A friend of mine posted this yesterday on Pinterest (a new obsession & time suck) and it was perfect timing.  I needed a swift kick in the behind and this was just it!

While I have been doing well, for the most part, since I gave up weighing myself last fall, there are some days that I really struggle.  I can honestly say that I have only weighed myself once or twice since the day in October when I said I was done with the scale.  That is huge for me.  I have been feeling the need to get on the scale recently.  I know where it is, though it isn’t sitting out in the middle of the bathroom like it was before.  My clothes fit, so that isn’t the motivating factor.  It all comes down to OCD habits and what makes me feel good.  Actually, that should be “what I think makes me feel good”, because in actuality, the scale only makes me feel good if it shows a loss.  That, in and of itself, is wrong.

I am (or was the last time I got on the scale) a healthy weight and have a BMI of 20.5.  There is no reason that I should want or need the scale to register a loss.  When I sit here and talk it out, rationally, I can see this.  It just makes me so mad that this piece of equipment, this metal, plastic, whatever, has such power over me.  Only I can change that, and I will.

One of the ways I pull myself out of ruts like this is by sitting down and making a list of the reasons that I eat healthy.  I fuel my body properly so that I can be a good mother to my kids; so that I can be a good wife to my husband; so I can run and continue to PR races.  Focusing on those things is what helps to keep me grounded.

There is something I have noticed in the past few months that I thought I would share with you.  It is often hard for those who have never suffered from an eating disorder to understand how those who are suffering (or have suffered) see themselves.  At my thinnest/lowest weight when I was a teenager (95 lbs), I didn’t see that I was literally skin & bones.  I can see extremes now, but I have noticed something that I haven’t in the past.  There are days when I see myself as “fat” or needing to lose some weight and later the same day I see myself as “too skinny”.  I am not consciously thinking about it when I have noticed this, so it is really perplexing to me.  Same body, same person, same day.  I guess that is all part of the disease and the daily struggle.

Fortunately for my health (and my mind), I don’t tend to act on feelings like I just mentioned.  I tend to act on numbers, which is why I think it is so important that I don’t get on the scale.  If I have nothing concrete (the number on the scale) to act on, chances of my consciously cutting back on calories are slim to none.

Thank you for letting me get that out.  I think that expressing my thoughts out in the open like this really helps in a variety of ways.  Not only is it cathartic for me to write it all out, but now I have put it out there and have others to help support me & hold me accountable.  Thank you for being there & for reading.

Tomorrow, back to gluten-free with a fun giveaway!

Super Bowl Sunday.  Did anyone watch?  I am a commercial girl at heart.  To be honest, I missed a lot of the first half.  I went to yoga, which ended at 6 PM, then headed to Chipotle and didn’t get home until almost 7 PM.  I did hang out to watch the commercials for most of the rest of the game, though.  Madonna is amazing!  I used to be a fan, as a teen, but not really since “Vogue” came out.  She really looked good last night.  If I can look like that at 53…  In case you missed it…

Back to Chipotle.  I am a little sad about what I am going to write.  I have always known about the possibility of cross contamination at Chipotle (and other restaurants that aren’t 100% gluten-free).  Eating at a restaurant that isn’t 100% gluten-free is a risk.  As much as I eat at Chipotle, I can only pinpoint one time that may have made me sick, but it also may have been a virus; I am not sure.  Regardless, I have eaten there many times since then and been fine.

As I was standing in line last night, I witnessed something that made me very uneasy.  There were a number of take-out orders due to it being Super Bowl Sunday.  They stopped helping the line of people in the store for a short period of time to catch up on the take-out orders.  One of the employees made a mistake with the type of rice in a burrito, and to correct it, instead of tossing the rice in the trash, he lifted the flour tortilla and dumped the rice right back into the large serving container.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!   I hemmed and hawed.  What to do?  I always ask the employees on the line to change their gloves, but it never occurred to me to ask them to to use all fresh ingredients that weren’t on the line.  Is that even a reasonable request?

I am conflicted because I have worked in the restaurant industry, not only did I wait tables, but I was in management.  Is it reasonable for someone following a special diet to request all new ingredients from the back or that haven’t been on the line?  In all honesty, tonight that request could not have been met.  They were just too busy.  New rice?  Yes, no problem.  Everything else on the line that Jon & I wanted in our burrito bowl?  In my opinion it would have been out of line to ask them to go to that extreme.

Anywho, food (literally) for thought.  Please share your thoughts below in the comments.

Sunday – Chipotle

Monday – Shrimp over pasta w/ roasted asparagus & salad

Tuesday – Mexican pizzas, black beans & salad

Wednesday – Bourbon Chicken, brown rice, steamed broccoli & salad

Thursday – Breakfast for dinner with fruit salad

Friday- Pizza from a new mix and salad

Saturday – Take out

Week in Review:

Lemon blueberry crumb muffins

Vidazorb Probitotics

Snyder’s New Twist on Pretzels

Have a great week!

Kim

It is no secret that I am a fan of energy/protein bars.  I like portable food for times when I am in a hurry or need to refuel after a workout.  When I first started the gluten-free diet over 6 years ago, the choices for gluten-free bars were few & far between.  There were Larabars, which I love, but other than that, the choices were slim.

(source)

Rise Bar, previously making bars under the names “Prana & Boomi bars”, has been making nutrition bars for more than a decade. 

Rise was created to fill a real need—to give people very specific bars, with different formulations, for various times of day. After all, your body needs a different sort of fuel first thing in the morning than it needs mid-afternoon. And your workout demands something else all-together. So give your body what it needs, whenever it needs it. With Rise.

There are several different varieties of Rise Bars:

Breakfast Bars – Rise Breakfast Bar makes morning say, "Go!" It’s sweet, with hearty chunks of fruit and nuts to keep you moving through the most important part of your day.

• Crunchy cranberry apple
• Crunchy cashew almond
• Crunchy honey walnut
• Crunchy macadamia pineapple
• Crunchy perfect pumpkin

Energy+ Bars – Rise Energy+ Bar is 100% organic, made with blended superfruit and nuts, full of fiber and antioxidants to fuel you through the rest of the day.

• Cherry almond
• Coconut acai
• Apricot goji
• Blueberry coconut
• Raspberry pomegranate

Protein+ Bars -Rise Protein+ bar is designed to make good workouts great. It’s a super clean formula that delivers a big protein boost with five ingredients or less.

• Almond honey
• Crunchy carob chip

I was able to sample all 3 varieties of the bars.  My favorites are the breakfast & energy+ bars, specifically the apricot goji and the crunchy cranberry apple.  I wasn’t a fan of the protein bars.  The crunchy carob flavor was better than the almond honey, but they were very hard & chewy.  I would definitely purchase the breakfast & energy bars, but would probably find another option for protein bars. 

Rise bars are made in a dedicated gluten-free facility and are certified gluten-free.  All of the bars are vegetarian, kosher, soy & peanut-free.  The Rise Energy+ bars are certified organic & vegan.  The bars can be purchased online or found in health food stores, like Whole Foods, near you. 

**The bars reviewed in this post were sent to me free of charge for review purposes.  The opinions shared here are mine and have not been influenced by anyone or anything.

I am always looking for a way to make my current meal choices healthier.  This not only helps my body, but it helps me to get out of a rut that I sometimes seem to fall in with foods.  I find something that I like and I like to eat it a lot.  Sometimes daily.  Tuna melts are one of those favorites.  In addition to limiting tuna to 2-3 times per week, I don’t know that I need melted cheese & mayo on a regular basis.

Avocados were on sale this week when I went grocery shopping – 5 for $5.00.  They were the big ones, too, not the tiny ones.  I wanted to incorporate avocado into my lunch, but knew I needed more protein, so the avocado tuna salad was born.

Ideally this avocado could have been a little riper, which would have made it easier to mush & mix up with the tuna.  Do you know how to tell when an avocado is ripe?  Gently squeeze a both ends to see if it gives at all.  If it is perfectly ripe, it should give just a little and be more towards a black/brown color, as opposed to greenish and hard when squeezed.

Healthier Tuna Salad

• 1 2.5 oz. package of tuna
• 1 oz. avocado
• diced tomatoes or grape tomatoes (can be mixed in or placed on top)
• squirt of spicy brown mustard
• Sea salt
• Fresh ground pepper

Serve on a freshly toasted English muffin, bagel, toast or vehicle of your choosing.  I used a Food for Life gluten-free English muffin.  If you are making more than one serving at a time, I suggest adding a dash of lemon juice to keep the avocado from browning.

This lunch kept me from eating an avocado straight from its package (skin).  Avocados are healthy for you, in moderation.  They have gotten a bad rap for a long time due to their higher fat content, but they shouldn’t , because the fat in avocado is monounsaturated, which is the heart-healthy kind.  Additionally, according to this article, they might help to prevent certain cancers.

Do you like avocados?  What is your favorite way to eat them?