But it’s all natural….

I would love to write a race report on the super awesome 5k race I did with my kids, husband and grandmother, but I have to pull the pics off my camera so until then I thought I should write about a topic that has been buzzing in the back of my head.

This past Saturday I made a trip to Costco, something I try to do once a month. I like to stock up on things we use a lot of, like meat, eggs, frozen veggies, cereal etc. It gives me a chance to save some money and stock up my freezer/pantry. As I was walking thru the refrigerated meat section I made an interesting discovery.. Jimmy Dean sausage decided they wanted to compete with the groups of Americans that are trying to ‘clean eat” aka eating natural foods that have little to no processing….



Bam they have a new label, it boasts the fact that it is “natural” and “minimally processed”… hold up! Some people might grab that and say oh look its healthy pork sausage!! I had to laugh when I saw that because I know there is more to a label then what they try to catch your attention with on the front…

Let me say real quick that I LOVE pig.. I love pork, bacon sausage, pork chops, ribs, you name it I love it… BUT since educating myself on clean eating and trying to become a healthier person I have limited myself to eating pork tenderloin and only having bacon and sausage very rarely as a part of a treat meal…because it is HORRIABLE for you.. And really I have always known sausage isn’t the best.. I mean anyone who knows what sausage is made out of KNOWS!!!!
It is important to really read labels… find out what is in your food… I try to avoid eating things that have ingredients I can’t pronounce… which the marketing team at jimmy dean seems to have under control…

Ingredients of Regular Jimmy Dean pork sausage: PORK, WATER, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN SYRUP, SALT, SPICES, DEXTROSE, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE.

So if you were a clean eater or someone who was trying to eliminate processed foods you would put that back in the case and RUN AWAY as fast as you can…

Ingredients of the “new all natural minimally processed” jimmy dean sausage: PORK, WATER, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SALT, SUGAR, BLACK PEPPER, SAGE, RED PEPPER, SPICE EXTRACTIVES.

Someone might read that and say oh wow they removed dextrose and monosodium glutamate and I can pronounce all the ingredients.. sounds like the way to go!! Right? WRONG!!!
Now listen young grasshopper.. besides using common sense you need to dig deeper… maybe you don’t know what monosodium glutamate (MSG commonly used by fast food chains and in canned and processed foods… known to cause headaches) or dextrose (another word for glucose) is… you can’t think it sounds good for you… despite the fact the FDA tries to say there are no adverse side effects to MSG they started requiring it be on the label.. say you trust the FDA and think they would never steer you wrong (giggle).. look up the inflammation factor of sausage… -27.. which means its mildly inflammatory… if you want to understand why you shouldn’t want to eat foods that are inflammatory check out this link http://nutritiondata.self.com/help/inflammation in a nutshell.. if you suffer from achy joints, are tired a lot, etc your food could be the culprit… don’t believe me? Refer to above link,, type in the most common foods you eat or drink in a day (including diet soda) for 3 days cut out anything that is considered inflammatory and see how you feel....

Now that we have decided we have gone on and on about the un pronounceable ingredients and how bad they are for your body let’s look deeper into the labels of the two jimmy dean sausages…
Regular Jimmy Dean Natural Jimmy Dean
Total Fat 16g Total Fat 15g
Saturated Fat 5g Saturated Fat 5g
Trans Fat 0g Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 40g Cholesterol 55g
Sodium 450mg Sodium 520mg
Total Carbohydrate 1g Total Carbohydrate 1g
Dietary Fiber 0g Dietary Fiber 0g
Sugars 0g Sugars 0g
Protien 8g Protein 12g

The natural minimally processed sausage has MORE cholesterol AND sodium…why??? Because there is no healthy way to make sausage, it still needs additives to keep its shelf life the same, and to keep it tasting and looking the same.. so instead of adding unpronounceable ingredients they just upped the amount of normal salt they put into it….
To my loyal blog followers who find my blog amusing and interesting I know this is a bit out of my normal tone… BUT the whole point was to share all the secrets I have learned along the way… and I know a lot of people say they can’t exercise because they don’t have the energy or they have sore ailments.. etc.. by paying attention to what you eat you will have more energy and feel better… and honestly I can’t believe that ME out of all people am sitting here typing this blog posting… whenever I met “crunchy” people as I called them who ate like rabbits I thought they were crazy.. and honestly when I first started getting into clean eating I thought it sounded a bit silly... BUT I was desperate… I was exhausted and hungry all the time following weight watchers and training for a triathlon.. I needed help… and despite the fact I thought it sounded crazy I tried it… and let me tell you what my energy levels are through the roof… I always assumed I felt tired all the time because I was a working, college going, mother of two, but by reading labels and cutting out foods that are high sodium.. have names you can’t pronounce etc I have more energy than I can ever remember and as a mommy I need all the energy I can get!

How I learned to drop the "weight"

A lot of people have new year’s resolutions when it comes to fitness… you hear it all the time.. oh starting Jan 1st I’m going to go to the gym every day so I can lose 40lbs finally!!! For many people who are in the battle to be “skinny” it’s a reason to reset the clock and buckle down and get “serious”.

My resolution hasn’t been any different than the resolution I made with myself that day I was standing in the dressing room of Ross with a size 16w dress in my hand…. I was going to “do something about the way I looked”. At the time I didn’t realize how in sync I was with modern day fitness professionals. To us “normal” or unfit people making a goal of losing a certain number of lbs the only goal we really think about…there is so much focus put onto weight… how do you calculate your BMI (body mass index)?? Weight and height… if you have a BMI of 25-29.9 you are considered overweight… anything over that you are considered… OBESE my current BMI is 29.5… I’m considered overweight… and I’m told by many fitness websites I need to get to a “healthy weight” what does that even mean?? What does my weight have to do with it?? How am I at an unhealthy weight at 194lbs?? I can run for 13.1 miles without stopping… I can swim for 750 meters, then bike 12 miles, then run 3 miles without stopping… I can do bicep curls with 25lb dumbbells without much of a struggle… how is that unhealthy? The truth of the matter is from a technical standpoint… how much you weigh has NOTHING to do with how healthy you are OR how good you look case in point- look at the picture… do I look like I weighed 196lbs in this picture?

Truth is I did.. and I am still over 190lbs at this very moment.. if I was a MMA fighter I would be a light heavy weight for crying out loud!! Honestly it took me awhile to get over watching the scale day after day, waiting to see the results of each workout… it drove me mad… is it really necessary to step on the scale every day?? NO is it really practical to expect to see results within a day or two?? HELL to the NO… in fact I maintain the scale was invented by a man that had an extremely nasty wife and he wanted a way to torture her while diverting her ruthless nagging away from him. The truth of the matter is the scale has nothing to do with how healthy you are, how good you look or how great you feel… well that’s not true.. the scale can make you feel like a horrible fat failure of a person when really you are a fit and hot looking individual…
Luckily without knowing it I somehow managed to make the perfect fitness goal. Rewinding back to April I made my new fitness goal completing a Triathlon..That was my ONLY goal… a goal I made on my own using critical thinking skills I picked up as an analyst.. I had deducted that after many trials and errors trying to “lose weight” by trying to fit in workouts in my busy schedule I was going to “complete a triathlon” by doing that I was going to be doing something about the way I looked…. Weight loss became a byproduct of my journey to get fit and not the main focus. By doing that alone I felt lighter already!

A end state of being x weight is the most frustrating impractical way to go about it… who cares if you weigh 120lbs on a 5’7” frame if your belly skin jiggles and your arms are little toothpicks you can’t even use to open a jar of pickles with?? During the time it takes you to get to that weight you will face constant disappointment with each week that goes by as you watch and wait for the scale to get closer and closer to your goal weight… the best way is to pick a fitness goal! It doesn’t have to be as extreme as mine.. completing a triathlon.. but it can be something simple like running a 5k race, there is a c2k (couch to 5k run) program out there anyone can do.. you don’t like to run? No problem pick a aerobics class that looks fun and make that your goal.. ie going to zumba 3 times a week, or I will take up step classes and my goal is to go from no risers on my step to two in 2 months… or finish my awesome workout video without stopping to catch my breath in 3 months… there is an exercise goal out there for everyone…

How do you measure your success without the forsaken scale???




Special K said the best way to measure how great you look is by how you look in your favorite pair of jeans… FYI I do not recommend the special k diet it is one of the most unhealthy ways to lose weight.. they just have a really good commercial ;)

Take before and after photos.. take your measurements once every two weeks…even if the scale hasn’t moved in 3 weeks, you will surprise yourself.. case in point… I participated in a weight loss contest, it was 6 weeks long.. in this 6 weeks I lost a total of 2 lbs… but I lost a total of 8 inches from my waist, chest and hips….


Bottom line… you don’t walk around with your weight tattooed on your forehead… nobody can look at you and judge how you look based of what your hidden at home scale says… they are going to judge it by “how you look in them jeans!” and even at 194lbs I can say I totally rock them jeans!