Or better yet… feeding your kids??

So this weekend, we were out doing our grocery shopping, and when the girls asked for their favorite pre-made lunch pack, we actually stopped and thought about it for a second. What if we bought our own lunch meats, crackers and cheese and just make our own? We thought we’d get more for our money, and be able to offer a little more variety too! We started looking at the lunch meats and were a little surprised with what we found.

We took at look at some of the Turkeys and Hams we had available. They had some larger packages that were pretty inexpensive. We thought they’d be okay, until we looked at the ingredients, something we’ve really started doing a lot more of lately. We saw things like:

Sodium Lactate, Dextrose, Modified Food Starch, Sodium Phosphates, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite.

Ummmm… The Doctors always say that if there are things you can’t pronounce on an ingredient label… you should stay away from it… Granted, I can pronounce those things, but my kids can’t! Besides… what the heck is an Erythorbate? It sounds scary!

Anyway… We saw something else on the shelf that looked like it could potentially be better. We found these Oscar Meyer meats that were “Natural”…  We took a look at the ingredients list, and to our surprise, we knew everything on the Ingredients list!

Turkey Breast, Water, Contains Less Than 2% of Potassium Lactate (from Corn), Sea Salt, Evaporated Cane Juice, Carrageenan, Celery Powder, Lactic Acid Starter Culture.

Yes, even carragenan… It’s a seaweed extract that’s used as a thickening agent. We took a look at the price, and you know… it wasn’t all that much more expensive than the other stuff. We grabbed one of each packs of the Natural meats. I didn’t want to add as many weird named ingredients to my girls’ diet as I may have had in the past as a child… or even in the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention to labels.

My hubby and I are really checking labels on everything we eat now. We avoid MSG, and as often as possible, premade/processed foods. We’ve stopped ordering out for pizza, and started making our own from scratch, dough and all. We even cut pepperoni because we found preservatives called BHA and BHT in them.. We looked those up on our iPhones at the store and found this:

The same chemical properties which make BHA and BHT excellent preservatives may also be implicated in health effects. The oxidative characteristics and/or metabolites of BHA and BHT may contribute to carcinogenicity or tumorigenicity; however the same reactions may combat oxidative stress. There is evidence that certain persons may have difficulty metabolizing BHA and BHT, resulting in health and behavior changes. BHA and BHT may have antiviral and antimicrobial activities.

Of course, it’s not 100% proven, but if there is some evidence, I don’t want to really take a chance… Now, don’t think I’m going to go completely vegan, natural, organic, etc… and think that everything you buy in stores causes cancer… I don’t know if that’s even possible for me.. I just want to start taking those extra precautions when we are able. I mean… why not? If it’s something that will help my hubby and I get healthier, and keep the girls from becoming unhealthy… I’m willing to do it!

I know, you might save a dollar here, or 50 cents there, and how much of the bad stuff does it take to really make a difference on your health. Well, the best thing I can say when choosing to save a few cents by buying the stuff with weird ingredients is… When it comes down to it… you have to think.. how much is your health worth?

**Disclosure**  This post was neither solicited, nor sponsored in any way. This is purely my opinion and personal experience with grocery shopping and the product.

Yeah.. you heard me right… You see that photo right there on the left? That thing that is now standing in my Living Room right in between my bookshelf and my TV, yeah… That’s my bitch… I am going to conquer this machine. There are no more excuses… NO MORE.. it’s too cold outside, or it’s too hot outside… No more wishing I had a way to walk when it’s pouring down rain outside… I have a whole new motivation now.

I finally convinced my hubby of my need for a treadmill. After we walked 30-ish miles at Walt Disney World, and explained how I loved how I felt after all that exercise… He finally caved in…

Of course, there are a few provisions:

- I have to use it daily. How long is up to me, but it has to be used without fail, every day.
- I promised to let him take me on a shopping spree WHEN I get skinny.
- It is NOT to be used as a blanket rack, clothing hanger or anything other than what it is made for.

Yeah… I’m pretty sure there’s more, but I kinda don’t remember them right now. All I know is that am going to do this.. I’m going to walk at least 3 miles every day. It may not be all at one time, but I’m going to do it each day. I’m also going to work myself up to running those 3 miles. I know it’s going to take time. Nothing happens instantly, but between all of the tools that I have now… I’m going to lose this weight, and I’m going to look exactly how I want to look.

So yeah.. that’s about it.. That was my surprise… But I bet my title got ya! LOL.. Now.. if only I could figure out the workouts that are built in to this thing…

I learned in Walt Disney World…

Ok.. not really, but I did walk over 25 miles while I was there (really!! I wore a pedometer!)… and boy did my legs feel it! Not only did I walk that far, but I did it in my Earth Shoes! Man, those shoes are no joke! I felt like I was walking at a slight incline all the time, even after I took them off for the evening. It was weird!!!! I actually think this was the first time I had EVER packed for a trip, and literally packed one pair of shoes… besides the pair that I wore while I was flying. Nothing super cute, nothing with high heels, nothing of different colors, one pair of white Earth Shoes… and they rocked. I didn’t even care that I was semi dressed up for something, and wearing sneakers. I was doing it for my health.

Oh, and that’s another thing. I wear a pedometer now. I never knew how cool those things were. I used to roll my eyes at them, but now, I wear one. I’m shocked to see how little walking I do, and strive to try to make it as close to 10,000 steps per day. It doesn’t happen often, but I’m getting better.

So even though I haven’t been writing all about my exercise (or lack thereof) lately, I’ve been doing little things here and there to make some changes. Next week, I’m going to have even more news… but I can’t let the cat out of the bag just yet! See you next #mamavation Monday!

As much as I love blogging about my workouts on my main blog, I’m thinking it’s time to move them over to my personal blog for now. I am going to do a lot more blogging, and since I’m not actually “reviewing” anything but my own fat ass, I would love to make as many comments in whatever language I want… and I can only do that here. Should I happen to come upon any cool fitness products to actually review, I’ll post them on Mommy Brain Reports.. but until then… Let’s commence the fitness stuff.

So, last week was a hard week for me. I had so many things hit me over the past few weeks, that I think I kinda had a melt down on Thursday evening. I won’t go into detail about the previous things, because, well, they have to do with some people that I’ve worked with, and I can’t divulge that information publicly.. Just say that I found out some shit that didn’t sit well with me… It’s over now… The culmination of my disappointment came when I found out that I didn’t get chosen as one of the #mamavation moms. Yes, I’ll admit it… I don’t take defeat very well sometimes.. but only when it comes to things I really truly feel that I need. So, I lost. Do I sound like a whiney pain in the ass? lol. Well, the winners are two very amazing and deserving people, and I know they’ll do so well over the next 7 weeks. As Leah said… Their asses are hers.. LOL. She’ll whip them into shape…

So anyway, as I was wallowing in my own self pity… I set myself to cleaning house. I actually got so much done that I had neglected over the last few weeks while lobbying for votes.. I was pretty proud of myself. I pretty much stayed off of Twitter, and the interwebs in general. Hubby thought I was sick. No, I wasn’t.. Just finally focusing on something else besides my hypnotizing 24″ Apple iMac. *teehee* Anywho… I finally jump on my Tweetdeck, and see a tweet @’ing me… It was from a fellow blogger, and she actually wrote about me in her post. She mentioned how she had heard me and @DaddyClaxton on the Wii Mommies Blog Talk Radio Show, talking about our hike up Runyon Canyon, and how we really pushed each other to get up that hill. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the only one in this situation.. meaning needing to lose weight… and that people are actually watching me, following me, and looking up to me. I’ve never felt like…. so… not important… but I’m having a hard time thinking up a more fitting word.. I snapped out of my funk and get my ass in gear.

I remembered a package of office products I had received from a party at BlogHer. Office Max I think gave them out. It had file folders and other random office-y things. It happened to have a journal in it. I immediately made it my fitness journal. Sure, I have this blog, or my iPhone, but you know, there’s something about having a paper and pen that makes it more interesting to me. Like I have to write in it.. No paper can be left blank! LOL. Plus, it’s something I can carry with me, in my purse… Yes, my purse is big. I decided to write down anything that I ate or drank, and every bit of exercise I did. Guess what? It worked. I did excellent… and it made me actually think about how much I was going to eat.

I was on a conference call with Pete Cohen on Sunday night. He’s giving us Mamavation moms 30 days of free fitness consulting… and I’m loving it. Anyway, one of our goals was to think more about what we want vs. what we need. Writing down everything I ate and drank really kept me thinking more about what I needed. Sure, I still had a couple of gummy bears, because I wanted them… but I only had a couple to kick that sweet tooth rather than the whole damn bag. See!?!?! Progress. (yeah)

So anyway… about the changing channels thing. We have Time Warner Cable… I hate them.. really I do.. but I have no choice but have them for cable and my internet. Well, I may have found my little light as to why I should keep them. On Demand. Yes.. I said it.. On Demand.. You know.. that little thing you can do with your digital cable box that lets you sit and watch just about any show you missed over the last few weeks? Well, I found a channel that I can’t just sit and watch. Exercise On Demand… It has so many various workouts, categorized under the type of what body part it would be best for working out. There’s even the strip tease aerobics.. Yes, I tried it, and I liked it.. LOL Damn thing had my legs burning by the time I finished my 24 minute workout. Sure it all culminates to a 60 second dance.. but you do it so many times you feel those muscles burning. There was also a walking show where I walked a mile in only 15 minutes. Granted, I’m walking in my own living room, but add in some hand weights and a few extra movements with the steps and DAMN! I was feeling it. All in all, I did about an hour of these little workouts… I felt good at the end. These workouts were so short, and easy to spread out over the day that I totally loved them… and for anyone who’s wondering, I did wait until my girls were upstairs before I even attempted those strip tease aerobics classes…. I don’t need them even seeing those… not that it was really stripping, but not that I’d really be taking my clothes off during a workout… unless it was Summer time and it was really really hot… Oh nevermind…