Something New

Is anyone out there familiar with the idea of eating no carbs after a certain time of day? Say... like 4pm?

I've never been one for "fad" type diets, but someone was telling me about this idea a couple weeks ago, and it sounded interesting. The basic idea is that our bodies naturally dump a bunch of insulin into our blood around 4pm every day, and if there aren't any carbs there waiting, that there's not anything that easily converted to stored fat.

I had never heard this theory before, and I question the science and the whole idea of excluding a nutrient type from any meal, so I'm skeptical. On the other hand, I went ahead and tried it for about a week, and I've lost roughly 1.5 pounds. It's entirely possible that the loss is simply from paying closer attention to calories consumed though.

Anyway, I've tried doing some basic research online, but I'm not finding a ton of information, and I'm just curious if anyone else out there has any experience with not eating carbs after a certain time of day. It doesn't seem totally sustainable for me personally, but it would certainly be easier than a completely no-carb diet, which I think is silly and unreasonable.

So please, leave me your thoughts, experiences or ideas. I would truly appreciate them.

I'm Back, I Think

I've been back for a few days now, but I'm having trouble finding the motivation/inspiration to write. Everything I think about is either going to take a while to write (and time is one thing I can't find enough of), or sounds like a broken record.

I'm stuck at 136. Again. It's déjà vu or something. Something irritating, like someone blocking the right lane waiting to go straight when you're trying to turn.

The good thing is that we were away for almost 2 weeks and I didn't gain. I actually consider this something of a miracle considering that we stopped at the Grand Ole Creamery not once but twice (!), and I was overcome by, as their website says, the "sweet-smelling, homemade, hand-rolled, malted waffle cones with a whopper in the bottom of each cone." The healthy eating pretty much went out the window those days.
The bad thing is that I've been back at 136 for like a month now, and it's been almost 2 months since I recommitted myself to the serious weight loss. I haven't been to the gym in the morning since we got back. Reading back through what I wrote before I left reminded me how much that seemed to be helping. Gotta get my ass out of bed in the morning.

Something I enjoy that I don't talk about here, for obvious reasons, is poker. I started playing several years ago, and for a while during my first marriage I was helping to supplement our income. Anyway, I don't have a chance to play very often anymore, but I do still read about it regularly, and so it was a neat intersection of two of my favorite things when I read about the Great Ted Forrest Weight Loss Bet of 2010™. Poker players are notorious for coming up with insane prop (proposition) bets, and this one is right up my alley. Mike Matusow and Justin "Boosted J" Smith bet Ted Forrest $2 million that he couldn't lose almost 50 pounds in 2 ½ months. Ted wasn't a big guy to start with... I think he started at 188 and had to get below 140. It's an interesting read if you have a little while... especially the part where he dropped the last 10 pounds in about 2 days. The most intriguing part has turned out to be Ted's reason for accepting the bet. You'd think it was the $2 million up for grabs, right? Not according to Ted. He said “Somebody I care about very much needed to see that the impossible is possible.”

That story has been in my head the last few days, and it keeps reminding me that what I'm trying to achieve isn't nearly as difficult as I keep trying to convince myself.

Quick Break

I'm going to be away for a few days. I just wanted to thank all of you who have been reading and sticking with me. I've been back at 136 for about a week now. I didn't want to say anything 'cause I didn't want to jinx it.

I have all sorts of things I want to talk about when I get back. Spin class... the number 16... how I accidentally became a sorta-vegetarian. It will be lots of fun!

CVS Sillyness

I've talked before about trying to reduce my family's food spending, and thanks to various internet sources, I'm happy to report that I've had what I would consider some great success. Our mid-May to mid-June food cost was $295.80. That's still $45 over my goal, but it's better than the $400-$500/month we were spending before.

I have to tell you about my weekend trip to CVS. Where my food spending was $0.

Last week I came across this excellent blog, from two different sources, actually. It's that interesting. Basically this man is trying to prove (to his sister, with whom the bet was originally made, and to the rest of us, who are just trying to learn) that he can eat well on $1/day using coupons and other saving methods. It's definitely different than the method that j. is using over at 365 Dollar Year, which is where my interest in food budget reduction originally came from, but it's also incredibly interesting. I spent a couple hours one night reading the entire thing, then decided to try one of his methods over the weekend.

I planned two trips to CVS using the couponing blog above and this site. To start with, I had two $5 off a $25 purchase coupon I had gotten the last time we were at CVS picking up prescriptions, one from the coupon machine at the front door, one printed on my receipt. So my goal was to get as close to two separate purchases of $25 each as possible. On the first trip, I had a bit of trouble because of my own failure to read correctly, but it ended up working out in my favor.

I purchased 3 boxes of Cheerios, 1 Gillette Pro-Glide razor, 1 Cover Girl lipgloss, and 3 Power Bars. With coupons and $3 in ExtraBucks that I already had, I spent $14.96 out of pocket. I also received $10.97 in ExtraBucks back, making my out of pocket $3.99. I then realized that I had picked up the wrong type of lipgloss and hadn't gotten the deal/EBs I had expected (it should have been $4.99 with $3 back in EBs), so I asked the cashier to return the lipgloss. She probably should have made me redo the entire purchase because of the $1 off Covergirl coupon plus the $5 off $25 I had used, but I think she got flustered and just refunded me $6.48 in cash. So at this point I was $2.49 ahead.

I decided to wait until later in the day to go back. I felt bad about the refund mix-up, and I didn't want to encounter the same cashier again. I'm still trying to get the hang of this extreme couponing, and I suspect I'm going to mess up sometimes until I get better at it.

On my second trip, I got 1 big bottle of Herbal Essences conditioner, 1 John Freida conditioner and 1 John Freida frizz smoother, the correct Covergirl lipgloss, 3 more Power Bars, and a 4oz. canister of dry roasted peanuts. I used the $10.97 in EBs from the previous trip, the other $5 off $25, and a few manufacturer coupons to bring my total down to $2.34.


Subtract that from the $2.49 I was already ahead, and as far as I can tell, CVS paid me 15 cents, plus gave me $8 in ExtraBucks for a future trip to take all this stuff out of their store. This picture doesn't include the other 3 Power Bars that the kids and I already ate. Sorry for the blurry photo!



This really wasn't terribly difficult, and I'm already working on my trip using this week's ad. The worst part was the embarrassment with the lipgloss return, so I'll just have to be more careful in the future. I also got lucky with the $5 off $25 coupons, and definitely wouldn't have done as well without them. But one came from simply scanning my card at the machine near the door, so it's possible that anyone could get this deal as well.

Why You Might Totally Dig a Group Exercise Class

First, a quick update. After being back on Dietpower since Monday, and actually making it to the gym twice in the morning plus three times after work, I've dropped 2 pounds in a week. I hate proving myself right. I have to track what I eat for the rest of my life, or this weight yo-yo battle crap will go on for the rest of my life too. How nice for me. Anyone else out there struggling with your weight on a daily, monthly or yearly basis?

Now, what I really want to tell you about...

I was in spin class yesterday when I realized that I should talk about group exercise classes here. I know not everyone has access to these, and I recognize how lucky I am to live in a city big enough to have a few large fitness club chains. I am also lucky that I've been a member long enough that I'm only paying $12/month for access to like 6 different clubs in the city (I use 3 regularly, depending on where I'm going and which one has a class I want to take at a convenient time). But if you have the opportunity, or could make the opportunity with a little effort, you should definitely get out and try a class if you haven't before.

So... group exercise. You show up at a specified time for a specified class and work out with a bunch of other people. That was probably obvious, huh? Depending on the type of class you choose, you can have lots, to little, to no interaction with other people. I know sometimes people like to socialize at the gym, but I think most people are like me and just want to get in, get a workout, and talk to as few people as possible. You can still do this in a group fitness class.

The reason I dig classes so much (and you might too) is because it pretty much guarantees that I'm going to do a full hour of exercise. I don't know about you, but if I go to the gym and just work out on the treadmill or Arc trainer, I'm often tempted to cut it short. I'll go for like 35 or 40 minutes, then something in my brain goes "c'mon, you've done enough, you're a little sweaty, let's quit." And sometimes I do.

The truth is that there are times my brain tries the same shtick when I'm in a class too, but I would be way too embarrassed to just leave while it was going on. I saw this happen last week in a Body Pump class. There were two girls there, both overweight, obviously new to class, that got halfway through the second song and left. They could have gotten a great workout in the 60 minute class, but instead, one looked over at the other, rolled her eyes and kinda motioned to the door with her head. The friend shrugged, then nodded, and both put away their equipment and left. I get that every person isn't going to enjoy every class all of the time, but they didn't even try. The minute the class started to get difficult, they quit. And yeah, I don't want anyone else blogging about me being a quitter, or thinking in class that I'm a quitter, so I stay; even on the days that I truly wish I was anywhere else.

The other advantage is that most days, I don't wish I was anywhere else. The classes I take are engaging and challenging, and I really feel like I'm doing something good when I'm there. Most have music with a good beat, and I find that music makes just about any workout better.

So if you have the chance, but have been too nervous about the unknown, just go for it! You can always take it slow. You can always stand in the back. You can keep your head down and no one is going to bother you. You can talk to your neighbor and maybe make a friend for life, or at least for 60 minutes. And if you try one and hate it, try something else another day. There are so many different classes available these days, you could probably go for weeks without doing the same one twice.

I'll also try to tell you about the classes I'm really partial to. The ones that I get to two or three times a week because they're so much fun. Does anyone have a favorite class you can't go a week without? I'm always looking for new ones to try.

It's Time to Surrender

I have to admit to myself and everyone else that my little experiment has failed. Writing this blog hasn't helped me to keep the weight in check so far. And since the scale said 139.5 this morning, and I totally flipped out, I'm back on Dietpower.

I've officially gained back 10 pounds that I already lost a year ago. It's sad and frustrating and I know I have no one to blame but myself. I can try to rationalize it up and down and sideways... it's almost that time of the month... it's Monday morning... it's... all bullsh*t.

So, I ask that you put up with me while I deal with this frustration and defeat. And I'll keep talking about what's working and what's not. Consider this accountability X2.

The Things Kids Say

I have a Sunday ritual. I call it a ritual because I've been doing it for the last 5 or 6 weeks. That counts, right? I make a batch of steel cut oats for the week. (I know, not as bizarre as say... dropping babies... but it's a ritual and it's one I'm willing to do.) One and a half cups of steel cut oats turns nicely into 5 cups of cooked, yummy, filling breakfast food for my 5 days of work.

So yesterday, when I was doing my Sunday ritual on Monday (Memorial Day and all), and trying to figure out who I was going to pawn the extra cup off on (since I wasn't motivated enough to scale the recipe to yield 4 cups), my daughter came into the kitchen. She just turned 3.

I had just finished filling up my 5 little containers when my daughter says "Wow! You got it all in there. Now you gotta take a picture, Mama!" like this is absolutely the most exciting thing ever.

Do you think this food blogging thing is getting out of hand?

I didn't take a picture, but in case anyone is interested:

Weekly Steel Cut Oats
Yields 5 one cup servings

1 1/2 C steel cut oats (I buy these from the gravity bin at Whole Foods... way cheap)
4 1/2 C water
1 1/2 C skim milk (you can definitely make this without milk, I just like it for the extra protein)
pinch of salt

Bring the water and milk to a simmer in a pot. Add the oats in, stir a bit, then let it simmer untouched for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, stir in the pinch of salt and let it simmer another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. I'll then turn off the burner and just let it sit for a bit to thicken up.

I like to measure it out evenly into Ziploc containers and store them in the fridge for the week. Then each morning I'll decide what I'm in the mood to add and throw it on top. When I get to work, I'll add a bit of water, mix it all up, and nuke it for 2 minutes.

Stuff I like to add:

• Tablespoon of roasted sunflower seeds and teaspoon of brown sugar (ala Less Is Enough)
• My own dirty version of Gingersnap Oatmeal which includes about a dash (or however much you'd like) of the following: vanilla, cloves, ginger, cinnamon & nutmeg, plus about a teaspoon of brown sugar and about a tablespoon of ground up blanched, slivered almonds.

Anyone else have ideas for oatmeal add-ins? I can't quite bring myself to try that savory version in the post with the Gingersnap Oatmeal... especially for breakfast.

Updates

1. I'm not sure if anyone cares about this at all, but our grocery/food spending total for mid-April through mid-May was $290.65. (My tally is running from mid-month for some silly reason. It works though, so I'm not about to try to adjust it now!) This is roughly $2.34/day for the 4 of us, but it also included a dinner for my daughter's birthday party that was almost completely home cooked and where we fed 4 additional people (and had cake and ice cream)...
2. ... which I think led almost directly to update #2. Weight at 137 this morning. I'm not changing the name of the blog, damnit. I'm just going to do better. I'm seriously considering going back to using Dietpower. I hate being close to admitting that I failed at something.
3. Still not getting to the gym for 6am class like I want. I've gone in the morning exactly zero times so far this week. I have to get to sleep earlier if I want to wake up at 5:15. (see update #2. These things are related. I suck and I know it.)
   
4. I really appreciate everyone that's dropped by because of 365 Dollar Year. If you have things you'd like me to talk about (or not talk about, as the case may be), by all means, please please let me know. If you don't want to post in the comments, feel free to email me instead - last.sixteen@gmail.com.

Challenge Redux

(AKA The Family Mutiny)

After my self-imposed fail at j.'s challenge, I wanted to give it another go. I decided to make something both vegan, and entirely comprised of ingredients I already had in the house. This was my best solution for not going over the $5 limit! A search for "simple vegan recipes" brought me to Compassion Over Killing, and in the dinner recipes section, I found what I was looking for.

I had about 8oz. of tofu in the fridge that needed to be used, and I had made a pound of black beans in the rice cooker/steamer last night. Thus, I present...

Spicy Black Bean Burgers & "Chicken" Nuggets!

I've made lots of things with black beans before, but never burgers, so this was something new for the challenge. I've also seen j. making what she calls "popcorn" tofu, which seems similar except these are coated with bread crumbs instead of flour and baked instead of pan fried.

A friend and I went to England for our senior trip in high school. We spent about 10 days there, and it was an amazing, totally memorable experience. And of course one of the things I remember is the food. (I'm obsessed, y'know?) Since I had only been a veg a few years, and I had been subsisting mostly on Wheat Thins and peanut butter, it was a happy accident that I came across the "BK Spicy Black Bean Burger" at Burger King. They never brought it to the States as far as I know, but I had one just about every day while we were in London. This was my attempt to make something similar, and to be honest, it wasn't even close, but I enjoyed my creation anyway.

My family? Yeah, that's a different story...

My 3 year old ate a couple of the nuggets, took one bite of the burger, stuck out her tongue and said it was "too hot" (meaning spicy). My 11 year old ate a few bites of his burger, kept asking what was in it, decided to put cheese on it, took a couple more bites, then added barbecue sauce before he said he didn't want any more. He also took a tiny piece of a nugget and said it was gross. My husband said "I would send this back at a soup kitchen." He then covered it in barbecue sauce and ate it anyway. I think that pretty much sums up his feelings on the subject.

I thought everything was good... definitely different that what we're used to eating... but I don't think I'll ever get away with feeding this to the family again...

We're like the 3 bears - we each get our own size burger

Black Bean Burgers
Serves 4 (give or take)
Adapted from Compassion Over Killing

• 2 cups cooked black beans
  
• 1/3 cup diced and sauteed onions
• 3 slices multigrain bread, finely crumbled (I used the blender's processor attachment & added a tiny bit of olive oil while processing)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon each of garlic powder, black pepper, and onion powder (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
• tiny dash of cayenne pepper (also optional)
  

In a large bowl, mash the black beans. Add the sauteed onions, 3/4 of the crumbled bread, and spices. Mix thoroughly. Using your hands, form the mixture into 1/2-inch thick patties. For a breaded burger, gently coat each patty with the rest of the bread crumbs. (I dipped mine in water before coating to help it stick).

In a lightly oiled non-stick pan, fry both sides of the patties. Serve with a garnish of lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, and any other condiments on buns or over a bed of rice.

"Chicken" Nuggets
Serves 4
Adapted from Compassion Over Killing

• 1 14-ounce package of extra-firm tofu
  
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 cup water

Drain the tofu, gently squeeze out any excess moisture, and cut into 1-inch cubes. You may want to squeeze them again carefully after they're in cubes to get them as dry as possible.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a shallow bowl, add the bread crumbs and spices, mixing well. In a separate bowl, pour 1/2 cup of water.

Dip each piece of tofu first into the water, lightly shake off any excess water, and then coat with the seasoned bread crumbs.

Put the breaded tofu cubes on a lightly oiled baking pan and baked 25 to 30 minutes, turning them over half way through cooking, until golden brown and crisp.

Serve with a dipping sauce such as sweet and sour or barbecue, or spicy mustard.

Challenge Accepted

On Friday, j. from 365 Dollar Year challenged any takers to make something at home that you've previously only bought. She says this is partially inspired by my forays into previously uncharted cooking... and I'm way flattered.

Pretty quickly, I remembered a recipe that I came across Wednesday on Cheap Healthy Good for Butternut Squash Risotto that I had been eyeballing anyway. This recipe had not one, but two elements that were new to me, and I was totally excited about it. So excited that I failed to read j's challenge closely enough. She said "No more than $5 worth of extra stuff brought in- if you can't make it with what you've already got and $5, try something else." I'm going to calculate the cost at the end, but I'm awfully close, if not a bit over.

Alright, so first of all, why this recipe was a challenge to me: 1) The only squash I've ever cooked before is zucchini and the little yellow zucchini-like ones. 2) I have never in my life made risotto. I've never in my life eaten risotto either, as far as I know. This part was a big deal to me. I've seen it made on TV cooking shows, and it always seemed so difficult to prepare and easy to screw up that it's never even been on my radar. I'm giving myself a half-fail on the squash though, as Trader Joe's didn't have it whole, and I didn't have time to make another stop. I've been whining about packaged food and I bought packaged squash! I'm such a dork.

Risotto Ingredients

You start out by dicing an onion and cubing the squash. Then the squash goes into a saucepan with a few sage leaves, some salt, and some of the broth. This cooks until the squash is tender, then gets set aside until near the end.


Then you start on the rice. First you cook some more sage and the diced onion for a few minutes. Then the dry rice goes in for a few minutes more. Next is the wine, then you start adding in the stock, just a bit at a time.



While you're going through the process of incorporating the stock into the rice, you crisp up about 10 sage leaves in some butter. I'll come back to these, because they're little bits of buttery heaven that can't be overlooked.



Finally, after all the stock has been absorbed by the rice, you add in the cooked squash, parmesan cheese, and a bit more butter.


I topped it off with the crispy sage leaves, remembered to take pictures, then tentatively dug in.

Oh My God. It's creamy and decadent and totally amazing. The flavor of the rice by itself is fantastic, but when you add a bit of the crisp sage leaf to a bite it's... wow. Just wow. The sage leaves absorbed the butter taste, and that gets combined with everything else in the bite to make a flavor that you want to just let sit there on your tongue for a while.

************************************************************

Butternut Squash Risotto
Makes 6 1-1/2 cup servings
Adapted from Chez Panisse via The Wednesday Chef via Cheap Healthy Good.

1 medium butternut squash (about 1 pound whole or 12 ounces cut up)
24 sage leaves
Salt and pepper
7 to 8 cups fat-free chicken (or veggie) stock
1 medium onion, diced small
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup parmesan, grated

1) Peel squash, then dice into very small (1/4- or 1/3-inch) cubes. Combine squash, a few sage leaves, 1 cup stock, and a little salt in a heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a simmer and cook until tender (but not too soft) about 5 to 10 minutes. (You want the cubes to keep their form when they’re stirred into the risotto.) Drain and reserve liquid, just in case.

2) While squash is cooking, add the rest of the stock to another pot, bring to a simmer, and keep it there. Meanwhile, finely chop 6 large sage leaves.

3) In another, larger, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons of butter over medium until melted. Add chopped sage and cook about 1 minute. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Turn heat to low, add rice and a pinch of salt and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often, until rice has turned slightly translucent. Turn the heat back up to medium, and add the white wine. Once the wine has been absorbed, add enough hot stock to cover the rice. Stir well and reduce the heat back down to medium-low.

4) Gently simmer the rice, stirring occasionally, until stock is absorbed. Add another 1/2-to-3/4 cup warm stock, and stir occasionally until new stock is absorbed. Repeat the process until all the stock has been absorbed by the rice, and rice is tender. This could take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. (It took me closer to 30.)

5) While all this is going on, sauté 10 sage leaves in a 1/2 tablespoon of butter until crisp, about 30 to 60 seconds, turning once halfway through. Rest on paper towel.

6) When rice is mostly tender, add cooked squash, parmesan, and the remaining tablespoon of butter. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, until dairy is melted and squash is heated through. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, using sage leaves as garnish.

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Here's my calculations for the challenge:

1 medium butternut squash - $1.99 packaged
24 sage leaves - $1.79 (I only used about 1/3 of the package, but I'm not certain I'll use any more of it before it goes bad, so I'm charging myself full price on this one)
Salt and pepper - pantry
7 to 8 cups fat-free chicken (or veggie) stock - pantry
1 medium onion, diced small - pantry
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter - pantry (well, fridge, but you get the idea)
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice - $1.67 (The package was $2.29 for 11 servings, but I only used 8, and I anticipate that I'll use the rest at some point, so, discount!)
1/2 cup dry white wine - pantry (I did buy this, but we usually keep wine in the house so I'm not counting it for the total - yay "2 buck Chuck")
1/2 cup parmesan, grated - pantry

Total purchased ingredients: $5.45

So I fail the challenge, but I had such a good time doing it, it was well worth it!
Also, j., I'm sorry this isn't vegan or within your $1/day budget. I'll try to find another recipe this week that will fall into those categories too.

Final random thoughts on the challenge...

• Yay cooking challenge!
• This was not terribly difficult to make, and at no point (other than before I actually started) did I think I was going to f*ck it up.
• This recipe took about 1.5 hours of prep/cooking... so while I would absolutely make it again, it's not going into the weekly veg/starch rotation.
• Hubby said it was "herb-y." I think that was a good thing?
  
• I'm guessing I could have come in under the $5 mark if I had bought a whole squash.
• Or if I could grow my own sage.
• Or rice.
• These thoughts are getting a bit too random...
  

Anticipatory Eating

Do you ever find yourself eating more than you probably should in a day because you know you have something out of the ordinary planned, and you're not sure when you'll have a chance to eat? Or worse - and this is where I'm 100% guilty - have you ever started eating more because you were just planning to go to the gym, but you somehow never got there? *sheepishly raises hand* That's me.

A couple weeks ago I had to modify my work schedule. Alright, the truth is they told me I had better start actually getting there on time instead of 10-15 minutes late every day. I'm a horrible morning person and now you know. I would stay up until 4am and sleep 'til noon every day if I could. Somehow I decided that the best way to ensure that I was up and moving and on time to work was to get to the gym every morning for an hour-long class at 6am, then shower and dress for work at the gym. (I probably decided this in the morning, so the two morning things should have canceled each other out... why did this not happen?!)

Once I made the decision to get up 1.5 hours earlier than absolutely necessary, I found myself starting to eat more during the day. In anticipation of the workout I was planning the next morning. And then I was failing to get out of bed on time to actually make it to the class! I made it there like twice this week, twice last week, and maybe once the week before. This is bad on so many levels that I should probably just delete this now and never admit to anyone what a complete idiot I am.

First off... since I'm trying to lose weight, I should be increasing gym time and not increasing calorie intake. Secondly, even if I might need an extra *small* snack on days I work out twice, I certainly don't need it in anticipation of a work out that may or may not happen.

Does anyone else do this? Have you found a way to stop? Because if I keep this up, I'm going to have to rename the blog and I would hate that. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.

Big Food

This weekend we had some family in town, and for dinner one night we chose a place I've been waiting to try for a while now: Hash House a Go Go. They call it "Twisted Farm Food," and since I like twisted (occasionally) and farm food (usually), I figured it would be terrific. A friend that's been there said the food is great and enormous. I didn't understand.

Their food was actually... absurd. Seriously. It was really delicious, and really REALLY HUGE. I laughed out loud when they set down my husband's dinner plate. I couldn't help it. The plate took up his entire side and part of mine. If we had ordered the same thing, we couldn't have sat across from each other... our plates would have been hanging over the side. Picture Fred Flintstone and the brontosaurus ribs... it was that ridiculous. His dad ordered the chicken pot pie, and when he was finished eating, it looked exactly the same as when it arrived. We've had leftovers for days now.

On our way home, we mulled over why they chose to make the portions so immense. It's not like the prices were outrageous. We paid the same for an entree there as we would have at most other sit-down type places, and far less than we could have paid. I'm fairly confident our family of four could have eaten one $15.95 entree and still taken home leftovers. In this society of excess, why contribute? I honestly don't know the answer. The best we could come up with is that the sheer silliness kept us talking about the place long after we left.

I Should Probably Get a Life

When I'm walking through the parking lot, and the car that nearly hits me has the license plate 761*TVP - and all I can think of is this TVP - I think it's safe to assume I've been reading too many vegetarian blogs.

My Southern Ex-Grandma-in-Law

Sadly, one of the only things I miss about my ex is his Mississippi Grandma (or G’ma as she would write on notes and cards). She died, much too young, a few years before we split. My son is named after her. I still miss her. Not just her kindness, and the way she looked out for us as a couple just starting out, but her southern cooking. She had a deep and abiding love for all foodstuffs of the south, which included - much to my dismay - way too many ways to cook with a pig. Although I stopped eating piggies when I was thirteen, I’m fairly certain that I consumed some pig fat at her house a time or two. Most times, I could discern the usual suspects (white gravy with little bits of bacon floating along), but there were a few times I wasn’t sure, and at some point, I hated to keep asking. And to her credit, much as she was set in her ways by the time she met me, I did see her make a conscious effort to use veg oil in place of the grease sometimes when I was around.

She really did everything that you might imagine a southern Grandma doing. There were hundreds of beautiful plants and blooming flowers in her yard, and she cared for each by hand (and on her hands and knees). There were several hummingbird feeders outside her kitchen window, and she loved to just sit at the table and enjoy the view. She’d bake up cookies and cakes, or a cheesy casserole, then pack it all up and head over to a friend’s for an evening of Bunco and a few drinks. There were homemade biscuits and gravy on the weekends (including a delicious tomato gravy that I convinced myself couldn’t possibly be made with bacon grease. Could it?). She harvested collard greens and squash, corn and okra and green beans from the little community garden down the street, then brought them home and cooked them down in big pots. The resulting deliciousness was then canned, or more often baggied and frozen in her giant stand-up deep freeze that she kept in the laundry room. Except for what was left out to be enjoyed immediately, which we did, to much excess.

I credit her with sparking my love for cooking. Before we lived with her for a time, the extent of my cooking experience was pretty much mac and cheese (or if it was a flush month, Velveeta Shells & Cheese) in an electric coffeepot in the dorms. Sure, I had made pancakes and grilled cheese with my parents growing up, but I had never really enjoyed the process before. I stopped eating red meat somewhere around thirteen, and at that time, I thought the height of vegetarian cooking was stuffing green peppers with rice, tofu and tomato sauce. I’m pretty sure I lived on Wheat Thins and peanut butter for the rest of high school (except when my dad decided that as a newly minted sorta-vegetarian, I should be eating pine nuts. Never mind that he had no suggestions as to what to put them on – he just read an article that mentioned they were a food that vegetarians ate).

That’s not to say that my early experiments at her house weren’t disastrous. I can distinctly remember deciding at the store one day that I should be eating eggplant and balsamic vinegar. Don’t ask me why, I really couldn’t tell you now. I had never cooked with either of these ingredients before, but into the skillet they went. Together, and alone. I guess I was hoping for some sort of vegetarian food revelation, but what I got was very brown, very bitter, kinda raw eggplant. It was inedible.

I did learn a lot from her. And one of the things that I’ve kept all these years is a stained and crumply piece of notebook paper that has a few of her favorite recipes written out by hand. Just about everything calls for “oleo.” Can you imagine? One calls for a can of Schlitz beer. Schlitz! Do they even make that anymore? That page was one of the first that I dug out and gently slid into the plastic sheet when I created my very first loose-leaf recipe binder. I’m certain that most of what she cooked wasn’t healthy by any measure. But it all came from her heart, and sometimes when you’re cooking, that’s truly all that matters.

Cooking Rant

I know I said I want to talk about cooking here, and yet I have mentioned nary a recipe or food (except Doritos, and I'm pretty sure they don’t technically count). And so, without much further ado, a cooking post...

...Well, first, a little further ado. I do need to make it perfectly clear that when I talk about cooking, that in no way do I fancy myself as anything other than a home cook trying to find ways to feed her family “cheap, healthy, good." Wow, too bad Kris and the other folks there already named their blog that or I totally would have been all over that name. Anyway, I digress... Recently, in an attempt to reduce our food budget, I have been trying my hand at more and more things that were firmly ensconced in the “buy in a package because it’s way too freaking hard to make” category for me. I roasted my first chicken! (and to my complete amazement, it really did make 17 servings for us.) I’ve been making homemade bread and pizza dough! I’ve made salad dressing and granola and pot stickers!

These things may come as second nature to some home cooks, but for me, each one was deep in the realm of “must buy in package, definitely don’t even know where to start to make this.” In fact, the only time we ate whole chicken was when we got rotisserie from the market. What a fool I’ve been! These things can be so easy and taste so much better than any crap you can buy pre-made. Plus, added satisfaction of feeding your family things you are familiar with and they can pronounce all the ingredients. Bonus!

I saw a link on Cheap Healthy Good last week to an article by Michael Ruhlman that talks about the effect of 30 minute meals on our families and society. I believe he was dead wrong about at least one of the two examples he gave (I've seen Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals a few times, and though I question if what she does can really be done in 30 minutes, she does cook actual food from actual whole ingredients.) Oh yeah - and he sounded like a total dick - but the point he made was valid. What are we telling our kids when we don’t take a little time to cook some meals a few days a week? We tell them they need to eat healthy, eat their vegetables… but they never see what healthy looks like at home. They see vegetables from a can (that really are disgusting looking… how can we really blame them for turning their noses up at canned green beans?), meat and potatoes from boxes. Or worse, they see an endless parade of fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Is anyone really surprised that our kids are gaining weight along with the rest of us?

And to make it worse, the proverbial "they" try to tell us that it will be cheap! and easy! and fast! if we eat this packaged junk. Several months ago, when this recession was in full swing and everyone was trying to jump on the savings bandwagon, one of the grocery stores in town started doing this “4 for $15” promotion. You could go in and buy, right from a single case waiting by the entrance, dinner to feed four people for $15. I remember thinking at the time what a scam this was. Even then when I wasn’t on this crazy money saving kick, I knew I could feed my family of four for much less than $15, and have it be less processed and healthier than anything they were pushing! Their idea of a $15 dinner was a packaged meat product, a packaged salad, and packaged French bread.

omg, rant over. This is supposed to be a cooking post, right?

pretty pot stickers

The really fantastic thing about trying to cook and eat healthier is trying all these new things. On Friday night, I made some vegetarian pot stickers that I found on j’s 365 Dollar Year blog. I made just a few modifications, added some chopped mushroom (before they went bad in the fridge), a bit of sesame oil, and some more salt (I know, I know, bring on the sodium police. I’m aware there was soy sauce in there already. It still needed it).

scallion, carrot and edamame for fried rice

finished fried rice

They came out beautiful and yummy, and with some stir fried brown rice and veggies, they made an awesome Friday night dinner. For around $2.50 total for the four of us.

please don't get me started on the plate! :)

Take that, big supermarket scam!

I’m Sorry to Tell You that I am Not the Biggest Loser

My husband hates reality TV. He especially hates The Biggest Loser, and will make rude comments about the show and the contestants when I have it on, simply to needle me. He just doesn't get it.

You see, he's one of 'those' guys. He's never had a weight problem in his life, and most likely never will. He can eat obscene amounts of junk and never gain an ounce. It's sickening really. I love him and loathe his metabolism. I will freely admit that I'm jealous. I eat a Dorito one day, and the next it's right there, hanging out on my ass in a little triangle form. I can only hope for our daughter's sake that she got his metabolic blessing and not mine.

But back to the show. He'll ask why I "watch this crap." I try to explain but it all comes out sounding rather obnoxious and self-righteous, and I wish I had a better way to put it into words that didn't take an entire blog post. Maybe I can get him to read this instead...

I enjoy the show because it reminds me of where I've been, and where I could be again in a heartbeat if I didn't at least try to keep a handle on it. It makes me feel good about the progress I've made. It makes me remember that you can sweat your guts out for hours, be utterly convinced that you're going to die during this workout, and come out feeling the happiest you've ever felt in your life. It makes me wonder how a girl can get over 300 pounds and not already be doing something to change that... yesterday... last month... a hundred pounds ago (remember what I said earlier about sounding obnoxious? yeah... I'm sorry). I marvel at their determination and ability to say "screw it... I'm going to get mostly naked on TV, and who the hell cares which jiggly bits are hanging out for the world to see." I would never, could never, do that in a million, billion years. I'm still a little flabbergasted that I've posted two entries that include my weight on a blog that anyone could accidentally read.

I've been over 200 pounds twice in my life. The first was due to nothing more than greed, gluttony and laziness. I was younger and determined then, and most of it came off pretty quickly. Which lead directly to time number two. The second was due to pregnancy (and pancakes and Taco Bell, Pop Tarts and milk... the only things I could stomach for a few months with my first born. I still tell him that's what he's made of). I will never go back there again. I hate myself when I'm fat. The kind of hate that had me standing in front of a mirror pulling on fat rolls and wondering if I could somehow get up the nerve to insert the hose from the vacuum into them in a desperate attempt at homemade liposuction. The kind of hate that had me thinking - literally every minute of every day - how ugly and disgusting I was. It still took me a good couple of years to actually do something about that hate. And now that I've lost most of it, I am painfully aware of how quickly I could be right back there, staring at a number I can't quite believe and wondering how to take the first step to fixing it.

That's why I mention the thing about my husband and why he doesn't get it. You have to have been there to understand how it feels to have this running inner dialogue saying "omg I'm fat" "I'm so fat I don't want anyone to look at me" "I'm really gross" "I hate the way the fat roll on my stomach feels when I sit down" "holy fuck I'm fat" "I have to do something about this" "right after I eat half this block of cheese on some tortillas." I thought all of these things and a bazillion more. None of it kept me from continuing to eat crap and sit on my ass. Not for a while anyway. What I really hope someone can take from this is that... wait... sorry... huge cliche coming... you can change it all if you just set your mind to it.

Obviously the power of positive thinking isn't going to melt pounds off your body.

Hmm... note to self... invent Incredible Positive Thinking Fat Melting Machine...

What I mean is that in order to make the necessary change, you first have to wrap your brain around the idea. You have to hit your own personal rock bottom. You have to learn enough about food and cooking to be able to make more than one healthy meal, and to know what a healthy meal consists of. You have to find a way to move - at your own pace - in a gym or around your block or in your living room - every day. You have to figure out what's going to work for you. It's not going to be an epiphany either. Finding what works is an ongoing process. But you have to find the healthiest, most sustainable choices that will work for you to start.

And so I watch The Biggest Loser and wish I could spend countless hours in the gym every day. I wasn't granted the ridiculous metabolism of... some other people I know... and some days it seems like no matter what I eat, if it's over like 1300 calories a day, I'm not going to lose a bit of weight. So I work out. I really would go every day if I could. It's what works for me, usually even if I'm not perfect with my food. It's why I've gained six pounds in six months instead of twenty.

Honey, I watch The Biggest Loser because I won't ever be the biggest loser. I'll just have to keep trying.

"I've Seen Some Pretty Huge Black Pants"

Today a friend told me that I look like I've lost weight. This is a friend that I see most days of the week, so it's not like I disappeared and suddenly came back thinner. I was quick to mutter something about actually gaining weight, and the black pants helping (which are tailored and fit nicely - thanks Mom & Dad). I think it goes to show that clothing fitting you properly can be better than a few pounds lost.

Oh, and I was only kinda right about the scale... it did go back and forth a couple times again before stopping at 136.

Accountability

The scale said 136 again this morning... I checked. Twice. Okay, three times, but I swear I'm usually not so nutty about the number. It just that I have this really neat digital scale that measures body fat, and it did that little hiccup the first time. A quick glimpse at 135.5 before settling frustratingly back in to 136. I've had it for probably seven years now, through ups and downs and a baby, and it's still teasing me.

See, if I had started this blog six months ago, it would have been called The Last Ten instead, when I was hovering around 130. Which is really pretty boring, since the whole world seems to be trying to lose the last ten. I think for the sake of my ass that I'd rather be back there though.

This is where that whole balance thing that I mentioned yesterday comes in. For about eight months, I tracked my calories and exercise very closely. Which worked... really well. I found that having to put into the program every last calorie, from a grape to a chocolate chip, made me more accountable to myself. I wasn't about to eat something that I knew would skew my numbers in the wrong direction. I wasn't going to admit to a computer program that I'd just scarfed 4 mini packets of Nerds because they still remind me of 1st grade. So I just didn't eat the junk. And I lost the weight.

While I love the program, here are the problems that I found: 1) It forces you to really know exactly what and how many nutrients are in every item you consume. The easiest solution I had for this was eating way too many packaged foods. Arguably healthy packaged foods... yogurt and a Clif bar for breakfast, Lean Cuisine for lunch, but processed and packaged nonetheless. 2) The time it takes to log every. single. morsel. of food you've eaten in a day can get extensive. I tried to combat this by eating a lot of the same things, especially for breakfast and lunch, then just rotating through a few well known healthy dinners. It was still a lot of time.

That's not to say that I wouldn't, or won't go back to it. If this little experiment doesn't work out, and I can't keep close enough track in my head, then I'm right back on that calorie counting train. I figure I'm *this* close... I've already gained back six. It's just that I really can't fathom tracking each spinach leaf for the next 40 or 50 years.

That's where the title of this post comes in. What I really did like about the program was the accountability factor. Knowing that I was going to have to put down in words and numbers how much I'd eaten and how hard I worked out kept me more motivated. I challenge anyone to try it. Keep track of every calorie you eat for a week. Not in that half-assed, rationalizing 'eh, that giant bowl of ice cream probably had 100 calories' kind of way. Write it all down, every bite... in a notebook, on the computer, wherever. I bet you'll think twice about a second biscuit with dinner when you know you'll have to see it in writing later. You'll hear about tracking your calories time and again if you spend any time at all in the "world of weight-loss." And it's because there really is truth there.

I'm hoping that writing here can bring me both the balance and the accountability that I need. For instance... I ate a big handful of peanut butter filled pretzels tonight while I was making dinner. Stupid, right? Here I am cooking a really healthy dinner of steamed jasmine brown rice, healthy-ish orange chicken from Trader Joe's, and steamed broccoli sprinkled with cardamom. It was practically done. Then I ate close to 300 calories of pretzels.

I bet the scale won't even bother teasing tomorrow.

On A Lark

This morning I weighed in at 136 pounds. Not horrible, but certainly not where I want to be. A little more than a year ago, I lost a bunch of baby (and whole grain Goldfish - yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous to me too) weight. But not all of it. At least, not as much as I hope to lose. Not enough to put me back where I was when I was eighteen, which, as anyone over 30 can tell you, really is frozen in time as some sort of ideal.

I hope to write about my quest to lose the "last" sixteen pounds. The ones that are stuck on my hips and belly and the backs of my arms, the ones that the little voice in my head tells me are permanent unless I get a little crazy. It's about trying to find a bit of balance while on this quest. Sometime I'll tell you the meaning that sixteen has in my life, above and beyond the number on the scale.

I've done, and continue to do, a vast variety of things to make it to this goal. I have been strict as hell with my diet, using a diet program to track every calorie in and out. I work out four days a week (it would be like seven, eight, ten... except I'm trying to find a balance between my family and my workout). I've said screw it all and eaten Halloween candy until I was sick. Okay, this doesn't count as getting me to my goal, but for the sake of honesty, it's something I've done. I want to do triathalons. I plan to complete an Ironman before I die.

So why start a blog? Mostly because I've been reading a lot of them lately. Probably because I need somewhere to whine and vent, and my husband's getting pretty sick of hearing about the size of my ass and 50 recipes you can make with chickpeas. You know how you can see something, or watch something, or read something and end up saying "I could totally do that!" I did the same thing a bunch of years ago when Trading Spaces was new on TLC. I was convinced I could be an interior designer... never mind my complete lack of artistic ability. I made a couple pieces of silly artwork, covered a couch, made a few throw pillows, and by then it was out of my system.

I have such high hopes for this blog though!

I've found there's this unbridled honesty in the blogs I've been reading that I envy. Anonymous honesty. The ability to just type whatever comes to mind and not care if someone reads it, or learns something fabulous, or just thinks you're a total idiot. So I'm just going to put it all down, and if you take issue with that, so be it.

By the way, did I mention that I'm trying to cut my family's food bill? By a lot? Not because we ate extravagantly before, but because money has been tight around here, and this seems like a relatively easy undertaking. I'm trying to get us to around $250/month for the four of us - or about $2/day each. I'm not really planning to take pictures of receipts and such, but I am keeping a running tally for the month. (And for last month, when we came in at $217.68 which in retrospect didn't include a Sam's Club trip, so that number is off. Great start, right?)

So, I plan to write about weight loss, and gain. Workouts and the lack thereof. Cooking and food, and being a non-red-meat-eater when I know my husband wishes I would just cook him a steak sometimes.

I hope it turns out just like I envision.