Saturday, June 30, 2012

Walk walk

Today we've only had a bunch of beef and turkey.  We cooked it all up last night and had a lot left over that we snacked on throughout the day.  We're leaving town for a week on Sunday and we're trying not to buy anymore food.  We still have a some packages of raspberries and blueberries left that we need to finish up, but that's mainly it.

We just did our daily mile walk.  It's soooo hard to get motivated to get up and do it, still.  Some days I'm better than others, some days Danny has to nag me to get up and go.  I'm trying to stay motivated to keep him motivated, and for Yoshi, since Yoshi needs to walk more too.  If I focus on my puppy dog, it helps.  It only takes 20 minutes and we've been at it for about a week and a half.  We've only taken two days off, so I'm proud of us so far.  We also do push-ups and arm exercises on the exercise ball some days - we've had someone staying with us for the past week and him being around kind of makes it weird doing it?  I don't know.  I think we'll pick it back up once he goes home.

On Sunday we're heading to Laughlin for the 4th.  My grandparents live around Bullhead City.  Yoshi is coming with us and we'll be staying in a hotel, but Yoshi will be staying with them. I'm a nervous wreck about it, but I think she'll be fine.  I'll probably stay with her the first night to help her acclimate.  I think it would be good for my grandmother to get an inside dog to baby(they have a dog already but he refuses to come inside - it's the weirdest thing).  She's been lackluster about the idea, but I hope that Yoshi being with her constantly for a week will help convince her.  On the 5th we're going to Las Vegas for EVO.  Danny knows a bunch of people going and while I'm going to be nervous and full of social anxiety around so many people, I'll be ok.  I'm probably just be worried about my puppy dog.

We're planning on trying to be as Paleo as we can.  We've decided on two cheats throughout so far - the buffet at the Bellagio and at my grandparents' house, because come on, I can't pass up my grandma's real Mexican food.  Unf.  We're not going to be perfect (obviously we're going to drink) and we're going to end up eating fast food and bad food at times, but we'll try to mostly keep to meat and veggies.  Sweden made us feel fucking terrible with all its cheese and greasy stuff, so I'm not dying to repeat.

About to stop being lazy and get up and cook some chicken.  I have a pineapple I need to get rid of before Sunday, so I'm going to dice some up and throw it in with the chicken and some curry powder and see how it comes out.  Hopefully delicious!


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

A revolutionary thought

I've always been fat.  My entire life I have had to deal with the stigma, the idiocy of other people, and the whole world telling me that if I could only get skinny, everything would be better.

It took a very long time and a lot of soul searching and learning on my part to shake that.  Some people are born with that grace and confidence to be who they are and not give a damn what others think; some people aren't, and I'm one of those people. It took a very long time to come to terms with my size and to break away from the preconcieved notions I had of who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to look like.

Faking it was second nature throughout high school, and not talking about it and pretending it didn't exist is how I lived.  I was never tormented for it, but I was acutely aware of it - in how my NJROTC uniform didn't fit, in how the clothes I wore were intentionally baggy because I was supposed to hide myself in frumpy clothes.  Maybe everyone in high school feels that way, that they are acutely aware of something about them that is wrong as defined by society.

In college and throughout I came to find the fat acceptance movement and started reading everything I could find.  I found women who looked like me, were shaped like me, and were proud of their bodies.  I started trying to find clothes that made me feel good, especially when I started being able to afford them.  I'm all for "fuck flattering," but the sad truth is that clothes that fit me and the ones I like are expensive.  But fuck flattering, just for the record.

I started not hating every bit of food I put in my mouth.  Most of all, I started seeing that if people had problems with me because of my size, it wasn't a fault of mine.  It wasn't something that I had done, I wasn't the broken one.  Those people who had problems with me were the problems.  

Insecurities still find me at times.  I'm proud to say fuck you to those who have problems with me, and I'm proud that I fight so hard against the conventional wisdom that I need to lose weight to be healthy (because if I'm healthy and feel good and am exercising and don't lose weight, then I'm where I'm supposed to be).  I still have problems though - when I'm trying on clothes I'm anxious, when I'm in a room with conventionally beautiful, thin people, I'm anxious and wondering if I'm the black sheep and if only I could change myself.  I wonder if my partner doesn't want to have sex all the time because of the way I look, I wonder if only I was thinner would I be less anxious around people.  Just this week I finally purchased a bathing suit that people will probably judge me for - short little shorts, all this thigh for people to see.

If only, if only.  I'm not crippled by those insecurities though, I can always rise past them.  There are good days and bad days.  It's a process, because my body constantly subject to criticisms from everyone.  From diet ads on tv, from low fat food products, from yogurts that will help me lose pounds to look good in my bathing suit (I look fine in my nice new bathing suit, thanks a bunch).  From people telling me if I only moved more, I'd lose weight.  From the First Lady trying to combat childhood obesity by getting us to "move."

We are always subject to these criticisms.  Even conventionally beautiful, thin people are subject to someone telling them to be something they're not.  You need more bust.  You need longer hair.  You're too bony.

The world is full of advertisements to make us into something we aren't.  Keeping true to yourself in this world is difficult and strewn with mean comments, bullying, and strangers telling you what to do to be attractive.

It's a difficult world.  I've reached the stage where I can mostly say fuck off, my fatness is none of your business.  It really isn't.

I had a revolutionary thought (at least to me) the other day that I've finally come to the point where I'm a person who can be confident in who I am and still have insecurities.  I don't have to be perfectly okay with myself.  I can have my bad and good days.  It doesn't shake the fact that I'm a good person, and the size of my body is the concern of only myself.  To me, that's revolutionary.

Adventures in curry making

To be short, it didn't taste like anything I wanted.  Whoops.  That's not to say that it came out terrible - it came out edible, and a little tasty.  I ended up bouncing between two different recipes I found on two different Paleo sites and I think that may have contributed to the watery taste of the curry.  I also think I think fish sauce, which I don't have in the pantry yet.  I made cauliflower rice for the first time as well and it came out better than I expected.  I'm not a huge fan of cauliflower, and I was apprehensive when I tore open the packaging - but what do you know, it's just like broccoli.  It took about 5 seconds in the food processor and two minutes in the microwave and bam, a rice like substance.  I did chicken and squash in a different pan (I would have used more veggies, but all we had was squash) and threw cumin, coriander, salt, and some curry blend I had hiding in my spices into the curry to try and draw out more taste.  It worked alright.

And then I made a smoothie out of coconut milk, strawberries, almond butter, and a tiny bit of cocoa.  I'm having one of those a day lately, but I need my sweet fix.  On the days I don't have that, I usually have Starbucks.  There are so many versions of Paleo out there that it's hard accept one definition; some people even do cheese and corn, which we don't do.  Starbucks is my vice, and I get an iced coffee with heavy whipping cream.  I miss chai like crazy.

We haven't been eating as much as we used to - part of it is that our food is filling, and another part is that we've been busy with people over all the time eating all our food.  That's not bad!  We've had guests over, and we have someone staying with us for a few days now and he'll be here another couple of weeks.  I don't mind having people over to eat with us; I actually enjoy it, because I can try cooking things and get feedback (cleaning up sucks but what can you do?).  But it depletes our food very fast and when we get hungry at night and we're tired, we'll just go to bed instead of fire up the grill.  We had sugar free turkey that was keeping us good but we couldn't it find it the last time we went shopping.

I'm still unsure of what to say about Paleo, or this lifestyle we're trying out.  We had a cheat meal on Monday - Danny chose a fast-food Mexican place and I chose Jack in the Box, from which I got jalapeño poppers, fries, tacos, and a shake.  I was so excited about the jalapeño poppers, because I've been dreaming of them every time I go by a Jack in the Box.  To my great dismay, they weren't as tasty as I was hoping for.  Even the tacos weren't.  The fries were alright, but only with ranch.  The only part of the meal I wasn't super disappointed with was my shake, but I have a crazy sweet tooth, so that makes sense. Damn that shake was great.  Ice cream is great.  Nobody can tell me otherwise.

Anyway, Danny was also not into his meal, and we both felt bad afterward.  It was definitely an enlightening experience.  It's the first time I've felt the direct correlation of eating bad food to feeling bad so starkly.

I'm not sure where I was going with this.  Food is important.  I wish my curry had come out better. I miss ice cream.  That about sums it up.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Fig cake balls oh my gawd

I have a terrible sweet tooth - it's fucking annoying.  Right now we're on a little more than a week of being back on Paleo, and I've been dying for sweet stuff.  Dying.  We got a small blender over the weekend, which is better for smoothies - I've been using the food processor, woops.  I toss in a banana, a few strawberries, almond butter, and some almond milk and ice and I'm good for a fix normally.

I can't deny that I would eat sweet things all the time if I could.  It's a disease, really.

My biggest concern on being on Paleo was that I would lose my sweets.  Yes, I know they're terrible for you.  I know the wisdom, but goddamnit, sometimes I want something sweet.  I get happiness out of it, if you will - if you say something otherwise I will fight you.

I am, however, trying to make an effort to get excited about Paleo. I mentioned in my last post that it wasn't something I came to lightly, and it's still something I get frustrated about, particularly when I'm chopping vegetables and all I want to do is pour a bowl of cereal and curl up on the couch and watch tv.  That's when it's hard, and that's when I'm at my most loathsome.  I've been reading blogs and websites from motivated Paleo people, and it's helping.  I'm reblogging things I see on Tumblr I want to try and bookmarking recipes on my iPad.  It's a process.

In my effort to get excited, I of course ran straight to see what sweet things I could have.  And I found this recipe by PaleOMG.

I think I was successful.


Oh man was I stoked when they came out okay. I toyed with the recipe a little, added more cocoa (sweet tooth, ok?), less honey and salt.  This picture was from my first batch during the middle of the week.  They went fast - my sister and her girlfriend were over, me and Danny and his brother.  I just made a lot more right now (about two whole packages of figs and a whole package of cashews) and they're chilling in the freezer.  It helps to keep them firm, plus I like them cold.

They're definitely not the best for you, especially if you eat a bunch at once - I mean, that's a whole package of figs and half a bag of nuts.  Yikes!

But they help with my sugar cravings, and they're way better than the alternative.  It's foods like this that make me excited about Paleo, especially because they came out so good.  I need positive reinforcement with food I make, and it's all I've been getting, so fuck yeah fig balls.

On a not so positive reinforcement note, I tried making sweet potato hummus the other day.  It was ... well, it was ok. Way too sweet and not hummus-y enough for me at all.  You win some, you lose some.

I picked up some mason jars a few days ago and some mint leaves today and I'm planning trying my hand at flavored waters.  I like cucumbers and and strawberries in my water, but the aesthetic of it in a mason jar is my main driving force right now.  We got a new grill this weekend also, so I'm hoping we make some chicken skewers.  I love me some skewers.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Paleo

I'm not 100 percent sure yet what this blog is going to be - I'd like to eventually put billions of cool things here, but for right now I need a place write about this Paleo "diet" my boyfriend and I are undertaking.  So for now, blog on Blogger, I shall use you for that, instead of Tumblr. Take it.

Danny and I are eating more or less Paleo.  Danny technically started in May, and then we went to Sweden and that fucked everything up - because Sweden likes it cheese and bread.  Oh man.  Cheese and bread.  Anyway, we started up again almost a week ago when we came back from Sweden.  It's been going good so far.

I have a lot of thoughts on diets and whatnot, and it took me a very long time to come around to this, because I'm body positive and diet negative, mostly because of the connotations that come with that word. I believe in being healthy, eating healthy, and moderation specifically.  I'm jumping on this Paleo wagon because Danny really likes it and I want to be supportive, and because while I have some problems with the specifics of this "diet" (specifically eating so much meat), it's more or less easy to work with.  It cuts out sugars, dairy, legumes,and grain.  We're fortunate enough that we can afford the amounts of meat we consume, plus a variety of vegetables, spices, sauces, nuts, and other things that make eating Paleo easier.  We're also fortunate that we have a pretty nice market right down the street that provides fresh vegetables and the fancier other things that I want sometimes, like coconut amino.

We're in the right place at the right time, so I'm willing to give this a shot.

So!  So far I've made kale chips, almond flour pancakes, lemon pepper chicken with real lemon juice, and cooked so much chicken and steak it's like I enjoy it or something (confession: sometimes I do, but I fucking hate cleaning, so we have problems, but anyway).  I'm going to try my hand at sweet potato hummus tonight (sweet potatoes, garlic, tahini, lemon juice, let's go) and I'm really looking forward to it.  I hope it works out!

First real post!  Feels good man, feels good.