friday

ok yesterday was a bit of a crisis but i am back. you know that empty fridge with just the light bulb glowing inside almost set me over the edge. but hey that is over. i got a few food items to tied me over and i am so much better. that was a little scary but thankfully the blood sugar level has returned to normal.
happy weekend people.

it is just an ongoing thing

i understand that yoga is something that i will do for the rest of my life. like brushing your teeth it is an ongoing thing. i am learning that is also true for buying groceries! as i look in my empty refrigerator, i begin to understand that the food just doesn't replace itself. for as much as i have made a habit of all the foods i don't eat, i have not made the habit stick of replacing the foods at home that i do eat. hmmm...maybe i should sign up for grocery delivery. i wonder, does anyone do this....well, this is an area i need to continue to work on. ok, time for e to look at safeway.com!

the banana

i realized this morning that the banana is a perfect food.
i dropped off my car for service and since it is such a beautiful day i decided to walk home. coffee in hand...life was perfect. in the back of my head however, i thought...hmmm hunger is kicking in. tried to satiate the hunger feeling with another cup of coffee. remembered what nutritionist told me...."andrea, coffee is not a food". as that thought entered the brain i saw mr. perfect food, the banana. love that. quick, easy, tasty, cheap, good for you. fits all the important categories. i hate waiting for the preparation of food, the cost and the question, is this good or bad for me. the banana is a perfect food....and yes, so is the bagel...but don't get me started on that.

it crosses my mind

I think we have all experienced being super hungry in a place that doesn't have great food choices. Sometimes you just have to compromise and eat what's there. Amazingly that happened to me at whole foods! I was in Sonoma working with my client for the first half of the day and then I had to head to pacifica to teach yoga. That meany I needed food which would last me from 10am through 9pm. Amazingly every prepared food item, including salads, was on my restrictive list. Before I knew it, I was compromising in my mind. I was shocked when I heard that little voice say..."It will be OK to eat chicken salad". Wow. I know I liked eating that at one point but besides the food experiment, I am a vegetarian. Thankfully after walking around many times my better judgment kicked in. I bee lined to an arugula salad, then to the cashier and I was out the door. That was interesting.

it is monday again.

start of a new week. always feel refreshed and renewed to continue on with this experiment. i know i said it before and i will say it again. mondays, i can conquer anything. it is thursday/friday that the doubts come in. but hey, i am living present moment. i am feeling on top of the world. i worked yesterday (which means cash in my pocket). i have completed 11 weeks on this food experiment. and, i see that this week i flip the calendar to october...home stretch of the food experiment. rock on people. here's to monday. to goals being completed. and to hopefully me taking on new clients.
peace out.

so what do i eat

i am often asked..."well, what do you eat"? there are many things that i have added guilt free to this food experiment. many of these things i ate occasionally but now i enjoy them as a regular part of my day. here goes...
avocados, eggs, butter, milk in my coffee, caesar salads (love them)and best of all buttered popcorn with salt at the movies. basically you can say i have added fat and i absolutely 100 percent love it. so there you go.
11 weeks completed today.

walking can make me hungry

well it turns out just walking around sf can bring up some triggers of foods i miss...here we go...(hope I don't introduce you to some tasty new bad foods!)

starbucks - red velvet whoopi pies, little cakes on lollipop sticks...so yummy.
i first learned of these items at heathrow airport trying to get rid of the remaining pounds in my pocket. no one takes the change so i figured i might as well spend it.

cake batter frozen yogurt - introduced to me by my friend Samantha (no, it doesn't come in sugar free)

Madeline cookies...bite size yummy fun and great with a cup of coffee

rice...any with any type of asian food.

the new fad of eating cupcakes

oh and of course the old list...bagels and pizza.

hungry yet?

sometimes this food experiment seems easy but right no well, not so much.

good morning

i used to pride myself on the fact that i could pretty much eat anything. basically, a non difficult eater. well that all changed with the yoga. the more yoga i did the more difficult thr food eater i became. but aha i just remembered in one way i am still not difficult. i don't have time restrictions on eating. for instance, right now i am eating a salad for breakfast and i had eggs for dinner last night. woo hoo i am not completely difficult.
oh did i mention today is day 75? that deserves a second woo hoo.
happy friday people.

the mall can be a trigger

ok let me just get it out there. was in the mall...a huge trigger reminding me of all the foods i love and have not eaten...here we go...
wetzel's pretzels
pizza
chocolate chip cookies
cake...any kind
boudin sourdough bread
papaya king hot dogs
roast chicken
candy bars
bagels bagels bagels
chips
chocolate croissant
peet's blackberry raspberry scone
tuna sandwich
grilled cheese
courtney's vegie burger sandwich
ice cream

that little voice in my head...oh yeah, that's my mom

part of my constant dilemna with eating has been based on my upbringing. i grew up in a house where you had breakfast food (cereal, toast, eggs) for breakfast, lunch food (sandwiches) for lunch and then dinner food (meat, starch, vegie) for dinner. i have attempted to model this and failed...especially the dinner thing. like tonight for instance. my husband had to go to a dinner function and i taught yoga until 8. plus i was out of the house all day working with a client. oh and it was hot...that is a factor too. so what did i eat? breakfast...yogurt with blueberries and nuts, snack of a banana. then went all the way until 3 when i got home for a quick bite...apple and nuts...then taught. got home late and what did i have...apple and nuts. i was tired. it was hot. i just needed some food. so silly but based on my mom
s food pyramind, i failed. oh well. tomorrow is a new day.

i am soooooooo good

now for some people who know me...you know that i don't always keep a stocked refrigerator. and even now with all of my planning for what i can and can not eat, there are still times when my refrigerator is pretty close to empty. and seeing that this food experiment requires me to eat only perishable items well let's just say having an empty fridge is kind of a problem. but i have a solution. just make sure i have ingredients for the next meal. for instance if it is night time, i better have something i can eat for breakfast. that way i don't fall into the trap of hunger. no food in the house and now i am brain dead and have no idea or solution as to what to eat. yep, just plan for that next meal. may seem like a small thing to you but for me that gives me ease of mind. yes, i am sooooooooooooooooo good. thank you.
Oh and I mention...I hav
e exactly 4 weeks to go. Hell yeah I'm good.

10 weeks in and i am getting ahead of myself

now that i am 10 weeks in, i am getting kind of bummed that it will be ending soon. ok i know i still have another 4 weeks to go, but still. it's like reading a good book. you want to get to the end to see what happens but then you have to go through the process of finding a new book. of course my mind gets to thinking...well i should extend this experiment at lest until the end of my stay in Vermont. well if i do that then i should extend it the end of the yoga conference....you can see where this is going....why not just go until the end of the year. yep, i get ahead of myself. ok enough. live present moment.
yahoo. i have completed ten weeks. good for me.

no good food is eaten after ten on a friday night

went to see diana ross the other night. fantastic. on the way there, i drove by several bars filling up with people in their mid twenties. that was me many moons ago. chuckled about that and went to the show. thankfully diana had no opening act. she started exactly at eight and we were out by ten. love that. totally suits my schedule. after purchasing a t i headed out to market street. boy there is something about being out bars, concerts, friens parties whatever that as soon as you leave, the mind goes to the stomach. it felt like a pavlov experiment. i had reminders of the olden days leaving late night drinking festivities and then heading to find food. well post diana i had that same feeling. thankfully i wasn't drunk so i could just dismiss the thought, get in my car and head home. no junk food for this gal.

i hear what you are saying.

i have heard that lessons are first whispered to you, then spoken to you and then yelled you...i hear someone yelling.
watching the nate berkus show - theme is his 40th birthday. no food topics, cool. wrong! his guest for the show is dr. oz who talks about aging and staying healthy and fit. his first tip. "when you take the fat out of dairy products all you are left with is...sugar. you are better off having whole milk or 2 percent milk it actually helps you lose weight. and the calcium in dairy sucks up the fat and takes it out of your body. so you don't get that big belly."
amazing. i have heard this message three times in three days. ok, i am done. i am switching to two percent milk in the coffee. i will keep you posted. now can someone please stop yelling. i am getting a headache.

i hate this.

so what do i hate? i know hate is a strong word. whatever. i used to hate it when someone would introduce me to their new favorite junk food...whatever it was whatchamacallit, skor bar, a bag of chips, whatever it was i took it on...full on. i loved it. it just got added to my list of favorite foods to hate. but now i have a new hate.
i hate when someone tells me a food that i think is on the good list secretly is really on the bad list. this information was just enlightened to me about something i have every day. i drink a cafe ai lait - coffee and steamed milk. i had the non fat version of milk thinking that was a good idea. now when i saw a nutritionist last year she told me to eat the fat versions of food - i.e. yogurt as there is less sugar. that got planted in my head so i moved away from the non fat to two percent. but milk? no way non-fat. the new reveal came from my coffee barrister. he said that the non-fat milk in my coffee gets most of its calories from...sugar. seriously? here i am not eating sugar and yet there it is in my coffee. i am annoyed. so after that little pearl of wisdom was shared, i sat in my car doing a little research on my phone and yep, there it was. non fat milk gets most of its calories from sugar.
i hate this. yes, i used the word hate.

not this time

went to my husband's 630 softball game. exciting game so i stayed the entire time. that meant i left around 745...oh and i took yoga class before the game. this meant that my drive home i was aware of that hungry feeling in my stomach. and as i have said before i don't do well with food choices when hunger enters the equation. i thought well i am near whole foods i will go there. thankfully i rethought that. supermarkets plus empty tummy equals poor decisions. so i just headed home. and to my great relief i had food. yep, i forgot i already had cooked lentils, steamed broccoli, sauteed mushrooms and some vegie meat crumble. yahooo. put it in a pan. cooked it up. ten minutes later i had an awesome meal.
again really? no, not this time. phew.

discouraged...just a bit

took yoga class yesterday and besides being a super challenging class, i noticed that stomach roll was still there. i don't like it. then i just had my mind going for the rest of the class that i don't look any different since when i started this experiment. there's only 5 weeks left and not much has changed. or has it? was i just being hard on myself? i don't know. but i am feeling a little discouraged. maybe tomorrow will feel different. i can only hope.

3 hours later....
watching dr. oz. topic - women after 40 and belly fat. well at least i am not alone!

monday...monday

new week. new goals. same food experiment. thankfully it is the morning and mornings are always the easiest for me. yogurt, fruit nuts or eggs/avocado. the days mine fields are ahead but for now i am in the beginning of the day so no problemo. now if i could only make the rest of the day feel as easy as the morning. but then again i am a morning person.

sunday

woo hoo. 9 weeks completed. what have i discovered so far? i still crave rice with thai food. i still like the idea of eating my friend's homemade chocolate chip cookies with butterscotch chips. i am still documenting how long i have been doing this food experiment. i am discovering new foods that i like. and i still am wondering what if anything will change when i am done with this. but for now...congrats to me on completing 9 weeks.

girls are funny

yesterday i went into a boutique on chestnut street to check out what the style is for fall. i tried on a sweater by rag and bone and loved it. or so i thought. sometimes i think i love something just because it fits. i know that sounds stupid but it is true. i then have to ask myself how does it look. but once again, i get confused that the item fits me. oh and did i mention it was a size small? typically i am a medium and this had a giant s on the inside. amazing how a label can change how i think. but i of course them tell myself "oh this clothing line must run large". stupid i know. so i put the sweater back on the rack and left store. my thinking about it doesn't end there and i thought about the sweater the remainder of the afternoon. i even went so far as to look on line to see if i could find it thru an on-line store. nope, that was an in-store item and i couldn't find anyone else who sold it. in doing this i also came across a review of the boutique. some amazing reviews and some not so nice reviews. one review said how this store only sells clothes to small people. one lady said she was a size 10 and couldn't find a single item in her size. i always got annoyed by this but for some reason today i wasn't bothered by it. all of this information got processed in my head and i kind of had a good feeling thinking i could get a size s from the boutique that sold to small people. now keep in mind i do come from a family of small women and at 5'5 i am a giant in my family so this may have something to do with my crazy thought process. but boy oh boy some of us women are just so silly when it comes to size. me, included. i did drive back there later in the day and tried it on. thinking about all the crazy thoughts i had i still was able to say that it looked good, it was definitely my style and yes, it is a size S. wow, the games we play with ourselves. happy almost fall.

eating all the time

i have heard from people on diets/food programs that they feel they are eating all the time. exactly my thought. i think my norm has been to have coffee to start the day, maybe then a banana and then go several hours before eating again. this meant that by the time i sat down to eat in the afternoon i would be ravenous. i would then have one large meal. this also meant i needed something immediate so not the best food choices were made. that seems to be different now. by limiting my sources of food i am focused on buying food that fits in to the experiment. and i am finding i am eating throughout the day. i just started the day with my norm of coffee and banana followed by fried eggs. wow. yep, i am eating all the time.

we are now in the second half

day 60 people. 40 to go. nice. now if i had done this for just 40 days that would seem a lot but considering i am doing 100 days of this..well, 40 more just doesn't seem like much. huh. it always comes back to the numbers for me. and of course since i have a full house of food i can eat, 40 days doesn't seem too difficult. we shall see.

much better

started the day off well...opened the door and voila a box of food. yep, our vegie box was delivered. then headed to sonoma to work with a client and on the way back, picked up more produce. of course i wanted to deposit my paycheck and that meant a stop at the super market. now we have a nice array of food. i feel so much better. amazing how getting groceries can soothe my mind.

i hate this

had an awesome weekend in donner. even stayed and extra day. but that meant...no food in fridge at home.
got home mid-day which also meant i only had breakfast. thank god for the banana packed in the cooler for the ride home. arrived back in sf around 3 and then quickly headed down to woodside for a client meeting. this meant returning to sf after 7, rush hour time, hungry and knowing no food at home. spent the second half of the drive trying to figure out what to eat. the more i thought about it the hungrier i got and the more clueless my brain went. i hate this.
then...light bulb...told myself to pick one thing i can eat...salad. where can i get it? squat and gobble on haight. headed right there. got parking in front. salad prepared fast. food in stomach.
crisis averted. phew.
oops...what's john going to eat? must text him to get food. i just can't deal with that now.

yum

When I started this food experiment, I anticipated the first challenge to be...Sam's birthday. That came and went with total success. My awesome husband prepared my favorite things which complimented what I prepared perfectly! So by the end of dinner I was completely content and had no desire for the pretty chocolate cake. Phew. Crisis averted.

sam's 45th

so nice. holiday weekend. drinking coffee, coconut water. eating fresh cut (by my wonderful husband) watermelon. watching u.s. open. looking out at the trees around donner house. so nice.
kitchen scene. john's reading a magazine. sam's putting together her daily routine of bags to go to her day's event. preparing food. eating food.
conversation...
john - "sam, what do you want for your birthday dinner? i can barbecue up anything you want."
sam - "i like the meat thing."

so there you have it. dinner will be the meat thing.
note to self...must go to the market to get myself the non-meat things. glad i am learning to take care of my needs too. my old self i would have just been concerned with making sure sam's birthday was about making sam happy. but i am learning. yes, i have her birthday cake covered. i just didn't make it. too hard to make a cake while not eating sugar. hey, that's ok. there will still be yummy cake to celebrate her special day.
sam is getting older and thankfully i am feeling wiser.

really tasting the food

normally if i eat something it is one item with another. now many of my additional items have been removed...crackers, bread. so i am really tasting the various foods that i like to eat. i just had Gouda cheese. yum. always had my cheese with a cracker. it was surprisingly nice to just have the cheese. wonder how we started to do the food combinations.

would you like to sample

Free candy?
Free cookie?
Free cake?

Why doesn't anyone offer non-sugar items?

something i am good at

i may not be the best chef in town but i know how to be creative. i grew up with what some might say traditional meals but that really doesn't fit into the vegetarian/food experiment diet. so i have to be creative. in the past few years i think i have mastered some great variations on the standard salad. basically i just take whatever is in the fridge that i think will be tasty and throw it together. now i am learning to apply that to other dishes. my dutch friend saskia made a red bean dish that was so yummy. i had that in the fridge as a left over. i also had some lentils that i had made. and then i found avocado and a head of butter lettuce. heated up the lentils and bean dish. mixed it with the salad avocado. oh and i already mixed the lettuce with a sesame oil. threw it all together in a bowl. voila. lunch. warm. cold. yummy. i don't know a lot of recipes but i certainly can mix it all up.

the grocery store

i have heard this many times. do not go to the super market if you are hungry. i did and that saying is true. i hadn't eaten much and figured i would stop in safeway to pick up a few things. the first thing that happened was i had no idea what to get. something about being hungry in a place with so many options just fried my brain. so i went up to the first thing i saw, the nut counter. of course i bought way more than i needed and a bunch of different varieties. crazy. i did manage then to get some items but they were pretty random and nothing that i could combine. yogurt, avocado, nuts, and coconut water. in the mean tine my friend saskis was grabbing some things to take on her flight back to holland. she couldn't find the size roll she wanted and needed my help. uh oh. the smell of the bread and bakery department ignited all of my senses. wow. never felt that way at safeway before. crazy.
now i now know first hand...no supermarket when hungry.