Weight loss and running: Learning to love me

I have a confession. I’m a stress eater, which means even though I am a runner, I can gain weight easily if I’m not careful.

This spring I wasn’t very careful.

While I’ve been trying to lose the 10 pounds I put on, it’s proving a little harder than I expected.

So follow in the footsteps of blogger I admire (and person I’d really like to be friends with), One Twenty Five, I’m taking my weight loss plan public, in an effort to get motivated and stick to my plan.

So here we go (deep breath). July 14, I weighed 199 pounds and I’m six-feet tall. The end goal is 175 pounds – it will put me well in the healthy range for a BMI for might height.

I get lots of exercise, so what I have to do is make sure what I am eating is a good balance of nutrients and enough to make me feel full.

I just recently stumbled on the concept of overnight oats – this is the perfect summer breakfast. The recipe originally came from another blogger I like over at Yoga, Eat Run and I adapted it.

The night before:

Mash half of a banana (you might as well freeze the other half for a smoothie later)

Add 1/3 cup of milk. Mix.

Stir in ¼ cup oats,

1 teaspoon chia seeds,

1 tablespoon of peanut butter (my biggest weakness).

Put it in the fridge. Get up the next morning, work out and have an awesome breakfast waiting when you get back!

Read Full Post »

Sidebar: Post Drink Damage Control

For those of us who are apt to party , here is some morning after advice that I have used on more than one occasion:

1. Wake up and swear at yourself for being so hungover when you have other things you should do
2. Drink lots of water and take two to three painkillers with coffee infused with Baileys
3. De-tag everything on Facebook
4. Go through your texts from last night and see who you need to text for damage control
5. Decide everything is okay, cook some weird food item, then go back to sleep until the evening.

Read Full Post »

The Peanut Butter/Nutella Quesadilla: A Simple Slice of Paradise

Peanut butter is one of those foods people either love or hate.

Those that hate it seem to be either violently allergic to it or just have a significant distaste for it.

I, however, am in the love camp. Peanut butter is among the greatest foods ever. It’s just so versatile I can’t really think of any other topping that goes from stirfry to dessert to snack food so effortlessly.

In what turned out to be a very good decision, I even picked peanut butter over a boyfriend, in my younger dating years. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but after showing up too soon after eating peanut butter and nearly giving him a huge reaction … twice, I decided if I really cared about him I’d probably would have remembered to stay away from the M&Ms, trail mix and peanut butter bars.

It is a great protein source especially for people who are lower income.

And this evening I created, what could actually be, the greatest snack ever. I managed to eat it in entirety even before remembering that I was going to take a photo of it. I’d make another, but honestly I wouldn’t be able to resist it and it’s not exactly the most low-fat snack in the world.

It’s simple and fantastic with a glass of milk — A Peanut Butter and Nutella Quesadilla.

Before anyone has a fit, quesadilla isn’t really the greatest descriptor as there is no cheese, but it’s the easiest way to describe it.

1. Grab a tortilla
2. Fold it in half and reopen to its original shape, so there is a line down the middle
3. Spread one half with Nutella, the other with peanut butter
4. Close
5. Place in fry pan (no greasing required)
6. Wait till crisp or even browned
7. Turn it over and wait until crisp again.
8. Cut into sections
9. Eat (and by that I mean completely devour)
10. Follow with a glass of skim milk
11. Smile and experience paradise

Read Full Post »

When Life Gives You Lemons, Cook until there is Nothing Left

When I get stressed out, or overtired, I bake.

Currently I am stressed out, overtired and really overworked, which means, I wish you luck if you have to work with me, but good news for those who get the baking.

When I have pretty much used up all the available ingredients in my house, I take photo of what I have created.

Then I go back to work.

Soft, chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

The key to my heart

Lemon Blueberry and Chai Spice

One of the lemons that started it all

Read Full Post »

Eggs a la The Girl: Quick, Easy and Yummy

When trying to sort out one’s rules for living, you can get hungry and in today’s world where women are expected to be actively involved in practically everything, environmentally friendly, not wasteful, avoiding fast or pre-packaged food and healthy, it can be difficult to know what to cook.

I know I often finding myself looking longingly at premade breakfast burritos in the frozen food aisle, before looking at the nutritional information on the back.

Unless it is the weekend, I struggle with finding time to cook and often I don’t get enough protein. Then I learned the miracles of those egg whites in a carton.

They are simply egg whites, no chemicals or anything.

I created this recipe this weekend, which has rapidly shot up my list of favourite breakfast foods. On its own there are less than 100 calories (about 83, in fact), but I like them with a piece of toast (especially if I have found time to make bread.

Eggs a la The Girl

½ cup liquid egg whites
1 wedge light laughing cow Swiss cheese
Pinch of salt, shake of pepper
¼ tsp. dill

Cooking spray, or for a slightly higher calorie count a little bit of butter, into a non-stick frying pan.
Add all the ingredients, mashing up the cheese with whatever you use to make eggs. Scramble together.
Remove from heat.
Enjoy.
If you don’t like dill, which I think it kind of crazy, add whatever herbs it is that you do like.

Eggs a la The Girl

Read Full Post »

Seeking Summer in -35 C

You know those days that are long and tiring and all you want to do is lie in the sun and warm up and feel lovely?

Well I had one of those days. Unfortunately for me, being able to laze in the sun is still months away.

It’s -35 C today and that’s before the wind chill. I believe that is termed a FAIL.

I was not going to be deterred — I still wanted a taste of summer, in order to preserve what precious little is left of my sanity.

So I made iced tea and not with a creepy powder mix that is only good for camping … and making you sneeze. (If you don’t know what I am talking about shake the powder container, then take off the lid and inhale — your nose doesn’t even have to be over top.)

Orange infused iced tea, notice fancy new-ish bottle

The nice part about making ice tea from scratch, along with it tasting better, is that boiling water adds humidity to the apartment. So for the briefest of minutes I can feel like I am in a tropical location instead of freezing to death in the middle of winter, with ridiculously and incurably dry skin. (But, it’s a

dry cold.)

So with almost a litre and a half of boiling water, three bags of delicious-smelling, fair-trade, black tea, enough honey to sweeten it and a small container of mandarin orange segments for added flavour, I created a bit of summer.

It lasted until I looked back outside.

Now I’m trying to figure out the perfect alcohol to put in it, might as well get warm somehow.

Read Full Post »

Bringing Back the Art of Food

Somewhere along the way, we have lost the art of food.

Whether it’s because we are too busy to cook or women don’t spend their time sharing recipes like they once did, the community of food is disappearing.

I think that it’s disappointing.

But today, by accident, a friend and I began to bring back the food share.

Independently we had spent the day cooking.

I had ventured into the kitchen to clear my head, after making the decision to let go, because I find I the kitchen one of the best places to think. Things seem to get better, while dropping cookies on to a baking sheet or kneading bread, as the house fills with the good smells of onions cooking with celery.

My friend clearly feels the same way. At 5 p.m. she asks me if I want some soup because she forgot to stop cooking after making a pot of chilli. The huge pot of soup she just made was going to cause too many leftovers.

I was looking at the growing stack of cookies while checking my text messages and kissing my plan to lose weight goodbye.

An idea dawned on me.

I filled a Ziploc with cookies and swung by her house to pick up a Tupperware container of soup. She’ll have snacks for the week and I will have a couple of dinners planed.

I’ll get more variation then what I get cooking for myself. It’s a brilliant plan and something we should have started ages ago.

Here’s to hoping this is the beginning of a delicious trend to bring slow food back.

The starting point of a fantastic food trend

Peanut Butter & Ginger Snap Cookies

3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon all spice

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup egg whites (or egg substitute) or one egg
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix peanut butter and margarine in a bowl and add brown sugar. Combine until smooth. Add the egg, molasses and vanilla.

Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to the liquid ingredients. Mix with wooden spoon to form a stiff dough.

Roll into balls, roll balls in a 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon mixture and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Flatten with fork.

Bake at 350 F for seven minutes.

Adapted from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry

Read Full Post »

Pumpkin soup for the soul

While it might not be the title of my first book, a great soup does go a long way to sooth the soul.
Lately it seems that my soul needs a lot of soothing, so here it is.

Pumpkin Mulligatawny Soup

3/4 pound of onions, chopped
2 TBSP oil
2 tsp curry powder
1 TBSP ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 – 15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 cups milk
1 cup water
1 cup heavy cream
2 TBSP lemon juice

Cook onions in a pan until softened and pale golden. Add spices and cook.
Puree mixture with pumpkin and milk.
Return to saucepan over medium heat and stir in water, cream , lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer covered for about 10 minutes.

Read Full Post »