Feast or Famine

Hello all,

I am happy to report that things continue to go well as I follow the basics of the Perfectly Produce plans. I say the basics because I did minimal cooking this week - just a couple of my favorite items from the Spring recipes. I'm watching my cash flow like a hawk lately.

I also sorta freaked out about my weight recently. Broken engagement + friend in town + summer time + lack of discipline = I am now literally AFRAID to weigh myself.

I know it sounds silly but I think a lot of people can relate to that. I know that my approach to weight loss and body image probably isn't the dead spit of normality, but whose is? We all have our comfort zone. For me, mine is anything under 140 lbs. If I go over 140, I flip out. I stop weighing myself and flip the heck out.

Well, all this hit me as soon as a good friend of mine left for home - she stayed with me for over a week and I was kind of in the "ahhh the hell with it" mindset.

So since then, I have been spending 2-ish hours at the gym almost every night and sticking to meal suggestions at all times - NO snacking in between (yes, I am proud of myself, thank you very much). I tend to lose it at night, though. Particularly because it has been so hot here lately and I haven't been sleeping well.

Even that has been petering off, though, and I find myself beginning to swing in the opposite direction.

In college, I had a brief stint with some disordered eating. I won't call it an "Eating Disorder" - it was too short lived for that and it turned out I COULD actually stop when I wanted to, but suffice to say I didn't eat enough, or well, and sometimes didn't even keep it down. Show me a college coed who hasn't at least had one experience with this and I will show you a fibber.

Anyway, weight loss is addictive. I find myself tempted to skip meals, as in "oh, well I had that bowl of ice cream last night so I won't eat breakfast" or "oh, I just got back to from the gym and I'm so tired I could probably just go to bed without eating..."

Not good. The problem is, especially at night, once I start eating I can't seem to stop very easily. I think I just need to eat more slowly and do the "wait 30 minutes before grabbing seconds" thing, but I've always wondered why it's so relatively easy for me to be "good" during the day and such a crazy chow hound at night. I have a thing about trying to sleep on an empty stomach, too, but here's the really nutty part:

I know if I start eating I'll probably overeat, so I'm tempted not to eat at all. Nuts, huh? This is what results in my weight fluxuating up and down within the same 15 - 20 pounds my whole adult life. WTF?

On a positive note, I feel flipping great, and I haven't been giving in to the urges to skip meals - except maybe once or twice. My skin looks good too, I think that's a result of multivitamins plus water, plus healthy eating and exercise (go figure - it's the lifestyle, stupid!)

Now I just have to work on getting more sleep. It is literally the key to having a good tomorrow, if you think about it. It's a little tough right now due to circumstances outside my control (i.e. mother nature), but I have been good lately about making myself go to bed at a fairly reasonable hour (yay me).

We're on the up swing, folks. Also, something occurred to me at the gym today:

I am happy.

I am happier than I have been in a long, long time. I am living almost exactly the way I want to. I have a good job, I eat well, sleep well, exercise regularly, do fun stuff in my time off, have a career goal in sight, and yeah...all is well with the world. The last time I felt this good was college, I think. So this time around, I think I'd like to try a wiser, more balanced version of happy, please and thank you.

Cheers to that, folks. May you find wisdom and balance and happiness.

It's...ALIVE! Summer Week 1

Hello all!

I have been doing so well this last week or so. I worked out every day Sunday - Thursday. I ate only every few hours, and didn't snack in between. I've been having mostly leftovers from Summer - Week 1, which lasted surprisingly long and surprisingly well.

I have also been eating my every day greens, well, every day. I've been ad-libbing some dinners because I'm trying to save my cash and use up what I have stockpiled, so I've been dumping leftover beans on them, too. Tasty. I also recommend Newmans Own Oil and Vinegar salad dressing, if you prefer not to make your own (somehow mine always ends up with gross chunks of salt sneaking up on me).

I have not been so good about not adding in treats with dinner, but I'll work on that.

I want to share a few things I've learned in the last couple weeks with you:

1. Plastic containers that baby spinach comes in are great for storage. Save them. Do NOT put them in the dishwasher, because this happens....


2. The more time you spend making sure your greens are dried before they are stored, the more days you will be able to enjoy them fresh.

3. Canned salmon, while it might sound sketchy, is actually quite tasty.

4. A handy reminder E-Mail from the good folks at Perfectly Produce made me realize that I am storing all my nut butters and oils wrong. They should be refrigerated.

5. Teff flour wraps are a GREAT gluten-free substitute for more traditional wheat wraps. Not bad calorie wise, and decent fiber content. These should also be refrigerated.

6. The pico de gallo recipe for this week / month is FABULOUS and stays fresh forever. Warning: you may want a margarita with this. Fresh tomatos and cilantro with onion and garlic...what could be better???


That's all for now folks - stay fresh.

Keeping up with the Jones-ing

Every work day between 2-3 PM I start getting a hankering for a munch. What's up with that?

Chocolate mainly - I'm taking a multivitamin as of yesterday so we'll see how that affects it if at all. I'm thinking that should take care of it. It's less of an energy drain than just a little nagging voice in my head: LA-LA-LA-LA, MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH....

Although today I feel kind of tired. Probably 'cause I didn't get enough sleep and got up sorta early.

On the upside, I've been pretty decent the last couple of days. Yesterday:

Breakfast: Smoothie
Lunch: Pico de gallo with crackers, greek yogurt with raw honey and 1/2 peach
Dinner: BLT wrap with plums
After dinner snack: gigantic bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce

Some little miniature chocolates were interspersed throughout, though I have eaten them all at this point so that's that. Also had a cup of coffee. I went to the gym for the first time in weeks, though. I did an hour of cardio and upper body weights (including abs).

So far today has been 100% to plan. I am getting really hungry though, and it's just before 3 PM. I think I might have skimped on the blueberry / grape recipe, I had a lot of celery leftover. This has actually happened to me previously, where I've ended up eating my 5pm snack between 3 - 4 PM. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Summer Bulk Cooking - Week 1

The theme of this week (and this month) is COLOR!

I am totally in a summer mood, even though Seattle is having some crummy weather today.

Tip for you: overbuy blueberries, cherries, and grapes. I definitely dipped into these as I was cooking this week! I have some leftover celery sticks to munch on this week, too. Spreading out the greens and produce cleaning helped the prep seem much less daunting, and I ended up breaking the bulk cooking into two days. However, this session was so easy and involved such minimal cooking that I kind of doubt it took 5 hours. Maybe it was that long, but it didn't seem that way.

The only item I couldn't find this week was the miso dijonaise. I asked at a couple different stores (PCC and Whole Foods) with no luck. However, I have plenty of mayo left still and I just bought some dijon mustard, so it should be ok.

Here are some pictures for you. I'll try to post more during the week because the combinations should be really colorful and yummy looking. Check it:

Ummm....

Sorry, we are having technical issues inserting pictures. Autosave is taking longer and I'm getting a werid error code: bX-rmpo7m, so we'll hope this is resolved soon because everythihg looks really, really good!

Month 2 - Week 1

Ok y'alls, pity parties are over, I'm back!!!

I did my shopping for this week and was super excited by all of the fresh fruit on the list, though slightly bummed by the lack of beans, it seems I will be getting plenty o' fiber.

I have a friend coming to visit for the week, so I bought some extra smoothie stuff...and some candy...and some gluten free brownie mix...special occasion stuff, ya know? I also got a little overzealous and bought two bunches of romaine and red leaf lettuce, since I've been trying to avoid spinach. I have plenty o' greens, which is good because I'm eating some now.

The only things I was unable to find were the poppy seeds, the miso dijon stuff, and scallion. I'm embarassed to say I completely forgot what scallions are. My friend Google just hooked me up though, and the key with this one is that they are also known as "green onions". I know, you more experienced chefs are shaking your heads right now - bear with me. This is a scallion, for other kitchen dunces like me:



So I'll pick this stuff up at PCC tomorrow. The shopping list for this week indicated I might not see the dijon miso stuff, but I couldn't find anybody in Whole Foods to ask. I hit the store at a busy time I guess.

All in all, without my additional stuff (I had to get some conditioner, some ice cream...etc.) I would say that I spent around $125 - $150 this week on list items. I overbought greens and I overbought flax and fruit because if I have a guest I want them to be able to snickety snack up on it if they are so inclined.

Take aways from this week



1. The stuff I thought was romaine lettuce is actually green leaf lettuce. Oops. I stand corrected. The bunches of romaine are much bigger too, so I got way more greens out of what I bought.

2. Don't go to the grocery store hungry. For reals. It's bad times. I got distracted in Whole Foods because I was spending like 20 minutes wandering around trying just trying to find samples, I was so hungry. Why? Cause I forgot to eat dinner, cause I'm not on the Perfectly Produce schedule this week. Bad doobie, BAD!

3. If you wash your fruit and stuff as you put it away, it will save you some annoyance. I don't like shopping that much, and sometimes it still takes me more time than a more experienced cook, so I figured I would get all my washing and greens prep out of the way tonight. If you've got a big date Friday night - which I don't - this works too.

4. Tearing lettuce up with your hands gives you green fingernails. Gross.

5. QFC greens are significantly cheaper than Whole foods. By at least 50 cents a bunch. Just saying. They are also not organic, so...pick your battles.

6. QFC always has unflavored Kefir on sale. I guess people don't buy it. And then I swoop in and get two for one, bee-yotch!

7. The checkout person usually makes some sort of comment on my purchases when I am buying according to the Perfectly Produce plan. Tonight I got a "you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables!" Why yes I do, I said smugly (just kidding I smiled and nodded). "You don't eat any meat?" This one I vehemently denied.

8. Very old people in grocery stores who look like they need help make me sad.

9. Google unfamiliar items on your shopping list BEFORE going shopping. Unless you have a sweet iphone.

10. If you wander around the Whole Foods produce section long enough, an employee might offer you a special sample. I scored half a peach today. It was damn good.

Accountability

Hi, kids. In an effort to hold myself more accountable, I'm telling you what I consumed yesterday.

Before I do that, an aside - as you may have gathered from previous comments, I am going through a very difficult breakup right now. That's all I'll say about it, but my method of handling stress (eating, not sleeping, not working out, watching bad television) is not good. I'm trying to change that.

Yesterday was an OK day. I made a smoothie in the morning and had that at work. I had some coffee, but not much. I drank water. All good things. I also had about 5 pills of Aleve because I had a migrane the size of New Jersey. Ended up leaving work early, talking to family, getting emotional, and then having a fairly appropriate lunch / dinner. So, in total:

Breakfast Smoothie (strawberry peach, yums)
3-ish Mini Snickers bars (why do I buy candy for my desk, WHY???)
Southwest Chicken Soup
An entire unidentified melon that has been sitting in my refrigerator for about two weeks (it was a very small unidentified melon)
Some fibrous, wheat free crackers
An apple

And I think that's actually it. While I know this isn't exactly balanced, it's a vast improvement from my eating habits of the last few weeks. I didn't work out, again, my brain was attempting to crawl out my ears and I spent a couple of hours on the phone with family and friends, trying to determine why life is so cruel to an unsuspecting, sometimes-undisciplined-but-overall-good-person such as myself. Boo-frickedy-hoo.

Today, I've started out with a nutritious breakfast of four-ish mini Snickers bars and coffee. Ugh. I did bring my last slice o' breakfast bake with me, though, so I'll have that in oh, 45 minutes or so when the Snickers have settled. I have a lunch date with a girlfriend, which should be pretty healthy. Later, I intend to either work out or clean my apartment, maybe both. We'll see. Wish me luck.

The Traveling Chef

Happy Fourth of July!

I love going to Bay City, MI for the Fourth of July. I've made it the last two years in a row. This visit was pretty quick-and-dirty: I landed in Detroit on a redeye at about 5:30 AM on Friday, and I head back tomorrow (Sunday) evening.



My Grandparents are turning 90 years old this year. Unfortunately, both of them were recently in the hospital. Fortunately, they are now doing just fine! My Grandmother recently had a pacemaker put in, and my Grandfather had a partial hip replacement. At 89 years old, it was the FIRST time my Grandmother had ever been in a hospital since the birth of her youngest child - my Dad, who's going to be 59 in October. If that's not some inspiration to take care of yourself, I don't know what is!

Anyway, I wanted to do some cooking for my grandparents while I was here so that a) they wouldn't have to cook for me and b) they'd have some leftovers to last them for a while and save them some trouble for the next week or so. The bulk recipes were perfect, and my Grandparents loved them. I made the Spring Turkey Chili with Artichoke and the Chicken and White Bean soup with Chard. I was able to find all of the ingredients for both recipes at Kroger, except for the Chard, which I was able to find at Meijer. I was a little concerned about supply procurement because Bay City is such a small town - the nearest whole foods is in Ann Arbor, over an hour and a half away.

My grocery bill for all of the ingredients for both recipes (including spices excluding oils - I just used canola oil) was around $50. I made the Turkey Chili on Friday night, and the Chicken Soup on Saturday night. Both took very little time - maybe half an hour, and went over very well with the family. I am leaving my Grandparents with at least a week's worth of dinners in the fridge, so I feel like I did something helpful, at least.

I chose these recipes because they are two of my favorites, but also for the high fiber content. My Grandfather has been taking pain pills for his hip - which he LOATHES - in part because of the constipation they cause.

Anyway. These recipes travel well. You can find the ingredients you need in small middle American towns and make them cheaply. If you're on vacation for a week and you have a kitchen, cooking the Perfectly Produce recipes will definitely save you money, and keep you healthy while you're away. You might want to just throw some plastic containers in your suitcase (which you could, in theory, pack stuff in if you wanted to so they wouldn't take up too much space).

Happy Fourth!