Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes

I am pretty sure this is the second time I’ve posted to this blog with a title referencing David Bowie’s “Changes.” Maybe next time I should research a bit into other change-themed songs, I am sure they exist! Anyhow…

I had been doing very well with sticking to my eating plan and whatnot until about mid-August, when DH and I moved. At that point I had been on WW Flex for almost 8 months and had lost nearly 30 pounds. Somewhere in the past month and a half to two months, though, something inside my head stopped clicking – or it had clicked so often in the recent past that it just plain broke. I remember thinking that if I was diligent, I might be able to hit 30 lbs lost by my birthday (Aug 30)… I missed it by 2 lbs. I am still 2 lbs away from 30 lost. I got down to 186.2 (0.2 away from the 30 lb mark), and have had a couple of gain-lose cycles since then, leaving me currently at 188 even. The oreos and fast food speaking to me from the past two days say tomorrow’s WI results will tell no other story.

So something has to change, obviously. Two things, I think, in particular:

1) Points are driving me nutty. Measuring, weighing, counting. Guessing when I don’t know for sure, second-guessing myself when I’m afraid I’ve guessed wrong, stressing over minuscule amounts of food, feeling guilty for going over by the smallest amounts, feeling like I have not been given the tools to deal properly with natural fluctuations in daily hunger levels. (Sure, if I’m extra hungry one day, I can use some flex points. But what about the days where I am genuinely not hungry? Do I follow my own oft-prescribed advice and eat up to my base target every day, no matter what? That’s so counter-intuitive!)

2) Focusing on my weight is leading me to put emphasis on the wrong part of this journey. I went through this back in March or so if I remember correctly, and I am going through it again. I become intensely dissatisfied with my progress when it becomes all about my weight. There are other things I need to be paying attention to – my satisfaction, my energy levels, what I choose to eat. The process becomes more clinical and detached from being a lifestyle when I get really entrenched in the numbers and not the less measurable outcomes.

Last time #2 happened, I gave away my home scale and all was right with the world again. This time around, I’m afraid that won’t be enough. I feel I need to cut back on my weekly meeting weigh-ins. Now, I don’t want to give up on meetings – not at all! I love my meetings and find them essential for re-orienting myself and getting my head back in the game at the end of each week. So I am going to talk to my leader tomorrow morning about skipping WIs even when I do go to the meetings. I think I am only obligated to WI once a month to maintain my membership. I am not sure if I can go a whole month without weighing, but I will not know until I try it!

As for being sick of Points, well that’s easy now that WW has the second program to choose. I have decided to switch to the Core plan definitely as of Monday, though I may try to start implementing some principles of it this weekend. I really wanted to give myself a little breather for a few days before jumping head-first into Core, but I may need to implement it little by little over the next couple days. I have a few questions about it which I am going to ask my leader tomorrow. I think it’ll be kind of tough mentally to transition to Core but I might find it to be a much more intuitive system to work.

I am a little afraid of not having boundaries on how much I can eat aside from my own perceived feelings of satiety. That kind of boundlessness is not something I have ever played around with, since the only diet I have really ever been on has been WW Flex. It is going to be a change not counting things, but I think it has great potential.

I guess I won’t find out for a while, either way. I am going to have them weigh me tomorrow though I will probably ask them not to tell me. (I’d just like a record of where I stand before starting Core, and will check on my starting weight once the first two weeks are over.) I will then WI Nov 1, which is a span of two weeks. That will give me a good idea of how I am progressing, without letting so much time pass that I will feel like it was a waste if it doesn’t work out. As for weigh-ins after that, I may try to go up to a month without weighing… and I may not. I look forward to this two-week break at the very least.

Not(ch) yo typical nachos

Nachos make a great dinner. They are not the healthiest thing out there, but if you can get the nacho fix at home you’re far better off than going to a restaurant! I chopped up a bunch of what I had on hand for toppings – in this case, tomato, avocado, black olives, and green onions. The cheez was super easy to whip up and was actually my first experiment with nutritional yeast. It turned out rather successfully – it sure does present like real nacho cheese, doesn’t it? Topped it all off with a dash of cayenne and hot sauce and voila! Vegan nachos!

To make the cheez sauce (the only part of this that really begs for explanation), I put 1/4 c flour, 1/4 c nutritional yeast, and 1 tsp salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Whisk in 1 1/2 c water, turn heat to high, and whisk continuously until it boils for at least 30 seconds. It becomes nice and thick very quickly. Take it off the heat and serve warm. This was the jist of the basic recipe I found online, but I added about 1/4 tsp of ground turmeric to give it that nice neon yellow color.

It was good – even hubby liked it. It’s vaguely cheesy, and a wonderful consistency. I think next time I will try out the cheez sauce from fatfreevegan.com’s Macaroni and Cheez (also on the menu this week) – I think I would like something with a little more flavor and zip.

Mediocre photos of awesome vegan food

My camera tells me I am way behind in posting photos of the food I’ve been making, so here is a brief rundown of three recent highlights:

The perfect sunday breakfast, a.k.a. LightLife “sausage” formed into patties and blueberry corncakes with a blueberry topping:

Comfort food extraordinairre: brussels sprouts pan-fried in Earth Balance and garlic, garlic mashed potatoes, and fried chicken that is neither fried nor chicken…!

And, finally, baked dijon-tarragon tofu, roasted red potatoes, and braised baby bella mushrooms wrapped in phyllo:

Too bad my camera doesn’t take better low-light food photos. The photos really don’t do anything any justice…

Garbage Truck People

What happened on Monday (see previous blog post) is not something I am allowing myself to think about anymore. You are all right, he doesn’t deserve the time I’ve devoted to him in thought… and so I am officially closing the topic for myself. I am not going to let this incident grow and eat at me like the comment from the guy 7 years ago did. I think that’s the best thing to do, just forget about it, not talk about it, and move on.

This morning I read a highly relevant story that I would like to share with you. It comes courtesy of a NYC taxi driver, as retold by David Pollay and reported at themomentumproject.com:

I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station.  We were driving in the right lane when all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.  My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, the car skidded, the tires squealed, and at the very last moment our car stopped just one inch from the other car’s back-end.

I couldn’t believe it.  But then I couldn’t believe what happened next.  The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us.  How do I know?  Ask any New Yorker, some words in New York come with a special face.  And he even threw in a one finger salute!  I couldn’t believe it!

But then here’s what really blew me away.  My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.  And I mean, he was friendly.  So, I said, “Why did you just do that!?  This guy could have killed us!”  And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, “The Law of the Garbage Truck™.”  He said:

Many people are like garbage trucks.  They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.  As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it.  And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you.

So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally.  Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.  Believe me.  You’ll be happier.

So that is what I plan to do. That guy chose me to dump on that day, best I can do is smile, wish him well, and move on. I did go for a run last night, though it was very mediocre and only about half of my normal performance… But you know, at least I went.

Insecurities

When I was in high school, I think in grade 12, my mom and I were biking through the Byward Market in Ottawa one evening. If you’ve ever been to the Byward Market, you’d know that at night time it mainly consists of bars, lineups to get into bars, and people driving around looking for parking places near bars. It’s relatively crowded, but not so much that biking is harrowing (such as it can be on narrow busy city streets). We were minding our own business, mostly winding around blocks and staying close to home. Then the inevitable douchebags roll by and decide to take notice of me. One of them leans out the window and yells, “Get out of the way, you fat cow!”

It took me years to get over that. Seven, actually. I did not ride a bike in public again until just a few months ago. Fucker took over a significant part of my life in an instant he probably didn’t give a second thought to.

So tonight, I’m out there running along my neighborhood roads. It’s 8:30 on a Monday night in a quiet residential area, not terribly well lit but enough to catch the potholes before they catch us. We were light clothing, have reflector dealies on our shoes, we never fear for our safety when out in the dusky late summer evenings. We are rounding out mile number two on our way back home. It’s been a good run, instead of choppy three minute segments of running and walking I’ve managed three even, sustained runs and three comparatively short walks, though our average mile time of 14:something stands. I’m not concerned so much with speed at the moment anyway, I’d just like to get my stamina up.

We’re running along, like I said, and suddenly this car comes up from behind us. I don’t think about people in cars anymore. After the uneventful first 10 or 15 outdoor runs I sort of lost my self consciousness. Which is a good thing. The next thing I know, the car wooshes by us and that ugly, abrasive three-letter word is hurled after me: “FAT!”

… My instinct is to kick and scratch and scream, but since I’m running and I don’t really want to stop, I settle for an impressively loud “FUCK YOU!” after the car. Not that I can be sure he heard me, but I know every four-year-old in the neighborhood has learned a new vocabulary word. I buck up, I keep running. I want to make it around the corner and up the first part of the next hill before I give in to the tired calves and pounding heart. Leo mutters under his breath a few times. “What assholes.”

We slow to a walk to wind down as we approach the house, and I have nothing to do but to think of that one guy and what he decided to do with his evening. And it got to me. I walked home with a lump in my throat and tears threatening to surface. I look up at the sky, at the trees and their blue-green leaves in the darkness. I listen to the cicadas and wonder, is it really that obvious? Am I so hideously huge that people can’t help but notice and comment as I foolishly attempt to waddle by at a quick pace? I become keenly aware of the feel of the fat wrapped around my body jiggling with each step. I feel myself mentally transforming into jello. I slowly, painfully forget all of the self confidence I thought I had gained as I let some guy in a car define who I am.

I’d like to end this post with something uplifting, a part where I say, “but I realized I’m better than that! I am out there consciously improving my life and he is holding on to his judgment and negativity! I am strong, I am happy, I am confident!” But I can’t do that, because it wouldn’t be honest. It bothers me, to be singled out like that. It makes me wonder if it’s worth it – if 25lbs can’t change the way people see me, the way I see me through their eyes, what will 30 do? 50? 70? The best I can hope for is that tomorrow, or even Wednesday, I am able to get out there and go at it again. To pretend it didn’t happen, to accept that there are idiots who will never grow up and they are not worth my time.

I don’t make any guarantees. I just hope I don’t let that man ruin the next seven years of my life, too.

Butternut Squash Black Bean Tacos

These are the best things ever. I am absolutely convinced they belong in their own food group, they are so awesome. This is the second time in a week I’ve made them, since the recipe only calls for 1/2 of a butternut squash so I oh-so-conveniently had another half to deal with.

The recipe is from fatfreevegan.com, again – I think I should get advertising money from them or something, pretty much everything I make nowadays is from over there! I promise I’ll start branching out soon but there are just so many good things there. Mine tonight were served with a quick tomato-avocado salad with basil, EVOO, and balsamic vinegar.

Anyhow, they are super simple to make. Dice up 1/2 a butternut squash and toss em in a pan with chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, and lemon pepper, or whatever strikes your fancy. Cook til tender but not mushy. Take them out and put a can of black beans in the pan, drained, mush them up a little, add a bunch of lime juice and a healthy bit of cayenne, heat. Take taco shell, stick in squash, cover with bean, top with salsa. Consume, but try to consume at a moderate pace, not the frenzy these things will provoke.

I am not over exaggerating. They are awesome. If you try them and are not satisfied, I will mail you a dollar.

Tropical Beans and Rice

Another winner from fatfreevegan.com. This recipe is super quick to whip up and tasty to boot! I absolutely love the citrus/bean flavor combination, so the orange and lime and mango in this one were perfect for me. The cayenne set off the sweetness of the mango perfectly. And it’s so pretty to look at! (And yes, that is glorious fragrant steam you see wafting about above the dish!)

Tropical Black Beans and Rice

non-stick spray
1/2 cup(s) red onion(s), chopped
1/2 cup(s) orange juice
1/3 cup(s) fresh lime juice
2 tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 medium sweet red pepper(s), chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 medium green pepper, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 medium mango(es), diced
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced
15 oz canned black beans, rinsed and drained
3 cup(s) cooked brown rice, kept hot

Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Add all ingredients except beans and rice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until peppers are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.

Stir in beans. Cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve over rice. Yields about 3/4 cup rice and 1 cup bean mixture per serving.

Update on animal-free eating

I’ve been meaning to update a bit on the experimentation with “extreme vegetarianism”/eating vegan. I haven’t been running at 100% with it the past couple of weeks, but I’ve been making decent progress towards consistency. I did cook some chicken we had in the freezer on Thursday last week. I remember cooking this particular dish for the first time a while ago and thinking it was just fantastic, it has chicken and white beans and sundried tomatoes and rosemary, but I really couldn’t get into it this time. I didn’t eat a whole lot of it and let DH have all the leftovers. So cooking chicken is losing some charm.

I have had an egg in the morning for the past three mornings, mostly because we ran out of oats and interesting cereal. I was eating the Ezekiel bread with natural PB a couple of mornings but for some reason the two together are just too salty for me. The bread itself, however, when eaten on a sammich or something, is not salty – it’s just the pb/bread combo, so I haven’t eaten that for breakfast since. Need more breakfast options here.

Overall, though, I think I’m doing pretty well with it. I even bought a pint of Rice Dream ice cream as a treat this weekend. Yum. As an added bonus, I think I can actually keep this stuff in the house for more than a day, because DH didn’t seem to like it – usually he snarfs every last bit of ice cream I bring into the house within 48 hours, which gets irritating. As long as I feel I can control myself around it, I like to have it in the freezer for an occasional treat.

So I think I’m running at about 85% animal product-free on average, which I am happy with. I’m not good with dramatic change anyhow, so a nice period of transition is the way to go for me. I have consistently changed all of my snack options to vegan ones, so I think next I will work on making sure all of my breakfasts are vegan – and once I can do that consistently (meaning once I have enough options so I don’t get stuck), I will move on to making sure another meal is consistently cleaned up. Eventually it won’t even be a question for me. That’s where I want to go.

Loot!

Just want to post a photo of my wonderful new acquisitions: a Sigg 1L water bottle (to replace my 8-year-old BPA-riddled plastic one) and a Camelbak day trip backpack:

The rest of the water bottle says “green” in green, and a couple of the people on the other side have green heads. It’s wonderful. If you’ve never heard of Sigg, they are a company worth checking out – though there has been a run on Sigg bottles recently due to the BPA announcements (Sigg has always been, and will always be, a manufacturer of stainless steel and aluminum water bottles).

The Camelbak is a small backpack with about 16L capacity (just enough to hold a rain jacket and lunch). If you aren’t familiar with Camelbak hydration systems, then you’re probably wondering what that blue tube is running out of the side of it. Well, that’s the mouth piece to the 2L hydration sack nestled in its own pocket behind the bag. These things are super convenient, as you don’t have to take off your pack and root through it to find your water bottle, nor do you have to worry about dumping your water down the front of your shirt as you lean back to drink (this has happened to me on numerous occasions). The bag itself has a wide opening to fill which is approximately the same size as a Nalgene mouth, which means that any water filter adaptable to Nalgene bottles will fit this equally well. The mouthpiece is a bite valve, so it won’t open and drip unless you squeeze it. And when the tube isn’t in use, it has a nice little strap to hold it out of the way against the side of the pack.

Pretty awesome, eh? :D

Modified Snobby Joes + by-the-seat-of-my-pants cabbage salad

I had heard good things about the recipe for Snobby Joes from Veganomicon (thankfully copied into the archives of Post Punk Kitchen as I do not yet know the joy of owning Veganomicon). I decided to give it a try this evening, since I otherwise had no idea what to cook.

First mistake: Assuming I had lentils.

Second mistake: Assuming I had tomato paste.

Third mistake: Assuming I had tomato sauce.

Fourth mistake: Assuming I had a bell pepper.

Yes, indeed – the four main ingredients in the snobby joes were entirely absent from my cupboard. I toyed with using red lentils instead of green, but had visions of turning out a tomato-flavored mush instead of a lentil delight. So I opted for the near-forgotten green split peas lurking in the back of my cupboard. Funnily enough, I remember buying them accidentally, thinking they were lentils – and being disappointed when I returned home to find that they were actually peas. A quick google told me that I should be okay with this substitution – the flavor is a bit different, but the consistency would be much the same. So forward I forged.

It wasn’t until I was about done cooking the peas that I realized I was seriously lacking in the tomato department. I tend to keep a pretty stocked cupboard when it comes to tomato products as they are so useful and versatile, but I must have forgotten to restock. Crap. Well, I did have some canned diced tomatoes… and some canned diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers… I think I can work with this…

So what to do for a side? Well, I have half a head of cabbage left after the delicious bean-stuffed cabbage rolls I made last week, I should use that. Okay, what do I do with cabbage? I have done precious little with cabbage in the past, so I called out for help via Plurk and got some good guidance from Heather on what to do. I took her mother’s recipe, modified it according to what I had on hand (and with an eye towards healthfulness), and turned out a pretty great dish.

Enough with the narrative, here are the recipes:

Snobby Joes (modified, original is in link above)

1c green split peas, uncooked

2 c water

1 yellow onion, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c tomato sauce

1/4 c barbecue sauce

1 can diced tomatoes with jalapenos, drained and pressed of excess liquid

3 tablespoons chili powder

bread or buns to suit (the above photo is Leo’s plate, I had mine open-faced on Ezekiel bread)

1. Boil water; add split peas and cook for 30 minutes on low.

2. When peas have 10 minutes left to cook, in a pot sautee onions and garlic in non-stick spray (or you can use EVOO, I had enough oil coming in via the cabbage salad that I opted for no oil here) for about 7 minutes.

3. Drain peas and add to pot with onions. Add remaining ingredients, stir, heat through. Serve on a bun. Nom.

This turned out to be fantastic. My husband was impressed, so much so that I had to hide the leftovers before he could eat us out of lunch tomorrow. This easily makes 6 servings, or four if you have a big appetite/are hungry enough. This version of the Snobby Joes was absolutely delicious, and I will be hard pressed to return to the original… There really is no need.

By-the-seat-of-my-pants Cabbage Salad

1/2 head of cabbage, shredded

1 apple, peeled and diced

1 oz almonds, coarsely chopped; or else 1 oz slivered almonds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1/2 onion, diced small

Dressing:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sugar (I used splenda)

3 tbsp red wine vinegar, others may work well too

Mix everything together. Refrigerate until ready to serve. This may not stand up well over night, so it’s best to eat it all the day of (the cabbage may wilt in the dressing). The above probably made 4 normal-sized portions, but that husband of mine, well, since I wouldn’t let him snarf all of the snobby joes, he snarfed the remaining salad instead.

This turned out surprisingly well. I was a little wary – raw cabbage is a hard sell for me, due to traumatic coleslaw-related incidents during childhood. Plus I tasted the dressing before I dumped it in and I was not too impressed. But this is the magic of cooking – the part that I love: put everything together and voila! Super fantastic food! The tart/bitter cabbage flavor balanced out perfectly with the sweet occasional apple, and the almonds added a great crunch and that something earthy that really tied it together. I think the only thing I would change is to omit the sesame seeds, except for maybe as a garnish – they didn’t add considerably to the flavor, perhaps because they were overpowered by the sesame oil (which is a must).

All in all, an incredibly successful experiment – would definitely make this again!