Foodie Friday

All of my intentions yesterday were set to make up for the wonderful Nopalitos I had from Vasquez . I estimated around 800 to 1000 calories were consumed. That is insane for someone my size. Even, my salad was primal (okay if you want to get nit-picky, the almonds and cashews were roasted in peanut oil, the horror!) By the way, if you ever wanted to know if you can do primal and vegan, the answer is totally. I don’t think this is technically raw, because of the nuts, but there are no animal products. I would not recommend this path as it was lacking a certain substantial mouth-feel that in my opinion can only be obtained with a fattiness/protein of a meat or cheese source,  but the flavoring of the salt and oil gave the vegetables a semblance of dressing, even if a bit dry.

I have a hard time working out when I am incredibly hungry, so immediately I had to make some dinner last night, in lieu of strapping on the sneakers and heading to the clubhouse. My favorite recipe on the Whole 30 was the mashed cauliflower, I believe this is something that I could make very easily instead of the chemical crappiness of package mashed potatoes. I use the term foodie ironically, but with the exception of a few cup o ramens, I have been really into constructing my own dishes lately. It took way too long to mash these up, I had not cut off the root part of the vegetable, which was causing me great distress. After stabbing the mixture multiple times, I took it out to discover that this bottom part was keeping the machine from properly processing it. Once removed, it was a simple few minutes to have this mashed goodness. So, remember, be sure to properly decapitate your cauliflower before processing, or else it will not be a fun time.

Not pictured is the coconut aminos I used to flavor the grilled squash I prepared. This stuff is awesome. Very soy-sauce like taste without being full of soy, so it rocks like that.  Just so you know, aside from my normal walks, not only did I not lift anything heavy, I actually lifted something light.. a cupcake from Hey Cupcake! to my mouth. Oh. My. God. Okay, yeah definitely not paleo, but only one, and let me tell you, the law of diminishing returns does not apply for this taste of heaven. I had the Double Dose chocolate flavored one with some strawberry milk from the gas station. It is almost like I want my diet to fail. After being hungry all damn day, I figured there was a slight justification for indulgence. No, it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty for it, but it could be something worse like alcohol or smoking.

The only thing I can do is move forward and yes I did do some Vinyasa (or at least I think that is what it is based off of) flow this morning via Metal 60. Today was my 30th class and only 20 more classes until my orange focus bracelet, which is kinda cool. The skinnier/younger/hotter chicks in my class who also happen to be more flexible do not bother me as much, but inspire me to take my practice further. It would be so cool be able to do the standing splits or monkey pose, or Scorpion Pose even but it really up to me and no one else to be able to accomplish these goals. In order to get my bracelet by October 1st, I will need to go every single day, except on my Thursday breakfasts, but it is so much more than a stupid little piece of rubber, if all of my classes are half-ass then what would be the point of having 50+ hours of yoga under my belt. I really need to get focused and be present, that might just be the biggest challenge in the practice. Well, time to get off my tuckus and do my hourly walk, stay sweaty, stretchy and sexy!

Thorsday

Destroyed breakfast today, not terribly proud, but it was weird. Normally I would feel disgustingly bloated and guilty for eating all of the beans and potatoes, but strangely enough, the food seemed to be just right for my appetite this morning. Could have been due to the fact that I did like 80 minutes of cardio and power yoga yesterday. Yes, hump day was a bit overkill, but the good news is that despite my dietary indiscretions I am back in the hundred-teens in terms of poundage, just barely. My comfortable level would be under 115, but that would mean I definitely don’t need to be eating like I did this morning.  Coincidentally, after breakfast, I stumbled on this article by Tara Stiles regarding exercising “aggressively” which leads to overeating. While, I agree there is such a thing as emotional eating and appetite increase caused by coritsol from over-exercising, I am willing to bet that a lot of the caloric mis-steps we make from exercising stem from the fact that we are just freaking hungry from all the calories burned. There are tons of articles that I could link to that suggest that when we exercise, our fat cells are sneaky little assholes that want to preserve themselves, so our metabolism, yes that stuff, gets ramped up actually causing a spike in appetite. Okay, don’t believe me? here, here, and here, and if you are really feeling froggy, just Google the terms, exercise metabolism appetite. It really almost seems like a Sysphian struggle with the diet and fitness industry. It is like they want you to eat their special fuel be it in diet shakes, protein powders or empty sugars, just enough to power you through a workout so that you can kill yourself just enough for a one or two pound weight loss., and then probably splurge again because you are so hungry. Guess what? You don’t really half to kill yourself to lose that, just cut about 500 calories, and really that isn’t that much if you track your food.  Mainly I just don’t want to feel like this all the time:

adapted from: Hyperbole and a half

Too much pansy-ass cardio yesterday, even if it was sprinkled with push-ups. Today’s plan of attack is some heavy lifting, STRONG LIKE THOR!  The treadmill is boring, but at least I have an iPad and cable, to distract myself.  I am having the goldilocks syndrome of weight lifting. The 5 pound dumbells I have at home are too small, but the 15 pound weights at the clubhouse are too heavy. I may have to set aside my cheapness and buy a pair of 8 and 10 pound weights to really get a challenge, and not do my workouts half-assed. Good lord, I ate like 2 hours ago, and I really just want to smash a snickers in my face hole.  THOR HUNGRY!

To my credit, though, when I do walk on the treadmill, I put the incline at 4.0 or even higher. It may be a myth that doing this will give you a toned tushy, but any behavior that will potential feed my ego I will certainly engage in.  Squatember is a dream that is slowly dying. Maybe on the ides, I will pick it up again. Does anyone else feel more comfortable in starting things on the month’s beginning. I know that seems to be the best time to do a challenge, as we all know that it takes about 4 weeks for a habit to sink it. Months are so arbitrary, maybe the ides are a better idea for me, or even just starting at a week. Readers: When starting a challenge, when do you feel it is best to start. Weekly? If so, do you start Sunday or Monday? Do you think it is better to start a monthly challenge on the 1st or 15th of a month? Feel free to leave your comments and share your experiences.

Whole 30 – Day 30

Not really sure what the deal with my appetite is. Feeling pretty icky because of womantimes, sure you appreciated that oversharing. I am so close, yoga yesterday no post, more of the same stuff. Except I think with the omission of my avocados and coconut cream with my coffee, I have been feeling the lack of calories and my body is screaming for some food, for the past 4 or so days, I have been feeling like this:

It hasn’t been all terrible. Last night, I cooked the rest of my bounty (save for the corn) from the YummyFarms delivery.

 

Purreed tomatoes, a serrano, and a bell pepper  with a splash of vinegar to make the base for the chicken. It has been great to be creative in the kitchen, but ultimately I miss this:

This has been forbidden due to its sugar content. Miss Fruity pants does not have much of a case against added sugars in thing when I have been drinking smoothies like it is going out of style. I have already decided that I will make this a Whole 31 because it seems right to complete the whole month of August with the meal plan and then I can weigh myself once all of my water weight has been successfully flushed. Plus it is a holiday weekend, and well I haven’t been to church (aka: Barcelona, aka Mad Classy, aka dubsteps and drankz!!) in a while.  Come on Lauren, you have to remind yourself you are not 21, but actually 31. This is always a depressing conversation to have with myself, wild woman to wifey material.

Moodiness aside, I still try to cultivate my creative side, oh and to make myself feel a bit better for slacking yet again on the workout, for shame, for shame. Word maps are a fun little artistic way to display what your word frequency is for blogging that is based on actual facts rather than self-defined tags. Here is the one I got from Wordle:

Yesterday, I forgot my FitBit, so the numbers were going to be low, and the day before I left my key fob for the apartment’s gym, so without my beloved air conditioner, treadmill, and television, it was absolutely unheard of to actually get the steps. Yeeeah, that’s the ticket, can’t walk without a treadmill.  Well, this has been painful to write just in that uninspiring, crampy, complainy, and defeated by fruit sort of way. Whole 60, here I come (unless I dive face first into a Whataburger Patty Melt) It is funny, the more I think about digressing from my new found clean eating lifestyle, the less it really appeals to me. Do I really want to gain the possibly 20 pounds that I have lost by cutting out all those nasty things. Not, no, but HELL no! We will see what I feel like tomorrow at midnight.