Just to Remember

I’m about to lend out my copy of Rachel Kadish’s book Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story, and I wanted to remember this passage from when the protagonist finally has some kind of epiphany about love/partnership:

“I was wrong on that first date with George: Love isn’t rest. Love requires you, from time to time, to rip up your soul and replant it. To dare your lover to do the same. To muster sympathy where it seemed impossible. To be, perpetually, two kids joining hands, drawing breath, and deep-diving.

I can’t forsee what hurdles or negotiations might lie ahead. All I know is this: love takes faith. And there it is — the first faith my mind hasn’t been able to wrestle to the ground. It’s a faith at which I’m only a beginner. But I’m willing to labor, imperfections and all, for its sake. I think: let love be my religion, its intricacies, its euphorias, its trials. I think: I want to learn from this man for the rest of my life.”

2011
01/01
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Oxymoronic Radish Salad and the Shmoopie Pie

So as I type here, in the “sauna conference room” that I’ve made more impenetrable by bringing in my own space heater, I realize that I’ve never really liked cold weather. But I LOVE snow, just the look of it at least. We’ve been hit by a mini snow day here, and I’m working from home (ie: the super swank conference rooms and study center that my apartment complex has set up). It’s times like these that I reach for food that is wildly opposite of what my situation presents to me.

Exhibit A:

Oxymoronic Watermelon Radish Salad: spinach, watermelon radishes, cucumber, sugar snap peas, mini heirloom tomatoes, sunflower kernels, asparagus, carrot, avocado and red onion – dressed in mix of balsamic, rice wine vinegar and lemon juice.

This salad makes me want to whisper over it, in a soft shimmer of mist, “Taste the Rainbow…” It’s just that bursting with fruit flavor. Not really fruity, but it still looks like it could be nature’s skittles.

For anyone that can find watermelon radishes at their grocery store/local co-op, get them! I can’t believe how much they tasted like regular radishes, but with a bit of a sweet crunch. And they look so pretty! That’s all a blogger really has to care about, right?

Exhibit B: (not for the faint of heart)

SHMOOPIE PIE: I won’t even tell you what it was made of, so as to discourage any self-destructive morons from doing the same thing I did.

It all started when I bought Xanthum gum. You know, the smoothie addition that’s supposed to make all the difference in the world and elevate your common post-weight training smoothie to something of sattvic cow’s milk-in-a-bowl. It has smoothie enthusiasts blog-wide foaming at the mouth.

Now, that should have been my first clue —  FOAMING.

In the name of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I’m terrible about following directions. When the bag says “a little goes a long way” and has a charming old man on it, I tend to think he’s just joshin’ me. Not so. In addition to my half cup of frozen blueberries and raspberries, ice cubes, scoop of protein powder and almond milk, I added *seemingly* an ungodly amount of xanthum gum. The result was nothing like a smoothie, not even like banana ice cream or a really really frothy milkshake….it was it’s own life form.

But of course, since I saw the clock ticking down the minutes since I had finished my latest weight training sesh, knowing that if I was going to have my protein+carbs it was going to be NOW, I hoovered it. Oy.

The impact can only be described as a cross between feeling a distention of mind and body AND the very very sudden onset of rabies. I literally could not finish it. I went from talking about how I was going to make a super thick smoothie (nicknamed shmoopie pie because it sounds really close to ‘whoopie pie’, and who doesn’t love those), where I was skipping around, proclaiming my excitement in a vaguely Polish accent (really, my accents are always yet-to-be-determined) to………lying flat at an angle against the couch, while vertical, trying to use the force of gravity to keep the shmoopie down. JUST STAY IN — my muscles need the protein, dang-it!

This was not so be so. Instead, every time the shmoopie wouldn’t cooperate with my stomach or visa versa, I would mumble “Shmoooooooopieeeeee…”, and act like a pubescent 13-year old boy who wants to show what he just ate, which was Andrew’s warning to back-the-fuck-up. I’m sure it was one of my more ravishing moments for him.

This is me. Circa 5 minutes post-shmoopie pie consumption

Point being, people, is that xathum and the Shmoopie Pie are not to be messed around with. Of course, I will be trying to eat both of them again very soon, hopefully with less foaming-rabies-mouth.

Has anyone else really messed up a recipe they found online? Or become extremely frantic at the thought of passing that 30 minute window where you should be consuming your hyped protein+carb combo post-workout?

2010
02/09
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Mediterranean Salad Madness

I’ve decided that I’m probably going to separate out my salad posts. So instead of 3 or 4 different salads in one post, I’ll post one at a time. This will give me the opportunity to talk about how came up with the idea for the central flavors of the salad, other construction tips, tricks or whatever. Plus, it might make the posts less stressful to write and/or get through. More to the point…

I think if there’s one cuisine or combination of flavors that I love the most, that I can come back to time-and-time again, it’s Mediterranean. Especially for salads, the vegetables that are readily accepted and interwoven into Mediterranean flavors are incredible! Even with some of the changes that I’ve been making to my diet (oh wait, lifestyle? Can lifestyle describe what I eat? “According to my lifestyle, I eat primarily vegetables” hmm, maybe) – still, Mediterranean foods can work with any diet. I don’t think anyone would disagree with using robust flavors, lots of vegetables, legumes, and healthy fats!

So this is a streamlined Mediterranean Salad with Artichoke, Olives and Poached Chicken. I’ve been experimenting lately with poaching (almost like boiling your poultry to cook it, it seems), and I’ve been pretty impressed with some of the results. This chicken was poached in a mixture of low sodium broth, Italian herb-seasoned red wine vinegar and lemon juice with added herbs, salt and pepper.

It turned out perfectly juicy and very subtly flavored. More so, it worked well with the rest of my salad, which had spinach, zucchini, cucumbers, red bell pepper, red onion, marinated artichoke, kalamata olives, steamed asparagus and mushroom in it. I made some extra dressing (though I could’ve easily gone without) out of a combination of red wine vinegar, garlic, extra virgin olive oil and italian herb mix.

Molto bene:

The “news” that I have to share is really just that I’ve still been losing on my new nutrition/training plan. Although the workouts this time around are SO.MUCH.HARDER., I’m still pushing through. My favorite new exercise is to do variations on the plie squat

– plie squats with a kettlebell (Video with Miz! She’s a Kenyon alumna, so you know I have to love her)

-plie squats with heels up (on your toes), also known as Ballerina Plie Squat

-tempo plie squats and plie squat jumps ala Cathe Friedrich (couldn’t find link, but it’s basically doing them at a faster pace for about 10 reps, then pausing, and again for another 2 sets. And a plie squat jump is the same as a squat jump, just in the plie stance)

-David Kirsch’s “Platypus Walk” (note: JANELLE!! It’s 7-almond guy!)

Despite the fact that he looks like a goofball in this picture, he's actually kind of a hardass in his book (If I remember correctly)

Gah! Love em all! Buttkickers, to be sure.

2010
02/06
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Egg Whites!

I’m a pretty huge fan of egg whites — even the kind that comes from a carton. I know you’re thinking that it’s not worth giving up the sweet, sweet deliciousness of the yolk, but really, you’ve got to try it out before you judge! 

Now, as a disclaimer, I don’t think that anyone should solely rely on egg whites. There are many, many articles that point to the essential nutrients that the egg yolk supplies, but I just choose to use a little of both. I like hard-boiled eggs as a snack, but I LOVE egg whites mixed in with veggies and random stuff for breakfast. I’ve tried combining egg whites with 1 whole egg, but it just ends up looking dirty to me? Has anyone else ever thought that? I just like em separate! It’s a personal choice, but I think people shouldn’t go to either extreme with eggs, since only having egg whites means you lose out on nutrients and only having whole eggs means you’re consuming a lot of fat and cholesterol. 

Anyhow, there used to be a time in which I would just have my egg whites plain with salt and pepper. Those days are over! I love to dress them up with veggies, herbs and spices, some extra protein or vegan cheese. Or all of them! The combinations are endless once you get started, but here are some of my favorites: 

1. Egg whites with spinach, tomatoes, vegan mozzarella cheese and basil : simple, delicious 

 

2. Egg whites with zucchini, red bell pepper, turkey slices, vegan cheese, Mediterranean seasoning from McCormick’s (from the website, it includes: CHILI PEPPER, OREGANO, ROSEMARY, THYME, AND PAPRIKA) 

I added some mashed up avocado with paprika on top

 

Ate this with a blood orange. Love winter for the blood. Odd to write, but true

 

3. Egg whites with red bell pepper and broccoli, seasoned with basil and oregano: 

 

 

4. Egg whites with cauliflower, vegan mozz. cheese and cumin: 

 

5. Egg whites with kale, roasted red bell pepper and paprika: 

 

So, as you can see, there are a LOT of ways you can make them! Other, undocumented options are: zucchini, tomatoes and olives; kale and parmesean; tomatoes, corn and green onions with fajita seasoning. 

For actually cooking the eggs — I, for one, nuke em in the microwave.  To make it easier to pop em out of the pyrex mold, I add a little water to coat the bottom before I put all the ingredients in. The more stuff I add, the longer the cooking time. But it’s usually around 3:30 – 4:40 minutes. 

It may not be kosher to microwave and the Joneses of the health-food blog world may not approve, but it’s quick and it comes out like a little egg cupcake. 

Hurray for Egg Whites! 

I’ll get back to you either later today or tomorrow with some GREAT news!

2010
02/05
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Roasted Veggies Forever

I feel like I’m only halfway through the day, and it’s only 8pm! Blah. After work and then my GRE class, I have to go to the gym to do one of my new high intensity circuit workouts. I’m a lil anxious.

In other news: I took a pre-test for my GRE prep course this past Saturday and, fortunately or unfortunately, I did way way better than the first time I had taken the test (which prompted me to sign up for the course in the first place). There’s something to be said about the pressure of being timed, on the clock and knowing how much the scores mean in evaluating an application at face value. I don’t want to be glanced over because of a number. Because, hey, FYI, I’m not a number! (bloggers worldwide: sing it, sister!). These classes should help cement my confidence in myself, so that I approach the test with a little more ease, a little more breathing and a little less heaving.

Anyway, since Lindsey has me on some different workouts this month, I figured it wouldn’t do much harm to share some of what worked last month, specifically: intervals. Since I only really started running on the treadmill a little over a year ago (I was a staunch supporter of elliptical-only workouts for too long), I approached running as I saw other bloggers using it. Which meant, I would try to run for longer and longer distances first and then build up speed as I got better. Well, turns out, I wasn’t really into running for the thrill of watching my endurance grow and really just wanted to use it as exercise. Running can work up a great sweat and get my heart rate up quickly, and that’s why I like it. I’m afraid I still don’t consider myself a runner, someone who loves to run because it calms them or challenges their capabilities. I love running for exercise — it’s that simple — and I love exercising, so really I don’t see a problem! But with the kind of running that I was doing, I wasn’t getting enough out of it. I started to plateau and couldn’t get out of the rut. I was phoning in some of my runs, simply because I had lost confidence that they could do anything besides keep me at the status quo. And frankly, running became a chore. Which completely blows!

To cut myself short, intervals saved me from giving up on running altogether. Here’s the intervals that Lindsey had me doing twice a week for 4 weeks:

5 min warm-up at 4 RPE (about 5mph for me)

1 min sprint at 8-9 RPE (about 8 – 9mph for me)

1 min recovery at 4 RPE (4 mph this time!)

1 min build-up at 6-7 RPE (5.5-6.5pmh)

[then do the 3 min set of sprint, recovery and build-up for 10 total sets]

5 min recovery-ish at 6 RPE (5-6mph)

5 min cooldown at 4 RPE (4-5mph)

The first few times I did it, it was KILLER, but by the end of the month I had to keep increasing the speed on my sprints to know that I was really giving it my all. Just goes to show you how much the body adapts. With a new month, comes new workouts to surprise my body! I look forward to it with fear and excitement.

In any case, there’s always delicious food to be had –

Like many bloggers out there, I love my veggies roasted. The flavors blow my mind. This is a weekend salad because I sometimes just like to have hot foods served HOT. Lots of times with my salads at work, I have no choice but to eat them cold. I might still love em, but I like it hot sometimes (TWSS).

Roasted Veggies Salad:

This guy had spinach (under there somewhere), avocado, ROASTED broccoli, red bell pepper, tomatoes, red onion, zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant bathed in pesto. I added some hummus on top for protein, but I’m not gonna lie — sometimes hummus is a sorry excuse for protein. But it’s delicious all the same as a “dressing” for salad, so who’s to really say that it matters?

Off topic: I can’t wait for the next FRINGE!! Gah! It’s fast becoming an obsession for me, and I’m kind of devastated that it’s only going to be airing for another week and then BREAK for almost two months! oy vey. I hope my lust for Fringe and Joshua Jackson can rebound as fast as my body can from the intervals, otherwise,…well, otherwise, I don’t want to think about it! More heaving! Less breathing!

2010
02/02
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Peachy Shrimp with Snow Peas

It’s the last day of January!! I wonder how everyone is doing on their resolutions…by the looks of the yoga studio, everyone is still pretty much on top of ‘em. I cannot BELIEVE how many people their were in my Hot Fusion yoga class the other day, we crammed in, 10 mats in a row for 4 rows. If it wasn’t hot enough in the room before, it definitely was once everyone was packed in and sweating!

There were even a group of guys there, which was a first for me. I mean, it’s not that I don’t know that guys can do yoga, but there’s a certain physique to a yoga-type-guy  (uh, a really great thing, fyi) that these guys didn’t exactly fit? They seemed more of the types to consistently perform concentric muscle contraction exercise? I’m trying to say this in the most PC way I can, but it boils down to: their muscles were not elongated. Anyhow, they were real sports during the class and actually brought a nice energy to the room. Which was unlike the girl next to me that wouldn’t stop rushing into the next pose before the instructor had even said anything. We get it. You’ve memorized the set list, stop messing with my pacing.

But it was still an awesome class! I’m loving yoga as a way to elongate the muscles that I’m building up while weight training. Plus, two whole rest days does not jive with me. I get all antsy and can’t take it anymore, so Lindsey has given me the OK to take yoga classes as “active rest” days. Whew – crisis averted.

In any case, after the class, I came home and decided to make use of some ingredients that were about to go bad, including a beautiful ripe peach.I came up with: Peachy Shrimp with Snow Peas

Ingredients:

  • Shrimp (I used maybe 6 frozen jumbo ones)
  • a peach
  • red onion
  • snow peas
  • cauliflower
  • rice wine vinegar
  • 1.5 cloves garlic
  • as much fresh ginger as you want
  • Salt, pepper, Old Bay seasoning

*** I don’t really ever measure out the ingredients that I’m using, so I can’t give those. But I have the measurements in grams if anyone wants them. I mostly calculate the grams so that I have a more accurate calorie-count***

I basically sautéed some shrimp (seasoned w/salt, pepper, fresh ginger, garlic and a lil Old Bay) and then added in snow peas, a peach sliced up, red onion slivers, leftover cauliflower bits and the rest of the garlic and ginger I had chopped up. Splash in about 2 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar and stir. The juices from the peach start to soak into the other components during the process and the result is soooo good!

In the winter, I find that by cooking my fruits in some way (roasting, sautéing, grilling even) that the flavor they seem to lack in the colder months comes surging back. Try it — it works with most fruit, tropical types and tomatoes. I also garnished with sesame seeds, just because. This whole bowl added up to about 317 calories, so that’s a success in my opinion!

I’m off to enjoy the rest of the hours left in January 2010 – adi

2010
01/31
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End o January Success!

Even though there has been a lot of posturing and apologetic posts circulating around the food-blog world lately about weight loss/gain, I really don’t think I’m going to engage in that discussion. If someone chooses to read my blog, they should realize that I’m trying to lose weight. Not for vanity, but for health. And I will continue to recite this until it hurts me: everyone is different, so what’s working for me may or may not work for someone else.

In any case, I’d like to use the blog as a way to chart my progress and keep me motivated. Maybe even catalogue some of the tricks/things that are working for me in case I should ever need them again. So without further ado: with the last week of my January training coming to a close, I’ve not only met my goals (1 lb per week) but surpassed them! YAY! I credit Lindsey’s killer interval workouts and weight routine for a lot of the changes. But I also think the diet changes I’ve made in pursuit of a clean report card from Lindsey each week have also been really key.

My salads are still mainstays in my diet, which is unsurprising since I’d never give those up if you tried to pry them from my cold, dead hands. I NEED that hour during lunch at work where I zone out and pick over different combinations of veggies on my fork, buddy. NEED. Anyway, I’m only here to share:

Brussels Sprouts made a return last week sometime with…

Saucy Lemon Brussels Salad which featured spinach, cucumber, grapes, blueberries, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, chicken and steamed brussels sprouts topped with a lemony-mustard dressing that joined 3 tsp mustard with lemon juice and agave nectar to taste. It was pretty stellar. I actually think I left out the brussels until lunch hour, choosing to let them marinate with the dressing for awhile; it was a really really good choice.

Fugly Fruity Salad: So this may look like I was desperate, and that’s because I was. I realized halfway through that I hadn’t added any kind of protein to it, which basically meant that it would go straight through me and I’d be guaranteed to be hungry 30 min later. Consequence? Fugly turkey crumbles traversing the humble, fruity terrain of my salad. Thankfully, I really like ground turkey.

(FYI: I had originally purchased the ground turkey in pursuit of April’s Turkey and Zucchini dish with taco seasoning that was AWESOME. I had it back-to-back for three nights. If you haven’t checked out April’s site, you really should, if not for her amazing cooking/quick-low-carb baking recipes, then to admire her AMAZING arms! I covet her shoulders and triceps.)

Anyway! The salad had spinach, cucumbers, broccoli, apples, blueberries, onion, avocado, leftover spaghetti squash thrown in with apple-ginger dressing. It was great, but the dressing was the best part (mix apple cider vinegar, fresh minced ginger, lemon juice, s&p, and agave)

Cashew Curried Cauliflower Conundrum Salad: I wish I could come up with more C-words for that title. This salad was inspired by Heidi Swanson’s Cashew Curry recipe, which I’m positive is delicious if you go by the recipe, but way way out of my caloric price range.

What’s a girl to do? Adapt. Instead of 1 cup whole coconut milk, I decided to go halfsies: 1/2 cup lite coconut milk, 1/2 cup almond milk. Instead of 1/3 cup cashews, I chopped up about 12 grams. I subbed chicken for tofu, not for any particular reason other than I didn’t have any tofu on hand. I also added a few red bell pepper slivers, because they needed to be used. Bottom line: even with the most uncompromising of recipes, you can make some simple switches/compromises and still have something worth eating for pleasure. And I looooove curry! Mmmm, the untouched spinach perfectly balanced out the heat of the curry too – so, so good.

Dressing-less Tilapia Salad: I had wanted to try a recipe I found in the latest copy of Oxygen magazine, where I’ve been finding a lot of my “extra” strength moves from, for Tilapia with Tomatoes and Capers. This was very simple, delicious and surprisingly low-calorie. After sauteing the tilapia in a skillet (seasoned with salt, pepper, basil and a liiiil Old Bay) with just olive oil spray and lemon juice, I took it out and put the eggplant and onions in. I always cook my eggplant and onions earliest, I have no idea why. After they started to soften, I added red bell peppers, yellow squash, capers and more fresh (freeze-dried) basil with a Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. After a few minutes, they were done too. I artfully plunked everything on to a bed of spinach (as I’m apparently unable to avoid) and called it a night. This salad made me swoon with its pretty colors though. I hope I’m not the only one that has momentary swoons over color pairings/combinations in food.

Which makes me wonder, how do most other people judge a good salad and/or meal? Do you go by the taste? The inventiveness? The colors or aesthetic qualities?

I think I tend to choose one aspect and let that be my guide for the creation of most things I make. Works for me!

2010
01/27
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Warm Crab Salad and other Inventions

The thing about counting calories is that it makes you painfully aware of everything that you’re eating. I mean EVERYTHING. I had a lil conniption fit the other night trying to figure out how I was going to calculate the calories of the peanut sauce I drizzled over my broccoli once I had already accidentally glugged it on. In a panic, I tried to mimic how many glugs I used into a Tbsp measure. Let’s just say that in the end I rounded up.

Point being: you care about everything from the base ingredients to the sauces and seasonings. And that’s as it should be! But when you’re ravenous for food, searching online for a recipe that will use up the leftover imitation crab that you’ve got in your fridge and every recipe for “Crab Salad” calls for 1/2 cup mayonnaise, you start to wish that it were December 31st. This happened to me tonight, mostly because I just didn’t think about my next meal until the last second. I’m meticulous about planning my lunches and most breakfasts, but when it comes to dinner I’m more likely to think “I’ll just use whatever is leftover.” Tell that to my rumbling stomach that is being tortured with food blogs and epicurious.com as I search for something that is low-calorie, filling, quick to make and uses my crab and maybe something else in the fridge/freezer. But I bottomed out looking at my 400th crabcake salad and decided to wing it.

I started off thinking I would do a cold salad, but I’m effin freezing right now so plans changed. And that’s how I came up with Warm Crab “Salad.” It’s not even really a salad, since there aren’t any leafy greens but HEY – it’s my party and I’ll call it what I want.

Warm Crab Salad: Handful (103g) imitation crab, frozen peas (157g) , frozen mango (31g) , and halved cherry tomatoes (52g) dressed in rice wine vinegar (1.5 Tbsp) and very little salt and pepper.

This is definitely not rocket science! Microwave the frozen peas and mangos together for about 4 min, tossing in cherry tomatoes in the last minute. After nuking, flake crab over everything and season with salt&pepper. Dress with rice vinegar. Stir. Enjoy! This must have taken all of 7 minutes, given me approx. 12g protein and 319 calories. Awesome!

I love my microwave. I don’t care what anyone says about how it’s going to kill me. I’ll steam a lot of my raw veggies if I want to preserve nutrients, but overall, I LOVE the convenience of a microwave for a starving stomach. I recently came across Andrew’s grandmother’s microwave cookbook and, besides being a hilarious blast from the past, it also gave me some great ideas for things that I can make in a pinch that are still healthy. There were others, of course, that frightened me, like making a whole chicken in the microwave. It made me think of trashy television and VH1, which could technically be a good thing. In any case, I’m forever a huge advocate of nuking frozen foods and cooking my egg whites in the micro to avoid added oils. It’s just too simple not to!

2010
01/17
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Losing On and Off-line

Sooooo, it’s been awhile. Sorry about that. Anyhow, I’ve been keeping busy and I have tremendous, amazing news: I’VE FINALLY BROKEN OUT OF MY 7-MONTH PLATEAU!! Oh yes, this is seriously floating my boat.

I credit this awesomeness to ONLINE PERSONAL TRAINING. I heard about it through Charlotte at The Great Fitness Experiment, and though I wasn’t fast enough to get into the free promo group with Charlotte and other peeps, I still signed myself up for a month. But really, if Charlotte endorses or is willing to submit herself to someone else’s guidance, then it basically has the gold stamp of approval for me.

Anyhow, Lindsey personalizes each plan based on answers you give to a questionnaire and some options for nutrition plans. I decided to do a “jumpstart” plan for my diet and chose to be graded on “level 2″ on a scale of 1-3. The parameters of those two basically meant that I’d be eating no starchy carbs (any bread, potatoes, rice, BEANS), processed foods, sugary foods, DAIRY, or red meat the first week. The second week I was allowed to add back in some whole grains for energy (whew). Really, I was surprised how much restricting beans affected me. But it also made me aware of all the ways that I was relying on added calories here and there, namely: “sugary” jam on toast every other morning, daily baked sweet potatoes and tons of cottage cheese. None of those things are bad in and of themselves, but logging all my eats made me realize how I was starting to replace simple, filling veggies and whole-meals with quick fixes. It was a real wake up call!

Besides the jumpstart food plans, I was also instructed to eat around 1500 calories per day and include a protein source in most meals/snacks. I finally busted out my food scale and put it to work. At first it was a pain, but now it’s just as automatic as my salad prep was before. I make it a little easier for myself using caloriecount.com. I basically do something like this:

I’ll type in all the ingredients of the salad (mostly raw) and then click “Analyze Recipe.” This works sooooo much better than trying to figure out the calories for each individual veggie and then tallying the results. And of course it doesn’t have to only be used for salads, but this makes analyzing multi-ingredient-salads so so much easier. After hitting “Analyze”, I’ll get:

Each component of the salad has a “view”, so that I can see what the individual stats are if I want. And, if you have an account, you can save the recipe and go back to them to get a calorie estimate. Basically, it made my life a whole lot easier when it came to tracking my calories each week in a spreadsheet for Linds.

Some of the dishes I’ve been enjoying:

Cajun Salad! Instead of using a dressing, I just made one by sauteing sweet onions and grapes tomatoes with 1 Tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil and a crapload of spices, including: cayenne pepper, paprika, black pepper, white pepper, garlic powder, dried basil,  chili powder, dried thyme, and ground cloves. All that spice meant that I had to use hardly any salt and it packed a LOT of flavor. I piled all of that on top of a bed of spinach, zucchini, avocado and carrots with grilled chicken.

I also decided to try out nutritional yeast as a substitute for cheese in some meals. I won’t say that it’s a perfect substitute, but it’s definitely not bad! It didn’t make me crave cheese afterward, so that’s an A+ in my book. I bought mine at my local health food store, Bloomingfoods, but I bet it can be found in any health food bulk bin.

I made a Ratatouille hodge-podge:

It had kale, broccoli, onion, roma tomato, eggplant, zucchini, 17 g pesto, 1.5 Tbsp olive oil and ¼ cup tomato sauce and 3 tsp nutritional yeast for a total 250 calories. It was delicious, and I said that out loud with surprise.

Lastly, I tried my hand at making a Cranberry Relish “dressing” that didn’t break my calorie bank but also didn’t make me want to gag from the tartness of the cranberries I HAD to use up. I decided to mix together 1/2 an orange, plus its rind, some slices of apple, 1 cup cranberries, ground nutmeg, cinnamon, 20g golden raisins and almost a Tbsp. of agave nectar (sugar substitute) and bring it to a boil before letting all of it simmer for 10-15min. I ended up dividing up the portion that I wanted for lunch the next day and the total for a serving was 96 calories. Not bad if you ask me!

Cranberry Relish Salad: obviously had cranberry relish, spinach, red onion, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, grilled zucchini, avocado and baked chicken

The relish was GLOBTASTIC. really

On the fitness side of things, I give credit to Linds’ amazing interval workouts and my new super snazzy heart rate monitor from Polar that I got for Christmas for the continued plateau-bustin. Lindsey has me doing INTENSE interval workouts twice every week — think, 1 min sprinting, 1 min recovery, 1 min building back speed/intensity. Whoaaaa! I wasn’t ready! I had been doing moderate/slightly hard intensity cardio for awhile, focusing on maintaining a 6.0 -6.5mph pace for 3-4 miles every time I worked out. And my strength training was really sporadic and random. Linds brought focus and intensity to both my cardio and strength workouts.

**An aside: Does anyone else have two running schedules going on in their head/on their calendars? One for set-in-stone activities and then others that would be best to do but could be moved around? It’s HARD to get on the former list, for me, since I’m such a capricious person when it comes to my schedule. The only things that make it are assignments for work, shower and now Linds’ workouts**

By having a very, very clear idea about what I needed to get done each day on my workout schedule, it really committed me to the task of doing it every day. I knew that if I missed a hyperbolic resistance training workout one day, then it would screw with my other workouts. It’s almost as if the inflexibility of doing strength one day, intense cardio the next kept me on track! And having my heart rate monitor there served as an awesome reminder of how much my consistency was paying off. 620 calories in one cardio sesh? HELLZ YEA. I’ll admit that my heart was not ready the first times I did those sprints. The first 4 I was thinking, “Oh hey, not so bad, I can walk for a minute – eazy peazy!” and then by 7, “Oh lord. There are 30 seconds left. Why are people watching the Bachelor!? God, that girl cries a lot. They seem more interesting on mute…oh heyyyyyy, 5 seconds! ahhh.” My max heart rate hit 192. Seriously.

All in all, it’s working out well for me! I’ve lost 4 lbs. thus far and broken out of the plateau range that I’ve been battling for 7-unforgiving-months by 2 lbs. If you’re thinking that 2lbs doesn’t sound like a lot, then you’ve never vacillated between the same 4-5lbs over and under a plateau weight. And trust me, these gains mean A LOT to me. I don’t feel deprived (hey I can still eat my fav apples with almond butter!) but I’m more conscious now than ever.

It’s shaping up to be a good year! I hope I didn’t just jinx myself there, but whatevs.

2010
01/16
CATEGORY
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Merry Christmas from My Tryptophan High!

I hope everyone is having a great day no matter where they are or what they’re doing — be it Christmas with family and a million “close” relatives, a tropical soiree on the beach or of another faith and choosing to scavenge for SOMEWHERE to have dinner (try chinese restaurants! just trust me one this one)

Magical tree this year! Snapped this one before any of the presents were put underneath (oh well)

After a crazy night last night, where my family lost a collective 50 years off our lives when we skidded and spun around trying to make a right turn on the ill-prepared for winter/snow/sleet streets of Dallas, today was a lot safer by comparison. Though I loooooved seeing my relatives who are unbelievably sweet and accommodating to my weird diet always. Seriously, there is no understating how incredibly awesome southerners (or maybe just some southerners, now that I think of Paula Dean) can be about the menu when friends & relatives come to dinner with varying tastes, diets, and preferences. Even though they don’t read this blog, I thank them for making Christmas Eve a delightful experience and sharing their daughters with us for the evening! (I forgot how incredibly enjoyable it is to draw make-believe characters and then make up lives/stories for them)

Anyhow, today’s Christmas-themed breakfast was a welcome treat!

I made my coffee oats (1 cup of coffee and almond milk) with nuked frozen raspberries, a few dark chocolate chips, some green leaf sprinkles and coconut!

Then we basically fasted before dinner (with my immediate family, i.e.: just the four of us). Most other “close-ish” relatives live in Miami or Brazil, so we miss them but we get it — it’s a trek! I don’t know about everyone else, but my family opens ALL the gifts on Christmas morning. I never even contemplated opening one or two the night before, mostly b/c my mom never put out all the goods until the middle of the night on Christmas Eve so that my brother and I would know Santa had delivered the rest. There was always the big unveil on Christmas day, where the wrapped presents would be practically spilling out from under the tree. Surprisingly or not, this tradition never stopped and I admit that I get a little excited every Christmas morning thinking about the effect of packages upon packages “tied up with strings.” (I hope you get that reference).

Presents were exchanged and I can only hope that everyone liked my gifts! I loved quite a few this year, but of course there are always some that might need to be exchanged, like the shirt-set from Free People that my brother gave me that — no joke — makes me look like the long-lost member of Nirvana and/or Pearl Jam. I have no idea what Nick told the sales lady, “uh, she’s pretty frazzled and weird. And she smells like teen spirit. Gimme something like that.”

Seriously.

Our Christmas dinner, on the other hand, was anything but weird or from the ’90s. I helped make the salad (yea, I’m sure you saw that one coming) and the cranberry sauce. My mom doesn’t give herself enough credit, b/c she seriously cooked/prepped everything else! There was turkey, wild rice with raisins(I think?), cornbread stuffing (?), sweet potatoes with pecans, salad, and cranberry sauce.

The lineup:

of COURSE I was most enthused/proud/excited about the salad

The Christmas Crazy Salad has spinach, raw zucchini, pomegranate arils (first for my dad! he was….surprised), grilled peaches seasoned with allspice and graham masala, apricot quarters, cold yummy roasted brussels sprouts, and almond slivers. Dressed in a homemade maple vinaigrette! It was pretty great and I’m not sure if my brother or mom liked it, but dad seemed to! And my plate, of course, consisted of mostly salad and then turkey with some cranberry and sweet potato nibbles.

Ok! Back to family traditions! Off to the Christmas movie before the food coma wears off!

But before I go: It simply wouldn’t be Christmas/any vacation with my family if Nick didn’t do something lewd and/or obscene. So, without further ado, the cocky snowman that he left from apparently hours of work in the middle of the night. (edited to add: cocky snowman was alllll Andrew, not me!)

Yes, it's got all the accoutrements -- bottle of liquor, Indiana insignia, and carrot-tongue sticking out. But can you see what his creator truly ENDOWED him with? *sigh*

Oh wait, close up in case you couldn’t exactly see

**************NOT FOR CHILDRENS’ EYES!***********

Frostly clearly chose NOT to take a cold shower this morning

Now Christmas is truly complete. Until next year — ciao!

2009
12/26
CATEGORY
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