10 Week Challenge: Foods

Sorry I've been slacking in keeping up with this challenge. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be on three films, but instead I'm on five foods. Oh well. You'll forgive the pregnant lady, right?

Five Foods.

1. Simple carbs. I know this isn't a food per se, but more of a group of foods, but this is all I'm hungry for lately! Blame the pregnancy, but bagels, white toast, pasta with butter, white rice, it all sounds fabulous. All. The. Time.

2. Asparagus. My one and only true food aversion. I made it last week for Mr. Skinny and it made me nauseous. Not sure why, but I could not eat it. 

3. Ground meat. Weird, right? Meatloaf, meatballs, sloppy joes, burgers. This is another thing I've been quite hungry food. Guess I need more protein or iron??

4. Fish. Love fish right now, too. Salmon & tilapia mostly. I might need to make myself some of this sometime soon. 

5. Cheese. Seriously, this week I made cheddar stuffed meatloaf, cheddar mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower with parmesan cheese. My mom made a comment about it, but didn't look into it too much, because I've always loved cheese, haha! 

Tell me:

What is one food you hate?

And one food you can't get enough of?

Hummus.

Guess what I did this weekend? Well besides throw up in a Walmart bathroom, thank-you-period-cramps. Yeah. Anyways, Mr. Skinny and I went to look at a truck for him, and the only way I would drive out to look at it would be if we went to the mall that's out there, too. I batted my eyelashes and persuaded Mr. Skinny to take me to the mall and let me buy something. Well, as you may or may not know, Borders is closing all its stores and they're having a super clearance on everything in the store. Being the bargain shopper I am, I decided to go and have a look see. I went right to the cooking section. I've been trying to find a good grilling cookbook and I've been wanting to cook some more vegetarian recipes, too. I did know that Mama Pea's cookbook came out and with all the wonderful reviews, I've been eyeing up a copy of this cookbook, too.

Needless to say, I found Mama Pea's cookbook. Well actually, I saw a woman reading Mama Pea's cookbook, on the floor, laughing out loud, and I was just eyeing her up, waiting for her to put it down so I could snatch it and buy it. Yeah, it wasn't my best attitude. Eventually I thought I would be kind enough to her and ask if there was another copy. Luckily, there was! I snatched that one up, along with a vegetarian cookbook, and a grilling cookbook and checked out, so excited!

I read Mama Pea's cookbook on the way home from the mall, by the light of my iPhone (don't you just love technology?), and I fell in love with it. It's funny, more than just recipes, there are stories, too. There is an intro in the beginning to introduce you to "weird foods" according to Mr. Skinny, and where you can find them in the stores. This could easily become my new favorite cookbook, no lie.

Well, on Monday, I went food shopping like I always do, and came home with some tahini and chickpeas just to make some homemade hummus to save myself $4 each week buying Sabra hummus. Let me tell you, it is phenomenal! I can't give away the recipe, because you gotta buy the book! It's definitely going to save me some money each week to make my own, and it's super simple, too!

Not my picture, but you get the idea.

If you're looking for a new cookbook, want to explore some vegetarian/vegan foods, give it a try, I bet you won't regret it!

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What's your favorite cookbook? Or do you inspire yourself and don't need one? Are you a hummus fan?

Not Eating Enough.

I never thought I'd have this problem. Would have never thought it in a million years, but I do now. I think. Since I'm home full time now with really nothing to do. I don't watch TV (who am I?), I don't sit and read, although I could and should. It's so nice up here, I just have to go DO something. Ride a bike, walk, run, yoga, weights, something. Today, I did yoga, run and weights, and now I'm enjoying a protein shake which is SO good, it's like a milkshake. Oh. My. Delicious!

But because I'm spending so much time working out everyday, and I'm trying listen to my hunger signals, I don't eat enough, I don't think. I sleep until like 10am, which I shouldn't, but seriously, I don't have anything else to do. I got up, and made myself breakfast. Today was strawberries w/ 1 tsp sugar, 1 slice of peanut butter toast, and 2 cups of water. I did 25 minutes of yoga, then went for a walk/run with my brother. Got home, drank 2 more cups of water, made my bro lunch, nibbled on some hummus, peppers and pita chips. Not enough for a lunch, but I wasn't hungry. Then I did weights, nothing major, but about 25 minutes worth.

After calculating how many calories I burned (just under 600), and adding that into My Fitness Pal, and deducting how much I ate, I still have 1200 calories to eat today. I'm making burgers, fries and asparagus tonight, but I don't think I can eat 1200 calories worth, unless it's a 5 guys burger or something. I'm making caprese burgers, and I'm super excited about these for tonight.

So what's a girl to do? Continue to listen to hunger signals and it'll eventually even itself out? Start eating when I'm not hungry?

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Have you ever had this problem?

Any advice?

Nut Butter.

True life: I have a nut butter (mostly peanut) obsession. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

Told you. I currently own 6 different kinds of peanut butter. Let me explain. I've always loved peanut butter, but since focusing on healthy food, my love for peanut butter has increased tenfold. It's the perfect accessory, put it on an apple, toast, banana, celery - the possibilities are endless! My normal was Jif creamy, but once I started paying attention to ingredients I looked and saw that I didn't know what all the ingredients were in that peanut butter, so the hunt for a more natural peanut butter began.

I tried a few organic peanut butters, but I just couldn't get into them. I didn't do good with the stirring the oil back into the butter. It was just weird. A totally different taste to get used to, and I know it was better for me, but it was too different from my beloved Jif. Jif Naturals comes into play here! I found a peanut butter that I didn't have to stir, that had ingredients I can pronounce and didn't taste too different from my original Jif. I was in love. However, Mr. Skinny won't eat my "healthy" peanut butter, so I have to keep regular Jif in the house for him.

Back in January I wrote an ode to Peanut Butter & Co. for their love of peanut butter and dedication to making good, high quality, natural and tasty peanut butter. Since I discovered them, I picked up a few jars and love them all.

Last year sometime, my aunt gave me the jar of PB2 which is an okay sub for peanut butter, but I love putting it in smoothies. It adds a peanut butter taste for not as many calories.

I always scope out the peanut butter aisle when I'm at the store, and occasionally I pick up another jar of something or another. That's how I came across the Skippy Natural Peanut Butter w/ honey, which is delicious. It's just a little bit sweeter than regular peanut butter, and yummy!

This past weekend, Mr. Skinny and I went on a road trip to Gaithersburg to hit up the closest Trader Joe's and this is what I came home with...

It really shouldn't surprise you, but I wanted to venture into other "nut" butters. Call me ignorant, but I didn't realize that you could make butter from other kinds of nuts. Seriously, I had no idea. But thanks to blogs, I realized that they did, and I had to taste them. So I convinced Mr. Skinny to let me get these two jars. I tried both, and they're okay, maybe they taste good with a certain food? I just used a spoon to taste em. I have to keep and eat them, I worked so hard and pulled out my sweet persuasive cards on Mr. Skinny. Maybe I'll try them in a smoothie? Or on toast?

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Do you have a secret food obsession?

What's your favorite kind of peanut butter?

Changing Foods.

Back to my weight loss journey now. Hopefully I can post on that regularly rather than random tidbits about my life. Although I'm sure they'll get thrown in there, too.

I know I mentioned it before, but I've been stuck in the 155-160 range for months. 3 months actually. I'm so sick of it. I know I have myself to blame, but it's really frustrating. Every time I think I'm going to break through, something happens to alter that. I either have a graduation weekend, or go to Disney World, or something happens. Anyways, I'm ready to be done with those stubborn pounds.

I have a question for you readers. I need some advice. Do you think that when you fall into a funk of eating the same foods everyday, your body gets used to those foods and you maintain your weight? I mean, I normally eat the same thing everyday for breakfast...

snacks with few variations...

I generally rotate yogurt, strawberries, bananas, apples w/ pb or cheese. That should be enough variation, right? For breakfast, I usually get on a kick and don't change. For weeks I've had what you see above, easy over egg, toast, and potato "fried" in canola oil. It's delicious and I can't get enough of it!

Lunches are normally leftovers and dinners are different every night. So other than breakfast, I change what I eat every day. Could my breakfast be the cause of my maintaining or can I only blame myself and my overeating on certain days?

For a few weeks now I've been tracking my food on My Fitness Pal and I have to say, I love it. This was the change that I needed from WW. I am forever grateful to WW for teaching me all I've learned, but I think this might be a permanent change. I'm hoping that maybe next month I can totally cancel my WW subscription and save us $17/month. I like being able to look at calories on a nutrition label and have an idea of what it means. For the first 2 weeks, I was doing awesome, I lost 4 lbs. in those first two weeks. Then we went to the beach. Then I graduated, and the scale doesn't look like it likes me right now. Maybe I need another scale break.

Anyways, sorry for the long winded post! Do you think my monotonous breakfast can be to blame for my lack of loosing weight? Or do I need to just get my head in the game?

If you have a second, head over to Leah's blog to register for her book giveaway, but don't get your hopes up, I'm going to win! :) Seriously though, Leah is an inspiration! A vegan who's lost over 75 pounds with WW! Amazing story and great blog!

I'm alive!

I'm alive, I promise. I've been reading everyone's blog, commenting when I can, but school is taking over my life.

This weekend was a food fail involving pizza, onion rings, Red Lobster and delicious subs. But hey, it happens to the best of us and we learn from it. I got back on track yesterday, and I'm even more on track today. I'm still not sure if I'm going to WI tomorrow, I might wait until next week and see what the scale says. I need a break from the scale, it's owning my life.

This all looks SO good!

I'm finished my huge paper - 17 pages later! And I have a list of what I need to get done before my semester is over. It's a long list, but I'm slowly crossing things off.

Exercising has been pushed aside, too, although yesterday Mr. Skinny and I got out and I started couch-to-5K again, and I'm really hoping I'll stick to it this time. Hopefully, I can work my way up to increasing miles. Hopefully finish a 5K and work up to a 10K, but I'll get there if and when I get there.

I loose weight slowly. And it's okay. I think.

I'm coming to this realization. Yes, I only had ~40 pounds to loose, and I've been on WW for 1 year and only lost 20 pounds, but I can maintain this. I don't think I could gain that weight back. Yes, it might take me another year to loose the rest, but studies show that the slower you loose weight, the less likely you are to gain it back.

And that's okay with me.

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How do you balance stress, exercise, and healthy eating?

Tips would be appreciated!