I recently helped my boss submit a health services research grant and am still suffering from PGSD (post-grant stress disorder) - nightmares about missing narrative pieces, pdf packages, figure formatting, and of course, health outcomes measures. So as an outlet, I wrote up an "assessment" to measure claims that the challenge makes as well as my own personal goals in participating. These include weight loss, skin quality, increased energy and exercise, sounder sleep habits, and a generally better mood (I am especially interested in how the lack of gluten will affect this). I am one of the participants who will likely not complete the cleanse by 100% but say, by 70-75% (heading to Kansas City in the middle of the month!).
I aim to take this assessment tomorrow morning as a baseline and ideally would like to take it at 2 more time points and on the very last day of the challenge. I would also like to see how the challenge affects mental health so I will be taking the PHQ-9, a very common measure for depressive symptoms, every week. This is probably not necessary for most people, but I think it would be interesting for those who suffer from perhaps cabin fever/winter blues, like myself, to observe how food affects our brains/emotions.
Feel free to use this or to expand/adapt it to your own personal goals/research interests. Also, if there are any other research-y people out there, I'd love to hear your suggestions for additions/edits/better measures for some of the goals I have.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Night Before the Cleanse
Well tomorrow starts the cleanse...Feb 1! Matt and I decided to head to Publican for a pretty awesome meal tonight (we had a gift card!). When we got home we prepped tomorrow's lunch and snacks: the sweet potato, celery, apple salad and the minty pea dip. I plan on making the antioxidant smoothie for breakfast. I didn't have any coffee today and i'm feeling good. I'm going to head to bed to try to get a good night sleep tonight.
Superbowl Snack Ideas
Patriots are playing some other team :)
As a side note, I'm in a class some weekends. When we saw the schedule of the class was to meet on Superbowl Sunday- we asked our professor to add the hours elsewhere so we wouldn't need to meet that day. Her response was so great: "I don't care about Football!".
Here's some recipes I thought might be perfect for having/going to a party while trying to stay as close to your goals for this cleanse as possible:
DessertsstresseD
Yeah! that we can eat fruit during this cleanse! I've tried doing the no-carb/low-carb plan for a little bit, but struggled because I couldn't have fruit. Eating fruit as a dessert will totally fullfil my sweet tooth. Here are some recipe ideas that I'm thinking about trying:
and, omg:
Anyone else have any ideas?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Gearing Up
Lots of cleanse talk yesterday and today...
Matt and I made a Wed/Thurs/Fri food plan of action (in addition to eating a pretty heavy Thai meal).
Sophie was interested in cooking a meal for/with us at some point.
My supervisor at work has been on the cleanse already for a full week (when she had only expected to do it for 3 days!), and has gotten some of her friends on board.
My mom decided that she's going to do the cleanse.
Rose decided that she's going to do a "cleanse lite".
Jennifer wrote a blog post, is going to be taking pics and posting them of all of her meals, and she sent me a bunch of additional links to recipes that we can make during Week 1:
Avocado salad:
http://simplyrecipes.com/
Cauliflower steaks:
http://www.foodandwine.com/
Vegetable soup (staple recipe, but add or subtract whatev veggies you want):
http://www.weightwatchers.com/
Warm Cinnamon stuffed apple:
(omit the agave nectar. Buy a sweet apple like fuji, honeycrisp, or pink lady-no need for added sugar. I'm thinking about using frozen cherries instead of blueberries)
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
These look great! Thanks everyone. One more day to prep!
Matt and I made a Wed/Thurs/Fri food plan of action (in addition to eating a pretty heavy Thai meal).
Sophie was interested in cooking a meal for/with us at some point.
My supervisor at work has been on the cleanse already for a full week (when she had only expected to do it for 3 days!), and has gotten some of her friends on board.
My mom decided that she's going to do the cleanse.
Rose decided that she's going to do a "cleanse lite".
Jennifer wrote a blog post, is going to be taking pics and posting them of all of her meals, and she sent me a bunch of additional links to recipes that we can make during Week 1:
Avocado salad:
http://simplyrecipes.com/
Cauliflower steaks:
http://www.foodandwine.com/
Vegetable soup (staple recipe, but add or subtract whatev veggies you want):
http://www.weightwatchers.com/
Warm Cinnamon stuffed apple:
(omit the agave nectar. Buy a sweet apple like fuji, honeycrisp, or pink lady-no need for added sugar. I'm thinking about using frozen cherries instead of blueberries)
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
These look great! Thanks everyone. One more day to prep!
More Recipe Resources for Week One
Some think eating vegetarian cuisine is going to deliver lacking flavor, sense of less-than-full stomach, and little variety to meal plans. This is only true if you take a lazy approach to cooking & baking. Each year I have friends over during the holiday season, and continually hear positive feedback about the meat-free meal I've shared (they even ask me for the recipes!). I enjoy sharing vegetarian recipes because I'm proud of the delicious food lifestyle I've chosen, and am confident if I can do it, so can anyone. With exciting resources abound on the internet, cooking tasty vegetable-based meals should be in everyone's weekly meal plan. The purpose of this post is to provide you with some alternative recipe resources for this cleanse (especially during Week One), while helping you build your recipe box for a healthy lifestyle change to utilize long after this cleansing month.
101 Cookbooks is a site that I've been following for years. Heidi provides sophisticated vegan & vegetarian recipes alongside beautiful food photography. Her cookbook, Super Natural Everyday, can be bought on Amazon.
The Chubby Vegetarian is a blog that I recently was turned on to after watching The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. These recipes are hearty & southern-inspired. (BTWs, a vegan food truck was featured this season! And made it pretty far in the competition!)
Though VeganYumYum doesn't really post any longer, their archives are full of meat free cooking & dairy free baking.
These boys at The Bitten Word are blogging as a result of all the food magazines they've compiled over the years. What a great idea! Add some color to your plates by making this creamy cauliflower soup with greens from Martha Stewart.
If you have a meat-based recipe you really love, transform it into a vegetarian dish. Simply substitute vegetable stock for chicken and beef stock, extra-firm, marinated tofu for chicken, and large, portobello mushrooms for steak. Search for other alternatives by using keywords on websites like Epicurious, Cooking Light, and Weight Watchers. This is how I've found great suggestions on how to create textures in veggie tacos, bulk up burgers, add color for fries, and build a hearty curry.
I'm sure you've seen the commercials to take the Least Challenging Challenge from Silk soymilk! ::::::::Doooo ittttt::::::: Start slow, substitute it for dairy in your baking, and work up to drinking it out of a glass (if that's your thang).
After this month is said & done, I hope you'll consider a meat-free lifestyle. Meatout Mondays is a wise first-step. Consider small changes at first, like picking one day a week to eat a vegetarian-based diet. On this site, you can sign-up to receive a weekly e-mail that delivers new, meatless recipes to your inbox. Easy. Peasy. And after all, research has proven that a diet rich with fruits & vegetables will make you a better person*.
Jennifer
*Well, not in so many words, but check out Vegetarian Times for some facts about why to go meatless.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Cost of Cleansing
As I've chatted with folks about the cleanse, many have shared with me their concerns. Some people think they won't have enough time to do so much cooking, some have never eaten some of the foods in the recipes, some don't have a juicer or blender, some are concerned that they won't be able to cut out some of the foods/drinks that they love out of their life, some have stuff going on in February that will make it hard to be on a cleanse. I'll probably address some of these concerns in other posts, but Sophie was curious to know if being on the cleanse would cost more money than not being on the cleanse. So...
Yesterday I went shopping with my cleanse list for Week 1. I went to Stanley's because I know that going to a produce market is going to be way less expensive than your average Jewel or Dominicks. I ended up getting all of this food for $28.16. The most expensive item that I bought was arugula for $2.98, which was one of the two items (I also bought 7/10ths of a pound of cherries for $0.88) I purchased that are not actually ingredients included in the cleanse this week. Unfortunately they didn't have any kale, so I headed over to Trader Joe's. They too didn't have kale, but I did pick up some of the ingredients for snacks like olives, frozen peas, and trek mix. The trek mix that I usually eat is pretty much the same thing as the trek mix recipe for the cleanse. Maybe I'll throw some sunflower seeds in there. Plus I had a TJ gift card (thanks mom and dad!) so I got myself a little bonus, which made me happy. I did stop at Target earlier in the day and picked up a bottle of pomegranate juice for $4.50, yikes. Once I got to TJ's I realized I could have bought a bottle there twice as big for about the same price. That being said, all in all it was a good shopping day. I got a whole bunch of goods that we'll need for the next week and a half and only spent about $35. Because I wasn't spending money on processed goods, there wasn't a whole lot at TJ's to buy. We did already have pretty much all of the basic spices and condiments at home and there's still a few things I'll need to buy, but I think my conclusion is that being on the cleanse might cost us less than not being on the cleanse as long as we're doing some smart shopping and being organized.
Being organized. Doing this is definitely going to take some forethought (I've thought about creating an Excel spreadsheet, but haven't moved to that level of nerd just yet.). As I was looking at the recipes, I decided to spend a little time this weekend making soup. I put them in the freezer so that I don't have to worry about making them during the week and they'll be an easy grab and go meal. Plus there's no worries about that produce going bad. Matt and I could potentially take that Butternut Squash soup for 3 days of lunch. If we get tired of it though, it can just stay in our freezer for the future (or if any of you are doing the cleanse and want a serving, let me know!). Another little tip is that I saved the seeds from the B-Squash and I'm going to toast them and use them in the Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage and Carrots recipe this week because I didn't bother buying pumpkin seeds. Yay substitutes!
Ok, I'm off to make the second soup recipe while we watch the Bulls game!
Being organized. Doing this is definitely going to take some forethought (I've thought about creating an Excel spreadsheet, but haven't moved to that level of nerd just yet.). As I was looking at the recipes, I decided to spend a little time this weekend making soup. I put them in the freezer so that I don't have to worry about making them during the week and they'll be an easy grab and go meal. Plus there's no worries about that produce going bad. Matt and I could potentially take that Butternut Squash soup for 3 days of lunch. If we get tired of it though, it can just stay in our freezer for the future (or if any of you are doing the cleanse and want a serving, let me know!). Another little tip is that I saved the seeds from the B-Squash and I'm going to toast them and use them in the Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage and Carrots recipe this week because I didn't bother buying pumpkin seeds. Yay substitutes!
Ok, I'm off to make the second soup recipe while we watch the Bulls game!
Saturday, January 28, 2012
The Jist.
Just so we're all clear, this cleanse is not one of those all-juice-all-the-time cleanses. Nor is it anything too extreme like totally fasting (I love food way too much for full-on fasting) or trying to sustain yourself on a lemon water detox. We'll be eating plenty of food on this cleanse. Well, probably not plenty in the sense that we probably eat way more food than our bodies need right now, but we'll eat enough food. But it will be healthy food. And the cleanse part comes in that we'll be cutting out some of the unnecessary stuff from our food intake. Just for one month. One month out of our ENTIRE life. Hopefully clearing our bodies of anything harmful and getting into a routine of eating healthily so that once March comes we won't go right back to our unhealthy habits*. So here's a real quick run down:
What's Off Limits During the Plan: processed food or beverages, added sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, and alcohol.
What You're Eating During Week 1: fruits, vegetables, and plant-based fats, including nuts, seeds, and oils
What You're Adding Back in Week 2:seafood, beans and lentils, and organic soy
What You’re Adding Back in Week 3:gluten-free grains and eggs
*Note that I'm speaking for myself here realizing that I have unhealthy eating habits. I think everyone will be participating in this cleanse for their own reasons and to whatever extent they are interested in doing so. I'd love to hear from folks (in the comments or in their own blog posting) as to why they are doing the cleanse!
What's Off Limits During the Plan: processed food or beverages, added sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, and alcohol.
What You're Eating During Week 1: fruits, vegetables, and plant-based fats, including nuts, seeds, and oils
What You're Adding Back in Week 2:seafood, beans and lentils, and organic soy
What You’re Adding Back in Week 3:gluten-free grains and eggs
*Note that I'm speaking for myself here realizing that I have unhealthy eating habits. I think everyone will be participating in this cleanse for their own reasons and to whatever extent they are interested in doing so. I'd love to hear from folks (in the comments or in their own blog posting) as to why they are doing the cleanse!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
February. 2012. This is happening.
For the past month or so I've been talking to everyone that will listen about a cleanse that I'm planning to do for the month of February. I know, February isn't the typical month to start a cleanse, but I've been spending January recuperating from the holiday gorging season. I've been bringing my lunch to work on most days, drinking more smoothies, exercising more, and laying off coffee at least a couple days per week. We've also made a few of the recipes from the cleanse to try them out (and they've all been great!). This has been a way to ease into the cleanse month.
So the reason that I've been telling everyone about this cleanse is because I need social supports. A good portion of my life revolves around food. Going out to eat is a means of socializing and something that I love to do. Going out to eat will be almost impossible during February. (Plus I'm way more likely to stick with it if everyone in my life knows that I'm doing it. Accountability, woo!) The more people in my life who are also on the cleanse (even if you don't want to do every part of it or for the entire time), the better. We can plan meals together, cook for each other, go grocery shopping together, and support each other. It'll be fun!
This is my first blogging experience ever. Whoa. I figured this would be a good way to get folks talking about what they're eating, what they're struggling with, planning group meals, etc. So please let me know if you'd like to write some posts. I think I have to add you to something. I'll try to post at least a couple of times per week.
So let's get started!
Here's the link to all of the details for the cleanse:
http://www.wholeliving.com/152870/2012-whole-living-action-plan
To make things a little easier, I've put all of the recipes into google docs so that they can be easily printed for when you go to the grocery store. Here are those links:
So the reason that I've been telling everyone about this cleanse is because I need social supports. A good portion of my life revolves around food. Going out to eat is a means of socializing and something that I love to do. Going out to eat will be almost impossible during February. (Plus I'm way more likely to stick with it if everyone in my life knows that I'm doing it. Accountability, woo!) The more people in my life who are also on the cleanse (even if you don't want to do every part of it or for the entire time), the better. We can plan meals together, cook for each other, go grocery shopping together, and support each other. It'll be fun!
This is my first blogging experience ever. Whoa. I figured this would be a good way to get folks talking about what they're eating, what they're struggling with, planning group meals, etc. So please let me know if you'd like to write some posts. I think I have to add you to something. I'll try to post at least a couple of times per week.
So let's get started!
Here's the link to all of the details for the cleanse:
http://www.wholeliving.com/152870/2012-whole-living-action-plan
To make things a little easier, I've put all of the recipes into google docs so that they can be easily printed for when you go to the grocery store. Here are those links:
Week 1 Recipes:
(note: I only included the smoothie recipes, not the juice recipes)
Week 2 Recipes:
Week 3 Recipes:
Week 4 Recipes:
Snack Recipes:
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