Happy Mardi Gras, y’all! We’ve had a house full of guests for the last several days and have been running around like crazy showing people around this city, visiting parades, catching beads, etc. It has been a fun Mardi Gras but I’m exhausted from all the busyness!
Today is the last day before Lent starts. I’m not Catholic, so I didn’t grow up giving things up for Lent, but this year Drew and I decided to give up eating carbs for Lent. That means as of tomorrow, no more rice, pasta, grains, cereals, potatoes, baked goods, etc for the next 40 days. My dad has been on a special cancer diet for the last several years that doesn’t allow him to eat carbs, so if he can give them up for life, then we can surely give them up for 40 days. Not that it will be easy. I love me some mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, homemade tortillas, cookies, and pretty much every other carbohydrate-rich food. However, these foods aren’t very good for us, so I’m excited to embark on this healthy journey. (and see if I can do it!)
I’m also still going to my Pilates class twice a week for an hour and I really feel so much better than I did when I started. I am building strength in my abs! I also want to start going to the gym on another day as well to work on more cardio and higher-paced exercises. Last month, Drew also got a gym membership to Tulane’s gym, so he has been going with me when I go to Pilates and he has been forming his own exercise routine.
I’m excited that we are taking more steps to become much more healthy people! Any of you all giving anything up for Lent? Starting a new exercise routine? Working on making your diet healthier? Please share any tips you have! ๐
You guys should try meet free Mondays! Paul McCartney’s idea. Him & his daughter are both vegans & are pushing for the idea of meet free Mondays in restaurants & peoples households!
That is a good idea! I had been thinking about something like that. I think we might do meat-free meals a couple times a week! ๐
Good luck!! Low carb is hard, NO carb is gonna be really hard! You just have to watch everything that you eat, it will be lots of steamed veggies. And i would not be too strict, there are carbs in nuts and nut butters that i would totally overlook because they will be your late night snack saviors! Can’t wait to see you!
Yeah, I’m ignoring those carbs– going more for the diet that dad is supposed to do — he can still have nuts, some beans and lentils and quinoa and stuff like that. We’ll see how it goes. ๐
Hi, I have also decided to give up carbs but mainly white flour foods and replaced them with wholewheat options if I HAVE to have them! Would you mind sharing your dad’s diet as I have no idea what kinds of foods to avoid exactly besides the normal potatoes, baked goods, pasta, rice etc – a guide/diet would be great to follow. Thanks
That is good! Whole wheat options are much better! I went to a nutritionist’s talk once that warned that you have to be really careful with buying things that say ‘whole wheat’ though. She said that many labeled ‘whole wheat’ breads still have enriched white flour in them as well. Make sure you check the labels really closely. After Lent, I’m going to try to also only eat whole wheat flour when I really have to have those foods. I’m also going to try to only eat breads/tortillas/baked goods, etc that I make at home. That way I know exactly what is in them!
My dad is on a cancer diet that this chiropractor/nutritionist that he goes to put him on. There really isn’t an exact name for it for you to look up, but basically, it boils down to the fact that cancer eats off sugars in your body. So to keep yourself cancer free, you have to restrict the sugars and carbohydrates that turn into sugars in your body. He can’t eat any kind of flours or sugar. So he obviously can’t have baked goods, sodas and the typical carbs like potatoes, pasta, rice, cereals, crackers, grains, etc… He also has to be careful about the fruits he eats, considering a lot of them are high in natural sugars. His doctor gives him other little tricks to use too though, for example, he can only have bananas if he eats them along with almonds, because something in the almonds help digest the sugars in the bananas differently. He also can’t eat pork, but can eat chicken, fish and beef. He can have corn, sweet potatoes, some beans, quinoa, lentils and some other things as well. He also has to drink a lot of green tea and he makes a lot of spinach shakes. Mostly he eats vegetables, eggs, meats, and dairy sparingly.
I’m sure that if you googled “low carb foods” you could come up with a more complete list of foods to eat and ones to stay away from. Good luck! ๐