Oprah and Dr. Oz

Last Monday, Oprah did another great show with Dr. Oz. I knew it was about health, and living and eating better, so I made Richard watch it with me. As a side note, I actually make him watch a lot of Oprah with me...he's not always thrilled about it, but we both seemed to get a lot out of this particular show. Anyway, the biggest thing I learned from this "90 Day Live Longer, Feel Younger" show was that we needed to try to cut out (or at least cut back on) certain types of foods. Well, duh. We all know that certain foods and ingredients are less than healthy, but sometimes you just need a reminder. And the pictures of partially hydrogenated anything were just gross. Here are all the bad foods at the "Food Hall of Shame."

Basically, he says that there are 5 ingredients that you should avoid eating - particularly if any of them are in the first 5 ingredients listed on a product. Seeing and learning all of this inspired me to pull all the crap out of our pantry. There are some things we decided to just finish off and not buy again - like Quaker Oatmeal Cereal Bars (we bought them in bulk at Sam's...kinda difficult to just pitch that). Anyway, I think those had every one of those bad things in the first 5 ingredients! EEK! One of the things that really made me want to do this was learning how sugars, for example, eat away at your arteries. Partially hydrogenated stuff clogs them. Enriched flours are not enriched so much. Dr. Oz says "The reason they enrich it is because they already stripped out anything that was worth a darn in it, and they add a little bit back so it doesn't look so bad."

I won't try to repeat back everything he says about the bad foods - just go the the "Hall of Shame" to learn what I learned. Of course, there are "Hall of Fame" foods he lists, too - and Richard and I already do a pretty good job with those. And actually, most of the foods that we pitched were foods that had just been sitting in the pantry for a long time, and that we probably would never eat. Needless to say, I'm already pretty selective in the foods I buy. I already knew about partially hydrogenated crap, but like I said earlier, seeing it and knowing that it makes great furniture polish is just gross.

I've also been inspired to try yoga. No, I haven't tried it yet. So far, I'm just working on their suggestion to walk 30 minutes everyday. I've been doing the elliptical a lot, so that's good. As far as yoga, I'll probably purchase a video, mat, and stuff like that soon - whenever I can get the toys cleared out of the space that I would be doing the yoga. :)

Richard has been amazingly supportive of my wanting to take on this new, healthier lifestyle. It is no doubt difficult. There are so many "normal" foods that have one or many of those bad items listed in the first five ingredients. However, it turned out that I had been wanting to go to Sprouts Farmers Market, since it's just around the corner, and this was the perfect reason! I had been told by my good friend, Tara, that Sprouts is much like a Whole Foods or Central Market, but cheaper - sounds good to me! The cool/serendipitous thing is that there are only THREE Sprouts in Texas - the one around the corner, one in Flower Mound (we used to live in that area too, actually), and one in Dallas. The only other states Sprouts is in is California and Arizona. So I feel like we kinda lucked out!

Anyway, we got to Sprouts and the first thing I noticed was that it was smaller than I expected. Still a very open layout, though. It was really nice. Our goal was to take a look around, see what all they had, and we actually ended up getting several things. We got Sprouts Cheese Puffs that don't have any hydrogenated stuff or enriched stuff, all natural tortilla chips sans aforementioned stuff, organic chocolate chip cookies (with DARK chocolate - YUM!) - also no hydrogenated stuff, etc., all natural Sprouts Salsa, and then some oranges and a container of mixed fruit (at an amazing price!!!).

The trip was good - lots and lots of organic stuff - produce and many other things; a vitamin counter and consultant; a section with books for healthy living and cooking; yoga and pilates gear; and there's a bakery section, too - Richard and I forgot to see if that stuff was organic and good for you, but I'm thinking it's not. :) All in all, a very fun trip and definitely not as chaotic as any other grocery store! Yay for healthy living!