Category Archives: What Goes in the Pie-Hole

December 13, 2011

10,252 Cookies

By Susan

The Christmas season is extra busy in our household.  Between all the regular madness, both our daughters have late-December birthdays.  So I look for every opportunity to maximize efficiency.  

Enter: the Cookie Walk.

The Cookie Walk is a new concept for me.  Think cookie exchange.  Except you don’t do or bring any baking.  You just show up at a local church where other people have done a mountain-load of Christmas baking.  You bring $20 and get a plastic box with a lid like you see in the grocery store.  Then you proceed to stuff as many cookies as possible into the box, while several hundred other people are trying to do the same.   The only rule is that the lid has to be able to snap shut when you’re done.  They seal it with packing tape as you leave so you can’t sneak back in and get more. 

It’s the perfect blend of my penchant for competitive sports and my love of Christmas baking. 

My mom told me we should get there early.  The Cookie Walk – held at my parents’ church – is apparently very popular.  Last year all the cookies were gone in 45 minutes.  I couldn’t quite imagine an early morning line up at a church fund-raiser.  But Isabelle and I took the advice to heart and got there at 9:30 a.m. (doors opened at 10:00).  Boy, am I glad we did.    

These are serious competitors

My competitive instincts immediately set in.  I envisioned a stampede of plastic glove-wearing senior citizens running wildly to the tables of cookies the second the door to the church hall opened.  Rookies like us may be in trouble. I needed a plan.           

We began to chat with the lady in line behind us.  Let’s call her Paula.  Paula, it turned out, had been coming to the event for years.  I probed for details.  How many cookies are in there?  Do people throw elbows? Should I fear for the safety of my five-year old?

“It’s about strategy,” Paula told us seriously.  “If there’s a particular kind of cookie you like, find them first.  Don’t oooh and ahhh at the selection.  Hone in on what you want.  Then take lots.”

Good, I nodded.  This is good. 

Paula went on to tell us that she comes to the Cookie Walk every year.   She gets a tonne of cookies and squares, which she then packs up into care packages and sends to her grown children who live in various provinces.  They think it’s her own baking.

“Like they’d ever know,”  said Paula, with a laugh.     

As we waited, one of the organizers – let’s call her Marge - stopped by to say hello to Paula.   

“We have a lot of cookies this year,” Marge said proudly.  ”10,252 of them to be exact.” 

That fact that she knew the exact number of cookies impressed me.  These were my people.   Paula inquired to Marge about the location of the iced gingerbread men.  Marge went into the main hall to check.  When she came out, she spoke in a whisper.

“There’s not many.  I can only see one tray.  They’re on the back table, toward the left.”  

Marge was Paula’s mole - her gingerbread man mole.     

At 9:57, I warned Isabelle that it was almost time.  I got down on my knees and took my daughter by the shoulders. 

“We’re going to move quickly,” I said.  “So stick together.”  Isabelle looked at me wide-eyed.  

“If you see cookies you like, just take some,” I continued.  ”Don’t dilly-dally.”  Isabelle nodded. 

“And not too much shortbread.  Go for ones with icing and sprinkles.  And chocolate chips.  DO YOU HEAR ME, CHILD? THE ONES WITH CHOCOLATE CHIPS!” 

Isabelle and I did some trunk rotations and lunges to get the blood pumping.  The last thing we needed was a pulled hamstring.  We had senior citizens to outwit and out run.   At 10:00 a.m. precisely the line started moving.  As we entered the hall, we got our boxes and plastic gloves.  The crowd scattered.  It was game on. 

We went to work.  We blocked and pivoted around aggressive old people.  I sent Isabelle in first at times, seeing that people were taken by her cute charm.  With laser focus and nimble footwork we filled those containers. 

"FILL IT TO THE CORNERS! DO YOU HEAR ME?" someone may have hollered to her child.

At 10:24 a.m. we emerged from the church hall.  I was sweating lightly but feeling good.  Our two boxes were sealed with very few air pockets.  We got a nod of approval from the elderly packing-tape-cookie-box sealer at the exit. 

Not bad for a couple of rookies.

As for Paula, we didn’t see her again to inquire how she fared.  She was last seen standing her ground at the gingerbread men. 

But something tells me she did just fine.

10 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Life As It Happens, What Goes in the Pie-Hole

March 19, 2011

Step Away from the Egg Whites

By Susan

Sometimes it’s tough being ‘in training’ in the midst of a busy family household. 

I’m participating in a fitness competition in three weeks.  ‘Competition’ is a weird phrase.  Really, I’m just going to show up, do my best, and try not to fall over.  If I can do that, I win.  Who knows how I’ll feel about my bodybuilding career (ha!) when it’s over.  So I want to give it my all.  No regrets.

Preparation for this thing requires a lot of meal planning.  My diet, for now, has become very focused.  This has resulted in some new household dynamics as of late.  They go like this.

The weekly debate about fridge space.  Amongst other things, I eat a lot of egg whites.   And a lot of Greek yogurt.  I buy them both in bulk.  This week I came home from Costco with enough of both to fill a shelf of the fridge.  This is not always appreciated by certain members of the household.  Critical negotiations are required about how much of certain products are allowed to be in the fridge at any given time.  The freeze versus immediate consumption debate ensues.  An agreement is reached.  Some of the egg whites are frozen.  Followed by the swearing to God that the ones in the fridge won’t be touched.  

Weekly inquiries about the egg-whites that have gone missing.  Healthy eating tends to catch on.  Because, as I’m learning, there’s tasty things that are really pretty healthy.  And that is awesome.  There will typically be a point in the week where I see I’m not the only one that’s been using the egg whites.  My delicately planned meals and smoothies are thrown out of balance.  Gentle reminders about the negotiated egg-white freeze are made.  I told you so may or may not be muttered. 

The hiding of the baked goods.  If left unregulated, I can do serious damage to baked goods and sweets.  And part of life in our family is that there are treats in the house from time to time.  We bake cookies with the girls.  We drop by Cobs Bakery for some cinnamon buns.  And, my God, the cheese buns.  All such things unfortunately must be kept out of my sight for now.   When I see this stuff on the counter, I put it in bags or shove it in cupboards.  What follows is the perplexed quest by others for the hidden treasure.  Or the forgetting of the treasure.  Followed by the finding of the treasure molding or bone stale in the back of the cupboard ten days later. This makes me unpopular. 

The clearing of the kitchen scale.  For the first time in my life, I’m using a kitchen scale on a regular basis.  I have been gaining awareness about portion sizes and appropriate balance in nutrition.   So the digital scale is now a permanent fixture on the counter.  It happens to be in the area were large bottles and milk containers are plunked on their way out to the garage for recycling.  Bottom line: the scale is not a bottle gathering station.  I use it every day.  I’m just saying.  

But we’re figuring it out.  And we’re all in this together.  Big picture, this is part of our family’s on-going evolution of finding and keeping a healthy lifestyle that makes sense to us.  Plus, chances are I may relax a bit about all this in about three weeks and one day.

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Fitness Adventures, What Goes in the Pie-Hole

November 16, 2010

this is not a restaurant

By Susan

I hate those TV commercials with a happy of family of four sitting around a dinner table laughing and eating their Hamburger Helper and green beans.  Or enjoying Taco Night.  Or those smiling kids wolfing down their broccoli covered in cheese sauce.  “Mom, could you please pass the mashed potatoes.  They’re delicious!” 

Come on.

That is not how dinner is.  Ever. 

I get the idea of the family meal.  I really like the idea.  And we’re trying hard to get there.  I hope there will be a day when we all sit down together for 20 minutes, eat our perfectly nutritious meal, and discuss our respective days.   My children will say, “Wow, this looks great. I really appreciate the effort it took to make this meal.”  We will feel reconnected and calm.  We will all eat the same food.  There will be no side negotiations for toast or a yogurt drink. 

Granted, my children are aged almost-two and almost-five.  So I appreciate they’re not there yet. But it just seems like we’re a long way off. 

There are a range of things that can be observed at our house at dinner time these days.  

The almost-five-year old may refuse to come to the table.  And then sit under the table for a while.  She often will talk incessantly and loudly during dinner.  She will eventually bite her tongue (due to the simultaneous tongue wagging and chewing).  This leads to loud screams and floods of tears.

She may complain about things she doesn’t like “touching” things she does like.  Like when a rogue bit of onion from the stir fry gets stuck to her broccoli.  Often when her dinner is placed on the table she simply announces “this looks gross”. 

There are almost always complaints about the colour of the fork and the plate not matching.  Then there is the subsequent scramble through the dirty dishwasher to find the pink fork. 

She can also be found refusing to try something she’s never had before. We have new, but firm, “you have to at least try it once” policy.  This also leads to screams and floods of tears.  This is when we starting explaining that this is not a restaurant.  This is dinner.  Take it or leave it.  There are children starving in Africa.  And such.

With the almost-two-year old it’s much simpler.  When she’s hungry, anything that’s put in front of her gets eaten.  When she’s not, she simply throws food across the room.  Hunks of stuff often end up in the living room.  Sometimes we gasp and yell “Sophie, NO!!” and dive madly to intercept the food launch.  Sometimes, depending on the day, my husband and I look at each other across the table and silently shake our heads. 

But at least the two-year old has a good finale.  She typically finishes a meal by putting the dirty plate on her head and smiling proudly.  Like she’s won a beer-chugging contest.   Then she throws the plate.

So dinner is not exactly an inspired or relaxing time in our house.   Don’t get me wrong; we’re not giving up.   But these days it just equates with a lot of crying, complaining, shouting, throwing, and sighing. 

I’d like to see that in Chef Boyardee commercial.

9 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Things I Tell My Kids, What Goes in the Pie-Hole

July 22, 2010

let them eat cake

By Susan

A few weeks ago I was at a friend’s birthday party.  It’s a big year for a lot of my friends; we’re all turning the big 4-0.  So this – in the gregarious, fun-loving style of the friend in question – was a big party.  The house was seriously decorated.  Caterers were brought in.  A band was hired.  Tables were rented.  The neighbours were warned. 

There was like a hundred people there, mostly spilling into the backyard.  I kept saying to my friend “Who are all these people?”.  I don’t even know a hundred people, let alone could I invite a hundred people over to celebrate my life.   The best I can do is have six people over for lasagna and a wheel of brie.

The band played Dire Straights and CCR in the night air.  And the curried shrimp was delicious.  Though everything stayed civilized, there was an edge of a serious ‘back in the day’ party to things.  I could imagine a lot of the mostly the 35-50 year old crowd being not so civilized in younger years.  I was sort of proud for my friend when the cops eventually showed up to tell us to be quiet. 

Sometime around 11:00 p.m. it was time for birthday speeches and to bring out the cake.  The birthday girl spoke, and thanked, and blew out her candles.  The huge cake was cut up and, as per standard birthday party routine, handed out on little paper plates to all the guests. 

As I helped handing out the cake, I noticed an interesting phenomenon.  I wandered through the crowd offering cake, but 90% of people declined.  Not for me, thanks.  Or I’ll pass.  Oooh, I’m stuffed.   And so on.  I couldn’t pay people to take a piece of cake.  Finally, refused by one entire group of men, I said “Why does no-one want cake?” 

To which one slightly inebriated guy responded, “Dude, no-one actually eats the cake.”

I stared at him for a second. 

And then replied,  ”What universe do you live in?” 

He went on and explained it to me.   There’s always a big cake at a birthday party.  Often some big colourful flat cake from goddamn Costco.  With the inches of bright blue and green icing.  And the wierd custard or jam in the middle.  It looks good in pictures and in theory.  But it’s gross.  No-one likes that cake.  Except kids.  And that’s just because they don’t know better yet.  Some people are polite and take the cake.  Some people even eat it, because on some basic level sugar does taste good and the idea of cake is nice.  But at a certain age people stop pretending they like the cake and just say no. 

People don’t actually like the cake.

I was stunned. 

This was a revelation to me. 

In that moment, my understanding of the world changed.

In general, I am a lover of cake, but – like him – I don’t really like “that” cake.  But I always eat some for the reasons he talked about.  I see now that smarter people than I just say no.  Why would you eat the cake if you don’t like it?  I get that. 

But there is a bigger question.  Why do we – as a people – keep getting cakes that people don’t like?  We are sending the wrong market signal.  And we may just be at the top of a slippery slope leading to the abandonment of the celebratory cake.  It’s Darwinian.  If we stay on this path, it won’t be long before we simply stop bothering with cake.  

This cannot happen. We – the adults of western cultures – cannot give up on cake.  We don’t eat it often, but the cake is a symbol of celebration and ritual.  There must always be cake.  We must bring back the naysayers.  And to do this, the cake must be good. 

So this is a call to action.  No more cakes from “goddamn Costco” or the Safeway bakery.  No more custard or jam in the middle.  And, for the love of God, no more fruitcake.  Or marzipan.  Or that hard white icing on wedding cakes.  Let’s make cakes that people want to eat, not just look at.  Let’s get back to butter, eggs, sugar, and cocoa.  Proper cakes that stop people mid-forkful to groan in pleasure.  Don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean.

The world as we know it hangs in the balance.  Join the revolution. 

Cake, we can’t…we won’t…quit you.

16 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in What Goes in the Pie-Hole

March 14, 2010

i heart food bloggers

By Susan

I’m new to blogging.  I’ve been doing it for about two months.  For me, it’s about practicing my writing and seeing what emerges when I put fingers to keyboard.  I’m finding my creative voice. Or something like that. I write about my life, my take on the world.  I write about parenting and my interest in fitness.  Sometimes I make fun of politicians.  It’s cutting edge, riveting stuff.   

Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just writing stuff down. 

In the process of writing and thinking about my blog, I’ve come across a lot of other blogs.  Man, I never knew so many blogs existed.  There’s a zillion of them out there.  Like regular people – who aren’t professional writers or famous for some other thing whereby it makes sense to have a blog to promote themselves – have blogs.  I would have expected Jamie Oliver, for example, to have a blog (I actually don’t know if he has one).  Or even Rick Mercer (he, I know, does have a blog).  But I wasn’t expecting  all the regular folk.  For example, there’s a million people who blog about their lives as parents.  Hilarious stuff about trying to keep it together when chasing down possessed children.   There are people who blog about books and writing.  About photography.  About running and fitness.  Whatever the topic or issue, I’ll bet there’s a blog.  Or several hundred blogs.

But my favorite discovery has to be the food bloggers.  These are people who blog every day about what they cook and eat.  Most that I’ve come across are not chefs or restauranteurs or nutritionists.  Though I’m sure there’s many professional food types out there blogging about their culinary exploits.  But the ones I’ve come across so far and that I’m drawn to are regular people who appear to simply love food and care deeply about what they eat and the health of their bodies. 

Some document every meal and snack on their blog.  They put up recipes.  They come up with their own recipes.  They analyze and report the nutritional content of their recipes.  They share their shopping lists and talk about their favourite food products.  They take photos, sometimes extraordinarily beautiful photos, of their meals and snacks and post them on their blog.  Sometimes every day.

This amazes and inspires me. 

Why?  Because I love food. 

But despite of (or maybe because of) my love of food, for most of my life I have been fairly unconscious about what I eat.  I ate what looked good at the time.  I think I have had a reasonably informed understanding of what I should and shouldn’t be eating.  My mom always made me eat my vegetables and drink my milk.  And, come on, I took food science in high school.  And as I grew into my life as an independent adult, I began to read running and other magazines filled with nutrition tips and ideas. I intellectually understand the basics of good nutrition.

But my food choices haven’t always reflected that.  There has been a disconnect between what I know and what I do.  It’s not that I would get crazy and eat whole pots of chili (though I have been known to eat large portions of pans of brownies).  I just wouldn’t think much about it at all.  I didn’t really think about how many fruits or vegetables I was consuming in a day.  Or whether I was getting enough protein or calcium.  I’d just kinda eat.  Probably a little too much.  And I never really stood up to my fierce desire to consume any form of chocolate that entered my line of sight.  Big picture, I never worried about it because I was relatively healthy and active, and didn’t appear to be packing on the pounds. 

This changed for me about eight months ago.   Motivated by some force that is still not entirely clear to me, I’ve become really interested in healthy food and conscious eating.   As part of my get-really-fit-by-40-and-stay-with-it-project, something has clicked in me (that’s not actually a name for the project, but is has become a whole “thing” in my life so I feel the desire to name it.  Apparently, badly.  For more on that, see this post).  

For whatever reason, I’ve changed the way I eat.  I am eating meals balanced in nutrients.  I eat more protein.  I eat less sugar and fewer simple carbohydrates.  I drink more water.  I eat smaller meals, but I eat more often.  I never go more than three hours without eating.   I enjoy preparing a meal or a snack.  It’s becoming kind of like a series of neat science experiments every day.  How will this taste?  How long will it keep me full? Can I bear the suspense?  And I’ve watched my body respond to conscious eating and meal planning.  And I’ve felt my body respond, in the form of more energy and less guilt. 

I’m nowhere near perfect.  I slip up all the time.  But I am changing and forming new habits.  And I like it. I want to learn more about food and balanced eating, and I want to keep it interesting.  Mostly, I want to stay healthy and I want to keep it together for my two young girls.  I want them to  learn how to protect their health, and I want to be a good role model for them.

I think I really now understand that food is fuel.  Food is a gift to my body and my health.  Food is also creative.  And food is a social and communal ritual.  Food and meals bond a family and bond friends.  Food, in the end,  is a life long project.  I’m going to have to eat several times a day for the rest of my life.  Every day for the rest of my life.  So why not make it interesting?   And purposeful. Why not – now here’s a crazy thought – take proper care of my body. 

And these food bloggers?  The food blogs are working for me more so much more than recipe books and professional recipe web-sites.  I think because they are live.  They are informal.  These are real choices that people are making every day, and they’ll often say “well, that was crap”.   And sometimes they set their kitchens on fire.  Readers can ask  questions, and the blogger will mostly likely respond. It’s like a conversation about food is right there if you want it. 

And these food bloggers inspire me because, by way of writing about their meals and choices every day and sharing it with the world, they are obviously eating consciously.  They are setting a great example.  These are people with other things going on, but who are somehow making time for conscious eating and food preparation, and just making it part of what they do.  How in the world they then find time to write about it and take photos of it every day, I’ll never know.  But I’m just glad they do.

These are some of the food blogs I’ve found that I like:

- Foods of April

- The Great Balancing Act

- How Sweet It Is

- Kath Eats Real Food

- Oh She Glows

- The Pink Peppercorn

There are thousands more out there.  If you have recommendations, please let me know. 

Food bloggers, I salute you.

12 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in What Goes in the Pie-Hole

January 21, 2010

supermarket smackdown

By Susan

Alternate Title:  Why I Hate The Real Canadian Superstore.  

I may go to this title if you think it ups the chances of that Galen Weston chap from the commercials reading and responding.  He seems like a reasonable guy who may be interested in a little feedback. 

******

We all have to shop for food.  It’s a fact of life.  It’s actually a task I’m taking a greater and greater interest in now that I have kids and everything in my day boils down to efficiency, timing, and trying not to lose my cool.  I’m also really working on eating cleanly, planning meals, and having what we need in the house for healthy and easy noshing.  So for the first time in my life I’ve started thinking about grocery shopping and how to make it a reasonably pleasant, or at least not horrible, experience.

We have two major grocery stores relatively near our house.   Over the years I’ve used both, and over the years I have become drawn to one over the other.  It is now clear to me.  I am unequivocally a Safeway woman.  It’s not that I hate Superstore.  No, actually it is that I hate Superstore.  But it’s not because of their selection or their prices.  They seem to have those basics in place.  But they, in my opinion, are way off on some of the other supermarket details that can make or break a grocery shopping experience. 

All of this is couched in the reality that on a good day I’ve got a roughly 45 minute window  to complete all grocery shopping activity.  This is because I typically have a one-year old and a four-year old with me.  This is also because I typically do it in a window post- dayhome pick up and pre-dinner.  Thus the girls are hungry and keen to get home, and if things go sideways the critical making-of-dinner window will be missed.  This, heretofore, would defeat the purpose of grocery shopping in the first place. 

This being said, grocery shopping needs to be a smooth and efficient process.  I’m getting better at my end of the efficiency bargain.  We’ve got the magnetic note pad on the side of the fridge, and anytime we run out of something or think of something we need, it gets written down right away.  Thus I always have a list in hand and am focused upon entering the grocery store.  I also know that the first place I must go upon entering the grocery store is directly, and I mean directly, to the bakery for the obligatory cheese bun for the four-year old.  This is the deal we have negotiated so that she will GIVE ME A MOMENT OF PEACE. 

So, as a focused and time-strapped consumer, the following are the reasons why I hate the Superstore.  

1. You need a loonie* for  a shopping cart.  I never have a loonie when I need one.  I’m four times more likely to find a quarter in my purse than a loonie.

2. The shopping carts to do not have straps to keep the kids safe.  What I do not need to go with my shopping experience is a little side of head injury for my one-year old.   

3. The carts are always stored outside in the parking lot.  I live in Calgary, thus for about six months of the year they are either cold or wet or dirty, making for cold, wet or dirty toddler when she is placed in the cart. 

4.  Now cross-referencing points 1 and 3, if I don’t have a loonie on hand, I have to make a 12 mile hike from the cart-hut-place in the parking lot to the customer service desk inside the store (while holding toddler, 47 cloth bags, my purse, holding hand of the four-year old) to “buy” a loonie, and make a 12 mile hike back out to the parking lot to get a cart.  By now, I am exhausted and sweating and I have wasted nine minutes.  

5.  No-one manages the shopping carts in the parking lot.  Often the cart huts are jammed full and there’s a big long line of 100 connected carts sticking way out into the parking lot.  This makes it impossible for cars to get by.  This causes chaos and line-ups in the parking lot.  I’m already cursing to myself and I’m not even out of the vehicle yet.  This is not rocket science.  Have someone go and move the carts around once in a while. 

6. There are no “fun” shopping carts to entertain preschoolers.  Safeway has these carts that look like cars, with a little place for my four-year old to sit and “drive” up front.  Meanwhile, the one-year old is safe in the regular kid area up near me.  While navigating them around the store is a nightmare because they weigh a hundred pounds, the ‘car-cart ‘ has revolutionized grocery shopping for Isabelle.  She loves it.  She now thinks she’s at Disneyland.     

6.  I have to pay for plastic bags.  I get the point of this.  I am on this program.  I’ve got 47 cloth bags floating around the trunk of my van.  However the likelihood of me remembering my cloth bags every time when I’ve got two kids in tow is slim.  My God, I try.  But I don’t want to feel penalized for being a busy mom with two kids.  I know it’s a weak argument, but it’s part of the big why-I-hate picture. 

7.  Bagging my own groceries.  I get this too.  I know it lowers their overhead and so they can offer better prices.  However, I’ll pay a little more for a carton of eggs just to make sure they make it home in one piece.  My ‘great bargain’ head of lettuce is no good to me when I find it squished it under a four litre jug of milk.  I’m just no good at bagging groceries.  Between keeping the four-year old from running off and preventing my one-year old from getting a head injury, I cannot focus on bagging.  And there’s too much pressure.  The cashier scans stuff through at warp speed, just lobbing things down the little coveyorbelt thing.  When she’s done, she stares at me blankly, like I’m suddenly a new pain in her ass.  She’s ready for me to pay, but I’m down at the end furiously bagging.   Do I stop and pay, or do I finish bagging?  For the love of Pete, I cannot do both.  By now, the cashier and the people next in line are sighing loudly.    They are judging me.  And I cannot take it.  I end up just throwing food wildly in bags in effort to get out of this cruel place.  

8.  No one offers to help.  Not only do I need the nice people at Safeway to help me bag my groceries without judgement, I need the option at least for the friendly little man to help me bring them to the car.  Most days I’m ok, but when it’s -3o degrees out and the cart is full and the cheese bun is long eaten, it is like heaven to have someone help me load up my vehicle.  The kids don’t get frostbite, and I – in my haste – do not slam van trunk door down on my own head.  Everybody wins.    

I never knew that becoming a parent meant that minutiae like grocery bags and shopping carts would affect my day.  But with parenting comes an eye for details, particularly details that cause an alarming rise in my blood pressure.  This parent’s sanity is worth more than a few dollars saved.       

*****

*Loonie: a Canadian one dollar coin.  It has a loon on it; that’s why we call it a loonie.  Wierd, I know.  Again, note how I have assumed I have an international audience that may be confused by this term.

12 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Things I Tell My Kids, What Goes in the Pie-Hole

January 4, 2010

the two week eating challenge

By Susan

Today I am starting an eating challenge.  Not the classic pie-eating-contest or who-can-get-most-for-their-money-at-the-Chinese-buffet kind.  Too bad, because I always thought I’d be really good at that kind of thing.  No, today I’m starting a two-week clean-eating challenge.  Nothing too dramatic or life-changing.  Just an effort to kick-start the new year and get the left-over holiday sludge out of my system.  As I wrote on January 1 (“the best shape of my life”), I’ve really been working on fitness and healthy eating for the last six months.  On the food front, I’ve been recording my food intake most days, cutting back on portions, being aware of when I’m hungry and when I’m just bored, trying to slay the sugar dragon, and trying to eat a better balance of nutrients.  I still eat, and eat plenty.  But just better stuff and in a more balanced way.   

Yeah, that all sort of went south around the holidays.   I tried to keep it together.  Days when there were no special events going on I stuck to my healthy ways.  But for the days when there were parties, gatherings or visitors – and there were many – bad habits started to sneak back in.  You know, a few extra pieces of cheese, a sniff of pate, roughly half a pan of chocolate brownies I was making for “when the visitors come”.  Also, the “use-one-eat-one” strategy I employed during the mom-and-me gingerbread house decorating party at my daughter’s preschool was not a particularly great one.  Plus, the holidays are extra tough in our household because both our daughters have December birthdays (note to self: stop going on holidays in March).  So added to the mix were two birthday parties and the associated birthday cakes.  It’s not the eating of the birthday cakes when they’re done that’s the problem; it’s the making process.  I’m not much of a cake-maker and cannot gauge a crowd to save my life, so I made two cakes for each party just in case, which means double batches of icing and all those bowls to lick.  All I’m going to say is that, between my four-year old and I, not a lot of that extra icing made it into the garbage.   

But, remarkably, on the scale and in the big scheme of things not too much damage was done.  I kept working out diligently through the holidays.  But my eating habits and instincts have gotten out of whack.  I need a couple of strict weeks to get it together and recalibrate my system.

Thus comes the eating challenge.  Who am I challenging and being challenged by, other than my willpower and the chocolate demons?  I have an on-line coach who coaches a bunch of people in our workout programs.  It’s a great system.  We log-on, discuss our workouts, and talk about challenges, injuries, ideas.  I find it motivates me and keeps me accountable, and it appeals to my competitive side.  If I want to discuss health and fitness everyday I better have made the effort to work out myself.  And every now and again, our coach throws out a challenge and those interested jump on board.  So as of today, it’s a new eating-clean challenge for the group.  Whoever eats clean for two weeks, doesn’t miss a work-out, and logs it with the group every day goes in a random lottery for a small prize.   We can have a cheat meal once a week (don’t go crazy) and one slip up (let’s keep it real) and still be in the running.   It’s not about the prize, of course, it is simply about being accountable to something. 

Eating clean, in my little world, is not too scientific.  It’s about eating real, unprocessed, whole, fresh foods – and doing so in moderation.  No sugar, alcohol, wierd sweeteners, really refined or sweetened stuff.  No hugely high-fat stuff either (so long cheese and butter).  Lots of veggies, fruits, whole grains, fish, other lean protein, nuts.  You get the idea.  Nothing new here. 

It will take some focus, and some throwing away of the hidden post-Halloween stash, but I believe it can be done.  Two strict weeks to get my habits back on track.  It’s not that I will never eat sugar or cheese again.  I just need to remind my system that iced sugar cookies and smoked gouda are not their own categories in the Canada Food Guide requiring 4-6 servings a day. 

So game on.  This can be done.  Anyone else care to join?  Should be easy as…well…pie.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Fitness Adventures, What Goes in the Pie-Hole

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