Thursday, October 13, 2011

Pre-Thanksgiving Challenge!

Hi everyone,

We had so much fun doing the 6-week challenge, let's do another one!   Sorry I don't have a vitamix to offer this time.  Let's just share our successes and struggles, inspire each other, and win good health.

Here's my idea.  From Oct. 14 (tomorrow) until Nov. 23 (day before Thanksgiving) is 40 days which is 2 days shy of 6 weeks.  Let's try to eat healthy for the next 40 days, and then we can each decide for ourselves how we want to celebrate on Thanksgiving.  Maybe you want to splurge a little or a lot, on healthy food or a few bites of the traditional stuff.  It can be guilt-free if you plan something reasonable, and eat healthy for the next 40 days, right?

Let's think of goals for ourselves and send in updates when we feel like it.  I'm trying to get stronger at the gym, so in addition to eating only healthy foods and not overeating (my forever top two goals), I will try to eat the foods Fuhrman recommends for building muscles:  edamame, sunflower seeds, mediterranean pine nust, beans and...I'll have to check his latest post to make sure I got them all.

okay, let's go.

ps, I'll post the winner of the last challenge on the weekend.

Good night!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to join! How can I subsribe to your blog if I use only gmail and nothing else?

Ginger said...

I like your goal of getting stronger. I do pretty well, keeping to ETL. But I need to gain some strength and endurance. I also want to increase my skills in the kitchen with this way of eating. Before ETL I was a fantastic cook. Now not so much. I miss entertaining with great food.

Sooooo...my goals are....
1. gain strength
2. gain ETL cooking skills

Linda said...

I'm in, too! The challenge just ended was my first participation in one, and I loved the boost I got from being part of the party.

I may alter goals, but for right now, I'm running with the following:

1) making regular, heart-rate-increasing exercise a priority each day. I forget to put my own needs on my To Do list, much of the time

2) increasing mushroom consumption, now that it no longer makes me nauseous to ingest mushrooms (now I 'just' don't like them; give me 40 days of eating them daily, and I might be past that hurdle as well!)

3) decreasing fruit consumption; I've splurged on summer-fresh fruits, and I need to quit relying on fruit calories to sustain weight, and switch it to things like starchy veg and/or more seeds.

4) play around with bean recipes for my boys; I want to get them revved up with winter-appropriate meals they will thoroughly enjoy. Somehow I don't think a bok choy smoothie will be as satisfying, during an ice storm, as it is during a heat spell

5) remember to have FUN with my food; yes, this IS sort of like rocket science, but it should be FUN rocket science!

dwatkins said...

I'm in. My goals:
1. Keep my eating healthy.
2. Some form of exercise daily.
3. Explore more recipes and different healthy dishes. I've been following the same pattern daily for the past 6 weeks. While it helps, I'd like to learn some new dishes and ways to eat on the ETL program.

TejasJJain said...

1. Reduce 10 lbs
2. Stay more on track than stray...

kneecap said...

Hey, can someone give advice to Anonymous? I thought I set up an RSS feed. Does anyone else subscribe?

Ginger, I became a better cook after ETL. I finally learned how to cook without recipes. If you were a fantastic cook before, you will be again. It will probably be great fun for you to learn this!

Great to hear from everyone else. Let's have fun!

-barb

Patricia said...

I'm in for the next 40 days (started yesterday, in fact)! I'm planning to have essentially the same vegan, nutrient-dense menu every day, focusing on GOMBBS. I think it will help me resist going off plan when under stress if I do not have any choices to make on a daily basis.

I'll be helping cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for others on Thanksgiving, but I'm toying with healthy ideas for rewarding myself on that day. Maybe I'll make a giant kale/avocado salad to share with everyone and feast on that and a baked sweet potato while we're at the table. Then, perhaps I'll splurge on some kind of decadent (and expensive) fresh fruit for dessert; and maybe sip on a sweet, fresh green juice all day while cooking. I love green lemonade but seldom have all the ingredients and go to the trouble to juice them.

I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead last night and thought it was very inspiring. If you have Amazon prime, you can stream it free.

Livewell said...

I'm in also. I'd like to lose 20 more pounds and plan a plant-based delicious thanksgiving dinner for my kids and relatives! I made the best stroganoff yesterday without a recipe! Yea!!!

Anonymous said...

I am in. I need to re-commit to ETL. I have done well in the past, but an imjury that has sidelined me from my usual form of exercise, running, has impacted my exercise as well as my eating. So my goals are to: 1) re-commit to ETL; and 2) get some form of exercise in every day, even if it isn't running.

Carrie said...

Hi Barb,

I'd like to join in your 6-week challenge. I am still struggling with the last 10 pounds to get to Dr. F's ideal weight for my height. I also need to eat closer to his ETL principles including: salads with lunch and dinner, fewer starchy grains and less fat. I also tend to eat when I'm not hungry either because I don't want to waste food or for comfort. Do you have a thread going on Dr. F's member page or do you just track the challenge on your blog? Thanks!!!

kneecap said...

Great to see all of you!

Carrie, yes, I started a thread on the Furhman forums:
https://forums.drfuhrman.com/showthread.php?t=34213
I plan to log my daily meals here again, just was too busy the last few days. But I'll post in both places.

Can anyone offer advice to Anonymous (or me?) on how to subscribe to my blog? Do I need to set up something?

-barb

dwatkins said...

Your RSS Feed works fine. Anon can subscribe by looking in the right hand column next to any post.Under "Subscribe to Food=Health" just click on whichever service you use the most. It will automatically add to your reader. I use Yahoo, so I see your post titles on the MyYahoo page. I can then click on any post title to read more.

Michael said...

Thanks for sharing the information about Thanksgiving food preparation. Food is very healthy when you had it with limit mostly the new raw food items were very healthy for all kind of people, Thanksgiving android app is also provide the raw food recipes in that different kind of salads took place.

arumugam said...

Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting. I tried to add your RSS

to my feed reader and it a few. take a look at it, hopefully I can add you and follow.

Eating Healthy Food