It’s the pits May 11, 2009

As in, the bottomless pit that was my stomach today. 

I woke up super tired, with allergies to blame I think.  I should have known I was in for it in the hunger department because of that…

Chris, our other co-tenants, and I did a walkthrough on the new office suite for electrical, lighting, paint, and some other important details, and it took an hour and a half!  Holy shit!  I was hungry before we even left the house, and should’ve just eaten my oats on the drive in to work. 

Finally I got some satisfaction around 10am.  This is the standard mixxxx of steel cut oats, a little 7 grain (almost done!), raisins, cinnamon, almond milk, water, soy protein powder, and a new addition of honey millet granola from Whole Foods. 

When Chris wanted to eat around noon I didn’t object, in fact I was feeling a twinge of hunger already.  I had leftover pizza from last night, and a big carrot.  The pizza was whole wheat crust, steamed broccoli and corn, red bell pepp, tomato, olives, tomato sauce, a sprinkling of nutritional yeast, Italian herbs, and a little bit of each Drunken Goat cheese and smoked gouda.  I ate it cold and it was tasty!  Chris ate my strawbs, so just forget those are in the pic 😦

The apples came in handy like an hour later when my stomach grumbled.  “Sheesh, what is going on in there?” I kept thinking.  I forgot about the allergies.  Do any of you get that same, nagging symptom?

Then again around 3pm I felt that nagging feeling again and ate this yummy snack:

That hit the spot, and I wasn’t hungry again for like 3 hours.  Guess I just needed a bit of fat, fiber, and protein together for satiety.

(Fizzity fiz-uck I’m getting hungry again now. All this damn foodie thought and the pics are making me hungry!)

Surprise, surprise, dinner was a Mexi venture to Si Senor.  It seems that I will have to stick with burritos, and maybe salads, to avoid meat or a cheesy mess.  I had half a veggie burrito filled with black beans (OMG, did she say bean?!?! She doesn’t eat beans!), rice, carrot, celery, onion, and maybe something else.  It was topped with lettuce and a yummy red sauce; I stole Chris’ avocados, too 🙂  I also ate a ton of chips and salsa, and drank a huge Diet Coke.  I wasn’t even that full when I left, but I was satisfied, caffeinated, and ready for my workout with Andrea!

Around 8 we started busting out some chest, back, and biceps, then ended with a foam rolling session and some abs.  I didn’t do much for abs, but rather learned the art of moaning while rolling on a foam tube.  Felt damn painful at times, but like a good pain.  (Think strong, deep massage.) 

After groaning on the roller for 10 minutes, it was cardio time.  The gym was fiz-ull up, so our plan to do cardio together was fouled up by the lack of free machines in working order 😦  The Drizz opted out, and I went for a stair mill.  But first, she gave me this!

Homemade seitan!  It looked like a roll of sausage, and smelled like yummy onion and other savory goodness.  I hope to try it tomorrow for lunch or a snack 🙂

Once home I was in the mood for some crack, and strawberries, so I had a small bowl of honey millet granola with strawbs and almond milk.  MMMMMM!  The granola is really crunchy (like, teeth beware!), and coupled with the strawbs it was great.  The millet adds a sesame-like flavor, and lots of crunch.

But that wasn’t enough, you see, and I went back to the kitchen for the glorious fatty protein that is peanut butter, real peanut butter.  Lily wanted in on the action…she was jealous watching me lick the knife 😉

With that I move on to bed, safely separating the pit from the kitchen.  You may be saying, “if she’s hungry why doesn’t she just eat?” but this ain’t really justified hunger, it’s fueled by some crazy reaction my body has to allergens.  The last week has sucked allergy-wise, so perhaps this is the year to pursue more aggressive, targeted action (read: prescription drugs).  Do any of you take Rx allergy meds?  If so, what symptoms/allergens/meds combo are you lucky enough to have?

The Seinfeld “shrinkage” episode was just on, and now the John Voight Le Baron episode is on.  Funny stuff!  Gotta love the many sayings and -isms that came from that show!

Marketing March 4, 2009

Today was quick, and somewhat productive.  Feels like it should be Thursday already, tho!

Getting ready was kind of weird since I have such short hair!  In the shower I was like, where’d it go?  And blow-drying it was really fast and easy.  Yippee 🙂

Breakfast was a bit late, and was the standard oats mix:  steel cut oats, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, water, almond butter, a dried fig, and cinnamon.

We had a business lunch at Red Lobster.  Meh, definitely not a restaurant I care for… since I ate a late breakfast and this was early lunch I just had a salad and one biscuit, and some hot tea. 

I got a bit hungry around 2-ish, so I ate this Quaker True Delights snack bar that I got for free on their website.  I used to eat gobs of Quaker chocolate chip oatmeal snack bars as a kid, and the texture, taste, and smell took me back to my childhood.  I liked the chunks of chocolate, whole almonds, and low sugar content of the bar, but I don’t think I’m so interested as to buy any.  I eat bars infrequently these days…once a week maybe?  Does anyone want the coupon for $1 off a box?  I’ll send it to the first person who comments below that they want it.  (I’ll email you after you comment to get your address).

Sometime around 4 I got a little hungry again, so I ate my Fuji from yesterday.

Chris and I left to get ready for our workshop, heading to New Seasons to pick up our platters, wine, and bread.  The platters were so pretty again!  I forgot to take in my own platters this time around, so I got plastic containers again 😦

Here’s what the spread ended up looking like, charcuterie plate, olive ciabatta, and fruit & cheese plate:

Everything was SO tasty, esp. the bread!!!  It was so fresh and full of yummy olives.  New Seasons sliced it up for me at the store and it was still a little warm 🙂  I ate way too much of this stuff after our workshop was over, esp. the cheeses and bread.  Bad me!

That’s it for the day.  It’s already after 11 and I have (I typed ‘hate’ first!) to get up early for work.  I hope you all had a great Wednesday, and are ready for the home stretch of the week 🙂

A test of values March 1, 2009

Hey there.  Is everyone gearing up to watch the new Celebrity Apprentice tonight?  It starts in less than half an hour so I gotta make this semi-quick.  It is a two hour episode tonight!

I definitely regretted drinking the additional red wine last night after we got home, as I woke up with a headache 😦  I was not planning on going to yoga, and I stayed in bed until 9:30! 

Once up, got the coffee going, played with LB, and settled in for my bowl of oats and cup of joe while reading blogs.  Same ol’ tasty oats, nothing different today.  Stay tuned tomorrow for a variation!

We hung around the house all morning, and I fantasized about going to Trader Joe’s to buy the week’s groceries while Chris went to the gym.  That eventually materialized at like 1:30, finally.  Just before we left I realized I never at lunch!  I had a quick snack of ww toast with Maranatha:

Here’s where my values were tested and where I was totally disappointed.  I’ve never bought all of my groceries at TJ’s, just a few odds and ends, and I was shocked at how much packaging they use, the lack of bulk products, and how they even package their produce individually in many cases. 

I began in the produce section and saw that the only broccoli was individually wrapped crowns.  Hm, no go there.  The trifecta of grapes looked good, but were packaged in a clamshell that isn’t recyclable at the curb.  I grabbed those anyway.  Next up, Chinese BBQ pork in plastic (tough to avoid with meats), quart of yogurt (impossible to avoid plastic packaging with dairy), crackers (okay, I can handle the box & bag), soup (individual aseptic cartons that can only be downcycled? or, steel cans I can deal with), oats (is that cylinder even recylable?), dried fruit (no bulk anywhere??? tons and tons of small plastic packages)…

By the time I got through the whole store I was almost feeling sick from the excess of consumption and packaging all around me and in my cart.  Don’t get me wrong, I really love TJ’s foods, but today I saw them in a whole new light as I walked through the store.  The one aisle I didn’t visit was the frozen foods; I didn’t have anything frozen on the list to buy, and all frozen food boxes are not recyclable. I felt really sad and disappointed that I couldn’t feel good purchasing half of the stuff there, and I ended up putting everything back except the pork and the yogurt. 

I went to Fred Meyer after getting home, and felt much better about the choices I was able to make there.  Even though packaging is not as important as the food inside of it, I still really want to reduce the packaging, especially plastic, that I use; I tested and clarified my values today and it felt good to be strong.  At Fred Meyer I had the choice to use my own containers for dried fruit, oats, lunch meat, and produce, which meant the only commercial packaging I had was for crackers, jam, Silk creamer, soup, and bread. 

What can I do to reduce my packaging and footprint further?  I am thinking of making large batches of soup and bread dough to freeze so I can have tasty, homemade, healthier choices that I can wrap myself in reusable containers.  Today I also looked in to Community Supported Agriculture to see about getting a local farmshare.  Whether or not I do that, I plan on attending farmer’s markets this year to see what kind of local items I can buy.  I love markets and haven’t visited any here in Oregon for years 😦

I want to research where my food comes from more, and learn how to make better upstream choices that reflect my values of increasing sustainability and reducing my eco footprint.  Okay, enough of my earthy-broad rant 😉

I looked at Stevia today at Fred Meyer (forgot at TJ’s), and it is so expensive!!  Like $10-13 for a bottle, box of packets (packaging!), or drops. I decided to forego it for now.

After shopping and putting groceries away we headed off to Fajitas for dinner.  When I ordered my soup Noe asked me if I wanted a large bowl, or a small one.  “There’s a small one??? Sweet, sign me up!”  More portion control and less waste.  I had that, part of a Cazuela (I used to spell it wrong), chips & salsa, and part of La Casa.

Yummmmy in my tummy!

Being a bit out of sorts for most of today has made me want to eat a lot this afternoon and evening.  Emotional eating sucks!  Or is it that I have’t had enough whole foods today, including fruits and veggies?  Eventually I caved tonight and decided to try out the TJ’s nonfat plain European style yogurt. 

Holy moley it is sour!  As I licked off the tub seal (can’t waste any, right? ;)) I thought it tasted like sour cream or cream cheese, and began thinking of all sorts of savory applications for it.

I decided to have half a cup with a few tablespoons of sugar-free raspberry preserves I picked up today.  Yes, sugar-free and Splenda-full…couldn’t justify the high caloric content of 50 cals for one tbsp of jam 😦  The combo was good, but still sour as you can imagine.  I think this yogurt tastes good, and I knew going in that it would be sour, but I’m going to have to get creative this week to spice it up a bit and see how best to use it.

We’re watching the Celebrity Apprentice now…what do you think?  Interesting mix of celebrities this time around!!!  That poker player chick is quite a pushy pistol! 

Okay, time to go upgrade the computer.  Wish me luck with my technology!