Tinner

Today is not a long post day. I am exhausted - busy day at work. I had lunch around noon and then was swamped with clients back to back. I came home starving at around six o'clock. I made some tea and started snacking - that turned into a full fledged meal. I think I am going to crash pretty soon.

Breakfast
Tea w. LF Milk, Sprouted Wheat Bread, Guacamole, Pear

Snack
Jasmine Tea, Carrot & Cilantro Hummus

Lunch
Last of the Cabbage Noodles, Jalapeno Cornbread. Orange.
There was only a bit of noodles left, so I got a second piece of cornbread.

Tea + Dinner = Tinner
Tea, Triscuits and Guacamole, Banana-Pecan Bread
I started out with two pieces of Veggie Pastry. I ended up eating three more.
Unphotographed Orange.

Orange Belgian Truffle

Baked Goodies. Sugar-Free. Butter-Free.

About a month ago, I started craving cake with tea. I stifled the craving for a while. A couple of weeks ago, I gave in and purchased a pumpkin spice cake. It was good - but it did not last long. And it cost me about a billion WW Points. So, I decided to bake something of my own - something healthy. But, I kept putting it off. Partly because baking a cake means buying butter and sugar. Now, I don't use butter and sugar in anything, and I was too lazy to go get them. So when I got home today, I just decided to bake with what I had on hand.

So, out came all I had. I decided to substitute a teaspoonful of ghee for a stick of butter. It's amazing what a touch of ghee can do! I added two spoons of oil for good measure, and used milk and yogurt instead of water. I also decided that the bananas has enough sugar for the bread and skipped adding the sugar. I did not have any anyway. It ended up wonderful. The milk and yogurt made it wonderfully moist. It's only barely sweet, which is okay. I could always glaze it with honey if I wanted to. It was a successful evening.

Breakfast
Fiber One, Raisin Bran, Milk, Blueberries
I overslept and was in too much of a hurry to get to work to eat the pear.

Lunch
Split Pea Soup is the most disgusting looking food of all. But also one of the most delicious!
Jalapeno Cornbread, Orange, Apple

Snack
I bought myself a present on the way home.
Belgian Truffles from a Eugene chocolatier - Euphoria

I picked the Mocha Truffle. Delicious!

But I was still hungry - Triscuits and Wholly Guacamole

Messy kitchen counter pre-baking. The other ingredient picture went MIA.

Post-baking. :-)
Sugar-free Banana Bread w. Pecans
Savory Vegetable Pastry Bites
Jalapeno Cornbread Muffins

Dinner
Cornbread Muffin, Veg Pastry Bite, Orange, Diet Root Beer

Banana-Pecan Bread

I went back for a teeny un-photographed piece. I love leftovers.

Folk Dancing with Two Left Feet

I have never been a coordinated person. I walk into things, bump into people and am a bit bumbling in real life. When it comes to actually moving my limbs in some form of rhythm, I am what any sane person would consider to be "abnormal". I avoid dances like the scourge because I usually feel intensely embarrassed. So, a few weeks ago when my friend Anne invited me to go contra-dancing, I very very very reluctantly agreed.

It turned out to be great fun. Firstly because I was not the only bumbling one there. And secondly because this dancing involved a set of pre-assigned steps that were to be repeated over and over and over again. I could do that. Sort of... Anyway, I had a lot of fun and it was probably the best workout I have had in years.

So, when Anne invited me to a Folk Dance class, I agreed to sign up. Today was my first class. It was sort of like contra-dancing in that there are repetitive actions. The difference is that rather than move both arms and legs, it involves moving mostly the legs - a challenge for me. I did it - it was not pretty, but I managed to get through the class. I promptly forgot everything they taught on the way home, but it was fun. I think I'll return next week. This was not really exercise at all - I barely got my breath sped up unlike contra dancing where I was out of breath after the first 10 minutes. But it was an hour more of movement than I would have got had I stayed home.

And thus, I did the very first bit of exercise this year. I am going contra-dancing on Saturday. So, all I need is one more day of exercise and I will have met my 3x/week exercise goal for this week. :-)

Breakfast
Sprouted Wheat Toast w. Strawberry Preserves
Cottage Cheese, Pear, Banana

Snacks
Amaretto Cappuccino - a stray packet at the office. It did not taste particularly good, but I wanted something hot to drink (and hold) at an 8am meeting.

Unsweetened Spice Chai. It tastes less like any kind of spice and more like licorice.
I will not be buying this brand (Stash) again.

Lunch
Yummy Cabbage Noodles my friend made for NYE. I will be recreating this.
Jalapeno Cornbread, Apple

Snack
Chocolate-coated Coffee Beans, Peanut Brittle

Dinner
After the Folk-Dancing, I came home to a bowl of Rice, Yogurt Gravy, and Stir-fried Ivy Gourd
Colby Jack Cheese. (I did not eat the Orange)

I have been wanting to try Wholly Guacamole for ages!

Guac and Triscuits. This was good, but I like my homemade version best!

Thoughts on WeightWatchers

Since my insurance through my employers pays for WeightWatchers, I joined the program 10 weeks ago to start to keep track of my eating and weightloss. I started out a new round of 13 meetings today. I have mixed feelings about WeightWatchers.

The positives are that they provide a supportive environment and lots of motivation through their meetings and online forums. They also encourage tailoring your diet to your lifestyle, restrictions, and work schedule. On the negative side, which in my opinion slightly outweighs the positive, they are overly reliant on numbers and everyone who is a certain age, height, weight and gender gets treated equally on the program without regard for other factors such as health history, genetics, metabolic rates and so on. Everything is reduced to a number - weights, percentages, points values and so on. I have been to too many meetings where people talk about how they follow the diet to what I consider to be extremes - depriving themselves of all that they enjoy in order to stay within their points. WW is a "lifestyle" that encourages and often rewards obsessiveness and perfectionism. A further gripe I have with WW is that although they so strongly encourage eating unprocessed and healthy foods, all the WW products themselves are highly synthetic, tasteless substances.

So, my approach to WW has been to try and eat what I like in moderation, and to use the meetings as a place to track progress, give and receive support, get some tips and recipes, and maintain accountability. My progress has not been as spectacular as it might have been if I was spending about an hour each day trying to figure out PointsPlus values, but I am much more satisfied in my diet.

Here is what I ate and was fully satisfied in:

Breakfast
Oats w. Banana, Apricot Preserves and Honey
Tea w. LF Milk

Unsweetened Green Tea at work. I drink several cups of this each day.

Lunch
Noodles w. Tofu, Asparagus and Purple Cabbage (leftover from NYE Party)
Apple, Orange

Snacks
Homemade Hummus in a recycled store-bought hummus container, Carrot

100 Cal Trail Mix

Dinner
Chapatti (Indian Flatbread)
Mutter Paneer (Someone at work brought in a box they did not want. Yum!)

Impressively sparse ingredient list for a processed product

Odds and ends: Spinach Pakoras, Pear, Cheese

Last Day of Winter Break

I work at the University of Oregon. I have only worked here since October. Prior to this, I was at schools that functioned on a semester-based system. The UO on the other hand works on a quarter-system. This means that instead of the Spring semester that begins conveniently after MLK Day, the Winter term begins instead right after New Year. So instead of a long holiday, we have a really short one. I still had to go in to work over the break, but since there were so many university holidays, and most of the students were not in town, it did not really feel like "work". So I am suffering right now from some pretty serious back-to-work blues and lamenting the fact that starting tomorrow, work begins again in earnest. I love my job very much, but nothing beats a relaxed break. I'll be dragging my feet for the first day or two, but will be fine after that.

One advantage of not being on break of course, is that I will not be around food so much. It is much easier for me to control my cravings when I am at work. Today for example, I made some Jalapeno Cornbread - I started with one slice and ended up eating four. This was on top of the lunch I already had had. :-(

Breakfast
Cottage Cheese, Apple

Lunch
Brown Rice, Pulisserry (Yogurt gravy)
Dondakai Thoran (Stir-fried Ivy Gourd)

Jalapeno Cornbread w. Habanero-Lime Salsa
(add three more unphotographed slices of this)

Pepperjack Cheese and Extra-Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Tea
Tea w. LF milk, Rusk

Dinner
Spinach Pakoras, Jalapeno Cornbread
Navel Orange, Pear
Cheddar Cheese (I ended up eating two more small slivers of the cheese)

Diet Root Beer

Starting the Year Hungover

I spent last night with a group of friends with food, drink and games. I did not drink much, but went to bed at 3 in the morning and woke up with a slight hangover. I made sure that I drank a lot of water before I went to bed, so I think the headache might have something to do with the fact that my sleeping was out of whack and that I got only about six hours of sleep. Perhaps this is also a sign that I am getting old and can't stay up till all hours without my body wreaking its revenge upon me!

I started the year out with some good eating. After lunch, I went a bit overboard on some Ferrero Rocher chocolates I got on sale after Christmas. Chocolate with hazelnuts is pure undiluted temptation! Here are the eats:

Breakfast
Tea with Low-fat Milk
Sprouted Wheat Toast w. Apricot Preserves
Small Apple

Lunch
Baked Sweet Potatoes, Broccoli and Homemade Hummus, Triscuits, Pepperjack Cheese, Apple

Cottage Cheese. I also ate a few more Triscuits with this

I started out with one, but ended up eating all six. Binge!

Dinner
Sprouted Wheat Sandwich w. Veggie Burger and Avocado
Sad looking leftover carrots and Homemade Hummus
Colby Jack Cheese

Diet Root Beer. It tastes like toothpaste to me.

Welcome 2011, Welcome AzaleaEats

It is the start of a new decade and the perfect time to make and keep resolutions. I have several. Many are food related, some are not. Here are my resolutions:

1. Eat mindfully and in moderation: I have always struggled with eating in moderation and will go on frequent binges. While I generally eat healthy food, I tend to go overboard in how much I eat. Consequently, the pounds piled on. This weights me down both physically and emotionally. I hope this year to make a start in the right direction and lose 10kgs (22 lbs).

2. Exercise more: To make this specific and realistic, I am going to say - exercise at least 3x/week for at least half an hour each time. I have a knee-injury and doing strenuous exercise that involves my legs just leaves me in excruciating pain.

3. Blog: Start and maintain this blog. I will chronicle what I eat and how much I exercise as a means of maintaining accountability.

4. Reduce my debt: When I moved to Oregon for my first job out of grad school, I borrowed some money from friends to cover my moving and starting expenses till the cash flow got started again. I have repaid a lot of this. I still owe one friend some money. I think I will pay that off first, and then tackle the credit card debt I have.

5. Pamper myself more: I don't intend to come across as a person who runs myself to the ground on a regular basis. I don't. I usually spend lots of time relaxing. But I find that most of my down time although relaxing, is not particularly rejuvenating. I plan on engaging in things that are fun to do as well as educational and mood- and motivation-enhancing.