Best Fudge Brownies

Hello Bloggies!

I’m posting a little late today because I slept in BIG TIME. I guess my body needed some extra rest since I am still sick. The dear husband said he tried waking me up so I wouldn’t miss yoga and I said “uh-uh” and rolled back over. Alas, I missed yoga but honestly, I’m not feeling up to much.

So, here is a quick recap of yesterday.

I got to work a little late but still had breakfast there instead of at home. I had a repeat of Thursday since it one of my new favoritebreakfasts. A bowl of fiber one shredded wheat mixed withQuaker Oat Squares and topped off with ground flax seed, dried blueberries and milk.

T and I had decided earlier in the week that we would do a sushi run for lunch. I had been craving a sweet potato roll since the last time I had one. I ordered the veg maki combo which included a vegan roll (cukes and avocado), sweet potato roll and futo maki. I ended up not eating the futo maki because it tasted a little like windex (EW!!).

 

T also gave me a few pieces of her kryptonite roll which was supah good.

Shortly after lunch, I got this beautiful suprise from the dear husband. The card said “Happy Friday”, isn’t that sweet??

Though my lunch really filled me up, it left me hungry on a couple of hours later. It didn’t have much protein at all so I’m sure that is why. I dipped into my greek yogurt and berries about an hour earlier than usual because I didn’t want to be hungry for my after work grocery adventure.

I went to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods when I left to stock up on some essentials. Once I was home, I baked a couple of butter bean burgers that I pulled from the freezer. We had them on a sandwich thin with ketchup and mustard, holy yum!

On the side, we had steamed broccoli tossed with olive oil, garlic and sea kelp. I picked the sea kelp up from Whole Foods but am not sure if I like it enough. I am salt addict and it didn’t have that salt flavor that I love. It is packed with iodine so I think it may be best to use it in conjunction with sea salt.

For dessert, I wanted to do a test run my “best fudge brownies” that I plan to make for Meghann’s  blogger bake sale to be held February 9th. I had to make sure my recipe wasn’t poison, of course :D.

We had the brownies topped with a small scoop of coconut milk vanilla ice cream.

This little dessert proved to NOT be poisonous at all 🙂 We went to bed shortly after because we are both sick and really just want to be better!!

Fews Words, Lots O’ Pictures

First, I want to give a shout out to a very special person in blogland, Lee, at For the Love of Peanut Butter! She is hosting a secret cupid blogger valentines day gift exchange. Be sure to pop on over there and sign up for the exchange, the deadline is TODAY!!!

I ate breakfast at home again yesterday because I went in late due to ice on the roads. I had a bowl of fiber one shredded wheat and quaker oat squares topped with dried blueberries, ground flax seed and milk. This is becoming my new favorite stand by breakfast. *Edited to add* There is no picture because it is on my other computer 😦

For some reason at lunch time, I was craving my afternoon snack so I went with it. I had greek yogurt topped with mixed berries. I added a few mixed nuts after the photo was taken.

 

To be sure to get in my veg for the day, I had the chef make me a really big salad with oil and vinegar.

I also had some sauteed spinach that was out for staff lunch.

By mid afternoon, I was hungry again so I had a big ole orange to hold me over.

The dear husband was kind enough to make his specialty for dinner since I worked two hours later than normal. Frozen Pizza :)!! This time we had the mediteranian vegetable, so good!

After dinner, I had the last of my mini toblerones from Christmas time. I will miss these little guys.

I was really stressed out because of work so after dinner we just talked and watched tv. Hopefully, I can get completely caught up today so that I can leave the stress behind. I’m sure part of it is because I haven’t exercised since Sunday due to being sick. I’m totally looking forward to sweating out some agression in yoga tomorrow!!

Hunger as a Metaphor

Ah. Normal Blogging Behavior, I’m so glad to be back. I am still pretty sick but am doing well enough to function. A couple of days ago, it took all I had to make myself a glass of juice and now, I am back into my normal routine. I really do believe that being sick is my bodies way of telling me that my down time was needed…right now. I plan to take it pretty easy the next few days so that I can be full force pretty soon.

Now, onto yesterday. I went to work late due to reports of ice on the roads so I decided to have breakfast at home. My appetite has been really off for a couple of days now and what I wanted was kinda strange. I had a chocolate vitatop with a peanut butter smear

and a glass of grape juice.

Not a normal breakfast by any means but it did the job and I made it all the way to lunch without feeling hungry. Around 11, I was feeling hungry so I had the chef make me a salad with ranch dressing on the side. I normally just do oil and vinegar but for some reason, I wanted ranch. I ended up eating about 5 bites of the salad before I had enough.

I also had a boca spicy “chicken”  patty on a sandwich thin with blue cheese dressing.  This was my first time EVER cooking these things in the microwave an I must say, I don’t recommend it. It was really chewy and hard, once again, I didn’t eat all of it.

I had a really busy afternoon and didn’t have time for my usual snack before therapy so I had a chocolate coconut chew larabar in the car. Once I got there, we talked about my mayonnaise jar, being sick and the exciting news that since starting Body Pump, I have lost inches off of my waist and hips. I had talked with Brandi about taking measurements and I am so glad I did. Even when the scale stays in the same spot, it IS nice to see the inches falling off. It is also nice to see muscles developing in my arms and legs.

After a relatively light conversation with my therapist, time was up and I had a date with the dear husband at Ukrops. I had group so we had to do something really quick for dinner and Ukrop’s is less than a mile from the therapy office. Somehow, I temporarily lost my camera and didn’t get to photograph what I had but for the record, I had half of a dynomyte roll, half of a veggie roll and a few bites of strawberry salad with whipped cream. I also had a few sips of this vitamin water that I took a picture of once I found my camera.

After dinner, I made my way to group. We went through the session and I sat there thinking that it wasn’t doing anything for me the way past sessions had. We were focusing on Chapter 5 and 6 from Eating in the Light of the Moon by Dr. Annita Johnston.  We went through a guided meditation that led us through the sensations, the colors and the voice of hunger. Then, we were to draw what we visualized and, of course, discuss it with the group. I drew my stomach with faint signals, then louder signals and then screams. The screams were the words now now now and it was then I realized that my hunger IS a metaphor as the book suggests.

We had much discussion about what our emotional hunger is asking us for and then a discussion about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. I realized that the second level of needs, safety, is a need in my life that was never met until I met the dear husband. Security is a feeling I have longed for since my first memory. No wonder I bounce around trying to fill all these voids with tons of friends, new “identities” and food. The session came to a close and all of a sudden I had an overwhelming sense that I needed to cry. I could feel the emotion welling up just under my eyes. I wanted to burst into tears so I said to the group “Am I the only one that wants to burst into tears?”. A couple of the women agreed that they felt it too and I told them that if I felt that way at home, I would be binging in a matter of moments.

That overwhelming feels that I can’t identify comes over me often and last night I realized what it is. Well, not exactly what it is but I can put my finger on the feeling. The feeling is fear. I could list for you the reasons that I think I am a disordered eater and some of those things are really scary to think about. But, I have identified that those things happened to me and I have been doing the work needed to deal with them. This is where the fear comes in.

I have very few memories of childhood; I can count on one hand how many I have. The fear is that if the things that I DO remember are so terrible, what is it that I am not remembering. What am I pushing so far down with food that I can’t even recognize it? This leads to such strong mixed emotions. Do I really want to remember it all? Maybe it is really nothing. I already feel immense guilt for being “screwed up” and that I should just suck it up and get over it. Or like one group member put it, a shitty childhood is just a cop out.  The fear of adding something else to that list leads me through life with a nutella spoon in my mouth.

So, it started out pretty lame-o and ended up being the most intense session yet. I feel like I am at a turning point now, like life as I know it is about to change. It is going to take some time and some intense therapy to get to the bottom of that fear but I will get there.

Feeling a Little Better

Hello Bloggies!

I am not 100% yet but my fever broke and I am feeling much better. The doc says I have the typical winter cold in conjunction with a sinus infection. He gave me antibiotics for the infection and I am already feeling better. I am back at work today as well as photographing my meals. The past couple of days have been filled with sleep, oranges, grape juice and ramen noodles so nothing really exciting to talk about. I must say, daytime tv is boring and I didn’t have the energy to make it upstairs very often for web surfing. I’m glad to be back at work though my pile of work is pretty daunting. Hope everyone is well, I will see you tomorrow for a full recap of today!

{{{GERM FREE HUGS}}}

Not Well

Hi Guys,

I started feeling sick late Saturday and now have a full blown rotten head cold so I won’t be posting about yesterday until I am well. In the meantime, you guys should get on over to Meghann’s blog and click away. Meghann is running her first full marathon in support of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Also keep an eye out for her upcoming bake sale. I will be contributing my Best Fudge Brownies and hope to raise lots of cash for her cause.

I’ll see you guys later!!

Beware: Long Post Ahead with TWO recipes!

Thanks for being patient with me yesterday, we had a really busy day and I knew I wouldn’t give Friday justice if I wrote about it yesterday.

Friday was a nice day, it started out with a cafe au lait on my way to work and then a breakfast wrap once I got there. I asked The Chef for something different that the egg sandwiches I had been eating and he came up with a great wrap. Inside the wrap was scrambled eggs, potatoes, green peppers and onions. There was also something really spicy inside but I couldn’t figure out what it was, maybe jalapenos. No matter what the spicy element was, it was delicious!

 

For lunch, I had staff lunch again since it was vegetarian pizza. The pizza was topped with every veggie in the rainbow and I had a small salad on the side.

Around 3, my stomach was rumbling again so I had a the coconut cream pie larabar. OMG. I loved this bar, I haven’t been a fan of coconut until recently and this little bar really packs a coconut punch. I really enjoyed it and plan to add it to normal bar rotation 🙂

Last weekend, I  made a bag of dried butter beans and I knew I wanted to try my hand at making butter bean burgers. I googled it and low and behold I found my friend Jessy’s blog.  Jessy’s recipe is vegan and I didn’t have nutritional yeast on hand so I made some modifications. Here’s how it went:

Butter Bean Burgers

Makes 6 burgers

3 cups cooked butter beans (if using canned, should be about 2 cans drained and very well rinsed)

1 diced onion

1 diced red pepper

1 tbsp crushed garlic

olive oil for sauteing

2 tbsp minced jarred jalepenos

1 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1 egg

garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper (all to taste)

In a medium saute pan on medium heat, saute onions and red pepper in olive oil until the onions are translucent and then set aside to cool slightly. Meanwhile, mash the beans with a potato masher until most of the beans are completely mashed, you do want to leave a few whole beans for texture. Add in the remaining ingredients and combine well with a wooden spoon. Form the mixture into six patties.

Once the patties are formed, you have a couple of choices. You can freeze them for later use or you can cook them right away. When you are ready to cook them, heat a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet (or regular if you don’t have cast iron) on medium low heat and cook the patties about 4 minutes on each side. If you cook them from frozen, it may take a little longer. You can also bake them in the oven for about 16-18 minutes at 350* if you prefer and oilless method.

The butter bean burgers were fabulous! I served them on Sandwich things with jack cheese, ketchup and mustard.

On the side we had sweet potato fries, mmmm.

For dessert, I had a TINY amount of Turtle Mountain coconut milk vanilla ice creamwith a nutella spoon. I would have had a larger portion but it was all we had left 😦 Let me tell you, people, this is GOOD stuff. I love it love it love it! If you don’t like coconut, you probably will not like it but if you do, you are in for a real treat.

After dessert, off to bed I went. We had to wake up early to make it to yoga on time. Once we were up, I had a cafe au lait and a bowl of cereal. I had a mixture of Fiber One Shredded Wheats, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, ground flax seed and dried blueberries all topped with milk. This was a great bowl of cereal, since I had been in a rush all week, I was missing my morning bowl of cereal! I ended up not finishing the whole bowl but the dear husband was there to polish it off 🙂

After last week’s yoga debacle, I received an email from the studio owner letting me know she was sorry for what happened and wanted to assure me that the class IS a vinyasa I and II class. She is also giving me a free class sometime soon, which is always good. I feel so much better now that I heard from her, I really didn’t want to leave my yoga home. 

This week’s class made up for last week’s, that is for sure! We started out with the breath of fire and continued to build heat from there. We did lots of sun salutations (yay!), a gorgeous standing flow that included warrior I, warrior II, triangle, side angle, moon warrior, standing splits into PIGEON!! Oh my, was it ever great. After the standing flow, we worked on arm balances and then she challenged us to give wheel a try. We warmed up with bridge and then gave it a go. I had only every tried wheel pose once before on a yogadownload and I couldn’t get myself up. This time, I could get up but I could not get my head off the floor. Rest assured, I will keep at it until I get it. We ended the class with shoulder stand. I noted during class that shoulder stand had just become a normal pose for me. Six months ago, I could not get myself into it. It is amazing what the body can do with practice!

After the powerful yoga class, I was ready to face the day. Even the dear husband, who normally prefers hatha, said he felt great and more awake after the class. This was unusual for him because he normally doesn’t “get” the mental affects (or should it be effects?) of yoga, he does yoga purely for the stretch. We were both on cloud nine as we went about our errands.

Once we were home, we had a quick lunch. I made Boca Spicy “chicken” patties on whole wheat english muffins with blue cheese dressing.

On the side we had steamed green and yellow beans with “carrot balls”  tossed in olive oil, sea salt and garlic.

And for an extra spicy kick, a hot and spicy pickle. I actually could not finish the pickle because it was just TOO spicy.

For lunch dessert, I had two cherry cordial kisses. So good!

After lunch, we cleaned the whole house, with the exception of the office. The only time the house gets cleaned these days is when we are having company 🙂 While we were scrubbing, I made caramel lattes to get us through.

 

Once we were finished, I had a little food prep to take care of followed by girly maintenance. Our friends, Becky, Cris along with their two small children, Kristen and Reagan, arrived at six on the dot and we started dinner. I planned an easy dinner because I knew we would be busy, and since I am working to find balance in my life, easy was the way to go. I made baked salmon that I marinaded in fat free balsamic dressing

 

And what I am calling cauliflower bake. The first time I had this, my friend Sarah made it and both the dear husband and I fell in love with it. After consulting with Sarah, I figured out how to make my own version.

Cauliflower Bake

16 oz of cauliflower florets, I used frozen

1 package (8 wedges)  light laughing cow cheese

1/2 tbsp crushed garlic

1 tbsp minced onion

1 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp olive oil, divided

1 cup water

cooking spray, I use a misto with olive oil in it

Pre heat the oven to 350* and prepare a baking dish with cooking spray. In an large skillet, saute the cauliflower in 1 tbsp olive oil until it caramelizes slightly. Season with salt and pepper and then add water to the pan and cover. Cook until the cauliflower is completely cooked through, you can test it by mashing it with a fork, if it turns to mush, it is ready. Drain the cooked cauliflower and place into a mixing bowl. Add in the garlic, onion, cheese and salt and pepper. Mash with a fork until almost smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, a little salt and pepper and the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil. Mix well until you have a fine crumb mix, you may need to adjust the ratio depending on how dry your crumbs are.

Add the cauliflower mix to the prepared baking dish into a smooth layer. Top with the breadcrumb mixture and bake for about 15 or 20 minutes until the crumbs are golden brown.

We also had some kale the escaped the camera because it steamed up my lens and I was too impatient for it to cool down. The cauliflower seemed to be the star of the evening, well, if you exclude the wine.

During the evening, we drank wine

Our friend Cris opening a bottle of local wine

and nibbled on an impromptu cheese tray.

It was a lovely night with friends and we can’t wait to do it again soon.

Quick Note

Hi bloggies! It has been a very busy day for me so I haven’t had time to recap yesterday. I will do one long post tomorrow with Friday and Today. Until them, have a great weekend!

Burning Lungs

For the second day in a row, I woke up late. I got ready as fast as I could, grabbed my cafe au lait and ran out the door. Once I got settled into work, I ordered breakfast from the kitchen again. Another egg and cheese sandwich but boy was it ever good. The Chef really knows his way around a salt and pepper shaker 🙂

Lunch was pretty simple, I asked The Chef for a salad to go along with my PB on sandwich thin. I only got a picture of the salad because I had company in my office for lunch time.

Work went by pretty fast and by the time I got off, I was inspired by the sunny day to try my hand at running outdoors.  It had been a really long time since I ran outdoors but since I am planning to run a 10k in March, I figured no time like the present to get started. I laced up my sneakers and headed outside. My lungs began to hurt from the cold air pretty instantly. I ran for about a mile before calling it quits, my lungs just hurt too bad. I guess I haven’t built up enough lung strength to handle the cold. Anyone have advice in this arena?

After my short run, I came inside and starting coughing like mad. Finally, my lungs felt normal again so I heated up dinner. We had a quick meal because we had to be at Body Pump class and were hoping to get there a little earlier than last week. I made a huge pot of chili over the weekendso I heated that up and served it over blue corn chips. I topped it all off with queso cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

After dinner, we headed to Body Pump to pump some iron. I love Body Pump because it takes the guess work out of lifting weights and for a newbie like me, that is awesome! Once we were home, I had half of an Honest Foods Choco Peanut Butter bar warmed in the microwave.

For those of you that are looking for a new blog to add to your list, check out my friend Brandi’s new blog. Brandi seems to have the balance of food and exercise figured out and I am proud to call her friend.

Red Herrings and a Mayonnaise Jar

Yesterday,  I woke up in a brighter mood than I had been in a few days. I had my usual cafe au lait on the way to work but because I was in a hurry, I ordered breakfast from the kitchen. The Chef made me a egg and cheese sandwich on wheat toast. I prefer to bring my breakfast and lunch to work but it is great to know that I have a food source only steps away 🙂

For lunch, I had a bowl of black bean soup topped with cheese and sour cream. I pulled the soup out of the freezer and I think it gets better over time.

In the late afternoon, I sipped on a soy latte that The Pro brought me. Lately, my need for coffee has increased and this latte could not have been more on time. Once work was done, I had an appt to get my hair cut and plans to meet the dear husband for dinner. We met at a Mexican place right by my hair salon so that I could get to group therapy in time. The food came out really slow and I was in an insane hurry so I didn’t take any photos but for the record, I had some chips and salsa (probably too many), a spinach burrito that was simply sauteed spinach in a tortilla and a cheese quesadilla.

The group is led by a therapist and a RD that specializes in eating disorders and this week, we met at the RD’s office instead of the therapist’s office. It is WAY on the other side of town and there was mucho traffic. I ended up being a little late but thankfully, I was not the last to arrive. We got started after everyone arrived and the discussion was about chapter 4 of Eating in the Light of the Moon by Dr. Annita Johnston.  The entire session seemed to be exactly what I needed.

First, we talked about eating disorders being the Red Herring , or a smoke screen, for the real issues. This wasn’t really news to me because I am very aware that my ED comes from my lack of coping skills for my past and present hurts. But as the conversation continued, we were given a list, an actual list, of about 200 emotions. The list is to help us identify what we are feeling which is the first step. How can we address our feelings if we don’t even know what they are? This is a situation that I find myself in often. Sure, I can identify happy, mad, sad, frustrated but isolated, not so much. Of course, I have felt isolated but never have I been able to put a word to the feeling. The feeling of not knowing “what’s wrong” often times leads to emotional eating and sometimes binging.

Once the emotion is identified, we have to take action that doesn’t lead to our “behavior”. When we are mad, we can go for a run or when we are happy we could dance or sing. So the question arises, what about those times that the ED takes over and logic is no longer available in our minds? That is where self care, or the mayonnaise jar , comes in. In order to prevent those moments when the cloak of ED covers us, we have to put our self care FIRST. That’s right, self care has to come first. 

For me, self care means spending QUALITY time with my dear husband, practicing yoga, meditating, regular (not excessive) exercise and social time. These things have to take priority over things like overtime at work, gourmet meals everyday and a sparkling clean home. Sure, those things are important to me but I have to take care of myself. I have often viewed self care as selfish but in reality, I can only take care of them less important things if I am well. Being at the bottom of a nutella jar is not well.

Another key aspect to self care is to not let our emotions pile up inside, we need to feel them and then let them go. I have trouble with expressing what I feel because I am a people pleaser. I fear hurting someone’s feelings or looking like an idiot for being too sensitive. What I learned last night is that being a sensitive person is part of being intutive, it means I listen to my emotions. I don’t have all of the skills I need to deal with them sometimes, but at least I am listening and that is a step in the right direction.

Do you put self care first? Are you a people pleaser that fears saying no or telling your REAL emotions?

Figuring It Out

Thanks to all of your for your sweet words on yesterday’s post. It means so much to me to have the support of such a wonderful community of bloggers. Working on recovery from ED is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with with the exception of the loss of my brother. Probably because it encompasses so much. Not only do I have to deal with all of the things that have happened to me in my life, I have to learn to deal with everyday life, too. For so long, food has been my source for dealing and taking that away is a long hard process.

Yesterday was another long hard day but I seemed to making it through without using food. I made a cafe au lait for my ride to work and then had breakfast when I got there. It was another repeat but so good. I had greek yogurt topped with berries, granola and flax seed. The addition of the flax seed was wonderful, it gave it a nice nutty flavor.

For lunch, I had staff lunch because I wasn’t really in the mood for what I brought and rarely does staff lunch fall into the pescatarian category. It was poached salmon with mashed potatoes

and I got a salad on the side for some good green veg.

The salmon was really delicious, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned. For lunch dessert, I had two small squares of dark orange chocolate. So good!

For my afternoon snack, I had a nut and seed bar that I found on a recent trip to the grocer. It was pretty tasty, it wasn’t too sweet and the sunflower seed flavor really shined.

After work, I had therapy. I was really looking forward to the session because I had been in such a funk I really wanted to talk it out. My therapist wanted to dig deeper than “I’m in intense therapy and it sucks” and after some reflection we realized that my most recent funk has many layers and is the result from the lack of balance I have in my life right now. The downward spiral seemed to start with my crappy yoga class on Saturday followed by a really long list of things to accomplish over the weekend. Yoga is vital to my well being and I am truly dependent on it for my sanity. Down time is also crucial to me and lately, I haven’t had much of that. I have been very on the go with errands, work, the gym and therapy. And last but not least, I need some friend time. Life has been so crazy, I have only spent time with friends for quick workout classes and haven’t gotten any good quality time to just hang out and have a good time.

Balance is what I need. I’ve decided that I really need to re-evaluate how I am spending my time and prioritze the things that are most important to keeping me healthy. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, I can get everything that I need to done while finding the time to just be. I think two major adjustments needs to be made to accomplish this. I need to make some adjustments to my workout schedule and I need to realize that now is not the time in my life for long complex meal processes. While cooking is a beautiful form of meditation for me when it becomes stressful like it has been, then it is time to rethink things. So be prepared for more quick and easy meals as I search for balance.

Speaking of quick and easy :), I made a quick and easy dinner after therapy. Grilled cheese on sandwich thins with Amy’s Low in Sodium Tomato Bisque soup.  This is a meal that I just don’t seem to be tiring of this winter.

For dessert, I decided to test the waters with nutella. As most of you know by now, nutella is a major red light food for me. It is a food that I have tried “legalizing” in my life many times and have never really been successful. It always seems to trigger a binge for me. So, last night I had a small bowl of Stoneyfield Farms froyo with a nutella spoon on the side. No binging, no spoon directly moving from jar to mouth and no second thoughts about it. I just enjoyed it which is a major accomplishment for me.

Thought Provoker: What creates balance in your life?