Secret Salad

"The perfect dressing is essential to the perfect salad, and I see no reason whatsoever for using a bottled dressing, which may have been sitting on a grocery shelf for weeks, even months--even years.  With your own dressing, everything is fresh--the best oil, your own choice of vinegar, fresh lemon--and a really good salad dressing is so quick and easy to make..." 

-Julie Child excerpted from Julia's Kitchen Wisdom

It's true ya'll.  Salads at home don't have to be lame.

We like to grate the cheese to closely resemble that of the California Dreaming Salad, one of our favorite guilty pleasures.  Now if only I could duplicate those croissants...

We buy the goatload box of organic mixed greens from Costco, 

and toss in whatever fruits/veggies we have on hand.

The secret sauce?  TJ's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar.  Ingredients are as follows: Champagne Vinegar, Orange Juice, Sugar, Fresh Oranges, Muscat Grape Juice.  If you don't have a TJ's nearby, you could easily whip up something similar...

My sister Becky uses this ratio, and I think it is near perfect:

1 TBSP of Olive Oil

to

1 TBSP of Vinegar (again, we use the Orange Muscat)

to

A bit of sugar, or she uses strawberries.  I used blackberries tonight.

So tonight, since we are doing grilled chicken salads for our main course, 

I tripled this recipe for the two of us.

Easy as pie broccoli, right?!  Half oil, half vinegar, and a little something sweet.

Give it a shake, and pour it over your greens.

It keeps for a day, but I prefer to make it fresh since it doesn't take much time.

Happy & Healthy!

Eating For Two 101

O wearing her fruity onesie (a hand-me-down from our good friend Jill) in support of our lofty goal!

We were extremely blessed to be able to birth at a natural birth center.  I cannot say enough about the incredible experience we had at Charleston Birth Place.  Their model of care is mainly preventative, with a heavy emphasis on diet.  They can only take on and maintain patients who are low risk, so I was full-on motivated to remain as such.  A major part of that is a healthy BMI, and I was already on the border before I even got pregnant.  At 20 weeks I had already gained 9 lbs, so the midwife told me I had to get serious.  

This is what she suggested: LOW CARB.

1.  Heavy heavy protein.  Chicken, fish, red meat for iron.  Nuts, beans, yogurt, eggs, you know the drill.

2.  Any carbs I ate needed to come in the form of fruits or whole grains.  No juices.  So, I basically ate salad for two meals a day.  Breakfast was granola cereal loaded with fruit.  I found low carb snacks like string cheese, natural cheese puffs, yogurt, carrots and peanut butter, etc.  

I literally gagged every time I had to eat salad.  But I knew if I gained more than 20 lbs I would be considered high risk, and I desperately wanted to labor at the birth center.  

3.  No dessert or sweets.  Which was probably the hardest part.  All I thought about was bread and donuts.  And the feel and smell of dough and baking.  Looking back I really don't know how I did it---it was definitely the strength of Jesus!!!  It almost became a form of fasting---I just prayed for and focused on the baby whenever I had a craving. Which was basically all the time.  

4.  Also, they warned me to avoid starchy veggies like potatoes (sweet potatoes instead) and corn, etc.  The more color the better.  

I didn't gain any more weight until 33 weeks---even through Christmas and New Years! 

So the main rule of thumb was no more than 50 carbs per meal.  Which, an 8 oz serving of orange juice is 28 carbs, so that's the main reason you steer very clear of that junk.  Even the naked juices are full of carbs and sugar.

They do say that you can subtract the grams of fiber from the grams of carbs; for instance a granola bar that was 19 carbs and 3 grams of fiber would only count for 16 grams, but I didn't count on that. 

In short, eat like a diabetic.  And if you have an occasion for dessert, pick the cheesecake :)

All in all, I only gained 19 lbs, and walked out of the birth with only 6 pounds to lose.  Before this vacation I was already three pounds below my pre-baby weight;  I need to lose between 40-50 more.  


In short, my goal is no more than 50 carbs per meal, only derived from whole grains, fruits, and veggies.  I recognize there will always be special occasions and the like, but if I maintain this way of life most of the time, splurging every once in a while will be quite alright.


Prepare to #witnessthefitness!!!

Witness the Fitness!

Returning home from vacation is the most perfect time to begin detoxing, don't you think?  We went to Maryland for my sister's wedding, and brought home a sick baby and a few extra pounds.  Coming home to an empty fridge made it so much easier to start over!

$200 (!!!!!) and a Costco run later, we are fully stocked with all the good stuff.  We splurged on $46 worth of meat including pot roast (recipe to come) and pork tenderloin, which should be enough for at least 8 meals.  Oh, and we had to spend $34 on a new fan.  The rest was spent on produce, milk (we drink 2 gallons a week), yogurt, you get the picture.  Eating healthy is EXPENSIVE.

I am going to post all the grimy details of my pregnancy diet on Monday; I thought I'd give anyone who wants to join the weekend to say your fond farewells to sweets and refined flours and sugars.  And juice.  And lunchmeat.

I've been seeing too many disgusting pictures of myself lately.  Also, we need to take care of our bodies if we want to live to see Olivia graduate from Kindergarten.  Seriously, why don't we take care of ourselves?  I've gotten the okay to start running again, which combined with the extra 500 calories burned every day through breastfeeding alone, should make losing these 40-50 pounds a little less excruciating.  I wonder how long it will take me?

Anybody else trying to start 2013 with a little less of themselves?  Join me on twitter (@maribethscott) and lets do this together (#witnessthefitness)!  Ben says he's in!  And Olivia and Hank are automatically along for the ride.  So that makes four of us.  Strength in numbers people!