Filed under: Cooking, Nails | Tags: Cooking, Day 4, Food, Nails, Other
It’s still all snowy outside, so another snowbound day!
Nails: Today went well. 
Cooking: I made two egg sammiches today, one for me and one for Rosie. She was impressed with the GF english muffins. She said that had I not told her, she wouldn’t have been able to tell. I’ve been pretty impressed with everything Kinnikinnick makes.
Filed under: Cooking, Nails | Tags: Cooking, Day 3, Food, Nails, Other
We got a lot of snow. I love staying in when it’s blizzarding outside!
Nails: I had a hangnail that I bit off, but other than that I was good today!
Cooking: I had an egg sammich today, which means frying an egg. English muffin (GF) goes in the toaster, then sandwich it all together with a slice of cheese. Yummy! I also made some tea for Rosie and me since it’s snowing.
Filed under: Cooking, Nails | Tags: Cooking, Day 2, Food, Nails, Other
I went grocery shopping today on a quest for Andrew&Everett cheese which has been my favorite brand since I started eating cheese again. I finally found some at Sprouts, but they didn’t have my string cheese! 
But I did get some cheddar slices, so it was burger night!
Nails: It went pretty well today. I wiped out pretty bad by the mailbox yesterday and my hands are still pretty sore from falling on them, so I didn’t have much interest in chewing on my nails. Hey, whatever works!
Cooking: Rosie made herself a cheeseburger and brought it over, and I microwaved a Sunshine Burger and a GF bun for myself, and then baked some fries for the both of us. Burger night!
Filed under: Cooking, Nails | Tags: Cooking, Day 1, Food, Intro, Nails, Other
It was a close vote and we ended up with a tie for first place. For the next 21 days, I will focus on not biting my nails and having at least one home-cooked meal every day, meaning I need to use the stove or oven.
Nails: I almost slipped up once at work today, because I tend to bite my nails more when working, but I made it through today OK. One day down!
Cooking: OK, I kind of half-assed this one today, I’ll admit. I had edamame, which just involved boiling water and tossing the edamame in. But I had to turn the stove on at least!
Filed under: Journaling, Juicing | Tags: Food, Intro, Journaling, Juicing
Jen and I were talking about how we both need to start a new 21, and we decided to start one together. We’re starting on the first, so the numbers will be easy to keep track of. She said she’s going to do food journaling, and I had tossed around the idea of getting back in the habit of juicing daily. I’ve decided to do both. I will be keeping track of what I eat on SparkPeople (a very handy site) and making myself at least a cup of fresh juice every day. All I have to say so far is I forgot how fabulous fresh juice is!
Here was today’s plan:
Breakfast: Dried Figs, Grapefruit, Raspberries, Flaxseeds
Lunch: Wild Rice, Spinach
Dinner: Amaranth
Snack: Apricots, Pistachios, Pumpkin Seeds, Sunflower Seeds
Once again, I did not eat all of this. These next 4 days the focus will definitely be preparing the food the night before and then eating all of it.
Part of the beauty of meal plans is supposed to be that you can prepare food the day before and not have to rush in the morning, right? I seem to have forgotten then, because today I arrived at work with no breakfast and only half of my lunch. Lesson learned. Here was today’s plan:
Breakfast: Pineapple, Kiwi, Carrot-Apple Juice
Lunch: Brown Rice, Broccoli
Dinner: Brown Rice, Tomato + Red Pepper + Onion + Garlic + Mustard Seeds sauteed
Snack: Hummus and carrot sticks
I did run home on my lunch break to make up for some missing food, which helped, but I still didn’t eat all of this.
Day two! Here’s the plan this time:
Breakfast: Banana, strawberries, and fresh-squeezed orange juice
Lunch: Sweet Potato and Almonds
Dinner: Quinoa, chard, bamboo shoots, and winter squash
Snack: Millet and almonds
Once again, I didn’t eat all of this. I started off really well, though! I woke up well, went to work juicing my oranges, cut up and washed my strawberries, and then turned my attention to the millet. There is this website I’ve encountered that promises me I can pop various grains in the same manner as popcorn. I have yet to get this to actually work, though. It tells me amaranth, quinoa, and millet are all poppable. To some extent I believe them. The process involves heating up the oil, and while you do that, you put 3 grains in the oil. When they pop, you know it’s ready for the rest. They always pop. It IS possible! BUT, every time I add all the grains, it’s just a big mess of oily, grainy fail. It doesn’t pop, it burns, etc. This time, with the millet, when I noticed it wasn’t working, I tried toasting it instead. Turns out, this isn’t tasty or edible really. Mandee has an air-popper, and this weekend we’re going to try some grains with that. This same site claims air-popping will work for these grains as well. If this works, I’ll pick up an air-popper this weekend when I go to BB&B with my mom. The one they have is the same popper Melalvai has and she said she’s been very pleased with it and that Nelalvai uses it nearly daily, so that’s a good sign. I will keep you all posted on how that goes.
The last attempt at food didn’t last long. I got sick, so my diet consisted of a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of NyQuil for a few days. So… I’m back again and starting again! I have more-or-less the same plan, but I’ve tweaked it a bit. Here was today’s plan:
Breakfast: Blueberries and Grapes
Lunch: Buckwheat and Lima Beans
Dinner: Avocado Rolls and Side of White Rice
Snack: Walnuts, Peas, and Potatoes
So, that was the plan. I didn’t actually eat all that. And initially the plan was to include asparagus with lunch. Unfortunately, i picked up a can of asparagus because I didn’t know how to best prepare fresh asparagus with only a microwave to assist me, so I got the can. Big mistake! For future reference: Canned asparagus is VILE. Ugh. It made me not even want to think about regular asparagus for a while, even. So, I’m leaving that off for a while.
This new plan leaves room for a bit of a whatever-I-feel-like snack in my calories, which I think is very important.
Another thing I think is important is having most of my food during the day. While I’m at work. When I get home, I really have no interest in eating. A dietitian/nutritionist (I forget which she was) told me once that it’s best to eat more earlier in the day and taper off as the day progresses, so she said it was OK that I do this.
Filed under: Food Rotation
Today I am eating fro entirely different food families than I did yesterday. Jen will be excited to see quinoa on today’s menu.
Breakfast: Either a smoothie or fruit with OJ and mixed the powder in the OJ
1C Simply Orange OJ with Calcium
1 Banana
1C Blackberries
1C Strawberries
4T Hemp Protein Powder
Lunch: Millet and Sweet Potatoes with Almonds and Tea
15 Almonds
1/4t Salt
1C Millet
1C White Tea
1C cubed Sweet Potato
Dinner: Quinoa and Chard with Almonds and Tea
1/2C Quinoa
1C White Tea
1/4t Salt
15 Almonds
1C chopped Chard
Snack: Larabars
Larabar – Cherry Pie
Larabar – Banana Bread
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
Filed under: Food Rotation | Tags: Day 1, Food, Food Rotation, Intro
I’m back!
So, here’s what happened: I have been going to an allergy clinic trying to figure out what’s going on in that department. Well, so many things were cut out after this that it became depressing to even think about what I was able to eat. So, I stopped blogging. I did continue with my plan to be macrobiotic-ish, but I just couldn’t convince myself to come here and update on it. I’m counting that one as half success half failure.
Eventually, the allergy clinic figured out that I’m Celiac! The upside of this is that it appears having untreated Celiac (untreated Celiac basically means having Celiac but eating gluten. There is no cure or treatment other than avoiding any and all gluten.) can make it SEEM like you’re allergic and/or sensitive to a lot of foods that you actually wouldn’t be if your intestine was healed up. This changes my game plan a bit. From what I’ve read, it sounds like it takes around 3-6 months for the intestine to heal up from Celiac initially. My plan is to avoid all of the foods that came up with any sort of reaction in the testing as well as any and all gluten for the next 3-6 months. (I’ll evaluate at 3 months and see if I think i need to go another 3.) Then I’ll follow the instructions for adding foods back in to test if anything gives me a problem. My hope is to be able to add back corn, peanuts, soy, and gluten-free oats.
So this diet doesn’t leave me with a ton of options on what to eat. The allergy clinic gave me a hand-out on a 4-day food rotation schedule so that I’m eating something different every day. The purpose of this is to make sure I don’t OD on anything else thereby causing problems with that food. It took a few tries, but I finally got some pretty balanced meal plans. I’ve checked all my nutrients, and with my vitamins I am good on everything with these menus. What made me laugh is that I needed to add salt to a few meals to make sure I have enough sodium. So for the next 21 days, I’ll follow the 4 menus I’ve set up. I may switch to a different set of menus the next cycle. We’ll see.
So far all I’ve eaten is breakfast, and I’ve got to say that I do not like the kind of pear I got. I got Bosc today. Next time I will either try a different kind or blend it with the blueberries for a smoothie.
Here is today’s menu:
Breakfast : Fresh Fruit
1 Pear
1C Blueberries
1C Red Grapes
Lunch: Buckwheat, Beans and Asparagus with Tea
3/4C Buckwheat
1C Asparagus
1/2C Mixed Beans
1/4t Salt
1C Green Tea
Dinner: Avocado Roll with Tea
1 Sheet Nori
1C White Rice (any extra eat as a side)
1 Avocado
1C Green Tea
1T Sesame Seeds
Vinegar and salt as needed
Snack: Misc.
1C Rice Chex
2 Red “B” Potatoes
1/2C Peas
5 Walnuts
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
One week down!
This was pretty similar to yesterday, food-wise. Banana and Spritzer for breakfast (strawberry – yum!), rice and steamed baby brussel sprouts for lunch, those same garlic onion rice crackers in the afternoon, and Rice Chex by the handful on the couch again for the evening. I will be planning real meals Saturday with Mandee, so hopefully that will end.
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
I woke up feeling 100% better. Either that was a very short-lived stomach bug, or it was the soup. Either way, I’m happy to be feeling better.
I began the day with oatmeal, a banana, another R.W. Knudsen Spritzer, this time Black Cherry. I’ve got to say, that was just awful. It tasted OK, but the aftertaste was really unpleasant. Lunch was just some brown rice and tea, and some fun little garlic and onion rice crackers and a Cherry Pie Larabar for an afternoon snack. I wasn’t as good when I got home from work. I grabbed the Rice Chex and sat on the couch eating it by the handful. 
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
Today was rough, but in an entirely different way than yesterday. I started the day off well with oatmeal and juice, I had some lemonade mid-morning, and then for lunch I had a cup of herbal tea, a very tasty frozen veggie dish recommended by Jen – the Green Giant Immunity blend, and the 14-bean soup I made over Christmas break. I had the hardest time eating the soup. At one point I turned to the lady next to me and said, “This soup kinda sucks.” I don’t really know what it was about it, but I just could not eat the darn thing. I ended up choking it down and then washed it down with the tea and veggie dish that I did want to eat. I had a few peas within the next hour or so, but I mostly just felt miserable for the rest of the day. I got home intending to make some quinoa, among other things, and found myself scared to eat. I felt like crap, and I didn’t want to eat anything and make that mental link between that feeling and any of the food I had. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but I’ll just say that I did end up vomiting and finally just went to bed.
Here’s hoping that’s short-lived. I’m thinking either it was the soup or I got the same little stomach bug that Mandee had. Either way, I never want to eat that soup again.
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
Today I am writing the entry as I go throughout my day so that I can keep a record of what I’m eating.
I went grocery shopping after work, and that was HARD. The cereal aisle made me want to cry. I finally found something I could have: Rice Chex. It has to be the brand name, I can’t even have the knock-off Rice Squares. I was so happy; I bought two boxes. Mandee called while I was there and cheered me up, so I didn’t have a complete meltdown in Cash Wise. Thanks, Mandee!
The head of the natural foods section was there when I reached that section, and we chatted a bit about various products I was looking for. She said they’re changing suppliers in about 6 weeks and they might be able to get some hemp ice cream in, which would be awesome. Even the rice ice cream has soy in it, so I currently can’t have any. She also said they might be able to get in some Sunshine Burgers which have just 5 ingredients, all of which I can eat: Ground raw sun-flower seeds, Brown rice, Carrots, Herbs, Sea Salt. Also, they taste super awesome. Hemp Ice Cream and a Sunshine Burger are what I had when I went to VG Burgers with Rosie this summer, and it was heavenly. I suppose it could just be easier to move to Boulder and go back there. I’ll work on that, too.
I returned home with a fair amount of fresh produce: a variety of potatoes, carrots apples oranges and a citrus juicer (it’s juice time!), sugar-snap peas, bananas, and a bag of salad mix; a bunch of frozen veggies: green beans, baby brussel sprouts, one of Jen’s Immunity Blends, some sort of winter squash mush, oven-bake potato-wedges, hash browns, and probably more that I’m not remembering at the moment; and some shelf-type items: a loaf of bread that I can eat, two boxes of Rice Chex, two different varieties of quinoa, a rice cereal that looks like Malt-o-Meal, a larabar (the only one without walnuts is the cherry pie one!), some Veggie Crisp chips, some egg-replacer, ground flax, and a few cans of carbonated juice.
After the cereal aisle it was a lot better, but it still wasn’t easy. A lot of the gluten-free stuff has egg in it, which is frustrating.
Here’s what I ate today:
Organic lemonade (not the best, but it’s sweetened with organic dehydrated cane juice solids and colored with turmeric), instant oatmeal (I’m using this up and then will switch to the normal kind once this is gone), Vegetable soup (veggies and lima beans! My mom and I made this when I was in Bismarck over Christmas break), raisins, Rice Chex and Hemp Milk. I don’t think I ate enough. Today was a hard day.
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
I began the day today with every intention of going to the grocery store. But I needed to find my camera for my brother to borrow first, and then when looking for that I got the organization bug and started cleaning out the entire close. It’s getting close to being totally done, which is awesome. I’ve got a pile of stuff to get rid of, too. Woo! But because I did this instead of grocery shopping, I don’t have much food at home yet.
I didn’t write anything down again, but it went something like: salad+dressing, almonds, oatmeal, raisins, and likely more. Tomorrow I will begin recording!
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
Today my friend Mandee came over, and I sent her home with two big bags of groceries and a huge bag of knock-off-brand Cheerios. (Scooters!) All that’s left in my kitchen with any allergens now is just a small bit of corn and peanuts.
Food has included salad+dressing, almonds, oatmeal, soup, and I didn’t write down anything, so probably quite a bit more.
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
So, I’m using the word “Macrobiotic” rather loosely here. Officially, a Macrobiotic diet involves a lot of whole grains (such as wheat) and soy. Well that would be all fine and dandy if I didn’t have an appointment today at the allergy clinic where they informed me that I am allergic to both wheat and soy. (And dairy. And egg. And corn and peanuts to some extent as well. And this isn’t even all of the results yet!) So I’m just following the spirit of the diet, really. Also, another thing I’d like to clarify: When I say “diet” I mean “way of eating” not “I’m going to do this until I lose 50 pounds and then go back to eating normally” because I plan to maintain this indefinitely.
What I intend to do is eat whole foods, nothing processed, make things from scratch, avoid allergens, etc. Ideally, a person would grind her own flour to use in baking, but I am going to go ahead and just pick up a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour and call it good.
Avoiding soy, egg, dairy, wheat, corn, and peanuts? And I already don’t eat meat? What will I eat, you ask? Well first of all, corn and peanuts were lower on the allergy test results than the rest and they did mention that those two are probably OK, so I’m just going to keep them in moderation. I’ll avoid eating straight corn or HFCS, but I’m keeping my bag of frozen veggies that has some corn in it. I won’t eat handfuls of peanuts, but I won’t throw away my peanut butter soup.
Right now what I’m doing is going through my food at home and cleaning everything out that I’m allergic to. Early next week I will hit up the grocery store and get some new food. This weekend will be a little off, but I’ll really get into the swing of things on Monday.
Today’s food has included oatmeal, mandarin oranges, Tings (which are mostly corn, I know.), fat-free hash browns (just cook them on a non-stick griddle/skillet without the oil. They’re so light and fluffy that way!), almonds, salad+dressing, an likely some other things I’m forgetting.
Biking has continued on the stationary, flossing is continuing every evening, and waking has continued at 7:00AM every morning.
