographing what I wear again — it’s been a while and I basically have nothing to wear so maybe that will reinvigorate my creative side. Who knows. Like I said, superficial stuff that makes me happy. This is a blog, not a branding document.
I hope you will stick around for the ride!
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