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Happy Lazy Saturday

Hey guys!  Today my husband and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary.  I would like to say that we went out to a fancy steak house and had a wonderful dinner but that was not the case this year.  Unfortunately the husband had to work (5:30pm to 6am) so he slept a good deal today and then had to left for work.  But we made the best of it.  We had a pretty good day.  I enjoyed that it was just the two of us at home having a casual loving day.  We watched some tv, I made him some beef stew and we enjoyed each other’s company.  Lately he has been working a lot…that is just the way the Army works ya know.  I do my best not to complain.  I know one day when our lives slow down we will have nothing but time together.  Hopefully many years from now you will find us with our grey hair sitting on the front porch or back deck talking about the days when we didn’t have time to stop and enjoy life.

Anyways…I slept in a bit today so breakfast was out the picture.  I decided to make some ‘Beef’Fried Soba Noodles. It was sooo good.  I added some morningstar farm chik’n strips and vegetables to make it a healthy meal.  It was a perfect easy lunch.

Dinner tonight was tasty too.  I was looking through the fridge trying to decide what I wanted and I released I had all kinds of vegetables that needed to be eaten before they went bad.  Since I am the main vegetable eater in our house I will cut what I need from a vegetable and then toss them in the fridge until they are needed again.  Well tonight I found baggies of 1/2 used veggies just begging to be used before they expire.  So I tried to think of all the ways I could use up the mixture of veggies that needed to be cooked up.  I ended up making a vegetable and MSF chik’n strip curry with some coconut milk.  It was a huge plate of food that totaled 671 calories when finished.  I know that sounds high but I only had two meals…and a dessert that I am about to tell you about.

Dessert tonight is something new that I am testing out.   Banana Soft Serve is on the menu for dessert tonight.  It seems pretty easy.  Freeze 2 bananas and then blend in a food processor for about 5 minutes.  I am going to add 2 ml coconut milk and some carob chips.  I had the calories left over so I thought I would use them to try to recreate some creamy ice cream.  I have to say that I really do miss the rich creaminess of ice cream.  The soy version we get here in Germany is just not that good.

I took the day off from working out.  I need to pick up some kind of moisture wicking spandex like shorts to wear under my workout pants.  FYI…chubby people chafe when we work out.  I thought I had a slight irritation on my thigh but it is a full blown blister the size of a half dollar…and it popped on it’s own while I was working out last week.  So I am doing my best to let my body rest a few days.  I might end up at the gym tomorrow since I know I cannot go Monday night but we will see.  It is nice just to have some time to myself on the week.  Tomorrow I am meeting a friend at Chili’s for lunch.  They have vegetarian options so I am happy.  Not to mention some of the options are almost healthy.  But a black bean burger and fries do sound really good.  I have to stop by the grocery store tomorrow too.  I am running low on fresh veggies and soy milk.  So I have to stop in and pick up some basic stuff.  The husband works most nights this week so I think I am going to cook up a bunch of stuff tomorrow so that I am not cooking every night this week.    I am hoping to make some vegetable lasagna, veggie chili and maybe something else.  Then I will also be prepared for my lunches.  I hate scurrying around at the last minute trying to pack a lunch in the mornings before I leave for work.  It makes me late most days.  But if I plan then I will have it packed up the night before.

Well I should really get back to relaxing and watching TV.  I will post an update regarding the banana soft serve that I am creating tonight.  I cannot wait to taste it.

2

That is right.  I am down 2 pounds this week when I weighed in.  I hopped on the scale last night and it said 216 and then I got on there this morning and it still said 216.  I was pretty happy!  Last night I had a great workout.  This picture is from my treadmill when I hopped off.  I was over 500 calories when I left the treadmill :-)   I was very happy with myself.   I did interval training.  Here is what I did….

  • 0-5 mins walking (speeds 3.0-3.5, some incline)
  • 5-10 run (speeds 4.8-5.0)
  • 10-15 walking (speeds 3.3-3.5, some incline)
  • 15-20 run (speed 5.0)
  • 20-25 walking (speeds 3.3-3.5, incline)
  • 25-30 run (speeds 5.0-5.5)
  • 30-32 walk speed 3.0
  • 32 run speed 5.0
  • 33 walk speed 3.0
  • 34 run speed 5.0
  • 35 walk speed 3.0
  • 36 run speed 5.0
  • 37 walk speed 3.0
  • 38 run speed 5.0
  • 39 walk speed 3.0
  • 40 run speed 5.0
  • 41-45 walk/cool down

This was a good workout for me.  I felt like I accomplished a lot.  This past week I worked out 4 days for about an hour.  Most of the time it was mainly cardio.  Once I get some of this ‘padding’ off of me then I will start to focus on weights a little more.  I know weights are important so I make sure to do them every now and then.

Anyways…I am feeling good today.  Here is my food for today:

Breakfast: 2pcs whole wheat bread, 1/2c avocado, 2c light soy milk, 1 scoop protein powder

Lunch: Amy’s Kitchen vegetable lasagna, 1/2c great northern beans

PM Snack: celery, carrots, cucumber, 4 lg olives, hummus

Dinner: Not sure…we are celebrating our anniversary (7 years…yay!) so I might make something special for the husband.  I will replace the meat in my meal with some sort of meat replacement.  We might go out for dinner but I don’t think we will.   I am okay with staying in.  I just need some quality husband time. 

Oh, I have been meaning to mention this breakfast choice that I have been repeating a lot.  I found this idea from The Voracious Vegan.  I toast two pieces of bread and then scmear avocado over them…then I lightly salt it and add a copious amount of hot sauce :-)   I know this is not a typical breakfast but holy cow it is SO GOOD.  Also…on the bodybugg site they talk about the different meals you can have on there.  Sometimes I get ideas from things they post.  Well the other day they mentioned a soy milk/protein powder smoothie mixed with instant coffee instead of fruit.  I LOVE the idea so I tried it out.  Now I am hooked.  I get to work and once things calm down (around8-8:30)  I eat the toast/avocado combination.  I put my soy coffee protein drink in the fridge.  Around 9-9:30 I get the drink out and sip on it for a while.  I try to sip on it most of the morning so that the feeling of hunger does not creep up on me.  The BEST thing about this breakfast combination is that between all of the components I am getting 37g (!!!) of protein.  I have noticed that when I have this much protein early in the day I am less likely to be hungry for junk.  I have also started to make sure that I am really tracking my protein intake. 

I have two trips coming up in March.  I plan on taking protein powder with me and picking up light soy milk as soon as I get to my destination.  I am kind of excited because one of the trips is in the US and I will get to do some shopping.  I CAN NOT wait!  I am going to pick up so much stuff and send it back.  There are tons of vegan/vegetarian items that I want to try.  BUT I have to make sure that I am not consuming a crap ton of calories.  I want to keep rolling with my weight loss.

Last week when I weighed in I talked about how I did not track my food on the bodybugg site like I thought I would.  Well this week I tracked almost every single day.  I also drank a LOT of water.  I think the only times I did not have water was one night when I had a lot of calories left and I drank some apple juice I was craving and then twice at work when I finished off my water so fast that I did not have anything else to drink so I picked up a diet soda.  I used to CRAVE Coca-Cola and/or any kind of potato chips when I was still eating meat and trying to diet…but this time around my cravings are slowing going away.  When I do have cravings (other than the skittles incident) it has been for fruit or fruit juice.  Every now and then I might want a little bit of chocolate but nothing too bad.

Oh…and since I am rambling I am just going to keep going…This morning while I was brushing my teeth I happened to look up in the mirror.  My hair looks great!  It is so shiny and healthy looking.  I don’t remember it looking so good before.  Is it possible that 36 days of being a vegetarian could make my hair look so good?  I have noticed other changes too…I feel better.  My stomach aches are few and far between (unless I have some cheese…then all bets are off).  My acid reflux problem has practically gone away.  I do tend to sleep a LOT…but I really like to sleep so I don’t consider that to be a flaw.

I have also been doing a better job of taking care of myself and showing more pride in the way I look.  When I first talked about this I knew things had to change.  A week or two later and I am feeling like I look good.  Compliments from my coworkers help too.  I have to say I have good coworkers.  They are very supportive.  One even reads my blog on occasion (Hi Allie!)  She has helped me a lot with vegetarian/vegan questions.  She is very motivating :-)

Anyways…enough for one day!  I have stuff to do.

My Predicament

My predicament…it is something I am not fully understanding right now.   Normally I weigh in every Friday morning in just my undies.  The morning time has always been the best time for me to weigh in.  My numbers have been the lowest in the morning…until now.  Last night after a GREAT workout at the gym I hopped on the scale (still in my workout cloths w/o shoes) and I weighed 215!  I was so happy.  So I thought, “OMG, this means tomorrow morning I should be down even more than this!”  Well this morning I could not wait to get on the scale in my undies.  I was so disappointed!  I was only at 217…I could not believe it.  I did not do anything crazy between my two trips to the scale.  I had a super good dinner last night around 350 calories and then 3 low fat oreos as a snack…I was still 300 calories below my calories for the whole day.  I did not drink any alcohol or add stupid amounts of salt to my food last night.  I only had about 16 oz of water to drink after I weighed in.  I just cannot fathom the difference.  I actually wonder if I should use my night time weight instead of my morning weight.  But I feel like that is cheating.  OH…my predicament.  What suggestions if any do you have?  Feel free to give advice in the comment section.  Tomorrow morning we will see what the scale says.  I am also going to peek at the scale tonight after the gym and see what it says too.

Anyways…last night at the gym was really good.  I got in 50 minutes of cardio.  It was split between 30 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the bike.  I ran 14 of 30 minutes and walked 3.5mph at a 5.0% incline most of the time I was not running.  The gym is so busy after work that it is interesting to be on a treadmill while so many people are running around me.  It is kind of motivating to work harder when everyone is running their butts off.

My food yesterday was very good.  I ended up under my calories for the day but not on purpose.  I had healthy snacks planned but never got around to them because I was so busy at work.

Breakfast – 1/2c avocado, 2pcs whole grain bread, 2c light soy milk, 1tbsp nesquik syrup, 1 scoop protein powder (469 calories)

Lunch – Huge Salad (lettuce, radishes, cucumber, onion, carrots, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, veggie shreds cheese), 1 tbsp honey mixed with 1.5 tbsp dijon mustard.  I had planned on eating 1/2c black beans and 1 serving Morningstar Farm ‘beef’ crumbles but the spices I used on there were WAY too spicy. (estimated 353 calories) I know that was not a very good lunch since I did not have enough protien…but I was shocked to learn there was 14 grams of protein in the veggies and veggie cheese.  Nice huh?

PM Snack – 1c grapes (it was supposed to be grapes, carrots, celery, cucumber and hummus but I did not have time for anything other than grapes)

Dinner – Oh yesterday night I made a super yummy dinner.  It was a  Mushroom and ‘Beef’ Pot Pie.  Here is the recipe incase you are interested. **Please note that I only list brand names so that you know what I used to get the calories and stats that I post.  If you chose to use another brand the nutritional information for the dish might change.

Mushroom and ‘Beef’ Pot Pie – 2 servings -

  • 1/4 pound Portabello mushrooms (sliced)
  • 2 servings Morningstar Farms beef crumbles
  • 1c Onion (chopped)
  • 1/2 c carrot (chopped)
  • 1c Zucchini (chopped)
  • 1c Bush’s Great Northern Beans
  • 1c Swanson’s Vegetable Broth
  • 1.5 tbsp Better Beef Boullion (vegetarian)
  • 1c Silk Light Soymilk
  • 1.5 tbsp flour
  • 2 Pillsbury reduced fat crescent rolls

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Added all vegetables to a skillet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray over medium heat.  Once the veggies started to stick to the pan add 1/2c vegetable broth and stirred.  Then let the pan to sit while the broth cooks down.  Then once the vegetables started to stick again I added the remaining broth and stirred.  I also added the boullion, beans and ‘beef’ crumbles at this point.  Once most of the liquid has cooked out and the vegetables are soft I turned the heat off and sprinkled flour over the dish.  Stir to spread the flour around.  It will coat most of the dish.  Then turn the heat back on med-low.  Add soy milk slowly and keep stirring.  The sauce will start to thicken.  Remove from heat and divide between two small baking dishes.  Top with crescent roll and back for 15-17 minutes until crescent roll is lightly brown and crispy.  Serve!  Warning: try not to fall in love with this dish too much.  It is comfort food 110%.  :-)   Here are the stats according to my bodybugg site:

Well I should get back to real life instead of my blog life.  I have a final paper to write for my marketing class.  And then I have a 2 month break.  My next class isn’t until April (woohoo!).  But the last 4 classes in my degree program are the hardest :-(   I will have to spend a LOT of time studying to keep my GPA at a reasonable level.  Anyways…have a great day!  Don’t forget that today is Vegan Thursday (according to Katie) :-)

No Gym Today

Well…lately we have been getting a ton of snow.  Things have been closing early and driving is not the best idea.  So, unfortunately I am not going to the gym after work today.  :-(   But I have been eating RIGHT and drinking lots of WATER.  I have been taking time to plan my meals on the bodybugg website at night so that I am ready for the next day.

I have picked up some portabello mushrooms during my last trip to the store.  I am not sure what to make with them….any suggestions?

Tonight I will finish up the last of my delicious vegan eggplant ‘parmesan’.  Holy crap it is SO good.  And with a 2 oz portion of pasta I am totally stuffed.  I have picked up three vegan cookbooks recently (In the Garden of Vegan, How it all Vegan and Dulce la Vegan).  They have great stuff in them!!  I have sticky notes marking all kinds of recipes I want to try out.

Sorry I don’t have much more to write about.  I am sure I will be chatty later in the week.

Workout Summary from treadmill

First off, I have to tell you about the GREAT workout I had!  I am sore and have a blister on my foot but there is no way I will plateau again this week!!!!!  Anyways here is a picture from the treadmill when I finished up.  I ran over 17 minutes of the 45 I was on the treadmill.  The calories listed are not accurate according to my bodybugg. The ‘bugg’ said I burned just over 500 calories when I hopped off the treadmill.  Once I left the treadmill I got on a stationary bike and rode for about 20 minutes.  Then I was tired so I left the gym.

Once I got home I did some random housework around the house and decided to try a new recipe from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen.  I decided to make Vegan Eggplant “Parmesan”.  This is my first run using the non-dairy cheese sauces that I hear web sites talk about all the time.  I am hoping it is good.   It looks really tasty.  I am going to serve it with a side of whole grain rice mixed with some vegan butter.

For dessert….a baby.  Get in my belly!  lol…not a real baby, but an Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie Baby inspired from Katie’s many versions of babies.

Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie Baby

  • 120g raw cashews
  • 230g dates
  • 1/2c quick cook oats
  • 4 tbsp dark cocoa powder

This created 13 balls at 30 oz each…112 calories per ball.  It is not something I can (calorie-wise) afford to eat everyday but it is a nice treat and REALLY chocolaty!  Thanks again Katie for creating these wonderful bites of heaven!

Snowday…I mean, Sunday

Good morning.  This is what I woke up to at 6am this morning.  This picture was taken just after I woke up.  I am leaning out my balcony door to snap a picture of the main road in town and the business next to us.

Sunday Morning...A Snow Day

Currently, it is 12:56pm and the sun is shining.  The snow has stopped falling and the roads are clearing up.  I still think I will be staying in most of the day.  I had hoped to go to the gym but I have super sore hip muscles.  Ouch!  If I don’t make it to the gym I have two options…take the day off and ice my hip or do a workout dvd here at home.

So far today has been a mellow day.  Once the husband got home from work around 6:40am I laid back down with him and slept late again.  When I got up I was in the mood for lunch so I had some more fried noodles.  This time I added some crunchy peanut butter to try to get a peanut sauce on the noodles.  It was just okay.  I ate about 2/3rds of the meal and I was full.  A little later I decided to make up some fruit salad with strawberries, grapes, nectarines and bananas.  It was tasty!!

Here are some pictures of food I found on my camera when I uploaded today.  It is some food that I have had in the past 31 days of being a vegetarian.

Roasted Vegetable Salad...so good!

Stuff Acorn Squash - stuffed with brown rice, onion, mushroom, zucchini and topped with some veggie shreds cheese

Here are some super cute pictures of the kitties.  They have been busy lately.

Socks is posing for the camera....

When I got up today I went back to the bed room and found this…

The kitties did not want to get up today!

When I took pictures of the snow this morning the kitties were curious and walked out on the balcony.  I snapped this as soon as I saw it.

Paw print in the snow...so cute!

Well…the more I sit here the more I think I should go to the gym.  Maybe I will take the camera and snap a few pictures.  I’ll be back….

Sinful Saturday

Actually I think this was a Sensational Saturday.  There was nothing sinful about today.  I slept in, hit up the grocery store, spent some time at the gym and had a tasty dinner.  It has been a great day!  Here is a snapshot of my calories in and out…and this is only up to 6pm tonight.  It is not even a full day!

30 Jan 10, calories in and out

My food today was a little off since I slept till 11am this morning.  For breakfast I had 16 oz of an Odwalla smoothie.  Then before I went to the gym at 2pm I thought I should have something in my belly so I had 1 cup of light soy milk with a scoop of protein powder.  It was pretty good.  Normally I mix it into a smoothie but I found that the powder is pretty good in the soy milk alone.  Anyways…the gym was SO empty today.  It did not help that the weather is crazy.  We have a mix of snow and ice so most people are staying in.  But not me. :-)  I went to the gym!  When I arrived I hopped on the treadmill and started my workout.  I went for 30 minutes total and ran just over 1/2 of the time.  The rest of the time was spent walking with an incline at a 3.5 pace.  I was happy when I hopped off there and then I started to do some arm weights.  After the weights I decided that I wanted more so I cardio so I hopped on a stair stepper for about 5 minutes…it kicked my butt so I opted out and found an elliptical trainer that I could use.  So I worked out another 20 minutes on the elliptical and then decided I was ready to leave.  In the end I burned about 650 calories in that hour.  You can see it on the chart above around the 3pm mark.  Dinner tonight is a new favorite treat I have stumbled upon.  I picked up some soba noodles and created fried noodles out of them.  I added vegetarian chicken broth, veggies, soy sauce and sesame oil.  It was a big dinner but SO good.  It is hard to believe how much food one serving is.  And it is a one pot kind of meal so it is easy to make and clean up.  Before bed I plan on having some fresh strawberries, grapes and a cold glass of chocolate soy milk.  This is not a typical day’s food, but it is okay.  I am glad to get in a big workout and burn a lot of calories today.  Hopefully this will help beat my plateau.  Tomorrow I HOPE I don’t sleep as late :-)  and I plan on going to the gym again.  This time around I might even stay longer than an hour.  It will help me to make up for any days this week that I might not make it.  Have a good weekend.

A Plateau So Soon?

Well, I hopped on the scale this morning thinking I would see some progress.  I went to the gym 4 times this week and one of those trips was 70 minutes of cardio. Well…I was wrong.  I am still sitting at 218lbs.  I did not meet my goals of tracking my food every day on the bodybugg website but I did drink tons of water.

I have no one to blame but myself.  As the month of January draws to an end I think I am going to stick with my vegetarian (almost vegan) eating habits.  I have enjoyed the variety of vegetables that I have been eating.  Not to mention I have just bought a bunch of vegan items to help things along.

Next week is another week and another chance to lose some weight.  I need to keep up going to the gym and work harder to track my food.

Website Updates

Just a quick FYI.  I updated my measurements under the stats page and my goals.  I will write more later.  I have a dinner date (at home w/ the hubby) to watch WhiteOut…oh scary :-)

Good Morning

Don’t worry.  I am still here and still on plan.  In fact…yesterday was a fantablous day!  I ate really good, drank tons of water and spent a good amount of time at the gym.

The last few days have been going well too.  I have not had any weird cravings and for 99% of the time my hands have stayed out of the candy jar at work.  I believe 100% that my skittles relapse last week was due to my TOM visiting me.  Because I don’t really have any cravings most of the time.

I had a person comment about the amount of protien I am getting and that it could be the cause of my cravings.   My goal is 90 grams of protien a day.  I try to have protein at every meal if possible.  And I snack on things that could have protein (hummus, soy milk w/ protein powder, etc).  I think I should restate what I am classifying myself as.  I am a vegetarian that eats VERY little animal products.  By very little…I mean, maybe one to two times a week tops…and only when I don’t have much else of a choice.  When my husband and I eat out (not very often) I try very hard to pick a place that I know I can have a somewhat balanced meal.  But I am finding that I would rather have some egg on a salad or a bean burrito w/ a SMALL amount of cheese instead of opting to just eat carbs and veggies at dinner.  I try to have protein to keep it balanced.  Most of the time I am full and do not have cravings.  I eat a variety of protein products. …meat replacement products, soy products, protein powder, peanut butter, etc.  In all honesty I am eating better than I have in my whole life.  And I can tell a huge difference.  Although my weight has not changed a whole bunch I can tell clothes are fitting better.  My acid reflux has went away.  I sleep better and have better ‘BMs’ (sorry for the TMI).    I do appreciate advice and information.  I have only been on this eating path for 26 days.  And I know that I do not know everything there is to know about this eating pattern.  I have picked up 5 vegan cookbooks though and I am excited about using them.  I also shopped at Vegan Essentials and picked up some supplies.  I am trying soy curls, Ground Turkey (NOT!), Tuna (NOT!) and  Ham (NOT!).  Also I picked up two vegan brothes (chicken, beef), vegan chili mix and some Primal Strips Soy jerky.  So far the few things I have tried are really tasty.  I am looking forward to making a tuna salad sandwich with the Tuna (NOT!).  It did not get the best reviews so I am kind of worried…but I will still try it.

Oh, I should mention that I have some up coming travel.  Most of the month of March I will be out of town.  I plan on taking the laptop with me so that I can still blog and do other online things.  I have 1 trip here in Germany and then another that sends me to Texas…then I am taking a few days to visit my family in Illinois.  I hope to do some online shopping before I get to Illinois so that I have some vegan stuff there when I get there.  Vegan Essentials has all kinds of meat replacement items that I cannot have shipped to Germany.  So I will have them shipped to my mom’s instead.

Well I guess I should tell you about my food yesterday:

Breakfast : 1/4 c dry oatmeal w/ 1 tbsp choc chips, 1 tbsp flax seed (did not eat oatmeal), Light soy milk smoothie w/ protein powder and 3/4 c strawberries

Lunch: Amy’s Kitchen bean/cheese burrito, 1.5 c broccoli, large apple

PM Snack: Blow pop sucker, banana

Dinner: Ratatioulle (vegan/home made), 6 Morningstar farm (MSF) Chik’n nuggets, 1 serving Rice Select Whole grain rice

PM Snack: 2 c light soy milk, 2 tbsp Nesquik choc syrup, 1 scoop protein powder

I also went to the gym last night.  I did 70 mins of cardio.  I did the stair stepper, stationary bike and elliptical.  600 calories burned in my workout!  Here is my calorie intake and calories burned yesterday:

Jan 25, 2010

My food for today is similar to yesterday with just a few changes.

Breakfast: 1/4 c oats (dry), 1 tbsp choc chips, 1 tbsp flax seed

AM Snack: Protein Smoothie (2 c light soy milk, 1/4 c strawberries, protein powder)

Lunch: 3/4 c vegetarian refried beans, MSF Asian Patty, ratatioulle, apple

PM Snack: banana, clementines (if still hungry)

Dinner: 1 serving Rice Select Whole Grain Blend, MSF chik’n strips, stir fry veggies, sauce (soy sauce, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, small amount better boullion)

I also have plans to go to the gym after work if the weather permits.  If not I have some workout DVDs at home that will kick my butt too.

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