Author Archives: Emily

Bringing Moderation Back

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Hi there!  If my pre-posting actually works, while you’re reading this I’ll be busy taking my Chemistry final.  Think smart thoughts for me please!  And I’ll be back to regularly scheduled posting this afternoon.

Copyright issues aside, the title sounds like “Bringing Sexy Back” because that’s kind of the point.  Getting the sexy back.  Because the place I’m at so does not feel sexy; more like excessive and frustrating.

I’ve been called a lot of names.  Mostly Mouse, but sometimes Turnip.  But lately the husband has taken to calling me “Beluga.”  With an absolutely disgusting level of glee.  Don’t get all pissed at the husband, I’m certainly not.  For a while in college Adam got a bit pudgy and I called him “Piglet” for months until he lost the weight.

Adam actually thinks I’m super hot; he has no complaints.  But he’s all too accurate that I’m bigger than is normal for me.  And I actually have some complaints.  I’m 24.  I’ve never been pregnant and I don’t have a thyroid disorder.  It’s true that cardio was off-limits to me a lot of this year, but I let my frustration about my injuries serve as an excuse to slack on strength and stretch moves.  Maybe I can’t run for a while, but I can master the pigeon pose and have banging abs.  But I don’t, and that was a choice.

I don’t believe in diets.  I do believe in honoring your hunger.  I also believe that I’m so hungry lately because I’ve been feeding my body so much crap.  I need to retrain myself.  (I also need to drink more water but that’s a different issue)  So, for a while at least, Saturday and Sunday I’ll eat as I please.  But Monday – Friday I’m going to man up (mouse up?) and deal with being hungry.  Because I’d rather be uncomfortable in the short-term if it leads to me being healthier and not always feeling like I’m about to gnaw my arm off.  I already plan all of my M-F meals anyway, now I’m just going to stick to the plan*.

*Please note:  NOT a diet.  The plan is to eat a normal amount.  And I might plan to eat some cookies.  And S/S are NOT “cheat days.”  I fully respect everyone’s food/diet choices but that term makes me cringe.

So for the next month, here are the main takeaway points:

  1. Plan to eat a normal, full amount.  Then suck it up and go hungry if necessary.
  2. Eat whenever I’m hungry on the weekends so I don’t go crazy.
  3. Not cutting out all the crap, but cutting back.
  4. Deal with dehydration “hunger,” drink some darn water!

Wish me luck!

Do you have any advice for me?  I know the water idea is a smart one.  A lot of people recommend filling up with a salad with meals but lately homemade salads have been making me gag.  Any ideas I’m missing?

3 Days

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I’m not as focused on my studying as I need to be.  And since I didn’t focus all semester that’s a bigger problem than one might expect.  So – mini (mini!) blog hiatus is now on the schedule.  Today yesterday through Friday.  I’m not going to recap later either because the food situation isn’t all that exciting; yesterday I actually ate a Lean Pocket!

For the 20minutes a day I’m allowing myself to go online, would you guys mind keeping my entertained?  I want to get to know my readers!

  1. How old are you?
  2. Where do you live?
  3. What’s your favorite tv show?
  4. What is the next fitness goal you would like to achieve?
  5. Are there any changes (comment and criticize away!) you would like me to make to the blog when I return?

Everyday Should Be Earth Day

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As soon as I publish this post (and perhaps spend a moment or two doing some mindless blog perusing…) I’ve got to get back to work.  I’m taking Adam to school tomorrow so I’ve got an early morning and I’m not sure how well it will balance with my late night.  I did have a good study session with Caroline this evening though.

Since I sort of ‘missed’ Earth Day I’ve got to show off the eco-friendly bracelet my mom sent me –

It’s made of recycled tires, available here.

I ate a late lunch to help hold me over but I also packed a baggie of dried fruit – kiwi, apricot, hibiscus – to take to the Spot with me.

I ended up adding in a serving of Divine Fruit and Nut Dark Chocolate as well.

The extra dark chocolate paired fabulously with the fruit but it was a bit too much sugar in total and I ended up only eating about half of what I packed.  I guess my snack for tomorrow is already packed.

I also bought a small non-fat iced latte with sugar-free caramel syrup.

And yes, I had a diet coke too 😉

Back to the grindstone!

I didn’t really miss Earth Day, because Adam and I try to be eco-conscious every day.  For example, we recycle all of our cans, bottles and papers, reuse every food container we can, and reduce consumption by trying to avoid items with excess packaging.  What does your family regularly do for it’s Mama (Earth)?

A Spot of Tea

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I had my head buried in the books all morning so it ended up being a late lunch.  I have three more chapters worth of notecards to make before I can get into the nitty gritty of reviewing.

The husband’s been nagging me to cut back on the diet soda (a.k.a my lifeblood) so today I gave iced tea a try.  I combined 4 bags of Snapple berry tea with 3cups of water in a saucepan and heated them to a low simmer. 

Then I cut the heat and let them stew for five minutes before discarding the bags.  Finally I dumped in a tray of ice-cups.  Voila, a pot of tea –

My strainer ladle was the perfect serving implement.

And I enjoyed this glass x2 while I studied.

I also enjoyed geeked out over a few of these.

Cherry-cola salt water taffy, I am so onboard!  Cherry cola is one my favorite flavors (my favorite diet soda addiction is Cherry Coke Zero), in fact I’ve already decided to order a Roy Rogers next time I’m in a restaurant!

Around 2:30 I finally came to a stopping point and made a worth-the-wait lunch.

  1. First I put 1t canola oil into a saucepan over medium high heat.  Once the oil was warm I added in 1/2 a medium sweet potato, chopped and 1/4cup roughly chopped red onion.  I seasoned the veggies with s&p and spicy Hungarian paprika.
  2. I cooked the veggies for ~5minutes before adding 2 handfuls of fresh kale.
  3. I poured 1/4cup h2o over the kale and let the water disappear before I added 1/2cup black beans.
  4. Finally I poured in 1t chipotle oil and toss everything together.

Yums!  I’m not a vegan, but my favorite meals are always a combo of veggies.

When Adam gets home around 4 he’s driving me to The Spot for a study session with Caroline.  I’m probably going to be at the coffee shop every night this week and I’d rather not spend that much $ on food so hopefully my late lunch will be able to hold me over until a late dinner.

What do you drink all day long?  I have no plans of quitting soda, but I did agree to cut back a bit, and more importantly drink more water!  In addition to my tea I’ve already also had a few glasses of the plain stuff.

Banana Bread Makes It Better

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My funk yesterday evening ended up lasting all through the night.  My sleep it off theory was a bust, because that involves actually getting some sleep!  I was feeling fine at bedtime but I woke up at 2am and did not go back to sleep until after 6, ugh.  I actually got up and out of bed at 3am to take a shower hoping it would somehow help me relax!

Fitful sleep or not, 8:30 was the latest I could sleep in and still get today’s (final!) Chemistry assignment in on time.  I knew breakfast had to be my cure-all.

Banana bread for breakfast makes bad moods better.  And if a sentence has that much alliteration – b,b,b,b,b – you know it’s got to be true 😀  My “cure-all” contained Stonyfield Maple Vanilla Low-Fat yogurt, 1 chopped banana, and 1 smallish slice of crumbled banana bread.

I feel ready to take on the world!  Which is a good thing because I’ve got a Chemistry final to take on at 8am this upcoming Saturday.  Off to hit the books!

What is your favorite alliteration breakfast?  One time I mixed together blueberries, strawberry yogurt, wheatberries, and a banana for breakfast; I was pretty thrilled.

A Day That Wasn’t

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I accomplished less than nothing today.  Seriously.  And I seriously don’t want to talk about it.  😦 Boo, let’s just get to the food.

This morning I used the amazingness that is Thai young coconut,

to make this amazingness.

The world’s simplest, simply amazing smoothie contained the flesh and juice of one coconut, a big shake of cinnamon-sugar, and 1/2t xanthan gum (which still was a bit too much gum).  So simple and too tasty.

Dinner was courtesy of Wegman’s salad bar.  My one and only accomplishment today was getting the grocery shopping done.

Wok cooked veggies and blanched broccoli,

and amazingly delicious eggplant.

This is quickly becoming my favorite veggie!  I normally would stick to a smaller serving of something that looked fried, but Wegmans is becoming very nyc-ish and they had the nutritional info posted next to the dish – 140calories for 1cup.

Sorry to be in such an anti-stellar mood.  Hopefully a good night of sleep will set me right.

Do you ever have any days that aren’t?

P.S. I used the word “amazing” 4 times in that short post.  Who was an English major?!?

Epic

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Stuff That Is Epic

  • The bidet skit from SNL.
  • My breakfast.  A smoothie with frozen strawberries, vanilla yogurt, calcium + vitamin d oj, honey, and xanthan gum.
  • Xanthan gum.  Using this stuff is like doing a Chem. Lab; the texture of my smoothie changed soo much!  Actually, I used a T and it got a bit too gummy for my liking but I’ll keep experimenting.
  • My mother for purchasing said xanthan gum for me; and just being awesome in general

Stuff That is Not Epic

  • My leg hurts.
  • Adam is off on a bike ride and I left my camera in the car.
  • The lunch I won’t be posting since I left my camera in the car – leftover sandwich filling sans bread.

Stuff That Will Be Epic

  • The dinner I have planned using the bread I’m not eating for lunch.
  • The bbq chips I plan on buying when I go out to run some errands.
  • Going for a swim with the husband tomorrow.

**Updated**  We ended up going for a spur of the moment dinner to Anchor Bar with a big group of friends.  I knew the food would be awful (and it was) so I didn’t even plan on posting, but I did have a fabulous time!

Tomorrow is day 1-of-6 before my big chem. final and day 1-of-15 before my hopeful return to running; clearly things will be busy!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

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Don’t get too excited, no fairy tales here!  The title comes from our movie choice for the evening, I’m not feeling that creative.

I wasn’t feeling all that creative with dinner either, I almost exactly followed the recipe.  “The recipe” was from Cooking Light, Sausage-Fennel Subs.  My teeny changes were –

  • substituted 1T evoo for cooking spray
  • added ~1/2cup red bell peppers
  • skipped the garlic (we really ought to buy garlic again, it’s in pretty much everything)
  • used only 1 slice (per sandwich) of 2% provolone

I also added double the amount of sausage but that was unintentional, we have a lot of leftovers.  Thank goodness it was tasty!

As planned, after dinner we headed to Dolci for dessert.

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting 😦  Although Adam did come home with a box of cookies.

Undeterred, we headed down Elmwood until we accosted a family with ice-cream cones and found out where they got them.  Delish it was!

Awesome, awesome idea – check out this flavor list of locally made ice-creams:

Oh yeah!  I chose salted caramel and was not disappointed.

We ooohed and ahhhed over our ice-cream and drove around doing some apartment hunting before we headed home to the Dwarves.  I ate a huge bowl of popcorn that somehow escaped the camera.

No cheating on wikipedia – can you name all seven of the dwarves??