Food logs feb. 3 and 4

Yesterday's food was
Breakfast at 9 am before heading off to teach a class:  banana.  I wasn't hungry but knew I would be later.  snacked on carrots while fixing lunch
Lunch at noon:  baked sweet potato, big salad (lettuce, red bell pepper, flax and sunflower seed, 1/2 grapefruit, d'angou pear vinegar and 1 T blueberry juice)
Dinner:  greens from yesterday mixed with lentils from a few days ago;  big salad--same as lunch

Today's food is
Breakfast:  snacking on carrots and apple skins and raw cabbage while fixing food (and peeling apples obviously)
Lunch:  I took a baked potato, cut it up into pieces, tossed with smoked paprika, broiled in the oven for about 8 minutes, and added a serving of the lentils from a few days ago.  The potatoes smelled like barbecue as they toasted.  Pretty yummy for a quick meal!  See pictures.  Oh, then a big salad (lettuce, red bell pepper, flax and sunflower seed, 1 small orange, d'angou pear vinegar and 2 T blueberry juice).

Dinner will be:  chickpeas and banana and cinnamon (try it and see what you think!); cooked cabbage and apple.

Notes:
1) I had to move my exercise time to attending a 4 pm class instead of 7:30 am like before.  This will take discipline but I just have to treat it like a religious requirement and the habit will take effect.  An unexpected benefit of this is that I won't be snacking in the afternoon because I don't like to exercise on a full stomach.  To fit my schedule and desires, I will extend my eating window to 10 hours.  I like eating something around 9-10 am, and dinner will be closer to 6 pm now and that's fine.
2) The co-op has had good bananas lately so I couldn't resist getting a few more.  That's why I cooked up the chickpeas because that's a nice treat to me, chickpeas and bananas.  I cooked up 1/2 lb of chickpeas and divided into 4 portions to go with my 4 bananas.
3) I cooked up 2 apples and a small head of cabbage and some cinnamon in the instant pot pressure cooker (1 minute then slow release--actually this overcooked it a bit, so either do 2 minutes and quick pressure release or 1 minute and maybe wait a few minutes and then release--but it's still good, hard to ruin it).  I put this into 3 bowls for the next few days.
4) I'm eating more beans than usual.  Normally I would just have 1 serving but I wanted the chickpeas and bananas, and the lentils are still hanging around.
5) I'm thinking next week I will make beans and rice of some sort.

a different soup every day

Today I made a sort of "soup base" that I can season differently on each day to make a different topping.  I thought that would be a fun thing to do this week.  I cooked up 1/2 lb of lentils (black beluga from timelessfood.com), a chopped onion, minced garlic, 1 Tbsp coconut aminos, a large peeled carrot--not chopped or cut--and strained liquid from 2 pints of tomatoes.  I put these in the instant pot pressure cooker and cooked for 8 minutes.  Then I took out the carrot and blended it with the tomatoes and 1 date, and added that back into the "soup"  (more like lentils and sauce).  So that is now my lentils and sauce base.  I dished this out into 7 1-cup bowls to eat this week and season however I want:  chili, Indian, curry, Italian, etc.

For my main meal around 1 pm, I seasoned one dish of the lentils with chili powder, cumin powder, smoked paprika and cilantro, and poured that over a baked potato.  It was delicious!

Other food today was
Breakfast:  cooked broccoli and cauliflower, raw carrots

Dinner:  I was going to make my usual salad.  Then I made some salsa for my partner to have during the Superbowl.  This was a pint of tomatoes with juice drained, a small chopped carrot, a portion of a red bell pepper, very little onion and garlic, a couple of slices of an orange and lime, all blended in a blender, with some cilantro added afterwards.  I didn't have any fresh cilantro so made use of some dried.

It tasted good so I decided to just dip my romaine lettuce leaves in that for my salad.  That was good.

I also ate the rest of the orange, it was a small cara-cara navel and tasted good.

I also finished off the broccoli and cauliflower and ate more raw carrots.  Dessert was some frozen banana slices and cherries.  This tastes like ice cream to me.  It was so good I had to have another bowl of frozen bananas and pomegranate seeds.

Simple meals I ate last week

Breakfasts:  Early last week I cooked up a big batch of kale, onions, garlic tomatoes, mushrooms, and vinegar, and dished it out into 6 bowls and then had one for breakfast every day.  One note to remember in the future, I think I prefer this with just greens and onions.  and that's easier.  I also ate 1-2 lbs of raw carrots in the morning and early afternoon.  I know, that's a lot.  My co-op carries fabulous carrots from a local farm and they are at their peak in sweetness right now--they must cure over winter.

Lunches:  either a baked potato made into oven fries and homemade ketchup; or a baked Japanese sweet potato; and raw carrots or a cooked veggie, e.g., broccoli.  This post describes how to make potato fries and reminds me of a good way to eat them that I forgot about.  Baked Japanese sweet potatoes are like candy!  I just eat them plain like a burrito and savor each bite.

Dinners:  large salad with lettuce, red bell pepper and ground seeds; dressing from 1/4 cup blueberry or cherry juice and 1 Tbsp fruity vinegar.  Early in the week I also had a bowl of chickpeas and sliced banana and cinnamon. Later in the week, I put beans on my salad sometimes with fruit like apple or pear. The juice I use for the salads is Lakewood organic which is cold pressed and probably has a little more of the fiber than the normal juice made from concentrate.  But it also costs twice as much.  Oh well, I only eat 1/4 cup a day at most so I can afford it.  The ground seeds soak up some of the juice and thickens it up and it stays on the lettuce instead of all going to the bottom of the bowl.  The beans were cooked up in the instant pot pressure cooker, 1/2 lb, with 1 Tbsp coconut aminos.  They were split into four servings.  My added sodium was under 100 mg per day.

Dec. 12 food

B:   banana and 2 walnuts.  cooked mushrooms and spinach.  raw carrot and kohlabi slices.  some frozen grapes.

L:  at a friend’s house (more below).  lentils and roasted cauliflower on soba noodles topped with a tahini miso sauce.   cookie and small orange.

D:  big salad with lettuce, grapefruit pieces, and spicy pecan vinegar.  sliced carrots and kohlrabi while making the salad. 1 flax cracker.  Dessert was a small bowl of frozen blueberries, cherries, and pomegranate seeds and soy yogurt.

E:  Monkey Bar Gym.  and a 30 minute walk outside.

notes:
1.  I don’t always eat that for breakfast, just happen to have some good bananas right now.
2.  A group of 2 friends and I started up a “Dharma Friends of Animals” group and we’re having our first meeting (a potluck) on Sunday.  We had lunch at Lynn’s to plan the meeting.  We’re all vegans.  I came out to Lynn a few weeks ago and said I don’t like salt, oil and sugar in my food.  She loves to cook so thought it would be a fun challenge.  The meal was good and only had a little sodium in it, from the miso, and a little maple syrup in the cookie (I forget that people don’t think of that as sugar).  The fat was from almond and tahini.  The cookie wasn’t very sweet so I think the amount of sugar was acceptable—and it tasted better too.  Funnily enough though, I liked the little orange even more!  It was bursting with flavor.  For the potluck, I will have to exercise willpower and not eat all the decadent vegan food.  They are bringing moussaka and sweet potato pie (and probably vegan ice cream and whipped cream) and will have a bunch of fancy vegan cheeses and crackers.  None of that will fit in with ETL guidelines.  I’m going to bring the Greek chickpea salad.  I think I’ll bring some fruit salad too to keep me away from the pie.  ooh, and some yogurt.
3.  I made the sesame flax crackers today and they were good!  thanks Kathy and Claudia for the suggestion!
4.  I wasn’t that hungry for dinner.   Our lunch serving probably had a cup of noodles and a cup of lentils.  So salad was enough for dinner.  I love the frozen berries and yogurt!
5.  At the gym, today was the “body power” class, which is held on MWF.  This is the one that scares me because of my back.  I can feel the exercises (esp. with the kettle balls) on my back during class, but so far, the sensation goes away after a few hours.  I’m hoping that building up strength and losing weight will fix the problem.  My back is probably the biggest threat to my planned backpacking trip next Fall.  Well, that and not eating right.  They are kind of related.

Dec 11 food logs

Breakfast:  banana and 2 walnuts.  cooked mushrooms and spinach. 3 raw carrots.

lunch.  1 raw carrot.  1/4 small butternut squash (cooked yesterday), BBQ beans and greens (cooked yesterday), salad with dressing from yesterday (orange, mango, grape, seeds).  frozen grapes for dessert.

Dinner.  1/4 small butternut squash, BBQ beans and greens, salad and dressing.  dessert:  frozen cherries and blueberries with soy yogurt.

Exercise:  1 hour class at the Monkey Bar gym (torture).

Notes:  

1.  It was an easy food prep day since everything was made yesterday.  I just had to make the salad (lettuce and orange bell pepper and a little raw red onion).

2. This time of year you can get fresh walnuts in the shell.  I get them raw from nuts.com and they are the best I’ve ever tasted.   

3.  I don’t like flax seed.  It slimes everything.  But I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any.  In the meantime, I decided to try out some hemp seeds in the shell from nuts.com.  They are really crunchy and good toasted.  They are probably an acquired taste because of the crunchy shell but I like them.  I just eat them alone.  1 Tbsp of the hemp seeds has only about 1/2 the omega-3 fats as 1 Tbsp of flaxseed.  I’m happy to eat 2 Tbsp.  I also have the shelled hemp seeds, aka, hemp hearts.  Those are good blended into milks and creams for recipes—I use them instead of cashews.  

4.  A local farm here specializes in growing carrots and supplies my co-op with fresh carrots from about Sept. - Mar.  They are really good so I eat a lot of them.  I should rename myself the carrot lady.  When I saw my relatives a few weeks ago they were alarmed by my orange hands and feet.  I told them I was alarmed by their pale hands and feet.

5.  the frozen berries and yogurt are fun because they yogurt freezes.  I don’t know why that is fun but it is.

6 week plan baby!

I rejoined the Fuhrman forums and started a journal today for my 6-week plan.  As I said there I'm going to keep doing it until I lose my 21 lbs.  And then keep doing it afterwards because it has everything I want to eat on it.

I don't think I'll have the energy to post my meals in both places.  But I did today:

Breakfast:   two walnuts and a banana.  I was hungry as I didn't eat until after my yoga class and grocery shopping

Steamed mushrooms and spinach.  I love this.  It tastes salty to me.  According to cronometer the spinach only has 89 mg of salt in it.  It tastes like more. 

I also ate some frozen grapes.

Lunch:  I snacked on raw carrots and a few more of those grapes while preparing BBQ beans and greens from Plant based katie.  I used carrot and celery juice so I only put in one big medjool date instead of 5 in the recipe.   I ate a big bowl of the beans.

Dinner

I made a really good salad dressing from a couple of small mandarin oranges, and some frozen mango and grapes (let them thaw a bit), and sesame and hemp seeds and vinegar.  The only problem is, it seemed like a lot of fruit went into that dressing.  I didn't measure or count up the calories, but it would certainly use up my allotment of fruit for a meal.  I might rather have some fruit for dessert than in my salad dressing.  so I may just go with the flavored vinegars as my dressing at least some of the time.

I cooked up a small butternut squash and had half of that with my beans for dinner and a little soy yogurt.

Exercise:   yoga class.

food logs Oct 29--following MWL

I logged my food yesterday too.  Here's the summary (click on the image to see it better):

The red lentil chili is Chef AJ's recipe. I cooked up some brown rice (actually a mixture of short grain, long grain, and forbidden rice) and combined it with the chili.  I ate several bowls.  I made some cabbage salad out of:  cabbage, carrots, apples, orange juice, and chia seeds.  I ate several bowls of this too.  and lots of fruit.  and the total was only 1340 calories.  This is essentially McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss plan (whole foods, vegan, none of the calorie dense foods) and Novick's calorie density plan.  I see why they say just eat until you are full and you will lose weight.   

Here is the nutrient breakdown:

I had lots more omega-3 fat today than yesterday since the cabbage salad has chia seeds.  total fat intake is now up to 7.5%.  Vitamin E is still low.  Obviously more fats would help that.

Now I just have to work on not pigging out when I don't log my food.  I have the habit of eating while I'm doing food prep and dishes, which is a lot of the time!  But it's just a habit and habits can be changed.

food logs Oct 28

I logged my food in chronometer on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Here's Tuesday's summary (click on the image to see it better):

I'm amazed at how much you can eat and still have low calories at the end of the day if you don't include nuts and seeds.  The squash I ate was a big kabocha squash that I turned into 3 filling meals.  The cabbage I cooked up with 2 apples and cinnamon--I just filled in the raw weight before I cooked it (in grams).

Here is the nutrient breakdown:

Of course B12 and D are missing.  and it's common for selenium to be low.  Vitamin E is low since my fat intake is low--only 6% of calories.  Nuts and avocado would bring that up.  On the other hand, maybe it's not needed to be so high, as this number is based on what most people eat, not what they need, and most people eat high-fat diets.

This week's food

As I mentioned last week, I now have two part-time jobs and an ambitious exercise schedule, so I don't want to do much food prep during the week.  I cooked and froze this weekend so I think all I have to do every day is make a couple of salads (only two ingredients: lettuce and red bell pepper), cut and peel a pound of carrots for snacking, and throw a sweet potato in the oven.  Here is what I did:

Yesterday I made a big pot of greens, onion and mushroom.  I still have frozen kale and collards from the garden in big freezer bags.  I cook those up in the pressure cooker and dish out into single servings to freeze (there were 7).   I also opened a 1 lb bag of beans to soak overnight.

Today I cooked up the beans in one pot, and cooked up a bunch of veggies in another--onions, beets, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower---then combined them and put them into 11 bowls to freeze (left 2 out for tomorrow).  I also made a big batch of salad dressing that I put into 5 small bell jars to freeze (left 1 out for tomorrow).   The dressing was fun.  I used 2 cans of tomatoes, and some onion, garlic, cilantro, flax and chia seeds, blended that all in the blender, and poured into the bell jars.  The fun part was I added different seasonings to each jar.  I don't remember exactly but I put something like cumin and chipotle powder in one, curry and singapore seasoning in another, cumin and chili powder and cajun seasoning in another, Italian and Bouqui garni in another, and garam masala and curry in another.  I thought of adding seasonings to the beans and veggies but they are so flavorful on their own, I didn't want to.  Here are the salad dressings with the extremely messy kitchen in the background.  I had a lot of cleanup after that cooking:

So breakfast will be baked sweet potato and greens after exercise; lunch and dinner will be salad and beans and veggies; and carrot sticks for snacks.   No fruit on the menu this week.  I had a delicious grapefruit today but otherwise, am more in the mood for sweet potatoes than fruit this week.

Edited later:  This dressing was awful after it was frozen and thawed!   Flax and chia in a dressing don't freeze and thaw well.  It gets all clumpy.

Meal plans, a salad dressing, and some thoughts on eating out

1)  I took a second part-time job, which I'm excited about, but I'm going to be busy now and I need to be efficient with my food prep.   Here's my idea for a plan:   Cook a big pot of soup on the weekend and split into 5-7 bowls for the week (at least 5 for the weekdays).   Cook a big pot of greens and onions and mushrooms (I still have lots of kale and collards in the freezer from the garden) and split into 5-7 bowls for the week.  Freeze some of them for the later days of the week.  Make a batch of soy yogurt (1 qt of soy milk conveniently makes 7 servings).  Then each weekday I just have to prepare breakfast, a big salad, and carrots and celery for snacks  It will look something like today's food:

Breakfast was the first organic strawberries of the season from California!  --along with some frozen (thawed in the microwave) blueberries, mango and cherries topped with home-made soy yogurt.  it was excellent!

Morning snack was carrots and celery:

Lunch was my favorite salad right now:  lettuce, a little raw spinach, red bell pepper, frozen corn (thawed), edamame (optional, didn't have any today), and "salsa salad dressing" (at left):

2)  Here's the salad dressing recipe.
Ingredients:
1 can tomatoes
1 Tbsp seeds (my mixture is flax, sesame, chia and hemp hearts)
small amount of raw onion (really small for me, about 1-2 Tbsp chopped)
1/2 garlic clove or less
cilantro (to taste, optional)
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp high-quality balsamic vinegar (sweet tasting), or 1 oz lime juice
sprinkle of chipotle powder

Blend part of the tomatoes and juice, onion, seeds, garlic at high speed.  Then add the rest of the tomatoes and cilantro and seasonings and cilantro and just blend for a few seconds to coarsely chop.
Enjoy!

afternoon snack is more carrots and celery (my favorite snack and the carrots are one of the other few local foods available in Wisconsin this time of year).

Dinner is soup over lettuce and spinach, topped with soy yogurt.

I forgot to snap a picture of my bowl of cooked broccoli.  I really love refrigerated cooked broccoli.  That is cooked, then cooled.  It's sweet tasting.

3)  Here are some thoughts about restaurant eating.  It is still a problem for me.  This is because I imagine that people think I'm weird and crazy on the one hand which makes me feel weird and crazy, and on the other hand I don't want to compromise my diet just to please others (thought I will compromise to please myself unfortunately).  I don't want to eat oil and salt, which makes most restaurant food off-limits.  My strategy lately has been to order a salad with no dressing and top it with contraband that I bring into the restaurant.  I had some success last week when an old friend visited.  I enjoyed my salads and was happy.  But afterwards, I wanted to pig out and go off plan, partly because I used to party with this guy, eating, drinking and being merry.  And I did pig out on nuts and go off plan a little bit on chips and hummus.  It's ironic that I behave in the restaurant and then misbehave afterwards.   I had better success yesterday when I was out with some good friends that I don't have a history of partying with.  We were at a Mexican restaurant and I ordered a plate of lettuce and tomato and avocado (which was quite good and nicely plated), and I added some split pea soup (that's just what I would have had anyway).  It was really good.  Now the real success was that I had almost no urges to pig out or go off plan when I got home (maybe just a slight pig-out urge but it was easy to ignore).  Maybe this is because I had earlier apologized to my friends for being so weird about food and they said, you're okay, you're normal, and anyway, what's normal and who wants to be normal in this screwed up society that values consumerism and selfishness etc? And that made me feel better somehow. I'm going to have a lot more social events in the next few month,s as I'm on the search team for a minister at my congregation and we will be wining (maybe) and dining candidates for several weekend-long visits.  My desire not to compromise is bigger than my desire not to be weird, but I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable and I don't want to make myself uncomfortable either.  I like my salad plan and think I can make it work.

Today's food

I'm playing a fun game called "Empty the fridge before my next grocery shopping trip."  I didn't do my usual grocery run yesterday because I ate less of my food when my visitor was here (ate too many nuts and restaurant salads).  I think I can make my produce last until my next regularly scheduled run (Tuesday evening).

I've also been playing with cronometer which is fun.  Neal Barnard says you should get vitamin E to fight alzheimers, and he says almonds are a good source.  But it's fun to compare to other foods.  It turns out sunflower seeds have even more.  For a 10 g serving (about a Tbsp), sunflower seeds have 3.5 mg of vitamin E compared to 3 for almonds. For the same number of calories (about 60), my serving of cooked greens has 2.1 mg, which is a good dose.  And a pound of carrots has 3 mg!  I love raw carrots, have I mentioned that before?  Of course, Dr Campbell says not to micromanage your food and just eat a variety of whole foods.  But it's fun to see that when people say to eat almonds for vitamin E, you don't really have to.  When I plug in my typical meals, I'm coming out to 100% of the recommended amounts for vitamin E, even without nuts or sunflower seeds, because of the green veggies (they have everything!) and carrots.  Dr. Campbell says you should eat about 10% of your calories as fat (and 10% protein and 80% carbohydrates). Dr. Fuhrman recommends not going so low in fat: he says anywhere from 15% and up is okay depending on your needs and activity level.  As long as I eat some seeds, and maybe some edamame and soy yogurt, I can get above 10% fat.  

Back to emptying my fridge and today's food, I made this veggie side dish from onions, shitake mushrooms, cabbage, spinach and penzeys's curry powder.  It's really good!  I had half for dinner and I'll have the rest tomorrow.  Breakfast was an apple.  Lunch was a classic:

That's a serving of greens (from the freezer) and a baked Japanese sweet potato.  I was gone all morning so put in the potato to cook before I left (housemate took it out when it was done) and took out the greens from the freezer.   The rest of dinner is a big salad with lettuce, red bell pepper, edamame and a dressing made from orange juice, strawberry balsamic vinegar and ground seeds (flax, sesame, chia, hemp).  I'll eat that when house-mate returns with her Superbowl pizza.  And I ate a bunch of raw carrots and celery. 

Today's food

Breakfast was some pineapple topped with a little bit of coconut shavings.

I ate a bunch of raw carrots throughout the day.

Lunch was a big salad.   I made up a new batch of my seed mixture where I grind up flax and sesame seed and add that to hemp hearts and chia seeds and mix it all up.  Then I can top that on various things.  Today I mixed it with orange juice and balsamic vinegar to make a dressing for my salad.  Here's my salad before and after a little work on the jigsaw puzzle.

I also made up a batch of split pea soup from this recipe.  I love this recipe!  I added extra cumin and curry because I love it.  I had a couple of small bowls already.

For dinner I'm going to a potluck.  I'm bringing a bunch of baked sweet potatoes and some cooked broccoli.   I'll heat up the potatoes, cut them in half, and put the out on a plate next to some butter, maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice.  And I'll put out the broccoli on another plate.  Then I can eat some too, yippee.  It's hard to beat that for a meal.  I won't partake in the butter and maple syrup but I'm sure others will prefer it.

today's food

I was still in the mood for salads at breakfast, and it's easy to do on the weekends.  I forgot to take a picture.  It was lettuce, spinach, grapefruit and 1 oz nuts.  It was really good.

Lunch and Dinner were not real meals as I was cooking and snacking all afternoon.   I ate a lot of raw carrots, some celery, and raw cabbage, a serving of from a big batch of greens I cooked up (kale, onion, garlic), and probably about 2 servings of the chili I cooked up.  I was planning to make some salad but didn't feel like it so just ate more carrots.

Exercise:   easy pilates workout in the morning.  in the afternoon I went up and down the stairs for 30 minutes with a backpack on (slowly).  Then I walked on the treadmill for 1.5 miles with the backpack on.  That was a good workout.  We had an ice storm a few days ago so I've been feeling trapped because the sidewalks are too treacherous to walk on.  I enjoyed discovering that I could still train for a backpacking trip without leaving the house!

salads!

Today I was in the mood for salads.   Here was breakfast:

That's chopped spinach, chopped pear, 1 oz nuts and seeds.  very enjoyable.

Then at lunch I was in the mood for a big salad:  lettuce, red bell pepper (on sale at the co-op--I wish I had gotten more!), a little chopped red cabbage, some peas, a spoonful of my seed mixture (ground flax and sesame seeds and hemp hearts) and some good balsamic vinegar.

Dinner was same as yesterday's lunch, but instead of broccoli and cauliflower and I had salsa and celery.    And I ate a lot of raw carrots throughout the day.  They are really sweet (local).

I was at a meeting this afternoon and lots of food was served by our host.  It looked good but doesn't fit my dietary specs, so I drank tea and that was fine.

Today's exercise:  I walked to the Y on very slippery streets (ice storm yesterday), did weights and some core and yoga.  I really wanted to go on a long walk afterwards as part of my daily routine, but it was too slippery.   So I did my home stair climbing regime--that's to go up and down my basement stairs with my backpack on--for 30 minutes (very slowly!).   I've got a couple of goals this spring and summer that should motivate me--one is a 17 mile walk, and the other is swimming across a favorite lake of mine.  Of course the big goal is the backpacking trip in the Fall.

Food for the next week

Today I cooked up enough food for a week.  awesome!   and it was mostly local.  in Wisconsin. in winter.   awesome!  oh yeah, and it's good too.   I cooked up a pound of white beans in one pan, some spelt berries (local!) and oat groats in another; and then in a big pot, cooked up a giant onion, a giant beet, giant rutabaga, purple cabbage, and mushrooms (all local!).   This made 13 servings.  I froze most of them.  Now all I have to do is cook up some veggies on the side.

This is the sort of meal plan I plan for the next week:

Breakfast:  fruit and 1 oz mixed raw nuts (I made my own mixture).  My fruit choices this week are apples, concord pears and grapefruit.

Snacks:  raw carrots (local)

Lunch and dinner:  cooked veggie (e.g., collards, kale, which are local from our garden, or broccoli, cauliflower which are not local) and/or salad (greens, ground seeds, vinegar), serving of the food I cooked up or a baked potato or baked sweet potato with some home-made soy yogurt.

So I may not have much to report for the next week since I just told you my food.  I also am settling on my exercise plan, probably something like this:  in the morning walk to the Y, swim or weights, walk some more.  then in the afternoon, up and down stairs for 30 minutes.  I want to fit yoga in there too.  I'm training for a backpacking trip so want to do lots of walking and climbing and I want to get strong.

Jan. 3 food at the retreat

I'm at a meditation retreat this week.  I took a break tonight to do some home/church duties so am taking the opportunity to post here.  I'm glad I made a bunch of food earlier in the week because the offerings at the retreat are less than what I expected---though it makes sense now that I think about it. I was expecting more fresh salads and fruit (I've been at this place before), but it's not the season for that in Wisconsin.  So it's mostly soups and sandwiches with the usual ingredients I don't want to eat.  Earlier this week I made a big batch of winter veggies (onion, beets, rutabaga) and combined that with cooked beans, wheat berries and oat groats, and froze into individual servings.  I also made a huge batch of collard greens (I have a freezer full from the garden), tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and garlic which I froze too.  Today I am making soy yogurt because that goes so well with beets and sweet potato--I added dill to the beet dish today.  So my meals are:  fruit and nuts for breakfast, carrots for snacks, sweet potato, yogurt, and greens for lunch, winter veggies, yogurt, dill, and greens for dinner.  There's some fruit salad at the retreat so I can have that for lunch and dinner too.

I don't plan to post anymore until the retreat is over, next week.  bu-bye!

Jan. 1 food and exercise

I ate some frozen grapes before exercise.

Exercise:  I walked to the Y (YMCA) but it was not open yet.  Oh yeah, new year's hours.  So I walked home.  It's still nice getting out.  I walked up and down the stairs for 30 minutes wearing a backpack.  That's just as good as using the stair climber at the Y!  even better.  I may rethink my exercise and try to do this at home every day, then do something different at the Y.  anyway, after that I did some yoga and stretching.

Then I ate more grapes.  I cooked up some rice, onion, bell pepper for later, and had a small bowl with chopped grapes and curry powder.  That was good.

Then I ate more grapes.  too many grapes!  and a bunch of raw carrots.

Of course, I wasn't hungry for lunch.  I had some celery and a little salsa.

Dinner was a bunch of chestnuts,  some hoppin' john (rice, yellow-eyed peas, tomatoes, greens, and seasoning) (it's supposed to be made with black-eyed peas, not yellow-eyed), and some celery, carrots and salsa.

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.  

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.