Hits and misses

Am running and walking, did my long distance of 8 miles this past sunday which was good, I was surprised that I could run almost a mile at a time.
BUt today the 4.7 miles I did was very tiring, maybe because it was in the afternoon, or it was a gradual 2%incline after the initial downhill. I did take a break at GB's apartment and then ran almost the whole distance to my house. But it felt as if I was expending a lot of effort even to run at the slow pace.

The food part is going slow too. I keep reading snippets about food additives,- today there was an article on msn about the 12 food additives to avoid which included sodium nitrite used as a preservative in lunch meats etc, MSG, coloring agents etc. The other day I read about the dangers of using plastic containers and styrofoam cups and plates. Well, so what do u get your food in when u order takeout?

That same day my daughter came back from Sam's club with a cherry flavoured, red ICEE in a humungous styrofoam cup- believe me, 12 people could be satisfied with that one cup. And when I asked my Dh as to why he'd got such a big one for her, the reply was that this was the only size available! What we should do is to talk to Sam's Club and Costco to have a choice with a smaller size of the servings. I am ready to pay $2 for a 12 oz serving of ICEE, tho I would be happier if they completely did away with that drink.

I am on a warpath to clean the family's diet and started with cleaning out the pantry. I have thrown out all the candy, the cookies and crackers are finished, there are no cans of toamatoes ofr garbanzo beans laying around. So it is stocked with all good stuff like dried beans and legumes, whole wheat flour and pasta, and all the ingredients to make a cake from scratch.

Which I did a couple of days ago, using soome whole wheat instad of white and decreasing some of the sugar and butter. It actually turned out to be pretty good. Not that my family would say that- I am thinking it was yummy because it was finished overnight!

But cutting out packaged and processed foods does make life a bit tougher- you cant eat on a whim, the only thing actually available at all times for mindless snacking is fruit which becomes tiresome after a while. Tho I believe that is the whole point- we dont need to eat that much. Today the kids were whining about a lack of after-dinner snacks in the pantry, but I am firm - no buying those cookies or cakes or icecream- you want it-you make it. Lets see how long this experiment lasts.