Tag Archives: sugar is bad

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
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Cliff day 14: Another Pound Bites the Dust

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And Another pound gone and another pound gone, another pound bites the dust. Weighing in around 140 and down 7 pounds, woot woot!

Our approach to this detox has been much different on the second go around. The first time we did it, I was pretty miserable. We were incredibly strict, had 0 slip ups and it just wasn’t fun. The point of all of this, is not just to eat healthier, it is to lead a healthier happier life. I used to hate the shakes I made, they were bland and not the sugar filled ones I was used to. The thing is, I like peanut butter as much as I like sugar (mmmm Reese’s, my old go to treat). So even though peanut butter was not part of the original plan, it has allowed me to look forward to my morning shake instead of dreading it. My shake is now banana, unsweetened almond milk, strawberries, hemp protein, flax seed, and just a touch of vanilla extract. If there is one lesson you take from this blog, it is you have to do what makes you happy. That hypothalamus needs to be kept satisfied in some way. Did you know broccoli doesn’t stimulate it one bit? Shocker. So, if you’re having issues adjusting to all this, throw in something you love, whether it is a fruit or something you can’t live without (NOT CANDY!)

As for how my detox is going, I slipped up a little bit, although I’ve said from the beginning it would happen. I went out with coworkers on Friday and I had a scotch, it was glorious. I was proud I was able to stick to just one. While I was worried it may affect the detox, I didn’t regret the decision. I woke up yesterday below the 140 mark and Today I am 140.4. The weight is melting off as I guess my old metabolism has decided to emerge from its hibernation, realizing I’ve taken a break from abusing it. As of now, I consume 1600-2000 calories a day but I would like to up that after this month to stimulate the muscle growth (Did someone say second lunch?!). I’ve also decided to introduce a healthy electrolyte drink in the morning, as I have been a tiny bit shaky and this should help.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone!

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

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Looking for a great recipe for Healthier wings during the NFL Championship games this weekend?  Check out this amazing meal!

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

We adapted Dr. Hyman’s delicious recipe for chicken breasts and applied it to chicken wings when entertaining guests at the apartment to watch football.  These were definitely a hit!  For me, my goal is always to make things that taste delicious even to people that are not detoxing. For this recipe, I omitted  the onions that are listed in the recipe and create 2.5x the liquid mixture that was covering the chicken wings in order to cover all the surface area. We had a lot of wings (approx 24)!   Also, we did not let the chicken marinate 1-24 hours prior to making the dish to enhance the flavor.  There were some hungry  mouths to feed!  We ended up cooking these for 10 minutes and flipping them and cooking for an additional 10 minutes on the other side. I suggest purchasing a meat thermometer to double check the internal temperature of these. In general, for chicken you are looking for a final internal temperature of 165º F for white meat and about 180º F for dark meat.  (USDA recommendations).

Enjoy!

-Dena

http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/18/recipe-almond-flax-crusted-chicken/

Cliff Day 10: I pick things up and…

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I put them down.  My first trip back to the gym was a good reality check. I had dreams that I had not lost that much in the months while I was healing, but I was so so wrong.  I did a basic chest workout to get my muscles into the groove of things and nothing seemed to go right.  I was constantly worried about my elbow and I’m not even going to discuss how little weight I could do.  I have always been a skinny guy, and while this has its perks, it also has its downfalls.  Building muscle has been a huge challenge throughout my whole life.  I have tried many different supplements, and nothing has ever gotten me to the point I’ve dreamed of.  I am avoiding any until this detox is over, but I will list out my favorites at some point.  When I have ever come close to a muscle-building goal, I have sustained some sort of injury.  I mean once I had to  take a 4 month break from working out because I hurt my wrist while playing soccer.  That’s right folks, I hurt the thing you are not even allowed to use in that sport.  Now that I am fueling my body with the good food it can actually use, my hope is my gains will go up up and even more up.

NOW, onto the good stuff.  If I told you, you could make pizza out of cauliflower, would that be something you’d be interested in?  WELL, thanks to that magical girlfriend of mine, we had exactly that last night.  Not only that, due to Dena’s allergies, we had to substitute eggs in it with a flax-seed mixture.  It took a LONG time, a bit of “bickering”, and a huge mess in the kitchen, but after all was said and done, it came out great.  I’ve also learned, to never tell anyone I was a dishwasher in High School because my mom’s favorite line, and now Dena’s is…”But we need a professional to do the dishes!”  But I digress.  We used Tomatoes, Basil, and Ground Turkey as toppings.  While i would not call it your every day pizza, it certainly was pretty darn close.  And the best part was we had leftovers.  I haven’t been this excited for lunch since yesterday’s lunch of leftovers!  My weight has grown stagnant, which I am okay with because I am still looking and feeling better every day.  The world needs to understand weight is just a number, and that it is about how you feel, how you look in your eyes, and how you’re treating your body (although I wouldn’t object to weighing 170 built of pure muscle). Napoleonic Complex much?

Cliff Day 8…Sandwiches I Miss You

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Sandwiches….All I can think of are sandwiches.  Sandwiches in the morning, sandwiches with bacon, and sandwiches inside even bigger sandwiches.  I want to take a bunch of ham add some american cheese and put it on a fabulously delicious French Baguette.  As you may be able to tell, the weekend was a rough one.  Dena and I went to hang out with some cats at Meow Parlour, a fun cat cafe, and I got Decaf coffee for the first time in my life.  If you have never had Blue Bottle Coffee, I highly recommend it because even their Decaf was great.  Earlier in the day I was not all that hungry for lunch so I had a small piece of chicken (big mistake).  By 3 P.M. I was starving, so I did the only logical thing and got Katz, just the pastrami, no bread.  Now, this technically falls under the allowed foods on the Detox, since it is just meat and spices, but I felt it was a bit of a cheat.  I really did it to try to satisfy this sandwich craving.  While amazing, the craving for a sandwich is still there.

Not surprisingly, Sunday was the first day my weight had not gone down at all, in fact it had gone up a little.  I attribute this to more water retention from the Katz.  Watched football all day while Dena made me almond crusted wings (absolutely amazing, Recipe to be posted).  For dinner we had turkey meatballs over spaghetti squash in a home-made tomato sauce.  If you really want to detox, I highly recommend just getting an awesome girlfriend that knows how to make yummy healthy food, makes it much easier.  Weight this morning was back down to 142.2 and my stomach is looking better every day.  This is day 8 now and we will begin our gym routine but this shows that just by changing your diet you can start melting off the weight, even without steady exercise.

For now, I will be overindulging in vegetables and listening to Galavant on repeat to drain away the pain of the Dallas Cowboys Loss.

-Cliff

Cliff Day 2

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Cliff Day 2:

Day 2 of the detox begun with a rough night of sleep, but this is normal as my body is missing all of the things that it used to get every day.  So far, this whole detox is not so bad.  Obviously no results so far, but also not craving any of the sweets.  Although, I am missing the caffeine like woah at work today, and my focus is all over the place.  Hoping this will improve over time.

As for working out I plan on going back to the gym on Thursday.  I have had a bum elbow thanks to tendinitis for some time now and am hoping after this next physical therapy visit, I will be cleared to begin my upper body workouts again.  Worst comes to worst it’ll just be legs and cardio.