I am kicking Friday's ass so far...

• Woke up, got out of bed and saw the cute little pile of cat puke just outside of my bedroom door BEFORE I stepped in it (a gift for locking them out of my bedroom for the night).

Nice try, bitches

•  Made an impromptu decision to step on the scale. I HAVE LOST JUST UNDER 10 POUNDS SINCE STARTING PALEO

Nooooo shit!

•  Cooked this delicious breakfast for myself in under 5 minutes (eggs, spinach and tomatoes sauteed with coconut oil, sliced tomato on the side)

 

• Drove all the way to work with less than no gas, hoping to save 30 cents per gallon at the Stop and Shop gas station.

Nailed it

•  I think pixelated Hulk Hogan says it best: 

 

The day I drank the Kool-Aid

A friend of mine recently started the Whole 30, which is essentially a slightly stricter version of the Paleo, or Caveman, diet. (If you are unfamiliar with this diet/philosophy, please feel free to research it on your own…I won’t be going into the whole background of it here).

I’ve been listening to her daily updates, doing some research about Paleo in general, and (as expected) getting hit with resistance, disbelief and sarcastic comments from anyone I try to speak to about trying it. I’m sure many of you who have ‘gone Paleo’ have had a similar experience. It’s not surprising, really…it’s a rather extreme concept when you’re used to eating ‘normal’ food and drinking on a regular basis.

Concurrently, I’ve been feeling for months that I’m being a complete douche to my body. Here it is, doing all of these incredible things daily to keep me alive and moving, and yet I continue to put it on the couch or my desk chair for hours on end. I do my hair and makeup and make sure my clothes are doing the best they can to camouflage any unsightly bulges or blemishes, but my insides get no such kind treatment. Instead, my muscles, lungs and heart are neglected. Rather than allowing them to work, strain and build themselves up to be even stronger, I leave them stagnant. My liver, which has so many important jobs to perform, is being taxed continuously with shit food, chemicals and more alcohol than it probably knows what to do with.  

Now, I’m far from being an earthy-crunchy environmentalist who feels the need to rage against the audacity of the government for not providing the nourishment needed to sustain a healthy lifestyle. I fully understand that choices need to be made on a personal and individual basis, and I take responsibility only for myself.

That being said, I think I’m going to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid and dive in. In one month, research tells me that my body will have refrained from using boosts of sugar or caffeine for energy. It will start to function as it was intended, and I will feel stronger and cleaner. I know it’s extreme and it will be met with resistance and debate, and for that reason I will be doing my best to keep it to myself and my blog. I will address things on an ‘as needed’ basis in social situations. I will not burden those around me with my struggles, mainly because I don’t want them to feel guilty about eating any of the things I can not. 

It’s just a month.

If I hate it, it was just a month.

A month.

Cause and Effect

If you decide it would be more fun to swim, lay in the sun, eat BBQ'd food and play yard games all weekend instead of going grocery shopping (as you should)...you will pay the price when it comes time to pack your lunch. I'm lucky my stomach is forgiving.

• 2 (mildly freezer burned) stuffed clams
• 1 English cucumber 
• 1 stick of string cheese
• 1 cup of diced peaches

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0% sense of cohesion

Gobbledy Blog

In honor of the day before which we give thanks (so many thanks) and eat food (so many foods), I thought I would do a quick picture post of all the random food I have taken pictures of with my phone. NO JUDGING. 

Shrimp and Grits in North Carolina

Bacon cheeseburger with a FRIED EGG on it at Red Robin

Believe it or not, those are bananas with pistachios at Solea.

First foray into cooking with polenta...

Sliced and fried it...

Added it to marinara, and...

Voila! Polenta parmesan.

My favorite drink in the world: Ketel One martini, extra EXTRA (filthy) dirty!

(Not just my favorite)

That's right...

Typical lunch/snack at work, which oddly consists of all things I HATED as a child: beets, celery, tuna, and radishes! As it so happens, salt and pepper make everything better.

Typical dinner at home: chicken breast, brussels, and salad.

So the moral of this random story of pictures is, for the most part I eat quite healthy, but when I stray, I stray BIG. Bon apetit!

Hot diggity

Holy shit.

It’s a pig. Made out of pigs. Wrapped in BACON. A bacon pig.
I shouldn’t, right? Oh but I will. This bitch will be on my table before Sunday…believe it.

At least there are no carbs…

New Cooking Show

It’ll be called “Making Do” or “Random Shit in the Fridge” or something witty like that, and will involve me making something magical and delicious out of whatever ingredients I happen to have on hand. Sort of like Rachael Ray meets Survivor Man, but…not.

Series premiere:

Kitchen SAYS! (this is said in the tone of Survey SAYS! a la Family Feud):

• Chicken breast
• Turkey pepperoni
• Fat-free swiss cheese slices
• Parmesan cous cous (always)

And the answer is…

BOOM!!! Big money. It was like a poor/healthy man’s turducken…or actually not at all. But make it…it looks fancy and tastes amazeballs!

The Challenge

Make a reasonably healthy dinner using tofu and whatever other randoms are in the fridge.

The result: pretty and delicious!

• Tofu
• Brussels
• Turkey bacon
• Tons of spicy spices
• Fresh parmesan/romano

This is how we do it

Ok, so by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’…but if for even one second Montell Jordan entered your mind then for realz yo, my work here is done. And in case he didn’t…please do yourself a solid and click here.

I first need to state for the record that I owe the Herb Gods a HUGE apology. I’m not talking about Biggie Smalls or Snoop here (although truth: I would give up a limb to hang out with Snoop for an hour). I’m speaking of the Gods of the herbs of the earth…those fragrant gifts known as sage, thyme, rosemary and the like. I have maintained for much of my adult life that I despise these herbs. Rosemary chicken? No thank you. Thyme-infused turkey breast? I’ll take a pass, please. However, I am slowly coming around to the fact that along with other random foods like celery and cilantro, I may have come to love them. (Exception: dill. I have never, don’t, and will never EVER tolerate it in my mouth, unless it is in pickle form. Also, cantaloupe=gag.)

I was going to make a long story short, but as my most awesome Uncle Bob used to say, “too late.” What I’m getting to is that my night last night was pretty fecking stellar. Let me show you in (mostly) picture form:

Got home from work and rubbed a center cut pork loin with a blended mix of 6 sage leaves, 1/8 cup olive oil, some oregano, garlic and salt. Left it to sit for 30 minutes. (Also, I scored it to get more flavor all up in there.)

While it was sitting, I did a butt/thigh workout combo courtesy of Verizon Fios on demand. (It was very effective…my own butt/thigh combo is killing me today.)

Then, I took my hunk of meat and seared it in a skillet over very high heat on all sides (about 5 minutes). This is the point where I wish I had smell-o-vision because the scents rising up off that hunk? INCREDIBLE. Hellooooooooo, sage!

The recipe then called for me to add some tomatoes and then heavy cream before roasting in the oven (same skillet) for 40 minutes. In retrospect, my tomatoes disappeared, and although it looked pretty I don’t think the cream added anything (perhaps because I used fat free half and half). Next time I think I’ll just add some chicken stock or some other liquid concoction.

While the roast was roasting (insert picture of roast roasting)…

 …yum. So as I was saying, while that was going on I did another workout (some sort of sexy stretching thing that most assuredly did NOT look sexy on my side of the TV) and painted my nails this lovely new color. It’s called “Love in the Forest.” I’ll tell you, it was “Love in my Living Room” for sure.

 The last step of the roast was to take it out and add more cream, some gin and more sage leaves and roast for another 15-20 minutes (feel free to mix yourself a G&T right about now):

The final product will never be seen because I am a clumsy fool. I took the skillet out of the 425 degree oven and placed it on the stove top, using the appropriate burn-proof tools. Then I did the unthinkable, and grabbed the handle of the skillet to pick it up.

OOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Burns all over my fingers and palm. Cooking fail. And sadly, not the first time I’ve done that. Anyway, I alternated between icing it with an ice pack and just holding an ice-cold glass of white. I’m nothing if not resourceful.

All injuries aside…the pork, when paired with garlic and herb flavored cous cous, was dabomb.com. Fancy dinner for one made for a marvelous Monday indeed.

Foodgasm

Turn these:

 

Into this:

Technically it’s salsa, but I don’t even use chips. I add V8 to a bowl of it and voila! Cold refreshing gazpacho. Add a dollop of sour cream if you’re feeling fancy. Delicioso!

DEF lunch (delicious, easy and fast!)

•  1 small can of albacore tuna
• 1 cup of grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1 WW string cheese, sliced into pieces
• 1 teaspoon of Italian dressing

Total WW points: 5

Dessert? Gum. Definitely gum.

Creamy lemon shrimp

I made something that was "too delicious" last night (yes, there is such a thing). Regular old "delicious" means I loved it, but "too delicious" means it was originally a WW recipe but I ran with it and ate about 6 times more than I was supposed to. Therefore, it will not be welcome again in my home. However, you should totally try that theory out for yourself. It was easy, fast and tasted great...perfect combination!

First, boil your pasta (they recommended linguini but I had thin spaghetti so I used that). It's not your imagination, there is waaaaay more pasta than anyone should need in that pot. Mind your business.

Next, combine 1/4 cup of egg substitute (I used 2 real egg whites), 1 cup of fat-free milk, some mustard powder, about 2 tbsp of lemon juice, salt and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Put that aside. (I know it looks gross, try to get past it.)

Lastly, saute up a package of mushrooms in a big frying pan, add about 8 oz (or half of a big bag) of shrimp until pink and cooked, and then when that's all done put your heat on low and add the eggy/milk mixture. Stir constantly until bubbling, then add your spaghetti and some (a lot) of fresh parmesan to taste.

Here's what it looks like for lunch the next day (I was too busy INHALING IT to take a picture of the finished product last night):

EDIT: A lovely anonymous commenter noted that I had forgotten the 'lemon' part of the recipe...DOH! Fixed now. Sorry about that if you happened to rush home and make this last night.

OMFDINNER

Food post alert!!!

A few days ago I posted the most delicious-looking pizza shaped like a pretzel. It’s been in my head worse than a Pink song ever since. After having plans on Monday and Tuesday night, last night was THE NIGHT. I went to the store for the THREE ingredients needed (I mean…) to make this 8 point slice of heaven:

• whole wheat pizza dough (3 pts per serving but one pretzel was 2 servings so 6 pts)
• turkey pepperoni (10 pieces for 1 pt)
• fat-free shredded cheese (1/4 cup for 1 pt)

Along with the TWO ingredients needed to make my own homemade marinara sauce for dipping (WW recipe, 1pt) because I already had the others (onion, garlic, spices, chili flakes)

• canned whole plum tomatoes
• fresh basil

We rolled out the dough and each made 2 ‘pretzels’ (I ate one and miracle of miracles, saved one for lunch today) For once, mine looked like they were supposed to and Ryan’s looked like…cinnamon buns or something. Whatevs.

Then we ‘decorated’ them with the cheese and pepperoni and baked at 450F for about 10 minutes.

Pulled it apart and dunked it in this DELICIOUS marinara sauce:

Lastly, we made fresh banana soft serve with chocolate chips and shredded coconut (you WILL believe you’re eating some sort of version of Chunky Monkey and you WILL moan out loud while eating it). Bonus: got to use my immersion blender.

Let me know if you want any of these SO EASY recipes. (You do, trust me.)

Come to Mama

Nom Nom NOM!

My lunch today was off the charts. Spicy black bean veggie burger on a toasted multigrain english muffin, topped with lettuce, tomato, mustard and ketchup. Served with a side salad (lettuce and tomatoes) and baby carrots. (shh don’t tell the baby carrots, but even though they are dressed the same as my salad, I just don’t like them to comingle. Thus the dual plates. Plus, I feel like I have a feast laid before me…laid? lain? whatever.)

BAM! 8 points. (In case your sound isn’t on, the tiny pig is quite literally singing the praises of the burger because it was THAT GOOD.)

Week 4, Day 1

Last night I rushed home, excited and nervous to tackle week 4 of C25K. It involved the following:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:

• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
• Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)

I put on my warmest clothes and my YakTrax and headed out. It was surprisingly not that cold-feeling despite the "frigid" forecast. It was dark, so I stuck to back roads around my house where there would be fewer cars and more snow for my YakTrax to dig into. I rocked it. I said, "Hey, Week 4...who's your daddy?" and Week 4 meekly answered, "You are, Tammy. You are." When I run outside, I use the time as my goal...when I use the treadmill (one day a week), I use the distance. Last night's run (including warm up and cool down) took me about 29 minutes I think.

When I got home, I was famished. I celebrated with a glass (or 3) of wine, which in retrospect probably canceled out my run, but whatevs. Then I made a fabulous dinner: two potato gratin (delicious 4 point WW recipe with regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, leeks and Gruyere cheese), lemon pepper chicken and asparagus. Looked like this, which looks like a lot of food because I smartly put it on a small plate. Learning.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we just backtrack for one sec to the first thing I said in this post? I rushed home, excited and nervous to tackle week 4 of C25K. Is that referring to me? Rushing home to not only exercise, but to head out into the cold night when I was already starving and wanted nothing more than to go inside and curl up with some comfort food? Things are a changin' round here, folks. Stick around for the show...it's gonna be awesome.