Category Archives: The French Don’t Diet

My WHAT has MSG???

     Exercise of the day: 45 minutes on the elliptical at level 8. My heart rate was between 170-177 the entire way and I was drenched. It was awesome. I also did 30 tricep dips and 30 pullups, followed by insanely painful rolling of my IT bands. It hurt, but hurt less than last time!

     Now are you ready for something gross? I did a pantry/fridge clean. In the vein of The French Don’t Diet, I decided to compile everything from my fridge and pantry that contained any chemicals, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, added vitamins (we should get enough from our daily food sources) or food dyes. You ready for the outcome?

Holy. Crap.
     Let’s go through what we have here – ketchup (high fructose corn syrup), pickles (Yellow #5), powdered gravy mix and taco seasonings (corn syrup solids), bread crumbs (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil), oatmeal pancake mix (corn syrup solids), protein pasta (thiamine mononitrate added to replace what’s lost in processing), vegetable broth (monosodium glutamate aka MSG!). GAG. Excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Now for the fridge. Ugh.
     Parmesan cheese (cellulose powder), pickles (yellow #5 again), ketchup and barbecue sauce (high fructose corn syrup), whipped cream (hydrogenated vegetable oil AND high fructose corn syrup), and so on and so forth. This shelf was jam packed with stuff to get rid of. The rest of my fridge? Pretty much empty. All that’s left is spinach, mixed greens, lentils, all natural peanut butter, tahini, celery, bell peppers, homemade hummus, hot sauce and whole grain mustard – I can live with that!
     After the pantry and fridge cleanse, I threw together a body and soul cleansing salad with what remained.
A Kitchen Sink Salad to trump all salads! This had half a bag of mixed greens, 2 organic zucchinis sauteed with herbes de provence, egg white salad, a yellow bell pepper, lentils and a dressing of whole grain mustard, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Hey! I can pronounce every ingredient above!
     After all this, I feel good! I can’t wait to see how I feel after a week of eating clean, with no added chemicals, dyes or unnecessary added vitamins. I’ll get my vitamins straight from the source, thank you very much! From now on I’m sticking to foods that contain ingredients that I know, can pronounce, and don’t shudder when I think of putting it into my body. 
The best news? Gelato is all natural, baby!

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Filed under added chemicals, fridge cleanse, gelato, ketchup, kitchen sink salad, monosodium glutamate, MSG, The French Don't Diet, Yellow 6

I Eat REAL Food!

     Exercise of the day: I woke up with a headache and sat around for a while sipping tea before I decided that if I was going to feel like crap anyway, I might as well feel like crap at the gym and get a workout out of the way and I’m really good at writing run-on sentences. I fueled up with some carbs:

1 slice of 9 Grain from Great Harvest with some peanut butter and mashed banana. I have no idea how those chocolate chunks found their way there!
     I got onto the elliptical and did the random cycle at level 7 for 40 minutes, then did 30 assisted pullups and 30 tricep dips. I used the evil/wonderful foam roller and tried not to cry as I rolled out my IT bands, then went out and did a few “woodchopper” core weights. Halfway through the workout my headache was GONE! 
     I had an icy Monsta when I got back with 6 cups of spinach, 1/2 cup of soymilk, 1/2 a frozen banana, 1 lemon and 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries. Soymilk has protein in it… Probably not enough for a post-workout refuel though. I also had some reheated butternut squash apple soup with a dollop of goat cheese – yum!
     I spent the day cleaning the house, doing laundry, CLEANING OUT MY CAR (something I haven’t done in over six months) and making hummus!
The can of garbanzo beans gave me some trouble, but I sorted it out.
And the hummus is chillin’ in the fridge, waiting to have fresh bell pepper slices dipped into it.
     I made baked sweet potato fries for dinner.
Half of a huge sweet potato sliced, sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic salt, then roasted at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.
     At work I got a lovely gift from a lovely friend.
Chocolate covered strawberries from Godiva! Thanks, Jose!
I also started this book: The French Don’t Diet Plan. I really, really, REALLY recommend reading this! I’m only a few chapters in, but this is so interesting! The author, Dr. Will Clower, talks about how the French can seemingly eat everything in sight: bread, cheese, wine, chocolates, and not gain weight, and how their diet differs from the typical American diet.
“They eat real foods, we eat food products.” – Dr. Will Clower.
     If you read the ingredient lists on different foodstuffs, it’s shocking to see how many unpronounceable ingredients, chemicals, dyes and preservatives actually inhabit the products that we put into our body. For instance, let’s look at the ingredients on a simple loaf of Wonder Bread:
I don’t want to put exthoxylated mono and diglycerides in my body – I researched them and STILL don’t know what they are!
Lucky for me, I have a Great Harvest down the street. The ingredients in this loaf? Fresh-ground whole wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, honey and oatmeal. That’s more like it!
     I’ll be going through this book and sharing on my blog as I go along! I’m making a conscious decision to only eat food with real, whole ingredients – starting with making my own ketchup tomorrey! Stay tuned!
How many things in your fridge contain crazy chemicals or dyes? 
My count – seven out of twelve on the middle shelf alone. Yikes.

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Filed under butternut squash apple soup, elliptical, Godiva, Great Harvest, gym, headache, hummus, sweet potato fries, The French Don't Diet