A fresh start to 2016...

(I wanted to start out my first blog post in 2016 by saying thank you to the readers of my blog.  This has been a really fun outlet for me to document our life, the things I love, and most importantly, channel my creative side.  So for those of you following along thank you for your support. (Tess, thanks for encouraging me to start the blog again.) :)

I'd say that throughout my life, I have been fairly health conscious - I know what types of foods I should (it grows naturally) and should not eat (processed), and have tried to stay fairly active.  While I'm conscious of the decisions I'm making, I know that I've made a LOT of bad eating decisions over this past year.  I ate a ton of sugar and carbs, not to mention I LOVE wine.  

On my wedding day in the fall of 2014., I weighed a whopping 100 lbs, thanks to Adderall (I was prescribed it), under-eating, and playing tennis 5-7 days a week.  After the wedding, I had to stop taking Adderrall in the hopes of pursuing our dream of starting a family.  The combination of no longer taking the miracle pill (it helped energize me through business school while working full-time and planning a wedding) in addition to eating unhealthy, I packed on the pounds in no time.   It felt like no matter how much tennis I played or how active I was, I just kept on gaining weight. I hated the way I looked, and the way I felt. I was always tired, bloated and my overall energy was low. 

When the start of this year rolled around, I decided it was time to make a change. My girlfriend, Nemer, told me about this great documentary she'd watched about America's sugar consumption, called Fed Up. So, on New Year's day I ordered it and watched it with my husband.  We decided to give up added sugar and alcohol for the first 10 days of the year and see how it went.  I had NO idea how much sugar is added to EVERYTHING. 

This definitely was not an easy task. We had to throw away a ton of food or hide it, so it was "out of sight, out of mind", re-engineer our grocery list, and stick to eating things that came from animals (eggs, meat, chicken, bacon, fish) and pair it with fruits or veggies.   Throughout the course of the diet we got bored with what we were eating because it felt like we were having grilled chicken every night - but that's partially because we didn't take the time to look into other options.  However, yesterday was my first Blue Apron delivery and I made the Seared Cod recipe.  I didn't even think I liked code, but the recipe was bursting with flavor and was a delicious way to switch things up (PS - Cod doesn't taste fishy). I can't wait to make the rest of our meals this week, and plan to share our experience in a future post. 

Note: If you try this diet you must try Nice Cream. My girlfriend Adrianne told me about it and it's truly the best! You freeze bananas and then blend them up until they are the consistency of soft-serve. It's a great way to feel like you are eating something sweet for dessert with no added sugar (only natural sugar). 

In addition to feeling like we were eating the same things on repeat, my husband and I were definitely a bit crabby. Our bodies were used to eating tons of sugar (which is 8x more addictive than cocaine according to the documentary), and we were depriving our bodies of it - which resulted in us feeling a bit more on-edge, crabby and tired. We managed to get through just fine though :) ...It was mostly the first 5 days or so.

THE GOOD NEWS....
My husband lost 11-12 pounds as of today - so proud of him - and I have lost 4.5 pounds! My pants are fitting better and I am feeling better overall - not to mention my skin has really cleared up! It was a great experience and something I would like to continue to incorporate into our lifestyle moving forward.   While there are some added sugars that Todd and I will probably add back in (ketchup with our steak), we are both really happy with the results and will be a lot more mindful of what we choose to eat moving forward.
I am feeling pretty jazzed about all of this healthy eating, the results and learning how to cook in our beautiful new kitchen. 

Hope your 2016 is off to a good start., too! 

XO, Linds

"Will power is a muscle, the more you flex it, the stronger it gets." - This is so true! I thought I had no will power until we embarked on this diet.  Then, it was a healthy competition, and now I feel like my will power has gotten much stronger! I never used to be able to resist sweets, and now I can finally turn them down. Hopefully it'll stay that way.