Friday, September 30, 2011

rando

Lunch yesterday. Teaism!


A gigantic dinner last night.


Two eggs, raw steak, two pieces of raw cheese, avocado and a potater fried in coconut oil. I got a loaf of bread from the farm for Scott and REALLY wanted some. Instead, I ate a potato. Lesser of two evils.


Tonight Jennifer and I are going to McGinty's! I'm so stoked. I'll probably have some scallops cooked in butter before going so I'm not starving by dinner and make a bad decision on what to get. And I'll also be drinking Magners, all natural, no added sugar, gluten free!

On a completely unrelated note, I love listening to Brand New! Makes me feel like I'm 14 again.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

the best meatballs ever made.

I made the best meatballs last night. Like, amazing. I'm not at all modest about that fact. Sorry I'm not sorry. They were so good. I finally figured out how to get the texture down to ensure moist, not piecey meatballs. The ground beef I get, like most ground beef is not ground super fine. It is still piecey or sort of thick. I stumbled upon all of this by chance. I just put all of my ingredients, including the beef in the food processor. I used:

-2 pieces of pastured bacon
-1 pastured egg
-2 cloves garlic
-1 tbsp worcestirshire
-1lb grass-fed ground beef
-s&p

I mixed it all in the food processor until everything was pulverized and combined. The meat felt so smooth (I know that's a weird thing to say).


Can you see the improved texture?!

I put the meatballs over some organic spaghetti sauce.


Then topped them with more spaghetti sauce, covered them and baked them on 425 for about 15 minutes.


When they were done I added some raw cheese. And I made enough for dinner and lunch today (which I'm super stoked about).


Why are you upside down?!

On another note, I worked out this morning!! Crazy, I know. Especially considering I haven't done it in so long. I did a tabata workout, otherwise known as "The world's greatest fat burning workout." Basically it's a four minute (!!) workout. You do an exercise for twenty seconds and then rest for ten. You do this for four minutes, but you do it high intensity/lift your max. I made it a twelve minute workout because I did four minutes of squats, four minutes of push ups and four minutes of sit ups/crunches. I really hate going to the gym in the morning and this is something I can wake up and easily do. I'm planning on doing this MWF. If I can't manage to get myself to do a twelve minute workout three times a week, then I'm just lazy as shit. I also plan to lower my carb intake. Some days I might be in the ketosis range (50-80 grams a day). But I don't intend to go over 100 grams. I figure I'll occasionally enter my food into LIVESTRONG.COM to make sure I'm not eating too many carbs (which is easy to do) until I can manage it for sure on my own. Obviously I'm not worried about eating too many veggies, but sometimes I'm just lenient about the carbs, even if they're grains. Time to get crackin'.

Monday, September 26, 2011

monday food journal

Breakfast at 7:30- 3.5 pieces of bacon and two eggs cooked in coconut oil with a glass of raw milk


Snack at 10:00- piece of white fish cooked in butter, 1 small tomato, tomato paste, garlic and cilantro

Lunch at 12:30- 1 can smoked clams in olive oil and one avocado wtih sea salt


Looks small, but is really decently sized.

Snack at 3:30- two hard boiled eggs with sea salt
Snack at 5:30- raw honey and raw almond butter with a glass of raw milk

Dinner at 8:30- Chipotle salad bowl! Lettuce, double steak, double tomatoes, sour cream and guacamole


Only ate half. These bowls are gigantic, I saved the other half for lunch tomorrow.


I used LIVESTRONG.COM  to track everything I ate. I highly suggest this website if you have trouble losing weight or keeping track of what you eat. Keeping a food journal can be incredibly helpful, as many people really don't realize how much they're consuming. You can just search for whatever you ate and it will come up with the nutritional value of that food (and several prepared foods from grocery stores, restaurants, etc). If you cannot find the exact food you consumed, you can substitute with the list of foods they provide. For example, I had white fish today, and I used Tesco white fish to add to my list of daily eats. I didn't specifically eat Tesco white fish, but it's similar enough. So this is what my nutritional stats for the day shape up to be:



Cals: 2789.5
Fat: 214.25
Cholesterol: 1171.25
Sodium: 3000
Carbs: 95.75
Fiber: 30.5
Protein: 142.75
Sugars: 55.25



As you can see, I consume a lot of calories and generall stay pretty low in the carb department. I'd like to keep my body in ketosis, but that calls for about 50-80 grams a day. If I were actively trying to lose fat, I would strictly put my body in ketosis and lower my carb intake (as well as my sugar intake). But I'm still pretty low at around 96 grams. My sugar intake is a little high. This doesn't concern me as I no longer have serious candida issues. It also doesn't concern me because the sugar is from the milk I drink, and from the raw honey (the only sweetener I use on a regular basis). Raw honey has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties which are great for the gut. My sodium and cholesterol are high but this doesn't concern me at all. So 66.83% of my diet is fat, 19.85% is portein and carbs are 13.32%.

RENN FEST

Renn Fest is amazing. We took a giant bus there and consumed a good amount of beer on the way. Which may or may not be why I looked like this at 11:30 AM


Scott wasn't and does not drink, so he has no excuse for looking so goofy. Just kidding, he's like a cute bug in this picture.

They have oysters at Renn Fest! I was happy to eat some raw shellfish, and actually give my body some nourishing food. They are high in omega-3s, rich in B vitamins and have several minerals including zinc, iron, selenium and copper.


You can also get crazy smoking dragons painted on your chest at Renn Fest.


After spending the day there, Nick, Tasha, Scott and I headed to the new Tara Thai that opened by my house. I got even more seafood in a curry sauce. Pretty good.


And on Sunday it was fiesta day in Scott's neighborhood. I got some awesome pictures



My new ride.



The view from Scott's window. A giant blow up can of coconut juice. And my personal favorite, a giant blow up of Goya adobo seasoning.

And on Sunday night Scott made me dinner! I was so stoked and proud of him for cooking.


Brown rice noodles topped with spaghetti sauce with mushrooms, broccoli and asparagus cooked in COCONUT OIL!


Such a good weekend, despite the fact that I drank a lot. I'm going to try to stick to my guns this week and eat primally. Later today I'll probably do a post of everything I've consumed today.

Friday, September 23, 2011

The other night Scott and I went to Ping Pong Dim Sum in Chinatown. It was awesome. It's like Asian Tapas. I got the shrimp joints, green because of chives, which I actually couldn't taste at all.


Shrimp, crab and mushroom jam. Couldn't taste the shrooms.


And the healthiest thing I got, calamari salad. Tons of fresh ginger, cilantro, carrots, calamari, etc. Do you know how pungent and spicy raw ginger is? Not so great, but it was good for me so I ate it up.


After that we saw Straw Dogs. Not the best movie but it was a fun night overall.

The next morning I made a terrible decision. Like, dumb ass status. For breakfast, I ate a sticky bun and sweet and salty cookie from Sticky Fingers.


Delicious? Yes. Especially the cookie. Let me just tell you what all that wheat and sugar did. MADE ME STUPID. My head was SO cloudy. All day long, until around dinnertime. Seriously, my head felt like it was spinning and I had absolutely no mental clarity. At least I had a healthy dinner. Bacon and eggs from the farm! With mushrooms sauteed in the bacon fat, and tomato salad ('maters, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, raw cheese).


What's up grain free dinner.


I made extra tomater salad to snack on at work. I just ate it.


Tomorrow we are all going to the Renaissance Festival for Joel's birthday! I'm SO excited. Last year when we went, Mike and I immediately sat down and grabbed some food. I got oysters and he got crab dip. And beer, duh. The food was so good, and we hung out there for several hours, as random people all dressed up would sit down and hang out with us (without breaking character). It was so great. I'm so stoked!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

mexican shrimp with caluflower rice

The other night I made cauliflower rice! Which isn't so much like rice, but whatever. It's lower in carbs and much easier on your digestive tract. I put half a head of cauliflower in the food processor. Then added it to a covered pan with some water until it softened. I then added a lot of butter. Of course. I was feelin' Mexican food that night so to another pan I added shrimp, tomato paste, coconut oil, butter, garlic and cilantro.


So tasty. I topped the cauliflower with the shrimp.


And served that with avocado topped with sea salt and olive oil in a lettuce wrap.


Primal! And I've been all primal today. Two eggs cooked in butter for breakfast. Cabbage and onions in butter for lunch, along with some grass-fed sirloin. I think Scott and I are going to dinner tonight though, so hopefully I can get something primal while I'm out. And we're gonna see Straw Dogs! Why? Because I love Eric the vampire obviously. And here's a picture of Caedus getting a bath, because he is so cute!


I just want to kiss his face! He loves kisses.

Monday, September 19, 2011

weekendddd

For Dale's birthday on Friday I made him a cake! Except...I didn't take any pictures. I got organic boxed white cake mix. Despite it being organic, it definitely isn't primal (flour, sugar) or particularly good for you. Last year he requested carrot cake, so I added four carrots to the cake, along with a lot of cinnamon. For the icing I used brown sugar, cinnamon and cream cheese. I didn't have a piece of the cake, but hopefully it was good.

Saturday I did an event for Honest Tea, we worked Taste of Friendship Heights. Since I'm absolutely horrible with my glasses, this happened the night before:


I'm back to rocking the one armed glasses. I am due for a new pair anyway, since these are actually a pair my friend gave to me. I am an idiot. So, on to Taste of Friendship Heights. There were tons of vendors, including Potomac Pizza, PF Chang's, Rosa Mexicano and several others. Started out with some PF Chang's lettuce wraps and gnocchi from a place I don't remember.


Guac from Rosa Mexicano! Unquestionably the healthiest thing I ate that day.


Chicken Tikka from Indique Heights, and some free steak sandwiches from Capital Grille.


Our spread.


It was a pretty long event, and I was completely drained by the end. I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before and just wanted to be home and in bed. I went home, showered and used the foot massager I got for Christmas while watching trash TV. It was awesome. Since I didn't feel like cooking, I drove to Yes! (it seriously takes me longer to drive, I was just so tired) for some easy food.


Amy's vegan and gluten free pizza because it's awesome. It's seriously my favorite frozen pizza. And some smoked baby clams, I needed vitamins so I figured shellfish would be good. They were delicious. I promptly passed out soon after.

On Sunday Scott got home! I met him and his roommate/heterosexual life partner, Friilock, at Tonic to watch the Lions and Redskins games. I got the eggs nova, which is basically eggs benedict with smoked salmon instead of ham.


I removed the English muffin to make this a grain free brunch. Both the Lions and the Redskins won, so I was stoked. We went back to Scott's where I fell asleep on him for a bit. I was still tired. Eventually we headed over to Georgetown, which turned out to be an unsuccessful shopping trip. But we walked around the water which was awesome and I prefer over shopping.


This picture really doesn't do it justice. At all. For dinner we went to Bangkok Joe's. I got the sea bass with veggies and jasmine rice.


It was SO good. The veggies were all fresh and still had some crunch, which I absolutely loved. My only complaint was that the piece of fish was really small, especially for the price.

Now I just have to attack this workweek. Hope everyone has a good day!

Friday, September 16, 2011

berfdayz

I'm tired! Only six hours of sleep and spent a significant portion of today on my feet already. This blog post will be in bullet form.

  • Chipotle for dinner last night,
  • At Scott's house, to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  • I brought him gluten-free rice mac and broccoli that he added spaghetti sauce and stuff to
  • No pictures because I'm retarded
  • But since he's awesome, he got us these from Sticky Fingers, vanilla, coconut, gluten-free chocolate
  • I'm not so fond of the GF chocolate, so I dominated the vanilla cupcake
  • Scott insisted he get a picture of me biting into the cupcake
  • Knew I shouldn't have had a cancer cupcake (I call it a cancer cupcake because I've looked at the ingredients: flour, soy, canola, sugar, death)
  • But I did get in a really good primal breakfast
  • Tonight is my buddy Dale's birthday party! Dale and I, as a gang

Happy almost birthday, Dale! Even though you totally don't read my blog and get really annoyed when I talk about nutrition.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

failed mac and cheeze

So in preparation of the premiere today of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, last night I attempted to make some vegan mac and cheese. Vegan, obviously because I'll be watching it at Scott's house. Otherwise, I would never do anything as ridiculous as make vegan mac and cheese. I absolutely love my cheesy, gluten-free regular mac and cheese. But that's not the point. The point is I searched around on the internetz and found recipes that bloggers said were amazing, and so much like real mac and cheese. I won't name names. But I will tell you what not to use when making vegan mac and cheese:

-navy beans
-roasted butternut squash
-nutritional  yeast

It came out like this:


Which I thought looked pretty promising. I mean, it was the color of cheese at least. I dipped my finger in to taste and immediately wanted to vomit. It tasted terrible. I was determined to make it taste better so I sauteed some onions and a little bit of garlic. This barely helped. I decided there was no way I would feed this to anyone, and tossed it. Thank god I didn't immediately dump it on the rice noodles and broccoli. I figure we can just use spaghetti sauce tonight instead.

Last night I also cooked up more chicken along with some canned green beans. I know most people hate canned green beans, but I love 'em. The way some people prefer canned peas to fresh or frozen (though I am not one of those people). I cooked the chicken in coconut oil and salt and pepper. I took the chicken out added the green beans and some diced onion to the same pan, along with a ton of butter. Super easy. I had a little bit for dinner


I only had such a small amount because I also had a spicy California roll with brown rice from Yes! Organic Market. Though I did take most the rice off of the roll. Now I have the rest of the chicken and green beans for lunch today. So despite the disgusting mac and cheese fail, it was a pretty successful night of cooking.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

hot dogs and probiotics

Dinner last night came together pretty quickly. Mainly because I didn't really make anything, but that's still okay. I bought these uncured, organic hot dogs. I'm unsure of the brand but they're definitely sold at Whole Foods, Trader J's, Yes!, MoM's, etc. I quickly warmed them in a pan on medium high heat with coconut oil. I served them with fermented sauerkraut I got from the farm. We should all make more of an effort to eat fermented anything. Fermented food provides so many beneficial probiotics. I can't stress the importance of probiotics enough. They prevent illness, everything from the common cold to cancer. They alleviate IBS. They improve your skin. Fight candida. Kill pathogenic and bad bacteria in your gut. Boosts your immune system. I like to eat my probiotics because it's more effective than probiotics in pill form (this also goes for vitamins). Anyway, so hot dogs and sauerkraut.


Served with the last little bit of my organic ketchup and some lima beans with butter I made over the weekend.


I realize a lot of people are sketched out by sauerkraut. I ate it when I was younger so I am not one of those people. But you can ferment pretty much anything. I've even fermented my own salsa. And I've been finding a lot of fermented foods at farmers markets, I think they're making a comeback. Anyway, eat more of them!! Gotta get back to work.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

cookin'

Over the past couple of days I've actually spent some time in the kitchen, despite eating so many meals out. I got some grocery shopping done with Scott. He even brought his own lunch to work with him yesterday!


I was so proud! Anyway, I made a meatloaf:


Why are you sideways?!

But only seconds after I took this picture, I was portioning it off into tupperware so I could eat it throughout the week, and this happened:


It EXPLODED.


Everywhere. Such a bitch to clean up.


On the plus side, I did put my new food processor to work. I made my own mayo using:

-1 pastured egg
-3/4 cup olive oil
-1 large clove of garlic
-little bit of dijon mustard

Raw mayo is actually so nourishing, while majority of store bought mayo is disgusting, full of soybean oil and will give you a heart attack. The enzymes in the eggs and olive oil are intact and haven't been reduced or altered by heat. And the fat from the yolk is amazing for you, there's a reason the yolk is referred to as "brain food." I made tuna with the mayo


Lots of onions. Onions are a great prebiotic.

I also made some non offensive vegan food for Scott.


On nights I know he's coming over I make oats so he can eat them for breakfast the next morning. I combine 1 cup gluten free oats with 1 cup full-fat coconut milk. I always add raw honey for sweetness, along with whatever I feel like adding. I don't heat anything. Soaking overnight works just fine. He added the banana himself.

And I made this quinoa concoction that he ate for lunch...with fries.


-1 cup quinoa
-broccoli
-onions sauteed in coconut oil
-corn
-1 can black beans
-cumin

Gettin' there.