Just wanted to take a minute to give everyone the address of the new blog. Ill be posting on facebook as well, but thought I would keep anyone who cares “in the loop.”
The new blog is My Fuel and Fitness Diaries and I just put up the first post. Hopefully you will continue to follow me there!
Well HEYYY there!
Yes, I know I have been MIA for quite some time. I had every intent on continuing to blog after the challenge was over. But well, life happened….
In my last post I was complaining of a recent spill I took on the ice. Well, 6 weeks later Im finally back to functioning at least partially normally. But the past few weeks have been rough. So, I stayed away. From people in general, and apparently from the blog world as well. You know the saying “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all?” Well lets just say that I haven’t had anything nice to say recently. My injury and inability to workout at all coincided with what I understand is one of the bleakest and most miserable months of March/April Erie has seen in awhile, plus work is crazy busy with end of the year stuff. So to be honest, no one needed to read my thoughts or complaints the past few weeks so I kept them to myself (except for a few lucky friends/family…lets just say my poor mom fielded a few phone calls from a VERY cranky daughter. Thanks mom!).
But Im hoping most of that is behind me. Im back to working out somewhat normally. Doing some weights, and some cardio. Ive only ran twice in 6 weeks, with the longest run being a whole two miles with a few walking breaks. But I can walk and move with almost no pain now!!! For a few weeks I could barely walk up the stairs. Where I am now is such an improvement that I don’t even care that running is going slowly, since I can do the elliptical and spin and other cardio!
Plus spring has finally sprung in Erie! And I have only a week of teaching left. Then Im going home to VA for a few weeks…so friends from home, lets get together!
Now, I do have an announcement…but its probably not as exciting as you might image. Just didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up! I want to continue blogging but Im going to do it under a different site name. I feel like this domain had it’s own place for my challenge, and I want to focus future blogging on food AND fitness…and other adventures, of course. I know I could do it under this name…but I just don’t want to. This was my little space for 50 days, and I feel like I need a different name and focus moving forward.
Soooo, look for a NEW post under a new name soon! I will put a link here when I post it the first time of course.
Have a fantastic rest of the weekend…and get outside and enjoy the weather!
Stupid tailbone. It needs to heal…PRONTO. I know, it hasn’t even been a week. And I can still do most things that I want. I can spin and cross train. But I can’t run. And I can’t really CrossFit…at least the way I want to. So I am frustrated…
I knew I wasn’t doing as well as I hoped when I made the (potentially stupid, I know) decision to go to CrossFit tonight. It was open gym, so everyone can kind of choose their workout. The problem was the three workouts we were choosing from all had moves I didn’t think were a good idea. One of them had box jumps, so I decided to test it out. I did one box job and felt like I had just fallen on my tailbone all over again. I knew that was out. So I did a workout that called for deadllifts, burpees, pullups and running. I put weight on the bar and tried to deadlift. OWWWWWWWW. Well, that was out also. And after my box jump issue I figured running was as no go. So I got to make up my own little workout: Rowing, air squats, burpees, pullups. Except I couldn’t pull as hard as normal when rowing, and couldn’t go all the way down on squats. And burpees were pretty much a disaster, so I just switched to pushups. And we all know pullups are my nemesis, so those didn’t hurt my tailbone they just suck in general.
So basically, I couldn’t do ANYTHING I wanted to do. And it pissed me off. I felt like I was “cheating.” But I had to keep my intensity low so I barely felt like I even got a workout. And its really hard to see everyone sprinting and kicking their own ass, when I can barely squat to 90 degrees without being in major pain.
Sorry…I just needed to blow off some steam after that situation. I know my body will heal on it’s own time, but of course I want that time to be now.
In the meantime I know I need to just take extra care to eat clean and take it one day at a time.
I still can’t believe I got this injury from walking the dog on ice! It would make a much better story if my dog wasn’t a 17 lb pug 
Busted? Well, my tailbone is at least. Ugh. How can a 17 lb pug be responsible for so much pain????
Lets just say my parking lot was ridiculously slippery this morning. So slippery in fact, that when Molly got excited and pulled at the leash a bit when we went out this morning that I ended up on my bum. To be more precise, I ended up right on my tailbone. There was much crying, screaming, swearing that ensued for the next few minutes. And then what did I do? Oh, went and tried to workout of course. (Do as I say, not as I do, Im as stubborn as they come). Needless to say Im not moving too quickly right now, and Im currently sitting on an ice pack with a sleeping pug by my side at home. Im beginning to think the did this on purpose so she could snuggle all day on the couch. What can I say, I have one smart pug!
Anyway, since I have been temporarily sidelined I thought I would use this time to update a fun recipe I made this weekend. I had a recipe for a Bacon Mushroom Quiche that I had been wanting to make for some time. But instead of making the crust with almond flour, I wanted to try to make one out of cauliflower. About a year ago I made a cauliflower pizza crust, and I used this recipe as a basis for my quiche.
Recipe: Bacon Mushroom Quiche with a Cauliflower Crust
Ingredients
For the crust:
For the filling:
Directions
All I have to say is this was absolutely delicious. The crust was actually a little bit sweet, and it was a nice consistency. You could use any combination of ingredients as the filling. I want to re-create this sometime soon with the apple chicken sausage I have. YUM.
Does anyone have a favorite quiche filling? Ever tried a cauliflower crust?
So, I have a confession to make. I think I need to go back to calorie counting. UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHH. I don’t want to. But I have to.
Why? Well, it works. I know my portions have been too big recently. I know I needed to gain some weight, but I don’t want to gain too much. So, its time.
I considered not blogging about this at all, because it can be a sticky issue. A lot of people advise against it, but I know it works for me. In case you dont know, Im a VERY small girl. Which means two things: First, I don’t need as many calories as a bigger person. More mass = more calories just to live. I don’t have that much mass, thus I don’t need as many calories. And it also means I don’t have much room for error. I know my RMR is about 1,100 calories. For those of you who don’t know what this means, basically if I were to just lay in bed all day and not move I couldn’t eat any more than that. And thats not a lot of food. Now I can eat more than that because I workout and move throughout the day. But, Im much more sedentary than I used to be throughout the work day, and its becoming a struggle. Ok, the second problem with being small is that a verrrrry small weight gain means it shows up. FAST. Like your clothes don’t fit overnight. Those of you who are lucky to be upwards of 6ft tall can gain 5 lbs without really noticing too much. But for people my size, that can mean the difference in an entire size of clothing. Its a major pain in the ass.
So don’t worry, Im not going to get all into starvation mode again. I have a reasonable calorie goal in mind, and it might not even cause weight LOSS, but definitely promote weight maintenance. Since switching to less processed foods I have noticed I do need to be more mindful of my portions. And so far its been guess work. So I think I need to go back to measuring, at least for a little bit of time.
On a lighter note, my good friend Becca posted this on facebook for me today, and it definitely made me chuckle. In fact I was laughing out-loud during foam rolling at the gym when I got this on my phone. The med student doing abs in the room probably thought I was losing my marbles. But I figured I would share:
If only that was the true meaning of clean eating…
Have a great night!
Well, its Monday. Allll day loooooong. And I have a feeling this is going to be a crazy week. So, to keep myself on track I’m setting a few goals for myself this week. I will get to those in a second.
First, I thought I would just add a quick update on my life “post-challenge.” Really, not much has changed. Except I let myself eat any sugar or sweet I wanted this weekend. This happened.
Yeah, not challenge friendly. I also had some milk chocolate spread throughout the weekend. Not so much that I ever felt sick, but because I was eating basically NO sugar or sweetener of any kind the past 25 days, I feel like I have another “sugar hangover” today. Uuuuugh. My stomach feels a bit off, I have a slight headache and just feel sluggish. But I kind of did it on purpose. I wanted to just let myself enjoy life a bit, and now I have no desire to indulge. At least for a few days, I’m sure. Then I will likely have to fight the sugar demons again…
I’m taking some time to think about the “rules” I want to have (or guidelines, if you will) moving forward. But one thing I do want to do is still limit sweets. My initial thoughts are let myself have super dark chocolate as I wish, and if it gets out of control I will set a limit. And then I can have one “treat” each week. This will probably be ice cream. Or M&Ms. Or, ice cream WITH M&Ms.
So, below are my goals for this week:
Well, I think that is all for now. We will see how it goes! Im off to CrossFit.
Anyone have any goals for this week???
Whew. I made it! Fifty days, pretty much no sugar, limited sweeteners, no artificial sweeteners, and almost no white flour or artificial ingredients. I say “almost” because there was a full weekend of slip-ups, and I know with eating out and eating at home and such Im sure things have snuck in that I wasn’t fully aware of. Oh and a few bits of candy in the past few days. Oh well…its easter season folks!
OK wait…I lied. There was one instance of artificial sweetener consumed. I had a TERRIBLE stomach episode (reflex in the middle of the day) and I bought some diet ginger ale. I can’t stand regular soda, so I went for the fake stuff. But when my stomach acts up like that, all bets are off 
I didn’t talk about it on the blog because it was in the middle of my spring break traveling insanity, and I just didn’t feel like it. And I just remembered it happened. Again, there are no rules when I feel that awful, and there probably never will be…
Many of you have asked what I have learned. So here you go…
1. You cannot expect perfection. With anything. Obviously the ultimate goal would be perfect. But thats just an unrealistic expectation. I am proud at how little I “cheated” though. Yes, I totally fell off the bandwagon for three days. But I got right back on and actually basically totally cut out sugar totally and lived to tell about it. But as many people who know me have pointed out, I am WAY too hard on myself. So when I reflect on the past 50 days I realize just how well I think I did, and in all honesty, Im proud of myself.
2. I really like meat. Yep, I have known for a few years that I was a protein girl. But for years I have lived off of egg whites or boneless skinless chicken breasts and tuna for my protein, plus TONS of low-fat or fat-free dairy. But I ate a lot more higher fat meat in the past few weeks and really enjoyed it. And it actually makes my stomach feel better. I LOVE the taste of vegetarian food…beans and tofu are yummy. But they don’t like me so much. I know I have mentioned this briefly when discussing how I have what I consider a “paleoesque” approach to my diet now. And my tummy is behaving better than is has in the past. If I do another “challenge” it will probably be paleo, but we shall see. But yeah, maybe I am a steak and (sweet)potatoes girl after all. Who would have thought…
3. Changing my diet gave me the courage to change my exercise routine. And I AM LOVING IT. Sore as hell most days, but I haven’t been dreading workouts like I have been. The shorter-duration, higher-intensity seems to be agreeing with me, at least right now. My goal for the next few weeks is to do CrossFit 3-4 times per week, and cardio on other days. I am scared Im going to out-grow my clothes with expanding lats and quads, but we shall see.
4. Eating higher fat does not necessarily equal weight gain. Im not 100% thrilled with my body right now becauseI have gained some weight in the past few months. But I gained most of it before the challenge. I think it has crept up a tiiiiny bit in the past 50 days but Im not totally sure. And again, Ive changed my workouts. I do know that I have to balance the amount of fat I eat, because even just a few bits of avocado or nuts or coconut make the calories add up FAST since they are so calorie dense. But, this just means I need to pay attention to portion control more. Ive realized one of my biggest challenges is actually LISTENING to my body and feeding it when it wants food, and not feeding it when it doesn’t want food. I cannot necessarily blame the composition for my meals for any weight gain, but how much I was eating.
And don’t worry, Im not going to get all obsessed with weight like I was before. But I would like to lose some body fat right now, and I definitely don’t want to gain any more. Im happy with the way I look now, in all honesty. But I wouldn’t be if I gain another 5-10 lbs.
5. I can live without ice cream. Maybe not without chocolate, but I can live without ice cream. Even the times I “cheated” it was not on ice cream. And in all honesty, a lot of time when Im craving ice cream I’m REALLY craving the chocolate pieces found IN the ice cream. Lucky for me raw cacao nibs, unsweetened baking chocolate and unsweetened cocoa have been consumed in moderation to keep me from losing my sanity.
6. Homemade salad dressing is fun. I know yesterday I mentioned that I was looking forward to some bottled salad dressing from trader joes. Well, they have a few versions that are just really freaking tasty (anyone tried the champaign vinaigrette? AMAZING!), and since I am a single gal I like the variety that comes from having two or more bottles of salad dressing in the fridge so you can change depending on what you are in the mood for. But, I think that homemade dressing is HANDS DOWN better tasting. So I will continue to make it from home and occasionally use bottled that are relatively clean.
7. I can live without artificial sweeteners. This has been my crutch for so long, I still can’t believe I gave up gum. I will occasionally get a craving, but it doesn’t last too long. And altoids have been my savior!
8. Eating “real” food is really hard…some of the time. When eating out I just stuck to salads or cooked meat, and tried to choose quality places that used mainly local ingredients. When traveling I had to bring some of my own food. But I normally brought food anyway, so this is nothing new. But going to other social events and such was really scary in terms of not knowing what options would be. I wasn’t faced with this too much, but for some people it is quite the challenge. And the only suggestion I have is to eat your own snack before you go!
9. Grocery shopping is frustrating, especially at first. Even in the health food section or the co-op, I was surprised at how often I had to put something back on the shelf because of some funky ingredient. Oh, and you cannot find artichokes that don’t have some sort of chemical preservative added. If I am wrong and someone knows where I can get some, puhleeeaze fill me in. I made the executive decision to allow artichokes even if they didn’t meet perfect challenge rules. Ya gotta have some fun, right?
10. I feel better when I eat less flour (wheat) and assorted foods, and also less dairy. This is why I have considered a paleo challenge at some point in the future. For now Im not ready to totally give up grains or my dairy, but I am consuming less. Again, my body likes protein and veggies, not carbs…especially simple carbs. So we shall see.
11. I think I need to keep taking my stomach meds. I went without for about a week around spring break, and was super pumped. But, if you recall from the beginning of this post, I also had a bad reflex flare up in the middle of spring break. Lets just say the protonix was immediatley re-introduced to my system. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
So I wanted to say THANK YOU for all of your support and comments over the past 50 days. As I have said, I plan on continuing to blog. And Im going to try to stick to these challenge rules as much as I can for the foreseeable future. Again Im going to relax a bit with some things, but I have enjoyed the foods Ive been eating and I don’t see a reason to really change much. Im sure figuring out the “rules” for me to live with on a daily basis will be a changing process. So stay tuned to see what happens
Well, I guess tomorrow is the big day. Last day! Orrrr, maybe today is the last day? I don’t know. If I feel like some ice cream tomorrow I may partake. 49.5 days might be good enough to me. We shall see.
But, I thought I would take a minute and reflect on the foods that Im most looking forward to including in my diet.
1. Cottage cheese: OMG I miss this SOOOOO much. I consider cottage cheese to be a relatively clean food, but the ingredients list didn’t match the challenge.
So I hope to find the cleanest cottage cheese I can, but Im not going kill myself over it. In fact, I will probably go to Sam’s this weekend and a get a huge tub. And speaking of Sam’s club…I can probably partake in some of the samples again!
2. Trader Joes Salad dressings: I have a few bottles I bought before I started this, and none contain anything terrible, but they do contain xanathan gum. From what I can tell this additive isn’t really all that bad, and just basically thickens the liquid. I do plan on mainly making my own salad dressing and not going back to the fat free crap, but sometimes the bottled stuff is also convenient.
3. Store-bought almond milk: Now, I know I already confessed to “cheating” and buying commercial coconut milk this weekend when challenge fatigue set it, but Im really psyched about the almond milk. Like abnormally psyched. Again, I just didnt like the homemade stuff quite as much. I think I will continue to make it sometimes, but Im excited to buy the stuff at the store guilt free. When I can find the kind without carrageenan (which may be carcinogenic?) I will get it, but Im not going to lose sleep over it.
4. Sunflower butter: Yes, this is random but I cannot find a brand without cane syrup or some other sweetener. Probably why I like it so damn much. And now we will get to discover whether you can actually freeze nut butters when I defrost the jar that has been in my freezer the past 50 days!
5. Ice cream and chocolate: Im not sure how to include these “in moderation” but for now Im letting them back in. We will see if it gets out of control or not…
6. Protein powder: I really like vanilla protein powder in my oatmeal. I miss it more than I thought I would. Again, I will try to find the cleanest kind I can, but I think this might need to make an appearance in my morning meals.
So really, the list isn’t as long as I thought it might be. There is a lot of stuff that I don’t really miss. I know I need to keep artificial sweetener out of my life or bad things happen (several diet sodas plus a pack or more of gum a day…yeah, not proud). And I want to keep buying things that are as “clean” and “real” as possible. I don’t think that much will change with my diet moving forward, but I can relax a little more about some of the staples of my previous life.
And I think Im actually more excited about cottage cheese and almond milk than the ice cream. I know….Im so not normal. But thats why you all love me and have read this for the past 50 days….right?
In other random news, the pug got a bath last night. Here is a picture of the most pathetic pug face in the ENTIRE world. Lets just say pugs dont like water…
But once she dried off she was a happy, healthy and CLEAN pug. Love Molly dog!
Hope everyone is having a good week. Thanks for reading!
So you may have noticed I haven’t been posting as many meals lately (except for the awesome one’s I had in Asheville). Lets just say things have been a little mediocre recently. I had a few recipes that weren’t awful, but I didn’t deem worthy of posting. Plus Ive had some just boring or really unphotogenic meals…for example, I put hemp protein in my oats this morning and it turned them green. No one wants to see that, unless it is Saint Patricks day!
But today was a WIN for both lunch and dinner.
Lunch: Awesome salad with spring mix, cucumber, celery, tomato, some roasted sweet potato, feta, dried apple chips, and chicken and apple sausage with balsamic vinegar. And tea with milk! And no, I don’t think I could have fit anything more in that bowl if I tried!
Dinner: Chicken thighs cooked earlier this week in the crockpot (chicken, white wine, trader joes everyday seasoning, rosemary and thyme), roasted sweet potatoes, and “mashed cauliflower” with pepper and parmesan.
If you have never tried cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes you should. I made this a similar way once before, but tonight I used Paula Deen’s mashed cauliflower recipe I found on pinterest. Super quick and tasty! The only substitution I made was not sprinkling with chives and I used full fat greek yogurt I picked up at Trader Joes instead of the sour cream.
And I just wanted to say THANK YOU for the supportive posts yesterday. I do plan on continuing to blog after the challenge. And I’m not sure my eating habits will really change all that much. Im not sure what will become of the blog, probably more ramblings on real food, fitness, CrossFit, and other random thoughts. And of course, RECIPES! Because I love sharing good food! So I hope you will all continue to share in this journey with me 
Well, final 5 days I guess…
And to be honest, I’m tired of analyzing everything I eat. Realllly tired of it. I had no problems at home or traveling to Asheville (which is the opposite of what you would expect), but ever since I got back last week all I have wanted to do is go to the store and buy a freaking container of almond milk that I don’t have to make myself.
So I will admit, I haven’t been perfect the last few days. I had a few bits of Easter candy, which Im sure contained all sorts of artificial ingredients and dyes and all that good stuff. But it was a SMALL amount, and I didn’t want to go shoveling buckets of sugar in my mouth afterwards. Which really, is the goal here.
And I bought a container of coconut milk that has some “outlawed” ingredients. I don’t really mind making the almond milk by hand, but it does take some time and Im not as big of a fan of the taste and texture as the store bought stuff.
Sorry to be a debbie downer here in the last few days, I think I just needed a mental break. This challenge was never about 100% perfection, but striving to eat the best I could. And so far I think Ive done pretty darn good!
In good news, Ive had some fun with my friend’s dehydrator. I made some zucchini chips yesterday, and some apple and pear slices last night. Pictured below is the result of three dried apples and one dried pear….minus a few slices of each that I had to sample of course! Very tasty!
Hope everyone is having a good Monday morning so far…Im off to start the week off right with a CrossFit workout!
