Category Archives: Food

Just A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good)

Posted on April 8, 2016 | Comments Off on Just A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good)

Yesterday was a pretty bad day for me. I really have no clue what started it. I was feeling fine when I went to bed the night before. I got a decent night sleep and didn’t have any issues waking up with my alarm. I didn’t even hit the snooze button a million times so I wasn’t groggy when I got out of bed. It really should have been a great day, but it wasn’t in the cards for me.

I usually don’t do errands outside the house before work, but I had to go to the grocery store to get a couple of things for meals the next couple of days. I think the first mistake was not eating anything before going to the store (it was 8am and I wasn’t hungry get). I bought a couple of things that I probably shouldn’t have gotten. And then I ate some of those things as my breakfast.

When I’ve eaten “bad” foods before, I sometimes feel off and a little sick. I have felt pretty sick on occasion, but that’s pretty rare and it usually doesn’t happen until that night or the next day. But this time, I was feeling sick about 10 minutes after I ate. I won’t get too graphic, but my body was basically rejecting what I had eaten.

This took me by surprise. Obviously, I don’t want to like the “bad” foods so feeling awful afterward was not the worst thing ever. But I don’t know why this time my body reacting so badly and so quickly. While I have been doing better with my food, it’s not a huge difference like it has been in the past. So I would expect that my body would have had worse reactions when I had been “good” for a week or more and then had a binge. But that wasn’t the case this time and I think this was the worst I ever felt.

I felt pretty bad all day long, but the worst was over before my work shift started. I was feeling pretty low and depressed all morning. There was no reason why I had a binge and it made it mad that I had done it. I wish that I had more control, and I’m getting there. But yesterday was just out of my control in the morning and my body (and mind) was paying for it.

Instead of focusing on how badly I felt, I tried to find some positive motivation online to get me into a better mindset. I found a bunch of sayings that I liked and since I couldn’t pick just one I made a collage of them.

Motivation

The most difficult part of recovery for me really isn’t the recovery part of it. It’s getting over setbacks and relapses quickly. It’s so easy to think that you just ruined everything and you might as well wait until Monday/next month/next year to start over. I’m happy to say that after my bad morning I was back on track for lunch and dinner. I wasn’t feeling hungry for either meal, but I made myself eat because I knew if I didn’t that I would get very hungry either late at night or by breakfast today and that’s when I make some of my worst choices. So I ate small healthy meals for both lunch and dinner. I know I’m still over my calories for the day because my morning was so bad, but at least I’m a bit more on track now.

Even though I got back on track by my next meal, my morning did affect how I was feeling the entire day. Part of it was the physical sickness which was a reminder of what I did. But despite my best efforts I was still thinking about what I had done and was mad at myself.

I’m hoping that today will be a better day and maybe I learned something from this (and will handle it better if/when it happens again). All these little lessons will one day build up to help me be in recovery and I just need to keep reminding myself that baby steps are better than no steps at all.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Set Back (or Why Can’t I Just Learn My Lesson) Default ThumbnailCounting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White) Default ThumbnailYup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me) Default ThumbnailHaving Bad Days (or Did I Make Myself Sick) Default ThumbnailWith The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend) Default ThumbnailAnother Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

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Networking Brunch (or Having Lots To Share)

Posted on April 5, 2016 | Comments Off on Networking Brunch (or Having Lots To Share)

I’m so happy that I’m still meeting with my fellow mentees from my WIF mentoring circle. We are assuming that we are not meeting with our mentors anymore (we didn’t have anything officially said to us, but the year of our time has passed), but that’s no reason for us not to keep meeting!

All of the past mentee-only meetings have been at my house. I’m totally fine with that because it’s pretty easy for me, but we decided this time that we wanted to change things up a bit. We had a couple of emails going back and forth about what we wanted to do and when we could met, but we settled on meeting for brunch this past weekend.

It was a nice change-up. Nobody had to cook or bring food and meeting on the weekend meant that nobody was exhausted from working all day. We decided to meet at Rush St. (where I had my birthday party) which was great since there is a free parking lot across the street and it seemed like everyone knew where it was.

We had 5 of us at brunch (the past few meetings have only been 3 of us), so it was a decent sized group. And after we all ordered food we got down to official business. Everyone went around and shared what they had been up to since the last meeting. Some people have won awards, some people have entered contests, and some people have booked amazing jobs. I usually feel like I don’t have much to share, but this time I had some good updates.

First of all, I shared how after paying my taxes I had leftover money. This is a big deal because I need a new computer and I’m still thinking about taking the next level of classes at UCB. The extra money is going to come in handy for both of those things and I’m happy that I don’t have to stress about how to afford them. I also shared about how I got a raise at one day job and might be getting more hours at another. Again, the more money I can make or save, the better off I’ll be as far as not getting into more debt and paying off my existing debt. I’m still making strides toward that goal and it’s tough when you are just making enough to cover living expenses.

Besides money and job things, I was also able to update the group on fun projects like the short film my friend Christopher and I hopefully will be shooting next month. This will be my first short film in a long time and I’m really excited to work on it. I think it’s going to be a great project and I think that it will be a lot of fun to be on set and work. I’ve missed that feeling lately and I’m happy to have it back. There are a couple of other projects in the works that are in the super early stages, but I tried to update the group on those as much as I could (it’s tough when you don’t really have details that can be shared yet).

It was really nice to have some fun things to update everyone on and not just to say that nothing is really different but I’m still pushing forward. I know the other women in my group don’t judge me on what I have or have not done, but it’s nice to have some things that are real proof of my efforts and not just ideas or plans.

Technically now I believe I’m eligible to apply for the next cycle of mentoring circles. If I do that, it will be my third one. The circles have gotten better so far, so I think that when applications are open again I’ll go for it. I can still meet with this group while having another group to work with as well. This industry is all about networking and who you know/who knows you, so it’s not a bad idea to get to meet as many people as possible. Especially if they are up and comers like I am.

As far as my current group, we still plan on continuing our meetings. We haven’t decided yet how often we will do them, but the plan is to keep them regular and hopefully as many of us will attend as possible. It’s a great accountability group to have and over the past year I have become friends with these women. So even though technically it’s a business meeting, it really just feels like hanging out with my friends.

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Default ThumbnailLast Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year) Default ThumbnailA Casual Brunch (or More Hangout And Less Catchup) Default ThumbnailLess Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees) Default ThumbnailAnother Brunch Check In (or Wishing I Had Done More) Default ThumbnailAnother Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch) Default ThumbnailBrunch Celebration (or Everyone Has Awesome News)

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

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March Recap (or I Almost Hit All My Goals)

Posted on April 1, 2016 | 3 comments

Now that March is done, I wanted to recap my goals I set for the month and how I did on my monthly challenge. I’ve been loving the goal setting work that I can do in my Spark Planner and it really has helped me to break down my goals into nice chunks so they don’t seem overwhelming!

First of all, my monthly challenge for March was to not get any delivery food at all. I don’t need to spend the money on it (and it’s not the cheap way to eat) and I know that I overeat and consume too many calories when I get delivery food. While there were a couple of times where I was feeling really lazy and just wanted to get something ordered in so I didn’t have to cook, I’m happy to share that I did not get any delivery food for the month.

I did go out to eat and sometimes got food to bring home, but that is a much more controllable amount of food and there are no minimums I have to meet in order to order. I’ve gone a month or so without delivery food in the past, but it’s never really been a conscious effort before. This time I had a reason to do it and a reason I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I know that it’s not reasonable to say I will never get delivery food again (I do always get Chinese food delivered for Christmas), but I really do want to keep this new habit up and extremely limit how often I order in. I’m not sure what I want to limit it to, but I think once a month max seems like a good goal. I’ll have to see how it goes as time goes on, but I’m glad I set this goal for myself so I could prove that it’s not difficult and a lifestyle that I can maintain.

As for the rest of the goals I set for March, I did ok. I got all the workouts in for the month that I wanted to. I did try a new yoga app I have on my iPad (and I’m going to keep doing that). I worked on my budget and reevaluated things and figured out where I can save and where I can avoid spending. And I went on a ton of fun adventures with my friends.

The ones that I didn’t quite get done are having a home cooked meal every week. I did that for 4 of the 5 weeks this month. That’s not bad, but I know I could have done it that one week I didn’t and it frustrates me that I wasn’t able to motivate myself enough to do it. It does help that I’m keeping my house stocked with easy to put together things so I can eat those and not get delivery food. But microwaving something isn’t home cooking. And I had a goal to read one eating disorder book this month. I read about half of one book and the first few chapters of another. But there was always another book that distracted me and I didn’t finish the ones I set a goal to. This isn’t horrible, but I want to finish at least one of those books soon.

I’ve also spent the past few days thinking about the goals I want to set for April. I know that I have a certain number of workouts I want to get done, I want to do the home cooked meal once a week again, and I want to not order delivery food for the month. Those I think will be easy enough to do and I almost feel silly for writing them down because I see them as things that I will automatically do.

As far as the goals that are a bit more of a stretch for me, I’m still working on them and hope to have them figured out in the next day or so. I want to set a goal for a certain number of iPad yoga classes this month, but I don’t know how many I want to do. I also want to set a goal of something related to going out and having fun, but I’m not sure how I want to phrase it.

And the hardest thing for me to figure out is what my month-long challenge for April will be. I think it’s so difficult for me because each month I’ve had 100% success with my challenges. It doesn’t need to be that way (and the 30 days of completion don’t have to all be in a single month), but I’m really stuck in that mindset.

One of the ideas I thinking about has to do with weighing myself every day. I’ve rarely weighed myself every day. It can drive me crazy with the little fluctuations that everyone has. But I haven’t been doing so great with weighing myself once a week, so it could be a long time between weighing myself and I don’t want to avoid it. I realized that this month, I went over 3 weeks between weighing myself and I was starting to feel a bit panicky. I had no idea if my weight was up a bunch or down a bunch and I was terrified that I was going to be way up because I was avoiding reality. I was up by about 6 pounds, so it wasn’t that horrible but I know that I don’t want to repeat that gap between my weigh-ins.

I am a bit afraid that if I weigh myself every day I will get very obsessive with it, but maybe that fear is the exact reason why I need to set this as my challenge. I don’t have any other challenge ideas in mind right now, and if I don’t have anything else by this weekend I’ll probably set the weighing one as my challenge. But I’m not 100% ready to write it down just yet.

I hope that you guys are enjoying these monthly recaps as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing them. I think it’s so important to set goals and before this year I really only focused on annual ones. Now that I have weekly and monthly ones, I’m realizing how much I was skipping out on before and I almost feel like I am making up for lost time now.

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Recap Update (or My New Habits) Default ThumbnailMay Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default Thumbnail2015 Recap (or How I Did On My Goals) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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Grownup Dinner (or Seeing A Gym Friend Outside Of The Gym)

Posted on March 17, 2016 | 1 comment

Even though several of my plans over the weekend had ended up not happening, the one thing that didn’t get rescheduled was my dinner on Monday evening. I had dinner plans to hang out with my friend Dani.

Dani and I pretty much see each other every week at Orangetheory, but it’s not that often that we see each other outside of workouts. We see each other for our Pantages shows (although she didn’t come with me to “The Illusionists”) and we also sometimes hang out like at her birthday party or at the Disney musical show. But usually our hangouts are at the gym and we catch up on life before class starts.

So when Dani asked me if I wanted to get dinner with her on Monday night, I was super excited to get to hang out with her! She suggested a restaurant in downtown Culver City and it worked perfectly for me. Downtown Culver City is only a few blocks from my house. And since the clocks changed it was still pretty light out when I was leaving for dinner at 7pm. So I took advantage of the late sunlight and walked to dinner.

Walking In Culver City

I don’t walk to restaurants in downtown Culver City too often because I don’t walk home at night alone. But Dani said she could drive me home after dinner, so I was able to walk there (and get in a bunch of steps for the day).

We met for dinner at Akasha. I had been there before, but I hadn’t been there in a long time so I was excited to go again. When we got there, we went to the hostess stand to get a table and found out that since we didn’t make a reservation it was going to be over an hour wait! I couldn’t believe it because it was a Monday and so many tables in the restaurant were empty. But since we didn’t want to wait that long we found seats at the bar to eat there (the entire menu is available at the bar so that’s good).

As soon as we got our seats at the bar, the first order of business was ordering drinks. I don’t drink that often (I can’t because of taking Vyvanse), but I can have a couple of drinks a month if I want to. I haven’t had a drink in a while, so I figured that getting a glass of prosecco would be nice (I ended up only being able to drink about half of the glass). Dani and I kept joking that this was a grownup dinner since we were in normal clothes and not gross and sweaty after a workout. It was a nice change of things.

The conversation was pretty awesome. Dani has a really cool trip coming up so she was telling me all about it and I was sharing with her how nice it was to have a lazy weekend the past weekend (sadly, I didn’t have too much to share since I hadn’t really done much lately). There was also a guy also sitting at the bar who looked really familiar to Dani so we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if he was on a tv show or something.

As far as dinner goes, I’m still trying to eat healthy so I ordered a bit differently than I probably would have in the past. I got a salad and a small plate (I think it might technically have been an appetizer but it was the perfect size for me). That isn’t that different from what I would get most of the time, but the salad was me testing out a food I don’t like: kale.

I know that kale is super hip right now and everyone seems to be eating it, but I don’t. When I was a kid, my family had a pet lizard who ate kale. Back then it wasn’t something that most people ate (I’m guessing it was super cheap because of that) and I only saw kale as lizard food. I really believed that until a few years ago nobody ate kale. But once it became super popular I tried it and didn’t really like it.

I have a rule that if there is a food that I claim to hate that I have to try it at least twice a year. I do make my best effort to try the foods I don’t like that often but I know that it doesn’t always happen. The only food that I have decided I don’t have to try again is pineapple. I tried it the last time in Hawaii and I still hated it. Even though I love my Dole Whips, I hate pineapple. So I don’t try that again anymore. But since kale has still been on my hated food list, when I saw it on the menu as a kale caesar salad, I figured I’d try it.

Kale Salad

Honestly, I think the reason I liked it was because of the dressing and not the kale. But I still ate most of it and did enjoy it! So now I know that if kale is prepared with other flavors I love, I might like it. Good for me to know!

My dinner was the small plate of potato gnocchi with mushrooms. It was pretty small (especially compared to Dani’s dinner with was a giant plate of awesome food), but it was tasty and just enough food for me.

Dinner

We were hoping to go on a quick shopping adventure after dinner, but since there was a line to get out of the parking structure we ended up skipping it. But I know that the shopping adventure will be happening in the near future.

It does feel like a bit of a luxury to go out for dinner with a friend like this. Normally going out for dinner is Chipotle or Lyfe Kitchen (ironically I had a dinner with a friend at Lyfe Kitchen the next day). There’s nothing wrong with those places, but they are not nearly as nice as a sit down dinner where you have to spend more than $20 to eat. It’s not something that I can do that often, but it’s not unreasonable to do as a treat. It does feel really grownup to do that since most of the times I go out for a nice dinner I’m with my family. It’s just not something I get to do with a friend normally.

But after splurging on going out to dinner with Dani, I realize that treating myself like that every once in a while is totally worth it. Yet another thing to work on planning into my schedule to make my life the best it can be.

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Default ThumbnailBroadway Sings Disney (or A Fun Adventure With An Awesome Friend) Default ThumbnailA Hanukkah Dinner (or Sharing Some Traditions With A Friend) Default ThumbnailAn Overdue Friend Hangout (or A Medical Discussion Dinner) Default ThumbnailA Goodbye Dinner (or My Friend Is Becoming A Georgia Peach) Default ThumbnailA Full Friend Day (or Cheesecake For Lunch And Drinks For Dinner) Default ThumbnailCheesecake Dinner (or A Half Birthday Outing)

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Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Posted on March 11, 2016 | Comments Off on Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

I’m working really hard at cooking more at home. With my challenge for this month being no delivery food, I must have better options in my house to eat so I don’t fail at the challenge.

I think what I really struggled with in the past was the sheer number of options for foods to make. I have dozens of cookbooks (I recently gave some away so I think it might just be under 2 dozen cookbooks now) and all of them have lots of recipes that seem super delicious and I know I could probably make them. I’m a good cook and I can follow a recipe, so I don’t worry too much about not being able to make something (although I do worry about something not tasting good if I make it).

I think the other problem with a majority of the recipes in the cookbooks are the number of ingredients that a recipe requires. Maybe if I had a huge kitchen I’d keep a ton of ingredients on hand to be able to make anything with very little grocery shopping required, but that’s not my situation. My kitchen is a small but functional and I don’t have much storage or counter space. So I have to keep things limited that I store. So many of the recipes seem like I would have to fill an entire grocery cart with the ingredients just for that meal. That’s expensive, that’s a lot of stuff to store, and chances are most of it would spoil before I used it up.

So a lot of the things I’ve been making in the past have been pretty plain. I do a lot of the same veggie bowls that I made a year ago on the cleanse I did. Even though the meatloaf I make is a bit fancier, it’s still not a ton of ingredients and it’s really easy to put together. I keep lots of things that are easy to make (like turkey burgers and veggies) in my freezer so it’s not too difficult to put together a basic dinner. And I’m glad that this is a habit that I’m still sticking with.

But I’m still looking to bring more variety into my cooking because even though basic foods can be healthy, they can be boring. And I know that if I get bored with something I won’t keep eating it (that’s why I stopped making veggie bowls for so long). So I’m working on easy ways to add variety to the flavor of my foods but don’t require too much effort or shopping.

This past week I had a couple of different meals that worked out really well. Toward the beginning of the week, I made a turkey burger for dinner (which to me is perfect just plain on its own). But I knew I’d want a good side dish to go with it. I had picked up some broccoli because I figured I’d make broccoli at some point, so I figured this was as good of a time as any. I steamed the florets in the microwave and then put those into a bowl to cool a bit. Then I browned some butter in the microwave (it’s a bit messy, but the flavor is totally worth it) and after that was done added some fresh lemon juice to it. My mom does this to broccoli all the time and it’s one of my favorites. And it made a delicious and nice looking dinner that night.

Turkey Burger

Next time I’ll make more of it because I ate so much of it and I need to do some adjustments to the flavor of the sauce (I needed more lemon), but it was really good and reminded me how good healthy food is.

Then on Wednesday night after my workout I knew I needed to cook dinner. I used to hate cooking dinner on workout nights, but I’m starting to be ok with it. In the past, I might microwave a dinner or get delivery after a workout because I was tired. But honestly it’s not that much harder for me to cook (I know, everyone has been telling me this for years but I didn’t believe it) and as long as I have things in my kitchen that are easy enough to put together I can get it done really quickly.

One thing that I’m a bit obsessed with right now are smashed potatoes. I use baby potatoes and cook them for a few minutes in the microwave. Then I smash them down with a paper towel and bake them until they are super crispy. I usually use my oven to bake them in, but on Wednesday I wasn’t using my oven for anything else. So I tried making them in my toaster oven. And to add some flavoring to them, I tried this new seasoning grinder I got at Trader Joes.

Garlic Salt

While the potatoes were baking, I cooked up some chicken sausages and thankfully I timed things out pretty well because the potatoes were done pretty soon after the chicken was. While I’ve made these potatoes a lot lately, adding this new garlic salt seasoning really made a huge difference and made them so good! I’m thinking maybe I’ll try this seasoning on some chicken next week.

While I’m super happy that I’m still keeping up with cooking at home and that I’m taking more chances and finding more things I enjoy making, I’m still worried that this is a phase and I will go back to my old ways. Maybe being cautiously optimistic is better than feeling overly confident that I’ve changed and will never go back to how I was before. I really want to keep making steps toward a healthier (and cheaper) life and I know that cooking is a huge part of that. Hopefully I’m able to keep this up.

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A Dinner Hangout (or Seeing My Sister-In-Law in LA)

Posted on March 2, 2016 | Comments Off on A Dinner Hangout (or Seeing My Sister-In-Law in LA)

Even though my schedule the past week was crazy (I haven’t even covered the craziness of my past weekend), I still tried to have fun when I could. So when my sister-in-law Krystle sent me a text saying that she was going to me in LA on Friday, I knew I had to hang out with her! Since she and my brother moved to Santa Barbara, she and I haven’t really hung out in LA too much. She’s come over to my house for a quick visit, but it’s usually just a stop on their drive back from San Diego.

While I couldn’t hang out with Krystle and Ross while they were exploring LA (I was working then), I was able to join Krystle for dinner after she dropped my brother off at a friend’s house and before she and a friend went to a concert.

Since she was dropping my brother off in Brentwood, it worked out really well for me. I was working out at Orangetheory at 4pm, so we made plans to get dinner around 5:30/6. As soon as my workout was done, I showered and changed there (they have really nice shower facilities but I usually go home to shower after class). We were meeting for dinner at a burger place across the street from Orangetheory. But because Orangetheory is valet parking (we get 90 minutes for free), I moved my car across the street to cheaper parking.

I had never been to Barneys Hamburgers before, but I usually don’t hang out in Brentwood. I just go there for my workout and then go home. But this place seemed really cute and the menu seemed awesome when I looked online, so I was excited to check it out.

Krystle and her friend had gotten a table before I arrived, but they only beat me by a few minutes. Of course, she and I tried to catch up right away. But since they had a concert to go to, we knew we needed to order food first so they could leave on time.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the menu at first, and I didn’t want to eat anything too crazy since I had just worked out. But then I realized that it was ok to splurge a bit and found a couple of burgers that looked pretty awesome to me. I figured I’d have to go back another time soon to try another burger, so I chose one that looked good but not too crazy. It had cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce on it. It wasn’t the healthiest thing on the menu, but it was far from the worst. We also ordered truffle fries for the table (even though Krystle doesn’t like truffle fries, her friend and I do so I’m grateful that she let us get something to share even if it isn’t her favorite).

Post Workout Burger

The burger was really great! I don’t eat burgers like most people do. I tend to take the top off of it and then cut into it with a fork and knife. It’s a weird habit that I’ve had for a while, but it works for me and it keeps me from getting hamburger from falling out of the bun and onto my clothes.

While we were eating, Krystle was telling me about some upcoming trips that she and my brother are taking and how her wedding planning business is going. I’ll be seeing her in Santa Barbara next month when I’m there for Rayshell’s wedding, so we also talked about what we want to do while I’m there (my parents are going to be in Santa Barbara then too so it will be lots of family time).

We also got to talk a bit about the next trip that she and I take together. We though it would be a fun weekend in Las Vegas, but life got in the way and if we are going to do that it will have to wait until the fall or winter because we don’t want to be there in the heat of the summer. But this coming winter is when we also thought we’d go back to New York, so we have to decide which trip we want to take. Either one will be awesome and I’m super excited to get to spend more time with Krystle soon on an adventure.

We only got to hang out at dinner for about an hour before Krystle and her friend had to leave to get to the concert. Even though it was a fast hangout, it was seriously so much fun! I hope that Krystle can come down to LA every so often so she and I can do stuff here. There’s so much fun stuff in LA that she hasn’t done, so I’m hoping she can join me when I find out about a cool event.

After I said goodbye to Krystle and her friend, I headed home to get ready for my crazy weekend. But more on that in tomorrow’s post…

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Posted in Family, Food, Fun Stuff

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Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

Posted on February 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

After doing so well with cooking recently, this past week was a serious let down for me. I had ever intention of trying to do some real cooking this week, but that never happened.

Part of it is due to my schedule. I got back late on Monday night from my trip. And while I did go to the grocery store, I wasn’t going to cook at 9pm for the week. Tuesday after work I had my WIF meeting. Wednesday after work was my workout. And while I could have cooked after getting home from my workout, I wasn’t feeling up for cooking after taking over an hour to get home. Thursday I had a friend at my house after work and I didn’t want to be rude and cook while they were here. And tonight I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner. It’s just not my week to have free time after work to prepare and cook meals.

I guess there were little places in my schedule that I could have cooked, but I don’t think I’m really the person to cook a meal that I don’t need to eat that night and to use all of it as leftovers. I’m still easing my way back into cooking and I think knowing that what I’m making is going to be my meal is more normal to me than just cooking and storing everything immediately. When I cook, I do get hungry (even if I just ate). So knowing that I will be eating that meal when it’s done is a way to stop the cravings to want to snack while I’m cooking.

Just because I’m not cooking doesn’t mean I’m eating like crap. I’m doing my lazy version of cooking with the easy to prepare things that I bought at the grocery store on Monday night. These aren’t the most balanced meals and I’m sure I could do better, but sometimes I need something easy like a waffle with peanut butter and a banana so I don’t get really hungry and order delivery food (which is almost never the good option). I’m finding better things to keep in my house to use as easy meals so I don’t feel like there’s nothing in my house to eat. A lot of these things are frozen, but I think that frozen food doesn’t have to be bad food. Trader Joes sells lots of good frozen veggie options and I love their frozen prepared brown rice. Those plus a protein (like the frozen cowboy burgers) are great meals that I can put together in minutes.

I’m lucky that breakfast is pretty easy for me, and dinner is easy enough (but I know it could be better). The place that I’m struggling is lunch. I used to miss lunch a lot because I would get distracted by work and forget (never good before having an after work workout), but I have an app that alerts me to eat by 1pm now. So at least I’m not forgetting anymore. But I’m still struggling about what to eat because it needs to be easy enough to prepare because I don’t want to step away from work for too long but also needs to be easy to eat since I have to take bites between customers if someone calls or starts an online chat.

I’m working on meal planning (but not looking at bulk cooking as the plan) right now. I know that if I plan things out better, I can grocery shop better (and probably spend less money) and I won’t have the “what can I eat” feeling at mealtime. While I had a decent plan going last year on the cleanse, I think that it worked for me so well because the lack of variety. I need more variety than what I had then, but too much variety is too overwhelming and too expensive. The balance is tough to find, but I’m working on it.

I know this weekend will not be including cooking because I’ll be out-of-town again, but I’m hoping after getting back from that trip I can get back into my groove and continue to enjoy lots of healthy, delicious, and easy meals that I cooked myself.

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Still Cooking (or It’s Almost A Habit)

Posted on February 19, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m scared to be too excited about this, but I’m happy to report that I’m still doing a lot of cooking at home. I’m not doing this because I have to for a specific reason (like a diet plan or limiting food options). I’m doing this because I want to.

Most of my cooking is still pretty basic. It’s not as much of a lazy thing, it’s more because I don’t want to have to buy a ton of ingredients or risk a recipe coming out badly. Turkey burgers and sautĂ©ed veggies are still a staple for me. It’s super easy and fast to put together and while it isn’t the most flavorful meal it keeps me full. And when I’m getting home late after a workout, I really don’t want to have to spend a long time putting together food.

But when I do have the time, I’m testing more and more recipes so I can have more things that are easy enough to put together and are very tasty. So many cookbooks seem to have dozens of ingredients (and things that I don’t always keep in my house), so I’ve been doing a lot of searching online for recipes that include a lot of what I already have (or something that I decided to pick up at the store that week).

This past weekend while doing my grocery shopping, I decided to pick up some ground beef. I honestly had no plan of what I would do with it, but I figured I could make meatballs or hamburgers or something. So I did some searching online for fun ground beef recipes and what came up most often was meatloaf. I’ve made meatloaf before and it didn’t come out so great because the outside was overcooked and the inside was undercooked. But then I started to do a search for meatloaf muffins and found enough basic recipes to put something together myself.

I made meatloaf (made pretty simply with a pound of ground beef and added a minced onion, diced a red pepper, added some ketchup (about 4 tbs), some Worcestershire sauce (about 1 tbs), a cup of bread crumbs, an egg, and some salt and pepper) and mixed it up pretty well. Then I took a disposable cupcake tin and divided the mixture into 6 portions. I baked it for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees (I waited until a meat thermometer got to 160 degrees in the middle of one of the muffins) and they looked pretty amazing. I also made smashed potatoes (I microwaved baby potatoes until they were soft, smushed them onto a baking sheet, and baked them with some garlic olive oil while the meatloaf baked) and my food looked pretty incredible.

More Home Cooking

Between the prep time, the baking time, and the time to let things cool down so I could serve myself; it was only about an hour from start to finish (and I was able to do all the dishes while the food was cooking). That’s not bad at all and the food tasted pretty great! The potatoes could have used a bit more olive oil on them (and maybe some actual garlic on them too) and the meatloaf had a bit too much Worcestershire in it, but overall I was pretty happy. And I know the next time I make the meatloaf I’ll add some more veggies in the mix because you couldn’t tell they were in there at all. Maybe I’ll add some mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini since I usually have those in my fridge anyway. And the recipe is pretty easy to double, so I can always make even more and freeze them so I have easy microwave meals on days I’m too tired to cook (instead of having limited time to eat leftovers in the fridge).

I’m seriously proud of myself for cooking when there isn’t a specify reason I have to. This is the start of making cooking more of a habit for me. And I know that this habit has started and stopped for me a couple of times in the past, but this time things are different. I’m not trying to be trendy (by following a specific plan or tying to bulk cook). Those trendy cooking things work for so many people but I guess it doesn’t help me. I just need to cook when I feel like it, allow myself to have easy meals on nights that I don’t, and to have enough variety to not get sick of what I’ve made and want to go and order delivery food instead.

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Doing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time)

Posted on February 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Doing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time)

I think we’ve all seen tons of articles that talk about how cooking from home is so much better than getting take out, delivery, or going out to eat. Obviously, it is cheaper (unless you are making something really elaborate or with a ton of ingredients). But there are also dozens of articles that I’ve seen over the years saying that it’s much faster to make your own dinner than it takes for a delivery person to get to your house.

Cooking has always felt like an event to me. Maybe it’s because I live alone and cooking for one person isn’t always that fun. But it’s never felt like part of the routine or natural in my day. I’m really working on fixing this because I was doing great cooking all my own meals while I was on the cleanse a year ago. It’s been really tough for me to get back into really cooking but it’s an effort that I’m working on right now.

After making my chicken dish on Monday, I was feeling a bit better about cooking again. It was my first big cooking thing in a long time and it did feel great to cook again. And since there were leftovers, I knew I’d have some home cooked meals for a few more meals.

I had ever intention of eating the leftover chicken for dinner the next night, but I ended up eating it for lunch and then feeling very uninspired to make dinner that night. I’m not happy I did this, but I ordered delivery food. While the delivery food tastes good while I’m eating it, I know my body doesn’t love it. I feel a bit sluggish after eating and I know that it is a big factor in my weight gain.

I don’t know why I ordered the food. Obviously I needed dinner, but I didn’t need to order food. It’s almost like an impulse or reflex that I didn’t think about until after the fact. I need to work on being in the moment or more aware when I do this, because I know that I could have done without the delivery food.

From the time I placed my order for food until the time I was eating was just over an hour. And the next day I was determined to prove to myself that I can do much better for myself in an hour with food that I had in the house.

The next day, after getting home from my workout and showering, I cooked myself some dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy. I cut up some zucchini and an onion and cooked those in one pan until the zucchini was brown and the onions were soft. And in another pan (yes, it was a 2 pan dinner!), I cooked a frozen turkey burger that I had in the freezer from Trader Joes. I started the veggies first and then the turkey burger and by some miracle they were basically done at the exact same time.

I have to admit that not only was it healthy and tasted great, it looked pretty nice too.

Home Cooking

I sat down and ate my dinner and then started working on the dishes. There were a lot of dishes to do (knives, 2 pans, cooking utensils, a cutting board, the plate and fork I used to eat) so that took me a while to clean and figure out how to fit everything into the drying rack since I don’t have a dishwasher at my house. By the time that I was done cleaning, I felt like it had been a big production to cook and clean. But I looked at the clock and it hadn’t even been an hour from the time I started cooking until the time I was done with all the cleanup.

I know it shouldn’t have surprised me, but I was pretty shocked. I figured that obviously cooking is faster than waiting on delivery since you can easily cook in under and hour and most deliveries seem to be an hour. But I wasn’t expecting it to be faster to cook, eat, and clean in the time I wait for the delivery guy.

I’m not going to say that I will never order delivery food again. That would be a total lie. I know I’ll order it again because it is delicious and there is nothing wrong with an occasional treat. But I need to work on making it a treat and not a habit. And now I know that the most important thing for me is to make sure my house is stocked with foods that are easy to put together. I’d love to make awesome meals all the time, but when I’m tired and lazy I just need something that is easy to make and will be healthy and fill me up.

I’m sure that at some point it may be possible that I will “forget” this lesson and go back into my bad habits. I’m hoping that won’t be true, but I’ve learned that setbacks are a part of life and I can’t let those get me down. I need to be able to have my setback and then get right back to the regular game plan right away. And I’ve proved to myself that I can do that.

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Honey Dijon Chicken (or An Easy Sheet Pan Dinner)

Posted on February 10, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve been seriously slacking on cooking lately. I was doing so great doing bulk cooking and then cooking less often last year. But this year cooking just wasn’t something I felt like doing. I haven’t just been eating freezer meals or delivery, but my cooking was limited to making turkey burgers or something really easy to throw together. And I knew that I needed to get myself back into the cooking game because while I don’t know if I want to cook every night, I do want to eat more home cooked meals.

So the other day I was browsing through Buzzfeed (it’s something I do between customers at one day job after I’m done doing the other day job), and I saw a recipe that looked good to me. So I decided to test it out, and I’m actually super happy with how it tasted! It wasn’t perfect, but the chicken was super juicy and the flavorings were really awesome. So here it is!

Honey Dijon Chicken With Potatoes and Carrots

Honey Dijon Chicken

What you need:

  • 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 breasts)
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 3 medium red bliss potatoes (about ½ lb), roughly chopped
  • 2 medium carrots (about ½ lb), peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1 Tbsp. canola oil, divided
  • 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, or sage leaves, divided
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard

And here’s what to do:

  • Remove the chicken breasts from the fridge, dry them with paper towels, and season them with salt and pepper.
  • Preheat the oven to 425°F.
  • Place the potatoes and carrots on a large sheet pan and toss them with ½ tablespoon canola oil, ½ tablespoon chopped herbs, a pinch of salt, and some freshly ground pepper.
  • In a large mixing bowl, stir together the remaining canola oil, the honey, mustard, the remaining chopped herbs, a big pinch of kosher salt, and some freshly ground pepper. Dry the chicken breasts again with paper towels. Add the chicken breasts to the bowl and toss everything together to coat. Place the chicken on the sheet pan with the vegetables, spreading everything out.

Before the oven

  • Roast in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through with no pink in the middle. A thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast should read 165°F.
  • Let everything rest at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes, then serve.

Cooked meal

I used more chicken than the recipe asked for (I couldn’t find just 1 lb of chicken breasts at the store), so I decided to do more carrots and potatoes than it asked for as well. And the carrots at my store weren’t looking so great, so I used baby carrots instead. If I was doing this over, I’d cut the baby carrots in half (they were very crisp) and I’d cut the potatoes a bit smaller too. But nothing was tasting raw or not cooked, so I was happy. The only other modification I might do in the future is to change the herbs in it or add garlic since I love garlic so much.

I turned my cooking into 3 servings. I had the first serving on Monday night when I cooked it and then put the other 2 servings into storage containers in my fridge. I know that sometimes leftovers don’t heat up that nicely, but I ate this again yesterday for lunch and it was still just as good as the night before (and I was shocked that the chicken was still juicy and not dry at all).

The fact that this came out so nicely the first time I made it really made me feel great and made me remember how much pride I feel when I cook something from scratch. It’s not easy to do all the time, but I really do want to make more of an effort in the future. And now that I’m feeling more confident in my cooking abilities again, I think I’ll be ok with trying new recipes again (I’m always nervous that I’ll spend a ton of money on ingredients and then the food gets ruined or tastes bad).

I highly recommend this recipe (thanks again Buzzfeed!). It’s a nice meal to make for yourself, but it also looks impressive if you are making it for other people as well. This is definitely going to be saved in my collection of favorite recipes!

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