Farewell to Bloat

The Kaeng Reang Cleanse of January gave me a lot of insight into my relationship with sodium and caffeine and general food cleanliness. I’ve nixed a significant amount of sodium (mostly in the form using weaker veggie broth and more herbs, etc for sodium-free flavor and watching my heavy handedness with the salt shaker), but there was one surprising casualty that I touched on briefly: My beloved Kashi cereal. I loved it for its high protein content, but after cleansing and going back to my morning cereal, I realized that I was super bloated all day. I thought on it, and I realized that I had been feeling bloated at some point every day for a while. Oh yeah, smarty pants BB30, in addition to its high protein content, your cereal is also very high in fiber. Most every day I snack on apples and air-popped popcorn, and as we know I eat lots of veggies. I was even putting fiber filled blueberries in my cereal. Sometimes I would toss a little cereal into soy yogurt as a snack. My belly was simply on fiber overload. Too much of a good thing indeed!

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So, I started eating oatmeal in the mornings. I add in cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (so good) and stevia (and sometimes a banana or apple), and it’s delicious, comforting, and hearty. Sometimes I don’t even need my mid morning snack. I also save at least $20/month. Unless you find a good sale, my cereal was costing between $4-$5/box. Some weeks I would go through a box and half! Now I can buy a giant canister of plain, pure, natural oats for $3 and enjoy for weeks. It’s great! I make it with almond milk to keep my calcium content up (pssst…the only thing that cow’s milk has more of nutritionally than almond milk is protein). Read about it here.

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When warm weather hits in the summer, steamy oatmeal may not be my first choice, but I’m thinking some nice fruit with toast and hummus or a little peanut butter may be a great fast warm weather weekday breakfast.

*I think Kashi cereal (the regular sticks, not the sugary clusters) is great if you need a fiber kick and a healthy cereal choice.

GET IN MY MOUTH: Red Pepper Vinagrette

The Urban Vegan just posted this link on Facebook. With the warm, beautiful spring Chicago is experiencing, I am desperate to put this on a salad!

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/RCP00208/Red-Pepper-Vinaigrette.html

Also, hi, I know it's been a while.....

She Moves

I had a nice solid return to the gym this week.

Tuesday: Strength Boxing
Wednesday: Cardio Barre and Yogalates
Thursday: Strength Boxing

I am so glad that my gym has added another strength boxing class. Cardio Kickboxing is like dancing. Sometimes you can fight through killer combinations if you lose yourself in the steps and repetition. Sometimes I'll distract myself from my burning muscles by repeating in my head kick-hook-upper cut-tap. It works for me.

Cardio Barre was a new class for me. They've installed heavy ballet type barres in one room and the class is a series of exercises utilizing the barre. Not quite the same as the Bar Method which is ballet based, but there are a few ballet type strengthening moves involved. Instead, we did resistance/strengthening moves like sitting on the floor and using the barre for pull ups and squatting in front of the barre and pulling ourselves up into a pike jump. It was tough, y'all! I've been doing strength boxing for a while now, but these moves used totally different arm muscles.

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I've realized recently how badly I need to be doing more stretches on my own. I used to be pretty darn flexible when I was younger and now my leg muscles are totally tight. Flexibility training is equally important to your workouts as strength training, and I felt my lack of limberness during yogalates. There is no reason I can't start doing a few stretches as home while I am watching TV.

Are you a stretcher? What are your favorites?

Busy Bee

Here is what my days have been like lately:
6:45-7am Snooze Button
7-8am Dog, Breakfast, Get Dressed, Pack Up
8-8:45am Commute to Work
8:45am-4:45pm Dayjobland (non stop task list, no breathing room)
4:45-5:30pm Commute Home (and if I haven't left in time, then it takes even longer)
5:30-6:30pm Take a shower, shave legs (I am barefoot and bare legged in a dress in the show), groom, dry hair, eat a mini meal, get dressed, pack up
6:30-7pm Travel to the theater
7-11pm Work trouble spots, make-up, hair, warm ups, preview performance, notes
11-11:15pm Travel home
11:15-am-12am Have a snack, say hello to Mr. BB30, watch a DVRd show
12am Go to bed too late

Thus, my shameful lack of posts.

The past two weeks have been really tough with final rehearsals and previews for my new show. It’s going well, and I’m enjoying the experience of course. It just simply needs to be my full time job. It’s what I am born to do. The only way to get it? Keep on tryin’!

With lack of time for exercise, I have been keeping an eye on overeating and making sure to get plenty of water and tea. About two weeks ago, in the middle of a tech weekend, I woke up really nauseous. Two days of redecorating the porcelain in my bathroom followed. It was ugly. I ruined my wedding anniversary. Bummed. We'll make up for it. Mr. BB30 was such a champion nurse and caregiver.

We open on Sunday night, and Tuesday I will be back in the gym and boxing away! I am really looking forward to getting back on track. Two weeks is the longest I’ve gone in a couple of years without getting in a solid workout. I can’t wait to throw some upper cuts and reclaim my arm muscles!

Some nice positives have come out this busy time. Today I got a little reminder of how my hard work on habits is paying off. After so many days of little sleep and a packed schedule, I am really feeling it. There was a meeting I helped with in Dayjobland that included a Mexican spread for lunch. I thought, "I'll totally indulge in a vat of guacamole and an obscene amount of chips. I'm tired. I need it." I filled half my plate with salad, scooped out some rice and grilled veggies, and a big spoonful of guac with some tortilla chips. I couldn't finish. It was really salty, I felt satiated, my body told me that we were done, and I listened. Portion control? Listening to my belly? Look at me! Consider this horn tooted!

Jelly Donut Cupcakes

On New Year's Eve we planned to have a couple of people over and I was making some snackables. I decided to try the Veganomicon's Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes. Basically, these are a vanilla cupcake filled with preserves or jam. I had some fresh cranberries on hand, so I cooked some up with a little Splenda for my filling.

They cooked up fine, but they stuck to the paper a bit. I had replaced the oil with applesauce, and I think this was one of the cases that applesauce won't cut it. Still, they tasted just fine and he cranberry filling was a nice touch.

I hit them with some gross-for-you-yet-delicious sugar free processed frosting.

These were cute. Our plans got cancelled, so in the trash these went. I couldn't have them in the house. I would like to try them again some time with grape or blackberry preserves and peanut butter frosting. PB&J cupcake! 

Rachael Ray Saves the Day

For Christmas, I was gifted with Rachael Ray's Stoneware Set of 4/10-oz. Bubble and Brown Singles.

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I might have squealed when I opened them.

 New Year's Day, the personal pot pie making was on.

Mr. BB30 and I each made two. I went with traditional and a Mexican inspired one with soy chorizo and black beans. By far, my favorite was my more traditional one. I cooked up some carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and mushrooms, and crumbled in half of a veggie boullion cube. I added a little flour (technically it was vital wheat gluten flour-lower in carbs; have it around for making seitan roast) and let it cook for a couple of minutes so the flour wouldn't taste raw (I think I actually learned that from Rachael long ago). Then I added a little water to create a gravy consistency. I threw in some defrosted green peas.

I covered it with a thin layer of homemade dough and baked.

 So comforting and delicious. We were obviously winging it, and the takeaways from next time are:

1. Add more flavor to the dough with herbs.
2. Brush the tops with Earth Balance when done.
3. Add dough on the bottom as well.

 I love the portion control that the singles offer. They'll also be so cute to make little cobblers and crumbles!

TMI: I also learned over Christmas and New Year's that my belly and overly processed fake sausage aren't friends. What foods hate you?

Kaeng Raeng Cleanse: The Days After

I've been trying to stay aware of any effects the Kaeng Raeng cleanse had on me.

Here is what I've found.
I am interested in caffeine. I've had some decaf coffee for the taste and warmth, but I didn’t feel like I needed a boost. I also haven't been craving diet soda. I have some long tech nights coming up in the near future, so I can't say I won't dabble, but it's a great feeling not to need it right now.

The first two days after the cleanse I missed my sweets. I had been so overloaded with fruit that I had become accustomed to constant sweet boosts.

My salt addiction was broken. I really became mindful about putting too much salt on my soup and in soups and biting something too salty was just gross and didn't feel good.
I wanted the lighter feeling to keep going and have craved a raw veggie salads for lunch. I've been snacking  on daikon and cucumber and other watery veggies. I feel very satiated.

After going back to my morning breakfast cereal I realized it was making my belly bloat. I think I eat enough veggies and don't need the extra fiber, especially if I have an apple or pear for a morning snack. This morning for breakfast I ate some rolled oats with blackberries and cinnamon and a little scrambled tofu. I felt great.
I realized that I appreciated not having to think about protein grams while on the cleanse. I knew I was getting 45 grams a day minimum through the smoothies. Although it’s pretty much second nature to stay aware of my daily protein intake at this point, it was nice to have a break from that. I actually kept track over the past two days and I get more than enough protein from vegetables, tofu, beans, and homemade seitan. Do you know that a cup of cooked spinach has about 5 grams of protein in it?! Yay veggies!

I think I actually was, in fact, cleansed.