Costco Price List

When I can't get foods locally, I head to Costco to get the most bang for my buck. I love their selection of fresh produce, meats, and other staple items that fit our Real Foods lifestyle. Organic isn't always available, so we try to stick to Clean 15 produce (noted on the list) and avoid the Dirty Dozen. We also try to choose good quality, minimally processed meats when local/organic aren't available. Occasionally, some items will go on sale (also noted), and when they do, I stock up to help save money. Just last month, I bought $97 worth of our favorite sardines since they were 25% off and the sale only comes around once every 6 months. Prices and availability can vary from store to store, and from visit to visit. You may find in-season produce to be cheaper at grocery stores, so I try to keep my eyes open for those extra savings as well. I will keep this list updated when possible. If y'all find other items, be sure to leave us a comment.

Here are my favorite Costco items:

A Week of Fall Eating

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. We have been decorating for Halloween, making leaf traces,  slow-cooking lots of bone broth, and embracing new fall foods like apples, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash.

This time last year, I wasn't allowing myself any of these wonderful foods because I was still in fat-loss mode and avoiding starches. This year, I am LOVING them! There is a lot of debate over whether potatoes are "Paleo" or not, so that's another reason I try to avoid that label and just say, "We are eating clean, whole foods." In my experience, (and this seems to be true for a lot of people as well), starchy foods may best be avoided while trying to lose fat. However, I do think that it should only be temporary. I believe that going too low-carb, for an extended period of time, may not be such a good thing since you could be missing some of the valuable nutrients in the higher-carb (yet still whole) foods like potatoes and certain fruits. So once you've reached your health goals, I say re-introduce some of these unprocessed foods, one at a time, and see how your body responds. If your body responds negatively (like getting sleepy after eating them, or having to run to the bathroom), then maybe that particular food isn't for you. I cook our potatoes, regular and sweet, with lots of fat, which helps stabilize blood sugar. I also add cinnamon (another blood sugar stabilizer), almond butter, or coconut oil to my fruits, especially bananas and apples. This works for me. You may have to play around with a few things to find what works for you. We all tolerate foods differently.

Over the past few weeks, I've been playing around with a few new dishes, but mostly I've been making a lot of our usual meals like meatloaf and eggplant lasagna. I decided to try and keep up with our meals for a week and share what our meals usually consist of. I took a few pictures when I remembered to do so. Keep in mind that we are eating more of the starchy stuff now than we have since this journey began a year and a half ago. That's also sort of the way it goes when eating what's in season.

Breakfast:
Bacon and eggs with a side veggie like green beans, zucchini, or leftover Brussels Sprouts
About twice a week, we'll all have fried potato rounds
Coffee with coconut oil, pumpkin pie spice, and coconut milk
Kids also have a small piece of sprouted grain toast and fresh fruit

Lunch:

Mini eggplant pizzas with pepperoni, olives, and banana peppers

Avocado salad with cukes, tomatoes, and banana peppers
Leftover chicken liver
Canned sardines in olive oil
Salad

Butternut squash lightly boiled, then sauteed in coconut oil. One batch was cinnamon, one salt & pepper, and one chili powder, salt & pepper. Cinnamon was voted favorite.
Leftover spaghetti

Afternoon snacks:
Lamb bone broth
Almonds
Kids have fruit or veggie with protein, like "Ants on a Log"

Supper:

Homemade fish sticks, sweet potato rounds, fried green beans
Salmon and Zucchini baked in parchment paper, mustard greens

Spaghetti and meatballs served over zucchini noodles with roasted potatoes and onions

Butternut squash soup with burgers

Dessert:

Frozen strawberries and pineapple with almond milk, topped with banana and kiwi slices

Owl Desserts with apple, almond butter, cinnamon, banana, raisins, and almond
Frozen blueberries with coconut milk poured over
Fresh fruit with cinnamon and almonds
Fruit salad with homemade mayo and pecans


Bedtime snack:

Bone broth
Almonds
Coconut oil
Apple with cinnamon
Burger (when I'm really hungry)

Dr. Oz and Saturated Fat in Coconut Oil

This is Kathy's hubby. I ran across something this morning and I just had to share. Dr. Oz is apparently coming around, to the fact, that saturated fats may not have placed so many people on his operating table after all. So many follow his advice blindly and I can only see recommendations like this, as a good thing. Make sure you read some of the comments by people below the article as well. Check it out it by clicking here.

Before & After #2

I thought it was time for another Before & After post. Here's more of my story. This is a much clearer picture of how I looked before I started, what I believe to be, the RIGHT path for me and my family. I'm not going to write this is how I looked before I started my "diet", because 1) I'm not on a diet, this is truly a lifestyle for me, and 2) I'd done plenty of dieting by this point. In fact, this is how I looked at 203 pounds after months ON a low-fat/high grain diet, with lots of vegetables. I was always hungry and very tired! I struggled and pushed very hard, every day, to get 20 minutes of walking on the treadmill. Some days, I couldn't even make it 10 minutes. I had ZERO energy! I was SO frustrated! I thought I was doing everything right, eating very little fat (I ate very small portions of lean meats, mostly white meats like chicken and turkey, and the few fats I did eat were olive oil and Smart Balance products), LOTS of whole grains, and fruits and veggies. And, a month after this picture (and doing everything "right" by exercising and eating low fat), my cholesterol numbers got worse! My HDL got lower, dropping almost by half, and my trigs doubled. NOT GOOD! The same thing happened to my husband, he gained weight, and his triglycerides got dangerously high! That's where this journey began, scratching our heads, and trying to figure out what in the world we were doing wrong.

We started changing a few things in our diet, and I lost about 9 pounds, but I still didn't think anything was working the way it should. By chance, I stumbled across Dr. Lustig's lecture, which has forever changed the way I think about sugar, and then I came across the movie Fat Head. Both of these just made sense to me. Around May 2011, after some online reading, I began my reduced-carb stage, as I call it, where I kept total carbohydrates under 100 grams per day. We also bought our first CSA share from a local farmer, with lots of fresh produce and a dozen fresh eggs each week. The weight finally started coming off! I started having more energy, so I did a workout here and there, but I never did stick to any routine. I started having enough energy to just get through the day and do what needed to be done: cooking, cleaning, and looking after my little ones. That was huge for me, to be able to get through the day without feeling so run down. At this point, I was still splurging/treating myself to whatever I wanted to eat on the weekends. After four months, however, I realized my weight loss had stalled at 178, after losing 16 additional pounds on my reduced-carb diet.

My next step was going on Atkins on September 5, 2011. And I did this 100%, no more weekend cheating! First month of Atkins, I lost 13.5 lbs. Second month, 8.3 lbs. Third month, 6 lbs. Fourth month, 4.2 lbs. On December 20th, and I was down to 146 lbs! I was so close to my goal. During all of this, the more weight Keith & I loss, and, the better we felt, the more we were empowered to find out WHY all this was happening, when we were eating the "wrong" foods (lots of fat, meats, and of course, produce, but produce had always been a big part of our diets). We read and read as much as we possibly could. We'd compare notes at the end of the day, and we were fascinated with our findings! We found Sean Croxton at Underground Wellness, who pulled everything together for us. We read/listened to a lot of his findings, which went right along with a lot of things we'd already found, plus a whole lot more that we didn't know! The Dark Side of Fat Loss was the first (e-) book that I've bought in my adult life. I believe it was the most important purchase I've made, ever. We learned so much through his book, and again, it just made sense! (If anyone is interested in purchasing his e-book, make sure you become a facebook fan of his and you'll get a discount!) Sean has a gift for explaining things in a way that's easy for all of us to understand. His advice it "Just Eat Real Food!" He explained why we should eat cleanly, and how to do so.

We started making changes to eat and live cleaner, removing toxins from food and personal care products, as well as household items. Through this process, we gradually gave up things like High Fructose Corn Syrup, then sugar, then Splenda; we gave up unhealthy, industrial oils like vegetable, corn, canola, soybean, and butter substitutes; we gave up all grains. In December, I decided to stop counting my carbs and just keep eating whole/real/clean foods. We had just signed up for our new organic CSA share and were so impressed with how good everything tasted. Organic (and especially local, organic) foods are more nutrient-rich and taste so much better! We eat our organic green beans straight from the basket because they taste so good, raw and plain.

Then, Christmas came. I decided to eat whatever I wanted, to "treat myself" for the first time in months. Red velvet cake only comes once a year (and I'd made it!). I was going to have a piece, and so I continued to eat that and anything else I wanted that night, and oh my, did I suffer major consequences! First, I had a terrible headache that I couldn't shake for 3 days! My appetite and body were all out of whack. I had really over done it with the sugar and wheat. It took me 2 weeks to get back to normal.

I've had a few indulgences since then, but I have learned how to have some treats, without overdoing it to the point of suffering later. What seems to work for us,  is to fill up on the good stuff (plenty of protein and some veggies) and then have a small scoop of whatever I want after. Since my body is busy digesting that big piece of meat I just ate, that little bit of sugar doesn't seem to bother me as much. Plus, I just can't eat as much sugar as I once could as my tastes have changed and sugary things are just way too sweet!

So where was I on the timeline? Ah, yes. 2012. I continued on my whole/real/clean, whatever you want to call it, foods. We had new cholesterol tests taken in January, and everything had improved! The biggest indicators from a basic lipid panel are the trigs and ratio, both were great! All numbers had moved into the right direction and then some. I started the year at 144.8 lbs and over the next 6 months, lost 9.8 lbs. Not bad! I'm eating well, not even trying to lose weight, but just be healthy and feel well, and the weight is still coming off? NICE! In July, we gave up pasteurized dairy. Our health has improved even more, and I've lost another 6 lbs in 2 short months! I am now 128.8 lbs, GAH-LEE!

I really am amazed at all the transformations! This all seems so magical to me. I still eat the things I love, making some adjustments, but I eat very well! I am not starving, and I feel great! I met my weight loss goal 3 months ago, and so I am glad that I am no longer stressing to reach that number. I am just giving my body the most nutrient-rich foods I can and striving for better health. I believe my body will decide what my weight should be. As long as I am getting proper nutrition, reducing toxins in my life, working on stress management, and get my butt to a little exercise, I think I'll be okay. I have NEVER seen my body like this. I am finding some of those feminine features on my body for the first time in my life, some I've always wanted to see, but never have. The collar bone, slim fingers, that crease down the side of my upper leg, reduced cellulite, no more back flab, jawbone, and even veins on my feet. I hope this doesn't sound too weird, I guess I'm just trying to say that I haven't seen my body like this, ever, and I love seeing what's been hiding underneath all this weight all these years! I weigh less than I did in high school. I never thought this would be possible. After struggling with weight my whole life, I feel like I finally got it right! I know there is lots more to learn, so I will not stop learning. I think it's good to question what we think we know about health. Be open-minded. Try something new!

Before & After #1

Thanks to my sweet sister for the encouragement to post this! Here's my "before" picture. I couldn't find a picture of just me since I shied away from the cameras at this size. This was Thanksgiving 2010. On January 1, 2011, I started a new journey, weighing in at 203 lbs.

This is today. 137 lbs. It's taken me 15 months to get here. That may sound like a long time, but it has passed in a flash! There are still times when I walk by the mirror, stop, and back up...to look again...to see if what I just saw was real. I still can't believe I've lost so much weight! I am at my high school weight, after 2 babies! If I don't lose another pound, I am okay with that. I feel great. I have lots more energy, and I feel so good about myself! And the best part? I haven't starved myself, at all. I eat plenty of food, and the foods taste SOOOO good. So what did I do? I took out the sugars, grains, and trans fats. I stopped eating the cardboard-tasting, sugar-laden, low-fat, and so-called "heart-healthy" foods like bread, pasta, chex mix, cheerios, butter substitutes, skim milk, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, turkey burgers, and yolk-less eggs. I replaced them with things like bacon cheeseburgers with lettuce instead of a bun; steaks; roasts; pork sausage; eggs WITH yolks, fried in butter and a side of bacon; blueberry ice cream; flour-less pizza; full fat cheeses; raw nuts; apple smeared with natural peanut butter, celery smeared with cream cheese; coffee with heavy cream, butter, and coconut oil; fried cheese; pork skins; and VEGGIES! LOTS and LOTS of veggies! Organic when possible, and as many dark, leafy, nutrient-rich vegetables as I can! I have gotten to know many new vegetables, thanks to my CSA shares each week. I have learned to cook, and LOVE, many new things like kale, beets, creasy greens, turnips, winter and summer squashes, different colored onions, eggplant, pumpkin, spinach, and so much more. That's where the swapping took place...we swapped low fat meats for clean meats WITH the fat (where the deliciousness is), swapped refined carbs/starches for fresh and organic vegetables, swapped junk food for nuts and fruits, and swapped low fat dairy for full fat dairy. Hard to believe? It certainly was for us...at first. But, we did our homework! We found what works for us. It is possible to be healthy and eat good foods. That's why I share this stuff...because we've been through the trials and errors, we've tried different things, and we chose this way of eating because it works for us. And if anyone is wondering about our cholesterol and triglyceride numbers? Lol...oh boy! We'll have to start a new post on that! Long story short, though, our numbers got worse on a low fat diet, and better on this way of eating. It's true. That's where Keith & I began this journey, scratching our heads after our tests. We had a lot to learn! And we are still learning. I hope I succeeded in making somebody's mouth water when describing what we get to eat. It is a delicious way to live!

Reduced Garbage Dump Trips

I guess the least I could do is contribute to my lovely wife's blog since she gave me permission to add entries. The only thing I have today is this pic of my garbage run yesterday. That is two weeks worth of garbage created by four people. What makes this worth noting is that before we started composting our remnants and avoiding processed foods, that bag was too stuffed to close after just one week. That is all.

Keith

Edit 6/23/2012: I just took one bag to the dump after 3 weeks.