MyFitnessPal and a Sweet Question

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

I consider myself a fairly healthy eater. Yesterday, out of curiosity, I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app, entered my height and weight, set it to “maintain current weight”, and recorded my exercise and food to see how I measure up nutritionally.

Here’s my report card from the end of the day:

I fell short in a few areas–fat, calcium, iron–and really nailed a few others–protein, fiber, and vitamins A & C.

What stuck out the most was that I’d exceeded their recommended sugar intake before lunch. Hah! What sugar bomb did I eat before noon, you might ask? Blueberry muffin? Cinnamon roll? Nay. I had a bowl of Kashi Go Lean cereal with blueberries, raw almonds, and unsweetened soy milk, coffee with the same unsweetened soy milk, and after working out, a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter. Somebody stop me; I’m out of control. 😉

This prompted me to do some research on sugar, and I found a lot of conflicting information. From what I can tell, the recommended amount refers mostly to added sugar, rather that those occurring naturally in fruits and dairy products. Why, then, doesn’t MyFitnessPal differentiate? Two-three servings of fruit can easily put one over their limit! On the other hand, with very limited knowledge of chemistry/biology/etc., my understanding is that our bodies cannot tell the difference–sugar is sugar.

So what do we do with that information? I say (again, with very limited knowledge on the subject…this is purely my experience), take a step back, don’t hyper-focus on how many grams of this or that, and just eat real food. I know there are many popular diets out there that limit (or eliminate) fruit, but are you really telling that a highly processed protein bar with who-knows-what as a sweetener is better for my body than something that grew from the earth? I don’t buy it. Intuitively, I just don’t buy it. I feel certain that the benefits of eating an orange far outweigh the grams of sugar it contains.

I am not criticizing MyFitnessPal for this–it’s a helpful tool that prompted some research. Near the end of the day yesterday, the app showed me that I’d fallen pretty short on fat, Vitamin A, calcium, and iron, so I made myself a kale salad with Balsamic vinaigrette (umm, raw kale is disgusting, but I muscled it down for the sake of my health. ;-)) That helped close the gap on most of those nutrients.

Ultimately, it all comes back to my very basic belief about nutrition–just eat real food.

Do you use the MyFitnessPal app? What do you think about it?
Thoughts on sugar?

Impromptu College Reunion

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

I am currently experiencing a post-exhausting-week cold. My throat began itching on the drive home Friday, and now I am in full blown green snot mode. (You’re welcome.) Andrew woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “Catherine… roll over. You’re making funny noises….and you’re right in my face.” 😀 I consider myself to have a strong immune system, but I know I am highly susceptible to getting sick when I am stressed and/or overly tired. Oy.

I spent most of Saturday recuperating, and on Sunday I met up with with my college housemates for an impromptu reunion. We met at Kate’s apartment in the Fan and walked to Garnett’s Cafe for lunch. I’d never been, but it was delicious, and they have gluten-free bread, so I will have to go back with Andrew very soon! From there we walked to Kuba Kuba for their iced cafes con leche (by the way, I have been far too lax about the amount of dairy I’m eating…) By the time we arrived back at Kate’s after two hours of talking, eating, talking, and walking, I was exhausted and had a bad case of medicine-head. I drove home to take a nap, and the girls went to the river, with the plan to come over to our house later for dinner, prepared by Chef Andrew.

The meal included a salad with lots of fresh veggies from our garden, plus spinach and arugula from the store. I was thrilled to be able to share the harvest with our friends 🙂

In addition to salad, we had baked chicken with a roasted red pepper and artichoke tapenade (the tapenade was from Trader Joe’s) and a lemon-basil quinoa.

It was all pretty delicious. 🙂

The girls were concerned that I was taking this picture because they’d come straight from the river/being out in the sun all afternoon, but I think they all look beautiful:

I love these people 🙂

We ate and talked and reminisced about things we did in college. Andrew informed us that the more he hears about our college experience (mostly the pranks we pulled and the weird things we did that we thought were hilarious), the less he wonders why none of us dated very much 😀

We ended the day with a trip to Ray’s for ice cream and Italian water ice. As always, it’s so good for my soul to spend time with this crew, even when I’m not feeling well!

What was the highlight of your weekend?

Independence Day, Yoga, and Laughter

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

Thanks to everyone–in real life and the blog world–for your kind words about my grandmother the last few days. It’s been great to have what I know reaffirmed through so many: Grandma Tudor was a hell of a woman. For those who didn’t know her, you’ll get to hear more about her in the coming weeks; don’t worry. 🙂

It has been a stressful week. I leave tomorrow for a mission trip with the middle school youth at church, which I am so looking forward to, but there has been a lot to do related to the trip this week. On Wednesday morning, hospice let us know that my grandmother was in her final 24-48 hours. I think the anticipation of her death was, in some ways, worse than her actual passing. I felt like, I am sad, but I can’t start grieving yet because I have too many other things that I need to do that will be much harder to do when I am actually grieving!

As Andrew walked through the door Wednesday evening, he made a playful jab about an email I’d sent him earlier in the day. I immediately burst into tears and said, “I’m stressed, and I’m sad… can you not pick on me??” (What can I say? I am good at articulating how I feel and what I need… even if I word it the way a 6-year old might. ;-))

After dinner that night we went to our yoga class. I’d been looking forward to it as a stress reliever, but I didn’t anticipate all the ways in which it would help. We set up our mats in the middle of the room; some people were already sitting or lying down, meditating. The instructor entered the room and began setting up at the front of the class, but had not started the music yet, so the room was very quiet. As I walked to the closet in the back of the room to get straps and blocks for Andrew and me, I heard a strange noise through the quiet of the room:

fsshh fsshh fsshh fsshh…

I turned around to scan the room. Everyone was perfectly still… except my dear husband, who looked like he was trying to make snow angels on the floor, his socks making the fsshh noise as they moved back and forth. I think from his position, he couldn’t tell how loud or obvious the motion was.

I hurried back over to our mats and whispered,

Andrew! Stop! What are you doing?

The floor is so slippery! They just redid it, and it’s SO slippery!

That’s great… but stop…you’re being a lot louder than you think!

Then we did our best to stifle our laughter. What is it about laughing when you aren’t supposed to that makes it so hard to stop laughing? The harder we tried to stop, the harder we laughed, and laughing is great stress relief. 🙂

(But seriously, we are the worst yogis. Let me apologize now if you ever happen to be in the same class as us.)

On Thursday, after the news about my grandmother arrived and I spent some time crying and talking to family, we decided it would be nice to get out of the house rather than spend the day moping.

We harvested some veggies:

…ate lunch at Burger Bach, by which neither of us were wildly impressed. We were lured in by the gluten-free bun option and grass-fed beef. The burgers come with side salads, which is nice, and you purchase fries and dipping sauces separately. We were turned off by the fact that a small fry comes with one sauce, and if you wanted to try multiple sauces, you have to pay extra–that includes ketchup. Come on… just put the bottle of ketchup on the table; people will still try the other kinds. Also, the cooking options were “pink or no pink.” Well, I don’t want it to be pink, but I also don’t want it charred, which is how my burger arrived. To be fair, I was having a bad day, but don’t be lazy; a “medium-well” option won’t kill you.

After lunch we went to Maymont to see the goats (I’ve mentioned this before, but I really love goats. I regularly petition Andrew to let us get one as a pet.)

Because it was so hot, they had all the animals inside, so unfortunately, I didn’t get to pet them. Still cute. 🙂

That night we had dinner on the river and watched fireworks with our good friends Amanda and Diron.

We love these guys. 🙂

While waiting for fireworks, we laughed about the insane flash on the iphone camera:

😀

It was a great end to a tough day. 🙂

What did you do for Independence Day?

Lemon-Thyme Chicken & Vacation

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

I may have reached my threshold for squash. With the zucchini and yellow squash growing so quickly in the garden, we have cooked a meal with them about once a week and eaten the leftovers for at least one other meal. Don’t get me wrong: we are growing some delicious squash…I just might need to encourage the bell peppers and broccoli to grow a bit faster for the sake of my taste buds. 😀

I used this recipe to cook dinner last night, and taste-tester Andrew gave it two thumbs up. Our modifications: instead of couscous, we cooked brown rice in the rice cooker, we used chicken tenderloins because they were on sale, and we added minced garlic to the squash saute.

The chicken was really good. We will most definitely make this again… perhaps with another veggie. 🙂 Andrew loved the squash, and I certainly didn’t have any complaints about the taste. As I said earlier though, I think I have reached my limit, so I just wasn’t thrilled about it. Luckily, we have lots of leftovers to eat tonight. 😉

After dinner we headed to the gym. I sweated for 40 minutes on the Elliptical–including 10 minutes of intervals–while Andrew lifted weights. We booked our summer vacation on Sunday night (we are going to Jamaica in August!!) and I think as a result we are both feeling motivated to put in some tougher workouts. 😀 An evening stroll around the neighborhood, a Sunday afternoon leisurely bike ride are great for general health and basic fitness, but we are upping the intensity for the next month or so in order to get ourselves in fantastic shape for the Caribbean. 😀 I am SO excited.

What are your vacation plans for the summer?
Is anyone else tired of squash yet? 😉

Beach Day and Crazy Tomatoes

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

Life is about to be busy–a good busy–for a season. Next weekend I leave for a mission trip with the youth group, will be home for a week, then leave for another mission trip (more on this later this week!), so this past weekend was somewhat of a “calm before the storm.” Saturday we drove to Virginia Beach and met my college roomie Leah for a day of fun in the ~~partly cloudy~~ sun. Other than a couple of brief rain showers, it was a wonderful beach day!

Andrew and I are not exactly “beach compatible.” My ideal day on the beach includes lying on my back, taking a long walk, lying on my stomach, dipping my toes in the water, and repeating. Andrew, on the other hand, turns into a giant 9-year-old as soon as his toes hit the sand.

“What do you want to do first?? Build a sand castle?? Dig a hole?? Body surf?? Throw the frisbee?? Dig a bigger hole??”

I say that with all the love in the world. 🙂 Because marriage involves many compromises, we did a little of both beach methods. We sat, Andrew built a carefully measured, structurally-sound castle (you can’t turn off “engineer”), we threw the football and Waboba in the water, and we relaxed.

Before Leah arrived, Andrew was in the zone building his castle. I thought it would be funny to turn on the self-timer on the camera, sneak up behind Andrew, and take a funny picture without him noticing. Well, as I was walking over, raising our sand-diggers (yes, we bring toys to the beach), I noticed the woman on the blanket next to us looking at me like I was nuts. I lost my nerve, and camera took the photo mid-sneak. It’s not what I had in mind, but I look so awkward that it makes me laugh:

😀

We had a great time catching up with Leah just enjoying the beach! On the way home, we met our friend Allison for dinner. We miss her so much in Richmond, and was so, so good to share a meal and chat for a bit. 🙂

Things were productive on the garden-front this weekend as well. Between the heat and the afternoon rain we’ve been having for the last few weeks, our tomato plants have grown out of control. Part of the problem is that we planted too many too close together; it’s hard to tell which branches belong to which plant now! They’ve long surpassed their 4-ft cages and started flopping over on top of each other. This weekend we had to stake them:

Most of them are taller than their 6-ft stakes, and a few are even taller than Andrew now. Despite the craziness, they are producing lots of beautiful fruit:

We are approaching an exciting point in which we are harvesting a lot of veggies. I know it’s all relative, but we were thrilled to bring these beauties inside yesterday:

They were (we ate them all) the best cherry tomatoes I’ve tasted! Thankfully, there are dozens more ripening at this very moment. 🙂

What did you do this weekend?
What activities do you like to do at the beach?

Eating Well on a Budget

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

Last week over coffee, my friend Amy and I discussed the difficulty of eating well (and healthily) on a budget. I confessed that Andrew and I really don’t have a budget for food; with his allergies, there are some items (gluten and dairy free) that we have to buy, regardless of the price. Plus, we consider the money we spend on organic produce an investment–we are hoping for lower healthcare costs down the road as a result of taking good care of ourselves now! After all, it was Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine himself, who said, “Let food be thy medicine.” That, however, is a post for another day. Today I want to talk about eating well on a budget.

While Andrew and I do not have an official budget for food, we also don’t go crazy at the grocery store. Here are some ways we keep down the cost of what we consume:

Buy in bulk, when possible. We always have large containers of brown rice and quinoa that we refill with bags purchased at a wholesale club. We also buy large bottles of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and other items that will last a while.
Look for sales. If our cereals of choice are on a good sale, we might buy five boxes (It is not uncommon for us to have ten boxes of cereal in our pantry at any given time. :)) Be flexible–if you were planning to have chicken breasts for dinner, but discover at the store that the pork tenderloins are on sale, it’s okay to change plans! Or…
Buy meat when it’s on sale and freeze it.
Look for in-season produce. It’s cheaper and tastes better.
Buy frozen produce. It’s generally cheaper, has more nutrients than canned (and often fresh) produce, and works well in most recipes. We always have a large bag of organic broccoli in the freezer that we can steam for a quick, healthy side dish.
Shop around. We know, in general, which stores have which foods for the least money. There are some items we always buy at Trader Joe’s, some we always buy at Kroger, and, surprisingly, a few items that are always cheapest at Martin’s.
Limit the number of packaged “treats” that you buy. Generally, this is the stuff that ups the grocery bill, not the bananas that cost $0.20 each.
Grow your own food. Sure, there were some upfront costs to starting our garden, but there’s a lot of produce that I don’t have to buy this summer!

Dinner last night was definitely a budget-friendly meal:

All grilled: marinated chicken, corn on the cob, zucchini and yellow squash.

Cost: We purchased a 3.5 lb organic “griller pack” that included 4 chicken legs and 2 split chicken breasts on sale for $8.75. We bought 4 ears of corn for a total of $1.33. The squash came from our garden, but Kroger currently has them on sale for $0.69/pound. Let’s say we bought 3 pounds for $2.07. Assuming you have salt, pepper, butter (for the corn,) olive oil and vinegar (to marinate the chicken) on hand, the total cost of this dinner is $12.15. The cost per serving obviously depends on the people who are eating–this would probably make 7 meals for me and 3 for Andrew ;-)–together, we will likely get 5 servings out of this, bringing the cost to $2.43 per serving. If you factor in the cost of the items you had on hand (which I am not going to do,) I bet it’s still well under $3 per serving.

That’s a lot of food for $12.15!

Eating well doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank. Look for sales, buy produce that’s in season–or better yet, grow your own–and you can eat very delicious, healthy meals on a budget.

Do you have any tips for saving money at the grocery store?

Squash, Tennis, and Homemade GF Cookies

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

Something tells me I will need to find an abundance of new squash recipes soon…and that something is that our zucchini and yellow squash are growing faster than the weeds surrounding them! Yesterday we harvested (and ate) three, and we have three more that are ready to be picked today.

Aren’t they beautiful? 😀 It is unbelievable how fast zucchini grow. This particular one increased its size by almost 1/3 literally overnight. We checked on it yesterday morning and thought, “Whoa! Where did that come from?!”

For dinner, we kept the squash prep simple–sliced, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried thyme, and roasted in the oven.

…Plus baked pork chops and brown rice noodles with garlic and basil. As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t love squash, but this was actually very tasty! Again, I am fairly certain food tastes better when it’s homegrown. It’s not too late to buy a few vegetable plants! 😀 You can grow them in pots, and you wont regret it.

After dinner we went to a local public school to play tennis. My quad is still giving me trouble from our softball game ten days ago–fifteen or twenty minutes into my runs, it starts feeling really tight and achy. I was happy to do a non-running cardio workout!

My husband has skills.

We played for just over an hour, and as we were driving home, Andrew reminded me of my promise to bake him something. Wednesday afternoon I’d baked a few desserts for a meeting at church, and when Andrew got home the house smelled like cookies, but there was nothing he could eat, so I promised to bake him something gluten-free and delicious on Thursday.

There’s a decent selection of gluten-free all-purpose flours and baking mixes these days, but the best stuff we have come across is Arrowhead Mills GF all-purpose flour. The first few times I baked with it, I double checked the box to make sure the flour was GF after tasting how good the final product was. More than once I did that! We have even served GF baked goods made from this brand to our friends without them being able to tell they were GF. That’s the true test. 🙂 Anyway, these chocolate chip cookies, made using Arrowhead Mills GF all-purpose flour, did not disappoint. I’d need to do a side-by-side taste test, but I think I prefer these to regular chocolate chip cookies. We may have eaten seven between the two of us (it’s okay… we eat our veggies too :-D)

Now, I’m off to pick some more squash before they grow too large to eat!

What’s your favorite squash recipe? Do you have a gluten-free flour that you really love?

And Now We Wait (Garden Update)

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Catherine @ A Two Storey Home

All the vegetables have been planted. We’d been spending a little time each evening this week putting seeds and plants in the ground, and we took a few hours Saturday to finish the work. Now we wait. And water. And wait.

Andrew is proud of this garden. Don’t you forget it. 😉

Looking at the photo above, here’s what’s in the ground: on the right, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, bell peppers, cayenne peppers, pimento peppers, green beans, broccoli, carrots, and Swiss chard. On the left, cantaloupe, cucumbers, pumpkin, zucchini, yellow squash, and watermelon. In the pots we have strawberries and lots of herbs.

We planted the broccoli, Swiss chard, beets, and carrots almost two weeks ago, and they are starting to emerge from the ground.

We transplanted the tomatoes and peppers this week and are still using popsicle sticks to help some of them straighten (the cages will be great when they are bigger, but they aren’t doing much at the moment.)

DSCN7881