Sunday, May 31, 2009

Great Run

I just got finished with a great 35 minute run. It was amazing. No stops. I don't know how far I went because (thank you 100 degree weather) I used the same semi-broken treadmill as yesterday.
After the treadmill I took a much needed shower that lasted about as long as the run. No kidding. Kayleigh (my roommate) was even worried I had fallen or something. Oops.
Then (in my robe) I cleaned the oven. I dried my hair when it was about eighty percent dry already (wet enough that I can still keep it from being frizzy, but dry enough that I don't need to fry my hair with too much heat. Tip from my stylist), and then went to get dressed. Turns out, I had one more bra clean. Yikes. I needed to do some laundry. I went down to the machines in the apartment, but they were all full. Looks like I'll be doing some late night laundry. Fantastic.

Does seeing other people eat hurt your diet? I know that whenever I see my roommate eat, no matter how full I am, and even if she's just eating something I would not normally go for, I want it. All I can think about is food and my jealousy that she is eating it. Sometimes I let myself eat what someone else is eating, even if I'm not hungry, which is even worse. Is this some kind of an emotional problem I'm alone in?

Just the Food (I'll post something better later)

I'm about to hit the treadmill but first, here's the food recap:

I ate half of a lemon Larabar (not my favorite one, but it's good):

And the last half of a Key Lime Pie Larabar (one of my favorites):

Then I had some freeze dried apples:
Some Dried Organic Mango:
A handful of raw sunflower seeds (great source of selenium):
The basket I had in all of those pictures is this french bread basket I just bought from Pottery Barn. I have always wanted one of those. I wanted to put the food I was posting in there for the pictures because, besides Ezekiel, I don't really eat bread and I wasn't sure when else I might use it.

Then I had some Pico de Gallo (after eating salsa plain, this was the logical next step):
I ate about half of the container.
Then I had a slice of Ezekiel:
And a handful of raw organic almonds:
And a huge bowl of air popped organic popcorn:
Before I could take the picture someone must have eaten it.

Then I had a baked apple (organic apple with cinnamon):
I have to clean that oven. Anyway, I had never had a baked apple before, and I can't say I was too happy with this. I realized halfway through eating this that this was the same cinnamon with apple I used to eat every day for breakfast, but baked, and I definitely like the raw version better.


I am going [unwillingly] to the treadmill. Later chicas.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

This is my problem

I am making myself own up to a binge.
I started with the vegetable kabobs. I excitedly poured nutritional yeast over them. It was delicious. I felt the need, however, to continue with a Larabar, almonds, pine nuts, peanut butter (lots), and dried mango.
I feel so stuffed and unhappy.
If anyone has any good anti-binge advice, please help.

By the time I was going to start my run, it was extremely hot outside.
Instead of dehydrating myself like a flax chip, I used the treadmill in out building.
I ran for 20 minutes, but I am not sure how far I ran (the treadmill is broken, so it does not show the time, millage etc, yet the belt still runs).
I enjoyed this run and it was a nice change being inside in a better temperature, but I did get bored without the scenery. Putting off my workout until this late was not such a great idea - I spent half of the day in a terrible, self hating and quick tempered mood, but then exercised and felt so much better. I really need to do my runs first thing.

After the run I had a handful of raw sunflower seeds:
And a large serving of organic raw "Kale Krisps"


These were absolutely amazing. It was great because this is from a local cafe called Daily Juice (the first organic raw food restaurant in Austin, TX which they just opened not too far from the apartment), but if you don't live in Austin, you can order it online or probably make it yourself. It was just dehydrated kale with sea salt, red bell peppers, and cashews.

Then, I finished off the last fourth of the raw cake I made yesterday. Also, yesterday when we had Mexican, to stop myself from eating chips I tried Gena (from the fitnessista)'s trick of eating the salsa by itself. I am hooked, and even asked for extra salsa to take home yesterday.
Well, I finished of about half a cup of pico degallo, and half a cup of green salsa. It was tastey, but now my mouth is burning.

Compared to yesterday, I would say I did quite well today. Tonight for dinner I will have grilled vegetable kabobs.

Beautiful Day

I don't know about you, but I looked outside and it looks beautiful.
My scale put me up 4 pounds (138.6) this morning from yesterday. Now I have physical proof that I cannot eat white flour or sugar.

I had a large breakfast because the scale also taught me that I need to retool my methods. My plan is to get back into actual meals and cut back on snacking.
Meal 1:
Half a cashew cookie Larabar:

And about 4 cups of organic strawberries from yesterday's farmer's market finds:
At noon, I plan to have a bowl of Amy's Organic Tomato Basil Soup (yum). For dinner, I will probably have a MorningStar Black bean burger on some Ezekiel with lettuce tomatoes and onions, and maybe some grapes on the side. Can't wait.

Short Tangent on Fashion
I was looking at the Dior (Spring '09) runway line on vogue.com and...I love this dress. I love all of CD's clothing (almost), but this is a dress I could actually almost see myself wearing, which is not something I can often do looking at runway clothes.

Musings on Emotional Eating
If I am trying to feed my emotions (i.e. stress eat), sometimes when I look online and see fit people having fun, it makes me stop. I start to think about how I can have fun and feel good without stuffing my face. Emotional eating, I know, has really hurt me. For the longest time I have been on a binge/fast cycle: I would binge out of boredom, stress, etc and then I would spend the rest of the week fasting the weight off. I feel ashamed admitting this - I hate that my friends will comment that I am not eating enough or something of the like and "are you anorexic" when I know that 48 hours from then I will likely be stuffing my face with anything I can find. I know that eating too little is not healthy, nor is binge eating, and so I am trying to keep this blog up to hold myself accountable for these habits. I really have to drill it into my head that I cannot binge eat, eat too little, or eat something unhealthy because these are all triggers.
I never have been to a therapist, so I don't think I've ever had an eating disorder. However, I do remember when I was thirteen I went through a phase where all I ate was a leancuisine at night, and I exercised a lot. Looking back, I don't think that this was so much an eating disorder, but not understanding what dieting is. I grew up watching my parents diet like crazy and never lose weight, so I thought that to lose weight I had to do more. Little did I know, it was lack of exercise and secret binging that kept my parents from losing weight. It is true, bad habits to rub off on your children. When I have kids, I am never going to say the word "diet," but they will never taste refined sugar either.
Anyway, eating for me is so hard. Whenever I eat, I feel guilt. Whenever I don't eat, I feel guilty. Sometimes I wish I could just live off of a feeding tube and never have to worry.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Eating White Flour for the First time in a while - now I feel sick.

Let's start with the workout:
I was in a very huge rush. I had to be at a lab class at 7 a.m. What?
This meant to get in a 1 hour run, plus a 45 shower, dressing, blow drying and make uping, i needed to be out by 5:15, leave the apartment by 4:45, wake up at 4:15, oh and then there was the commute to work...
I got to bed at 2 a.m. last night. Getting up at 3:45 was not going to happen.
Instead, I woke up at 5:30. I sped to the trail, wore the clothes I slept in running, took a quick shower, skipped the make up, put my hair up wet, and wore the first thing I grabbed from my closet (I have never looked more stunning).
This meant only 30 minutes for running. I was so tired I never really got going. I ran a total of 1 mile. With water breaks. I'm ashamed.

So my incredible workout of course gave me a great excuse to eat unhealthy foods and stuff myself untill it hurt. I'm being sarcastic of course, but it is interesting that the day I had a bad workout I ate more than the days I have a great, heart pumping and calorie blasting workout.

Since I was in such a hurry, for breakfast, I grabbed the last half of a ginger snap Larabar:

Later, we went to lunch. Mexican. I was very good about my order. I ordered the Veggie plate: sauteed mushrooms, grilled zucchini, mixed vegetables, and salad sans cheese and dressing. Unfortunately, my virtuous order did not stop this:
The chip bowl. I was not prepared. I did not stand a chance against the fried white flour.
I decided just to have one chip. Then another. Before I knew it, the entire bowl of chips was gone (I had a little help though).
Lunch came then.
The sauteed mushrooms were amazing, but I had them boxed up and ate them later.
Here is the salsa I ate with the chips (it was amazing):
I did not take a picture of the veggies that I ate at the restaurant. I felt sheepish taking the photo of the chips and was too timid to take any more. But let me tell you, the Zucchini was amazing. Also unpictured, I was feeling bad about eating the white flour chips, and, naturally, I ate none other than a white flour tortilla to make the pain go away. It did not work for long.

Later, I came home to 1 piece of Ezekiel with 2 tbs peanut butter.
A Larabar (cashew cookie, one of my favorites):
A handful of almonds:
Brussels (steamed):
And I decided I would be brave and try a raw dessert recipe.
This was for "walnut cream cake." I adapted the recipe from here.
Original recipe:
1 cup ground walnuts
1 cup raisins ground up
1 tsp vanilla

Combine and mix well. Press into pie dish or flat plate.

Topping
Blend
1/2 cup walnuts
2-3 tbl raw honey
juice of one lemon

Add water in small amounts if needed. Pour over base. Decorate: I usually add chopped bananas in the middle...

I substituted the walnuts with almonds because I don't enjoy the "walnut aftertaste" (am I the only one who tastes this), got rid of the honey because a. I don't have raw honey, and b. I am trying to stay away from honey, syrups, sugars/evaporated cane juice, etc because they are so addictive, and I didn't make the "topping" because I figured without honey, I'd just be adding on ground almonds.
Also, I added 2.5 tbs of water to the almond and raisin mixture.

Here are the ground raisins and almonds before mixing:
In the blender:
In a ball after I added the water:
And in the "cake" form.
Now, I actually halfed the recipe. Overall, I liked that, though I enjoy Larabars, since this recipe called for raisins instead of dates (which seem to be in every other raw recipe) it tastes different than many other raw food desserts. The texture of the cake, as I made it, was a bit softer and less crumbly than a Larabar. Also, the label of "dessert" is very accurate. Even without the honey, the cake I made, because of the raisins, was very sweet. Also, even as I halfed the recipe and took out the honey, the entire thing worked out to about 400 calories. If you are not trying to lose weight, are about 400 calories short one day, or are having a sweet craving, I highly recommend this. I do like the taste (it reminds me of a rich and semi sticky honey cake), and it is healthy and loaded with nutrients (unlike refined sugar), but the calories are so concentrated, I fear that as a sort of snack or breakfast this might not seem substantial. Psychologically, I know that I feel more full when I have eaten a large volume vs. a small one (e.g. 100 calories of spinach vs. 100 calories of almonds). This was very fun to make though, and I am excited to experiment with more raw foods.

After much anticipation, I cracked open this new bar I discovered at whole foods:
An organic raw energy bar with SPIRLINA? I was estatic. Ingredients: superfood, superfood, superfood.
The taste.... disappointing. Maybe it was just this flavor (I've often had a hard time stomaching spirlina). I wanted so badly for this to taste good. However, there were many many other bars and one of these days, when I have extra money to spend of expensive organic energy bars that I may or may not like, I will try them. I was eyeing a apricot flavored one (and the many flax seeds, I'm a sucker for anything organic that has flax seeds). We'll see. I only ate a bite of this today, and maybe I can make myself like this. This could very well be the first time Whole Foods has disappointed me.

Later, I went to a party and ate watermelon, and couple of cookies. And the first glass of wine I've had in a year. I don't even like wine, why am I eating and drinking foods I don't even like?

Then I came home and did not touch food, except for the two huge bowls of popcorn. Yes it was organic and air popped and low cal (that is if you don't eat as much as I did), but was I at all hungry? No. Did this make me feel better? Not really.

So much crap food. I feel awful. I am so full I feel like I could never eat again. My eyes are glazing over.

Tomorrow I will be more positive, I promise. I am excited to get back on track and eat healthy. The farmers' market grabs are in the fridge as I type.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Destressing

So today was very stressful.
I had a psych paper and a Jane Eyre paper due. Somehow, I got to the point that I was happy with both of my papers (a rare occurrence).
Work was also incredibly busy. I work at an Italian restaurant (conveniently located adjacent to Whole Foods, so luckily I never feel compelled to eat the food there) and I waited on three large tables (one was a for a business meeting, another was a group of women who apparently were celebrating a win at the tennis club, and I think the other was some kind of family reunion). I would never expect this on a Thursday, and to top it all of one of the girls who works there called in sick.
My point is that today was incredibly stressful all around, and I handled it with the usual mixture of healthy and unhealthy habits.
This morning, turns out I slept through the alarm. At 8:30 I woke up and had to make a 9:00 class.

Needless to say, I had to grab a quick excuse for a breakfast on the run. I selected a tablespoon of my homemade raw almond butter (thank you blogosphere for showing me I can eat almond butter cheaply, and thank you Whole Foods for selling organic raw almonds in bulk). The healthy fat and protein kept me full for a surprisingly long time.

After class, I had to edit those papers I mentioned.
I ate a handful of almonds:

And proceeded to resort to a go-to unhealthy habit: "binge drinking" diet drinks.
I was about to fall asleep at my laptop and I was stressed, so I drank two entire cans of this.
The next logical step was, of course Diet Green Tea.

Finally, I switched to water. Too bad the damage was already done. Why am I so addicted to artificial sweeteners? I actually took the step and bought Stevia, but I am terrified to drink it in my tea. However, I am extremely excited to try that "Zevia" drink as soon as I can save up enough to rationalize spending so much on a drink.

Next, I had a piece of Genesis bread:
With two tbs of organic peanut butter:
Later, I snacked on a handful of soy nuts (11 grams of protein per serving, hell yes):

And a huge bowl of popcorn. I made this in my air popper so there were only abou 150 calories but I cannot express how huge this was.
Thank you grocery stores for carrying a huge bag of organic popcorn that lasts me weeks and only costs $1.17. I am an addict. You'll see...

And then, I of course had to have some more almond. Sorry for the blurry picture.

And three Mexican "Matter of Flax" Raw organic crisps. I am still in love with these (unfortunately I have only tried the Mexican and Italian ones).
And of course a Larabar
Three organic strawberries:


I demolished what remained of this bag of grapes:
And had more popcorn. Why not, I said.

Unpictured, I had another 1/4 a cup of frozen organic blueberries.

When I get stressed, all I do is snack and ruin my appetite for actual meals. This is not good because then I never plan out my nutrition or eat correctly.

After work, in the dead heat of the day, I went running.
The trail I went to today is .75 miles around per lap. I ran three laps, taking a long water break between each lap, and then walked a cooldown lap. I blame the heat (and secretly my out of shapeness) for this horrible run. Luckily, the run still released the stress and gave me enough endorphins to make it through... the commute home.
I went home and immediately CRASHED on my bed. Very productive. However, I would like to think that this half hour of sleep makes up for the fact that I only got three hours last night...
After the run a friend and I met up to get snow cones. Instead of eating ice with syrup, I asked for ice with fresh lime. I was very happy with this choice.

In review, my stress managment was...
The healthy:
running
napping
complaining to my co workers (maybe not so healthy for them)

the unhealthy:
stress eating
the flood of aspartame that is now probably incubating a huge cancerous mass in my stomach. what happened to my diet coke with splenda?

I think I need to cut out some unhealthy habits... possibly?
And now I have that wonderful caffine + sleep deprived induced tired but wired stare.

Finally, I was just reading this article on nytimes.com about how food allergies are linked to obesity. Very alarming.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Questions

So I have a couple of questions:
First of all, is granite or gravel bad for running? My track has granite and I wanted to know if it is hard on joints. I ask this because during the run I felt my knees give a bit, but this could just be my own problems (I have the same problem when I do squats and that is zero impact).
Second, I am considering booking an appointment with a nutritionist. My insurance, unfortunately, will not cover it, but I think it may be worth it. Thoughts?


Finally, I have a confession to make. Today I stayed away from aspartame, but unfortunately I finished off a very large pitcher of iced tea I made that I sweetened heavily with Splenda. However, it is gone now and tomorrow I switch to Stevia sweetened iced tea. The goal is to drink this without sweeteners (which I do at restaurants since I don't drink calories, but at home it seems unappealing).

I love running

So I am absolutely terrible at running right now.
My time is probably around 8 or 9 minutes per mile.
My form goes away about 2 minutes into a run.
I didn't bring my ipod when I went running.
I ran in the heat of the day.

Somehow, I left feeling absolutely amazing and completely in love with running. I honestly don't care how slow I was going. It hurts that I had to stop a few times. I told myself I stopped because I needed water and it was hot, but don't think that that was really the case at all.
I don't have a heart rate monitor (yet) or pedometer so I couldn't tell you exactly how far I went, but the course is about 0.9 miles around so I think I am in the 3 mile range. A decent workout, that is if I didn't stop. Getting back into shape is so frustrating!

Following my workout, I had a little snack:
Organic green raisins. They were amazing and refreshing. I cannot wait to try these frozen (I have never had frozen green grapes, I am more of a red grape kind of girl, if it's vegan and organic I'll take it).

I am off to class now! In a week my summer classes start - I am so excited!

Good Start?

This morning I woke up and stepped on the scale (bad news). Immediately I went over to the kitchen and grabbed:

Three "Matter of Flax" Raw Organic Flax Chips



A handful of raw organic almonds:

A piece of "Genesis" (Food for Life) bread with 2 tablespoons of hummus:
Later I had a fourth of a cup of frozen organic blueberries (from Costco - I am so happy they are starting to carry such a good organic selection).
Then I had half of my favorite larabar:


I absolutely love the way Larabars taste, but I have to wonder if the cost and the high calories with low nutrients make them worth it. They are great (I think) to stop a sweet craving, for dessert, or in case of emergencies (like if you're at a party, haven't eaten all day and the desserts keep looking better) but I'm wondering if for a snack they are great.
Of course they taste absolutely amazing and I love that there is no sugar or preservatives, but I wish that maybe there were some that were organic and had more nutrition.

Speaking of no nutrition...
Starbucks. Everyone at work is drinking some kind of Starbucks or Seattle's Best. Since I don't drink calories (although I am planning on changing that with my upcoming green monster experiment) I always get black coffee, which I honestly cannot stand. What do you get from Starbucks?

On a side note my roomate just asked me if I was wearing blue lipstick. Confused, I went to the mirror. It seems that the blueberries have died my lips purple! I have class in about an hour so let's hope I can get the blue off by then!