Thursday, May 3, 2012

An update! (not in a series!)

Hey look internet! It's aliiiiiiiive!

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

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.

Shroomy hot & sour soup

Hot & Sour Soup - so pretty.

Fresh bagels

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.

Apple?!

Speaking of which, he's as wonderful as ever.

Rosy cheeks

And so's this little (drooly) guy.

And that's what's up with me.

4 comments:

Erin said...

Congrats on your progress and accomplishments so far! I'm totally on board with what you said about filling up your diet with mostly healthy stuff. That's why I've liked doing Weight Watchers so far, fruits and veggies are "free" so I bulk up my meals with tons of veggies, which ensures I don't feel deprived. The quinoa caesar looks delicious!

Sarah said...

the salad and the babies look great! for eating/nibbling ;)

great job on making breakthroughs!!

Like Erin I've been doing WW - it helped me get down before and then I thought I was okay and got off and regained weight so i'm back.

Sarah E. Hoffman said...

Hey - I couldn't find your email!

As you may, or may not be aware, I included your post bourban Seitan tacos on my Vegan MoFo 2011 Roundup. Here: http://wingedsnail99.blogspot.ca/2011/12/cooking-from-veganmofo-2011.html


I have been slowly cooking my way through those posts. I was thinking of making the process into a zine for release right before MoFo 2012.


I was thinking I would include the original recipe/write-up on one page and the opposite page would be my response, my changes, my experience with the recipe. I would like your permission to do this. Or if you prefer you could write up a new zine page about the post which would be cool as well.

Thanks!

Unknown said...

Hi there,

My name is Rachel Rothstein- I am an Animal Advocacy intern at Animal Place, a farm animal sanctuary in Grass Valley, CA. I have a question to ask you about one of our upcoming events and I was wondering if you could email me at Rachel@animalplace.org? Thanks so much!!