Chiropractor Results - Round 1

I just finished my first round of chiropractic treatment at Chiro One after going 3 nights a week for 12 weeks. I first sought treatment because I was having terrible lower back pain, frequent headaches, and wasn't sleeping well. My initial x-rays showed that I'd lost 56.7% of the curvature in my neck, the top bone of my spine was at a 15 degree angle instead of the normal 29, and my lower back curved to the left which caused my left hip to sit lower than my right.

Here's my neck x-ray from the end of October. The one on the left is a normal curve. Notice that the top bone points toward the eye socket and the head sits back. Mine is on the right. The solid, curved line is where it should be and the dashed line is my actual curve. My top bone points toward my nose and my head sits forward causing my shoulders to slump.

Now here's my lower back x-ray from October. Again, the one on the left is a normal spine and mine is on the right (ignore the zipper and hooks from my dress pants). Notice how my spine curves to my right and my left hip is lower? That was causing me a ton of pain.

After 36 weeks of adjustments, special stretches, and different types of traction, my spine is on the road to recovery. The curve in my neck is slowly improving and the top angle is now 24 degrees. This has had a huge affect on my posture because I now carry my head further back. I've always slumped my shoulders and head forward as you saw in the first x-ray, but that's starting to reverse. My lower back is also nice and straight now, although my right hip is a little lower because it started over-compensating as my left hip lifted. That will improve with more treatment.

Here are my x-rays from this week. See the improvements?

I've agreed to another 36 weeks of treatment with 3 visits a week because my overall health has improved dramatically. I'm sleeping great and the back pain and headaches are gone. I have so much more energy than I used to. My chiropractor is the one that turned me on to juicing and has been super supportive of my recent healthy choices. The whole office is an open concept so I get to chat with the other patients and have actually become friends with a few of them. This was definitely a great choice and I'm looking forward to even more improvements.

My adorable chiropractor, Dr. Jasmina 

Goals

While doing some stretches and basic yoga moves this morning, I realized that I should probably have some goals in mind. This is hard for me because I'm more concerned with being healthy than the number on the scale. The more I thought about it though, the easier it was to come up with things that I'm looking forward to as I lose weight and tone my body. Ladies and gentleman, here are my top 10 goals:

1) Lose 40 lbs. This would put me back at the weight I was when I first met Nick (poor guy didn't know what he was getting himself into). I'm fine with weighing more if I start to build muscle so I guess the real goal is to get back into a size 5/6.

2) Stretch without breaking a sweat. Right now I'm so out of shape that my body thinks the slightest muscle twitch is a full workout and makes me sweat like a whore in church. Not attractive.

3) Wear tucked-in shirt fashions. I miss being able to tuck a shirt into my dress pants without looking like a can of biscuit dough exploded. I want to shrink my muffin top and flatten my belly so I can sport that look again.

4) Wear leggings as pants. I would normally never do this, but I would like to know that if I do people will think "What a whore!" instead of "Omg gross!" I've seen leggings done right with a long shirt or a short dress, but I'm far from that point.

5) Be Flexible. I've used this word to describe myself (at least physically) and I'd like to change that. I want to be at least as flexible as the average, healthy person so I can do more yoga and pilates-type workouts. The same goes for my balance because it's pretty abysmal right now.

6) Wear a swimsuit proudly. Summer will be here before we know it and I'm tired of having a panic attack every time I picture myself in a swimsuit. Two summers ago I loved spending time by the pool with my grad school classmates and I'm desperate to get back to that.

7) Look good naked. Enough said.

8) Shop without depression. There's nothing worse than finding a bunch of cute clothes at a store and grabbing a size up even though it looks huge (just in case) and then discovering that you can't even fit into the bigger size. Last summer I needed a dress for Chicago in White and spent weeks agonizing over how terrible I looked in countless dressing room mirrors. I eventually settled on one because I was running out of time, but spent the whole evening gazing longingly at the hundreds of thin women in tight (by choice) dresses. I vow to have fun shopping for my Chicago in White dress this summer.

9) Be stronger. Let's face it; I'm a pretty big wimp. I mean I've got that amazing pain tolerance that all women have, but I can't do any manual labor to speak of. I'd like to be able to lift heavy things and climb stairs with ease. Part of the difficulty has been that my lungs are scarred from a 2 month spat with whopping cough 5 years ago, but I know that dropping some weight and building muscle mass will help with that.

10) Enjoy having my picture taken. Everyone has embarrassing photos of themselves, including Victoria Secret models, but the number of pictures of me that I would describe as terrible has grown at the same rate that my body has. I even told the boy to hold off on proposing for a long time because that meant I'd have to lose a bunch of weight before the wedding. I was kidding (sorta), but I'm tired of thinking about future events and knowing that I'll need/want to be in better shape for them. It's time to buckle down and just do it so I'm already happy with myself and prepared for life's biggest events.

Weight Loss!

Monday morning I made a quick breakfast inspired by a Pinterest post. I put almond butter on a whole wheat bagel thin and then topped it with slices of strawberries and bananas. It was super filling and I'm thinking I'll also try a variation with lite cream cheese. And yes, it's on leftover Hanukkah paper plate.

My version of http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370951/

For dinner, I had planned to make a mashed faux-tatoes side (cauliflower) to go with some fish that Nick was making. Then Nick got the cold that knocked me out for 2 weeks so  I was left to my own devices. This might be a good time to explain that meat scares me. I don't mind eating it, but I really only feel comfortable cooking ground beef/bison/turkey. Give me anything else and I don't know how to tell when it's done. Despite this fear, I found a recipe for lemon chicken breast and decided to give it a shot because I felt my chances of succeeding were stronger with chicken that with fish (don't ask why because I have no logical explanation).

I asked Nick some questions about cooking chicken with enough hesitation that he made me promise not to give him food poisoning. I told him I wouldn't although, let's be honest, that was an empty promise. I figured if I killed him, at least it would put him out of his congested misery. So I followed the recipe minus the white wine because we were out (I know...unacceptable!) and took a picture before I inevitably ruined it.

My version of http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111408833/

Surprise! It turned out pretty great! Although after plating the meal, I realized how bland it looked and made a mental note to add some colorful veggies next time. The steamed cauliflower was mashed with some butter and salt and pepper like the recipe instructed and it tasted a little blah. Then I added a little Parmesan cheese and green onions on top which almost fooled me into thinking they were real potatoes. This is a HUGE deal to me because I've had a love affair with potatoes for my entire life and that's what I usually crave when the chubby girl in my head gets loud. Now I know I can satisfy that starchy urge with cauliflower. Success!

I ended the day by doing 5-6 songs on Just Dance for the Xbox Kinect and then the workout below. It was hard, but things are slowly getting easier and I feel very accomplished at the end of the day. And it turns out that I'm already starting to see the results. After a week of healthy eating and exercise, I've lost at least 3 lbs! I say at least because after the number on the scale got super depressing, I stopped weighing myself. I've lost 3 lbs from that number even though I'm sure I had gained a little since then so it's probably more. This small win has me feeling super motivated to keep going so you can expect more recipe and workout reviews.

Complete weekly workout here http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370809/

Pinterest Recipe Weekend Galore

I spent a large chunk of the weekend trying recipes I found on Pinterest. Obviously my pictures are never going to look as good as the professional ones, but I think mine might give people more realistic expectations. For example, here's a recipe for scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, asparagus, and goat cheese:

http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370908/

Here's what my version looked like. It was delicious, but next time I'll add less smoked salmon. It was just too much salty fish for me.

Next up, I made some pineapple coconut cilantro popsicles for those days when I'm craving something sweet, but don't want to ruin my streak of healthy eating by devouring an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's. Plus, these popsicles make me feel like summer is closer than it actually is.

http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370966/

Here are mine. I found some organic pineapple coconut juice and blended that with frozen pineapple and cilantro in our Magic Bullet. I doubled the recipe and it was exactly enough to make 6 popsicles. The molds are Tovolo Groovy Ice Pop Molds that I ordered from Amazon. Notice that when I tried to pull one out of the mold, the top broke off just above the center stick. Oh well. It still tasted soooo good and definitely made me forget that we're still in the middle of winter (until I looked outside and saw the snow).

Saturday night we had friends over for dinner and late night board games and I knew that I would need something healthy to snack on while I got my ass kicked in Star Trek Catan and Risk (I did manage to pull out a victory in Geek Battle). I used a recipe for a creamy white bean dip that's a healthier alternative to ranch. Again, I used the Magic Bullet to whip this up and it turned out great although a little heavy on the dill. Our friends enjoyed it so this one is a keeper.

http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370960/

We're trying to use up some ripe bananas before they go bad so banana pancakes seemed like the perfect choice for Sunday brunch. These turned out so great! They were light and fluffy and the pomegranate syrup was a nice touch. I should have let the syrup reduce a little longer because it was pretty runny, but it still tasted great. My picture looks like a sloppy mess so you'll just have to trust me that these are awesome.

http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111370949/

And Finally, Sunday night's dinner was skillet lasagna. The recipe calls for Italian sausage, but I cut up some precooked turkey sausage patties. Next time I plan to add a bunch of veggies instead, but overall, it was really good. It barely fit in my cast iron skillet and bubbled over a little so just know that you need a large, deep skillet.

http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567111359430/

Yoga for Beginners

This morning I decided to try one of Nick's yoga dvds. He was still in bed so I chose the one that sounded most beginner-like with words like energy and balance. I envisioned doing relaxing, seated stretches that slowly moved from one to the next. Wrong! I pushed play and immediately a man and woman started moving from pose to pose with nothing more than the name of the pose and their own crazy-flexible example. If I haven't already made this clear, I'm currently in a chubby phase so I'm not exactly capable of placing one foot flat on the floor while pointing the other toward the ceiling. Your mountain scenery and woodwind music isn't fooling anyone, dvd yoga instructors! Just ask this cat:

Needless to say, my yoga session lasted all of 2 minutes because I'm pretty sure I looked more like a constipated warrior than a fierce warrior. I ended up sitting on the floor and doing stretches I remember (vaguely) from junior high track. Just to give you an idea of how pathetic I truly am, ya know that stretch where you put your legs straight out in front of you and try to touch your toes?
I can touch my ankles.
Sorta.

I did make some more juice though and documented the process.

Here's what I used: 2 handfuls of spinach, 5 stalks of celery, 6 large strawberries, and 6 pieces of pineapple.

It may appear to be vomit, but it was delicious!

Here's the pulp that was left behind. The blade/screen part comes off for easy cleaning.

Breville Juice Fountain Review

We tried the juicer last night and I am in love! I'm new to juicing so I don't have anything to compare this to, but I'm really glad I chose this particular model for a couple reasons. First, all of the parts that need to be cleaned are contained in one, easy to remove section. You simply slide off the safety lock and lift up on the plastic portion. I rinsed off the lid, dumped out the pulp from the collection bin and gave that a quick rinse, and then scrubbed the screen/blade clean with the included tool. The whole cleanup took less than 5 minutes and wasn't bad at all. Plus, it's dishwasher safe which will be nice when I have one again.

The second thing I like about this machine is that it does WORK! You can put an entire fruit in, which is great because I'm too lazy to chop things up. Last night I tried a recipe for green lemonade that consisted of 1 apple, 1 lemon, 5 stalks of celery, and 2 handfuls of spinach. Nick and I both agreed that it was waaaaaaaay too tart so this morning I did the same thing, but used a little bit of lemon juice instead of an entire lemon. It's delicious and I'm excited to try more recipes.

I ordered my Breville Juice Fountain Compact from Amazon for $99 and I think it was well worth that price. I'm going to stock up on fruits and veggies this weekend and will be starting the 30 Days of Juicing challenge that a friend shared with me: http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/30-days-of-juicing-2/

Stay tuned for reviews of juice recipes!

Food wins and juicing

I started the day off with a healthy breakfast and couldn't even finish the entire slice of toast. I had intended to do some stretching/yoga but spent too much time eating my food and listening to the Hipster International playlist on Spotify. Totally worth it.

I had a bowl of veggie chili for lunch from the work cafeteria and drank tons of water to convince myself I was full. That only worked until 2pm when my blood sugar dropped and I got a sudden craving for cheese fries. In the same way that blurred vision is my body's warning that I'm about to get a migraine, a cheese fries craving is a warning that my body is about to convince me to make a chubby girl decision. It does this in super bitchy ways like "But you'll feel amazing while your face is buried in some fried food" or "But your boobs are bigger since you've gained weight" or the most popular "But that girl over there is twice your size; just stand by her while you gorge." Today I was finally successful in shutting that voice up. I was prepared with a can of salt and vinegar almonds that gave me the same euphoria of eating salt and vinegar potato chips, but with the satisfaction of knowing I had made a healthier decision. I was so shocked by how good they were that I even made a couple coworkers try them. This is a big deal because normally the chubby girl in me panics at the thought of sharing yummy food. Progress!

In other news, my Breville juicer and popsicle molds came! I'm super excited to start juicing and to make yummy frozen treats that are healthier than the frozen custard sold a painfully close distance from our apartment. Reviews to come. Oh and I included a picture of the fish curry Nick made for dinner. The boy knows the way to my heart.

     

First 2013 Workout

The evening began with a delicious dinner and ended with my version of hell. Earlier in the day I discovered a recipe for brussel sprout pasta using won ton wrappers so of course I had to share the link with my fun-employed boyfriend turned personal chef, Nick. In true Nick fashion, he then took ingredients we already had and made his delicious rendition using zucchini instead of brussel sprouts. Amazing!

The original brussel sprouts recipe: http://bevcooks.com/2012/01/roasted-brussels-sprouts-ravioli/

Nick's version with zucchini, onions, bacon bits, mushrooms, and vodka sauce 

Then I decided to try a 15 minute workout I found on Pinterest. You do 5 minutes of cardio moves followed by 4 minutes of other moves and so on. The whole thing ends with a one minute plank. I slowly huffed and puffed my way through before ending with a 30 second plank and a warning that I might throw up Nick's culinary genius. So far, I've managed to keep my food down but I'm still feeling shaky 30 minutes, a hot shower, and a lot of water later. Moral of the story: I am WAY out of shape, but that workout designed will definitely keep me motivated to eat healthy because if I don't, I've found the perfect punishment.