Like a rock...in my stomach

My digestive health has taken a plummet. Good thing I have a gastro appt next week.

2 days in a row I have been super full and bloated in the afternoons and then exhausted at 8ish. Then decide I should probably try to eat something which makes me feel worse.

boo.

I was doing ok with trying to control my food intake which also has taken a nose dive in the past week. My erratic schedule and the heat are reeking havoc on my body.

Ok...forget today. Tomorrow is another day where I can right my wrongs. Starting with a green one (with a little chocolate...maybe not the best choice but it needs to be used)

spinach, flax meal and pineapple

Granola Shmanola

About a year ago I started making my own granola and have been experimenting with lots of different recipes. Usually it comes out ok or even good but every time its a little different. Since trying to go gluten free I have stayed away from oats and was trying to find an oats alternative for granola. I was looking up buckwheat and quinoa recipes and didn't find anythign super helpful so I experimented. Its pretty blech.

The recipe
1/4 cup dry buckwheat groats
1/4 dry quinoa
pecans
almond slivers
cashews
walnuts
flax seeds

Mixed with canola oil and maple syrup
Baked at 176 for half an hour

Then I added raisins and craisins

First of all it burned which I don't mind too much but isn't great. It also has this weird after taste which is definitely the buckwheat. I don't know if its because the buckwheat is raw or has gone bad but I do not care for it. I hate making food that is bad because I don't want to waste it but also don't particularly want to eat it.

Must keep trying for a good recipe. Next time I'll do it without the grain or cook the grain and then bake it.

Loving the monster

The green monster that is. Now that I am in a routine here I have started making smoothies again everyday. And I love making them green. Here are my eats for the last few days. My body is in a quasi funk- don't really know why. Maybe the heat? It 80 degrees at 8am everyday now. Also not sleeping much. Shocker!

dough boy smoothie (a la kath)

spinach

1/2 cup oats

1 cup soymilk

3 small plums

set overnight and blended in the AM

It was good but I don't think I would want something that thick everyday. It also gave me a slight stomach ache and I don't know if that was the oats or overload on soymilk.

yummy veg and chickpea salad with tachina dressing

green monsta! spinach, mango and flax seed. mmmm

 salad and mango

Another Day Another Adventure

This morning I woke up hella early for my Hebrew class. Totally thrown off because I was so tired and didn't give myself enough time.

Made the worst smoothie ever. (avocado, roasted fig, cinnamon, a touch of lemon juice, soymilk to try and salvage.) It was drinkable until I forgot it at home...on the counter...in 80 degree weather. It went down the drain when I got home.

I was super hungry and feeling bloated all morning. Not the best combo. During the class I had chopped mango and plum. Rice, chickpeas, cukes, carrots and lettuce. It was good but I still felt super hungry. I didn't have any other food but didn't really want to eat anyway because I wanted my body to digest the food I had just put in it. I was also having a new reaction...heartburn! So then I really didn't want to eat more.

By 12:30 I was famished. After a failed errand I got a pick me up smoothie, partly because I needed one and partly because I didn't think I would make it home without sustenance and partly because I couldn't be imagine finding the energy to make one at home. It was scrumptious- melon, kiwi, blackberry.

Came home and stuffed my face with a tomato and lettuce on rice cakes and then sunflower seed butter on ricecakes for dessert. And an iced coffee which I also forgot to take with me this morning and needed so badly. I feel much better and my headache is gone. YAY!

Yay for successful dinners

I live with 8 other people so it is VERY rare to get alone and quiet time with my boyfriend. My some weird alignment of the universe the house was empty yesterday so we had a quiet romantic evening.

I made an awesome dinner (I don't he loved it. He likes dairy, meat and gluten of which this meal had none.) Really it was a meal my roommate Tamar would have loved.

Cheezy Rice Casserole (4-5 servings)
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup chickpeas
1 small butternut squash-peeled and chopped
1 small zucchini- chopped into small pieces
1 carrot- chopped into small pieces

Mix all ingredients into a casserole dish. Lightly coat with olive oil and 2 tablespoons of water. Cover and bake for an hour.

Cheez
.5 cup cashews
.5 cup soymilk
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs nutritional yeast ( add to taste)
1 tsp garlic powder
pepper to taste

Grind cashews in a coffee or spice grinder. Add all other ingredients and whisk. Add liquid (water or milk) for desired consistency. Add spices for desired taste.

I made the cheez without my food processor because I am missing my converter but that is what is recommended. Also you can add any veggies to flavor the cheez.

I then added the sauce to my rice and popped it back in for 15 minutes.

Sugar to the veins

Today I am tired and irritated. Yesterday I had sugared soymilk, cereal, peanut butter and went on a nutella binge (which led to my stomach exploding). Correlation?

My stomach and eating has been out of wack for a few days. I can't remember the last time I was genuinly hungry.

Anyway So I am tryign to clean up my eats. Obviously that didn't start with this morning. I was on and off  hungry so I started with warm lemon water. Then over the course of a few hours had an apple with peanut butter, a bowl of cereal and 2 rice cakes with peanut butter (unfortunatly the PB had sugar in it). Then I went all day feeling tired and irritable and super bloated. But 2:30 came around and I figued I should try to put soemthing in my body. I realized one thing I really love about smoothies is you get nourishment and it is easy to ingest and digest. I defintely feel less gross after having smoothies if I am already feeling full and bloated. So I made a variation on a pure2raw smoothies.

Avocado-Beet smoothie

water
1 lemon
half of a large avocado
1 small beet
1 tablespoon chickpeas
cinnamon

I put the water and lemon juice in my smoothie cup and blended it with the avocado and cinnamon. Then when the beet was ready added that and decided to throw in some soft chickpeas for a bit of protein. And since this is with a hand blender that can't do ice I popped a few cubes in to make it cold.

Currently thouroughly enjoying it. And it is hitting the spot for lunch.

Also this weekend I made the best salad I have ever made.

It was a Roasted Sweet Potato-Cauliflower and Lentil Salad. This recipe is in a quantity to feed 20 people.


5 or 6 sweet potatoes
1 head of cauliflower
2 cups black lentils (looked and tasted like green)
Balsamic Vinaigrette
Cinnamon


Chop the sweet potato into bite size pieces and coat with cinnamon and then lightly coat with oil. Spread out on to a baking sheet or other oven cook ware. cut up cauliflower to desired size and coat with balsamic vinaigrette and lay out on a baking sheet. Potatoes will cook for about 45 minutes  at 175C. Cauliflower is about 30 minutes depending on the consistency you want it to be.


Cook lentils according to package- usually take about a half an hour to an hour. (black closer to a half n hour  green, an hour.


After everything is finished and cooled mix in a bowl and put in it the fridge. Serve cold.


Sorry for the vagueness. I don't usual follow recipes or measurements but I will try to take note for the future.


YUM! (unfortunately I don't have a picture but I will make it again and take one then.)

 mini rice cakes

 sweet potato and red lentils

 almond honey flakes, branflakes, soymilk and iced coffee

 what i binged on

 avocado beet smoothies

Back on track...sort of

Today was much although I think the heat is affecting my hunger levels.

Woke up in an awful mood and with a headache. It was one of those days that I should have gone back to sleep. But it was 8:30 and I had stuff to do today which ended up taking the better part of the day.

Got up and was snappy to pretty much everyone until I got some coffee in me. I also made a smoothie with spinach, kiwi, sunnut butter, and a nectarine. Yum. I realized smoothies are how I need to start my morning. I don't need food. I need liquid and smoothies have nutrients in them so its like a meal. Also because my hunger and schedule is all over the place the past few days I haven't been hungry right after the smoothies. So essentially it is my breakfast.

At around 12 I decided that maybe I was feeling a bit lightheaded because I was hungry even though my body wasn't signaling hunger in my stomach. So I had half a pepper that was stuffed with quinoa and lentil tomato sauce. and then I had way to much sauteed sweet potato and butternut squash. It was just so good I couldn't stop. And I kind of felt hungry. It certainly kept me full through the afternoon which I liked because I actually don't like snacking.

Also around dinner did not feel hungry, but felt good after I ate. S made an awesome veggie stirfry. Turns out, boy can cook. And then about an hour or so later felt little pangs of hunger. Had a little bit of the fruit crumble I made and then a rice cake with sunnut butter and dried cranberries.

In general sleeping patterns are awful. I guess I have deviated this blog from that which is funny cause of the name. I kind of want to change it but don't want to start all over. Oh well.

I have been enjoying my workout, though I want to get back to the gym. I have been doing variations on bodyrock.tv workouts. Today I did 50 seconds interval of jumping jacks, one leg weighted deadlifts, burpees and pushups. I was hot and tired after but definitely could have and should have done another set. Yesterday I was so tired after the workout it hurt to wash my hair. That's when you know it has been a good workout.

Random funny stuff

Losing it

Not in a good way. I have totally lost control. After a few really hard days I ditched the diet in a major way. I have been feeling like crap anyway and yesterday I had a looooot of dairy, brownies, bread and other such things that I have been avoiding. I don't know what to do. I didn't sleep much last night probably from a sugar rush and felt like crap all day today.

I had overnight oats with some oat bran and canteloupe and felt super bloated afterwards. Had a salad for lunch and felt ok after that. A little bit full. Then didn't feel hungry for dinner but it was awesome and it was like 5 hours after lunch so I had a small stuffed mushroom and half a zucchini. Then I had half an apple with sunnut butter and a handful of grapes.

All I want to do right now is eat until  I vomit. But I feel awful at the same time. Hopefully I will sleep tonight and will be able to eat regularly tomorrow.

I have no idea what hungry feel like. This is a problem.

Feeling pretty good part 2

Still learning how to use blogspot so after trying to format the last post with no success I published and started a new one. During my meeting I also had lunch which was salad with black lentils and techina dressing.

Then when I got home I was starving so I had some rice cereal with mango, soymilk and sunnut butter. mmmm so tasty and I didn't get a stomach ache from the butter. I was still hungry about an hour later so I has a a carrot and techina.

I still felt hungry but I wanted to gave myself a chance to digest so I would overeat which was a good idea. It seems like it takes me like 2 hours to digest because at round 6 I felt full. Good thing we didn't have dinner until super late cause i was hungry and dinner was good.

We had a few guests for shabbat which always nice and the feast consisted of black lentil burgers, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, salad, grilled eggplant and meat burgers and chicken. I allowed myself some challah and ate the perfect amount so I didn't feel sick afterwards.

I have been pretty much not gassy (yay) , but still bloated (boo).

Feelin' Pretty Good

I had one of my proudest moments yesterday. I did 100 burpees in less than 10 minutes. I wish I would have finished the 10 minutes and not just the 100 burpees but I had lost all motivation once I got to 100. I can see the strength in my arms but to be able to do something I really did't think I could is a great feeling. I can also see the change int he upper abs which I am thrilled about. Going to keep doing workouts everyday even if it is 10 minutes before I go to bed. Today I did another bodyrock workout I didn't think I could do which is awesome. These are a really good addition to the gym. I can't get there everyday but I can so a 12 minute workout. I do miss the communal feeling of working out together but I think it might be another few days before I have time to return to the gym.

Yesterday was a day of really good eats. After 100 burpees I made a smoothie of a small apple, a plum, spinach and a scoop of sunnut butter. Delish a filling with the protein. Later at a meeting at aroma I also had a latte with soymilk. 

Jetlag and Nausea

Got back to Israel on Monday afternoon. Stayed up pretty late but "slept" a good amount. Obviously it would be a good amount if i slept like a normal person which I don't. Was tired for most of the day on Tuesday plus was   smoothie-ing which probably added to my fatigue. Fell asleep at 8:45 and then woke up at 1:45 on Thursday morning. Was awake for a few hours and then woke up for good at around 7:30.

Did some stuff in my room and the house then had breakfast, which was maple baked apple. I chopped an apples and microwaved it with a splash of maple syrup and cinnamon. Then I added a spoonful of sunflower seed butter. I also had a bowl of puffed rice. Was nauseous after that. Have experienced nausea after every meal including the smoothies. I think I am eating too much.

Started a workout but couldn't finish it cause I thought I was going to throw up. By the time I got to lunch with Leon I felt much better. I had a sweet potato-black lentil salad which also had red onions which I avoided and goat cheese which I had a few bites of. Felt ok after that meal. I think I was super hungry without realizing it and ate the right amount.

I totally forgot to photograph dinner which is too bad because it was awesome. I tried out quinoa tortilla (recipe modified from fitnessista). I took a half cup of quinoa flakes and ground them. Then I added half a cup of water, salt, pepper, and basil. Then I fried it. It was so good and a really nice "bread" alternative. It was also fun since my socca experiment failed. It tasted a bit funny but I think that was the flakes and maybe I need stronger spicing. I also had brussel sprouts, a cucumber and tachina. I felt pretty full after that but about an hour later I got pangs so I had a small bowl of puffins and sun butter. Nausea ensues. Maybe its the butter? I hope not :( As usual my goal it to eat less. Super hard.

Like a broken record

stomach problems and serious fatigue in the late afternoon.

I love not sleeping

Ok so my first mistake was going to bed so late. I am addicted to my computer and I really need to stop. I am adding this to my goals. 

4. Do not use computer after 10pm. 

5. Do not use computer in bed which I am already breaking as I am in bed currently. 

6. Read more 

I also woke several times in the middle of the night. I was having stomach issues which kept me up. Not fun. Don't know what to do with that today. Normally I would do a smoothie detox but I don't think that is the right answer and tried to do that last week and failed. I guess I will just have to rely on myself to not overeat today and eat simply. 

Goals

1. Do 20 minutes of ab workout in the course of a day. This most likely means doing multiple ab workouts in a day. Ab workout also happen in other places like yoga.  This is going to be difficult to track but Ia m up for it. I am really happy with my arms and could be happier with my legs but my midsection is really where I want to focus. I always have but have never really dealt with it. Now that the rest of my body is getting stronger and I am committed to some exercise routine on a daily basis I am excited to be doing crunches and see the difference. In a few short weeks I went from not being able to do a 30 second plank to being able to do a 90 second full extension plank and at least a 60 second low plank. I feel awesome. I am also hoping that by focusing on ab exercises every day I will see a change and be less depressed about the fact that I am bloated all the time and look like I am preggers.

2. Figure out my daily caloric intake. Mostly I am curious and I find all these websites that do it are not super helpful. I guess it also means that I need to be more conscious of amounts of things that I eat which is going ot be the hard part cause how many calories does a handful of blueberries have? I am going to start writing that stuff down in my food journal. It could also help to start photographing my food which seems like it could be kind of fun and I would get to use my camera more often.

3. Cut down on sugar!

Lots of first attempts

First attempt at overnight oats: semi success.

It was a bit tasteless, next time I will add the fruit the night before so maybe the juices will marinate a bit and give it more flavor. I ended up adding some of my blueberry smoothie for flavor. I also added pecans and strawberries. Maybe it also needed some more milk. I was still hungry after which is weird so I had cashew butter, quinoa granola and flax puffs. I also had the tiniest it of coffee.

I have been having weird sensations after eating. Sometimes I get super tired. Sometimes I get a little pain in the my stomach which passes quickly. How am I supposed to know what is causing this when I haven't really changed my diet. And it doesn't come after anything specific. I think coffee actually does negatively affect me which is a bit tragic because I looooooove coffee. I love making it, the smell, the taste, the whole experience. I guess I can start making iced tea instead. Not as exciting but I guess it will do.

Off to the city to soak up some rays and the park! Then the Mets game.

small meals are where its at

ok so small meals with snacks throughout the day seem to be the way to go. this is gonna be hard. so far dinner has been the most problematic. I just never want to stop eating. Until I feel full I don't stop then I feel overfull and bloated.

Dinner was a small stuffed pepper with rice, black beans,tomato and onion. Green salad with chickpeas, carrots and radishes, and my first attempt at socca.

Onto my first attempt at Socca....epic fail.

next less oil, better pan, better flavoring.

Yay for yogurt

I have had Greek yogurt twice now and I feel good so far.

I have had 1.5 days of little gas. Definitely still look like I am five months pregnant. Will that ever go away?

Not overeating is hard when you aren't busy. Also I think today I was a it dehydrated and craving food so I had a very big lunch in the span of an hour and a half.

breakfast- greek yogurt, pecans, flax seeds and mango
lunch- roasted veggies, chickpeas, melon, cashew butter, apple hummus, and flax cereal.

I don't feel overstuffed but I do feel full. I don't kno if thats what I should be avoiding and just accept that if I don't feel full but don't feel hungry i should probably just have some water or something.

Yoga in the morning = happy body

woke up tired and sluggish and achy so I decided to do some yoga right after I got out of bed. I felt great afterwards. Note to self: go back to doing some yoga first thing.

for breakfast I had apple hummus, cashew butter, an apple and 2 tbs of yogurt. So far stomach wise I feel ok.

Then I did some errands and forgot my water and now I am feeling tired. Dehydration? Hunger? Actual fatigue? Who knows.

So I am having water and rice, broc, tomatoes, spinach and lentils for lunch.

Eating out tonight so hopefully I will find something suitable for the stomach.

Not any better

quinoa crumble, pear, apple hummus
exhaustion
2 cherry tomatoes
roasted veggies, tachina, broc, rice, almonds
headache, fatigue, stomach ache

alright i will be cutting down on sugar significantly. I will do it. hopefully this will make a difference.

Another bad stomach day

woke up at 8:30 bloated and not hungry at all until just now at 12:40. I ate 2 slices of gluten free bread with cashew butter because i thought i should and had a few sips of almond milk to take my vitamins.

Now I will try to stomach real food but I'm still not super hungry. I want to work out today but if I don't eat its not a good idea.

why can't i just feel normal?