Junk-Free July (Day: 1)

With most aspects of our daily life we tend to fluctuate in efficiency.  This happens with sleep, keeping the house clean, positive thinking,  budgeting, scripture study, prayer, exercise, eating right. Sometimes I’m better at doing some of these things than others and as of lately I have been lazy and slacking in the health department.  I needed an overhaul!  The more crap you let into your daily diet, the more you feel like crap, and when you feel like crap you don’t usually get the exercise in you need.  You hear it all the time from people like me, who fluctuate in and out of being fit and healthy. “Wow I just have so much energy! I feel great.  It’s so nice to start my day off with a good workout.”  Then it happens AGAIN.  Why do we let ourselves fall out of love with being healthy, and full of energy?  Well I think it has alot to do with our environment. So I’m gonna CHANGE my environment, starting with processed foods.  I’m doing away with sweets as well this month, due to my unhealthy relationship with chocolate.  Portioning and exercise is great, but are you really healthy consuming all these processed foods?  Processed foods are like the gateway drugs into obesity.  Obesity didn’t used to be an issue, and processed food didn’t used to exist. Not to mention they teach people to be LAZY.  Heck there are premade pb & j’s.  Really?! How much time does it take to make a pb & j? Pretty soon we’ll all be fat blobs floating around on hover crafts like in the movie Wall-e.
I’ve been on kind of kick a lately about being self-reliant. Our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) really stresses the importance of this.  I’ve always agreed with them, and thought that it’s good to be prepared for anything, but with where this world is heading I’m more and more eager and motivated to get to where I need to be.  If there were a natural disaster, or any disaster for that matter, would I have the means and skills to feed my family?  Back in the day people grew their own food, raised their own livestock, and had to rely on themselves for EVERYTHING.  I could go on forever, delving into this, but the main thing I’m trying to get across is you can’t be self-reliant and unhealthy, and there may not always be a store you can run to, to get your food.   So Junk-Free July is my trial run.  I am removing ALL processed foods from my diet this month to 1. Help me achieve my health goals 2.Prove to myself I can do it 3.Use how I FEEL to motivate me to truly change my environment 4.Force myself to learn what I NEED in the home (and eventually in my food storage) to provide healthy meals for my family  Eventually we would like to have a garden, chickens, etc and be completely self-reliant. So join me on my journey this July as I get healthy, and as I educate and prepare myself for caring for my family in the case of any emergency.  
Well, Day: 1 has gotten off to a great start. I woke up early and went on a 4 mile run with a friend.  When I came home I was bit faint and needed somethign to eat.
BREAKFAST: I made a smoothie (I have a smoothie just about everyday, sometimes it’s my breakfast, or sometimes it’s my lunch)  It’s easy, cheap, refreshing, and unprocessed.  All you need is a blender, ice, frozen strawberries, frozen mixed berries, and orange juice. Of course there are all kinds of smoothie recipes.  You can add all kinds of fruits and veggies this is just my favorite, because it’s the quickest, tastiest one I’ve tried and it’s super low calorie. Doesn’t this look delicious?

Total Calories: 185
Total Fat: 0g
Total Carbs: 40g
Protein: 2g
Grab your blender!
Throw in: 1 1/2 C. ice

1 C. frozen strawberries (approx:5)

I buy the 6lb bag from Costco        

Next add a 1/2 C. of Mixed Berries


I buy the 4 lb. bag from Costco      
Lastly add 1 1/2 C. fluid (I did 1c. OJ & 1/2c water doing the 1 1/2 C OJ is only 50 calories more)

I buy the 6 pack at Costco      
Blend and ready to go!

As you can see, this recipe renders a good amount. So no feeling hungry or unsatisfied, this fills you up! Half the time I don’t even finish it in one sitting and stick it in the freezer and come back later and spoon it.
LUNCH: Steamed some Frozen Peas and Sliced a Granny Smith
Lunch was pretty basic and quick. We were doing stuff around the house so I didn’t have alot of time. I could eat snow peas ALL DAY LONG and be happy!


Dinner: Chicken Tortilla Pie
Okay the name makes it sound WAY better than it was!  Okay it wasn’t bad at all, but was a little lacking in flavor. I’m a fan of a kick of spicy where chicken and tortillas are concerned. Here we are.

Well basically I made some tortillas….

…which I topped with spring mix, rice (that i made in our new rice steamer I LOVE it, and we use it all the time) The rice turns out EVERY time!
                    
Next I added some blackbeans.  I usually used canned but that is considered processed so I had to do it the long way.  It was a much longer process than I realized. Lots of rinsing and soaking going on…..

To top it all off is sauteed Chicken along with red pepper, green onion, and white onion.

I had two of the tortillas and the calories are somewhere in the ballpark of 375 and 400….not too bad. I’m betting if I had made some homemade salsa to go with it would have been much better. I may give this a try later this month. Well these were my eats today, but I’m hoping to really experiment with some things so this should get interesting. I of course continue to drink LOTS and LOTS of water. I ended Day 1 off with a nice hot bath!
Well being a mother of two, and preparing for a litter of pups coming early august I don’t have the time or energy to take pictures of all of my meals for this month and then blog about them.  So I will take pictures of my favorites and of course my flops throughout each week and do a weekly rap up. Probably Sunday afternoons? Feel free to join me in this month long challenge, or if you have any yummy recipes I could try this month (unprocessed of course!) I’d be happy to try them. I’m afraid I’ll be running out of things to eat. I CAN DO THIS! right?