Does anyone else love to look at other people’s bookshelves and do you get really excited when you find that you have books in common with someone else?  I do.  Super excited.  The people who hosted us for dinner had the absolute cutest, sweetest little boy and had great books.  I scored a couple to borrow, which also accounts for my absenteeism.  Right now I’m reading “Marriage to a Difficult Man:  The Uncommon Union between Jonathan & Sarah Edwards” and I borrowed “Sex and the Supremacy of Christ.”  I now have about 22,465 books in my “to-read” stack, most of them borrowed.

Today, I experimented with some energy pudding inspired by Miss Gina’s efforts over at her blog and also going from memory from Brendan Brazier’s Thrive. I lent my copy of Thrive to a kick-ass tri-athlete friend of mine (she’s the one who got me into running and she rocks.  And makes the best chocolate chip cookies ever) and vaguely remembered maca being a good thing for training recovery.  As a practice for my 5k run tomorrow (oh yeah, I’m also running a 5k!  How about that?) I made some pudding for my pre-Zumba snack with chia seeds, hemp nuts and coconut milk.  I also dumped in a scoop of maca for good measure.

NEVER, ever, EVER do that.  It will make you gag.  Possibly barf.  This is the strong taste I sometimes catch in Amazing Grass or Vega products.  I never knew what it was before, but now that I have the taste isolated, I know.

I googled around for it to make sure maca really does taste that awful and I didn’t buy a bad batch.  Kristen over at Kristen’s Raw thinks maca usually taste like feet.  I think that’s an insult to feet — I think it tastes like dirt in a sweaty butt crack.  Sorry to be graphic, but that’s the only way you can understand the horror.  Blended with 32 ounces of smoothie, the pudding was tolerable.

That globby stuff in the middle is the pudding. I would totally make this again WITHOUT maca. It's kinda tapioca like.

I have a lot of catching up to do on the ol’ blog! I mentioned last week about a hip-releasing yoga vid I wanted to review, I took a step that might will change my life, I bought one of those Body Bugg things (I call it my Body Buddy) and I wanted to tell ya’ll about my experience with it this past week (hint:  my boss is about to buy one now!) and there’s more to come!!  Sheesh!

Peace (and thanks for sticking around!)

E.

In any case, last Saturday, the number of cookies wasn’t pretty.  Or vegan.

This week has been an effort to largely get back on track with my eating habits, but I have been HUNGRY.  I’m not sure if it’s the workouts or what.  So I’ve upped the food a bit.  But it was time for me to take a little break from the PB Loco.  I’ve been putting it on the side of bananas and apples.  I’ve been putting it on toast.  I’ve been depositing it directly into ma mouf via spoon.  I’ve been doing this multiple times a day.  I strongly suspect the combo of sugar, salt and oils (all of which are additives in PB Loco) are just too much for my taste buds to resist.

So these bad boys are going to have to be hidden away in my freezer:

In the freezer, sorry guys

I think I’ll try and make some of Tina’s Peanut Buttery Bars with the White Chocolate Peanut Butter just to get it out of the house.  I’ve had enough of it .  I wish I was the type of person who could eat one cookie or one teaspoon of PB and be satisfied.

As soon as I’m done with these, I’ll be switching back to my regular TJ’s raw almond butter and peanut butter — I still eat it quite enthusiastically, but it’s not quite such a compulsion.  I think because it doesn’t have the added sugar/salt/fat.  Has anyone read The End of Overeating?  He makes the point that companies know the proper balance of sweet/salty/fatty that triggers our brain’s reward center and they engineer their junk food so that it is virtually irresistible to mere mortals.  That certainly has been my experience, so I think avoiding engineered foods sounds like a good idea for me.

Moving on to some yummy drinks:

Hemp-a-licious

That’s cooled coffee shaken with some hemp milk, a few drops of Vanilla Stevia, and ice.  I also made some coffee ice cream using coffee, maple syrup, coconut milk, dates and a bit of carageenan.  It was delicious.  Unfortunately, I meant to take a picture but it was gone before I knew it.  My one trouble with making homemade ice cream is that it freezes too hard in the freezer.  Directly out of the ice cream maker it’s wonderful.  But any leftovers turn out rock-y.  I added carageenan hoping that would keep it slippery, but no luck.

Oh well, it’s probably a good idea to learn patience and let it defrost.  :-)

I made this GM (I think it was this one, it’s the only pic I have left on my camera of a GM) with a frozen banana.  All other things were equal (strawberries, almond milk, etc).  The frozen banana really made it extra delicious — creamier and sweeter.  I recommend freezing your bananas before blending them.  Oh, and you have to peel them first.  I learned this the hard way.  Same goes for avocados.  Peel them and take the pits out.  That may be obvious to everyone, but it wasn’t to me.

Have a great weekend!  Happy Independence Day to my US readers.  And I hope my non-US readers enjoy their July 4th.

Peace!

E.

Leaving my Monster behind. In the freezer.  Which did me absolutely no good at work. I really, really missed the GM today.  I defrosted it and drank it tonight, but I was kinda full from dinner and am now a bit sloshy and poochy feeling.  I also ended up quite hungry at my evening Zumba class but soldiered through and shook-it, shook-it vigorously.  I managed to bruise one of my finger joints during a too-enthusiastic grapevine.

Sigh.

Eats:

Banana, apple, cinnamon and raw and wriggling almond butter

That was supposed to be my pre-Zumba fuel since the class starts at 5:30, which is right around when I likes to eat.  Instead, it replaced my Green Monster at the 10:30 am feeding.

Hey!  I found these random snacks on my camera, I think I forgot to post them yesterday:

'Zeke tortilla with banana and cinnamon

Almost empty Sun Dried Tomato Sabra (not as good as the pine nut flavor, in my opinion, but evidently I had no trouble eating it)

My "chip" to dip into the hummus

Chip & Hummus: Come to mama

Dinner tonight has become a favorite of mine:

Broco, yaller squash, zucchini, red bell peps stir fried.

With the star of the show:

Baked tofu

I had no idea that you didn’t need to fry tofu to get that nice crust on the top.  You can bake it after lightly brushing on some oil with a high smoke point.  Righteous!  I love this.  It has such a nice firm texture when you bake it this way.  I broiled this one a bit to get that nice brown-ness.

For dessert, I broke into this bad boy:

Sweet lusciousness!

I was so pleasantly surprised by this.  It was like… dessert.  I could eat it like a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.  I tried a little spoonful of it and promptly dove in while doing my best Homer Simpson impression.

Stop the presses! This was INCREDIBLE!

Yeah, I couldn’t even take the paper off all the way before diving in.  You wanna start something!?!  Actually, that stupid paper seal is a big complaint about these Peanut Butters.  It’s hard to peel off all the way, and this jar was sitting upside down in my cabinet and some of the oil leaked out before I even peeled the paper off.  That doesn’t seem too tightly sealed.

Anyway, this stuff rocks.  I love it so.  That’s all I can say.  I was afraid there would be a raspberry syrup or something in there.  I honestly couldn’t taste any raspberries, which is hunky dory by me because I find adding raspberry to desserts significantly decreases my enjoyment of said dessert.

Then I realized that white chocolate tends not to be vegan, read the label and confirmed that yep, for the second time* today I am a doofus and, as a result, broke my vegan vow.

The end.

*If you count bruising my own finger in Zumba while performing a grapevine as my second doofus act of the day**, cheerfully devouring white chocolate peanut butter while thinking it is vegan but not actually reading the label is actually the third doofus act of the day.  Depends on how you’re counting.  But I think grapevine injuries occur all the time, so I didn’t count that.

**  Obviously, forgetting another part of my lunch is the first doofus act of the day.  I feel like I did in the third grade when my mom decided I was old enough to get my own breakfast, collect my school stuff and get out the door without her help. I was a complete mess for a week. But that was, like, sometime in the mid 80s and I’m like 30 now.

Whatever, my footnotes are getting out of control.

Peace.

-E.

But shopping for dresses SUCKED.  Sorry, those tulip skirts with all the extra pleating around the waist?  Make me look like I’m smuggling pumpkins in my undies.  Not attractive.

That gorgeous Anthropologie dress?  Is NOT from Anthropologie (GARRRRRR) and is instead a terrible, see-though polyester knock-off that is cut so low in the back that you can practically see my butt crack.  Antro typically only uses polyester as a lining.  Oh, and typically, their labels aren’t in SPANISH.  The seller of this dress swears it’s a “sample”.  Maybe “sample” is the new word for “tacky, cheap and way over priced.”  I was so bummed, that dress looked so pretty in the pictures.  And so, so awful in person.  I spent $88 on it and it’s not worth $8.

I went to go get my hair cut the Thursday (it hasn’t been cut since January) even though I had work.  It was the only day I could get in with my hair lady.  She only works part-time, so it’s tough to get last minute appointments.  Why I am scheduling a last minute appointment for a wedding I’ve known about since Easter is another issue…

So I had to leave work, drive 45 minutes to the salon and when I got there, my stylist had just left because of a family issue.  GARRRR!!!  Back to work I went.  Obviously, my hair woes aren’t a big deal compared to a family issue, but it’s just been one thing after another.  I went through my closet to see if I could find an old dress to wear since the Faux-nthropologie dress was not happening.  I forgot to take my dresses to the cleaners after we got back from our cruise!!!!!  I AM SUCH A DORK.

Anyway, this sounds so stupid and petty and whiny.  I did end up getting my bangs cut at a place across from where I work (they couldn’t squeeze in a full cut, but oh well.  The bangs look better at least).  And the dress I’m wearing to the wedding is pretty.  At least J.Crew never lets you down.

On that note, I am off for a few days to beautiful Colorado for some family time and to meet up with friends I’ve never met.  I love those kinds of friends.

When I get back on Monday… I will be posting NAKED PICTURES on the blog.  Okay, not full naked.  Just my face, naked of makeup.  And yes, it will be untouched, unphotoshoped and… unflattering.  But you’ll get to see what my skin looks like after the veganizing has been underway.  Are you on the edge of your seats?  Who could blame you?

Peace!

E.

My goal is to run my first 10k this year, do a 1/2 marathon next year and then do a full marathon the year after that.  GULP!  Can it be done?  Well, yeah.  Can it be done by ME!?

Um.

IthinkIcan I thinkIcan…

I am such a nerd that as soon as I saw this picture of Gina’s Princess Medal, I knew I wanted my 1/2 marathon to be the Disney Princess 1/2.  I am a nerd, but I find that little gold piece of plastic with the fake jewel very inspiring.  And I want one.  ’Cuz I am a princess.  P-to the -R to the N- to the CESS!  (A little Too Wong Foo… quote there).

Okay, so I’m hanging it out there.  I will run those races and all ya’ll are my witnesses.  If I don’t do it, you can throw raw hot dogs at me or something.  Raw hot dogs give me the heebie jeebies.  So do sharks.

Ah.  Weight.

The short answer:  about the same. 

The long answer:  Sigh.  Thanks to ladies like Angela and Gina, I’m trying to get away from the neurotic calorie counting and scale hounding that I’ve subjected myself to for the past 20-ish years of my life.  First, I’m really bad at math, and turning each meal into an algebra assignment where I have to research calorie contents, multiply by serving sizes and divide as necessary were not fun.  Also, the stricter and more crazy I got about the calories and the scale, the more resistant things seemed to get.  It was like trying to force two magnets together with the same polarity.  The more I pushed, the more they pushed back (they being my sanity and weight).  

Have I shed millions of pounds as a vegan?  Well, no.  The scale is still showing that I weigh pretty much the same as when I was eating 1/2 a pound of chicken breasts and 2 eggs every day.  But when I went in for my annual doctor’s visit this morning, I am six pounds lighter than I was last year.  That’s even after all my snacking yesterday and pizza night (yes, I am so neurotic that I know the scale should be two pounds higher the day after pizza night).  Why this is showing up on the doc’s scale and not on my Tanita scale, I dunno.  It’s not the clothes I wore because (again, revealing my neuroses) I always wear the lightest possible clothes to the doc’s.  I also try to schedule it early in the morning and eat breakfast afterwards so the scale isn’t affected by the weight of my food or clothes.  Crazy?  Yes, but accurate!

As an aside, I always find myself a little surprised when the nurse asks me if I need to “empty my bladder” before I get on the scale.  I immediately revert back to when my mom used to always ask if I needed to go potty every time we passed a bathroom (obviously, that was back in my toilet training days).  I always think about her question for far too long.  Isn’t that too personal to answer? Also, is it really necessary? I mean, I’m just stepping on the scale, it’s not like I’ve got a long car trip ahead of me or something.

Anyway, that’s sort of the update with how veganism is treating me.  I eat when I’m hungry (obviously, just look at my snack record for yesterday) and can eat lots of yummy fruit which is very satisfying.  I still catch myself worrying about the calories in things because, let’s face it, the behavior I began learning when I was 10 isn’t going to go away overnight.  Ironically, because veganism has such a restrictive connotation, I’ve found eating this way surprisingly freeing.  I don’t have to worry about any HFCs, sodium, fillers, or hormones added to my orange.  It’s really an amazing thing.

Peace,

Elizabeth