2 yummy summa salads

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I’ve posted! And what a week it’s been. I finished my current job last Friday, then my mom picked me up in NYC and drove me (and Arthur!) to their house in Virginia. My parents are trying to move to Colorado this summer, so I needed to pack up/throw out/sell all my stuff (and help them post stuff to CraigsList). It’s such a crazy experience going through my life in boxes, and figuring out what’s worth keeping/what needs to be thrown away. Right now I have everything consolidated to one bookshelf. So weird!!

I also keep stumbling upon old journals filled with pages of “I ate SO much, what’s wrong with me” or “I need to exercise more!” or “I need to stop exercising so much” or “Why can’t I be normal around food.” Yikes. I know I haven’t been posting as much about body image lately, and I think it’s because sometimes, when I’m having a bad body image day, it doesn’t help to write about it; it’s better if I try not to nurture the feelings. Does that make sense?

So, while I’ve been indulging a bit too much this week (and can feel the toll it’s taking!), I’ve also gone on a 1-hr. hike almost every morning with my mom and the dogs, and eaten some yummy healthy food, like these two salads!

Salad #1: Sprouted lentils, chopped granny smith apple, parsley, crumbled walnuts, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil

with a splash of white wine - because I'm on vacation!

Salad #2: Strawberries, walnuts, spinach, and homemade dijon/balsamic dressing

I’m off to organize stuff for our moving sale! Hope you guys had a wonderful 4th of July (and Happy Belated Birthday, K!!). It’s my favorite holiday, and I had a great time BBQing at an old friend’s and playing lots of Rock Band II

 

Sweet & Savory

I’m glad to hear that some of you have noticed a correlation between diet and allergies, too!  I really, really hope that I can kick this thing over the next year. The skin allergies in particular drive me nuts!

I’ve been trying to identify more possible allergens, and I’m starting to think that soy might be the culprit. As I mentioned in this post, the only reprieve I’ve had from these alleriges in the past six-or-so years was when I was in India, and when I was in India, I ate NO soy. No tofu, tempeh, soymilk, edamame—nothing. Soy could be an even stronger contender than sweets! Giving up soy probably means a return to cow’s-milk yogurt, and thus requires some thought.

That being said, the “kick-the-allergies” experiment has started already as I try to eliminate unnecessarily sweet foods from my daily rotation. By this, I mean things like oatmeal with fruit and brown sugar/maple syrup; toast with AB&jam; bar snacks (larabars, luna bars, etc.). I eat a lot of this stuff out of habit, not because I actually WANT sweet foods.

Here are some of the less-sweet things I’ve eaten this week:

Pumpkin+almond butter topped whole-wheat bagel. Tastes like a pumpkin pie!!

Breakfast superstar: oatmeal, unsweetened soymilk, spinach, avocado, chili powder, sea salt, black pepper, drizzle of olive oil

I had the same thing today after hot yoga, only blended! Amazing Grass on the side (LOVE this stuff—a more in-depth review to come). This meal was super filling—I have half the oatmeal waiting in the fridge for a snack later!

I was able to turn down Baskin Robbins because I knew I was coming home to this (yes, it's sugary, but less so than ice cream!): apples, TJ's crunchy almond butter, and 65% dark chocolate chips

BUT . . . I’d be misleading you if I didn’t also reveal the sweeties that are sneaking in:

Downfall #1: My "healthy" chocolate croissant: Arnold's whole-wheat bread, TJ's crunchy almond butter, and 65% chippers. I cannot for the life of me go a day without having this at least once!!

Downfall #2: There are more flavors of that wine sorbet than I originally thought.

Oh boy. This sugar monster is going to be hard to tame!

Hope you’re enjoying your Saturday!

 

Making 26 a good one

With summer and my 26th birthday looming, I’ve been reevaluating my personal goals. I’ve proven to myself over the past six months that I can stay active (and be MUCH happier!) without the gym. I’ve also proven to myself that I can trust my intuition to tell me what (and when!) to eat (still make mistakes, but I’m getting better—and less stressed about it!—every day). There are a few things that I’d like to focus on this summer to help make 26 a good year . . .

1. Kicking my allergies. I’ve had awful skin (and sinus) allergies since I was 20, and take (expensive!) allergy medicine daily to make them go away. The sinus allergies are mostly seasonal, but the skin allergies really get to me—my skin is often broken out in a red, itchy rash. I’ve visited dermatologists, and they’ve told me there’s nothing I can do: I just produce too much histamine. Looking for holistic alternatives to Claritin, I e-mailed Gena, and she remarked that the allergies could be a symptom of yeast over-production, and something I could control by reducing my intake of sweet foods.

I think this is plausible for a few reasons:

* The ONE reprieve I’ve had from these alleriges in the last six years was the semester-long period that I was studying in India. During that time, I was eating a lot of plain yogurt, greens, beans, and whole grains, and not a lot of fruit or sweets.

* I feel a million times better when I don’t eat too many sweet foods, but I love them. If I made my goal for my 26th year “eat less sweet foods,” I know I wouldn’t stick with it. However, if I reduce my intake of sweet foods as a tool for getting rid of the annoying allergies, I’m MUCH more likely to do it!! I would LOVE to get to the point where I could control my allergies through diet alone (or at least know that I’d tried my hardest). I hate spending money on medicine to combat the symptoms, when maybe the problem is something I could very easily fix!

So, I’ll be thinking of ways to reduce my intake of sweet foods, and writing about it on here.

2. Making weekly yoga a priority. I’ve been doing yoga a minimum of once a week for the past four years at my current job (through a wonderful office yoga class), and now that I’m leaving my job, it’s up to me to continue the yoga habit. I love yoga, but it often gets kicked to the curbside when I’m tired, have a lot of work to do, etc. Having coworkers motivate me to go is the sole reason I’ve stayed consistent with it these past few years. And because I’ve been consistent, I’ve gotten used to that loose, limber yoga feeling, and hate how it goes away (and is replaced by an achy back) when I skip just a week of yoga! Also, yoga makes SUCH a difference in my running. Especially hot yoga. It improves my stride and endurance so much!

So, I am making it a priority to go to Yoga to the People (I’m loving their Saturday morning hot vinyasa class) or a local yoga studio once a week. I’ll treat is as an alternative to the chiropractor.

Do you set goals on your birthday?

 

Fitforfree = 1, Gym = 1

Let’s start with Fitforfree = 1

An expensive habit, but undeniably delicious way to refuel after a run!

I had an amazing time at the J.P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge run last Thursday. I met my goal: to run the whole thing at a moderate pace (10–10:30/min miles) and have FUN doing it! And frankly, I was surprised by how strong I felt, considering that running has taken the backseat to walking the dog these days. I suppose all that hype about “walking counting as exercise” is true, though I never really believed it.

The last time I did this run was in 2006, when my workouts consisted of Bikram yoga (every week or so), 2-mile walks home from work, and 2–3x/wk. 3.5–mile runs in Central Park. This time, I “trained” by running once a week (tops!), walking multiple times daily and doing yoga once a week. Other differences: I run without music now, eat a vegan diet, and purchased orthotics. Could these things have made a difference? Perhaps.

I’m also learning to love running for different reasons than I used to. For years, when I ran I BLASTED music and just tried to forget the world and deal with frustration. Now, I run without music and enjoy the scenery and the people around me. A bag of Newman’s Own cookies to the person who tells me which reason I like better!

OH, and don’t let me shortchange the orthotics!!! They made a world of difference! My ankles didn’t hurt AT ALL after the race, or even the day after, which is unheard of for me. Shell out the cash, people. They work wonders.

Needless to say, I’m psyched for the 10K this summer. Running teaches me a lot about myself and my thought patterns (e.g.: forget the ego and SLOW DOWN if you need to!), and I’d forgotten that. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two this summer

* * *

Gym = 1.

So, due to the above-mentioned walking and jogging (or “yogging,” as it’s known in our apartment), I haven’t set foot in a gym since January. I’ve even turned down free gym passes because they held no appeal to me. But when Emily told me she had a free pass to our neighborhood Park Slope gym and wanted a partner in crime for her first spinning class, I got really excited.

Back when I was a forced-gym-rat, I had an obsession with spinning. The music was fun, the instructors were invariably these buff badass middle-aged women whom I could only aspire to be, and I always left totally refreshed and energized. I went to class with a fun group from work, and we had spinning nicknames for each other (I was Crystal Geyser, or Crystal G, for the water bottle I usually carried).

But the best part about spinning, in my opinion, is that you cannot, CANNOT let your mind wander during class. It’s just impossible. If you’re pushing yourself as hard as the instructors want you to, you’re in a zone where thinking is impossible. And after thinking all day at work and (often) worrying about the future all night, it’s exactly what I need.

And this class totally kicked my butt. But it’s exactly what I needed! It was the kind of class where the instructor screams “ARE YOU WORKING?!” and everyone in the class screams “YEAH!” Apparently people are so into this class that it has its own Facebook page.

(And for the record, Emily did an awesome job at class even though she’d been sick earlier in the day!)

So, Brooklynites: check out Crunch gym on Flatbush Avenue for the Monday 6:45PM spin class. You won’t regret it!

That was full of beet/carrot/apple juice about 30 seconds ago. Thanks again, Emily

Share your current exercise obsession!

 

Blogger Dinner, Yoga, and Adventures in Oatmeal

I was SO happy to kick off the weekend right with a Brooklyn blogger dinner in the East Village:

It's a birthday every day at Milon!

Prepping my office/writing up guidelines for the girl who will be replacing me in 2 weeks has been absolutely insane, and this is just what I needed! I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with Sarah, Emily, Olga, and Diana over the past few months. They’re all fantastic people and made for great dinner company! The tiny pictures (and I’m not sure why they’re so tiny) do not do them justice.

My veggie curry masala (+ brown rice + 1 chappati)

Clockwise from left: me, Emily, Sarah, Olga, Diana

After din din, Olga and I took the train home together (stopping so I could pick up an overpriced vegan chocolate-chip cookie to split with Sonny and 2 jars of Trader Joe’s almond butter!!), and I hit the hay early because of my new Saturday morning tradition: hot yoga at Yoga to the People! I really can’t say enough good things about this class. $5, not too crowded (on Saturday morning only, apparently!), a perfect mix of guided poses + free flow, the fact that Olga and Sarah and Sarah’s friend Kate attended the class too so we could commisserate in our sweatiness . . . I’m so glad this class exists!!  It ain’t free but in the world of hot yoga, it’s pretty damn close.

I arrived home craving veggies and almond butter. Thanks to Maggie’s Whole Life challenge, and my goal to eat more savory breakfasts, I already have one in my repertoire:

Adventure #!: oatbran, unsweetened soymilk, half an avocado, sea salt, lots of ground black pepper, curry powder, and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil

This baby kept me full and happy all morning, with no blood sugar crashes or spikes. Plus it was incredibly tasty. Can’t beat that!

This morning, however, I had no avocadoes, so I had to improvise (I blame this post for what follows):

Thanks for making me adventurous enough to try this, Heather!

post-microwave

with toppings

Yes, here we have Zucchini/Pumpkin Oatmeal topped with AB, PB, and a sprinkle of my dearly beloved Swiss Crunch cereal. This bowl was YUMMY, and I had to stop halfway through because it was so filling! The zucchini has such a mild taste that I barely noticed it, and the grated texture actually reminded me of coconut!! Can’t beat that!

If I made this again, I’d add some cinnamon and ginger to approximate zucchini bread!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my new favorite breakfast and a recap of the 3.5-mile run I did on Thursday Have a great Sunday!