Tag Archives: 10daydetox

Salmon Cakes!

Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes by

We are going to start posting the recipes we used to create the food we’ve been posting about on Instagram.  Today is the salmon cakes:

http://livinthecrunchylife.blogspot.com/2013/02/salmon-or-crab-cakes-with-cilantro-lime.html

Make sure to use Wild Alaskan salmon, as many of the farm raised fish do not contain the same nutrients and can be much worse for you.

We used Bear and Wolf Wild Alaskan Salmon from Costco, as it did not contain any bones.  The first time we made these, we used a canned salmon with bones and it was a major pain.  We also made them without eggs, due to Dena’s allergies, and they came out great.

Now, go eat!

Cliff Progress Photos!

Posted in Cliff Progress by

I will keep it short and sweet today.  I’ve lost 9.8 pounds and I have a before and after picture. Look what changing your diet and some exercising can do for you in just 30 days:

Before_After_DetoxBefore_After_Detox_Side

Cliff Day Almost Finished: The hardest part of cooking right…

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is cleaning all your stuffff.  If we did not have a dishwasher, this whole detox would have gone a much different direction. I’d like to apologize for going MIA for a little bit there, life got busy.  We are still doing the detox (albeit with a slip up or two, ie super bowl) and it is still going great.  Dena has finished up her 30 days and she will be continuing it into the foreseeable future.  I will be done on February 6 and I will be continuing for the most part.  Any meals out will be anything goes and all meals at home/lunch will be sticking to the diet.  Alcohol will be consumed responsibly.

So, I know youre dying to know how much weight we’ve lost, how great we now look, and all about the great things we’ve been cooking.  Ill let Dena dive further into her stats when she posts, but for me now I am around 138, down over 8 pounds!  I’m considering this as low as I want to go and will be increasing calories to above 2000 each day (at least trying to).  Before/after pictures will be posted.  I can definitely see my face looking less inflamed and the abs are back.  Dena most certainly did not catch me checking myself out in the mirror.. As expected, I have been struggling most with the going to bed on time, as many nights I have to stay up past midnight to do work.  I feel so old wanting to go to bed before 11.

As for the gym, my elbow has healed, just got the all clear from the doctor, and I am ramping up my weightlifting.  Unfortunately, I have started getting awful shin splints, and I will be starting physical therapy on those.  As for the morning shake, it is time to start adding amino acids, and maybe a touch of creatine.  I have decided that it is a must to go in the morning to the gym.  In fact I decided this last week when I started a blog post but never posted.

“I also need to get my ass in gear in the AM and hit the gym then. This after work at 7 is not cutting it.  Just like I couldn’t do the shake in the morning without protein, I just can’t seem to get a groove going to the gym at night.  Cannot emphasize this enough, remember it all about adjustment and what works for you.”Going at 7 or 8 at night is just not sustainable.  Your energy is completely gone from working all day, you are either hungry or full depending on if you ate dinner, and the euphoric feelings you get from working out in the morning are glorious.  My most productive days at work are after I work out.

All pictures of the food we have been eating can be found on our instagram, and we will be posting recipes later this week,  Get ready to be hungry my friends.

Cliff Day 16: Green Curry Shrimp

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I have been craving Green Curry since we started this detox.  I also see everyone else making it so I thought why can’t I?  I had the day off, and I had the apartment all to myself.  Normally, this means a day of couch lounging and video games, but in the spirit of being less lazy, I went on a journey to create an amazing green curry sauce and overload it with shrimp.

I used the following recipe with a few minor tweaks:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/thai-green-curry-shrimp-recipe.html

I cut out the Eggplant, Shrimp Stock (replaced with extra coconut milk), and added some jalepeno.

After journeying to 4 different stores to find everything I needed, I began cooking.  A short 20 minutes, a can I had to stab with a knife to open, and a huge mess later, my masterpiece was finished. I may not be as eloquent a cooker as Dena, I managed to keep her from seeing the mess I made, but we end up in the same place.  You can pretty much use whatever vegetables you want and make sure to get gluten free/wheat free fish sauce (I used Thai Kitchen).  Dena came to the rescue with what we should eat this over, as she made her wonderfully delicious cauliflower rice.

I want to add I recently purchased an amazing knife that made cutting the vegetables a hell of a lot easier (my hand disagrees) :

Try it out.  Best knife I have ever used.

We have some more Pork Loin in the fridge, along with some lamb loin, so I am excited to see what we do with it next.

As for my weight progress, I have steadied off and I am now 140 even.  I feel and look skinnier, and my former gut is calling me every day upset that every day we drift apart more and more.

mmmm Green Curry
image2 (2)image1 (1)

Dena Day 17- Well isn’t that sweet…

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DID YOU KNOW…

  •  In a 2009 study by Dr. Serge H. Ahmed it was proved that sugar was eight times as addictive as cocaine?
  • Brain imaging studies in humans find that eating-or even seeing pictures of-junk and processed food lights up the brain like heroin?
  • Calorie for calorie, sugar is different from other calories that come from protein, fat, or non-starchy carbs such as greens? It scrambles all of your normal appetite controls. As a result, you consume more and more, driving your metabolism to convert it into belly fat.
  • Artificial sweeteners trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way?  This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat-storage hormone, which leads to more body fat.

Dr. Hyman’s book” The Blood Sugar Solution-10 Day Detox Diet addresses the above facts and further explains just how addictive sugar really is. Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to find packaged foods without sugar in it! The bottom of this post has a list of names for sugar that you can look for on labels and should avoid while detoxing. Even items that you would never expect to have sugar in them, have it! During this detox, Cliff and I searched high and low for chicken broth, as well as diced or crushed tomatoes without sugar added. We finally found what we needed! For chicken broth, Imagine has an organic free range chicken broth and Muir Glen has organic diced tomatoes. Your best luck is to find these items in the organic or health section of your grocery store.

The good news is that once you eliminate sugar from your diet, you no longer crave it.  I used to have cravings for something sweet after every meal–especially at night.  The first day where I attempted not to have sugar was the hardest. The cravings were so intense that at night I used my yonanas machine to make “ice cream” with a frozen banana and nut butter! I just needed something sweet. For me, I would say it took 3 days for the cravings to go away.  The best part of this detox has been that I now feel in control on my eating!

Today, Dr. Hyman posted on his blog “10 Ways To Ditch Your Cravings for Sugar, Salt, and Fats”  Check it out! http://drhyman.com/blog/2013/08/10/10-ways-to-ditch-your-cravings-for-sugar-salt-and-fats/

-Dena

List of Names of Sugar

1. Barley malt
2. Barbados sugar
3. Beet sugar
4. Brown sugar
5. Buttered syrup
6. Cane juice
7. Cane sugar
8. Caramel
9. Corn syrup
10. Corn syrup solids
11. Confectioner’s sugar
12. Carob syrup
13. Castor sugar
14. Date sugar
15. Dehydrated cane juice
16. Demerara sugar
17. Dextran
18. Dextrose
19. Diastatic malt
20. Diatase
21. Ethyl maltol
22. Free Flowing Brown Sugars
23. Fructose
24. Fruit juice
25. Fruit juice concentrate
26. Galactose
27. Glucose
28. Glucose solids
29. Golden sugar
30. Golden syrup
31. Grape sugar
32. HFCS (High Frustose Corn Syrup… Very Bad!)
33. Honey
34. Icing sugar
35. Invert sugar
36. Lactose
37. Malt
38. Maltodextrin
39. Maltose
40. Malt syrup
41. Mannitol
42. Maple syrup
43. Molasses
44. Muscovado
45. Panocha
46. Powdered Sugar
47. Raw sugar
48. Refiner’s syrup
49. Rice syrup
50. Sorbitol
51. Sorghum syrup
52. Sucrose
53. Sugar (granulated)
54. Treacle
55. Turbinado sugar
56. Yellow sugar
Bonus (Fake Sugars):
Splenda
Aspartame

Dena Day 13- Finding Balance

Posted in Dena, Dena Progress by

I am learning that the hardest part for me of this detox process has been finding balance…especially now that I have introduced going to the gym! For the first week or so, I had found my rhythm and was doing really well on prepping meals.  If I didn’t have the groceries I needed for dinner, I had plenty of time to swing by the grocery store, meat or fish market, and eat at a decent hour. But, it was time to get sweating (and not from the oven while cooking up a storm). Two nights ago was my first day back into the gym and I had planned to go straight after work since I am not a morning person.  My first set back was when I ran out of time in the morning and did not pack my gym bag.  The truth was…I had no idea where my gym bag even was! No problem!  I’ll just swing by my apartment after work to change and head on to the gym! Well do you know how cold it was that night?!? And my apartment was soooo warm.  I convinced myself that I HAD to go since I failed the night before but I will only do a quick workout. After all, by the time I got home it was around 6pm and I also needed to run to the meat market to pick up ground turkey meat for the cauliflower pizza crust I wanted to make that night, and the meat market closed at 7pm.  So…I never made this recipe before, but how much trouble could it really be?  The funny thing is that I had no excuses not to go to the gym in the cold. I was going to walk to the meat market and the meat market is literally a block and a half away from the gym.  After the gym, the meat market, and the vegetable market to pick up the cauliflower, I was finally  home!  It is now a little after 7pm.  My advice to you is to: A- read the entire directions of a recipe beforehand and/or B-try more complicated dishes on the weekend if you are pressed for time during the week.  This meal was delicious do not get me wrong and I will definitely make it again. However, It just took longer than I expected! By the time I finished cooking, it was 9:15pm.

Lessons Learned (sort of)

The next day I made sure to bring my gym clothes to work in my recently found gym bag. Also, we had leftovers of pizza we were able to bring for lunch which was nice. Cliff was going to be at a comedy show at night so I did not have to worry about eating together and what I was going to make. But, I realized that we needed food for the next day’s lunch and dinner since we were going to see a show after work.  For some reason after work, I was really hungry so instead of going straight to the gym, I decided to go home and eat something small, digest a little bit, then go to the gym, then cook meals for the next day. Finished up at 10:15pm and I was exhausted!

Lessons Learned 

  • Plan meals ahead- decide what you are going to eat for the week or at least a few days at a time
  • Spend some time on the weekends going food shopping and gathering all of your supplies.
  • Cook a bunch on Sunday to get you through the beginning of the week
  • When possible, make extra food and freeze it for emergencies or when you do not feel like cooking. This works great with burgers!
  • Stock your cabinets with proteins like canned salmon, and sardines.  This can easily be added to a salad to create a quick meal.

-Dena