week of food: saturday

I spent most of the day watching a Bones marathon. I had recorded most of the season on my DVR and have yet to watch any of it, it was nice to not be running around doing other errands during the rainy day.

I started the day off with a normal cup of coffee, and a banana

I then used up the last of an avocado and put it on bread with dulse, along with Polar seltzer water. I really like the flavors on this seltzer water, but I can only find it at Earth Fare which is bit of a trek for me

I made a version of this recipe from EcoVeganGal for a kale butternut squash pasta. I’ve had it before, but did some things differently, and it was just as awesome. If you like butternut squash, you’ll love this. I’m probably going to put my version of the recipe up so you can see what I did differently. Both ways are fantastic. I had two servings

Later in the night (guess who went to bed at 7 am) I had what I’m calling as dinner. It was simple, 2 tortillas filled with a mixture of left over black beans, 1/2 an ounce of daiya, and about a tbsp of sour cream. One tortilla I put a romaine leaf on it.

I also worked out today! I did 40 minutes of the Wii Fit Plus that I found. I love that version so much more! I had been using the older version and I KNEW I was missing some of my favorite routines and I couldn’t for the life of me remember why. As soon as I turned this version on I realized why, they are all on that one! Wii Fit is a little annoying because you really have to plan out things. If you are in a time crunch, it’s not the best. When I say I did 40 minutes, that was 40 minutes of workout times. The switching through menus, listening to explanations, or just waiting for games to start take a chunk, and I was at if for at least an hour. Still, it’s better than nothing and for the days that I don’t wake up early enough to do outside things, this is a plus. I don’t have a gym membership (I think I will when I return) so this will have to do. Totals for the day: 1696 calories (-226 exercise calories) 150 under losing weight calories (1846= 1620+226).

week of food: friday

Happy rainy Derby day! I don’t really celebrate during Derby, but the town sure does. When I was little (in Florida) we used to have Derby parties every year. Grannie would send us plates/napkins/cups for the party, and I remember always having the best time. Now, even living all of a mile away from Churchill Downs, I don’t really do anything. I think if I were to do something, nothing will compare to those parties when I was little. I also rarely have money around this time since I’ve always just gone off contract. Not that I could afford a ticket to watch from a box/seat, but even the infield with all it’s muddy-drunken-college-party-ness is still pretty steep. I’m also conflicted about it morally. But enough about Derby, on with the post!

The day started out early than most, but later still then I wanted to. I have been loving this popcorn that I have been making lately so I had that. I just airpopped 2 tbsps of kernals and added nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I sometimes switch it up and add more seasonings, but this is the standard. The nutritional yeast gives it a yummy cheesy taste (while adding some B12 and protein). I used cooking spray to lightly coat the popcorn to get the seasonings to stick. Depending on the oil (I never count things like cooking sprays, no matter how much I use. It hasn’t hurt my progress yet), it’s about 100 calories and super filling.

I got hungry a little bit later but wasn’t in the mood to make anything, so I had a repeat of the other day with a hummus tray. I used new crackers that I bought at Trader Joe’s, but even the spinach hummus didn’t help their taste so I only ended eating about half of what is shown.

I also had a banana (I like mine green)

And then I tried the kiwi lime flavor of Mama Chia, which I loved, while watching a marathon of Bones.

For dinner I had rice, beans and vegetables. Before I was vegan, I was really into mixing rice and beans with alfredo sauce. I kind of did a variation of that in this meal instead using the Tofutti sour cream. The veggies were two things that were starting to go bad, spinach and mushrooms, and I added a small onion to the mix. The rice is a quinoa blend. I had two spinach wraps with it. It was fantastic, and I really didn’t need the wraps. Calorie wise, I wish I hadn’t had it because it would have made the entire meal under 500 calories. I’m working on my quantities, but sometimes I’m still off. I think that’s why I’m doing well in calorie counting, though. I haven’t had the shock of drastically limiting my quantities and then crashing and gaining all the weight back. With counting, I just splurge on some things, and cut back on the others and then gradually reduce. It also lets me realize that being at my weight I have to eat more calories than someone else losing weight who is smaller, and that is ok.

I also had some tea (like normal) and some oatmeal. I was really munchie towards the end of the night. Instead of taking a picture of the bowl I took a picture of the packages.

I didn’t picture it, but I had a glass of dark chocolate almond milk.

I also didn’t picture it, and in being entirely honest with myself, last night was bad. I had insomnia again (the worst it’s been all this week) and I ended up splurging later in the night and having a peanut butter sandwich. It could have been worse, and had something not as nutritional, but the bread I have is pretty high in calorie so it ended up being a 400 calorie “midnight” (aka 5am) snack. I know that if I had been asleep it wouldn’t have happened, but there you go. So, instead of being of being just 4 calories over my losing weight goal, I was over 400. Totals: 2,029 calories.

I did find that I have Wii Fit Plus, I had thought I only owned the older version (I “inherited” the system from my parents who never used it) so that was one positive of last nights insomnia.

week of food: thursday

As I said in yesterday’s post, I didn’t get up until extremely late so the first meal of the day was sort of repeat of yesterday. I had coffee the same way, and some oatmeal. This time, it was plain oatmeal with a tbsp of craisins, and a tbsp of the pomegranate/almond mix.

It kept me full for a really long time, and then I had to go to Target and Trader Joe’s so I ate a peanut butter Clif bar before I left to tide me over so I wouldn’t be too hungry while out and get something I’ll regret monetarily and calorically, like Starbucks.

Dinner was quesadillas. I had 3 in total (one after the picture). The filling had black beans mixed with Tofutti sour cream and a pepper blend, some pepperjack Daiya, and avocado on top. I used these spinach tortillas that I found at Trader Joe’s, which were only 100 calories a piece. They were pretty good.

This is a really bad picture

I didn’t picture it, but before bed I had a gala apple.

Dinner was pretty heavy calorie wise (considering the other two meals barely broke 250) but most of that was because I used almost a full avocado. I love avocados. A lot. 🙂 I still don’t like not having my meals calories being so better spread out and even, but not getting up at a decent time is not helping. I keep tabs on it, just because when I start not seeing any change in the scale I know that is the first thing I should look to change. I also don’t really know if  it’s necessarily bad, or if it just seems bad because it’s not like normal people’s diets. Calories were at 1509, 111 below losing weight.

week of food: wedenesday

Ugh. I have been so horrible with my sleeping pattern lately, I absolutely can’t stand it. I’m getting nothing done that I want to, and have yet to go out and exercise. I normally have issues falling to sleep (on a good day it’ll take me about an hour) but lately it’s been hours which in turn leads it to be ridiculously late- like 4-6am- before I finally fall asleep. Then I wake up extremely late, and even though it’s 6-8 hours I feel crappy for the rest of the day. Today was the same way. I didn’t get up until 1:30. My day is completely shot. I wanted to go for a long walk this morning, and do some projects around the house to prepare for me leaving in about a week and a half, and it’s not going to happen like I want. I’m slowly turning into a ball of stress. Tonight I am going to bed early, and waking up early!

I started off the day yesterday with some Better Oats pomegranate oatmeal and a tablespoon of this slivered almond and dried pomegranate mix I have, with the same combo of coffee as yesterday. I used to not like oatmeal, but I liked how full it made me. I found out that I prefer it to be pretty minimal on the toppings, and this brand is super awesome. It’s got flax and other good stuff in it, super cheap, and the package is it’s own measuring cup.

I had to stop into work today and do one last thing so that I could say I was officially done with the season. On the way back I decided that I wanted Quills coffee. The iced soy mocha to be exact. It’s really the best in town. Whenever I don’t know calories, like for this coffee, I always estimate using another brand/restaurant that serves the same thing. For this coffee I just went with the Starbucks calorie count. It might be a little off in either direction, but I don’t obsess about it.

Snack/I guess lunch was a simple salad: 1/2 an avocado, romaine, and the Annie’s dressing. The avocado was starting to look at bit rough (and so is the lettuce) so I’m trying to go through it, but it definitely does not make a pretty picture.

Dinner was 1/2 a block of tofu, and roasted garlic/onion potatoes (I ended up having about 2 small potatoes worth in the end) with some ketchup.

I didn’t take a picture, but I had the same tea and chocolate combo as yesterday to end the day.

Calories were really low. I did almost nothing yesterday, so I just wasn’t hungry, which is a good sign. Before, I would snack out of boredom, now I’m beginning to really listen to my body and know what it wants. I should have ate more at any rate, but seeing as I did absolutely no exercise it shouldn’t hurt me too much. Totals: 1298 calories, 322 below losing weight calories.

week of food: tuesday

I’ve been consistently waking up later than I tend to, but not as late as expected when you account for the time I head to bed. At any rate, I absolutely hate it and have been trying desperatly to get back into a better sleep schedule. I’m more productive if I wake up early, I love being able to do stuff outside earlier, and I directly link the lack of exercise this week solely on that.

I started off the day with a cup of coffee: pumpkin spice keurig with a packet of Truvia and 3 tbsps of silk vanilla creamer and water. I also had a serving of mixed nuts that I made a HUGE batch for a couple of weeks ago. It’s probably the best thing in all the land. I portion it out ahead of time, because it’s one of those foods that if I’m not careful I can eat and eat and eat, but good to keep around because I never want to binge on it when portioning it out. Look for a “recipe” for it on the blog soon, because I want to remember it always.

I wasn’t hungry for a while so mid-afternoon snack/late lunch was a go-to lunch of mine. Tasty, and fast: spinach hummus, baby carrots, english cucumber, and leek crackers.

Dinner was a mishmash meal. I made 4 oz of pasta and added spinach, mushrooms, an apple sage Field Roast sausage, and some Tofutti sour cream to it. It was good, largely in part to the sausage, but it could have used more seasoning (especially when I was cooking the spinach). I used thyme, rosemary, onion powder, and garlic powder. Not my best dish, but certainly not the worst. It also had 47 grams of protein in the entire dish! I had two bowls of this.

Last meal of the day was 2 squares of Theo dark chocolate (I keep it in the freezer) and my new current favorite Yogi tea: Tahitian vanilla hazelnut (with a splash of almond milk and 3 tsps of sugar):

Although dinner ratios per every other meal was high (which tends to be the case for me, I know you are supposed to eat less at night but I’m hungrier at night than during the day) it was a pretty solid calorie day. Could’ve had more, but I didn’t work out (sans moving some furniture around) so I wasn’t too terribly worried being under for the day.  Total: 1511 calories, 109 calories below losing weight calories

week of food: day 1

What better way to start off this project with a complete fail. I couldn’t find my camera until the very end of the night, so Monday’s foods are all from my cell phone. The point of this project is to show my food: it doesn’t have to be pretty, in the best light, or perfect. It just has to show the food so that I can visually see what I am eating, and assess what I need to change in terms of eating healthier. I think of it as more of a wakeup call to see the food visually, much like it was when I first just started recording it and counting calories.

I started off the day (if you reallly want to call it that-it was technically afternoon, thanks insomnia!) with quite possibly my favorite thing in the world right now: a slice of Whole Foods Early Bird Multi Seed Bread, 1/4 of an avocado mashed on top, with pepper and dulse (with garlic). I cut up a small tomato to go with it.

Doesn’t the color of the tomato look unnatural? Thanks, iPhone!

I also had some of this Reed’s kombucha. I hadn’t tried this brand before. Still has the same vinegar taste, but I think it has a stronger taste of the flavor than most others I have tried. It was good! I usually end up drinking one of these over the course of a couple of days because of how expensive they are.

Next “meal” of the day was some kale chips. This is currently my favorite brand because they are cheaper than most, and I really like the ranch flavor. I had almost a serving but they were a little stale so I didn’t finish it up:

I was on an eating weird things at weird time trend and so I made my go to snack: 1 head of romaine, 1/4 avocado, 1/4 English cucumber, 1 tbsp Annie’s goddess dressing:

There was no way to make this look appetizing, but it was really good. Trust me

I also had another slice of the bread, with a tbsp of peanut butter on it with a really bad no good Diet Dr Cherry Pepper:

Then, for dinner I ended up being lazy and made some baked potatoes with Tofutti sour cream, Earth Balance, Daiya pepperjack, and some chives. Not healthy, but delicious (they were smaller, that is a dessert plate):

The last thing I had for the night I didn’t get a picture of. I’ve been making a strawberry shortcake off of a recipe on the back of a Bisquick box (I cut the recipe in half to make 2 biscuits). While I do make it pretty low in calorie (using almond milk and truvia, it comes to a little over 300 calories) it’s still not the best and it’s definitely been a food I shouldn’t keep around the house, as it’s been my go to snack/dessert for a couple of days, which tends to be a red flag. Not a good day by any means, in terms of healthy options that are diverse, but I was fairly good on calories. I was at 1776 calories, which is 156 calories over my day. Not too concerned since I counted full calories for the serving of kale chips (which I didn’t have) and the Reeds Kombucha (I probably had 1/5 of the bottle) so I had a little wiggle room. I am still well below maintain weight calories.

week of food.

This week I have decided that starting today (Monday) I would take pictures of all of my food and post it on the blog.

I’m doing this mostly because of boredom, but I also thought that it would be a great way to visually see what I’m eating, and help me make better and healthier choices. Also, nothing beats posting what you eat for the world to see to make you step back and realize you could be doing something better.

So, if you are calorie counting, or just want to know what I’m eating as a vegan I hope this helps. I don’t have a schedule for when I’m posting, but I think it’ll be in one full blog recaps hopefully posted the late night of, or the next morning.

lemon penne broccoli with mushrooms

I am not a cook.

I cook decently enough, though. I like what I make. And sometimes when I make things for others, they like it. But I’m not sure if it’s like of the recipe, or like of me so they just pretend they like it. Either way, I’m still only a true cook to one: myself.

I’m hesitant to put this on the blog, because I don’t know if anyone else is going to appreciate how good it was, but I figured why the hell not. I still consistently look back at my smoothie recipe that I have, so using this blog as a virtual recipe book of my eats seems fitting and beneficial to me. This is your warning. You can make the recipes all you want, you just might not like them. I’m cool with that.

I find the best recipes come in desperation. That moment when you are so hungry, and want food at that moment, but have nothing in the shelves to make what you normally do. You are also so tired that going out (no matter how close the grocery store is) just isn’t an option. This is what happened with this dish.

Lemon Penne Broccoli with Mushrooms (Serves 1)

Ingredients*:

• 4 oz of Smart Balance Penne (I used this stuff because it’s lower in calories. Any penne, or any pasta shape will do, really)
• 1 cup of broccoli
• 1/4-1/2 cup of sliced mushrooms
• ~ tbsp of lemon juice (I just took a cut section and squeezed. Not technical at all)
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• Pepper
• Salt
• 1 heaping tbsp of nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp of Earth Balance margarine

*These are estimates. The beauty of this dish is to add as much of something or little of something you wish. The lemon juice is probably that only thing you’ll have to worry in terms of overdoing.

Directions:

Boil water and cook pasta. If you are like me, you had frozen broccoli so I just added that to my boiling water to cook. While the pasta is cooking saute the mushrooms. Do it however you like, I like water saute for mushrooms: just add tbsp of water instead of oil and it basically steams the mushrooms. I only like this method with mushrooms, so I tend to do it as much as I can to cut down on added oil calories (especially since the dish already has Earth Balance in it). I’m calorie counting, so that’s what you get. Drain broccoli/pasta once it is done, and return to pot. Add mushrooms and all additional ingredients. Stir. Consume.

Really, that’s all I did. Nothing fancy, but the added lemon juice was awesome. I’m sure someone reading this is thinking: “Jessie, that’s an old recipe” and to that I say: it might be. But I genuinely just made it up one night with what I had in my pantry, and I like it so much that it will happen again.

One last thing. I really suck at pictures of food. Mostly from it being later at night and only having my cellphone by me so this recipe gets none.

carbs. carbs. bleh.

Carbs, carbs, carbs.

I absolutely 100% adore the Vegan Zombie boys, but they need to stop making such amazing food that is not only GOOD but easy to make. Especially the mac and cheese. Admittedly not exactly like the real thing, but still amazing. I tried making it yesterday with less calories and the whole nine yards (which I did drastically accomplish) but I still ended up eating the entire thing in the past two days. Mostly last night. I had like 1200 calories of the stuff in one sitting. I know, I know. Horrible. No good. Very bad. I now know that it is a huge trigger food and I need to be mindful of that. Or only make it when I can get others to eat the rest of it. But it’s so good.

My saving grace is that even with that excessiveness I still had calories left for the day yesterday because of the big Humana strike. But. Still. Not good. I feel all of my foods have been very off this week. I know I’m not making the right choices to keep me fueled, especially since my “exercise” was bumped up drastically. On Monday I had 8,000 steps by noon. And that was 8,000 steps of lifting and carrying heavy objects and furniture and then unloading them. The weather has also shifted back from freezing to 80’s so I have been dehydrated as well.

I’m really pushing hard to correct my eating back to whole foods, good sources of protein and WATER. Lots of water. Weightloss can’t be about just maintaining losing weight calories, it’s got to be about the quality of foods as well. I always feel better when I eat healthier foods. Remember this, Jessie.

vegetarian tasting fair. vegan jerky. anxiety.

Today I headed over to Rainbow Blossom, a local chain of grocery stores much like Whole Foods and Earth Fare. I wanted to see what samples were out and maybe pick up some things while I’m there. I don’t normally shop there because it is a little too expensive (especially since the store has four locations, not just one) but they do carry some fun stuff, so when I have extra money I go there.

I got a bunch of leaflets, and even stopped at the Louisville Vegetarian Initiative booth. So, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned more than once on this blog but I have some can-be-severe social anxiety. If I’m in a situation I don’t know the proper procedure to follow, or if I have to come up with a conversation on the spot (say at a party or a bar) I get super nervous. I’ve been wanting to go to some of their events for a while now, but the lack of courage to do it has prevented me to. By I did stop and at least talk a little bit at the booth, which was a huge step for me. I got some fun stickers and a cute button. I also picked up a compassionate guide (well, I got two…somehow). I think one of my goals in the next couple of months is to muster up the courage to go to one of their events. They go to restaurants a lot, and I think it would be fun to go and meet some new people that aren’t at work or friends of people from work.

I also went to the fair for one goal in mind: to sample some of Morels the Vegan Butcher’s new flavor of vegan jerky: Maple Siracha. It is everything I had hoped and more. I can’t wait till it goes on sale for real. It was fantastic. I’ve been following the company since they were just a vegan food truck here in town. They’ve since stopped the truck, and have turned into a catering/retail company. Other than the jerky, they have vegan wraps (the philly cheeze steak wrap is awesome) and can be found locally here in Louisville at Rainbow Blossom and Heine Brothers Cafe. You are in luck if you don’t live here, though. Not only can you buy the jerky online he’s been starting to sell to lots of states. Also, VeganCuts has a deal on them right now. So check them out, who knows you might see the product in a store near you. I 100% support everything they do, and am glad that they are growing as fast as they are. I just wish the jerky wasn’t so tasty that I can eat a full bag in one sitting.

I got a few things while there, some of Morel’s other jerky, some kale chips I sampled and loved (they were expensive, like most, but $2 off so I figured I would get it while there), and some Pure Food onion rings. I’ve tried their ranch zuchini chips in my Conscious Box and they were awesome. I’m going to figure out a fun recipe for them. Maybe vegan green bean casserole?

All-in-all I tasted some yummy food and got to try some new brands so it was worthwhile. I’m glad I went. Maybe next time one of these type events happen I’ll have the nerve to take more pictures!