Sorry I haven't been blogging. Long story short, I am working really hard on losing the end of my baby weight (and working on approaching my long-term body health goals) and it just doesn't make for the most interesting food-related conversation. Basically every post would look like:
Hey guys! Today I ate some healthy food. Plenty, but not too much. Here's a picture of it, it's mostly green. Okay bye!
More or less, anyway. I had a revelation when the Emperor was a baby and I was losing the weight from him (which I did, all 55 freaking five pounds of it!) which went like this: oh man! I don't have to be hungry all the time when I'm trying to lose weight! I just have to eat mostly healthy food!
Lemme unwrap that a little. I'm not saying that I could, say, eat 3000 calories of healthy food in a day and lose weight. I couldn't. What I'm saying is: if I eat mostly healthy, mostly unprocessed foods, I can cram a lot more food in for the same amount of calories. OH MAN. For me this is huge, because I a) love the physical process of eating and b) hate feeling hungry for any sustained period of time.
I guess maybe this is the sort of thing that lots of people know their whole lives, but really, it didn't hit me until I was 26 ya'll.
So I've been having a lot of dinner salads, fruit and small servings of nuts for snacks, huge platters covered in raw vegetables with various dips/spreads (including this phenomenal and phenomenally easy Cashew Queso from the PPK blog... it is surprisingly healthy and goes with everything, even cucumbers), beans, oats, stuff like that. It's working well, I'm not feeling frustrated with food tracking over a month into it (whoa!), and I've lost just over half of the 20 lbs of baby weight I was looking to drop. Woot.
On top of that, I just came back from going for my third run in a week! After not running at all for um... four years? Not counting one time that I went when the Emperor was like 8 months old and which I never did again. Running makes me really happy... it makes me feel all strong and powerful and capable. I am not at ALL a natural runner-- anyone who knows me knows that my body is built about the opposite of how you want your body to be if you're going to run. Which makes it all that much more satisfying when I do it and accomplish my goals.
I had been planning on starting again after I lost the baby weight and then maybe a week and a half ago I thought: why the hell wait? Why not see if I can do it now? And while it is not easy, it is happening, and it is just making me feel so damn good.
Anyway, that's my update. I think I'm going to try to blog more but you know... we'll have to see what comes up that's interesting. (Oh! I do want to blog about what nutrients I am surprised to find I'm getting/not getting on a regular basis... maybe next time.)
In closing, some pictures of some food and some kids:
Quinoa Caesar Salad - an Isa tester. I have made the tempeh & avocado topping for like six other salads since then because just look at... if that combination doesn't make your mouth water, I don't know if salad's ever going to do it for you.
Hot & Sour Soup - so pretty.
Bagels... the Emperor and I have been baking healthy-ish treats together once or twice a week. (He asks to bake pretty much every day now, but I try to keep it to 2 times/week or less!) These are whole wheat with a variety of toppings. He was so amazed that we could MAKE bagels... it was so fun to do with him.
Speaking of which, he's as wonderful as ever.
And so's this little (drooly) guy.
And that's what's up with me.