Nicole & Josh Tagg

So far it has been an interesting experience. I have a few observations.

1. I WANT A VITAMIX! My poor little blender is working its heart out. It just isn’t blending everything. There are always flecks of blueberries or lettuce and spinich. I shouldn’t have used Josh’s parents vitamix first. Now I don’t want anything else. *sigh*

2. Eliza LOVES the green smoothie. She is very insistent to always get some when we make it.

3. Elizas eating habits have changed. She was very sparse in her eating before. We would be lucky if she would eat 5 bites at dinner or lunch. She is RAVENOUS now. She is eating almost as much as I am. The consequences of that are that her output is dramatically more. That means changing her diaper twice as much.  Also, she is loving the vegetables. We had a chicken dish the other day with baked potatoes and broccoli. She ate nothing but the broccoli. As soon as she would finish her plate full of broccoli she held it out for more. She didn’t even touch the rest of her food. I gave her every thing on my plate and even then she wanted more. By the time we got more cooked for her she had lost interest. We put in a container for later. She ate it for lunch today and she again was quite ravenous about it. She ate it all almost to exclusion. Yay for broccoli!

4. Eliza detoxed. Gross. That means her output got runny and toxic. Her poor little bum is sooo diaper rashed. Of course this is the week we run out of her diaper cream. I was at the store today so I bought some more but it has not been pleasent for her. She detoxed a lot last week and she FINALLY stabilized on friday. So what did we do friday? Eat nothing but sugar and chips and other junk food. Guess who is detoxing again. *sigh*

5. Josh and I have not detoxed in any noticable way. Huh. Go figure.

6. After eating nothing but junk friday night, I felt SOOOOO gross. So naturally I ate more junk. I did not feel good on Sunday. Having discussed this with Josh we decided that we don’t think by the end of the month we will feel to much different. We think what we will notice is how much less we feel gross or bad. Even a single can of pop makes me feel gross. That is super sad becuase I LOOOOOOVE pop. This was an experiment I tried just tonight at work (because really, when else do I have time to blog). I drank a Pepsi with my dinner to help give me the energy to stay awake my entire shift. Immediately I felt gross (and I still do 1 hour later, sad.) In the end I know it is good for me to give up the pop, and most of the refined sugar.

7. I am not sure if this is all mental or if part of it is physical, but I have so much more motivation, desire and energy to exercise.  Lamely though, I have been putting ON weight, not losing. I think it is partly due to my body taking a huge sigh of relief of the nutrients and its hording them becuase this is out of the norm for me. So I think that as I continue in this healthier lifestyle that I will begin losing the unpleasant fat located around my body. Yay for that.

So yeah. I think that is about it. I made a smoothie for my mom on saturday while I was there and she quite enjoyed it. She is going to start adding greens and other good stuff to her daily smoothies. Bwa ha! I am being a good influence. My only concerns stem from the sheer amounts of greens and fruit that we are going through daily. I am concerned about the winter and what we are going to do so we don’t break the bank. I am thinking frozen fruit is the way to go with fresh greens. Josh’s mom has agreed to go 50/50 for a vitamix for christmas! YAY!  I will let you know how the month finishes later.

Every once in a while during the school year I would have great thoughts of other things I wanted to know more about, or things I wanted to try and do. The spring semester came and went and I pondered more on the things I wanted to do. July is almost gone but I feel I am making process.

The first thing on my schools out project priority list is to learn about nutrition.  I have been observing those around me as to their eating habits and their nutritional opinions. I noticed a HUGE anti-sugar movement. First, let me say I do not think sugar is good for you. Infact I know it isn’t. What I noticed a long with the anti-sugar movement is many (but not all) people ignoring other potential nutrition faux paus. I know one person who was passively disapproving of others sugar intake, and yet gave no thought to the high amounts of sodium she ate in her diet. I watched as she ate chips, highly processed sandwich meats and other things of the like. This seemed so bizarre.  I knew another person who was also anti-sugar. They boasted to me once how they sweetened the baked goods they were presenting with aspertame, or other artificial sweeteners. This also seemed backwards to me. Are chemicals that have been man made that we don’t know the full biological implications of better for us than processed sugar? I don’t know.

Again let me emphasize I do not think sugar is good for us. I do have a problem with cherry picking nutrition issues. If you are going to in many ways ‘preach’ of your healthy eating habits, or judge those who are not as anti-sugar as yourself, you cannot pick and choose topics like sugar and ignore salt intake. *whew*I’m done my rant now, so I’ll climb off my soap box and get to what I really wanted to write about.

In my efforts to learn more about nutrition I decided my best place of knowledge were in books (that way I could keep them and it was probably cheaper than visiting with a register dietian, and then I had the chance to really think about what I am “learning”). I went to amazon and typed in “nutrition”. As I followed links and topics I came across the book “The Green Smoothie Revolution” by  Victoria Boutenko. Unsure if I wanted to spend the money and buy it I thought borrowing it from the library would be a good idea. Going to the online catalouge of the public library I saw that there were 38 holds on it. 38 holds!  At 2 weeks a signing out it would take me over a year to get my hands on it. It’s a popular book apparently so I decided then it must be good a book!  So I decided to buy it. (nice logic eh?) I figured even if I didn’t agree with what the book says it will be a good thing for me to study and decide what I don’t agree with in it.  I ordered it over this last weekend and I got it on tuesday. Talk about speedy delivery.

The book talks about the thought processes behind the green smoothie. She then discusses the benefits she has noticed in herself from starting to incorporate the green smoothie in her diet. She claims that through her raw diet and the green smoothie she cured her depression. A testimonial of the book claims he lost 230lbs and cured his diabetes, again, through a raw food lifestyle and the green smoothie. What I appreciated the most about the book is her discussion of nutrition, and the essential nutrients we get from leafy greens, and why we have a hard time enjoying them and digesting them. I read somewhere “no one ever craves a good salad” and it is true. Most importantly she claimed to just feel better, with more energy and healthier overall.

I decided at that point I was going to put her words to the test. Josh and I (he didn’t have much choice so it is good that he is game for it too) are going to do a month challenge. We are going to substitute our breakfasts (that we rarely eat anyway) with the green smoothie, but not change our other current eating habits. Although we might in an effort to curb our late night snacking try replacing the smoothie with our typical popsicles and chips. I think now is the best time to do it, while produce is the cheapest. That way if it turns out we just can’t do it we aren’t really out very much money.

As I continued to ponder this challenge and try and entertain myself at my job with a lot of downtime (I love my job!) I have been searching out others comments about the green smoothie. I haven’t found anything negative about it and trust me I have tried. Any negative comments are about the raw food diet, and not green smoothies. I have read about others who have taken on a 30 day challenge off blogs and such and the comments were all very similar. They all said they had so much more energy than they had ever had before. Most of them said they stopped craving salt and sugar, and many of them went through a sort of “detox”. One comment said that after she had the smoothie regularly for 2 weeks or so she was given the chance to indulge in her favorite treat, a chocolate chip cookie. She said that she found it much to sweet and to processed in flavor for her taste. I really hope I get the same results.

So here it goes on August 1st (maybe July 31, only because we will be staying at the in-laws for 2 days and they have a vitamix) we are going to start subsituting our breakfasts and see what happens. Eliza will just get a glass or so of it when we make it. We didn’t think it was a good idea to replace her meals. She needs the calories as well as the nutrients so what a great way for both! I am excited at the possibilities of it. I hope this starts us on a great road to better nutrition and overall health.

One thing I did notice from all those who have commented on their blogs and such is that they were either raw food, or very quickly converted to a raw food lifestyle. I don’t think I could ever give up milk, cheese, or beef. I respect those that can and do live that lifestyle because they are very dedicated to it. I do not get the impression it is right for me. My overall goal is to be more concious of what I am eating and to have a healthy balanced lifestyle. Wish me luck!

This is a test photo post from this iPhone app.

I am terrible at writing blog posts on a regular basis. But I do take a lot of videos of Eliza. Here is another one that I can share with you that I took while we were waiting for a prescription at the grocery store. It was her first time ever being up front in one of those fun carts.

With all the snow, we post-poned Eliza’s birthday party until Sunday December 5th. We had a great time. Everyone from both families were able to come (except Cherisa - at BYUI, and Josh Taylor - at work) and we had a jolly time.

Dinner was served, and being fast Sunday, was enjoyed by all. Pulled Beef sandwiches, baked potatos with the fixin’s and a salad.

Bunny Cake - Sandra Wright decorated it for us

Eliza Happy to have Cake!

Eliza's favourite new toy - playing with the cousins.

And last but not least… the video of her opening her presents!