one of these things is not like the others

I am not feeling very wordy so how about we just take a look at what I’ve been eating the last few days (pardon the crappy cell phone pics!):

I think #1 needs no introduction. Basically, I did not plan carefully on Friday and a lack of breakfast (and coffee) left me very very vulnerable (hunger-wise and emotionally) at the end of the day. I ate McDonald’s. A lot of McDonald’s.

But I got up the next day and had a good breakfast, a decent lunch and #2 for dinner. What you see there is some tasty Five Star Foodies artichoke burgers (which they were out of when I went to Whole Foods yesterday! Boo!), grape tomatoes and, last but certainly not least, the magic golden-crusted Brussels sprouts that I am kind of addicted to for real.

#3 is my first attempt at huevos rancheros . Not very pretty but definitely tasty. And #4 is the chicken tacos I had for lunch using this recipe for slow-cooker chili chicken. (Which, btw, made a ton of chicken, so I think I’ll be having more tacos later in the week and maybe tortilla soup and possibly some enchiladas!)

I am not going to beat myself up, as 3 out of 4 isn’t bad. The poor planning lesson is one I have learned before. A few thousand times. But I picked myself up and dusted myself off and had a pretty good food weekend, all things considered. Plus, I think I’ve planned pretty well for this week, too. So I guess we’ll just see how that goes.

Miso Crazy and DNW!

I did not want to make a post tonight. I still do not! But  I am doing it!

I DNW to cook dinner. I wanted to come home, sit on my ass watching some Supernatural and just stuff my face with whatever and not have to stand in the kitchen cooking up a bunch of healthy shit. Or cooking up additional shit for lunch tomorrow and Friday. But I fucking did it. (OMG SO MANY DISHES TO WASH! DNW!)

And now I am so very tired. I feel like I have to push myself SO HARD to do these simple, everyday things and stay SO FOCUSED (I typed FUCKED first, ha!) on it that I am drained for just about everything else. I know, I know that it gets easier, but right now, I just want to eat a whole pizza and sleep for a week.

There is a little voice inside of me, that troll I mentioned before, that is telling me that it’s just easier to be fat and unhealthy. I mean, it’s only really painful when I leave the house and people stare at me funny. Or I have to go shopping. Or walk up a flight of stairs. Or think about going on a date ever. And I still have to deal with that stuff even if I am eating better right now! I can’t even stuff my face to deal with that shit! How unfair is that? DNW!

Now, that I have the whining out of the way, let’s talk good stuff! *deeeeep cleansing breath*

Yesterday, I made this miso soup recipe from 101 Cookbooks and it was very very tasty. And then, as part of my continuing effort to incorporate veggies using the magical broccoli slaw, I wipped up a version of this miso dressing except I used wasabi paste instead of mustard and it was also very very tasty. I poured half of it over half a bag of the broccoli slaw and added about 1/3 a cup of mandarin oranges and let if marinate overnight. Then I had it along side the leftover miso soup for lunch. SO GOOD! And now I have enough of that amazing dressing for a spinach and chicken salad tomorrow for lunch. To round out this miso crazy portion of my week, I also made this cashew ricotta “Italian pizza cheese” (I substituted some leftover sun-dried tomato pesto) to have with carrots for a snack tomorrow.

Phew. I am tired just typing that and I haven’t even gotten to the most interesting part of the day:

I ATE BRUSSELS SPROUTS AND LIKED IT!

I know! I KNOW! So crazy. Once again, 101 Cookbooks came to the rescue with her AMAZING golden-crusted brussels sprouts! I have been staring at that recipe for, like, a year. It sounded so simple and tasty. I finally got up enough nerve to try it out and I have to say that, yes, it as good as it looks! I used the aforementioned pesto to make one of these baked stuffed chicken breasts and they went very well together. And no pasta or rice as a side dish! I can honestly say that I am sitting here quite satisfied in my stomach.

I will confess that yesterday I baked up this spinach/herbed goat cheese/ham/egg beaters casserole that I had planned to eat for breakfast for the rest of the week and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. For some reason, breakfast is the hardest part of my day. It doesn’t help that no matter how I walk to work, I pass eleventy billion places to get breakfast. But I don’t trust myself to have things like bagels or bread for toast in the house right now. And, god, my coffee maker is NEVER going to get here. I’ve basically been telling myself that it’s not a big deal since I am not eating out any other meals but eventually I am going to have to deal with the mornings. (Also, I went to bed early last night so I could get up and do some exercising but that didn’t turn out either!)

Basically, I think the point of all this is that I am still struggling to find a balance between taking care of myself and being realistic about what I can accomplish and also figuring out when I am being a lazy wimp and when I should push myself to go that little bit extra when I am really feeling the DNW.

are you ready for some spinaaaaaaaaaaaaach?

Today is the first official Saturday of college football season! *\o/* When I got up this morning, one of the first things I wrestled with was, “what to eat while watching all this glorious football?” I have to say that even at 10:30am I was so tempted to reach for the phone and just order a big pizza to eat on all day. I had to take a lot of deep breaths, think about my current favorite happy place, and mentally review the contents of my kitchen to keep myself from a pre-planned carb coma.

I went with some scrambled Egg Beaters and diced ham and a pinch of cheese with salsa, a half a slice of whole wheat pita and some cantaloupe for breakfast instead. So, victory! Then, for lunch, I had a spinach salad with goat cheese, cranberries, sliced almonds and homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing. And then a little yogurt with almond butter for dessert.

I ate spinach. That was not in a cheesy fatty dip. While watching football. Please, mark this date on your calendars!

I am not going to lie, though. It was fucking difficult. I do a lot of looking at the clock still instead of listening to my body. I feel hungry? confused? all the time if I am eating non-greasy non-starchy things.  So a day inside with nothing to do but hide the phone to avoid takeout is actually pretty difficult. I feel kind of silly saying that but there it is.

Of course, while watching the games, I’ve been browsing Healthy Yum, which is just fantastic. It’s a nice way to get a variety of healthy things to consider. I found some good stuff to add to my delicious. (You can see whatever I’ve added lately on the right sidebar there! *points*) I think maybe that was a little too much obsessing about food for the day but I got some good out of it, so I am not going to beat myself up about it.

And now for dinner I am experimenting with adding more veggies to things I already like! I am making my favorite comfort food: macaroni and beef! But without macaroni and with the addition of 2.5 cups of broccoli slaw to bump up the veggie quotient (a trick I learned from Hungry Girl). So far, it’s tasting pretty good. I am debating on whether or not to add a little bit of whole wheat penne.

Tomorrow, there may be leaving the house to go hiking. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

hack it

I have been kind of obsessed with this recipe for Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger, Soba, and Fried Pork Crumbles from the Apartment Therapy Kitchn. They call it a “hack” because it’s not really a home-cooked recipe but I didn’t really care. (I made some squash soup a few months ago and while it was very tasty, there was SO MUCH OF IT! Cooking for one is hard!) The first time I saw it, I had to have it. Of course, I had no idea what miso was and whether or not I needed to buy some ginger or any of that. I just knew I wanted it!

After some poking around at TJs and WFs (and a little miso assistance from my friend Jenns: “Is it in the spice aisle, Jenns?” “Noooo. Try next to the tofu, crazy!”) (I paraphrase), I finally gathered enough ingredients to give it a go this evening for dinner.

All I have to say is YUM! Seriously. YUM! Now, I must admit I skipped the ginger and the garlic and I used dried cilantro because I live alone and I am not going to buy a big thing of ginger and cilantro. I am not really fans of either in large quantities and the idea of putting pork in a pan with oil in it was kind of boggling my mind (and the sausage was already Thai spiced) but it still turned out fantastic.

I halved the recipe, naturally, and used one of these tasty sausages. It’s not something I ever thought I would want to eat but I am really glad I put half of it away for lunch tomorrow before I ate my dinner because I would have scarfed down every last bite otherwise.  Next time, I will try to up the spice quotient a little bit but I was certainly very satisfied with how it turned out this time. I ran it through SparkRecipies and got pretty decent numbers for one filling (thanks, soba noodles!) serving:

• Calories: 396.5
• Total Fat: 12.4 g
• Total Carbs: 64.0 g
• Dietary Fiber: 3.0 g
• Protein: 16.7 g

In the future, I might try to have some sort of salad on the side (perhaps this, another recipe that has been on my mind since I first saw it) (I wish I understood how flavors go together better!) or at least an extra veggie of some sort.

That makes two nights in a row of cooking triumph, as last night, I took a soup from Sunday night that was “meh” and turned it into a dinner I really liked. More gold stars for me! And yummy soup to look forward to for lunch, too!

I did the dishes this weekend, so gold stars for me. Considering I probably hadn’t done them since the last time I posted about it, you can just imagine the mess I had to deal with. It took me about, oh, three hours to get through it all. I also did all of my laundry, too. Of course, by the time Sunday evening rolled around, I was too exhausted to do some of the other stuff I needed to get done.

In between the dishes and the laundry, I went to Whole Foods to stock up on good foods. I have challenged myself to not go out to eat this whole work week. Which means I needed breakfast and lunch foods. I bought my first jar of almond butter (had some with a banana this morning for bfast) and tried to avoid carby things and stick to veggies.

I’ve sort of resigned myself to be miserable when it comes to food for awhile. Yeah, I know, I should eat things I like but…I like potato chips and take out and large pizzas and crap like that. So it really doesn’t matter what I cook for myself, I am still not going to be happy about not eating exactly what I want to be eating. If I am not using food to stuff down my emotions, I am going to have to actually, you know, feel them. So, I feel like I need to just own that and suffer through it and try to find other ways to deal with it, like writing in this thing or reading a book or having a temper tantrum on the floor. It will get better eventually, right? And I figure I am really sort of miserable even when I am eating all the crap I want to eat, so at least this way, I’ll be eating better.

forward momentum

I just did the dishes! *plays victory music* And I didn’t even do them because I was out of silverware/plates/bowls/pots/pans! This is a small victory for me, for serious.

I am doing my best to celebrate the small things like that. Since moving to my new apartment in September, I’ve lost about 10 pounds and I’ve literally done nothing different other than walk to work and make a lot of goulash! So apparently that whole “little things add up” crap people are always spouting is true! I know, so shocking!

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to make huge changes and lose 80 pounds in three months but I am going to try this realistic outlook for awhile, see how I roll like that. I’ve added some low-impact fitness DVDs to my Netflix to put a little extra moving around on the agenda.  And I’ve found an abundance of tasty and healthy recipes for things with whole grains and veggies. The world may end.

Other than taking better care of myself, the rest of my life is moving along rather nicely. I just got a very nice raise at work, I like the new preisident a lot and my adorable hockey team is playing pretty well these days. So, really, I don’t have very much to complain about. If I can’t make positive changes now, when will I *ever* be able to do it?

That’s how I roll

We had a work happy hour at a nice sushi place last night. I was very diligent and put what I planned to eat in my Spark log before I left. Can you see where this is going yet? If you are thinking I am going to talk about how I followed my plan, you have been reading a different blog.

Yes, I ended up eating one extra roll. Um, a shrimp crunch roll which, while tasty, was probably about the worst thing I could have chosen. Did I mention tasty? Part of it was because my boss was buying, so the extra incentive to only buy one California roll and some edamame to save money sort of went out the window. How can I turn down FREE SUSHI?? It would have been criminal! And instead of just ordering one roll at a time, I got two because I was scared to be hungry. I was literally afraid that I would eat my edamame and my roll and then, I dunno, starve to death? Have to have a piece of fruit when I got home?

The sad part is that I was actually a little too full when I was done. I probably could have at least halved that shrimp roll. But I shoved that whole thing down because it was there. I’ve been actively telling myself that there isn’t anything I *can’t* eat, I just have to be smart about it, so that’s the main reason I am disappointed in my choices. However, I could have had a free martini and I stuck with iced tea, so I get one little gold star for that.

It’s funny, sushi always makes me think of Erin of Lose the Buddha fame. She was one of the bloggers that inspired me when I first started this thing so many years ago. I remember not understanding how someone who “only” weighed 170 pounds could suffer as much as me. I would look at her “before” pictures and think to myself, “I would kill to weigh that!” But I liked her writing and I was still inspired, so I kept reading.

Then one day, she posted an entry about how she used to get sushi to go. She described eating it and being so full and not being able to stop because it tasted so good and how she loved the whole experience of it, from the flavors to the carb coma afterwards. I am paraphrasing, as her old archive isn’t working. But the point is, she did get it. And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the actual pounds that mattered, it was how I gained them. I mean, that was years ago, so I obviously still have a lot of issues with that concept and I still get on the scale and tell myself I would feel less miserable if the weight would magically disappear. Which, is sort of true, but also you are always you, no matter what size you wear. Sometimes I need I reminder of that, I guess.

Anyway, I was thinking about that and then Gretchen left me a super nice comment about how I inspired *her* that kind of made my day. Anyone who says that the communities you are part of on the interwebs don’t count somehow is, well, stupid and lame and you shouldn’t listen to them. I know I would be a lot worse off if it weren’t for people like Erin and all the other people I’ve read and linked to in the past.

And of course now my blogrolling is broken! Irony, thy name is Blogger.

What a difference a year makes.

Er. Sort of.

Two years ago this month, I was having a nervous breakdown about going to a friends wedding that led me to make drastic diet changes that I stuck with for three months, got all cocky about and then promptly plummeted off the cliff of yo-yo dieting. I gained all the weight back and more. My first taste of success turned into my first taste of devastating failure.

A year ago today I was sitting in my car, eating cake with my hands. That was my 457th taste of desperation.

I haven’t done that since, however, so score one for the home team! And I weigh a whopping 5 pounds less than I did on that day. Man, typing that out makes me want to cry! It wasn’t a wasted year in terms of a lot of things but I always have a hard time dealing with the numbers game.

Anyway, I found a great therapist and she is great and it was great except then I changed jobs and my mental health benefits went from awesome to WHY DO YOU HATE ME GOD! In fact, they’ve changed so drastically that I can only afford to see her once a month instead of the once a week I was enjoying.

That’s part of the reason I thought maybe I would start updating this a little bit more. I am going to miss being able to talk to her once a week, dammit. But if I get started about the state of mental health in this country and how insurance companies are dealing with it, I might break my keyboard or something.

Moving on!

I recently challenged myself to go two weeks without going out to eat, except for a planned outing I had. Because not only am I fat, I am also broke. So I figured stopping the going out to eat all the time would have a positive effect on my two biggest problems. I assumed that, like every other challenge I have ever given myself (for the most part), I would fail. I was WRONG! Yay for small victories. Right? RIGHT?

Right. Not only was it successful in terms of setting a goal and meeting it, it also jump started my “eat better, dammit” plan. I confess I am lazy and cooking at home can be daunting if I am not in the mood. Therefore, I have forced myself to be in the mood and it is pretty much working. I’ve also decided that, as much as I would love to eat fresh organic produce all the time, I can neither afford it or realistically gear up the energy to eat it all the time. Sometimes, *whispers* I have a frozen meal for lunch!

If you’ve read this blog at all (hello? helloooo?), then you probably know I am an all or nothing type of gal. In every. Facet. Of. My. Life. This causes problems constantly, so I am working hard to relax and just go with the flow. Eat well in this minute, hour, day, whatever. And make the best realistic choices for my health and well being.

Tomorrow it will be three weeks since I started my two weeks plan and I’ve only gone out to eat twice since the “ban” was lifted. Once, to Wendy’s because I wanted a cheeseburger and fries, dammit. And once with my boss, he paid, and I had a tasty salad.

Right now, I am sitting at my work desk, sipping on some water and trying not to get too obsessive about anything. Obsessing about not obsessing. It’s a gift I have, I guess.

So, like, I was talking about thzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Can eating better actually make you more tired? No? Maybe I am just special!

Actually, I probably have more energy at night and I don’t give it an outlet, so when I try to go to sleep, I end up tossing and turning for an hour. Plus, no carb coma. Of course, I also have a tendency to obsess about what I am going to eat the next day/week/month/year during that time, too. Last night, it got to the point where I was dreaming about someone stealing the peanut butter on toast I was planning to have for breakfast.

Basically, it all adds up to me not getting a good night’s sleep and being tired the next day. But I’m eating more fruits and veggies! Is that a good trade off?

I’d like to be the kind of person that can eat healthy without really thinking about it. But it’s kind of like learning a foreign language at this point. If I don’t study and do the word problems and read the text books and actually immerse myself in the culture of eating better, it will never be something I can just casually toss off at a moments notice. It takes a lot of energy for me to not grab fast food on the way home or actually cook something for dinner. Because I’ve spent the last 10 years at least doing those fast, easy and not-good-for-me things, so they are my automatic response. I have to literally reign myself in all day long at this point to even come close to eating healthy.

I want to do it because I want to be healthier and that’s what drives my decision making. Unfortunately, making that grand pronouncement doesn’t erase all the bad habits. I’ve read that it’s easier to create good habits than break bad ones (or something to that effect) and, well, I am not sure I believe that!

The hardest part for me at this point is finding a middle-ground between eating whatever I want, when I want and obsessing over eating better every waking moment. It’s a slippery slope either way and it kind of stresses me out trying not to get stressed out about it. It’s not that I want to beat myself up for “failing” or anything, but I know that it will take me longer to get to the point of eating healthy being a habit if I continue to go to extremes all the time.

But I am doing the best that I can right now. I think that’s important and I’m going to give myself credit for it and try to relax just a bit before I give myself a headache and a bacon cheeseburger.