Category Archives: foodstuffs

whole30, day 21: a day in the food life

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I’ve gotten some questions about what I eat during the day, whether or not I feel hungry, and how often I eat. I love getting questions. It makes me feel legitimate.

So! Let’s just dive right in.

Breakfast, 7:15 a.m.: eggs in one form or another. I’m getting better at making them and eating them. Lately I’ve been eating two hard boiled eggs (one without a yolk, one with yolk intact) and half a ruby red grapefruit. Can I tell you how much I love ruby red grapefruit? Almost as much as Cheerios, which I still pine for on a semi-regular basis.

Snack, 10:15 a.m.: grapes and baby carrots. It took about two days to get used to eating carrots without hummus or ranch dressing. Now I love them.

Lunch, 1 p.m.: a salad. I eat half a bag of lettuce mix, a hard boiled egg white, cucumber or zucchini or slices of pepper or squash or whatever vegetable is in the fridge that morning, and some protein from the night before. Dressing is olive oil and pomegranate balsamic vinegar (no sugar!) with some salt and pepper.

Snack, 3 p.m.: Mixed nuts (peanut free).

Dinner, 7 p.m.: Dinner is where we flex our cooking muscles. The basic ingredients are the same (meat and vegetables) but the type and presentation varies from mood to mood. My favorite is a Mexican-type salad with spiced meat (my favorite is shrimp, but we’ve also used ground chicken) over a bed of crisp lettuce, topped with fresh guacamole. We’ve also had curry twice which is just as delicious and is a good way to use the last part of your veggies (half a zucchini, a lone crown of broccoli, a handful of carrots, half an onion, chicken breast pieces, and BOOM! Dinner).

I don’t typically feel hungry at all which really surprised me at first. I expected to feel famished by 9:30 and was pleased that the feeling never occurred. I eat every three hours and drink a lot of water. I’m so hydrated that it’s unreal. I can tell because I pee a lot and it’s always clear.

I don’t always eat organically. If we ate all organic, all the time we wouldn’t be able to pay our mortgage. The baby carrots I buy are organic, but I buy them because they’re on sale every week. The apples I bought were organic, too, for the same reason. But everything else isn’t usually organic, and that is okay with me.

The one concession I do make is organic, grass-finished beef. Cows are not made to digest corn, so when conventional farmers feed their cows form in an effort to fatten them up quickly, the farmers must also feed the cows antibiotics to prevent disease that stems from being fed a food that the cows cannot properly digest. I do not care that grass-finished beef is more expensive than conventional beef. It’s not necessary for my food to be cheap (you get what you pay for, after all. Sometimes you pay extra for what they DON’T put in there); it’s necessary for my food to not give me e.coli.

I find it more important to eat locally as plant food loses its nutritional value the longer it’s off the vine. The closer you can find it to your door, the better. Visit farmers’ markets or roadside stands, u-pick orchards or food coops to find local, fresh food. It’s an adjustment for sure, but one that I’m glad that I’m making.

whole30, day 10: on cooking

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I finally feel better. My sinuses aren’t clogged all to hell and I can sleep without coughing my lungs out. I’m not on eight hundred different medications so I can go through my day without seeing everyone’s heads floating 4 inches above their bodies. True story: I was driving to the store to pick up something one night and the yellow lines in the middle of the road were kind of veering off to one side, decidedly un-line like. Very scary. But! That time has passed now and I am no longer hallucinating. It’s downright blissful.

I feel like I’ve hit my stride when it comes to eating whole foods; it’s not a buzzkill anymore, nor do my sugar cravings have me wanting to lick old ice cream lids. Cooking without aid of processed ingredients takes a bit longer, and I appreciate my food a lot more than I would if I just snagged it at a drive through. I feel invested in my health when I cook, like I’m doing myself a delicious favor.

I’ve always liked to bake. What child doesn’t enjoy licking the spoon after chocolate chip cookie dough has been stirred, or dipping a finger in the nearly-empty brownie batter bowl? But it’s taken me up until now to enjoy cooking something that didn’t necessarily taste great raw. I’ve braised pork shoulder and baked tilapia, grilled chicken breasts and diced onions and peppers, halved brussels sprouts and riced caluflower. It’s enjoyable (though not always what I want to do after a long day) but the more often I do it, the more comfortable I become. On Monday I whipped up a curry out of just ingredients. It was weird and wonderful and I want to do it more often.

whole30, day 8: kindly hand me my damn medal

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Day 8. DAY MOTHERFUCKING 8. Can you believe this? I certainly can’t. Look at me with all of the follow through! I have made it eight days without coffee creamer, donuts, bagels, bread, potatoes, noodles, beans, peanut, PEANUT BUTTER, flour, added sugar, cheese, milk, yogurt, cream cheese, oatmeal, Cheerios, chips, cookies, toast, red velvet cupcakes, zucchini bread, or rice.

I am awesome slash crazy.

Update: Today I had a piece of chocolate. Fifteen minutes afterwards I had stomach pain and a headache. I wanted to brush my teeth because it was so sickeningly sweet. What the hell is happening to me.

dairy phase-out

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When I was younger my brother used to get pissed at me for pouring milk into my cereal, stirring it around, and then pouring a majority of the milk down the drain.

I’ve never been a milk fan. I have been a dairy fan–ice cream, butter, cottage cheese, yogurt–but am starting to realize that perhaps my body is having adverse effects to dairy. I always blamed the symptoms on something else, which is easy to do since the main symptoms were gas and bloating. So if I felt bad after eating Mexican food (which was just a taco salad – not even the shell!), I blamed the meat. If we went to Mucho Gusto (the Oregon equivalent of Moe’s), I would get a meatless burrito, just beans and rice and lettuce and cheese and sour cream and salsa. When I felt sick afterwards, I blamed it on myself for eating too much (note: I felt the same amount of sickness whether I ate the whole thing or only half, so perhaps I was unconsciously aware of what was going on and did not want to face it).

The decision to phase out dairy as part of my regular diet has very much to do with the way it makes me feel. We made the switch from milk to almond milk about a year ago, though when we have company I always buy regular milk for them. When Garrett and Emily were here I got a carton of organic milk, and when we ran out of almond milk on Thursday, I used the regular milk in my trusty Cheerios.

That was a mistake. It was also the kind of definitive proof that I needed to stop consuming dairy products. Gassy and bloated are the only two adjectives I feel comfortable using right this moment, but there were others and they rhymed with “quitting.” I feel it important to point out that Cheerios are a fairly innoccuious breakfast cereal. I thought about that when I was on the toilet (for the third time). I thought “Cheerios! How banal! The have made me so full with their fiber and the whole grains help my heart. No. WAIT. WAIT A SECOND! I HAD MILK TODAY! Milk in the bowl, and then we swung by Human Bean so I could get a sugar-free chai with nonfat milk. MILK.

An aside: I find it strange that people drink the breast milk of another species, and the measures the dairy industry goes through to ensure that their cows are at top milk production means keeping the cows pregnant for a majority of her life, just so they can separate her from her calf and then suck the milk out of her udders. There is much much more that happens after that so it would not be incorrect of me to say that I’m going dairy-free as much for the animals as I am for myself.

I don’t know if eliminating lactose will stop my break outs or problems falling asleep or weight gain. It will for sure help with the bloated uncomfortableness that happens whenever I eat cheese. If there are other benefits, I will let you know. I’ll make my husband write his down, too. We’re doing this together.

We know how we want to eventually be eating, but stopping our bad habits cold turkey and assuming new ones would probably make us cranky and hate our lives. There would be very little follow through because it’s all too new. Instead, we’re going to do it in stages. Dairy is the first stage because we’re already kind of there. There is no yogurt or sour cream in the fridge, no ice cream in the freezer. We do have some coffee creamer that will have to be disposed of, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

We will reevaluate after ten days of being dairy-free to see whether we’ve noticed anything different and if it’s worth keeping up. Onward!

getting it back

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I just don’t have it in me lately. I don’t want to write or count calories or do anything, really. I’ve fallen behind on my Bible reading plan, missed a daily photo, haven’t kept up on blogs at all, and have absolutely no motivation. I’m just not feeling it.

Whatever “it” is. Motivation? Willingness? Drive?

I have been wondering if there is a nutritional component to my down-in-the-dumps attitude lately. I’m not overly sad or depressed, but rather a pensive sort of melancholy that I can’t seem to shake. Maybe it’s what I’m eating. I don’t want to get all froo-froo sciency, nor am I any sort of nutritional expert, but I fully believe in the correlation between good foods and a good attitude. When I was counting calories before I only had a number in mind: 1200. I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I stayed around 1200 calories. That belief that I could eat whatever I wanted nestled in my brain and kind of stuck there. I think this is why I haven’t gained weight, despite not counting calories. After three months I know how much a tablespoon of olive oil is and how many calories it has; I know how to modify sweet foods so they don’t have so many calories; I know how often I have to eat in order for my body to feel full.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m eating correctly. I ate vegetables and fruit, but also lots of pasta and bread and starchy vegetables. And lots of sugar. Sugar is in pretty much everything and I’m slowly realizing that I’m kind of a sugar addict. Sure, it’s in cookies and cake and bread, but it’s also in many dairy products, salad dressings, cereals, and condiments.

I’m thinking that a dietary change is in order. I’m thinking that when I eliminate certain foods from my diet that I will be able to see results not just in my physical body, but in my mental state as well. That’s what I’m hoping, at least. I want to be more focused and more mentally balanced. There are some things in my life that are frustrating and overwhelming, but I will try whatever I can conceivably try to stave off an overtly negative attitude.

menu planning

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December kind of got away from us in terms of eating well and sticking to our budget. We ate exactly one meal at home when Garrett and Emily were here, which means we a) spent more than we’d planned and b) consumed more than we’d planned.

Enter the reinstatement of the weekly meal planning. The goal of the plan is three fold: 1) create a workable meal plan so grocery expenses are kept to a minimum; 2) decrease portion sizes and calorie intake; 3) use more whole foods in our meals so the calories we do eat are nutritious.

The internet is a great resource for menu planning templates, but I use the tried and true “write it on a piece of paper and stick it to the fridge” technique. Everyone knows what’s for dinner that way, so they either have something to look forward to or have some time to think of excuses to eat something else.

I start by thinking of the week ahead in terms of which meals will be eaten at home and if we have plans to go out. Tuesdays are always Life Group so dinners will have to be quick. Thank goodness for the crock pot and bagged salads.

Other things to take into consideration: the preferences of the people for which you are cooking. I love tomato soup but Jason hates the consistency, which means that leek and potato soup, any winter squash soup, and (sadly) tomato soup are out of the question for dinners. That does not mean I can’t make them and take them to work with me for lunch, however, and while I’ve never actually done that, it’s nice to know it’s an option.

So we begin.
First I scour the internet and cookbooks for dinner ideas that look tasty. I also pull from old standbys and regular dishes. I try not to incorporate too many new meals into the plan. There’s a sort of comfort that comes from eating the familiar.

This week we will have:
Monday night: grilled salmon; broccoli
Tuesday night: bagged salad
Wednesday night: fajitas
Thursday night: spaghetti with ground turkey
Friday night: shrimp over spinach and couscous
Saturday night: roasted chicken and wild mushroom risotto with peas

After making the dinner menu (and running it by my husband), I make a lunch menu. I am a creature of habit and thus my lunch menu isn’t very varied. Usually I eat salad, though in the winter time I’m all about soup. Sometimes I throw in a Lean Cuisine or, even more rarely, leftovers. This week I only see one time I can eat leftovers (Friday I will eat Thursday’s spaghetti), so I will be purchasing many cans of soup.

Then I compose the shopping list based only on what we will eat that week, including any pantry staples of which we’ve run out (note to self: DO NOT FORGET THE OLIVE OIL). This cuts down on impulse shopping and wasted ingredients. If I only buy what I need, there is no chance that a wayward zucchini will get all leaky and brown in the back of the crisper drawer.

Repeat this process once a week, every week. It can be arduous at first, but it is so worth it to cut down on the stress of wondering what’s for dinner. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you can do a month at a time and can cut the grocery shopping down to once every two weeks (though the menu might have to be altered so you can use all of the fresh fruits and veggies before they spoil).

What about you? Do you plan your meals or just stand in front of the refrigerator and decide what to eat half an hour before it’s feeding time?

the two week break

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I have gained two pounds in the last two weeks and haven’t quite mustered up the motivation to start counting calories again. I’m living my life the way an “after” would, though I’m clearly a “before.” Hence the weight gain.

Something I noticed when I wasn’t counting calories was how, most of the time, I made an okay choice. I rarely gorged, I ate salad (it was with a slice of pizza, but hey! Salad!), we exercised (snowboarding, walking around Redwood National Park, ice skating). Obviously I didn’t make the greatest of choices (cough cough, caramelandwalnutapple cough, cough) but I’m okay with the weight I did gain. Maybe.

I feel different. I’ve read a zillion blogs and magazine articles and books that say that if one eats like shit, one tends to feel like shit. I never realized how unshitty I felt over the last three months until maybe about a week ago, when I felt really blah. I felt like my old self, which is a phrase people use to denote a renewed sense of energy and mirth, though I’m using it to let you know that I felt bloated and gross.

I felt like that because I had been eating salty, fatty foods. Lesson: learned. Crap begets crap. It’s not that I shouldn’t eat anything salty and fatty–they are delicious!–but perhaps eating them four nights in a row is pushing it a wee bit. A very big wee bit.

* * * * *

I added some resolutions to the navigation bar! Did you make resolutions this year? I hope so. Lists are so fun.

the past weekend

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Dudes. The past three days have been full of Nyquil, wine, and Christmas decorations. That sounds like we mixed Nyquil and wine and then put up decorations, but we did not. Note to self: do that next year.

1) On Friday we went to some friends’ house and watched some football and drank some wine (he watched football; I drank wine) and then the next day we put up Christmas decorations and took Nyquil at 7:30 p.m. because we’re both sick with some sort of weird coughing virus from Satan that will not go away. Jason has snot coming out of facial orifices and if I wasn’t legally obligated to love them then I probably wouldn’t. On account of the snoring. And the snot. But judging from the way my back hurts I would have to say that I spent a fair amount of time coughing last night, so I’m glad he’s legally obligated to love me, too, because I’m sure that my night coughing was pretty annoying.

2) We put up the Christmas tree on Saturday and I was certain that the dog would go nuts and tear it down, but so far he seems disinterested in Christmas all together. He barked a lot at a pine tree scented candle and tried to eat some lights, but that’s as far as he’s gotten.

2 part 2) SPEAKING OF THE DOG: it is truly hilarious/sad how much he hates the rake. I was raking leaves on Saturday and he was at the window barking and barking at me, and when I put the rake down he stopped. Does he think the rake is attacking me or hurting me somehow? Hard to say. He also hates the broom, so that will explain why my floors are so dirty. I’m concerned about the mental state of my dog and I do not wish to cause him anguish.

3) I got a haircut on Saturday. I’ve always wanted long and flowy hair but I’m coming to terms with the fact that my hair is more manageable (and look so much better) when it’s short. I look more kempt. Kempt is good. Unkempt and crazy is not good, and that’s exactly what I look like when my hair gets past my shoulders. My head looks like a hair bomb went off. So! I’m a kempt woman is the point of the story.

4) I bought some food things from the online farmer’s market so now I have a spaghetti squash coming that I don’t know what to do with. Any spaghetti squash ideas that don’t consist of forking it into faux-spaghetti noodles and covering it with sauce? Maybe I’ll check in my cookbook and try something new and tell you about it. That way you’re covered in case you implusively buy fall vegetables.

allow me to get all introspective

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Calorie counting has given me great insight into my eating habits, particularly those of the snacking variety. I am a snacker. At social gatherings I can usually be found near the food. It doesn’t matter what kind of food: I am equally as likely to be snacking on carrots as I am chips and guacamole (I enjoy the crunchiness; it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something). It curbs my boredom by allowing me to appear as if I’m engaging, when really I’m focused solely on balancing the artichoke dip on the Triscuit.

My attitude towards food has begun to shift; I’m learning to deal with my issues head-on rather than hiding in the pantry. It’s okay to feel sad or angry or kind of awkward because I’m somewhere unfamiliar. I need to allow myself to feel my feelings because usually they’re not so bad. It’s the anticipation of feeling upset that derails me, not the feeling itself. I use food as an emotional deflector, which makes it sound like I have many, many issues in my life. I’m not regularly sad or angry or depressed, but I do get bored a lot.

Writing has helped a gigantic amount. I got a new paper journal in September and I scribble in it frequently, telling it how I feel about a certain subject or just generally rambling about whatever pops into my head. It gives my hands and brain something to do besides fixate on food. I try to write before we go anywhere in an effort to give myself a pep talk, and try to write at least once a day. This has been a little difficult because of the dog, who hates that I do anything but pay him attention, so lately it’s been more like once a week. Perhaps that has something to do with my weight loss inconsistency. Something to ponder.

Things are different this time. My outlook is different in a good way. I don’t berate myself for eating a doughnut (or two… they were delicious and I’m not sorry), and I don’t have a super strict regime that’s abandoned on day five. I eat what I want when I want it, as long as I stay around 1200 calories a day. I eat a lot of vegetables and lean protein, but still eat Cheerios for breakfast and chocolate after dinner. This is not about a diet; it’s about a new way of approaching food and life and things in general. So far, so good.

my 550 calorie Thanksgiving

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For most people the holidays are a time to eat without regard for calories or health, and to that I say “phooey.” Actually, I subscribed to that method of thinking over Halloween and ended up gaining weight and feeling like shit. So! In an effort to have a delicious Thanksgiving without getting out of control, I’ve decided that the entire meal will be about 550 calories. That way I can eat it for dinner, too, and still not go over my calorie intake.

Turkey: 214 calories (4 oz serving)
Potatoes: 70 calories, plus 20 calories for Brummel and Brown butter
Stuffing: 176 calories (I went back and forth on this, but decided to make the lightened up version instead of the full-fat, full-butter counterpart) (have you heard of skinnytaste.com? It’s a great website and I want to try everything)
Brussels sprouts: 81 calories (there is bacon in them, which will hopefully make them extra delicious)
Grand Thanksgiving total: 541 calories

The turkey is thawing per package directions and last night we went to Albertson’s to get the necessary ingredients. In two days I am going to cook the largest meal I’ve ever prepared and I’m only slightly freaking out.