today's food

It was more of a nibbling all day than a 3 square meals kind of day.

before exercise:  small bowl of frozen banana, mango, grapes

exercise:  swim 30 minutes, walk 30 minutes

after exercise:  boiled chestnuts, lots of raw carrots.  

then it was lunchtime:  big salad from that hydroponic lettuce (which tastes great, I wonder, is it less nutritious than lettuce grown in soil?), chopped concord pear (my favorite pear nowadays), ground flax seed, and balsamic vinegar.  and a bowl of cooked collards and tomatoes.

entertained some kids this afternoon and gave them some chips, homemade salsa, apple slices and frozen grapes.  I enjoyed some apple slices, frozen grapes and celery and salsa with them.

light dinner:   bowl of beans and chopped grapes and curry powder!   how's that for a crazy dish that tastes good?  a little rice would have been good too, will make some tomorrow.

then inspired by that I had a snack of grapes and curry powder!   it was also good.   crazy huh?  and a few carrots.  that was my new year's celebration, ha.

my new year's eve activity was watching a video on backpacking in the grand canyon.  that's what I'm training for.  I plan to spend a lot of time on the stair climbing machine at the YMCA!

Happy new year!

today's food

Breakfast:  a bowl  of cooked greens (collards, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, onion) and a few frozen grapes before exercise.  then some chestnuts afterwards.  this sort of blended into lunch which was a bunch of celery and salsa.  I was going to make a salad but remembered right after opening the can of tomatoes for the salsa, so decided to save the salad for tomorrow, since celery and salsa is kind of a salad.

snack:  a bunch of raw carrots while cooking a bunch of vegetables (more on that below).   also more frozen grapes and frozen banana.

dinner:  beans and greens.

snack:  frozen grapes and bananas.  I ate about a pound of frozen grapes today.   it was good.

I'm going to a meditation retreat later this week and we'll be at it from 7:30 am until 8 pm every day!  wo.  so I decided to cook a bunch of stuff ahead of time to freeze.  I like to eat a lot of local stuff, and what's local now is beets, carrots, cabbage, and rutabaga.  I like me carrots raw, and I'm trying to eat up my frozen greens so neglecting cabbage.  so therefore I cooked up:  onions, beets, rutabaga, and added cooked spelt berries and oat groats and beans.  I dished that out to 7 bowls to freeze.  I hope it freezes and thaws well!  I took a picture but I want to go to bed so don't want to find the camera etc etc.  Tomorrow or the next day I'll cook up a ton of greens and tomatoes to freeze.  the greens are frozen from the garden and the tomatoes are canned from the garden.  it's pretty cool how much local you can eat in the dead of winter in wisconsin!

Exercise:  weights, stair climbing machine (20 minutes, 45 "flights"), yoga.  

Some Facebook groups I follow

I find these Facebook groups pretty interesting and not overly time-consuming:
McDougall Friends,  McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Support, and  McDougall Mary's Mini…
They describe their diet parameters at the top of the page.

Then of course there's Jeff Novick, and Dr. McDougall, and Engine 2 diet.  They post useful information.  oh and vegsource.  There were some very interesting articles posted there a few weeks ago about vitamin D.

another salsa

1 can tomatoes (mine are from the garden…)
some lime or lemon
cilantro
a little bell pepper if you have any
little bit of onion
small clove of garlic
a little bit of chipotle powder

I drain the tomatoes and drink the juice.  then chop the tomatoes if needed.  I just use small amounts of everything else.  e.g., for the onion I take just a spoonful and smash it in my garlic press.  same with the garlic to.   squeeze a bit of the lemon or lime.  I use a few spoonfuls of chopped cilantro.  In the winter I usually don't bother with the bell peppers since they aren't local.  So the salsa is mainly tomatoes with a little flavoring from everything else.  I love to eat it with raw celery and carrots--it makes a great snack.   Today I forgot to add the chipotle powder.

today's food

Breakfast:  boiled chestnuts, and an apple.  I wanted greens but didn't have any cooked and didn't have time to cook them.

Lunch:  still no time to cook the greens before a late lunch, but the beans were cooked so I had beans, lots of raw carrots and celery with homemade salsa (good!), and a banana.   Afterwards, I cooked up the greens with tomato, onion, garlic and mushroom.

Snacks at football game party:   none.  I took a plate of stuff and a bowl of soup and gave it to my partner.  heh heh.  I know, not honest, but the host was happy thinking I enjoyed her food.  She kept pointing out all the vegan things I could eat.   I don't think she knows about this blog...

Dinner:  finally, the greens and tomatoes.  more beans.   frozen grapes for dessert.  and a grapefruit.

today's food

Today I wasn't hungry until the afternoon (see previous post).   I had some carrots and a nice salad made from local (hydroponic?) lettuce, a pear, some hemp seeds, and balsamic vinegar.  This time of year the lettuce from California is not very appealing so I don't eat as many salads, but we've started seeing this locally grown lettuce, I think grown in water, like sprouts are.  It's very fresh and delicious.  It's not there every time I go to the store, but I grab some when it is.  It's great to get a fresh salad this time of year!

My dinner was a little early due to going out.  I had some carrots, a pomegranate and some yummy chestnuts.  Those come from Iowa and are really good and sweet.  My favorite way to cook them is to boil them!  I have no idea if that's normal.  You hear about roasted chestnuts from the song, but that dries them out.  I think they are perfect boiled. and it's super easy.  and then easy to score and eat them afterwards.   When I got home later, I was a little  hungry and had a small bowl of frozen banana, grapes and another carrot.  (I love carrots).

Today I was thinking about desire, partly because I'm watching this excellent set of lectures from the latest Mind and Life Institute conference on addiction and cravings.  The Mind and Life Institute is this group of Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, and neuroscientists who get together every year to discuss the mind.  So I was thinking about desire, and wondering, why do I sometimes want food I can't have, but I don't want a big house I can't have or lots of other things I can't have.  Then I realized the difference is that I can have the food, I'm just not supposed to.  I can't have the big house on the lake because I'm not rich enough.  But I can have any food I desire within an hour of my desire.  I just have to grab my wallet and my car keys, google my desired food, drive there, order and pay.   I mean, imagine any kind of food and I can have it in an hour.  so it is different.  because then it's me that has to put the brakes on the desire.  it's a lot easier to not have a house on a lake when it's impossible, than to pass up decadent food where I'm the only thing between my desire and the food.   I don't have anymore insights than that.  :)

I'm back?

Oh my god, yesterday I ate like normal person (without the meat), and holy crap, did I feel like crap last night.  And that wasn't the first time.  I've done that at least 5 times during this holiday season.  And before too.  And, surprise, I've gained weight.  Even a few bad days a month derails me from my weight goals.  I saw a great analogy the other day:  It's like working at a full-time job and not getting paid for it!  I put in all those good days and then ruin it with a bad day. But the worst part is feeling like crap when I go off plan.  My body is not used to high-fat foods.  The burps are the worse!   I know, too much information.

So I'm back blogging, maybe (I never know for sure), for a few reasons:  One is that I have a big backpacking adventure planned for next fall and there is no way I can do it at my age and lack of natural born athletic ability without a healthy diet in addition to the exercise.  Another is that I think my own blog will support my goals better right now than the online forums I'm a member of.  I'm not sure why exactly.  For one thing, the forums just get me thinking too much about rich foods and recipes I don't need to eat on a daily basis.  and I know how to eat this way so I don't need the forums as an educational tool.  I do feel I should provide support to others if I can, but I also feel that right now as I struggle myself, who am I to provide advice to others?   Well, I know we support each other, struggling or not.  I can't really explain why I feel like going into myself for strength rather than a community.  I also want to spend  more of my free time in pursuits other than food.  And that goes for my social time too.

So I'm thinking of just hanging out with myself for a while (diet wise) and logging my boring food, which I can't imaging anyone else would want to eat, and that's okay because I'm not trying to promote a diet to anyone else.  Of course, if no one wants to eat this way, no one will want to read the blog and that is okay too.  It still makes me feel a little more accountable than keeping a private journal, and I enjoy writing it.